Few things have changed the property management industry more in the last five years than a growing proptech industry, but that industry continues to go through changes of its own.
Nate Smoyer, host of the Tech Nest Podcast, joins Andrew Smallwood to cover the state of the proptech industry, where things could be headed, and how it’s all likely to affect you as a property manager.
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Season 4 Episode 15 features Nate Smoyer
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Transcript
Andrew Smallwood
Hello, professional property managers Andrew Smallwood here with the Triple Win podcast. And I'm joined today by my friend and industry experts, Nate Smoyer. He’s is the host of the Tech Nest podcast. And, Nate, I'm sure there's going to be some people who are familiar with you and have heard you before, and they're listeners of your podcast. I'm also confident there's gonna be people who are hearing your name for the first time, to be introduced to you for the first time. So I'd love to just set you up. What should our audience know about you before we dig into that?
Nate Smoyer
Yeah. Andrew, this is a lot of fun. Actually, I'm excited to do this conversation with you, and I'm certain most haven't heard of me yet, but, yeah, I'm Nate Smoyer. I host Tech Nest, the prop tech podcast, as well as publish the newsletter we typically talk with and feature investors, founders and CEOs of prop tech startups looking to find out what they're doing to change the way we buy, sell and invest in real estate. I've been in prop tech now exclusively as my industry focus for about seven years or so, primarily, I work internally at startups, building marketing teams and programs, those early stage. So things like seed stage series, a, getting them up to 50 plus million in, valuations. Today, I actually work as a fractional head of strategy and marketing for those same early stage startups. Probably not totally relevant to property management, but, you know, product led growth companies, those that are like a B2B, C or B2C type play are really where I specialize. So yeah, excited to be here and talk all things, prop tech that's relevant to property management operations, the growth, the, you know, things that are making that industry a little bit more fun these days.
Andrew Smallwood
Yeah, yeah. And I know we have some prop tech founders, CEOs, etc. that are listening to this podcast, as well. And I think a couple of them I've seen have been guests and a few more who maybe, maybe future guests. So great. Well, I'd love to like from your perspective, Nate, because, I mean, you've talked to hundreds and there's your podcast, but then I also see you at a number of industry events and everything else and you're very tapped into, hey, there's a big ecosystem here at prop tech, and it's been growing and developing over the years. I'm kind of just curious, your point of view right now on what's happening kind of in the state of prop tech, if you will?
Nate Smoyer
Yeah, there's been a bit of an evolution. You know, we kind of take it back a few years. It was all about the headlines of how much you've raised and very big picture, we're going to build this unicorn company that does this thing and we justify it because look at the value of real estate and look at the number of people in this. And of course we can just identify them and they're going to want this. It's an obvious solution, I think about a lot of startups have discovered that want to be in the space. And even though the space has grown in terms of like number of startups, amount of money invested, you know, the amount of industry veterans actually taking an interest in adopting technology is that the change doesn't happen as fast as everyone kind of assumed it would. And this isn't B2B SaaS, you know, or B2B software. It's a little bit different. And so that evolution from big picture, you know, high valuations, going public as a company type thing has really shifted to actually, it needs to drive foundational change within organizations. Meaning like there has to be real revenue impact to us, be real impact on the reduction of expenses. There has to be real impact on ability to remain compliant and improve automations to reduce additional staff as we grow as a company. And that's actually extremely hard. And now that we've totally exited this period of time of quote, free money quote, right, we're the XRP, if you will, this actually put a lot of pressure on venture backed companies that want to be in Proptech. And, you know, a lot of companies tend to do raises somewhere between every like 18 to 24 months, right. And they do this so that they can maintain a high rate of growth. And in order to maintain that high rate of growth is to sacrifice profitability. Well, money's not flowing as easily as it was previously. And so the startups that found themselves, oh, shoot, the faucet that was at full bore funding all these companies has really kind of is really tamed down. Maybe it's a little bit more than a trickle, but the money isn't flowing as easily. And so now those startups themselves have to get healthy and they're really honing in on how do we impact our customer's business. That's both in property management, investment management, portfolio, etc. like the whole nine yards. And we have seen, some closures of startups but we've also actually seen it. And I just had a really interesting discussion with a boutique M&A firm yesterday where M&A activity is likely increasing because of the current environment on how startups can get funding. And I think this is a really healthy thing. It's not to say that prop tech is dead. It's not to say that, oh, all these big lofty visions will never come true. I think what it is, it's a realization that proptech companies can't necessarily grow in scale the same way as B2B solutions in, you know, the broader business ecosystem, because we just have so many different nuances in our businesses. And I'm sure, you know, any property manager listening to this is like nodding their head of like, yeah, there's people involved as soon as you start adding in more people and players as well as like sometimes legal or regulatory requirements, you're going to have added friction to growth. And I think ultimately this has got to produce better solutions for the industry. This is going to be a really great time because we're going to see the best of solutions rise to the top. They're going to stick around, they're going to be able to get through a tough period where, you know, raising capital isn't as easy as just a big idea. 20 slides in a deck and an intro over coffee to, you know, secure your $10 million to go for another two years. So that's kind of how I see it. So I look at it like it's definitely a new inflection point on the industry. I will say also to add to that, I think the excitement around the industry and what's happening couldn't be higher. And I see this when I'm at those events, you know, whether it's blueprint or the different IMN events, those are usually the ones attend or pre-tech. The excitement is there, the passion is there. And it's not just from the founders and players within tech, it's actually from the operators as well. I'm seeing more and more of they're experiencing the benefits of the solutions. It's not just a line item in the expense column. It's actually driving change for businesses. And I think that's ultimately that's what we all aspired to. That's what we're setting out to accomplish, you know, to change the way we buy sound, invest in real estate, is ultimately how I think that, you know, tech should be done, you know, with the leverage of, you know, leveraging technology versus just adding more staff and that sort of thing. So that's kind of how I see the industry right now. It's a really great time to be in it.
Andrew Smallwood
Yeah. Yeah. And I'm curious about your perspective, you know, we've seen a lot of proptech pointed out like transactions. Right. And obviously what's happening in sales transactions and there's construction tech. There's kind of like these like subgroups. Yeah. You know, if you will, you were laying out a couple different frameworks of that. And we have seen like an increasing interest kind of in the long term rental space. There's always been interest there. There's always been companies and investment instead of there. But we are seeing, you know, as the market has been shifting over the last couple of years, kind of increase interest there. And then you talked a little bit about, hey, some companies not continuing to get same funding, maybe a prediction of we'll probably see more M&A activity know or LBOs and things like that. From this point forward you know, what are you seeing though in like the early almost like seed stage. Are you seeing a similar number of companies cropping up and getting those first checks and investment? Is it more than it used to be, less than it used to be? Just curious what you're seeing there.
Nate Smoyer
Yeah, I think so. Last year Proptech funding was down like something like 30 or 40% year over year compared to 2022. And at first glance that really looks like a sour thing. It's like, I don't know, investors are pulling out. They don't want to fund the industry. Actually, if you take a look back at it, the number of pre-seed seed and, and series transactions was down. But it wasn't that extreme. In fact, it was really greater than $10 million rounds. That's where you saw the sharp decline. And I think you saw that sharp decline, because at that point, investors were saying, hey, what's the long term viability here? We can't just burn cash forever. Like, do you have a path to profitability? Do you actually have a path to a sustainable business of some sort? And I think that, you know, that demand because, you know, quite frankly, you know, we've seen such financial turmoil since the cost of money is increased that people aren't really willing to kind of just bet that, you know, we're going to go back to 3% interest rates and, you know, the world's going to just return to this beautiful time of financing. It's the only, you know, such low costs. So I think that at this early stage companies still have a great shot. There's more incubators now in accelerator programs. And it's not just within Proptech, but other type programs that are willing to work with Proptech companies like YC works with them HFO, which is exclusively for AI startups. But then you have your proptech ones like NAS reach program, they have their accelerator, you have Modern ventures has one meta problem, of course, the most prolific investor in early stage startups. And they all have their own sort of accelerator program to like, help these early stage get to what they, you know, get what they need to be able to go where they want to go. So I think there's still plenty of activity in the early stage. That's really where you see, like, I have this idea, here's the big vision. I've got a compelling story along with it and some evidence that I'm able to get that off the ground. That's like you're really earliest rounds of funding when you start getting the series A, you got a show like, hey, we have revenue, we have signs if we can maintain this growth, but we need the capital in order to execute that vision, you know? And then by the time you're getting the series B and I had a conversation with the founder recently where they had just closed a north of $25 million round, or maybe 20, but it was over 20 million a dollar round this year. I said, well, what was the difference? Like, what was that like raising that? He said, we really the biggest thing was we went from telling a really big, you know, big idea story to showing the data, having proof that this was something that people wanted, that customers really desired, and we knew how to get in front of them. And we were executing against that. So I'm actually still pretty bullish about early stage ideas and startups getting the funding they need to get going.
Andrew Smallwood
Yeah. And you know, I agree with what you said earlier of hey there's something good here if I'm a property manager. Again, listening to this, as the bar has been raised for delivering customer value that is worth paying for and that, you know, if there's more rigor there from investors, it's likely to force, you know, some, some really great companies right to rise above that, above that bar, continue to grow, grow and develop in that way in a way that continues to give them more and more value over time. Totally makes sense. You know, I'm curious, you know, for people who are listening to this need, you know, they may not know about your background, that you're an investor yourself. If I'm not mistaken, you have properties. Yeah. You've worked at different companies like avail OB, etc.. I'm curious, just a little bit of kind of what's your opinion on kind of the state of the rental market, if you will, the do it yourself landlord, the professional property manager, etc. and are there any trends or things you're kind of paying attention to that would, you know, be important points of insight for a professional property manager listening to this?
Nate Smoyer
Yeah. So people understand this. I don't own any investment property within a state that I live in. So I live in South Dakota. We have mixed use property in Washington and the storage facility in Wisconsin and short term rental cabins in Ohio. You know, I can't say that I'm the most savvy investor to have created this, a modulation of investment. But hey, it is what it is. They perform pretty well, I’m pretty happy with them. You know, something that I've paid attention to certainly is right now is actually financing. That's outside of conventional terms. The really significant concern. So, you know, for those who have five unit or up buildings, you're in commercial financing. If you're outside of ten single family units, you're either private or some sort of like commercial loan portfolio loan product. and of course, the moment you step out of residential, you're in commercial loan format. This is, because it directly affects me. I'm looking at refinancing costs on our storage facility and relatively distant future. And, you know, hey, we're going to have some decisions to make on how we're going to go about that because the increase of capital is going to significantly change our financial outlook on that. On that property. So it doesn't make sense. The whole doesn't make sense to sell. And if I sell, like, am I going to be able to buy anything and it almost feels like you're trapped. You know, I said my seat, my accountant, our tax accountant email the other day. I was like, hey, I need to know taxable liabilities on these scenarios because I'm trying to figure out the scenarios of what makes the most sense. I have a good suspicion that I'm not the only one who feels that, you know, if you're trying to build a portfolio and graduate it up to the next level, it's just really challenging because acquisition costs are super high. Furthermore, unless you're skilled on getting stuff off market, there is very little to pick from. Yes, inventory levels have actually been climbing the last few weeks, but we're still below pre-pandemic levels considerably and pre-pandemic was very low. Inventories like I think it's easy to look at these charts and be like, look, look how much hit look at he owns or is for sale in 2019. Like actually in 2019, we were all looking left to right and saying, where are all the homes for sale? You know, not only that, they were flying off the shelf of what was available. So I think these are some things that while many probably just may not be doing a lot of transactions, this is stuff that's in the back of the minds of investors of, you know, I thought, how are they going to exit or how are they going to trade up? How are they going to work through some of these financing charges? These are some important, you know, decisions to make. It's not always easy to get to know. This is what's going through the mind of an investor. You know, you mentioned my time at Vail. For those listening that don't know, there was a platform that's ideal for investors who self-manage and even as a software play into managing properties. We had them we had a churn issue that property managers have, which is when the owner sells the property, you lose the unit. And that was a bummer for us because we would see that all the time and it's like, well, shoot, we could have kept them. But how they were selling the property, we have no influence over that. I think this is one of the things that art managers can have influence on, even if it's not whether or not that person sells the property. But can they sell it to someone else that's within the portfolio? I think that's like the magic solution that everyone would like to somehow frictionless solve of, hey, if you're going to sell your property, sell to one of the other investors in the portfolio, you know, and we'll be all set, everyone's happy. but I you know, generally, I think those are some of the challenges and of course, I'd say that one of the last things is so often keep it in the portfolio. Everyone's happy, you know, so you just sell your property to someone else in the portfolio. It's a win around the across the board. I think the last thing that certainly hit a lot of people, and it's not likely to change in some markets, regulations and rules and new requirements for owners. Just I mean, they we've ramped up they ratcheted to the roof, you know, whether like how many days you have to give in advance for a certain amount of rent increase or if you're planning to sell, how many days in advance, you have to give notice of that. And it's not just like, oh, we'll give you a $100 fine. These are some of these fines are like several to tens of thousands of dollars, depending on how much you kind of market you're in very serious penalties. And so I think some of those, those type changes of like introduce new stresses. But also I think for property managers, it also is something to look at as a value prop, I think of this is actually one of those benefits type propositions for a property manager, in that they'll know those regulations much better than someone like myself who's self-managing that sometimes times maybe I cross my fingers and hope I got it right, because sometimes that's definitely what's happening.
Andrew Smallwood
Yeah, yeah, I know that expertise and as you know, more legislations passing or more regulations changing again, that can feel like a pain point as a property manager, if this is making my job harder, but that part of your job you're spreading out across hundreds of units, right. Or thousands of units that expertise, as opposed to everybody having to do that to keep up on their own. And so it can be, you know, valuable, valuable to do that and a reason to hire a property manager. That's a great point. Yet, Nate, any anything else you'd offer, just unlike kind of insights or things you're paying attention to, if you're a professional property manager, things that you're noticing in the market in general.
Nate Smoyer
I mean, outside of outside of prop tech and just in the market itself, you know, I think one of the ongoing discussions has been around rent increases and the trends around rent increases. There's been a little bit of slowing of growth in that area now, primarily what gets reported on is what, how and what's being reflected from like a larger a portfolio perspective. And oftentimes it's misconstrued or I would say disproportionately represent multifamily than it does scattered site. So the certainly look at some of those reports that you see come out with a bit of a grain of salt, but I think that it is highlighting another. It's a challenge, but it's a good opportunity to kind of reset expectations. You know, it's still possible to raise rents. And in most markets and you're certain I think you're going to be just fine with maintaining good renewal rates and raising rents. But it's also good to reestablish new expectations of like what a several year outlook could be on overall rent collections. So, you know, again, during zero interest rate period like we just had you know, these climbs, you know we could buy a six cap because all we have to do is hold on for two years. And then we've got rent bumped up and everything's golden. But there is a limit to how fast you could do that. And I think right now the market's responding saying, hey, you know we can't handle more rent increases or we can only handle so much. We can only absorb so much. And so I think this is a good time to kind of reset to be established as expectations with owners. this is what the market's looking like. We're going to adjust accordingly. And this is what the next few years could be.
Andrew Smallwood
Yes. Yeah. Great point. So coming back to prop tech a little bit Nate you know I'm curious. Kind of like clicking into some specific areas. And I think this will get a little tactical or practical or interesting for people who are thinking about potential vendors or potential partners or even things are thinking about doing themselves that they need to just keep an eye on. Here's what some people out there are working on props are trying to solve, that may have relevance to my own business. You know, in the areas of like resident experience, owner experience, you know, that triple win framework, the team's experience and their workflow. Is there anything you're seeing out there that's kind of interesting or got your attention or a couple specific companies? you know, that you're optimistic about or bullish about what they're working on.
Nate Smoyer
Yeah. You know, first off, the term resident experience, this is actually I mean, it's very simple. You can you could do a Google Trends report or keyword report. And you would see that this is not a term that's always been used. And I think it's a really good step. There's nothing wrong with the term renter. There's nothing wrong with the term tenant. But there is something about when you say the resident experience, it is. It's just a it's a no cost way of elevating the renter, the person who is paying to occupy the property. I think that's a good step forward. I'm actually really happy to see a lot of companies not use the, you know, the owner versus renter kind of mentality to drive adoption. We can actually experience, you know, a it can be a positive experience on both sides. So in terms of renters experience, there is there's actually one company that kind of jumps to mind. Have you have you ever heard of Second Nature?
Andrew Smallwood
I am familiar with them actually. Yeah.
Nate Smoyer
Yeah. So of course you are. You know, I cared a little bit, but, you know, so, like, resident benefits packages, you know, ways in which that you can offer benefits to residents just to make the experience of, you know, their living experience a little bit better, you know, whether that's things like sometimes it's reward and sometimes it's, you know, small maintenance pieces, you know, that sort of thing. But I think there's ways of doing that. Like and then of course, another company in that space. I know you're familiar with the pinata. You know, the some of those things, I think offering more services directly to the renter, a handful does it, it doesn't handful things. First off, you can actually, you know, as a property manager, you can now give things that weren't previously readily available, like, for instance, like renters insurance, just renters insurance in general. a lot of people don't really understand that renters insurance actually like, helps ensure your belongings. It's not just the unit. So you go to Starbucks and you're working on something and they call you drink. You got to get your drink. You turn around, your laptop is gone. Your laptop's likely covered under renters insurance. Also, like the $2,000 computer that you keep in your pocket is likely covered. So. So these are like really interesting things. that distribution to renters previously was so difficult, but now that they can be done in a seamless and really like beautiful experience through property managers, through, you know, interesting tack and platforms that integrate and play well with and there at the right time, you actually have the ability to deliver better things to renters that they didn't know that they would look for. But now that they know that they exist, hey, this is actually something, you know, and that maybe cost as much as Netflix, but it actually delivers real value versus whatever Netflix is. I guess some people value it. I don't, Then that I would say, similarly is like amenities. You know, it's like really expensive for communities to do certain amenities and I think we saw it during the pandemic. There was this like there was a really interesting shift, especially in apartment buildings. But they were like, we have to we have to give something a way to reengage and keep people who want to be here. You know, of course we all had to wear masks while doing it, but there was a push for this. So like, this is where you start seeing like yoga studios pop up. But they were on the lawn, you know, of the apartment community or you would, you would have like coffee days in the, in the, the lobby. They would do happy hours, you know, on the rooftop and stuff like that. And there's, you know, a wide range of what you call like a magnifying a building. so it can be, you know, to cleaning and to like, housekeeping type services. but even down to things like, you know, just even communications between neighbors of events. So companies like a menifee sugar. Hello, Alfred. You know, our companies that really have pushed hard into this space and they again, it's a matter of like delivering things to renters would want they didn't know how to get or the options they get because of distribution being so inefficient, too expensive. And so now it comes by way of the property manager. And improving that resident experience is a direct correlation to improving tenancy. You know, the lifetime value of a renter. So you're reducing churn costs, reducing turnover. You're reducing, you know, the dissatisfied customers. Your NPS is obviously going to naturally increase. You're probably going to get better reviews if you asked for them. There's a there's a cascading positive effect here. But at the same time, as a property manager, you're not having to pay to staff. That's you're not having to pay to like figure out how to do all these things that sound really nice, but they don't fit to your workflow. And that's the beauty of this. They don't have to really fit into your workflow. There's there's other companies, there's other services that really have developed way to keep you in the loop of what's happening and how it's working and what's going on without you being the one that have to work it.
Andrew Smallwood
Yeah. You know, I mean, it's obviously we're passionate about this services and amenity space for residents, and working with property managers to deliver that. You know, I'm curious, you know, when I think resident experience, I think of it as it is definitely inclusive of that. And that's like a very hot, innovative part, right, of the rest of the experience space. But it's not just that. Right. And the experience I think is broader and inclusive of more things. And again, some of this stuff starts to touch the owner side too, depending kind of on your perspective on it. Yes. I'm curious. Like is there anything else you're seeing, you know, that you are really excited about or kind of bullish on, or if you were a professional, hey, I'd be checking that out or it seems like there's some interesting innovation happening over there, whether it's maintenance or payments or anywhere else.
Nate Smoyer
It totally I mean, easily the number I mean, we could probably just do a few searches, right, and find complaints from resident, on, on someone's page. I put in a request because the AC wasn't working, and I got an auto reply back on Friday, but I never heard from anyone until Tuesday morning. And I'm out of town for the next three days, and the repair guy can't get here for two weeks because apparently they're backed up, right? Like a total just. And it's and this is a handful things expectations was out of line. Communications were poor and maintenance and service is not lined up to be, you know, ready to go, you know, if you will. And so this is a challenge because, I mean, for many reasons. One, maintaining vendor relationships is not necessarily a once and done thing. It's an ongoing conversation. Service vendors aren't exactly exploding in the number of people who are doing it. So you have in some areas, like a significantly less number of people available to do more jobs. Right. And so that doesn't help anyone here. so, so companies that are working in the maintenance space to help kind of fill some of these gaps. So like one have to shout out which is property build also based where I'm at in South Dakota, they do a great job of giving you the data of what you need to know around maintenance of like, you know, for instance, you know, when should I have my HVAC serviced? It? It should seem like an obvious answer, but maybe it's not to everyone. But also, maybe you just need to be told when to do it and the cost advantages of doing it that way. You know, that's something that now you're passing the savings on to the owner, you're improving resident satisfaction. We're proactively working on and solving and mitigating future issues. Right. There is a company that I actually recently just talked to, source seven. They gather up the appliance information that's within the property. So whether a multifamily or a scattered site and by way of the labels, the manufacturer labels, they know the year if it's on a recall list, if it's energy inefficient and comparable models that are be far more efficient. So if you know that the probability of a water year that's over 12 years old is going to blow out, the owners only had the property, say, four years, so they don't really know when it was installed, and there's nothing marking it to where it's installed. This is a kind of suggestion. We can now make it. The reason we do that is we can have that water heater replaced before it's urgent. So we're not paying for an overnight or overtime rate to get out there in two days. We don't have residents who are complaining about not having hot water and want you to put them up in a hotel for two days, and you're, you're solving future costs that are already going to be coming in. Right. These are some really cool stuff. Obviously, anyone that does like vendor networking. So kind of solving the problem of like finding some of those vendors and doing maintenance. So like lesson do the vendor route like these are some of the companies that have been doing a really good job of that. They specialize that they focus in on that. That's kind of a it's a it's an obvious no brainer. And one last one I have to do as well, because I think I think they're cool. I just I just think they're kind of cool. I don't know, it's probably known that especially in the South, at least I'm willing to bet 90-95% of leases say that pest control is not only on the renter, but it's required. Right? So when I moved to Franklin, Tennessee, and I lived in Franklin, my landlord said, you have to have monthly pest control. That was part of the lease agreement. So there's a company called Pest Share. That's what they do. They align, they line up the vendor to get out there to take care of it. You know, they work through the property managers and that sort of thing. And so being able to easily get that to the renter, don't make them have to think about who to shop for. Don't make them called guy down the street who's not licensed to spray a whole bunch of stuff. Right. Or doesn't really know what they're doing. You can go to companies like that. You know, you're getting quality vendors. You know, you're getting stuff that's been vetted and checked. And then also they typically integrate and work with your tech stack so it doesn't make your life that much more hazard or haggard or, you know, discombobulated. You're going to get a much better seamless experience as a manager. But also all these things they while they help the owner maintain the property and the property, they're proactively working on the resident experience there as well. So I think all those things really, you know, can we call a triple win that? Is that the triple win?
Andrew Smallwood
Yeah, it's funny we didn't talk about this before but cash share actually power Second Nature on demand pest control offering. It's been a great partner to work with. And you mentioned pinata who also we work with for the rewards and credit offering. familiar with the companies you mentioned elsewhere. Some are probably I imagine familiar with a couple and maybe a couple. Those are newer to them. It's really interesting to think about this maintenance space and how you come at it. Again, there's like you can get very niche and focus on something as specific as pest, right? And involve that there's the broader approach to the whole vendor network and developing that out, which is a big challenge and a challenging problem to solve. There's the tech layer of like coordinating and automating and communications. You mentioned, you know, how Meld has been very focused on okay. Yes. But then there's the data analytics here. And actually can we serve that back up in the form of analytics to help our customers make decisions. And it just the HVAC example was so clear to me because you know what the cost is in the middle of July in a hot market. It's terrible repairs and replacements and everything's done versus what's the cost on the turn. Right. But it's like, how do I know that it's going to go out in July, right when I have this firm in February? and if I could know that or with a certain level of confidence. Right. Know that I can make a better decision here, that ultimately benefits everybody. in the long term. Yeah. There's some clear value there.
Nate Smoyer
Oh, no, I think yeah. And just to like kind of tap into that just a little bit I mean look everyone, you know, I use cars and example for a lot of things. I think cars are just such a good example. Your car's probably not going to blow up if you go 5000 miles. An oil change. Yep. Actually could probably still go 10,000 miles like the newer vehicles are pretty dang efficient on not burning. The oil is provided. It's you're not driving like a total maniac and like super high degree heat and this and the other. But the regular maintenance while now the average or the same, just like 100 or 150 bucks, it's pretty awesome. It's not cheap if you don't do it yourself. It's still so much less than replacing the engine and it just gets the engine go further. So like there's little things of like changing out the air filters, making sure they're changed, right? And then even doing servicing the Hvac. So like someone comes in, looks at the blower. Yeah. The blower looks like it sounds like it's running fine. It should be good to go for the season cleaning out the exterior unit. So making sure last year's pollen and cottonwood and leaves and everything is blocking its intake. So it's not working. You know, if it if because if it has to work, you know, one and a half times harder than it typically does, I can tell you it's not going to last as long. And likelihood is that it's going to burn out in summer, because that's when you're running the AC and it's you plus all the other people in town. And I went through this last year. My blower at our home went out in July and we got told, we'll put you on the wait list. I said, okay, well how is waitlist? Well, looks like we might have an opening in two weeks. And I said, okay, because that was the best thing to get. And I called them back two weeks later. I said, well, you're on the waitlist, but we haven't had an opening yet. We were hoping we get to you. Was it what's the new waitlist? So like it looks like a two weeks house. Yeah. So now we're a month out. You know. And fortunately, I was able to find a friend of a friend who had a friend who could pull a favor but decided to kind of stuff that's going to make your business operate smoothly. Nor is it going to help resident experience.
Andrew Smallwood
Well, I know we could keep going for, for hours here, and I'm sure we will at, our next conference of this conversation. But I just want to say thanks for coming on. Great to hear what you're thinking about, what you're paying attention to. Thanks for sharing that so generously with us today. So really appreciate it, my man.
Nate Smoyer
Yeah. My pleasure. This is a lot of fun. Thanks for having me.
Laura Mac & Carol Housel
And that wraps up another episode of the Triple-Win Property Management podcast. Thank you for pressing play. We hope you've gained valuable insights and inspiration.
The Triple-Win Property Management Podcast is proudly produced and distributed by Second Nature, where we believe in a Triple-Win, building winning experiences for your residents, investors and your teams with the only fully managed resident benefits package. Visit SecondNature.com to learn more and talk to an RBP expert in your area. If you have any questions or comments or want to weigh in on the conversation, we'd love to hear from you. Email TripleWin@SecondNature.com. That's TripleWin@SecondNature.com. Stay connected with us beyond the podcast. Visit our website at SecondNature.com to stay updated with upcoming property management events and articles. And don't forget, you can keep the conversation going in the Triple-Win Property Management Facebook group. It's exclusively for property managers. To receive even more valuable insights and updates, subscribe to our newsletter. You can find the link to that and much more in the show notes. On behalf of the Triple-Win community, this is Laura Mac, thanking you for tuning in. And on behalf of Second Nature, this is Carol Housel. Check back soon for another exciting episode. Until then, keep striving for that Triple-Win.