you
Hello guys.
you
How are you?
Hi.
Hello.
Oh, nice to see everyone.
Thank you so much.
Great introduction.
Yes.
And I forgot to do the really quick housekeeping.
So I'm just going to steal the camera for a quick second.
Please remember that this is a camera on event.
We are going to be doing breakout sessions.
And so we understand that some of you are going to be at work or you're with
your families, maybe cooking dinner, driving.
So just know that if you're not able to turn your camera on for the breakout
session, we will most likely put you in a room with someone else whose
camera is off because we're going to do an exercise today.
It wouldn't be fun if you were the only one in a room with your camera on
and everybody else's camera off.
And so please do try your best to turn on your camera.
And then another expert tip.
If you're here for networking, change your name.
If you look at the top right corner, you'll see three dots there.
You can actually click those three dots and rename yourself.
And I can see some people have already done it and it's their name and the
area that they're from just for an added networking tip so that if you want to
connect with someone in an area that you're from or an area that you're
investing with, it makes it that much easier.
And so now I will hand off to Jason and Wendy.
Jason and Wendy, take it away.
Thank you, Joe.
Amazing.
So today's tenant appreciation holiday edition.
Does the holidays spin like Wendy said?
Well, cause it's December, right?
Wendy.
Cause it's December holiday edition.
Sounds good.
I'll let you kick it off.
Oh, amazing.
Okay.
Thanks.
Um, all right.
I am going to share my screen.
Let's get to her.
Can everyone see that?
Okay.
Yep.
Good.
Okay.
Yeah.
So we're, we're talking about standing out from the crowd as a group.
We don't want to just be an average or a less than average landlord.
Sometimes we hear slum Lord.
We do not want to be that, um, uh, there are a whole ton of reasons why you
should be an awesome landlord and we're going to get to those reasons right now.
So, um, let's start with real estate.
Obviously it's a relationship business, not just a numbers game.
Um, and this is how we build loyalty.
This is how we build loyalty.
It it's a, it's, you know, this is a business move that we're doing here.
And the holidays are definitely the perfect time to, um, show
appreciation, reinforce goodwill.
Your tenants aren't just people who pay rent, right?
There, there are clients.
And when you treat them like valued clients, you're actually protecting your
asset, you're reducing headaches and you are, um, creating predictable income.
Because this is how we want retention at the end of the day.
If we want, if we are lucky enough to get some great in our units, um, we
want, we want that, we want that retention.
So the golden rule is treat your tenants like your customers,
treat your, your, uh, your tenants like gold.
They are first and foremost, your clients.
Um, every rental property that you own is a business and your tenant is the
customer keeping that business running.
Right.
So, um, you, you're going to run this, uh, like a company, uh, that
your tenants are your client base.
Your rent is your revenue.
Your tenant is, is your paying client.
So when you think of it that way, every interaction becomes this chance to
build loyalty and, and protect your income.
Um, and first impressions, right?
These are everything.
So, um, relationships begin the minute that you meet your tenant
and it just builds from there.
So, um, you, you want to give yourself a great, good start by leaving an
actual impactful initial impression.
If you are lucky enough to meet your tenants.
So in some cases, you're going to have rental properties where you're
not even going to meet, uh, meet your tenants, but if you have the
opportunity to, or if you're going to be the one that's placing them,
you're the, you're the landlord, you're the property manager and you're
placing them, um, you know, the connection that you make with
them immediately is so important.
And, um, I talked a little bit about this on, uh, uh, on stage on
Saturday, if you were at our, um, coaches insider mastermind in Toronto.
I talked about it from a JB perspective too, right, Jason.
So like basically, you know, the minute that you're, um, uh, you know,
you're, you, you meet somebody, you have a vibe, right?
You're like you, and I think getting your tenants in place, there's a huge
component to like going with your gut on things and, uh, yeah, you, and
Jason's got some good stories about that.
Yeah.
I'll save the one towards the end about gut check.
Um,
But yeah, you know, it's, it's important because I find now again, this is if you can get a
chance to meet your clients, because for screen, you're screening at the same time.
And you know what the vibe, I can tell almost almost immediately whether or not I want them
as a tenant just picking up on cues from the way they introduce themselves to the way they
enter the property to the point where they if they have to ask to take their shoes off or not,
like, these are all kind of things, even the way they ask their questions as they're going
through the unit. And the way they ask questions, I'm, I'm building these, there's, there's cues
that I'm looking for, and red flags, and I'm looking for as well as green flags. And like
we said, here in print, the first impression, it's it's your chance to remember to they,
they may not have had the best landlords that that took an interest in them, ask them questions
about themselves, more than likely they didn't. So right away, I asked them, we'll ask them
personal questions, as well, like, you know, do you live around here? What do you like doing in
your free time? Those kind of things? Yeah. They're people, right? Yeah. Well, and listen,
there's some underlying things that you learn with them, learn from them, when you ask them
what they like to do in their free time. Because, you know, if they're like, I love hosting giant
dinner parties for people, you know, or whatever. Um, you know, if they say, what's an example?
Do they? Do they? Oh, I'd like to sit home and watch Netflix and video games. And you're like,
I watch Montreal Canadian games. It's an automatic No, it's
no chance to like, get out now. No, so yeah, I there but it's very telling some of the answers
that you'll get when you ask those questions. I think it's really important. So but in terms of,
you know, shifting our mindset around this, you know, we when we view clients and our rental
property properties, as many businesses, it is it is our business, right? This is we are,
all of a sudden, we've become entrepreneurs, because we need to run this like a business.
You know, a few sort of client level service, things that really pay off, you know, when you're,
when you have that ROI of kindness, when you're like, actually proactively communicating with
them, and showing respect, there's lower turnover, right, they're going to pay their
rent faster, there's going to be fewer disputes, longer, longer tenancies. And actually, you know,
you might get referrals from it too, if you've got other units, you know, tenants recommending
their friends or family as well. So that is fine. I find I find that, like, going back to like,
you know, previous landlords that they may have had. Like, when it comes to maintenance,
I tell them, I said, you know, I want to know, even if you don't think it's a big deal, I want
to know what's happening in in, in the unit, let me know, even if, if it's if you if it's
questionable, if you're not sure, just bring it to my attention, let's figure it out. And,
you know, more than a couple times, they're like, Oh, my, my tenant didn't care. Like,
I brought stuff all up all the time, I just stopped doing it. That's what you don't want.
That's why you have to clearly communicate that no, you want to know about these things.
With with the tenant I had, he was so great. He'd never experienced a good tenant. He was so
grateful. I, I found out that he Yeah, I found out that he liked that he liked Heineken. And
the day that he moved in, he had Heineken pizza for move in day. First kind of gratitude. And then
he was, he was so great. He was so good. When I went over to do any kind of inspection,
he would, he would ask me if I wanted a beer. And every other time he would have some food
cooked for me. He was he was Thai. So he cooked these Thai spicy Thai wings, chicken wings,
it was delicious. Like, my tenant was cooking food for me. This is a this is a relationship
you can have when you treat someone with respect. He was such a great guy. Tommy,
I miss him. I agree. I agree. I think your your point about being super clear about it doesn't
matter. You know, what time of day it doesn't matter. You know, like, I mean, obviously,
we need to have some boundaries. But, you know, like, obvious, and it's, it's an emergency,
you know, and you're the landlord and the point of contact, please have them call you at any time
of day. But I'm being so crystal clear about if anything is wrong, like if
there's something like a little tiny drip from the sink
or a thing, you know, like we just want to know
because we want to maintain our properties properly.
We don't want to, you know, incur, you know, a water,
find out that the water bill is $1,000
because they forgot to tell you
that the toilet's been running for a month,
you know, that kind of thing.
So anything that they can find and see
that's not operating properly,
it's critical that they feel comfortable enough
to come to you with anything and everything.
And yeah, and then they start cooking for you
because we've had tenants that have been like,
but you know, they just bring down food for us
and we're like, oh my gosh,
our tenant that we have right now,
they are Brazilian,
but they have found this amazing bakery down on St. Clair.
And every time they go,
they come back with like a box of cannolis for us.
I'm like, oh my God, you guys are amazing.
Like they, you know, like it's, yeah.
But when you have that type of relationship,
that's what happens.
And they're great.
It's nice.
It makes things easier.
It makes things way easier.
Oh yes.
Cause we've had both.
So we've had the good and the bad.
Yeah.
So yeah.
And the upside of course is, you know,
clear communication, quick response.
You know, again,
we don't want to fall into that slumlord thing.
We hear all these horror stories on the news, you know,
where, you know,
landlords aren't responding or they're not, you know,
they're not,
they're saying they're going to repair something
and then they just don't come through.
That's just, you know, that's, that's horrifying.
And it gives the rest of us a bad reputation.
And I think that's probably has a lot to do
with why the Ontario tenancy laws have gone the way
that they've gone in favor of tenants,
because, you know, there's these, you know,
giant corporations that have, you know,
multi-unit buildings that they're not maintaining
and they're not taking care of.
And those are the people that unfortunately
are getting the brunt of it.
But it's, it's, you know,
fallen on all of us little guys that are just, you know,
I've got, you know, a few units here and there,
and we're just trying to,
just trying to make a go at this real estate investing thing
and, and we're, we're paying for it ultimately.
So, you know, go ahead.
It's, it's, I remember I didn't have the speech
about just communicating any small problem.
I know I missed it and I paid for it
because it was one of those tenants
where the previous landlord didn't care about anything.
There was a dripping tap in the laundry room.
They didn't think it was a big deal.
If anyone's ever had a drink dripping tap,
and those drips add up to dollars at the end of a month,
you, you would be shocked.
So I noticed that the water bill was out
and I'm like, that doesn't make sense.
So when I asked them, I went down,
sure enough, it was a dripping tap.
And that's when I reiterated that I need to know about,
and from there on, it was fine.
And he was apologetic, but he, you know,
he just said that, you know,
his last landlord just didn't, really didn't care.
So fortunate, yeah.
We had, some of you know this story,
but my father had fallen on hard times
and we, he was our tenant for a while.
We bought a house where he could live in the basement suite.
And I might chalk him up to being our worst tenant
of all time, only because he forgot to tell me
that the toilet was running
and our water bill in one month was $1,000.
Yeah, that's a running toilet's a big one.
I'm like, dad, are you kidding me right now?
Yeah, seriously.
So yeah, yeah.
I mean, when I say worst tenant of all time,
you know what I mean?
But yeah, I was like, how could you not hear that?
Now, mind you, we're going to give him a break.
He was a, he was in not awesome shape,
but I was like, ah, a thousand bucks for that, a hard one.
But I was going to say with the communication piece,
not only should you, you know,
communicate when you need to access the unit
or when you're going to come in
for your regularly scheduled maintenance.
I, Mike and I do a regular fall maintenance
and a regular spring maintenance.
So every six months, and I think, you know,
we talked about that with Joe last week
when we did the Monday morning call.
And so, you know, in addition to those two things,
you know, the more that you can, you know,
communicate with them,
even if you see them in the hallway or outside, you know.
just sort of, you know, checking in, how are you that,
you know, that friendliness, you know,
especially if you live in the same house with them,
but otherwise, you know, little messages every now and then,
how are things, you know, just checking in with them.
They feel respected and then they're more likely to,
you know, flag issues early and, you know,
and take care of your property because we need them.
We really, really need them to be the eyes and the ears
for us on site, right?
If we're not there all the time
and it really helps us maintain our, that, you know,
our assets, so, and then, you know,
respect for privacy and boundaries as well, right?
So if there's, you know, certain things that,
that you establish with your tenants when they move in,
you know, around timing of communication, you know,
just being respectful,
giving them as much notice as possible
if you do have to access the unit, all of those things,
and is, you know, helpful and respectful
as you can be with their space.
So they do feel like it's their home.
And like I mentioned,
the maintenance and the seasonal check-ins
and fair, consistent policies, right?
Especially if you have a multi-unit building,
make sure that, you know,
the rules are the rules for everybody
so that one person's going, oh, well, they let me do that.
Oh, you did that.
Well, I didn't do that.
You know, then we avoid all the drama.
So fair, consistent policies all around is a great,
is a great thing.
And Jay, I think you've got a story
you wanted to share here.
Is it, or was it about your tenant cooking you?
No, no, it was the previous one,
just about the tenant with the dripping faucet.
Like it was one of those things, yeah.
Okay.
Communication, communication always.
So during those checklists too,
like we do the same thing.
That's when you ask, you can ask,
and you can ask them all kinds of questions.
Did it have any concerns?
And, you know, they might say,
oh, I haven't noticed anything,
but there was this kind of little thing.
So you can kind of get ahead of maintenance sometimes.
Anyways.
Yeah.
Other times it just happens.
We went to our,
one of our properties in Prince Edward County,
week and a half ago to do our fall maintenance.
And the tenant, she said,
did you, when you were in my unit,
did you clean out the trap at the bottom
of the dishwasher?
And I said, yes.
And she goes, how bad was it?
Cause I said, oh yeah, it was kind of grungy,
but whatever.
She'd been there.
She had actually been there for over a year.
And I had the last, the last trip I didn't,
I hadn't done it.
So I said, it was pretty bad, but it's fine.
And she goes, oh, she goes, cause I felt so bad.
She goes, I actually tried to clean it before you came.
And I was like, oh my God, don't do that.
It's all good.
Like, but you know, that that's how nice,
like how amazing she is that she was like willing
to like try and clean out the dishwasher filter,
like at the bottom of the, I'm like all good.
Thank you.
But yeah, I just was, yeah, I was shocked
cause I've never had a tenant that was like, yeah,
I pulled out the thing in the bottom of the machine
to clean it.
Yeah, too kind, too kind.
So yeah, so there was the ROI of kindness
and now there's the ROI of respect, right?
And why this matters to our bottom line.
So again, back to fewer late payments and disputes,
longer tenancies, which obviously the less turnover
we have the better and they care for the property.
And then at the end of the day,
we're gonna get better reviews and referrals
and we have a great reputation as a landlord.
And you can probably, you know, at some point
start asking for, you know, a testimonial or a review.
You know, if you are losing them
because they are moving to another city
or they, you know, they are buying their own place
or something like that, then just say,
hey, do you mind writing a review?
And then you've got that in your back pocket
for the next tenants.
So, and listening, listening, listening,
this is so important, right?
This is so valuable with everything,
with our JV partnerships, with our tenants,
addressing them in such a, in a timely manner is so key
because again, we don't wanna fall into that category
of like the negligent landlord, like really truly
and addressing, you know,
providing a solution immediately.
So typically, you know, we have all of our teams
in our various cities where we have rentals.
So thankfully, you know, those trades can be deployed
if there's a plumbing issue or electrical issue
or something like that.
But we also have tenants that live in our house
here in the city.
So, you know, if there's something that's come up,
typically, you know, they'll, our tenant will let us know
and, you know, Mike or I.
I can get up there within the hour usually
and either address the issue, assess the issue
and fix the issue on our own,
or if it's beyond our scope, we'll call somebody in
and we've got, we're fortunate
where we can probably get somebody in
within 24 hours or less to fix it.
Because again, these are things
where the tenant really appreciates
when things are maintained and fixed and all that.
I remember we had a short-term rental
and it was the day before Canada Day.
And the short-term tenants were already there
and the water heater decides to break,
lose all of its water.
I was like, oh, you've got to be kidding me.
Luckily, the way it was set up,
had it drained through a hole that went underneath
because the cottage was raised up on concrete blocks.
So that was fine.
There was no flooding,
but there's not gonna be water.
And we're talking like three o'clock.
Like, as you know, the city,
like people are cutting loose early.
Thankfully, I had a guy who was a plumber by trade,
but he knew how to do everything.
And he was the local owner of the mercantile in town,
called him.
He said, go get a water heater, meet me over there.
So we did.
And he had it ripped out and replaced
within an hour and a half.
He said, call this person at the city,
tell him it's Gary, set you call,
tell him to shut off the water at the main.
Like it was a thing, it got done.
And that was like the day,
like as we were approaching closing time, day before Canada.
Wow, wow, wow.
Yeah, and that's another great point
about having these relationships
and having these key trades
and your team on speed dial
so that you can get that stuff done in an emergency.
And yeah, just going back to visiting
and maintaining your properties.
If you don't, if you're not near it,
sometimes it's not a terrible thing
to actually go and visit your, maintain your properties.
Having that good tenant obviously is paying you back.
They take pride in the unit.
And I think the other thing is,
would you live in one of your units
or be willing to put a family member in one of your units?
I think that's a great litmus test for all of us.
Like, are we proud?
Are we proud of the properties
that we're putting out there into the world?
Most of us came into real estate investing
knowing that if we were gonna have tenants,
we want them to have a clean, safe place
to rest their heads and to live and to thrive, right?
So obviously, everything that we do,
we're very proud of and we wanna,
we could totally live there
or put a family member in there for sure.
I was just gonna go back to communicating,
the communication thing too.
Communicating through text is fine,
but I know that the Landlord Tenancy Board
really wants all communication through email.
So if you are texting your tenant
about a visit that needs to happen
or something to be repaired,
I also highly recommend following up with an email.
So it's in writing.
So there's always a thread and a record
of all the work that you're doing.
So just be cognizant of that.
But yeah, the in-person visits,
obviously you're building rapport.
And quite frankly, you probably have
at the end of the day, a different eye
while you're looking,
maybe you're doing an exterior walk of your property.
Maybe you catch something,
your tenant wouldn't notice that needed repair
that they didn't catch, excuse me,
or that if you do have a property manager,
maybe they haven't done a full walkthrough
in the last little while.
So, yeah.
So I think that was about that.
Now here's, I wanted to share a couple
of little thoughtful touches
in terms of being a great landlord.
So these are a few things that we do
in terms for when we, to welcome our tenants
and things that we do throughout the year.
So for every time we get a new tenant,
we give them a welcome basket.
So we literally get them a gift basket
that I put together with a gift card,
probably would have like a grocery cart,
like a Metro or some sort of grocery gift card
that you can put in there.
I do put we do put a bottle of wine in there unless we know that they are for sure not drinkers, but we'll put a bottle and wine in there, even if they don't drink wine, that it's the gesture it's the thought that counts right you know and if we do somehow
hear like Jason you heard the guy likes Heineken like you're on it right so you were just like Heineken and pizza, you know, that's your welcome gift so, and then we put snacks in the basket so when they move in they walk in there like oh my gosh this is so cool.
And then I put all of the, all of the manuals for all of the appliances that are in there I put those in with in a nice little folder, so they're all in one place so they know how to, you know, change a setting on the stove or the dishwasher
and then I also include a specialty cleaning supplies so don't laugh but this is, this is the little bit of a control freak in me, who, you know, like, if you have a glass stovetop.
Most tenants aren't necessarily going to buy like the specific scrubby brush and the glass top cleaner thing so I would include that, or I like to include the little tabs that you can get for cleaning the inside of the dishwasher and the inside of a washing machine
they're probably not going to buy that but if you include it in the basket. They might use it.
And just so that it, you know, you can just explain that those go specifically with the things that you have, they appreciate that it's not costing them more to do that so.
That's sort of their welcome basket. And then we send them a like a short video message once they've sort of settled in the first day or two, just thanking them for, you know, selecting our property so that's a little touch that we that we do that we
just text them.
We also give them a gift card, or, you know, some other gift on their birthdays so we make sure that we put in my calendar when their birthday is and I'll either depending on where they are, either do an E gift card so it gets emailed
into their inbox on their actual birthday, or, you know, if they're, if I'm in the house with them and I will just, you know, hopefully run into them in the hall or just leave it at their door for them.
And that's, we do the cleaning thing too as well. Oh nice. Oh good.
I leave the recycling by a new food waste bucket, provide them with a bunch of the bags, so that they'll encourage them to use the food waste one, and then same thing with the cleaning supplies, like it was the glass shower door and like this is for the glass
shower, you spray it down mold and yeah I'll do all those things. Yeah, it is appreciated it at the same time. It's, it's how I would want it to be clean to right so.
Yeah, totally.
And then we always give them a holiday gift as well. Religion appropriate so you know if you can find out if there's, you know, a certain religion, then fabulous, or, you know, it could be even just like something simple like a winter care kit like a you know
a treat kit like something.
You could put a little, you know, a scraper and some, you know, those like little hot pads that you can put in your gloves and, you know, just some sort of, you know, a little kit like that or you could even do one with like hot chocolate and marshmallows and, you
And then we write them a handwritten card of gratitude that goes in that that holiday basket as well. And then we also for winter we also supply each of our units with shovels and salt.
And it's just one less thing for them to worry about and for safety we care about them. They may not necessarily want to go out and spend their own money on a shovel and assault, especially especially if they're, you know, they have come from an apartment
building and typically that's what happens in Toronto we got. I think all of our tenants lived in apartments before they got here. It's also my passive subtle aggressive way that they're, they need to take care of the driveway.
Or the or the walkway. Yeah, it's a reminder. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And we established that when they move in. It's like, okay, yeah.
So you're going to be in charge but we will provide you know all the salt that you need and the shovel that you need to get your, your stairs cleaned off and whatever and they're like okay yeah that's cool.
So a little, a little give to get right.
And we also do seasonal planters at the front of our houses that have, you know, an area you know just to sort of.
It's not money coming out of the tenants pockets it keeps our properties beautiful.
And, yeah, it's in there, they appreciate it.
because it just, you know, it's a nice touch.
So we do a summer basket and a holiday Christmas planter
thing at the front.
So, and then, yeah, and then from,
that's obviously for all of your sort of one-off tenants,
but for multifamily, like if you've got a multifamily
building, there's some cool things that you can do
in terms of building community.
So you can, you know, our, one of our landlords
in Indianapolis, they ran a holiday door decorating contest
with, and they gave a small prize after,
which was super cool.
So every, you know, all the tenants are out in the hall,
they're all decorating their doors and it,
so it really created this community feel.
And then they set up this display,
like a cookie display in the hallway.
So everyone had like, you know, cookies or candy
for each of the, for each of them to grab,
which was kind of cool.
So, so we love that idea of, you know,
just kind of building the community and then creating a,
like a what's happening this month email
with like local holiday events.
And that, you know, went on the bulletin board or,
you know, got slid under their door or something like that.
So again, super, super cool.
And if you have a building that, you know,
you charge for parking or storage,
maybe you give them, that's your gift for the month of,
you know, their holiday gift for the year,
is you give them one month of parking for free
or one month of storage for free too.
So, you know, just there's other ways
that money doesn't have to come out of your pocket per se,
that, you know, it's sort of just a beautiful touch
and it's the great little thank you.
So, yeah.
And so I was just going to say, suggest, you know,
if you can pick two of these ideas,
if you've got tenants, so pick two of these ideas,
add them to your annual calendar so you remember,
because we don't, you know,
we have so much on our brain boxes these days
with everything we have to remember.
So I have to add everything to my calendar to remember,
oh yeah, that's a task.
And then build these touches into your systems
and track how they respond.
Like, are they into this?
Are they grateful?
And you're like, oh, that was a huge hit.
I'm going to do that again.
So, and then keep what works, adjust what doesn't, right?
And at the end of the day, this becomes part of your brand
and your tenants will see and feel
the difference coming from you
with all of these lovely, thoughtful touches.
And that's how we stand out as landlords
is doing these thoughtful things.
Because again, at the end of the day, they're our customers
and we're grateful for them, so.
Kindness comes back around, kindness comes back around.
Yeah, reciprocity, as Joe said at the beginning.
And that brings us to our activities.
So what we want you to do is take some time
to compose a shorthand written note
that you would deliver to your tenant,
one that's warm, professional, and genuine.
And we'll take, we'll get Joe to break us out.
Joe, there's 30 people from what I can see.
Yeah, I've got everybody in groups of five.
I've got one group of four.
I just put the tenant appreciation activity in the chat.
So just be sure that you grab it
because I don't know if you can access the chat
from in the breakout room.
And I am going to open all the rooms
and everybody will see a prompt to join the room.
So just click join the room.
Sorry, Joe, I think what we're gonna do
is we're gonna give them,
I think we're gonna give them five minutes
to actually just write the note.
Sure.
Before you even toss them into the rooms.
Cool.
So just five minutes now,
we're gonna write a note and then they'll go in
and then they can discuss it.
Yeah.
Awesome.
I got a couple of quick, oh, go ahead.
Oh, I was gonna say, I got a couple of quick questions.
It looks like they're getting answered in the chat,
but I'd love for you two to weigh in on them.
Yeah.
Number one, do you both have a budget for gifts?
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, we budget it when we actually run the numbers
on our properties.
Yeah, so when you're running in properties initially
before you even purchase the property,
run that, put that in as part of your monthly fee.
So we would do, I'm gonna, did I just stop that?
That's okay.
Yeah, I can come back to the calendar after.
Yeah, yeah.
So yeah, we would do, we usually do $25 per birthday gift
and $25 per holiday gift.
So 50 bucks per tenant per.
Yeah, we're in between 50 and 75 bucks a year.
Yeah, and if you, but if you, you know,
if you've got a multifamily and it's, you know,
people, then maybe there's another way that you can thank them.
That starts to add up, but, you know, and maybe it's, maybe it's like giving them,
maybe you give them 50% off their parking for the month or their, you know, or you give them
one free laundry for the, I don't know, they have to go down to the laundry room for their thing.
You know, you can be creative with this, which is cool. Or maybe it's just a $5 Starbucks card,
like, for goodness sakes, you know, it's really anything. It's the thought that counts. So,
um, but yeah, it doesn't have to be, uh, 25 or 50 or 75, but it's, that's totally up to you.
And it's going to be different for every single property that you own based on the size and,
you know, and, and the location and all of the things. So income, all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah.
And then the last question is, is, do you have an idea how to do a holiday gift basket if you're
not living in that town? And the other, the part B to this question is, do you send a basket
directly or would you get your property manager to do it? Oh, that's a great question. Um,
I, uh, for, for anything that's like far away that like managed the property manager, I would
get the, um, I would have the property manager do that. So I would probably have, I have the basket
shipped to the property manager and then usually their maintenance guy would, would take that over
for us or, um, uh, the, sometimes the property manager would prefer that, you know, if we just
send it right to, to the tenant. So I, so I'll be careful to arrange that they're actually home.
Like that's the other important part of this, right. Is making sure that their gift baskets,
not sitting at the front of an apartment building for a day when they're not there. So, um, yeah,
so that's all, that's all key. And there's a little bit of timing, but certainly, um, you
can arrange it through your property manager, but, um, for the tenants that we have, um, for example,
in Prince Edward County, those ones, I usually just, um, do an E gift card. And I, so they get,
they receive it in their email on Christmas day. Um, if they're, you know, if that's their,
their holiday. Um, so I do really try to also deliver the gift based on what holiday they
celebrate. So if it's Hanukkah or if it's Diwali or whatever it is, you know, just make sure that
it's in that timing appropriate that we just don't assume it's that it's Christmas, um, being,
um, being respectful of their, um, their holidays. And then, um, did that answer the question? Then
there was something. Oh, yeah, that's great. Yeah. And then for, obviously for here, I get to, we get
to give it to hand, hand deliver, uh, on Christmas. So yeah, lots of ways to do it. And there's some
really cool, um, someone asked about gift baskets. Yes. There's some really cool gift basket
delivery, um, companies. There's a couple that I use in the States for all of our, um, for our
properties down there. So I can, um, well, you guys are in the breakout room. I will get the
names and I'll throw them in the chat. So there we go. Yeah. Okay. Well, hopefully you guys have
been writing for this period of time. We'll send them into the breakout room for another five to
seven minutes, Joe, and they can discuss it. Okay. One second here.
Okay. You should all see a prompt to join the room. We'll see everybody shortly.
And if you don't have a tenant, write a letter to somebody in your,
on your team that you're grateful for.
My hand and elbow as we're doing this.
We've still got, uh, Edgar with Edgar with this, and I don't know who TW is.
No, I think Edgar found the prompt, but I don't know if TW has or not.
T-dubs.
I hate how time flies. We're like almost done. Makes me sad. Every time I'm like, wait,
we just got started. I know.
And I was worried. I, and I was worried it was going to be too short, Wendy. This is what I mean,
when we were talking about it. It's just, yeah, never, never all of a sudden we're overtime,
you know, never worried.
It's, we always can, we can always, always fill the space.
Yeah.
And you know what too, with our community for the most part, right.
Like for Wednesdays anyways, I don't think there's a lot of
meetups that happen.
There are a few, right?
Like I noticed that some people do have to leave because they
have something at eight o'clock, but for the most part, like the
community will stay as long as we continue to talk, stay and hang out.
Right.
So did you notice how many people were in?
I didn't see 30, uh, the peak, the peak was 36, but right now I think
we're at 32 or something like that.
Yep.
Okay.
So I have the toolkit, which I think I'll put in at the end and
then I have a survey link as well.
Oh, I'm going to get the, um, Oh, Mike's Mike's been answering
all my questions.
Hilarious.
Yes.
Yeah.
And it's funny cause you guys answers are all in sync.
Um, how long do you want to keep them in there for?
Um, I don't think they're doing their letter.
I think I can hear Mike in his, in his breakout room in the kitchen
and he's chit-chatting about probably talking, but that's what they do.
Um, that's fine.
How much time do you guys want to wrap maybe 10 minutes?
Yeah.
Now that'll give them another three minutes, unless you feel
like they should have more time.
No.
Yeah.
Like, I don't know.
Yeah.
10 minutes with that.
Let some people share and then we'll, you can go through the calendar.
Okay.
I'm going to drop that other, the, the two other companies for gift baskets.
I'll be right back.
Yeah.
That's funny.
I can hear Mike chatting too.
He's laughing.
He's having fun.
Thank you.
Yeah, they're just talking about gift ideas they're not nobody's writing a letter so.
In fact, somebody just said they, they don't even have tenants yet so.
Well, here's the interesting thing about property management when it's taught. It's so practical that it's so empowering, and people get so excited because they're like I never even thought about that and they just run with that right so they're like, forget
more strategies, you know, so I'm like not surprised if that's great. I love it because I felt the same way I think when we realized it was like, I remember, Michael saying from stage, don't be, don't be a shitty landlord like be a great land.
Stand out from the rest, literally, and I was like how hard was that you know like it's not hard to do. And it's so funny because like you were saying about cleaning the dish thing, you're doing that, and like it's a twofold benefit, your, your tenants think you're
an amazing landlord but you're just like, I don't want to buy another one of these.
And it was a double win. That's right. Yeah. I felt the same way when I don't know if it was Ray, or if it was Paul's probably right.
But he talked about your maintenance and repair budget.
You know, taking it out in advance which is standard. Okay, but being, but if you wanted to be so daring and you had good tenants you would tell them what that budget is, and let them choose, like what needs to be done because they have a budget for you.
Now they feel like, oh my god, you're the greatest landlord in the world and in the back of your mind you're like, well, it's your money.
Something has to be updated every year so that 25 years from now I'm not updating the whole house. What do you need. Do you know what I'm saying. Want windows. Okay, we're gonna have to save up two or three years or whatever that is, you know, so, but it's your money, you know,
but just the fact that you put them in. Yeah, there's nothing urgent. It's cool. Yeah, sorry, go ahead.
No, I was just gonna say if I put these in the chat now. Is everyone that comes back into the room are they going to see it, or do I know, but I'm going to close the room now it'll give them 60 seconds to come back in.
Okay.
Oh, it's Imenem.
I always see Rosemary in her things and I always want to ask her about her last name
because I keep reading it as M&M but that's not what it is.
Go figure.
Yeah, but sometimes you just gloss a word and you think that's what it says, you know?
So all this time and I finally just read it in still and I'm like, that's not what it
says.
Totally different.
All right.
I can hear Mike too and he's like, okay, quickly, because you can see the time we're going down
15 seconds.
Yeah.
Quickly.
Let's write the letter.
I've got a sample.
We're back.
Okay, I think that's everybody.
Awesome.
Yeah.
Does anyone have one they want to share?
Anyone?
Yeah, I did.
I don't know if everyone wrote a letter of gratitude or did everyone just have a good
chin wag about the things that they do with their, yeah, that's awesome.
That's okay too.
Did anyone want to share what they do?
Go ahead.
I have April and I have Joe, both with hands up.
Okay.
Sure.
I'll go quick.
I just wrote, as this year draws to an end, we want to let you know, we really appreciate
you contributing to continuing to live in our rental and keeping up to date with your
rent and keeping our place well kept.
Very good.
Simple.
And just even like sort of happy year end.
So it could either be for Christmas or for, I figured we'd go for just the year end.
I like it.
So, and keeping with, April to keep it simple, I'm in the student world.
So it's a whole different story.
For my students, I started out with the whole thing of keeping it very, like, it's got to
be like home.
So I show up there and experience has told me I go up just like this week in Christmas
and I bring in a tray of sandwiches and veggies and talk to all the students one-on-one before
they head home for Christmas.
It has proved to be absolutely really powerful with the parents and with the students wanting
to stay.
I get kudos.
And when I go and put references on my stuff for looking for new students and I put references
available, that's where it pays off.
So just that's where it goes, but it's one-on-one with them in person for me, but it's a different
story than long-term tenants in a big building.
Excellent.
Pedro.
That's a great example for anybody that wants to get into student rentals, that's like the
extra mile.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah.
Because that's huge.
Where are your rentals, Joe?
Your student rentals?
They're all Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.
Good.
Pedro, you have your hand up?
Pedro, go ahead.
Yes.
Well, I went into AI and they had a nice letter for me written up, so.
Very good.
Yeah.
Might as well use it as their right to use.
So it gave me their tenant, the name.
As the holiday season approaches, I wanted to take a moment to express my gratitude for
being such wonderful tenants this year.
It's been a pleasure having you on the property and I truly appreciate how well you've taken
care of the space.
I hope this Christmas brings you joy, peace, and some well-deserved time to relax.
May the new year bring you good health, happiness, and success.
Please don't hesitate to reach out if you need anything during the holidays.
I'm here to assist with anything you might need.
Wishing you and your loved ones a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.
Very nice.
Thanks.
I love that.
Just remember to take out the long dashes, right, Wendy?
That's right.
Oh, yeah.
Take out the M dashes.
And if you notice, AI writes everything in threes, right?
So it's like, you know, this and this and this.
Like their sentences, everything is a something, something, and a something.
So, you know.
Yep.
Massage it a bit.
Yep.
Long dashes, for sure.
And there's also, there's a couple of softwares now that you can actually run your AI through
that they, you put it in and it removes all of the coding that actually, you know, recognizes
it as AI.
So, so you can do that too, because the, we're, we're
We're all getting very savvy and smart to immediately be able to pick an AI
generated email out.
Yeah, correct, correct.
Wow.
That was less personal than I hoped, but, um, yeah, so whatever.
Yeah.
We would modify it a little bit, you know, change some of the wording too.
I, that's what I, we spoke about, you know, maybe eliminating some of the
things and, and just kind of make it, make it short and brief.
Amazing.
I'm going to, oh, I popped in the chat, uh, the, the three places that we, um,
get our gift baskets from, um, for tenants.
And I'm, um, I'm also going to just go back to sharing a slide.
Cause I think you had, you guys had something for the calendar
you wanted to share, right?
Well, we will, but yeah, Haley, you got your hand up.
Go ahead.
Oh yeah.
I'm just going to mention, um, not related to the end of the year, but
just for tenant renewals, I've given them, like, as I messaged them to say,
Hey, do you want to renew for the year?
Um, I'm going to, you know, regardless of your decision, I'm
going to send you a $50 gift card.
And so far I'm not bad in a hundred percent.
So that is good.
Um, two for two on retention on it.
So the one set of it's three guys that live in a place.
And so I got them like a Safeway gift card so they can go get some stuff
for the barbecue in the summertime.
Um, the other guy, I'm like, I'll give you an Amazon card if you use that.
And he's like, ah, I'd rather X-Box cards.
So I did that instead, like easy.
Um, so, um, I just do it online and just have it emailed to
them. It's super easy to do.
So yeah.
Haley, you do that just as their, their lease is coming up so that
you hopefully get a renewal.
Yeah.
So I'm in Alberta, so they're fixed term leases.
Um, so I reach out to them about 60 days before the end of it.
If it's a tenant I want to keep, um, and, uh, just say, Hey, like,
looking to understand your intentions.
I've enjoyed having you here sort of thing.
Um, you know, here's a couple of options.
And, uh, yeah, so far they've been yes, yeses.
So that's good.
Awesome.
Love that.
That is a great, great tip.
Okay.
Um, I like to add something.
This is very, must be very, um, uh, usual in Canada, but in the United
States, I've never seen this.
I mean, I've only been in the States for three years, but I mean, I had a
landlord for three years and at the end we had, you know, a
disagreement and decided to move out.
So no, no, no, this type of appreciation is not shown.
And, and I don't know my colleagues from, I mean, classmates from the
United States, I think they have the same experience.
Yeah.
I, I can say I've been living here for 23 years and, uh, not most of the time,
like most of the time owning versus renting, but whenever I had the renting
experience, I didn't have this experience, but I, I feel it's, it's a great.
It's a great approach.
That's why we're going to stand out from the crowd.
Cause obviously you're in Maria, you have experiences where they, you know,
the masses are doing everything else.
Right.
And we want to, we want to be not them.
We want to be the 1% that's awesome.
So, um, and, uh, and yeah, so that's, you know, that's what we teach in the
community, in the Keyspire community is really, you know, stand out from the
crowd in, in every way, you know, with your JV partners, with your tenants,
uh, with your team, all of those things.
The communication is key and relationships are key.
So, um, so, but thank you for pointing that out.
We appreciate the, um, you know, your experience because that, that, that
makes us feel, you know, better that we're reinforcing, we're teaching.
Yeah.
Go ahead, Mike.
Uh, I mentioned to our group that, uh, in our building in Indianapolis, uh,
during COVID we instructed our, um, property management company to deliver
gift cards, target gift cards to all of our tenants.
Um, so as you know, a lot of, uh, people were out of work or, or whatnot.
Um, we tried to show, you know, just some humanity and understanding
and proof of concept was that all of our tenants paid their rent on time.
So, uh, you know, it, it doesn't need to be much.
It was like gift cards for 25 bucks each, but, um, it showed
that we, we were thinking of them.
So good response.
Awesome.
Great story, Mike.
Thanks for sharing.
Okay.
We have, um, everything will be uploaded in, uh,
Connect, we have, we're just gonna share the screen,
I'll show you what we have for the tool
and it is a combination, well, okay, first we'll do the,
actually, is the tool back one slide, probably?
Oh, yes, yeah.
Yes, and then put the tool in the chat as well.
There we go, tenant says your client toolkit,
some sample tenant messages, holiday safety checklists,
and a quick tenant appreciation ideas.
So all on one page,
I love when Richard gets it on the one page.
And next, coming up in December,
we have a few things, weekly win,
which was already this week,
we have the weekly win coming Monday, December 8th,
and the last one, December 15th,
and hold the phones,
biannual group coaching session
with Michael and Scott, 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
on Wednesday, December 10th.
That is not, is that next?
That's next week.
Yeah, next Wednesday.
It is next Wednesday.
Wow.
Yep.
Just doesn't sound like it would be right
to say December 10th.
Time is fine.
Yep, so that's next Wednesday.
That'll be a good one.
So make sure you're there for it.
And we have one more slide.
Just a reminder for the monthly,
or the weekly win sessions.
Yeah, good stuff.
Brandon.
Just wondering if there's any plan
for releasing the recording from Saturday's event.
Is that in the works?
I don't know.
I'm unsure.
Get back to you.
Yes, we know it was recorded,
and we know that if you were in attendance,
or if you missed it, it will be released, yeah.
Oh, I don't know timing, sorry.
Yeah, and we don't know if it'll be the full day,
but some of the sessions have been recorded, yeah.
Now that I say this,
I remember a conversation with Richard saying,
don't necessarily expect to have it
before the end of December.
But if you do, bonus.
Okay.
I remember that conversation.
Yeah, it'd just be great to go back over the things,
because there's so much.
Even if you were there,
you had to be able to go back over it, so.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, even if it's to see Sasha get hot and bothered,
that was the highlight of mine.
He was taking it quite personally.
Oh, yeah.
Dealing with the city.
Anyways.
Okay, this was great.
Wendy, thank you so much.
Jo, I think you got to put the link for the-
The survey's in there.
The survey.
Yep, survey link is in there, tool is in there.
Reach out to us for anything and everything,
often and always.
Congrats again for making it to your monthly mastery.
I hope that you're taking away great value
from this session,
and that it will impact the way that you landlord
moving forward, if not already.
Last question.
How many dogs can you fit under your desk
during a monthly mastery?
The answer is three.
Three is-
Oh, Jason.
Ridiculous.
You have three dogs?
Not small dogs.
This is 50 to 60 pound dogs that are all under my desk,
vying for my attention.
Oh, very cute.
All right.
Jo says two.
Jo's got two.
Oh, they're behind Jo.
I can see them behind Jo.
Next time we'll have to have a show your dogs session.
Seriously?
Yeah.
That'd be fun.
All right, everyone.
Thank you.
And if we don't hear,
happy holidays, Merry Christmas to all.
Yes.
Nice to see everybody.
Take care, all.
Take care.
Bye, guys.
Thanks.