Intro: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Stacey Salyer Show, the podcast for property management leaders ready to think bigger about growth. I'm Stacey Salyer and the only acquisition strategist in this industry who sat on all sides of the m and a table. I've been the buyer acquiring a 370 door competitor during COVID using seller financing.
I've been the seller building and exiting a seven figure business. And I've been the corporate evaluator as director of acquisitions, assessing over hundreds of companies nationally. That means I know exactly what you're thinking, what you're missing, and what actually works when it comes to buying and integrating in this space.
On this show, we dig into acquisitions as a real business tool. Not luck, not someday. You'll learn positioning, strategy, numbers, and integration from someone who's actually done it all. Let's go.
Stacey Salyer: welcome back my friends to [00:01:00] the Stacey Salyer Show, where we talk about buying and selling property management companies and all things property management. And today I have a dear friend on the show as a guest speaker.
She and I bonded many years ago back at I think Day on the Hill in Olympia, Washington, I think over gluten-free pretzels
Chrysztyna Rowek: To this day, whenever I see them or buy them, I am transported back to that very crowded room at the Capitol where we were starving to death, and you were kind enough to share them with me
Stacey Salyer: Yep. I know, right? So that's how we became fast and furious friends. So today I have the famous Chrysztyna Rowick on the show, and those of you who know her from NARPM know her nickname is C9, and that's what I call you as well. So you, Chrysztyna, for joining me today.
Chrysztyna Rowek: You are very welcome. Thank you for having me on. Do you know why it's C9?
Stacey Salyer: I do know why. Yeah. Do you want me to share or do you want to share?
Chrysztyna Rowek: It's up to you.
Stacey Salyer: Okay. Well, well, this is a story I [00:02:00] know. I think Bart Sterzel, right, gave you that nickname because he couldn't... Well, maybe he couldn't, maybe he could spell your name, I don't know. But it's spelled very different. Those of you in the show notes, you can go look.
And it's nine letters, and so it's C9,
Chrysztyna Rowek: He was a Marine. Sorry,
he is a Marine, because apparently once a Marine, you're always a
Marine
Um, but yeah, so in the military, that's what they would do. It would basically be the first letter of your last name, and then however many letters were left. So because my name has 10 letters and starts with a C, I became C9.
And it is the only nickname that I have ever allowed anybody to give me, ever in my life. and to this day, people all over the country still call me C9, which is kind of interesting,
Stacey Salyer: Yeah, I love that. Well, Bart's a cool guy, so I can see why you allowed that. So, all right. Well, I thought let me kind of lay out for the listeners what we're gonna talk about today. So as I kind of mentioned in the very beginning, Chrysztyna is out of [00:03:00] Washington State, same as me, and that's how we became friends.
She's been in the property management industry for well over 20 years, I believe. And she has bought businesses and she's sold her business, so I thought it'd be really fun to have somebody on the show to talk about that experience as kind of more the seller experience, and then also kind of talk a little bit more about what you're doing.
I know you kind of took a hiatus and then you jumped back in and so I thought it would be kind of fun to go through the journey and take us back. So take us back a little bit like how you got started in property management and what that looked like, and just let's go from there
Chrysztyna Rowek: Cool. Well, I started like we all do by accident. 'Cause I don't think there's a child on the planet that is dreaming about being a property manager when they grow up. So I'm supposed to be teaching kids how to speak Spanish, that's what my degree is in. Long story short, it never came to fruition.
And I had a cleaning company. my first husband and I lived on base here in Washington State 'cause he was in the [00:04:00] Navy, and I had just had a baby, and I wanted to do something where I didn't have to put her in daycare. And so I had friends who were cleaning houses on base, and they were making really good money, and I mean, hell, I could clean a house by the time I was seven.
My mom had OCD. So I was like, "Oh, I could totally do this." And so I did. I had my own cleaning company for years. Cleaned base ren- base housing rentals, cleaned houses out in town, and then there was a property manager in town who I got referred to, and she hired me to, to clean their rentals. And so I did that pretty much full-time for probably three years.
And then, I mean, I created their move-in condition report. I did a whole bunch of other things kind of alongside, and then she asked me to come into the office to be an assistant property manager. And my daughter was starting first grade, and so it seemed like a good transition point. I was-- Oh, and I was getting divorced, so there was that too.
Um, you know. so I did, and that was, like, September of 2006.
Stacey Salyer: Okay
Chrysztyna Rowek: And then I got [00:05:00] my license. As you know, we need those in Washington State
to do
anything. So I got that in April
of 2007, and then I bought her company from her in July.
Stacey Salyer: Wow. Okay. Yeah.
Chrysztyna Rowek: Yeah. Yeah. Having, having no idea what I was doing at all I just knew that I needed to do something to create stability for my daughter. And so being a business owner seemed like the best way to be able to have my time set up properly so that I could work around her school schedule and anything like that. So, would I recommend buying a property management company three months after you get your license? I would not.
I really
Stacey Salyer: have your designated broker's license or you're
Chrysztyna Rowek: Nope. Nope. So
the owner, of the company stayed on as my designated broker for about six months until she made it so horribly difficult to work with her that I had to find another one. So I
Stacey Salyer: Okay.
so to [00:06:00] kinda, not to interrupt, but so your purchasing experience, I mean, had you ever bought a company at all?
This was, like, the first time?
Okay. And what was that experience like? I know we're gonna talk about you selling your business, but can we talk a little bit about the buying part of it?
Chrysztyna Rowek: So I'll be really, really honest with you. I started putting stuff together to get an SBA loan, 'cause from my research, that was the best way to go about buying a small business, right? So I started the paperwork, and they wanted a business plan, and they wanted to, you know, all this kind of stuff. and then I went home to Canada one weekend, and I was telling my dad, you know, about doing this and, you know, I was gonna get a loan from the SBA in order to do it.
And he just said, he's like, "Why are you gonna give them money?" He's like, "I'll lend you the money, and you can pay me."
Stacey Salyer: Okay
Chrysztyna Rowek: Okay, cool. So by doing that, I was also able to bypass the creating of a business plan, the really creating of any plan at all.
Stacey Salyer: So no plan.
Chrysztyna Rowek: No
plan.
No,
plan.
Stacey Salyer: the plan was, "Here's some money,
and I'm
Chrysztyna Rowek: seems fair.
Stacey Salyer: Right. Okay. [00:07:00] Okay. See, okay. You guys were able to come to good terms. So did, did
you have a clawback period? No, no clawback.
Chrysztyna Rowek: Nope
we had a two-year non-compete. but the only reason why I got as good of a contract as I did was because the lawyer I was using hated her
Stacey Salyer: Oh, okay.
Well, and
Chrysztyna Rowek: fiber of his being.
So-
Stacey Salyer: for those listening, Chrysztyna comes from a smaller town,
right? I mean, I'm, I'm in Skagit County, which is small, rural, like
Chrysztyna Rowek: And we're in Kitsap County, which is mostly military, but also pretty small. The Kitsap Peninsula, like Kitsap County, which spreads from basically Bainbridge Island to almost to Tacoma only has about 300,000 people
Stacey Salyer: Okay. So we've got some small town lore
happening
Chrysztyna Rowek: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, he crafted the most beautiful purchase and sale agreement.
Made sure that tax-wise it worked out, that so much was for goodwill and so much was [00:08:00] for depreciation and stuff like that. So it, it was a beautiful contract. But did we have clawback? No. There was a non-compete. Did I know what I was doing contract-wise with that? I surely did not. And I didn't know what to look for.
She'd been in business for about 10 years or, yeah, maybe 10, 12 years at this point. So I was like, "Well, I mean, she hasn't run it into the ground so far, so I think it's okay."
Um, yeah, it was making money.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah
Chrysztyna Rowek: so there wasn't, there wasn't a lot that I, at the time, thought that I was missing. Obviously, as things progressed, I was like, "Oh."
Yeah. So one of the big ones is I didn't own the name
Stacey Salyer: Oh, interesting.
Chrysztyna Rowek: And she, no, and she wouldn't sell it to me either. So she wanted to keep... it was Lighthouse Cove Property Management.
So she wanted to keep Lighthouse Cove [00:09:00] Property Management Inc., for whatever reason. And so I had to start a whole different corporation with a DBA and do all this stuff.
I also didn't own the logo.
Chrysztyna Rowek: So she decided to keep the logo as well when I, you know, kind of invited her to leave. So I had to go about... And then I didn't even make a good decision with the logo because it was, like, one of our vendors, he's "Well, I've got this painting of this lighthouse up in Squam."
He's "You can use it." So I was like, "Oh, cool," you know? I don't have to pay for it. Well, the problem is I didn't own it, again. So whenever I needed signage or merch or anything, I would have to reach out to them, and then he became less and less pleasant to deal with. So then I had to find a whole new logo again three years in.
Stacey Salyer: Okay. Okay. So what I'm hearing is basically sometimes when it seems easy upfront, it's gonna be a lot harder in the back end,
right? Okay. Right.
But...
Chrysztyna Rowek: yeah [00:10:00]
Stacey Salyer: And those of us, I mean, those listening who have been in business forever, we know. We've all done, we've all been there, done that. Yeah ... okay, cool. So you buy the business, you're now the proud owner.
You've got a flexible, and I'm using air quotes, and I just laugh, but flexible schedule because I also was a single mom of three when I started my own. So it's flexible in the fact I got to work a lot.
Chrysztyna Rowek: Mm-hmm. Things like,
Stacey Salyer: available, right? And I know you were available for your daughter as well. So things progress.
You get involved in NARPM, I'm assuming at some point. And I don't know how, how did you get involved in NARPM? I don't know if we've ever talked about that.
Chrysztyna Rowek: So NARPM, we had a chapter, a local chapter that the, the lady that I bought it from had never been part of. She said everybody was mean and unhelpful and didn't talk about, like good about NARPM at all. So I was like, "Oh, well, I don't wanna hang out with those people." And then a friend of mine, a property management friend was like, "Mm, that's actually not the experience I've had.
Why don't you [00:11:00] just come to a meeting with me and see?" So I went to a meeting and my, my experience was completely different. It was like the opposite. Like everybody wanted to help me and everybody was offering to like, "Oh," you know what I mean? "If you need this form or if you need help doing this or, you know, we do that."
And I was like, "Oh, wow, this is actually really cool." So, I think by the end of that meeting, I had agreed to be the incoming vice president of the chapter.
Stacey Salyer: shocker. They're like new blood walking through that win-
Chrysztyna Rowek: Well, also it didn't it didn't help that the president had like just recently passed away too, so they were like trying to fill the spot. So, so I hit NARPM like literally from the ground running as part of the board. I went to my first, my very first NARPM event was a regional conference in Portland.
Stacey Salyer: Okay. Okay. That was mine too. Also in Portland.
Chrysztyna Rowek: yeah. I remember the like after party kind of thing was at Chris Hermanski's house,
Stacey Salyer: Oh, okay. Yeah
Chrysztyna Rowek: Which [00:12:00] was lovely. Yeah, and that was, that was my first thing, and then, I mean, it didn't stop for
Stacey Salyer: Yeah.
Yeah.
Chrysztyna Rowek: after that.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. no, I know you've been heavily involved ever since, and that's how we met was through NARPM, and you were a teacher, and I think I was your was I your ambassador?
Yeah.
Chrysztyna Rowek: w- when I was RVP, you
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. Yeah. Million years ago, I feel like. So that's so cool. Awesome. Well, so okay, so you, I mean, obviously dove into business ownership.
I mean, buying a property management company. I mean, now, like you had done cleaning for them, kind of created some forms, and now you're like full on operations, all the
Chrysztyna Rowek: All the things.
Stacey Salyer: it- all the things.
Chrysztyna Rowek: All the
Stacey Salyer: And then eventually got your designated broker's license and then took over, you know, ran, ran your company.
I remember when you changed your logo, you added the owl.
Chrysztyna Rowek: Yep
Stacey Salyer: Yeah, so that's cool. So fast-forward a little bit. I mean, Those listening, obviously they're in property management. They know kind of what it's like day in, day out. So [00:13:00] tell, if you don't mind, I would love to get your perspective on what it was like to sell your business.
Because I talk to a lot of people that buy, and we do a lot of that kind of talk on the show, but we haven't really had a lot of sellers on the show. So I'd love for you to be able to share what transpired that, like what made you think all of a sudden one day like, "Hey, I wanna sell my company."
What does that look like? Or was it like that? Did somebody offer you? Give us all the details.
Chrysztyna Rowek: Sure. So between 2006 and 2021 when I sold, I bought another two books of business one that was local and then one that was in Bonney Lake. That one was awful. The, the last one I bought was awful. We had to go to court. She stole security deposit money. it was a whole year of my life that like was all about court.
And then in between there too, I started a maintenance company. And there wasn't a plan for me to sell. We were doing well. We were probably the second largest property management company on the peninsula. Everything was going well. And at the end of 2019, [00:14:00] my mom got diagnosed with stage four everywhere
cancer,
and she lives in Canada.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah
Chrysztyna Rowek: And then my dad passed away in June of 2020. So she gets diagnosed at the end of 2019. My dad dies in summer of 2020. We're in the middle of COVID
now. and I am an only child, and I was her sole caregiver, ' Trying to find a caregiver that would go into a house with somebody who actively smokes in it was the issue.
And there was no convincing my mom she needed to quit 'cause she was gonna die anyway, so she was like, "Why am I gonna do that?" So I ended up having to basically spend half my time here and half my time in Canada during the pandemic because I was the only one who could cross the border because I'm a dual citizen.
Stacey Salyer: Oh, okay. I was gonna ask that because I know the, the border was closed
Chrysztyna Rowek: Absolutely. Yeah,
no, it
absolutely was closed.
Stacey Salyer: was it a couple years I
Chrysztyna Rowek: Yeah. Yeah. It was almost two full years that it was closed, but they can't keep me out because [00:15:00] I'm a citizen. But Every time I was there, I would have to quarantine for two weeks. And the Canadians they don't mess around. They would send police to the house to make sure I was there.
So I had to do that. And as she was progressively getting worse, it was harder for me to kind of keep the quality of where I wanted my business to be at that level. And so I had a portion of my portfolio that was in Pierce County that was too difficult for me to manage. And so at the end of 2020, I actually sold that portion.
Stacey Salyer: Okay
Chrysztyna Rowek: , And then the person who bought that portion was always interested in buying the bigger company, right? And I had said, "Well, if it ever comes to that, then I'll let you know, but this is my price.
Stacey Salyer: Okay
Chrysztyna Rowek: matter what happens, no matter how many valuations you do, [00:16:00] this is my price. So if you're okay with that, cool."
I don't know that I necessarily expected anybody to be okay with that, but I also didn't have any plans on selling it. So as kind of 2021 progressed and I could see that this wasn't gonna last too much longer, but she was needing me more and more, so I was having to spend more time in Canada and more time in Canada.
So I finally made the decision to sell the company before I'd ran it into the ground Not because I wanted to, but because I, wouldn't have had a choice, right? And I had a staff and all of that, but still it's my company, right? I, I'm the one who makes everything move in it. so I reached out to the person who had bought the smaller portfolio and said, "Okay, I think I'm ready.
This is still my price." And he was like, "Okay." And so, yeah, we, created the contract, and it was fair. This one did have a clawback clause in it and a couple of other things that... I mean, they were good additions. If I was gonna be buying a company, there were things I would have made sure were in mine.
[00:17:00] And so we signed the contract The day that I bought Lighthouse Cove was July 17th,
Stacey Salyer: Mm-hmm
Chrysztyna Rowek: and I sold Lighthouse Cove on July 17th
Stacey Salyer: Oh my gosh, I just got chills. That's
Chrysztyna Rowek: Yeah. Yeah.
Stacey Salyer: plan that or was it just
kind of... You did.
Chrysztyna Rowek: no, I wa- I want, yeah, I wanted it to happen that way, 'cause I was like that for me feels very full circle.
Stacey Salyer: Right. Right. Okay. And what year was that? Was that '21 or- 2021.
2021. Okay. So July 17th, 2021, you officially sell it. And, and did you do a stock sale or did you do a portfolio like book of business sale? Book of business sale.
Book of business sale. Okay, cool. So from start to finish timeline, like when did the...
I mean, I know the initial conversation happened well before that, but what month did you pick up the phone or text or
whatever it was? April.
April. Okay. So from April to July.
And as far as all the messy middle in between, like what, what was that like as the seller? Was he or she going in and [00:18:00]
Chrysztyna Rowek: He, He, presented... No,
not really. We had known each other, I probably knew him about as long as I've known you, so we weren't strangers. And he knew the type of business that I ran. We'd done business before. We'd been on boards before. We've done all that. And so he put together the purchase and sale agreement, and I looked at it.
I think I changed a couple things, but nothing crazy. And then we went back and forth on the length of the, the clawback and stuff. But yeah, it wasn't, it really, that process wasn't that difficult. But I also don't know if it's because the rest of my life was so difficult at that time that this seemed really simple compared to that.
But the process was easy. We didn't go back and forth a whole bunch of times. You know, maybe once, you know, once back and forth, and that was it
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. Well, it sounds very collaborative. I mean, you both have common goals and, you know, he's taking over a legacy business essentially and, you know, trying to keep, keep that running.
Chrysztyna Rowek: Mm-hmm.
Stacey Salyer: I mean, did you feel emotional about it? I mean, [00:19:00] did you feel sad or...
Chrysztyna Rowek: yes, but not till quite a while afterwards because I sold on July 17th. My mom died on October 11th.
Stacey Salyer: Okay.
Chrysztyna Rowek: So those three months
after I sold, I was a ball of grief because my mom was dying. So there wasn't any space for me to also then grieve , the selling of my company and,, you know, the change of identity of who I was going to be now.
So I had to deal with all the stuff with my mom first, and then after all of that, and she passed away, and I had to deal with the estate and do all of that. It wasn't probably for six months after my mom had passed away that I actually even let myself go, "Oh, yeah, I did that. That's gone." Like gone, gone.
There's nothing of me there anymore.
Stacey Salyer: Right
Chrysztyna Rowek: I mean, obviously there were like my properties and part of the thing that I changed in the contract [00:20:00] is I required him to keep my staff on for six months,
Stacey Salyer: Okay
Chrysztyna Rowek: so that they could show him, you know, what they could do, and so hopefully he would keep them on.
And he did. He kept on... Except for one VA, he kept everybody else.
So, so yeah. So it took a while for me to start grieving all of that. And it wasn't even the necessarily like the property management part of it. Nobody grieves getting that, you know, bitchy tenant call or like the call from the owner 'cause they wanna know why you spent $3 at their property.
It was, it was my NARPM portion of it. It was the fact that for the 10 years prior to that, I was traveling at least a week, a month to teach and to go to chapters and to go to, you know, all of the, the trainings and, and all of that. So that was the part that I grieved. It wasn't necessarily... Well, I kinda grieved my paycheck, I'm not gonna lie
either.
There's that. that's good but yeah, I grieved that. I grieved my c- the [00:21:00] connection of property management more than I did the actual like nuts and bolts of property management.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. Well, and you said something I would love to talk more about it if you're open to it, is like your identity, right? Mm-hmm. Because I think a lot of us tie our identity... Well, and it, and it is just the way it is. We are, you know, our identities are tied in with what we're doing and who we are.
Do you mind walking us through that? Was there anything you worked on specifically for that? Or was it just "Oh my gosh, I'm no longer a PMC owner, and who am I?" "What am I doing with my life?" I mean,
Chrysztyna Rowek: Totally. There's... I mean, I s- that still me sometimes. But yeah, no, it is. It's because for, decades I was Chrysztyna that owned a property management company, that traveled all over the country, that taught other people about property management. You know what I mean?
I had built a following for my classes. Everybody knew who I was, whether it's because I'm covered in tattoos and have mermaid hair, or they really, really appreciated what I had to tell them, I don't know, but I'll take both. [00:22:00] And now I was not that. And what was I? Retired? I mean, who retires at 47 or 48, or however old I was, right?
I was like, "So I'm kind of retired, but I'm kind of not." I started school like beginning of 2022 to do this really rigorous coaching certification program. And so that took up a lot of my, time as well. And so, my identity really shifted then because I went from the corporate world to a very opposite of that.
And so there was pieces in there that I was like, "But is that even who I am anymore?" And part of it will always be who I am, and parts of it do change because we're supposed to evolve, we're supposed to change. and the funny thing is, because I do so much work now and I did up until, you know, mostly th- this year with emotional regulation in people I was really able to heal my own grief, you know, and [00:23:00] work through my grief in a different way because I was having to do it with my clients all the time.
I was having to work through all of their traumas and all of their grief and all of them with them, which really helped me navigate my own because we're really good at giving advice. We're not always necessarily so good at taking it, right? So because I had to give, like I was giving it all the time to so many people, it really helped me go, "Okay, no, these are the pieces of me as a property manager that are just me.
They're just Chrysztyna and they always will be." You know? And these are the parts that I would have had I known better, had I had better tools, this is what I would have done differently. Not just like platforms and tech stacks and those kind of things, like the emotional regulation portion of business when you are in a reactive industry like property management.
So, you know, it was hard because I also had a period of time because my dad died, my mom died, my father-in-law also died in there too,
and I sold my company,
Right. [00:24:00] And I moved out of state for a
little while.
Stacey Salyer: Oklahoma ...
Chrysztyna Rowek: 10 out of 10 do not recommend. Don't do it. Don't do it. It's like a fever dream right now. I would-- No, don't do it.
Stacey Salyer: But you know what? It's part of your experience,
Chrysztyna Rowek: That is part of it. But, but yeah, so there's a lot. I had a four, four-year grief cycle that was pretty, pretty intense.
Stacey Salyer: Very intense.
Chrysztyna Rowek: so
Stacey Salyer: Wow. Well, thank you for sharing.
So if you were to go back and
Chrysztyna Rowek: Mm-hmm.
Stacey Salyer: former Chrysztyna before you sold your business, is there any advice that you would've given yourself? To anything... Yeah
Chrysztyna Rowek: I would have set up my, team
differently. I would have had different people in place to do the things that I was not able to do so that it wouldn't have felt for me like things were really falling between the cracks. But I didn't have that type of support with my team for [00:25:00] the, with the people that actually would have been able to do that, and so everything seemed very overwhelming.
So I would have definitely redefined what my employee structure would have looked like and made sure that the people who I needed in place to do the things that I was doing were actually invested in doing that
Stacey Salyer: Okay. Okay. Would you say that maybe you hired maybe not the right people or was it more, or was it the team makeup, like the style? I know a lot of people talk about pod and departmental and hybrid and blah.
Chrysztyna Rowek: No, I... The one part of business ownership that I was never good at was hiring people. I'm really, really not great at that. I think I owned Lighthouse Co. for a full 17 years when I sold it, 18 years. I fired like 13, 15 people.
Stacey Salyer: Okay
Chrysztyna Rowek: You know, one person that had worked with the company prior to me even buying it, and then one person that worked for me for two days.
So and every- [00:26:00] everything in between.
I always wanna think that people are gonna do what I need them to do. I always wanted to think that people would step up and, you know, wanna do their best and, that was not the case that I found with, at least with the people I hired.
I brought people in from out of state and that never worked out. I went, I did the BDM training with the company whose name I can't remember right now. Jeremy Pound.
Stacey Salyer: Pound, RentScale?
Chrysztyna Rowek: Thank you, RentScale. I gave him my money. I did the thing. My person that went through it just was not interested in, in doing any of that.
so I think I would just have hired different people,
actually, I would've had somebody else hire the people for me.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah,
that sounds
Chrysztyna Rowek: I would've brought you in to hire the people for me,
Stacey Salyer: Okay.
Chrysztyna Rowek: Because you were always much better at that than I was
Stacey Salyer: Well, thanks. We all, we all have our strengths and weaknesses. I think, I think that's a huge part of what we get to learn over the years is that we can't be good at everything, and that the more that we offload of what, what we're [00:27:00] not good at, as much as we can the better we'll be, and everybody around us will be better, I think.
So it's but it's, it's a road that we travel and that we, we learn lots of things on that road. And there's so many twists and turns that we never anticipate. So okay. Well, that's cool. I, yeah, thanks so much for sharing all those kind of details. I think, you know, I hope my listeners will enjoy kind of that journey because it's, you know, again, we talk a lot about on the buying side, but I think the selling side and, you know, I think a lot of times people in their mind think it's gonna be more adversarial, which it's really not.
It's just like real estate sales, right? It's you know, you wanna sell your house and you wanna find a buyer and yeah, there's gonna be some negotiation in between and that's cool. We'll be able to make a deal and you know, just make sure that you're doing all the right things in between and should be good to go.
And it sounds like you really, you know, even though you might think like hiring is one of your challenges, I mean, it sounds like you ran a good business. I mean, you had things-- You built it like an asset. You [00:28:00] had things organized. You know, you triple-tied your bank accounts and all that kind of good stuff.
So you were really set up to sell.
Chrysztyna Rowek: did. It wasn't me but yes, somebody,
somebody did that. But yeah, no, I think I always liked to to know that I was helping people, and for me, that was always the big thing. So we were known as the second chance landlord for many, many years because we would rent to people that nobody else would rent to.
So before disparate impact even became a thing, before source of income was a protected class, like we, we rented to all the people. And I would have the same conversation with people, you know, every time. "I'm going to give you this chance. It's yours to screw up or to make good on.
Stacey Salyer: Hmm
Chrysztyna Rowek: It's completely up to you, but I will give you this chance."
Right? I'm not gonna say it worked out all the time. [00:29:00] Like there was a time that I had owners call me from Japan
because their neighbors were watching their house get raided by Westvet on the news.
Stacey Salyer: Oh, good
Chrysztyna Rowek: So that was good times. That was a really fun conversation at whatever time in the morning it was that they managed to get ahold of me at, right?
So that was good times, but I, I wanted people to have an opportunity, and it was important to me. And the best the best thank you I ever got from that was I had a gentleman who was living in an Oxford House. So for people who don't know, Oxford House is kind of where you go after you get out of jail before you kind of completely go back into regular society, right?
You can stay at kind of like this group home. So he was staying at an, Oxford House, but he had two kids and a wife that he couldn't live with because they couldn't live at the Oxford House. And so he really [00:30:00] wanted a place for all of them to live together. And so I said, "Okay, you know, let's, let's see what we can do."
So I found him a really cute little place where they could be together because I also knew that being able to reunite with a family is one of the best ways to promote non-recidivism,
right?
So I made that happen. They were my tenants for a really long time, and then they bought a house,
Stacey Salyer: Oh, I love that story.
Chrysztyna Rowek: and I loved that so much.
And then two years later, he got a really good job offer somewhere else, and he gave me his house to manage,
right? So it was like, it's full circle. It's amazing and, and that's why I did what I did. And even with my classes, you know, it was about helping people. My classes you know, they weren't about KPIs or tech stacks or anything that had anything to do with like the nuts and bolts of property management.
It had to do with, "Here's all the things that I have done [00:31:00] wrong,
Stacey Salyer: Mm-hmm.
Chrysztyna Rowek: please do not do the same things." 'Cause all I saw was people talking about their successes.
"I've done this, and I have built this company to nine million doors, and I have this..." And I'm like, that's awesome, and I love that for them.
But I know that there's 400 disasters that happened before each one of those successes, and that's what I wanna know about. And so that's what I taught about. The last class that I taught for NARPM was literally called How to Poorly Purchase a Property Management Company. Why? 'Cause I did it three times, and each of the three times I made different mistakes.
Equally as bad, but different ones each time. You know, the first one, it was not knowing that I didn't own my logo. The last one, it was not auditing her accounting to know that she had run away with $64,000 of security deposit money.
Stacey Salyer: Yep.
Yep.
Yeah
Chrysztyna Rowek: like, "Well, how could you do that?" Well, I trusted her.
She was a, a friend of mine. She was [00:32:00] a NARPM member. She had run her company for a long time. There wasn't any complaints against her that I knew of at the time. I thought she was solid 'cause I wouldn't do that to somebody else,
Stacey Salyer: right?
Yes. Trusting and kind.
You are. You
are. So
yeah. No, I love that. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. All of your classes have always been great, and you're an, a wonderful instructor, very engaging. So if anyone ever has the opportunity to attend one, highly recommend. Yeah, and I know kind of even myself, I started doing this business because there isn't anybody teaching people how to buy, right?
And it's a huge deal. It's a huge purchase.
Chrysztyna Rowek: Yeah
Stacey Salyer: and why not? again, you know, I look at it, I wanna help people. I wanna make the industry better. I want everyone else to be better and learn from, from everybody else,
Chrysztyna Rowek: No, I love what y- I love this because you're right. Nobody is doing this. You know, nobody is helping. And everything's around sales of property management seems so hush-hush. You know what I mean? Like we're, we're like, we're doing secret deals over here, [00:33:00] you know, in the back room while everything's going on over here, and it doesn't have to be that way.
It's a business just like any other one.
You know what I mean? There's, there's certain things that you should look at, and then there's certain things that you're gonna cultivate when you take it over and you should just not worry about those. but I think, the fact that you are so good at breaking it down so people can actually understand this, these are the important bits, and this is not the important part.
Sometimes we focus on the, on the not important parts, and somebody has to kind of like guide us away from that, and I love that you do that
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. Well, thank you. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. I love helping people too. So now yeah, I'd love to know... I mean, I know what you're doing, but I'd love for you to share with the audience more what you're doing, 'cause I know you, you kind of got out of PM, like
you exited the PM world for a while, which I know I did that for a year and it was really weird.
It was like mine was 2024. I went to PM Systems at the beginning of that year and spoke and taught there, and then that was it. Like that whole year I didn't go to [00:34:00] anything else. I just...
Chrysztyna Rowek: Mm-hmm.
Stacey Salyer: it, it was weird. Then it was really nice to get back in myself. But kinda walk us through like when you decided to jump back in and what you're doing now and how you're helping others, because you're doing some really cool stuff.
Chrysztyna Rowek: So when I sold my company, I was adamant, and I mean publicly, prolifically, loudly adamant that I would never, ever come back to property management ever again,
right?
Uh-huh.
Stacey Salyer: and I was like, "You go, girl."
Chrysztyna Rowek: Yep. And, you know, and I, from like middle of 2021, I didn't really come back until 2024. So I had a couple of years where I did all kinds of things.
I mean, I ran a metaphysical healing space, which I loved. That was like a full retail store, and I got to explore like a whole different side of who I was with that. And then we went to Oklahoma, and we bought a five-plex there, and we're getting it ready to rent out and you know, doing stuff there.
And it [00:35:00] was while we were in Oklahoma, and I was like, "You know, I'm bored. I need something to do." I was coaching real humans by that point and stuff, but I wanted more to do. And so I threw out a thing on Facebook, I think, saying, "Hey, if anybody needs any kind of business consulting, like property management, give me a call.
Like I think I know a thing or two." So I got several calls from that. And I worked with a couple people for a while, and then one of them kind of stuck, and it was a property manager owner down in Portland that I had met maybe eight years prior. Interestingly enough, it was his first NARPM event ever, and he unknowingly ended up being part of my wedding planning 'cause Adam had just proposed to me like four days before that.
And so I was, like, planning all this stuff at the dinner that he happened to be with us at. So he's been-- Yeah, he was part of my wedding planning. So he reached out and, you know, there were some things that he wanted to do, so I started consulting with him.
Chrysztyna Rowek: And then he got cancer [00:36:00] in-- at the kind of the beginning of 2025, and so I kinda stepped in to do a little bit more while he was going through treatment.
He is one year cancer-free, in full remission, so yay. And then he wanted to buy out his partner. And so we kind of s- walked through what that process was gonna look f- and, you know, curated everything, got everything ready for that, and then that happened at the end of last year. But he was also not in a position where he would be able to do everything kind of on his own at that point, so I stayed on.
I made him give me a title, so I'm operations manager. So I do that for him, and then I'm also the designated broker for a company in Kent
that another friend of mine owns. So yeah, as much as I swore up and down that I wasn't gonna do this, Because I, also do emotional regulation training for businesses, I c- I look at things completely different now, and not as stressful as it used to be.
'
Cause I'm not taking things as personally, [00:37:00] you know, as I am, and I can say things like, "Okay, what am I making this mean?" "This is what this person said."
Stacey Salyer: Mm-hmm.
Chrysztyna Rowek: And this is what I heard. So what am I making? What is the difference between that and what am I making it mean? And nine times out of 10, it's the story in my head.
It's not the actual reality of what's happening, right? So but I think being in the middle of, of everything when you're in it, it's really hard to see that. So I had to step away and do this, all this work, and then be able to come back and see things from this lens. Because I don't think I would've, I don't think I would've gotten to that point if I would've just stayed in it.
So yeah. So I don't wanna say it's easier, but it is. It's a little easier right now, so I like that. And then Jim Henderson, that y- who I know you know, and I'm sure some of , your listeners probably know. We just put together the Property Management Academy,
which is... And we're gonna do quarterly basically like property management boot [00:38:00] camp for people in Washington, because other than the NARPM classes that come that you can take, we don't really have a formal any kind of property management training in the state.
The license you get is the same license you would get to be a sales broker, and 90% of that course is about sales. One chapter is on property management, and 70% of that chapter is on commercial management. So you have this license that says you can do the thing, but you don't know anything about doing the thing.
So we're together basically telling people, "Here's, here's what you actually need to know." Jim, as you know, is our lobbyist, so he knows, if there is a law or anything that's coming to pass or something that has a legal requirement, like Jim is your guy. So he'll be teaching a lot of that, and I will be doing kind of the, "And this is how you bring on an owner.
These are the important parts. This is-- These are the questions you need to ask them when you are touring their house," because it's a little... there's, [00:39:00] "How old are your appliances?" is a great one. But, "Have any of your kids been born in this house?" is actually also a very important one, because that is going to determine the emotional attachment that that person has to that house, and that's gonna completely change your dynamic and the relationship that you're gonna be able to have with them, you know, moving forward.
So, so we're doing that. Our first, our first sessions are September 8th and 9th,
Stacey Salyer: Okay.
Chrysztyna Rowek: we'll have the flyers and we'll, we'll get those disseminated as soon as they're all done.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. Yeah.
Chrysztyna Rowek: about that.
Stacey Salyer: Once you have them, let me know. I'm happy to include them in a
newsletter. I mean,
you know, I'm,
Chrysztyna Rowek: that. Yeah, so
we're excited about... Yeah, we're excited about that,
Stacey Salyer: yeah, I'm so passionate about that. There needs to be a lot more education on how to do the job, like how to have the career especially in our highly regulated states like
Chrysztyna Rowek: Absolutely.
Stacey Salyer: and, you know, all the
Chrysztyna Rowek: Yep
Stacey Salyer: Colorado,
Chrysztyna Rowek: Yeah. It,
Stacey Salyer: Yeah.
Chrysztyna Rowek: it's actually funny because I had to do some clock hours [00:40:00] to renew my designated broker's license earlier this year. And after all of the required stuff, I had 27 electives. Well, there's a 27-hour property management course that I took, and the funny part about that is that I am...
Well, I'm pretty sure, almost 100% sure that Jim and I helped write that class
Stacey Salyer: Probably
Chrysztyna Rowek: when it was being put out because we were on the committees at the time where we were doing a lot of differences to the landlord-tenant law, and that was part of it. So, I was like, "Cool, I just took a class that I actually wrote."
Stacey Salyer: Nice.
Chrysztyna Rowek: So,
um,
Stacey Salyer: with flying colors.
Chrysztyna Rowek: yeah, it was, pretty easy. So yeah, so I'm doing that. So all of the companies that I've, done consulting for, the one recurring theme is that everybody hates maintenance. Okay?
Stacey Salyer: Mm-hmm.
Chrysztyna Rowek: is pain in the ass, and it's always like the red-headed stepchild that nobody spends enough attention to, and people don't give it the respect as an [00:41:00] actual money maker that they should,
you know?
And I was like, " why is this so hard?" Well, it's because maintenance has a lot of moving parts, and everybody thinks that they have to recreate the wheel for their maintenance program because somehow their maintenance program is gonna be so different than anybody else's, and it's really not.
It really is not. I, I could probably pull 100 property management companies and look at their maintenance program, and I guarantee you like 70% of them will be mostly the same with a couple of offshoots based on the laws of that particular state, right? And so I was like, "This doesn't need to be this hard."
But I also understand that you don't have time necessarily when you're starting a company to spend that much time on maintenance when really what you're trying to do is bring on leads, right? You need houses to make the money. Maintenance is kind of like on the side and forgotten about.
So what if I give you your maintenance program and it's plug and play? What if I say, "Okay, well, here's your processes. [00:42:00] Here's your workflows. I've already figured them out for you." I guarantee you, you will probably not find a workflow that you do that I haven't already thought of, but maybe you will, and then I'll write that one too.
But here's your workflows. Here's the automations that need to go with it. If you're not at the point of us- automations yet, okay, cool. Well, here's what an actual human being, maybe you, here's where you'll have to step in and do the things. Here's the emails you send when. Here's how you set up your reminders on whatever program you have to know what goes out when.
And if you are integrated with, Like a rent, like whatever property management platform you have, like a Rentfine, an AppFolio, whatever, then okay, let's move them over to here. And then if you're in doing like a LeadSimple or an Apply okay, let's figure out how to make the boards on your Apply and on your LeadSimple so everything plays nice together.
I will do this for you because you're not, you don't have time, and I know that. It's not that I doubt that anybody could do it or that they have the ability or the intelligence. That's not it. Do you [00:43:00] have the time? And What is your time worth?
And would it be better spent doing something else?
You know, I don't-
Stacey Salyer: even just thinking like what happens because we've all been there you know, former PMC owner, we make a mistake and we eat the cost of whatever, right? I mean, so think about that. I mean, whether it's, you know, $300 or 1,000 or,
you know, that, that kind of thing. But it goes back to that too, in education in anything.
I mean, even what I'm doing, what I charge, I mean, you know, sure, you might have the time to kind of... You can maybe find the time to muddle your way through, but how much is that gonna really cost you with your personal time and the mistake
Chrysztyna Rowek: Exactly.
Stacey Salyer: I love that. That's
Chrysztyna Rowek: Exactly, and I tell clients all the time, you know, when they'll be like, "Oh, well, you know, I, I think that X could do this piece of it," or whatever. They probably could, but you're paying me for my experience, not my time.
So could X do it? Sure. It might take them 10 hours to do it because they're having to put [00:44:00] it into whatever their regular, you know, their regular tasks are. I can do it in three hours because that's all I'm gonna do for three hours, and then you've got it, and it's done, and I can move on to the next
thing.
Stacey Salyer: it's the experience factor.
Chrysztyna Rowek: Exactly. I've done it enough times
that it's... For me, it's gonna be second nature to do the thing, you know? So, and maintenance, again, because it just doesn't get the right attention, and maintenance are, is the reason why tenants will move out of a house more than
anything else.
Stacey Salyer: why owners will fire you.
Chrysztyna Rowek: S- exactly
Stacey Salyer: why it will cost, it will... You're gonna have to write checks
Chrysztyna Rowek: Yeah, exactly
Stacey Salyer: can, you... It's the reason you're gonna get sued.
Chrysztyna Rowek: Mm-hmm.
Stacey Salyer: I mean, truly,
Chrysztyna Rowek: is the reason I got sued one
time.
You know what I mean? So having everything there, having understand-- having your vendors understand what the relationship between the two of you is, is also really important, you [00:45:00] know, because you have to cultivate certain relationships with people because property management maintenance isn't necessarily gonna keep somebody full-time employed all the time, right? But if you have a good relationship with a vendor, and I call and I'm like, "Hey, I have this emergency," they're gonna be like, "You know what? I get a lot of business from this particular property management company or this person. I'm gonna ha- make sure that their needs are taken care of." So I always made sure I cultivated really, really good relationships with my vendors because of that.
And made sure that expectations... And this is with property management as a whole. I don't know that enough property managers set reasonable expectations with anybody that they do business with. Not just their owners, but their vendors, their tenants. We, we know what we do because we do it all the time, and I think we expect other people to have the knowledge that we do.
But that's just like me walking into my financial advisor's office [00:46:00] and because I maybe looked at a statement that he sent me one time a year ago, I now know how to do his job.
Stacey Salyer: Right.
Chrysztyna Rowek: You know? But how many people think that about property management? "Oh, well, what do you do? Well, what do you do? You just collect
rent.
Yeah, you
just collect the rent."
Stacey Salyer: you might swing by, look at, "Oh, your garbage disposal's not working? Let me just swing by,
Chrysztyna Rowek: Exactly. And let me fix it, right? Because I'm supposed to do that while I'm there.
You know,
exactly. So I think like with maintenance, you gotta set expectations, and you gotta set expectations with your vendors about what you need done, you know, what you need from them. And the best way too, that I have learned to set expectations, is to not sugarcoat con- house conditions with the owners because you don't wanna insult them.
Stacey Salyer: Mm-hmm
Chrysztyna Rowek: and I'm not saying go in and be like, "Wow, I hate your decorating." You know what I mean? But if a house is a POS, it's a POS, and you can't put lipstick on a pig. It is what it is. [00:47:00] And they may love it, so you don't have to tell them their house is a POS. But you can say you know, "Here's the areas which will need to be fill in the blank before we could list it."
You know? But don't... and at first we take all of the houses, doesn't matter we just wanna build our, our portfolio, so we take them all in, and I get that. I get it. And also, still ask the right questions. Still ask the right questions. Another part of this, this maintenance program is gonna be inspection-based, and that's where I bring in my, my Adam, who I lovingly call my lumber snack who has been a contractor for 30 years and has built houses from the ground up, and was in property management, and was my maintenance coordinator, and ran our maintenance company for a while.
So he knows property management maintenance and houses. And who do we usually hire to do our inspections for property management-- excuse me, our condition reviews?
Stacey Salyer: Who do we usually hire?
Chrysztyna Rowek: Yeah. Who, who usually gets that job?
Stacey Salyer: You know, usually somebody very [00:48:00] entry level, yes? That we don't have to pay very much money to.
Chrysztyna Rowek: Exactly. Or, yeah, or our property manager that we just hired who did sales for 10 years prior,
right? And that's how they know houses.
They may know...
Stacey Salyer: way overpaid to go do that, to be honest. I mean,
not-- And I'm not devaluing going and doing the walkthroughs, but, you know, I, I mean, at least in my opinion, I want my property manager doing that kind of higher level conversation with the clients and
Chrysztyna Rowek: Exactly.
Stacey Salyer: doing, doing that.
So
Chrysztyna Rowek: Exactly. So whoever you hire to do the condition reviews should probably know what the parts of a house are called.
Stacey Salyer: They should.
Chrysztyna Rowek: They...
And all the things.
Exactly.
Stacey Salyer: I don't know.
Chrysztyna Rowek: Yeah. You know?
And know what to look for, and know the things that are harbingers of what's to come. You know? Like right now, the siding may just be a little rough on the side, but as it rains 300 days of the year here, [00:49:00] by next spring, we're gonna have probably moisture intrusion all the way into the house because of this piece, right?
And I'm not saying that everybody has that knowledge, but we can train you to have that knowledge. So I'm gonna bring Adam in. He's gonna train whoever's gonna be doing the condition reviews to see through the eyes of somebody who knows how houses are put together,
Stacey Salyer: I love that
Chrysztyna Rowek: you know? And it's pretty amazing when he walks through, when he does walkthroughs in Portland with owners that, like the owners didn't even know that this was going on in their house, and they had lived there for however
many years,
Stacey Salyer: Mm-hmm.
Chrysztyna Rowek: right?
Stacey Salyer: Yeah.
I found, yeah, and I found honestly the majority of people actually don't know
house maintenance. Even homeowners don't know house maintenance. In fact, I mean, I've seen it on the side of property management and I've seen it on the side of sales, like both, like in, in, everything in between.
They just don't, and it's just not something that's taught actually. [00:50:00] Nobody teaches it. So there, there's a, a new program for you. Once you get this one under your belt, you just go out into the whole world and teach everybody, because again, education and setting expectations.
Yep
Chrysztyna Rowek: things that if I could say that to anybody who owns any kind of a business ever, it would be those two things.
Stacey Salyer: Education and expectation. I love that. Well, I'm so happy that you joined me today,
Chrysztyna Rowek: too
Stacey Salyer: I thought this was a really cool chat that we had, and we got to go through the history and- Mm-hmm ... really dive deep into buying and selling, the selling piece of it especially. And, and then what you're doing now I think is really important, and I'm super excited to see you launch that
Chrysztyna Rowek: Q
Stacey Salyer: that officially launched, or are you in the middle of kind of
gearing
Chrysztyna Rowek: m- yeah, I'm in the middle of it right now. But as soon,
Stacey Salyer: up to launch? Not launched. Okay. Okay.
Chrysztyna Rowek: as soon as it's launched, I will let you know
Stacey Salyer: Okay. Well, I'll have you back on the show when
Chrysztyna Rowek: Okay
Stacey Salyer: when you're launching, and then we can kind of dive a little bit more deeper into maintenance because
that is a hot topic
and a much needed topic, and we'll talk more about your program and [00:51:00] all that kind of good stuff
the next time.
So- Okay ...yeah, thank you again so much for your
Chrysztyna Rowek: Yes
Stacey Salyer: and coming on, and we'll see you next time
Chrysztyna Rowek: Absolutely. Thank you so much. Have a great rest of your day
Stacey Salyer: All right. All right, my friends. Well, thank you so much for joining, and we will see you again. Have a great day
Outro: Thanks for listening to the Stacey Salyer show. Here's the deal. You can read about acquisitions anywhere, but you can't learn acquisitions from someone who's done it the way I have as a buyer, a seller, and from the corporate side evaluating hundreds of companies. That's why I need you to subscribe and share this with someone in your network who needs to hear it.
And if this episode landed, leave a five star review. It's how more PM owners find the only acquisition expertise in the space that comes from all sides of the table. And while you're at it, grab my Acquisition Readiness checklist on my website at staceysalyer.com. Then when you're ready to move from Growth Thinking to Growth [00:52:00] Building, explore the Built to Acquire program.
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