National Brand, Local Expertise

Welcome to Canada's Property Management Podcast, your number one resource for investing, managing and maximizing the value of your real estate assets. And now here's your hosts, Carla Browne and Adrian Schulz, Canada's rental property experts.

Adrian (00:20):

I'm starting with a story today, but I'm reminded that we now read these five-minute fairy tales at bedtime. They're wonderful books. I don't know if you read to your husband to make him fall asleep, but I highly recommend-

Carla (00:32):

I don't have to read. He can fall asleep all by himself.

Adrian (00:37):

No, so there are these wonderful little five-minute fairy tales, some old, some new ones. But today we're going to start with a story. And that wasn't it. A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine sends me a message and he says, "Do you know any property managers in Calgary, Alberta?" And for whatever reason, it was the weekend and my work brain wasn't on. And I said, "No, no idea."

Carla (01:05):

Adrian.

Adrian (01:06):

No, no. Hold on, hold on, I didn't... So about 30 seconds later, I said, "Yes, of course. Go to realpm.ca, click on offices, and you can connect with our Calgary office for an available rental". And I mean, I'm admitting this, probably very risky to admit this, but here is what's interesting. We're in Winnipeg, and he's got a family member in Calgary looking for a home. Now, he could have gone on internet listing services, he could have gone on Facebook, on Googling property management websites. But no, he reached out to a friend who he knew was in the property management industry, in my role with rpm. And it's because of the relationship that I referred him over to our Calgary office. He didn't Google it. He didn't go on an ILS, he didn't contact a random property manager. He wanted a personal connection to a local property management company, that would have inventory in the market that he has a need for.

Adrian (02:23):

Now, moments after, I realized... I had an epiphany. The power of Real Property Management in Canada, because there is no other network like ours, that has local business owners managing local real estate for local, and for out-of-market rental property owners. But we are connected across the country regardless of what province, and we're in many cities and we're growing. We're looking actually for franchisees in other cities that we don't currently have covered with our 20-some offices. But how amazing is that, that you can connect through a relationship, someone that's looking for a home almost anywhere in Canada and growing, and for that matter, North America with our friends in the US. So that's my story.

Carla (03:23):

That's your story. Well, it's a great story because as you know, you were part of the creation of our new national at realpm.ca. We have national brand, local expertise, and yet you didn't realize that we had three offices currently in the Calgary market. But so I'm glad that finally came to you, maybe you just needed to sip a little bit more of your morning coffee.

Adrian (03:41):

It caught me totally off guard, and I self-corrected. But it's funny, I just think it's funny because of course I know we have offices there, but did I think about it contextually? Wait a minute, you have a friend that needs a home in another city? Oh yeah, connect them there.

Carla (03:58):

And maybe it's because I come from the real estate side of things before I got into property management, that I always think about this. How when a tenant comes to us looking for something specific, how we can find that specific for them. So we do that all the time in my local office. And instead of just sending them to the websites, it's like, "what are you looking for?" And now we have this board that we've put up with our tenant want list, because we've been around for a while, so we're fortunate. We have a lot of tenants that come to us because they've heard about us through another for friend or family that's renting from us. Or could have been a tenant, we've had tenants that have left the city and come back, and then come back to us and say they want to rent from us again. So we're trying to figure how we can find all of these properties for them, because there's not like an MLS in the rental world.

Adrian (04:43):

How do you stay in touch? 'Cause once they've been a tenant once, they may be a tenant again.

Carla (04:48):

Absolutely. And I'm going to tell you a couple other stories. We've had investors that have relocated to other markets. We've had one that is an investor of ours in Saskatoon, was relocating to Calgary, now renting from an RPM office in Calgary. So we put them in touch. We have an investor just recently, this one's kind of cool, an investor here in Saskatoon that was moving back to Toronto, because their daughter wanted to go to school in Toronto. So they've relocated to Toronto, is looking for a rental with one of the RPM offices in Toronto, and considering buying a franchise because now they think they want to get into the business. Real property management.

Carla (05:30):

So it's like, wow, this thing could really go full circle. But we have to keep our eyes and ears open, that when someone comes to us with a referral as an investor in a property management world, we're on that right away. Our tenants are just as important, and we have to make our tenants also realize this as well. But like you said, a tenant moving to a new city, they want to deal with somebody that they know, or that they know through somebody. So the referral really meant a lot.

Adrian (05:58):

And I can't say enough about the power of the network, and how there's really nobody else in Canada that has that. And when you add that on top, of course, our connection to our sister company, Century 21 Canada, and sent them financial services for mortgages. And of course Uniglobe Travel, if you want to go somewhere and take a break. It's really, from an investor's point of view, it's a perfect place to have your property be managed. From a tenant's perspective, you can be a tenant in your local office, but if you want to move, that office has personal relationships with the other offices across Canada, and can help you find a home in another place. And then when you're done the rental part of your journey, that real property management office can connect you with a Century 21 realtor, and a Centum mortgage broker. It really is, it's a network. It's a family of real estate brands, and we really go unmatched in the Canadian marketplace, everything as it pertains to living.

Carla (07:06):

We call it the housing journey, right Adrian? We know that people might be renting, but a lot of times their endgame is to own a property. And as we know, people move about every five years. I mean, not me. I've been in my house for 20 some years, because I'm in the real estate business and realized how hard it was actually when I was a buyer, didn't want to move again. So I had bought my forever home and really did live in it forever. But the reality is that people do move for a variety of reasons about every five to seven years, and we can help them with that.

Carla (07:38):

So being national in scope, and having all of these brands as a tenant, huge, huge, huge advantage. And so I hope that if we have tenants on our podcast listening to us, they can understand how we're here to help them as well. Our investors are incredibly important to us as clients, but so are our tenants. And our investors should really care about that point too, that we care about their tenants because we can retain them. I never think it's a bad thing if a tenant wants to move, if they're going to buy a property. We know that that's a reality that a lot of them want. Not everyone, but a lot of them. And that's a good thing. But we could help them through that process as well.

Adrian (08:16):

How do we summarize this episode?

Carla (08:19):

Yeah, we kind of went all over the place, as we started. How do we summarize it? Well, I think you should wrap it up with a fairytale. That's how you started it.

Adrian (08:29):

I don't know.

Carla (08:30):

Kittens and rainbows.

Adrian (08:32):

No, no. I mean, the best I've got is Hansel and Gretel. My kids think that they look like Hansel and Gretel, based on the latest fairytale book illustrations. So I leave you with that thought. And that is Real Property Management.

Thanks for listening to Canada's Property Management Podcast. If you like this episode, please subscribe and give us a rating, which will help us reach more listeners. Until next time, connect with us on social media and online, at www.realpm.ca.