Josh Elledge - Chief Executive Angel
Hi! I’m Josh Elledge, the Chief Executive Angel of SavingsAngel.com and welcome to the SavingsAngel show! I’m podcasting to you from a windy and chilly Orlando, Florida.
I am an extremely busy consumer expert, money-saving advocate, syndicated newspaper columnist, and the guy that turns digital entrepreneurs into media celebrities with UpMyInfluence.com. I love what I do and can’t wait to get going on today’s episode.
In order to help you save more, earn more and live more abundantly on today’s show I’ll be covering:
- Rent Negotiation
- Rental Secrets and Solutions
- Saving Money on Rent
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Have a wonderful week – full of saving more, earning more, and living more abundantly – and thank you for listening!
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00:02
With us right now is Justin Pogue. Justin, you are the author of a book called rental secrets. And you're also a real estate consultant. Thank you so much for joining us on the savings Angel shuttle.
0:13
Absolutely. I appreciate the opportunity and Josh.
0:16
So Justin, what we want to talk about is helping consumers save money on something that they may have not really considered. And that is the rent that they're paying. Or maybe, you know, they have a college student or soon to be college student, they're going to be paying rent. And I don't think most people know just how negotiable rent is.
0:41
Yeah, no, it's absolutely true. Most people don't even think rent is actually negotiable. They treat it like when they walk into a store, there's a price in the shelf.
0:52
That's the price you pay. And that's just the way it is.
0:56
But people who are renting do have considered Moments of power in terms of negotiating, what they paid what they paid for rent, I just want mentioned kind of excuse the noise. I'm at one of my clients offices and actually a property rental company, one of the companies that I that I'm advising, so but just first knowing that you can actually negotiate rent is the very first step. And then the question becomes, well, how do I
1:23
do that?
1:24
Right? Well, so the next step in the next step in doing that is
1:28
understanding what problems or issues a landlord is facing. When they're looking at renting a property. They want quality renters, they want people are going to follow the follow the community rules and and not play loud music at 3am and disturb all of their neighbors, because the value of their building comes from the renters that they have if they have quality renders the value of their building.
1:53
If they don't, that's going to drive down the
1:56
value of the building because it's going to drive. The badgers will drive out all the quality No go somewhere else.
2:02
So, from the standpoint of the sale, a parent that hasn't followed suit, and it's really important to understand that by following the rules and like cleaning out under the pack, they're building social capital with their neighbors and the landlord, which puts you in the position to even have that negotiation conversation. The other thing that's important is also to look at the communities that are around the one that you're looking at. So it's not just it's not just negotiating with that particular landlord. It's what are other landlords offering? Yeah, taking those offers and using those in your negotiation with that landlord, so you're bringing real market information to that conversation. And since most people don't do that, that shows the landlord that you're actually serious, and that you're, you're really interested in that property and roofing kind of winter that may go.
2:57
Yeah, well, you know, everyone who listens The saving Angel show would be in a model citizen as a renter, I'm sure. So, so let's talk about like what some of those things you might be able to say. Let's say, let's say you're just looking at an apartment complex. And you know that, you know, they definitely like they've been, they have the people up spinning signs, like they're aggressively marketing, then they have rentals available. And so what might be some things that a potential renter could say, when they show up and they're talking to the landlord, that might be able to get them a better deal.
3:42
So here's here's a really interesting option, especially for newly graduated college students who may still be trying to figure out what they want to do and where they want to go and all of that. So one of the options is to actually work for the landlord on site and help them manage the property. They'll smile properties tend to 20 units, that kind of thing. And landlords actually do provide rent discounts, or in some cases, even free rent for people who are fulfilling that role. So in that role, they're showing properties that might be vacant, they're making sure the pool was clean. They're cleaning up the grounds. And these are things that the landlord doesn't have to worry about because they have somebody on site who's handling that. And there are actually listings on Craigslist where people are looking for those types of individuals. And typically, that can get you a rental discount of 50 to 100% in some cases, depending on what the landlord is offering, but it's a really good option for people who are out working. I'm trying to figure out like which job path I want to take. I do have a little extra time. And so it removes that. All that concerned about, you know, paying this massive rent amount and keeping the roof over my head. So it removes that while a person is kind of figuring out the sorting out what they want to do next. So that's one really good option if you have a little bit of time. Now, not everybody has not everybody has that amount of time. Um, so there are so the book actually covers like 10 different strategies people can actually use so when I'm working through the lander is kind of just one of them. Um, another solution, which is kind of just less time intensive is just being available to prepare things on the property. If you if you're halfway handy, you know, you can, you can play so fast. You might be able to help them clean up properties that are going through transition, just provide that little bit of help and the landlord may be able to make may be able to cut you a break on your rent for doing those services because from the landlord's perspective, unit goes vacant, I gotta find a contractor. Not just one color. tractor but three because I got to make sure I'm getting the best price. And then I have to be there to let that person and so they can do what they need to do to get the property ready for the next person like it's a hassle that stress because they don't live on the property, they may not even live in the state, depending on what their situation is. So having that person who's on site who can actually help with that is really valuable. Because from the landlord standpoint, a lot of these landlords they got into real estate because they went to this real estate seminar was saying all the praises of real estate. But they didn't tell them that as the as the owner, you're going to be at the center of all the issues related to this particular property. And they just assume you'll have people to handle that for you. Or maybe you will, maybe you won't. So there's also there's a lot of stress, which creates opportunities for residents actually up there more run the property and get compensated in the form of lower rent. When they when they do that.
6:59
Why You know, I think that there might be some people, Justin that that think that this is too good to be true that you you really like you can't do this or let's say you go someplace and you ask if they're open to any kind of negotiation on that if you bring value such in, you know, kind of fixing up the apartment or listen, you have a real problem with this. I'd be happy to work on this. We're happy to do some grounds. And what happens if somebody says no way we don't have room for negotiation? It's that's against our policy. What would you do if it were you or if it were your daughter?
7:34
I wouldn't necessarily give up on that. What's happening is the person who's sitting in the leasing office is typically the least powerful person when that person reports to someone else. So if you're walking in and you're making you can make a case Say for example, you walk into an office this apartment has been vacant for a month. I'm offering to rent it for $50 a month or less, let's just use that as an example. So you've already lost, but say 1500 on that apartment, because if an apartment is vacant for a month, you can't get that money back. And the landlord can't get that money back. It's gone forever. So they've already lost 1500. So the question is, do you want to rent it to me for 1450? Or do you want to roll the dice and possibly lose another 1500 that's the case that you're making, when you're walking in. Now, that is now that person in the office may not be able to agree to that, right? Certainly a case that they can take to their boss and say, Look, this is what we have on the table. Do you want to accept this offer or not? And they can take the case of their boss without getting egg on their face. It's not somebody who's walking to the office and whining about Obu court. I mean, to me for less, no, it's you have a problem. And I can solve your problem and it'll cost You're 50 bucks a month?
9:01
Yeah. Is it worth it to you to do that? That's the case that you're making. Wow.
9:07
You know, it's it. You know, I think some people might feel that it's almost audacious to ask that question. But you know, what you're asking is, hey, listen, I'd like to solve a problem for you. And, you know, I think a lot of renters may not feel like maybe they're in the, in the driver's seat, when in fact there are there are a lot of rental properties and in most communities, so there's a lot of inventory and renters from the landlord perspective, our highly coveted good renters are highly coveted.
9:44
Exactly, and being that quality renter puts, helps put you in that in that position to have those kinds of discussions more likely to do something kind of talked about earlier in that if the property if the property is vacant, they're not getting any revenue. And right worse is they can't get that revenue back. So time is not on their side. So if you are in a position to actually make a credible offer to lend something, even though it's less than what they're asking for, they should be seriously considering that because that stuff is walking, that money is walking out the door on almost on a minute by minute basis. Members have a bias towards action when it comes to renting their properties. And that's really what you're that's really what you're looking at as a renter. And when you're when you're when you're making that offer to rent it for a discounted price. Now, the other thing I'll point out is some renters will say, Well, this is a hot market where I live, they've got a waiting list. How, what do I do in that case? Well, honestly, it's waiting list is any more than 20 days old, it's already no good. Because those people are, they're not waiting around to right you have a spot for them, they're busy looking somewhere else, and they will likely have found something else in the meantime. So don't let the fact that they have a waiting list to turn you because it's probably stale anyway. So what matters is, yeah, you have a waiting list of stale I'm here right now in your office. I like your property, I'm going to make a deal. This is this is where we're at. And you can either accept it or not. In many markets, ventures have plenty of options of where they're going to rent and which which situation they want to be in. So the situation really boils down to is can we come to a meeting of the minds as far as the price, you know, for for this particular unit? Something else people will do is definitely look for and actually going to ask For vacant property, vacant apartments, how many apartments Do you have vacant? Which ones? Don't let the leasing person drive the discussion? Because what's going to happen is the leasing person is going to ask you, well, what type of apartment do you want? Do you want to be on the first floor? Do you want to be near the pool? He wanted to be near the laundry room. They'll ask you all those questions. What's happening when they're when you're answering those questions is they are crossing available apartments off the list. Find the one that fits what you're asking for. So there may very well be 10 vacancies at the at the community that you're calling. you've answered those questions. They've now whittled it down to one and then the response is great. We have an apartment that fits what you're looking for. You have one available. I have other appointments this afternoon. When would you like to schedule your appointment? So now you're programmed in this scarcity mode? Yeah. Oh my god, there's only one left. I gotta get down there now. And which makes it even less open to me. negotiating. Whereas if you flip that around and you say, what are your vacant apartments? By law, they can't steer you towards anything. Right? You could scare yourself. So you ask me the fair housing laws and all that. So you ask somebody what's vacant? And how long has it been? And they'll tell you and then you can start talking about the ones that have been vacant longest.
13:24
This is I love this. You and I chatted before about this. And I love we talked about if you were to ask the question, what's the one apartment or one property you have not been able to unload and get up? Take a look at that one.
13:39
Don't take a look at that. I had I was. I've been managed property in the San Francisco Bay Area and there was one that was vacant for two months. The reason why it was vacant, is people would walk in to they walk into the apartment units where they get to the door of the master bedroom and they would turn around On the walk out, what they were seeing was the view out of the master bedroom window, which arguably was not the greatest view. But what they were missing was the double closets and the master bathroom. They didn't even go in the room. So they didn't see those things. So consequently, when they got back to their kitchen table deciding which property they want to rent, ours wasn't even considered because in their mind, it doesn't have closets and it doesn't have a master bathroom. So why did I even think about that one? so and so and that was that apartment rented for I think $3,000 a month, so we lost six grand. Wow. Oh, if somebody had as the manager of that community was somebody had walked in and said, I want to run it for $50 or hundred dollars less? Absolutely. Deal. Wow. Most people don't understand is at all of these companies. There's a meeting every week about what's begun. Why is it begun? Why is it wrenching? What are you doing to make it read? How are you going to solve Problem our back. So if there's an apartment that's been, that's been vacant for two months, and we've been talking about it for eight weeks, and then the leasing agent comes in and says, Look, I got somebody, they're interested, we got him signed on the dotted line, you are now the hero, now the hero of that company, and you as the person who rented that apartment is the hero about leasing agents.
15:23
I love it. I love
15:24
what's going on behind the scenes that most people don't see. Because leasing agents are under pressure to continually lease apartments. I mean, it's in their title, leasing agent, you're not racing, then you might be out of a job. Now, by looking for those vacant apartments, you can actually become the hero, the leasing agent, and that leasing agent can become the hero of their company or for that property for that particular mouth. Or what happened.
15:52
Just I know, based on this conversation, some minds have just been blown right now. Yeah, you know, it just gives further evidence to, you know, nearly everything is negotiable. it you know, and we even so our home, I'll just tell you how this worked out for us. So when we moved from Michigan to Orlando, we looked in the MLS, and we couldn't find we wanted to rent for a year because we weren't sure if we wanted to stay here. And so we looked at all these properties. And we didn't even see the home that we eventually selected because it was outside of our price range. But someone shared it with us as Oh, well, we can't afford that. And they're like, well, we should talk to them. And so sure enough, we talked to him turned out he was really motivated to get the property rent. He was sitting on it. And he also his main goal is that he wanted to sell them and and I said, Well, really what we want to do is we want to rent a year so we can kind of be on the ground and ultimately find a home that we can buy. And I mean if we love the property, we do Happy to buy it. And that seems like it'd be a win win. So he said, so he would he actually took I went, it was, it was either two or $300 a month off the rent, which was $300, which absolutely put it into what was in our price range. And we were thrilled with that he was happy with that was a great win win. And I'll just tell you that, you know, again, that was that was his Alito even buying houses a little bit outside of what we wanted to pay. But that's when the market was tanking and taking and taking and taking and so we bought it like pretty much toward the bottom of the market. So which saved us about one third of what the original asking price was. So I listened. That was, I mean, I was using my savings in saving Angel intellect on that. Yeah, but still, we really did. And we were very blessed and fortunate with that. You're very, very happy about that. So, Justin, listen, I want to thank you so much. Um, where can people buy the book rental secrets?
18:11
Yeah, so the title of the book is Rental Secrets, you can purchase the book at rentalsecrets.net, it's also available at amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, Apple iTunes, as well. And it's available in both physical book and ebook format as well.
18:29
The I you know, I'm so excited about this, because this is a book you can buy and potentially save 100 $200 a month, you know, for the next many years as a result of knowing all the right things to say what to ask for understanding how the whole game works. And just he gave us a great introduction to that in this conversation. Thank you so much for joining us
18:48
know, you're very welcome. I appreciate being here and I hope everybody got a lot out of the conversation.
19:07
Well, you know everyone who listens to the saving, dangerous show would be in a model citizen
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