You Mustn’t Stop Learning New Landlord Tricks

Old Dog? New Tricks?

Yes, I’ve become an old dog. When I look in that mirror I’m definitely not 29 anymore and I’m far past 39, but I do know, I need to keep on learning because the world isn’t stopping around me. And the last couple weeks have reminded me of this.

When I first jumped into Real Estate, I was veracious with my appetite to learn everything I could. I changed my whole life stye around and gave up many guilty pleasures like TV, computer games and more. Those little things that stole precious learning time from me.

I attended seminars, read books. moved from watching TV series to renovation series and home improvement shows and spent hours on the computer analyzing, researching and educating myself. Then when we had free time, we’d hang out with other Real Estate investors to learn even more.

It was like this for the first four years into what became our new full time career, then I think I just got comfortable. We’d bought and sold dozens and dozens of properties. We had systems in place, we knew what to expect and our learning slowed. We were comfortably numb.

We drifted back to more TV series, attended fewer meetings with other investors and started to rest on our laurels. We just wanted to get a little more balance of some kind in our life after all our hard work. Or so we convinced ourselves.

Not that we weren’t busy still, in a three month period around this time, we actually bought five properties plus a new home for ourselves and we had several other flip projects going on from earlier purchases that year. So there was plenty of Real Estate action going on and occupying our time.

We had renovations projects we had to schedule and manage, contractors to meet and coordinate with, we had advertising to prep and marketing for the rentals and the flip properties.  All with tight timelines as we wanted to get all the properties operational as quickly as possible. Empty properties simply don’t generate cash flow and unsold properties eat up profits with all their carrying costs.

Then The Bottom Dropped

Unfortunately, just about the same time we finished all the renovations and updates on the newly acquired properties is also when the financial crisis hit. So we moved into full hang on and wait mode. Which really elevated our coasting status.

Fortunately it took a while for the slow down to affect our rental properties and because we tended to have great tenants, it really didn’t hurt our day to day steady landlord business, but it virtually wiped out our growth as we weren’t sure the market was heading. Rather than make a bad decision, we just battened down the hatches so we could ride this through.

During this lull, we took advantage of our new found free time and promptly quit learning about what had gotten us to where we were.

While I found new areas to focus my thirst for knowledge with, I also started falling back into the habits of old. More TV, more games (Xbox now versus computers), less hanging out with investors and contractors and other people in the industry.

Sure our properties were coasting along fairly well due to all the systems we had in place, but we lost that excitement, that energy, that drive as we sat back and coasted on our laurels. (I know, finally it feels like he is getting to a point!).

Staying Thirsty

So the point. Finally.

To really succeed, you need to keep learning. Your competition is probably doing it, so why aren’t you?

We need to keep expanding our current knowledge and we need to stay on top of what’s happening in our field of choice. We have to stay thirsty. And this doesn’t just apply to being a landlord.

Our wake up call was a gradual nudge over the last couple of months. I’ve begun noticing all these new flipping shows appearing on the TV and new shows about rental properties and I’ve started to PVR them.

Now when I have a 30 minute break I’ll watch one of these for some thoughts and ideas. Some I may not agree with, while others are new and innovative, whether it’s new products available or new ways to look at situations.

One of these was a new flooring product I’ve seen multiple times on these shows as a substitute for laminate (personally I really dislike laminate floors, they typically get installed poorly and without proper underlay and insulation creating echo chambers in rental properties).

My wife and I have recently been busy cleaning up one of our shared accommodation properties and we’ve discovered several areas of water damage in the property to the currently installed  laminate flooring. We could potentially leave it be for another year, but this just opens the door for compounded problems and doesn’t solve anything.

The laminate came with the property and wasn’t installed very well to begin with. Add in seven years of use and abuse and it’s useful life had really caught up with it. As an added bonus,  if we improve the place, it also gives us an opportunity to consider higher rents in the future. So we have multiple reasons to deal with this.

Back to the new flooring product. Our flooring guy brings in a few samples to look at while he measures out the property and it’s gorgeous. It’s a very sturdy product and the way it is built, the fibre underlay creates a natural sound deadening effect.

Unlike laminate it doesn’t chip and it’s even resistant to denting. Unlike vinyl, it’s pliable and resistant to cuts. Plus it’s pattern is embossed into the product creating a texture that will help hide any accidents like a dropped knife (if they could even penetrate it!).

Perhaps best of all it will be one single piece that will run from the dining room, through the kitchen, down the hall and into the bathroom with no gaps or opening for water damage other than against the walls and cabinets. This will help prevent even more problems from potential water accidents.

So thanks to one of these renovating shows we learned about it and are now putting it in place. Thanks also to our flooring guy, we’ve had our eyes opened to other properties we can look at installing it into as well.

OK, product update.
This flooring is by Mannington and is the Sobella line.
The particular collection we are using is the Sobella Deluxe and
we chose the Hatteras pattern which works with the existing carpet
Mannington Sobella Flooring

So back to the point, if we weren’t open to learning, we wouldn’t have known about this product. If we hadn’t been watching these renovations shows and kick started some of our old habits, we would be looking at potentially installing more laminate.

Too often we focus on what we know as it is tried and true. We just need to be open to learning additional new things as we move forward. Whether it’s taking advantage of technology to improve screening tenants, or whether it’s staying current on new products for updating our properties our adventure as landlords is an ever learning process.

So stay thirsty, be the old dog (if you’re like me) and learn a new trick and don’t get too content you stop learning.

If you can relate to any of this, I’d love to hear your story, so leave us a comment and tell us of any tricks you’ve recently learned.