Sandy Ferrera:

For a real estate broker, a lot of time they’re specializing in sales and listings. I call it traditional real estate. They don’t have the tools and the training to have a high volume property management business. By getting into a property management franchise that’s standalone from their real estate business, number one it gives them the ability to really do high volume – we have all the tools and the training. But it also sets them apart so other real estate offices can refer them business and they don’t feel like they’re going to be competing and that they’re going to steal their sales and listings because that business just does the property management, the real estate sales business would be completely separate.

I think that the residual income is very attractive and I think it’s a great third leg to the stool if they’re already doing listings and sales.

Brandon (From Behind Camera):

And you used to be in real estate before property management?

Sandy Ferrera:

I made a very good living doing traditional real estate. I was the sole bread winner for my family and I walked away from a very, very lucrative career. The problem was the business calls for a lot of evenings and weekends and I had two small boys and that wasn’t going to work for me. I mean my time with my children is paramount. I had one individual that wanted me to show them houses on Christmas day. They were from the United Kingdom, I get it, they were here on holiday and they wanted to buy a place on the beach, but I was on holiday with my children. That aspect of real estate was not appealing to me. The fact that I didn’t control my own money was not appealing to me.

Back then I had $16,000 on the books, which doesn’t seem like much now, but for me it was a lot of money, and they were solid deals. One guy quit his job two days before closing. One pool was two inches in the easement. How do you move a pool two inches? And then the other one just fell apart, I don’t even remember why. And so when I lost those $16,000 in commissions it was tough because that’s how I made my livelihood.

And so I think that the property management really appealed to me because it was a steady income, I mean I could create a budget, I knew exactly how much money I had coming in, I knew exactly what I had going out the door. I could create my own hours, I was home at night to tuck the kids in. I wasn’t running out showing houses on the weekends. And even back then when I carried a pager 24 hours a day an emergency consisted of me picking up the phone and arranging for a vendor. I didn’t have to physically go out to the property.

So money was important, stability was important, but my time with my family was extremely important. And I think that when you put all those things together it’s what allowed me to walk away from a six-figure income.