The Different Paths For Entering The Real Estate World | Tyler Bradford X Zain Jaffer

If you are looking to enter the real estate industry, there are dozens of different paths available for you to take. This episode will help you understand where to begin your career in real estate. Learn everything you need to know about starting.

Barge Properties, a Temple-based company, personifies the genuine ideal of a management company with great capabilities and experience. Their vast knowledge of the Texas real estate market, especially Multifamily, allows them the unique ability to navigate any management issues with ease. Their goal is not to operate your apartment community but to team up with you to streamline operations and maximize property value and profitability.

Know more

https://www.bargeproperties.com/

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The Different Paths For Entering The Real Estate World | Tyler Bradford X Zain Jaffer

We are joined by Tyler Bradford, the President of Barge Properties Management. Barge is based in Texas and essentially manages the whole Texas Region, where the particular focus is on Central and East Texas. They have several thousand units under management. They are also one of the property management firms that I personally use. I'm excited to have Tyler on the show. Tyler, thank you for coming on.

Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to it.

Tyler, give us a quick background. How did you get so involved in property management?

I was initially interested in real estate and business. I found myself at a young age, 15 or 16, wanting to learn more about it. The best way to do that was from the ground up and learn what goes into it from the maintenance standpoint. I started by working at some of the properties around town during the summers, cleaning, painting, and then doing make-readies and learning how to get a unit ready for the next resident.

You learn from the ground up.

That led to learning about the management process, leasing, the numbers, and getting into the nitty-gritty. By that time, I was ready to go to college and realized that I wanted to make real estate a long-term career choice. I tried to learn all the different aspects of property management. That has led me to where I am in learning the various regions and specifics.

There are a couple of paths people have going into property management. It might be that you are an investor and bought a single-family rental. You want to save money and take on the crazy task of managing yourself. It's not much work if it's 1 or 2 units. Eventually, you get more units, and your friends ask you if you can manage theirs. Before you know it, you've got a small portfolio. On the other hand, you could be an owner. You have interesting perspectives on this because of the history of Barge.

You can be an owner, and you might decide, "I'm tired of working with other property management firms. We think we can do better ourselves because we do things our own way." You simply take over at that point or you can get a job at a property management firm at different levels. Going into real estate, doing the maintenance and the hard labor, that's an interesting path. What did that give you? What view do you have about the ideal way for someone to enter the real estate segment and property management in particular?

For me, starting at that level at the time, I didn't necessarily want to do that. I didn't want to paint in the Texas heat and power wash all day. I've learned that it was valuable. In the position I am in, that's more of supervising property managers, which filters down all the way to the maintenance. It helped me learn firsthand what to do and what not to do. I know what to expect from employees at that level and what is a good way to go about maintenance work. You learn from the ground up. That's why I took that path but a lot of people don't take that path.

They know based on their personality of, "I'm good with people, marketing and advertising. I want to become a leasing agent." Once they start doing that, they might realize the next step is, "I would like to become an assistant manager and work my way up towards being a manager of a whole property." The same thing can go for maintenance. A lot of people will start as a make-ready technician or a porter, as I did and then work their way up from there to running the whole show on the maintenance end. Those are the two ways I would see people initially start if they are brand new. It is either on the maintenance side, starting with make-ready or as a leasing agent on more of the office side of the operations.

Having a technology company myself, I can attest there are multiple parts to success, whether it's running your own property management firm or running your own high-tech company. After I sold my company, I learned to code. I felt I was at a tremendous disadvantage when you are hiring a company that relies on technical engineering talent. If you can't code, you are relying on their estimates.

Your property manager oversees everything down to the porter and makes sure that the property is just running as smoothly and as efficiently as possible.

When you ask for something out of scope, you don't appreciate the practical nature of shipping the product. I'm imagining that you are going in at the ground level, doing the power washing the Texas heat, and painting must have given you a unique perspective around renovations and what it takes. Is this true? Do you also get more respect from maintenance and renovations staff because you've walked in their shoes before, and you know what it takes?

Yes. It cuts both ways because they understand if they know my background. They know that I've done this before. They don't try to get by easy because I tell them, " I've done this. I have been in your shoes and know." It also creates a respect level that I have for them because I know that it can be tough. It can be tiring. It's a taxing job. There's a lot that goes into it. Things are always breaking. Things are always needing to be fixed. There's always turnover and new make-readies to be done. It creates an interesting relationship because you are able to connect with those employees. There's a respect that goes both ways.

Tyler, tell us a bit about the owners who decide to take on property management themselves and maybe a bit about Barge here as well. That's what makes you pretty unique. Why do some firms decide to take it on themselves? How should an investor or real estate owner decide whether they want to outsource property management or whether they want to make it part of their core competence?

From looking at certain properties, I have found that there are certain owners that do well if they are focused on, say 100-unit apartment complex. Their main job is to supervise and put their time into the supervision and oversight of that property. If you are an owner and are like, "I can look at the numbers. I can make sure that the onsite manager's doing a good job," but you have another day job that you are dealing with. That's where I see things start to go wrong. You are treating it more as a passive investment versus it needs to be more active if you are going to manage it yourself.

I have seen some inefficiencies there. Plus, if that's your only investment, you lose some of the scales that a property management company that does just that has, some of their pricing power, and things of that nature. A lot of owners tend to want to invest in real estate but don't want to deal with the day-to-day headaches that come along with it dealing with residents. That's where a property management firm comes into place. It has to be a firm that you trust, you know is going to do a good job, and look out for both the owner and the residents that call that apartment, house or whatever the asset may be, their home.

What roles are typically found in property management firms?

You've got it segregated into two camps. You have the onsite personnel. If we are talking apartments, at each apartment complex, you will have a maintenance staff there. That can be a porter make-ready person that primarily paints, picks up the grounds, and helps out in the lower level maintenance activities. You can have assistant maintenance that will do the porter's job plus some work orders. You've got your lead maintenance that ensures that everything on the property is running well. He's usually certified to work on HVAC systems and the nature of higher-level issues.

In the office, you typically have a leasing agent that will show units and property, and then an assistant manager that will show the property as well but will do some more administrative functions to help the manager. You have your property manager that oversees everything down to the porter and makes sure that the property is running as smoothly and as efficiently as possible. There are a lot of things that go into that role.

You step up to a little bit more of a corporate level, a supervisor. The supervisor typically will oversee a certain geographical region. I have found that not to overload a regional manager, you typically want them to have between 5 and 6 properties if we are talking multifamily or self-storage. That keeps them efficient. Where they are not overloaded, they can pay attention to the property and give it the care it needs. From there, you go up to a vice president role overseeing those regionals and then up to the president of the company and general ownership.

At what level does an owner engage with the property management firm? Who is the day-to-day contact? Who helps the owner figure out if you would be a good fit for their needs as a property manager?

Typically, the way that Barge Properties handles it is most of the time, we try to get the regional manager involved with ownership from an early point. The vice president or president might be the first contact a lot of the time but then try to bring the regional manager in as early as possible. Ownership knows them, is comfortable with them, and feels comfortable coming to that regional manager supervisor with questions, concerns they might see on a report or anything of that nature. They have that relationship. The regional should be knowledgeable about what's going on at the property level.

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About Zain Jaffer

Zain Jaffer is an accomplished executive, investor, and entrepreneur. He started his first company at the age of 14 and later moved to the US as an immigrant to found Vungle, after securing $25M from tech giants including Google & AOL in 2011. Vungle recently sold for $780m.

His achievements have garnered international recognition and acclaim; he is the recipient of prestigious awards such as “Forbes 30 Under 30”, “Inc. Magazine’s 35 Under 35,” and the “SF Business Times Tech & Innovation Award.” He is regularly featured in major business & tech publications such as The Wall Street Journal, VentureBeat, and TechCrunch.