The Rentish Podcast

From First Deal to Figuring It Out: A New Investor's Journey into Real Estate

• Season 1 • Episode 14

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In episode fourteen of The Rent-ish Pod, Zach and Patrick sit down with guest Levi Abramson, a real estate investor who's learning the ropes and building his portfolio one step at a time.

Levi shares how he got started, what drew him to real estate in the first place, and how he manages his properties today. It’s a candid conversation about what it’s really like starting out—from setting expectations to learning through experience.

The hosts also chat with Levi about what he looks for in a property manager, how he approaches tenant screening, and how he’s learning to stay patient as his journey unfolds.

💬 Honest stories, early lessons, and practical takeaways for anyone just getting started in real estate.

🎧 Tune in for a down-to-earth episode about taking that first step—and what comes next.

📩 Got a question or story for the pod? Email us at questions@therentishpod.com—we’d love to feature you!

Check Innago at https://innago.com/podcast/ to learn more. 

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SPEAKER_02:

What's going on, everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Rentish Podcast. My name is Zach and I'm here with my co-host, Patrick. who just took a big sip of coffee. There it is. Hey, occupational hazard here, Patrick. We're trying to be safe on the podcast. We don't want you choking on coffee. We're trying to get your catchphrase out. We're your host for The Rentist Podcast, of course, which is a podcast that's kind of about rental properties and hosted by two guys that work in the real estate industry and sort of know what we're talking about. But mostly don't now coffee. Yeah, so that's the cadence, right? Say the quote, drink the coffee. Yeah, Patrick, mostly we don't, which is why I think you're You're gonna have fun hearing us talk to experts. Experts, huh? Oh, I see what you did there. And learning with us or just laughing along at how little we know. Patrick. How's your day going, buddy? It's good.

SPEAKER_01:

I had some Skyline for lunch. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

We're really happy about that. Explain to our non-Cincinnati residents really quickly what Skyline

SPEAKER_01:

is. So yeah, Skyline's like a religion down here in Cincinnati. I said down here because I'm originally from like the Akron, Cleveland area. Okay. Up here, I guess, if you know. Sure. But yeah, it's like what Cincinnati is known for. It's kind of like a saucy, chili. I don't really know how to describe it. You put it either on noodles or a hot dog.

SPEAKER_02:

I've always told people that don't understand, it's like an old Greek tradition that came to Cincinnati. It's basically like a bolognese kind of chili sauce poured over spaghetti with cheese, onions, beans, crackers, hot sauce. You calling it a religion is pretty apt, I would say.

SPEAKER_01:

I love getting Skyline. I haven't had it in about three weeks, so I was due for some Skyline. Well,

SPEAKER_02:

now you're all greased up and you're ready to rock and roll. Now I'm in a small room with you. Thanks, Patrick. Appreciate that. Well, today it's going to be an awesome episode. Remember, follow The Rented online. If you're listening on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, just go ahead and give us a follow and give us a rating or a review. Five stars. Give us a comment. Like the episode. Whatever positivity you can throw our direction on the podcast service you use, we would really much appreciate that. And if you have a question or a comment or any kind of topic idea or suggestion for Patrick and I to talk about on the show, feel free to email questions at therentishpod.com. Patrick.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't even want to dance around it. Typically, I'd be like, Like, you know, let's talk about, I don't know, Ryan Gosling for a few minutes or whatever, but we're not going to do that this week because we've got too much to do in so little time. We actually are joined by a very special guest today, and that's going to kind of take up the entire episode. Today, we're excited to welcome Levi Abramson to the show. Levi is an experienced real estate investor and entrepreneur currently working at Inago, where he helps property owners and landlords simplify rental management. Beyond his work in prop tech, Levi has a strong background in real estate We're diving into his journey as a property owner, what he's learned, the challenges he's faced, and his best advice for those looking to buy their first property. Everybody. Or Patrick, let's give a warm welcome to Levi to the show. There he is. Hey guys, how are we doing? Hey Levi. How are you? Thank

SPEAKER_00:

you for coming on. Yeah, thank you. I also had Skyline with Patrick earlier.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm outnumbered. We're glad that you're on the show. We're very excited to kind of just pick your brain and kind of chit chat with you for a little while. And, you know, hopefully it's fun. Hopefully, you know, Patrick, it can get a little loud in this room. Hopefully three voices all kind of churning at once. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know. What am I talking about? What are you talking about? If that's how you talked all the time, I don't know if I can handle it. Is that your

SPEAKER_01:

NPR voice? This is my normal voice, Zach.

SPEAKER_02:

But mostly we don't. All right, Levi. So we're here to talk to you about your experience in the industry, property management, real estate, entrepreneurism. We've got all this stuff. We got tons of questions that we're going to kind of go through. But before we kind of really jump into grilling you on all your background and everything, just kind of are I'd love to learn a little bit more about your journey, who you are, what makes you tick, and why you're here today.

SPEAKER_00:

Sure. I don't know how much I'm going to be able to do on what makes me tick today. Hopefully it's not an episode full of that. But yeah, about 10 years ago, a buddy from high school and I invested in our first property. It was one of those things that we had always talked about. I think a lot of people have that conversation of what if we invested in a place and just kind of had it as side income when retirement rolls around. and that kind of thing. And we did one together. Again, it was a friend from high school. So it was somebody I was comfortable with who I was pretty confident getting into business with them. And the one went really well. We definitely invested at a good time. There's a lot of luck involved in this as there often is, but there was a lot of luck. We did really well on that one. And I think we just got more and more interested. So I had a little bit of business background. I went to business school for undergrad and was already working in the tech space. And it kind kind of just aligned. It was a perfect opportunity of a lot of opportunity for tech to make it better. So we pretty quickly went from collecting check payments to online and then started investing in more properties. The one went well, so we bought another one. They were cash flowing. The market was going well. And so that kind of just went into a larger and larger business. You mentioned the business school. I went to Harvard for business school and focused on real estate there. And around the same time, the portfolio started getting big enough that it really became more than just a side thing where we were doing one hour a week. And that was when we started looking at different ways to manage the properties. And so we started out collecting checks and doing everything on a spreadsheet. We moved over to another software. I don't know if I'm allowed to say the name.

SPEAKER_02:

We don't know. Don't ask us. We'll say whatever we want and then they just say it. Censor us later. They're not around anymore. Yeah. Oh,

SPEAKER_00:

okay. Yeah. Purchased by another company, purchased and not around anymore. And then ended up looking for different options, settled on Inago. And yeah, the rest is history. We scaled up the portfolio from there and have been using Inago for about five or six years since that.

SPEAKER_02:

That is awesome. I have a quick question. I don't know

SPEAKER_01:

if you want to structure this or anything. Jump in. Jump in. The water's fine. So I think Zach and I, we're coming from a place like neither of us own real estate at this point. But I think we both expressed interest in owning properties and a rental property. Getting your first property, and you mentioned you did it with a high school friend. Did you have to wait for the perfect opportunity for the stars to align? Or how did you get the... How did it work out that you were able to just buy your first property?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's a great question. And I get I obviously get that question a lot. People are curious, you know, if they're kind of on the other side of having their first property and It really is a comfort thing, getting the first property. It's very daunting being on the other side. I remember we looked for places for a really long time and it did feel like we needed the perfect place. Now, of course, there's a balance. I think if you spend years looking for the perfect place, it's never going to come and you're just never going to get over that hump. But on the other side... you know, it obviously does take some research and some some idea of what parameters you're looking for in a property. But there's no question that going from zero to one property was the biggest hurdle by far. It's a scary thing. I mean, you're putting real money down depending on how you structure your loan and whatever your partnership looks like. It's real money. You have skin in the game and you could you could lose money, too. So, yeah, getting to that first one was a big a big hurdle. I think your question was around around understanding if we had if the stars had to align or if it had to be perfect, there's no question that it took like a leap of faith. I think the conditions were never going to be 100% perfect, but we had some good idea of what we wanted. And I think we did some good analysis on the front end. It wasn't anything excessive, but just an idea of getting comfortable with what does a mortgage payment look like? What is escrow? Some of these basic things. And also investing in a market we were comfortable with. We're from the Colorado Springs area originally, and that is where our first property was. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02:

And you said that the first property that you got was with a high school friend. You were in college at the time when you acquired the property. Is that right? It

SPEAKER_00:

was post-college. So yeah, we had already graduated. We were earning a little bit of income from our first jobs. And yeah, you know, I think you pointed out the high school friend. It's also a question I get a lot going into business with a friend or family. I think that's something a lot of people are nervous about or a frequent question. And it is something that I think is definitely a big consideration and something that we struggled with at first. You know, we've had our minor blubs for sure, and it isn't always perfect. But there's no question that the first thing you need to do is have somebody that you trust. And I think we do have a lot of trust for each other. And that's where we've been able to manage for 10 years, despite not having the same closeness that we did in high school.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that's awesome. Patrick, don't get any ideas. You and me, baby. You want to start looking? Let's do it. Got it. Superhouse. We'll get the Barn Dominium complex started. Oh, dude, I'm down. Yeah, shout out to that old episode of Rentish. The real ones now. The real ones, though. The one that aired not that long ago. I have no idea when it aired. So I would like to ask you a question. We can skip over it if you want to, but before you went to college to study real estate, your major was what again?

SPEAKER_00:

So I did undergrad at University of Pennsylvania. I was just general business, so economics. I actually in undergrad did not Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. at like a frontline level, I already had a really good idea of what property ownership and management looked like. Of course, there's this whole different ballgame of private equity and a lot of the complicated stuff that most people would never get into, myself included, that really came from business school. But it really, most of the expertise and the super helpful, knowledgeable stuff came from actually managing properties and learning by doing. I mean, we made mistakes and those were some of the most valuable things that that happened.

SPEAKER_02:

I would like to know your search process. As you're talking to a couple of guys in here in this room that, you know, like Patrick said, we are kind of invested. You were interested in eventually one day having like an investment property or purchasing properties of our own. What was your search process like? And what is it still like? I mean, what criteria do you look for in the perfect house? Like what are the perfect place? Like whether it's residential, commercial, like what are the things that you really start from square one

SPEAKER_00:

at? Yeah, I think for me, it's... I think everybody is going to have a different answer to this question. For me, it's really the marriage of real-world conditions and what's happening in the neighborhoods that you're looking at with the hard numbers. And I don't think you can over-rely on one of those. I think when you look at the numbers side, you always have things like cap rates, NOI, IRR, and I'm not sure how familiar you are with those specific terms. You probably should be a little bit familiar before you jump in. Yeah, I I think that's a safe bet. That's

SPEAKER_02:

why we have a special guest, like shout out to Mary, who's on the show sometimes, one of our special guests, Mary Regano, who gives us those real estate term question games, so you can listen to one of those episodes.

SPEAKER_00:

We're learning. I think she's also a business school alum, so she probably picked a lot of those up there, but you look at something like cap rate, which is basically just the ratio of what a house costs or a property costs versus what you're renting it for, but those numbers will vary wildly depending on what market you're looking at. If you're looking at a really big market in New York City, you're going to have really low cap rates because properties are more expensive relative to the rental prices you're getting. But that doesn't mean that a low cap rate or a high cap rate is always good. You have to marry it with the real world conditions of what do I think about this city? What kind of tenants am I going to get? Am I in a neighborhood where there's maybe a lot of college students that are going to, you know, my property is going to have a really fast. So it really is, you know, your question was around the search criteria. I think you just have to have an idea of what kind of cap rate am I looking at? What kind of return with what financing can I get? And marry that with your understanding of the market, which is why we invested the first series of properties that we got in a market that we did feel comfortable and we knew the neighborhoods, we knew what kind of cap rate would be worth the risk to put it.

SPEAKER_01:

So I have a question and I'm not sure if you already kind of covered a little bit of this, but with all of the properties that you have, you said the first one was in Colorado Springs where you're from. Yep, that's right. From there, other properties that you might have purchased... Were they like not all based in Colorado? Have you bought properties in other states?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So what

SPEAKER_00:

have we, we did purchase the first one in the first couple of single family homes in Colorado Springs. You know, that the market, the last 10 years, as anyone who's paid any attention knows has been pretty crazy. There's, there's been markets where the appreciation has been great for current owners and maybe has priced out some people who live there or who are looking at investing. So we had been investing in Colorado Springs prices did end up going up quite a bit, which, you know, appreciation is one of the ways that you make money in real estate investing. So it was good for the properties that we did purchase. But by the time that we were looking to expand more, we did start looking at other markets. So we have the portfolio in Colorado Springs, but we did a cash out refi. So basically refinancing that loan into one portfolio loan, which we can go whatever direction you guys want. But that might be a We basically pulled some cash out and then we looked across the US and we looked at exactly what I was just talking about around cap rates and what our hypothesis was of all of these different cities we were looking at and ended up investing in Tennessee. So Colorado and Tennessee are the two states that we have property.

SPEAKER_01:

And what's it like? Obviously, you can't be in both Colorado and Tennessee at the same time. And I don't think you're based in either state. That's right.

SPEAKER_00:

You want a good handyman, you want a good team of people that you trust and that you think are gonna do you right when it comes to repairing those properties. But the other piece is technology. I think a lot of people underestimate Thank you so much for joining us. How do I mark this on the spreadsheet? How do I send out these notices? It really consolidates all of that. It helps with listing. So when a property, a lease is going to be up, we can relist it online and use the syndication network for that. Leases, e-signing, that's probably the biggest one. That was one of the reasons we started using Inago in the first place. We don't juggle 50 paper leases. We have it online as a template. It takes... probably five, six minutes to create a new lease. And then it just gets sent out, e-signs, and then Inago keeps a record of all of that. So when I do need that lease, I have a record without even having to think of, you know, how am I going to organize all of this, do all of that. So when you have those two pieces, I think you have a really valuable toolkit that maybe without the internet would have been really difficult 20, 30 years ago. That really makes it a lot more manageable.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, for newcomers too. I mean, it's like... You have to imagine now is probably, in the history of this planet, probably the best time to be a small-time landlord. Right? I mean, what would you have done differently if you had the access to today's kind of technology when you were buying your first property? Yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, I'm not that old, so.

SPEAKER_02:

That's fair. That question did make it seem like you were much older than you are.

SPEAKER_00:

The technology is mostly the same, but I get your, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Basically, what's changed since when you bought your first property? to now?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think the leases was the biggest thing. I mean, we really were doing the traditional paper check leases. And I remember having to prepare those PDFs. There were a few that we even sent physically in the mail. And it's just a process you have to manage. And it shouldn't be. A lease is a lease. Of course, there are certain things that you can customize and you can also do that through Inago. But there are certain things you have to customize. But you sign a lease and then you just need the document. So that was probably the biggest thing. But But from the beginning, I think we've used some technology for getting it listed, for making sure people can see it. Yeah, I don't think there's been any huge changes the last couple of years. Cool. I think the other thing, the other quick pitch I would give is, you know, there's that whole process of people moving in and moving out. And I think what I love about my job working at Inago in product is I also get to focus on what are things that I want as somebody who also is a landlord. And so, for instance, one of the really big things over the last couple of months that we had seen was the same thing as the leases that I was just talking about with move in, move out checklist. Right. Right. There has to be somebody there with a physical piece of paper marking it and saying, what exactly is wrong with the house? How do I keep a record of this? It protects the tenant and the landlord. And I think a lot of landlords don't do it because there's no easy solution. It's not like collecting rent online. There's no easy way to do that. And so at Inago, we rolled out the move-in, move-out checklist as a damage report where tenants go through the house, they see what's wrong with it, they mark it up, and they submit it through the app. And it does the same thing. It creates a PDF that I have as a landlord when they move So I know what damage was there. I don't charge them unfairly, but also I'm protected if they do do damage and say, nope, it was there before. So I got a question. So with

SPEAKER_01:

all this technology.

SPEAKER_02:

So with all this technology, we sound, having Levi is awesome in this room, but it's like, I'm like, man, I feel not as smart as I did 20 minutes ago. Continue, Patrick.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't even know where I was going with that. Is there anything, because you mentioned having the technology like Anago and having a team of maintenance personnel and whatever that you can depend on. Is there anything that you still have to go to like Colorado or Tennessee, like to those rental properties that you own specifically go out there for? Is there any part of this process that you can accomplish remotely? Yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, it's always going to be based on comfort level and stuff. I actually wanted to talk a little bit more about the people that we have, you know, maintaining the properties and the team. I think there's always going to be some risk there. So of course, meeting somebody in person and being able to have those face-to-face conversations and relationships, you're never going to be able to fully replicate that. I think we've, as I mentioned before, there's always some luck. I think we've been pretty lucky with the people that we found, but we're in three cities now, one in Colorado, Colorado Springs, and then Knoxville and Chattanooga. We've struggled a little bit more in Tennessee because we haven't been there as long and don't have those relationships. And there are times where finding the right maintenance person can be more difficult. So I wouldn't say it's a must, but there are some benefits for sure for being in person. And then you have the unfortunate situations where it's helpful to just be around if you need to stop by and look at a house or if something goes to court, something like that. Again, we've been pretty lucky on that front, but there will always be things that require some in-person interaction. So I wouldn't pick somewhere that you never want to go or that is impossible for you to get to. But I would say that if you're doing the maintenance people and and you're screening your tenants correctly, it hopefully is minimized to as little as you want to go there.

SPEAKER_02:

So circling all the way back around, we've heard a lot about everything that you've had to do with your property management over the years. And I wanna know, in terms of your first property, Cause I do think that originally we were supposed to kind of really get down to what was it like, you know, jumping into all of this from the very, from the very get go. So we got a couple of questions, I think, to talk about that very first property that you got. Sure. What was the most stressful part? If you had to pin exactly, like what was the, what was the thing that caused the most, like the most stress or like, Do you ever feel anxious when you were buying that first property?

SPEAKER_00:

You know, you asked about stress. I think the honest answer about stress is you often stress about the things that don't end up mattering or that in retrospect aren't so important or so big. So I already answered it a little bit earlier, but I think... Looking back, the area where we felt the most anxiety was definitely around purchasing it and getting those first tenants because it is that hurdle. There was a lot of stress around, are we making the right decision? Did we overpay for this property? I think that's where the bulk of the stress comes from. I think also the first maintenance requests are the first things that go wrong, even if they're minor. We were lucky in that the first couple of places we bought were not disasters. I mean, we do have a few horror stories here and there, but we were pretty lucky at the beginning. But, you know, the first time that there's a major repair that something goes wrong, I think you're also like, am I in over my head or did I miscalculate this property? Is there a ton of maintenance that needs to be done? So I think it's around kind of the first learning experiences cause the most stress.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

And I'm sure there will be stressful days ahead for things that we haven't quite mastered Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Do you feel like you gain a, like a thicker skin to it over time? Like

SPEAKER_00:

these

SPEAKER_02:

things

SPEAKER_00:

just bother you less and less? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, there, there is all kinds of things that I think we're, we're just better at managing the processes too. I mean, earlier today, a tenant was texting me about a specific issue and I think for the first property, it would have been, I need to be out the door calling this person and, and, you know, being ASAP instead of saying, Hey, just put a maintenance request in, you know, my partner handles X, Y, and Z. Right. There's a problem. process for this and we'll make sure it gets done correctly and fairly.

SPEAKER_01:

That's good advice. And earlier you had said the biggest hurdle was definitely going from zero to one. How was, because obviously you own tons of properties now. Not quite tons. More than one, more than two. You said three different, so at least three because you said three locations. How much different is it now than it was when you just had one property to manage?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, listen, I I'm going to be an advocate for the software I use because I work at it, but there's no question that scaling becomes a lot easier. I think it's the same answer. Zero to one is the biggest hurdle. Once you have a portfolio and you're collecting rent, like you're sending out late notices, you're collecting rent, there's a process, there's maintenance requests. I'm trying to think of the biggest things that changed. I think financing is always an interesting question when you get to bigger portfolios. If you're doing one single family home or you're looking at maybe dipping your toes in the water, you're probably looking at going to a traditional Freddie and Fannie mortgage, going to a bank and getting one loan and When you have a larger portfolio, there's more options. There's more exciting things you can do. You can pull cash out. Kind of talked about that a little bit earlier. So I think financing is a really interesting thing when the portfolio gets bigger. But in terms of managing day to day, I can't think of any huge changes. I think once you nail down a process, you know, my business partner handles some certain things that he's better at. He's more on the maintenance front dealing with handy people and directly with the tenants. I do more of the finances and leases and stuff. And so we have a good split. I think at a certain point, it doesn't matter how many properties we have. We just do the same thing at a bigger scale. Gotcha. But there's no question that marginally it becomes less and less when you add more. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_02:

For people like Patrick and I, we've talked on the podcast for a couple of weeks, a few episodes about wanting to buy not just investment properties, but your own personal property, like looking for just property to purchase, period. Do you have any advice for people like looking in that realm as well? Like you You guys have purchased properties, but it sounds like a vast majority of them have been investment properties that you're managing rather than your own personal. Yeah, that's

SPEAKER_00:

a good question. I've thought a lot about this because I think once you get in that mindset of viewing properties as an investment and as a tool for cash flow or whatever your goals might be in purchasing properties, there is this risk of viewing all property as just an investment. I think you hear it a lot. I think you hear people doing the trade-offs of, is it worth renting or buying? Or is this property, what does the cap rate look like? Whatever. For a property that they're actually purchasing to live in. And I think that there's two sides of that coin. I think it can be a huge positive. I think it's valuable to understand those metrics and understand, am I throwing away money in rent or is this actually a good investment? But of course, I think the other side of that coin is you don't want... Not everything needs to be viewed in that lens. If you're buying a property to live in, it doesn't need to be the best financial decision ever. It doesn't need to be perfect cap rate or a property that you would want to rent out. So I I think there's a lot of value in that. And I think if somebody, if, if that fits with their lifestyle, you know, they want to have an ADU on the property that they're renting out or Airbnb at sometimes, um, more power to them. But I, I think it's, it's a tool to have rather than how you should be viewing properties that you're buying. Um,

SPEAKER_01:

so yeah. Cool. I actually have a follow-up on that. Cause like, I think maybe it was the last episode or two episodes ago, we were talking about like buying a rental property while still renting yourself. Like when you, when you bought your, your first rental property with your friend, were you still like the property you were living in? Were you still renting?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I still rent now. Okay. Yeah. I live in New York and I rent there and yeah, I go through a lot of the same calculation of, you know, does it make sense to buy? What would that look like? I think, No question. As I spoke to earlier, I would be a lot more comfortable purchasing a house to live in just because it's a it's a process. And all of these terms that might scare people like mortgage escrow are super familiar to me now. But I Yeah, I still rent as well. Gotcha. What

SPEAKER_02:

would it take for you to buy property in New York City? A few million more. Okay, cool. Patrick, what do you say we dive into the listener mailbag and ask Levi? I know we got some backup. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think we can answer. We'll just kind of throw it out into the group and discuss, and we'll see where it goes.

UNKNOWN:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

kick it off or you want me to?

SPEAKER_01:

Sounds like you want me to kick it off. I think I do want you to kick it off.

SPEAKER_02:

Say what you feel. Patrick, do it.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. First question. Annabelle from Orchard Park, New York asks, what's the best way for renters to evaluate whether a neighborhood is right for them? I mean, I don't know. As a renter, I think it depends so much on what you want to get out of the neighborhood. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02:

this is a tough question for me because it's like I've always lived in the greater Cincinnati area and I know the neighborhoods. So it's like I pick the neighborhood, I go to the neighborhood, I know what the vibe is like. So it's easy for me to be like, as a renter, kind of be like, oh, I know what this part of town's atmosphere is like compared to this part of town. I know I'm going to be safer in this part of town than another one. So I don't know. I mean... It's kind of like instinctual almost. I don't know how you feel.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, I mentioned I live in New York. I'm a big walker. Not every city in the U of most cities in the U.S. are not super walkable. But right. Yeah. Whether you you think you're going to be walking around or driving around a lot, I think visiting the area you're going to be in and just feeling comfortable there. No question. I mean, I walked around where I live quite a bit before I moved there. And I mean, I find myself walking five miles a day in the area. So, yeah, that's that's probably the biggest thing for me.

SPEAKER_01:

No, that makes sense. And I remember when I first moved to Cincinnati and I was asking some people who were familiar with Cincinnati like any recommendations on like neighborhoods or properties or whatever and it was interesting because like depending on who I asked there were different kinds of recommendations like I know for some people it's important to have a big apartment complex with a ton of amenities some people like don't want to share walls and and yeah you know like when I have some friends come visit me they're like they they like my apartment they understand why I want to live where I do but they would never want to live in that sort of situation you know in the city like well I like like walking, but some people would not want to live downtown the

SPEAKER_02:

city. Well, I figured it would be most important to you, the radius of fast food

SPEAKER_01:

restaurants. Yeah. That was definitely a... Skyline Chili. There was a Skyline Chili nine-minute walk from my apartment. You've mapped it out exactly. It's exactly

SPEAKER_02:

1,200 feet. All right. Next question. Jasmine from Minneapolis writes in, says, what are some strategies for purchasing a high-quality investment property at a low price? So she's looking to get the best bang for her buck in some respects. So I wonder if this might be geared for our friend Levi to answer.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I think anyone wants to buy the best property you can at the lowest price.

SPEAKER_01:

That's a hot take, Jasmine.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and there's no question, too, that it's a lot more competitive the last couple of years. And a lot of the things around rentals that we talked about with technology, I think, has also made it more competitive. It isn't the days where you can find a to sign and go talk to the owner with all of the online syndication for properties that are for sale. Anyone can find, at least if they're listed publicly. So when you're actually in negotiations, I think one of the biggest takeaways I had is to always think about what the other side wants. There can be win-wins in these negotiations and these conversations. A seller might be less worried about what closing costs look like because they're about to get a big payout. Whereas a buyer might be more concerned because they're the ones putting money down. And so you might be able to negotiate on the selling price, but have some of that come back at closing where the numbers are actually the same, but the buyer is significantly happier because they're not putting down as much money or other conversations like that. So I think there are win-wins and there's a lot of interesting things specifically within financing and negotiations that you can work on there.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, cool.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, am I up?

SPEAKER_02:

I think you're up. I mean, unless you want to just keep, you know, just staring at each other in dead

SPEAKER_01:

air. Okay, we got Max from Colorado Springs. Hey, look at that. That's where you're from, right? Yep. Do you know Max? I know a few. Okay, Maddox asks, what's the weirdest real estate trend you've seen come and go? Barn Dominiums.

SPEAKER_02:

We did talk about Barn Dominiums. I don't know how weird. It's pretty

SPEAKER_00:

funky.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't

SPEAKER_00:

know about that. What are some trends? even over the next couple of years and we see more changes there.

SPEAKER_02:

So short-term rental, like the amount of people that are doing it, you think that that's like decreasing generally?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think you had this huge jump in people seeing it, especially in the post-COVID era of it was at its height. I think there were a lot more people using the services and it was a lot more popular for renters. And it really got flooded with so many investors. And then you started seeing cities pull back. So yeah, I mean, I think there's no question that there will be more changes. And I'm not going to predict what the short-term market is going to look like in five or 10 years. But there's some pretty big changes that I think will continue to happen.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. Maybe we'll have to have you back on for short-term rental diagnosis, the state of the industry kind of thing. All right. We got two more questions. I think we can fit in all five. We'll do really quick round the table. You guys ready? Just like first thing that comes to your mind. What's your dream renovation project and what room would you tackle first? Patrick. Dream renovation. Why did I have to go first? Because I pointed at you first. All right, fine. Levi.

SPEAKER_00:

Dream renovation project. You better be thinking of your answer than one. I think when I think of my living space, I love a good movie, TV show, reading, and a fireplace. So that kind of coalesces into it. I would say a living room. Um, so I'm going to do a nice entertainment where the TV can be hidden, but a really comfortable couch to, to read on and a fireplace. So living room is my spot.

SPEAKER_02:

Patrick.

SPEAKER_01:

Can I, I'm going to pick a little bit of a different approach. No, I'm not. I'm thinking outside. Okay. I want like, I want a very specific kind of like wooden fence, uh, Like, do you guys know what I'm talking about? I'm a big fence guy. Like there's that one fence. What's it called? Where it's just like the old looking wood. Like, you know what I mean? It looks kind of like a tic-tac-toe board. You know, like that fence? Like a picket fence? No, not picket. No, not a picket. Like, what's it called?

SPEAKER_02:

I don't know, Patrick. I like the fence. The first thing I'm doing... You're saying that you want to do, like, a backyard. You want to renovate a

SPEAKER_01:

backyard. Yeah, it was like, I want a backyard to look a very specific way because there's a fence. It's not like a picket fence. It's like, it's one of those fences that has, like, that, and it's got the two bars.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

You know? One of those? No, you guys aren't grasping. Anyways, first thing I'm doing when I buy a property. I trust you. I really like the aesthetic of those fences, and I want to build that fence around my yard and then have a grill there and then grill hot dogs and hamburgers while looking at the fence. That's my first renovation project.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow. That seems doable. That seems very doable. I don't know why you didn't say this. I was going to say I'd renovate an old theater or something and turn it into a house. It's a dream project. We can do whatever we want. Oh, I misunderstood. What if there was a cool vintage theater that I could just renovate and turn into my own house?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I just did one room.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, I didn't understand the question.

SPEAKER_02:

It's a big

SPEAKER_01:

room. My mind went to the fence.

SPEAKER_02:

My mind went to the fence. All right. I think we got time for one more and then wrap it up. Yeah? Okay. So Emily from Long Beach, California writes in and says, what do you do if a potential tenant doesn't have any credit history or rental history? How do you decide whether to give them a chance? So we had a little ha-ha's and now we're going to actually get into the serious stuff to end.

UNKNOWN:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

That's a good question. It's a tough one because you always want to be fair to tenants. I think everyone's been a tenant or most people have been tenants. A lot of us have been in positions where we maybe don't have credit history coming out of college, maybe have debt. So in addition to being fair and being ethical in the first place, you also have rules and regulations depending on what city or state you're in. So there's a lot that goes into that. In some places, you can't use income or you can't use income in a specific way. I think subject to your city's rules, We always look for some sort of income. So if they don't have previous income, do you have some sort of job offer, future income, some sort of evidence that they can provide? You can also, in most places, talk to previous landlords, even if they were college students, whatever else. Co-signers are always a good option. So they might have a parent that's willing to sign. So yeah, it's a tough question to answer, but Again, having been in those shoes before, there are a lot of options for the landlord also to both be fair and make sure that they're protected as well.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, for sure. You got anything insightful, Patrick? I agree. I agree. And there's a lot of good softwares out there, resources out there to use to get this information if you were so inclined to. Isn't that right, Levi?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, there are.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. Nice segue. Yeah. All right. Guys, thanks for hanging out and discussing everything. Levi, thank you for being here to kind of talk. Yeah, thank you for having me. It's a good conversation. Yeah, for sure. It's been enlightening. It's been awesome to hear about your adventures and experiences in the industry. Obviously, Patrick and I wish you both luck in all future endeavors in property management, and we hope that you'll continue to come back and teach us things because we need some more learning, I think.

SPEAKER_00:

I think so, too. Yeah, I'm excited to hear about your guys' first place, too. It sounds like you might be going to business together.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I guess we're buying a theater with a really nice fence. It's going to be the wonkiest property in the greater Cincinnati area. Okay, cool. Well, that is another episode of the Rentish Podcast in the books. Remember, follow us on all the social media platforms that are out there and make sure to subscribe to the podcast. Five stars, review, rate, comment, whatever the thing is, clapping hands, emojis, and stuff like that in the comments. And then email any of your topic suggestions, feedback, you know, just general praises. I know Patrick needs those. To questions at therentishpod.com. You need positive feedback and encouragement. Yeah, that's okay. Keeps me going. You're doing a great job. Thanks. All right. I've been Zach. That's been Patrick. That was Levi. Thank you guys. And yeah, we'll see you later.