Landlord by Design with Michael Currie

What you’ll learn in just 17 minutes from today’s episode:

Learn how to become a great landlord
Find out the mistakes most landlords commit to prevent tenant conflicts from arising
Find out how to screen tenants better to avoid serious issues with them

Resources/Links:

Landlord by Design: Complete Guide to Residential Property Management by Michael Currie

Summary:

Michael Currie is a landlord and property manager from Canada. He had been flipping houses from 2001 until 2009 when he, his wife, and a close friend formed The Fort Nova Group Limited. Since 2009, they have been using a buy/hold investing strategy, and, with the exception of a couple of income property flips, have been building an investment portfolio. Michael has extensive experience working with contractors, tradespeople, project managers, property managers, and tenants to make renovations as non-disruptive as possible.

In this episode, Michael shares how he went from flipping properties to finally become a landlord to many properties. As soon as Michael got involved in buy and hold investing, he saw a need for property management education. He started a mission to educate and assist independent landlords all over the world with his blog. In addition to Michael’s hands-on property-management experience, he created a manual that shows the how-to in repairs and maintenance. Tenant management was also part of what he blogs about as there are issues that came up with his tenants and other landlords may resonate with.

Topics Covered:

01:52 – Getting better at being a landlord and all the issues surrounding it
06:34 – Biggest mistakes that are often seen in property management and tenant management
09:21 – How to handle tenant-from-hell scenarios
11:12 – How to avoid issues with tenants
12:53 – How to screen better your tenants
13:31 – Why you need to look up your tenants’ credit report

Key Takeaways:

“No one really talked about what it actually means to manage a property and negotiate with tenants and negotiate with contractors and just a lifelong customer experience.” – Michael Currie

“Where I see people get into trouble is, they tend to either to buy the book, and they’re afraid of either breaking the rules, or they’re afraid of negotiating out or having what they may consider confrontation and not realizing that it’s a customer service business. Without the tenants, we have no revenue.” – Michael Currie

“I think that you really need to not take it personally and look at the best interest of your company and the tenant, and how it’s going to work out best for both parties and make it a win-win.” – Michael Currie

“To avoid tenant issues, clearly you need to have tenant screening, any place tenants by a landlord that people are in trouble with, it generally can be traced back to the screening because the first thing I ask is,’ send me over the original application when you approve this tenant.” –Michael Currie

“For reference checks, we always do a credit check. That’ll tell you if they might have omitted a place that they were evicted from or had a bad experience, that’ll show up on a credit report.” – Michael Currie

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