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Tea Time at McKenna
13 Plays2 months ago
🎧 Welcome to Thoughts For Rent — the podcast where real estate gets real (and local)!
Hosted by Jenni McKenna, a Las Vegas born and raised seasoned broker, and Owner of McKenna Property Management, this show is your inside look at what’s really happening in the Vegas property management and real estate world. With over 20 years of experience herself - Jenni brings not just knowledge, but heart to the conversation.
Whether we’re talking market trends, property tips, community happenings, or just the everyday quirks of Vegas living, this podcast is all about keeping you in the know.
💬 Real talk. Local stories. Professional insight – provided from a company who has their boots on the ground and hearts in the community.
In this episode, we’re covering all the fun stories we encounter at our job. Some crazy HOA's, and clients. We spill it all.
McKenna Property Management, proudly managing Las Vegas homes since 2005 (and loving every minute of it).
Hit subscribe and comment down below to join the conversation! 💛
✨ Stay connected with us!
Instagram: @mckennapropertymanagement
Facebook: McKenna Property Management
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Website: McKennaPropertyManagement.com
Phone: 702-434-HOME (4663)
Owner/Broker: Jenni McKenna B.29819
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Transcript
Intro
00:00:20
Irelynn Zurflueh
Well, welcome to the podcast, Thoughts for Rent, Realtors Keeping It Real. So why do you think we did Thoughts for Rent, Ireland? Well, because it's always like penny for your thoughts and you've been doing it long enough that it's important to hear people who are in the industry who know what they're talking about.
00:00:40
Irelynn Zurflueh
Penny for your thoughts. So we've got Ireland Zerflu sitting next to me. I'm Jenny McKenna. I'm the owner broker of McKenna Property Management. And I actually thought we did thoughts for rent because i rent out properties all the time.
00:00:53
Irelynn Zurflueh
So I guess it could be multiple things at that point. But you are listening to the podcast thoughts for rent realtors keeping it real. And today, Ireland and i we want to dish some tea.
00:01:06
Irelynn Zurflueh
You ready to get real? Yeah, let's Tell our listeners some of the things that are either true or things that we ran into that were funny.
00:01:17
Irelynn Zurflueh
Okay. Sorry, I had to cough. All right. So one of the things I get all the time. Jenny, my property on Zillow and what you're telling me is $1,700 in monthly rent.
00:01:33
Irelynn Zurflueh
And I go, yes, that is correct. That is fair market rent for today. And you know what they say, Ireland? What? Let's go to 2000. And I go, why? And they go, oh, because if we go higher, then we're going attract a quality tenant.
00:01:54
Irelynn Zurflueh
I must tell you that is not true. I've been doing property management since 1993, owned the company since 2005, owner broker, and I can absolutely with my hand to heaven tell you that is not the way you get quality residents.
00:02:13
Irelynn Zurflueh
Because fair market rent is fair market rent. It's just the way it is. And a savvy renter, somebody who's got great background, referrals, um can afford it, knows the community, they are not going to pay $300 more in rent. They're going to look at that $2,000 asking rent and they are going to say, nope, crazy owner, not even going to waste my time.
00:02:38
Irelynn Zurflueh
Not going to even try to negotiate. Yeah. Not going to waste my time. So that is something that I believe is a good lesson to share with everyone and a little bit of tea on the fact of no good resident is going to pay $300 more in rent.
00:02:56
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah. Especially if you're working with an agent because agents are trained to know what the current market value is. So for all of our properties, we make people view them in person before they even get approved, which means you are working with an agent.
00:03:09
Irelynn Zurflueh
And if you're working with an agent, they'll tell you if it's overpriced. And then that's usually them saying and it's not worth it because if it's overpriced, these owners aren't willing to be reasonable. Yep.
00:03:20
Irelynn Zurflueh
And if you don't have a reasonable owner, run, run, don't walk, run from that property. Right? So here's another one. Um, you do applications, Ireland,
00:03:36
Irelynn Zurflueh
When somebody says to you, Ireland, my last rental, I left it better than when I got it. What do you think in your head immediately?
00:03:48
Irelynn Zurflueh
I mean, the first thing I think in my head is show me the receipts. That's true. That's true. Show me the proof, right? Yeah. Show me the proof. And then they don't because there is no proof because it usually is not the case.
00:04:00
Irelynn Zurflueh
Well, I'm going to be even more blunt than Ireland. Ireland's being very nice. Ireland's like, you know, we'll give them the benefit of the doubt, ask them for the receipts. We'll see if, if what they're saying, you know, can be backed up.
00:04:12
Irelynn Zurflueh
You know what I think in my mind after so many years of doing this? huge red flag, massive red flag, because anybody, and I promise you this has happened at least 30 times in my life. So the data is there.
00:04:27
Irelynn Zurflueh
When they say to me, oh, my last rental, I left it better than when that owner gave it to me. It looked better when I moved out than it did, um than when I got it.
00:04:38
Irelynn Zurflueh
I think whole crap we are in for a wild ride because this woman, man, whoever it is, we are going to be in trouble. So that's a red flag. So if you're an applicant and you want to impress either the ah landlord who is managing their rental themselves or a property management company, don't use those words in the industry.
00:05:02
Irelynn Zurflueh
Big red flag. Huge. Okay. What's another one? Or have the links to back it up. I've had people actually send me photos of their houses and and of their site evaluations or of their yearly inspections showing that they keep the house clean. So if you are going to use those words, come with the proof, come with the receipts.
00:05:19
Irelynn Zurflueh
Don't just say it. Yeah, but don't you think that the people that are doing that, they just send it to you in an email and say, this is how I live. They don't say, oh, I left the property better than when I moved in.
00:05:30
Irelynn Zurflueh
no they just, they have the proof. So they just say, Ireland sent you an email of my last site evaluation. Take a look at the photos so that you can see how I live in a property. Yeah. Yeah.
00:05:41
Irelynn Zurflueh
I mean, though that's why i think that when you say those words, Oh, I left the property better than when I moved in. That's the red flag, not the, Oh, I'm going to send you over my site evaluation so you can see how I can live.
00:05:54
Irelynn Zurflueh
Or Hey, can take a look at my car and you can see how I'm meticulous on keeping everything clean and organized. Right. If you know, you're that kind of person, you're going tonna have the proof to show it.
00:06:05
Irelynn Zurflueh
But if you're just yapping, That's just yapping. And I can promise you when I go into that property after they move out, I'm probably not going to use the words, oh, wow, look at how great they left this property. It's probably going to be the absolute opposite.
00:06:23
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah. right. So let's dish another one. What's some more tea that we can talk about in the world that we live in Well, we do have a lot of homeowners associations and those do lead to a lot of violations. And some people,
00:06:37
Irelynn Zurflueh
get violations weekly and then it starts to get really annoying and then they start to get really angry. One time we asked someone to send proof that the violation had been closed and their son sent a photo of a completely different property.
00:06:52
Irelynn Zurflueh
And so when we sent the photo in the HOA came back and said, this isn't even the unit. And it was like their teenage son just being ah teenage so total teenager. And so we had to deal with that. So a lot of times we'll actually get people who will send us like old photos.
00:07:09
Irelynn Zurflueh
So if it's if the trash is out or the weeds need to be pulled or something needs to be taken off the patio, we'll tell them that that needs to happen. And then they might have sent us a photo from like four months ago when they had gotten the violation four months ago. and then- we have to compare and contrast these photos and we're basically saying you sent us the same photo.
00:07:30
Irelynn Zurflueh
I had someone who ah wanted their tree trimmed And I said, it's it's not time yet. Give it like three months. And then three months go by and they send me the same photos from three months ago.
00:07:41
Irelynn Zurflueh
I was like, why would you not send me up-to-date photos? And then when they did send me up-to-date photos, the trees were significantly worse. I was like, why would you send me these like very fine looking trees from three months ago rather than the overgrown trees currently?
00:07:58
Irelynn Zurflueh
So some people do Send some old photos and I think every time I see those and I catch that, I think to myself, why? why are you doing this? why I think that probably at least two or three times a week in this office, if we had cameras set up in all the different um offices of of our team members.
00:08:19
Irelynn Zurflueh
I think we could make a million dollars on the funniest home videos. I really do. Because the things that get sent to us are just crazy sometimes. I remember this and I wish that I could show you the picture, but I got called in. This has to be eight or nine years ago.
00:08:39
Irelynn Zurflueh
I got called into our maintenance department. And this is the department that takes in all the, you know, requests for repairs. Something's broken. We need to get something fixed and they send it in.
00:08:50
Irelynn Zurflueh
Well, I got called in and the team member says, Jenny, take a look at this video that a resident has sent in. So I watched the video and just imagine...
00:09:03
Irelynn Zurflueh
A woman opens up just the old style refrigerator. So you got the freezer on the top, the fridge on the bottom. She opens up the regular refrigerator part.
00:09:15
Irelynn Zurflueh
She puts her entire body into the refrigerator. And she's, I can hear her on the video. She goes, look, and she opens up the fridge, sticks her entire body in, and then hits her head on some shelving that is inside the refrigerator and says, this refrigerator is too small.
00:09:33
Irelynn Zurflueh
I can't get my head in the refrigerator. I have never laughed so hard. All right. I thought they were punking me. It's not. It was true.
00:09:43
Irelynn Zurflueh
We had somebody that believed that their refrigerator needed to be bigger. and that was validation to send in a repair request. So I called the resident and I said, is the refrigerator actually working? Is it cooling?
00:09:58
Irelynn Zurflueh
Oh, she goes, oh yeah, it's cooling. I go, well, don't stick your head in the refrigerator. You're not supposed to be putting your head in a refrigerator anyways. So I had to educate her on a refrigerator doest ah Does not have to have the capacity of sticking your entire body in.
00:10:14
Irelynn Zurflueh
But I mean, that is just one of so many that happen on a weekly basis in property management. Yeah. Where are their moms and dads? Like, where did they learn to stick a head and their body in a refrigerator?
00:10:30
Irelynn Zurflueh
I mean, Ireland, you've lived in my house for a while. When did you ever walk up to a refrigerator and stick a head in there and go, oh, I need to get a new refrigerator. It's not working. I will say I've never thought that once before. That is just, that is some of the tea, you guys.
00:10:44
Irelynn Zurflueh
If you ever want to be in an environment, an office environment where you get to chuckle about every couple of days over The question, why are they doing that?
00:10:56
Irelynn Zurflueh
It's property management, don't you think? I would say so. I have a friend um who's in the industry who was just telling me a story last week about how they received an HOA violation for pet waste, but he has fake poop like his kids like to play with fake like clay poop.
00:11:16
Irelynn Zurflueh
And so he sent a reply being like, oh, yeah, sorry, it's not like real poop. It's fake poop. It's a toy. It's the plastic fake poop. Yeah. And he like sent a picture of him like holding the fake poop.
00:11:29
Irelynn Zurflueh
And then. The staff employee took that photo and sent it to the HOA to try to close the violation. So I'm sure the person on the other line was like, why are they sending me a picture of this person like holding poop? Right. Also, why does this person have fake poop? Why multiple fake poop? Like one fake poop to hide a key underneath it, right? I've seen that where you stick the key in underneath and you got the fake poop there because nobody's going to pick up poop to pee.
00:11:54
Irelynn Zurflueh
But more than I've never seen that before. I've never seen fake poop behind a key. They have that. They have that Home Depot. I see the fake rocks, but not. Oh, no, there's fake poop. Because on a fake rock, you might want to pick up a rock. Maybe that's a pretty rock.
00:12:05
Irelynn Zurflueh
Maybe that can be a pet rock. you Remember pet rocks? No, you don't because you're too young. But I do. We used to have pet rocks. But Home Depot, Lowe's some of those others, you can, and I'm sure Amazon, you can buy um like a hidden key holder and it looks like fake poop.
00:12:23
Irelynn Zurflueh
Promise. I've seen it. You're going get an HOA violation if you leave fake poop out. Yeah. The HOA doesn't, it doesn't matter. They don't care if it's fake. If it looks like poop, even if it doesn't smell like poop, they're still going to get you an HOA violation.
00:12:38
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah. So there's another thing that that comes across all the time. ah This is more kind of for education. and We have applicants that always seem to think that paying three or six months of rent up front is advantageous to the owner.
00:12:56
Irelynn Zurflueh
And I want to get your opinion because i have mine and I'll share it. But Ireland, what are your thoughts on when somebody's pushing so hard to come up with that three or six months of rent at the time of signing the lease?
00:13:10
Irelynn Zurflueh
Truthfully, it's not super beneficial. I don't think it makes your app stronger. a lot of times people will usually pitch that if they have a lower credit score caused by items in collections or just past due balances.
00:13:25
Irelynn Zurflueh
So i always question and ask myself, why wouldn't you just apply that money to your past due bills to make your credit score stronger yeah rather than continuing to have a weaker credit score and paying three months of rent upfront, I think that you're going to have a better chance of getting into a property with a strong credit score than you are offering to pay three to six months of rent upfront.
00:13:51
Irelynn Zurflueh
We've gotten pretty lucky in that it hasn't completely bitten us, but that same friend who shared the poop story with me, she did accept someone who paid three months of rent upfront and month four, they fully called up and said, yeah, I don't have that money.
00:14:05
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yep. Because they ended up with kind of some kind of of settlement Or they ended up with, believe it or not, they get money right now from colleges for like semesters. So you get a lump sum that is deposited in your bank account.
00:14:19
Irelynn Zurflueh
And if you just end up not doing the college semester, you still have the money and then you have to figure out how to give it back. But they use that for their housing. There is, i call it, they're playing the game.
00:14:31
Irelynn Zurflueh
And I don't want a resident playing a game when they're moving into my owner's investment. I mean, these investments are big investments. They're $400,000, $500,000, $600,000 homes.
00:14:45
Irelynn Zurflueh
I'm not going to want a resident starting off the tenancy. playing that game. And that's what I think in my mind when somebody is putting an application and they're giving me the song and dance, I can pay three months up front. I can pay six months up front.
00:15:01
Irelynn Zurflueh
No, do exactly what Ireland said. If your FICA score is a little low and that's why we're second guessing if you want to, you know, if we should approve your application, go take that money and get those collections off of your credit report.
00:15:14
Irelynn Zurflueh
yeah That's what you should do. Or put your money where your mouth is and offer to apply it to the security deposit. I do see people who do offer double security or sometimes triple security, which is the max you can charge in Nevada. in nevada And i think that is more appealing than offering to pay three months up front, because that means that you're saying, I'm going to put this money and I'm going to take care of your property. I'm gonna take care of it so well that when the time comes for me to get that money back, I will.
00:15:45
Irelynn Zurflueh
And so usually if people are offering one or the other, i would say lean more towards offering the increase in the security deposit. And I agree 100% because that's not playing a game now.
00:15:57
Irelynn Zurflueh
That's actually being proactive and saying, I am so confident that you are going to like how I leave this property that I will get my money back. That's how confident I am. I'm going to give you the security deposit because I'm going to get it back when I move out of this property.
00:16:13
Irelynn Zurflueh
That to me, that is impressive. I would look at that very seriously, even if their FICA score was a little lower, because having that extra security deposit makes the owner warm and fuzzy.
00:16:25
Irelynn Zurflueh
And it certainly makes us as property managers, we feel like they're not trying to play the game. They're putting their money where their mouth is. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we have i entertained you for about 17 minutes today.
00:16:40
Irelynn Zurflueh
We've dished some pretty good tea. There's always more tea. We will be offering more tea in this podcast as the months go on. But what can they do, Ireland, if they have any questions, concerns, comments, or want to share this episode with someone else?
00:16:55
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yes. So if you like hearing what we have to say, then follow and subscribe. um And then if you have any questions regarding Nevada investment, Nevada real estate, Nevada property management, then give us a call.
00:17:07
Irelynn Zurflueh
McKennaPropertyManagement.com is our website and you can reach us at um info at McKennaTeam.com. If you have any questions, we'd be happy to either find you a place for your next rental or potentially help you rent out your investment property. But if you like hearing some crazy stories, then just follow and subscribe. but Sounds great. We will be here next time. This is Thoughts for Rent.
00:17:32
Irelynn Zurflueh
Realtors keeping it real with Ireland Zerflu and Jenny McKenna. Bye.