How to Keep Your Tenants SAFE

Ashley:
This is real estate rookie episode 397. Tenants can oftentimes be the issue, but sometimes tenant safety can be the issue as we will uncover in today’s show. My name is Ashley Care. Welcome to the Real Estate Rookie Podcast, where three times a week we give you the motivation, inspiration, and stories you need to hear to get started in real estate and busting. Wait until you hear how many emails were sent to this tenant. And when does a tenant burden become your burden As the landlord, if you have a story that you want to share that’s about a tenant, a deal gone wrong, a contractor, anything real estate related, submit your horror story for a chance to talk with me for a one-on-one therapy session at biggerpockets.com/reply. Eileen, welcome to the show. We are excited and anxious to get into your horror story, but first I want to talk about what you’re doing with the BiggerPockets.

Eileen :
Thanks for having me. So I am the property manager business consultant for BiggerPockets, essentially helping connect our investors to investors, savvy property managers, and we’re doing that all across the country and we’re getting ready to launch that up this spring.

Ashley:
So you’ve probably had a lot of interaction with property managers by now.

Eileen :
Yeah, yeah, quite a few.

Ashley:
And what would you say is one or two value adds as to finding a property manager through BiggerPockets?

Eileen :
That’s a good question. Learning landlord best practices. If I didn’t go, I did my due diligence, but if I didn’t go with my property manager, I know having a data analytics background, the research that I do, I still wouldn’t have been able to find some of these state laws that they’ve been able to share with me. And just the little nuances of best practices for being a landlord.

Ashley:
Well, I have to say that’s very convenient having somebody else do your due diligence on property manager. I could have used that about three and a half years ago, so I’m glad that’s a resource available now. So Eileen, tell me a little bit about your portfolio, because I understand you have done a couple deals before you actually got into your horror story, so set the tone for us. What were you doing before BiggerPockets and before this horror story?

Eileen :
Yeah, absolutely. So first property came in 2017, and at that time we were in Jacksonville, Florida. We were able to buy a home at 180 5 and we put in about 20 to 25 grand in Reno and sold that property for 3 25 in late 2021. Wow. Yeah, that was the time to sell in Jacksonville. We used the VA home loan and actually with that property we were house hacking and I had never even heard of house hacking when we were doing it, so I didn’t even know that we were doing house hacking. But during the pandemic, before we sold the property, I was doing many other people’s researching, how can you build wealth over time? And that’s when I stumbled upon investing in real estate. So I convinced my husband after he came home from deployment to sell that property in 2021, and we wanted to be more in between both families.

Eileen :
I’m from up north, he was from Florida. We both really liked the seasons, and I’ve been doing quite a bit of research in the western North Carolina area and I said this would be a great place to invest. So that brought us to Asheville, North Carolina, and we used the VA home loan again after selling that one in Jacksonville to buy one in just outside of Asheville. And then we also use those profits to buy an investment property in Lake June, Luka, North Carolina, which is kind of by Waynesville Great Smoky Mountains area. And then about a year later we use the entitlement for the VA home lawn that you get. And we moved again. So lots of moving and he went back active duty in late 2023. So we moved again and bought our fourth property here in Pensacola, Florida where we’re currently at.

Ashley:
Okay. Real quick, first of all, can you just describe some of the benefits of the VA loan real quick?

Eileen :
There’s so many benefits. 0% down, you can reuse the VA home loan over and over again, the entitlement that you get. So for example, we had 700,000 that we could use from the VA home loan. We used a portion of that for one primary residence. We moved to be closer to a job and we used the remainder of that to buy another primary residence, and you don’t have to put the zero down so you can really start to slowly build a portfolio using the VA home loan.

Ashley:
So that entitlement that you’re referring to, that’s up to a certain amount, that’s your max that you can use the VA loan.

Eileen :
Right, exactly.

Ashley:
Okay. So any of these properties that you mentioned are any of these actual horror story? Yes.

Eileen :
Okay. So when we moved to Asheville, now this property is just outside of Asheville. We’re about eight minutes away from the River Arts District, 10 minutes from downtown in the Biltmore if you know the area. So we really liked it and we were just outside of that Asheville City limits. So good tax break there. So we got it at in 2021. So it was of course one of those 2.75 interest rates, your typical craftsman style, new build home. But it was great because it was really convenient, everything, and we had a private drive going down to our little cul-de-sac of these five new build homes. So when we purchased that, we were the first ones and slowly people started moving in and making their space their home. Everybody was upgrading their backyards. So we lived in that property for about 15 months and we met that criteria where you were now able to rent it out if you wanted to.

Eileen :
So we decided to do a long-term rental there. Fast forward to August of 2023, and we found a great tenant, single woman. She was in her late forties. She was pretty high up in an IT company. She’s very smart. It was a perfect match for us. She came in and as she drove into our cul-de-sac, she saw the deer out in the front yard and she said it looked like a Disney movie, which it really does. And so she got along great with our neighbors, which is great. We are still very close with them as well. So everybody is making their home, their house, their home, and my neighbor’s in the middle. This is worth noting my neighbor’s in the middle of the cul-de-sac put in about $50,000 into backyard renovations. And this is an area where when it was complete, they had a fire pit and everybody would gather and have a glass of wine or something.

Eileen :
Now there’s a street behind us that was about a half acre away and you couldn’t see this gentleman’s door, and we’ll call this gentleman Bob. You couldn’t see Bob’s front door from our yard, but you could from my neighbor’s yard. So my tenant is getting along great. She’s mixing, doing happy hour with the neighbors down at the fire pit, and Bob starts joining in on them. And when we were there and living there, we always just thought Bob was kind of a goofy guy, didn’t really think anything of it, but he is in his late sixties, early seventies, and he I guess developed a crush on my tenant. And my tenant was very kind about it. She said, I guess he asked her out on a date and she said, thank you, but no thank you. And she was like, I think you might’ve gotten the wrong impression. And this didn’t go over very well. So it kind of took a turn for the worst.

Ashley:
I definitely want to get into that because this sounds like the start of a lifetime movie where Sweet Abby scenario that all of a sudden turns for the worst and this lovely neighborhood there becomes some kind of horror story that happens to it. So we’re going to take a short break and we’re going to hear more about this goofy neighbor, this interesting character, and then also we’re going to talk about five lessons you learned through this whole experience with providing a safe place for your tenant. So we will be right back. Okay, we are back with Eileen and we just started talking about this new build that she purchased, lived in it for 15 months and decided to rent it out to a tenant. And during this time in this sweet, lovely cul-de-sac where there was neighborhood gatherings and everything was so wonderful, people are making it their home. We get the situation where someone, a goofy neighbor, Bob, as we have named him, is developing a crush on Eileen’s tenant. So that’s kind of where we left the story off. So welcome back to the show, Eileen. What kind of happened with this crush and then why did this all of a sudden turn into a horror story?

Eileen :
So what happens is my tenant goes away on a business trip and she had to get a rental car for this business trip. And as she’s getting in her car one day she hooks up her phone and she gets a notification and I’m not it savvy, she is very smart. And she knew immediately from this notification, she said, this doesn’t look great. I think I’m being tracked. Someone’s tracking me. So I guess this had happened, a couple, she returned back to Asheville from her business trip and then it happened a couple more times and she found out she was able to trace it back to Bob. So Bob had been tracking her location. So

Ashley:
From her phone he was tracking her. How does this happen?

Eileen :
So mind you, my husband and I don’t know that any of this is going on, we have no idea. When we do hear about the story, our tenant tells us, I think it happened when I met him down at the fire pit and he said, Hey, hand me your phone. Feel free to text and reach out to me if you need something around the house, you don’t have to bother Steve, my husband to come by. And in that interaction, she handed him her phone and he did something to where he was able to connect into her location and had access to her internet. Wow. I know this wild. So from there he started, he was really upset that she denied his invitation to go steady, I guess, I don’t know. And he started sending really explicit emails, like pornographic emails, and it got to be to a point where he was starting to harass her 50 hundreds of emails he had gotten into her internet, he had hacked into her phone.

Eileen :
He somehow got into her work email and was starting to send them through her work email and she worked remotely. And again, single woman by herself, she finally confronts him about it and says, I know it’s you. I need you to stop. Please leave me alone. This really got him upset and it got her upset because it went from hundreds of emails to thousands of emails a day, my God, that he was sending her these images. And one day she got really upset and I don’t recommend doing this, but she changed the domain name on her internet to F you, Bob. And when I found out about it, I was like, why did you do this?

Ashley:
So her when you would go and sign up for her wifi login, that was what you would see if anyone was looking at wifi. Oh my gosh.

Eileen :
Yeah. So it got worse. And finally this all started happening I guess back in November of 2023. So not too long after she moved in, she got really close with the neighbors and all this started happening and we were texting each other, happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, we had no idea this was going on. She finally gives me a call or my husband a call, and I talked to my neighbor. I was like, I got a weird voicemail from our Ken, what’s going on with Bob? And so my husband’s talking to our tenant and I’m talking to our neighbor. My neighbor decides to call me as well because apparently Bob is tracking their phones and it’s gotten, and these our poor neighbors, they’re a retired couple again, they put all this money into their backyard and now she’s afraid to go outside because Bob will be out on his front porch and he’s just staring at my tenant and at the neighbors and it’s making it a very uncomfortable scene. So as I’m listening to this on the phone down in Florida, I’m thinking, I just saw this episode on Dateline, so what do we need to do?

Ashley:
And I guess at that point in time, where do you feel like it was your responsibility, not only morally and ethically, I want to be a good person, I want to help this person, but at any time did you think of, what were you thinking of as the landlord? What is your responsibility as the landlord in that situation? Were you thinking,

Eileen :
Right, you’re wearing both hats, you’re a landlord and you’re a human. And the landlord hat kind of went off and I was like, okay, do we need to call the cops? Let’s get cameras out there. And I guess I would say didn’t really go out of the hat because that’s what I just would’ve done anyways as a landlord. I just wanted to make sure she was safe. I was going based off of her judgment and off of my neighbors. I don’t want this to escalate to anything to where you could be harmed. So she didn’t want the authorities involved, so we did not have them involved, but I said, let’s get my handyman out there. He came out that day and hooked up and installed some security cameras for her. And we also offered, Hey, what about some A DT security system installation in there?

Eileen :
I was willing to do that. That wasn’t an issue for me. Again, I just want to make sure she’s safe at this point. No, no, you don’t need to do that. I guess as the landlord, me making sure that your safety is my priority was a reassurance for her and us getting our handyman out there that day, getting some cameras installed, she did mention, Hey, I got to get out of here. We’re totally okay, let’s help you get out of there. So they both kind of went together, I guess, instead of going out the window.

Ashley:
So as in she needs to get out of there, she means she’s looking for another place to move.

Eileen :
Right, right.

Ashley:
And at the time, was she in a locked in lease? How much time was left on her lease agreement at that time?

Eileen :
Yeah, so this was only a few months ago. We had the conversation in January, early February and she still had till August and she goes, I might be able to stay till August. And I looked at Steve, my husband, I was like, no, this doesn’t sound like a very good situation. So I was like, we will work with you on getting you out of there and re-listing it and getting someone back in as much as we possibly can. So in the state of North Carolina, if you break the lease early, the tenant is still responsible to pay out until a new tenant comes in. And she was totally understanding of that. And like I said, we were willing to work with her also on

Ashley:
That because of the circumstances. And that’s where it does become so difficult and it can make you vulnerable as a landlord as to where that human compassion versus following what your lease agreement states.

Ashley:
It is very hard not to get emotional. And there’s different ways that this can come into play as far as a single mom who has three kids and maybe her husband just left and she’s saying, I can’t pay this month. I’m sorry, as to where do you draw the line as to your compassion as to where there’s somebody else who it’s excuse after excuse or they don’t even tell you they’re not going to pay. Things like that. And I’ve had more empathy for somebody who does come forward to me and let me know ahead of time this is what’s going to be happening or this is the situation and this is what I think needs to happen or whatever it is, giving me the heads up instead of in your circumstance, this lady could have just said, you know what, I’m out of here. I found another place. I’m gone try and come after me, but this is what has happened, blah, blah, blah. I will sue you because I wasn’t safe here. All these different things. So it could have been way worse instead of having a resident that you’re working with and having that relationship built between both of you to find the best solution, having that communication. So when they decided to move out your tenant, how bad did it actually get as to what was the last thing you know that this guy was doing?

Eileen :
He was sending about 50,000 emails a day. Does

Ashley:
He have three virtual assistants in the Philippines or something that’s doing this? I

Eileen :
Dunno how this guy’s doing this. And then pretty much giving the stare at everybody in the cul-de-sac from his front porch. So it was very creepy scenario. Very disturbing.

Ashley:
Yeah. Oh my gosh. So what ended up happening with this property? Has she moved out by now and moved on?

Eileen :
Yes, actually just recently she moved out. We’re getting ready to relist it for rent and this is where a property manager really came to help. This was our first long-term rental. So we’ve bought things for properties. We’ve had a short-term rental for a couple years, but this was our first long-term rental. And I asked my property manager who at the time was only helping us with onboarding, but now us being in Florida, I was like, okay, we work so well together that I’m going to pass the baton to full service for you. But he was great in telling me all of these things about the state laws and about what would be best practice in this scenario. And I said, you ever come across this? And he said, Nope, that’s a first one for me. And him having rental properties of his own, I was like, ever heard of a tenant like this? Said, no, this is definitely the first timer for me. But it did end up working out. So she is out, she is safe, we’re working with our property manager to find someone who is going to be a good, the best fit for that home. Probably not a single woman, just so we don’t have any kind of repeats of that scenario just for their safety.

Ashley:
And how do you navigate that with dealing with fair housing laws and things like that? Are you just notifying people when you’re showing the house of the previous situation?

Eileen :
If something like that were to come up because our property again is about a half acre to three fourths of an acre away from this gentleman, it’s blocked. You really can’t see him or come in contact with him until you go to our neighbors. But if someone, like a single woman were interested, me and my property manager would say, of course we would want to rent to you, but this is the situation that we’ve had in the past of for your safety, we’re going to highly recommend that, that maybe keep looking in the area. And I think pretty much everybody would agree with

Ashley:
That. And my last piece on this, did the cops ever come or did anything ever happen with this guy?

Eileen :
Yeah, so the cops couldn’t. We did speak to the authorities about it. They did not come or anything, but because he wasn’t trespassing and with other laws in place, they couldn’t do anything about it. But just wanted to touch base with those guys and see what would be next steps if something were to happen. So unfortunately he had a little bit of brain damage from a past job is what my neighbor told me. So not everything is clicking and we work really well with our neighbors in communication and they’re trying to get him help as well.

Ashley:
Well, it seems like they won’t be having any more parties at their house with coming over, unfortunately, after this ordeal. Yeah. Well thank you for sharing that experience with us. I think there’s definitely some lessons learned and we’re going to take a short break and when we come back I want to talk about five lessons you have learned going through this ordeal. Then after that, let’s get into the market maybe why someone else should invest in this market. Maybe not that exact cul-de-sac, but in that market. So we’ll be right back. Okay. Welcome back from our short break. Thank you guys so much for supporting our sponsors. It really keeps our show going just like having the rookie community. We really appreciate it. We are back with Eileen and we just heard her horror story about having a tenant who had a neighbor that had a crush on her and developed into a stalking scenario with up to 50,000 emails sent to her per day. So I don’t even think some of our wholesaler listeners, our direct mail campaigners are doing 50,000 letters or emails a day to buy houses. So maybe someone could hire him to actually do some direct marketing for them. So Eileen, what are some of the lessons that you have learned from this experience?

Eileen :
Yes, no, great question. So we develop a system, all of us as real estate investors and business owners. My husband and I, we’ve developed subsystems and we do that for us personally with our portfolio size. We do it by property. So for example, our short-term rental, we use the Slay doorknob and home app, which allows us to have up to a hundred different codes that we can send our guests checking in and out, multiple master codes. And we also have a notification every single time the door is open so we know who is coming in and coming out and we’re able to unlock and lock anywhere with wifi. So that’s always a great safety feature in there to make sure our guests are the ones who are coming into the home for long-term rentals. We did start offering if our guests wanted a DT service or if they would like to use our handyman to come in and help install their cameras on the property when they move in. And then my husband is actually going to school for it. And we’ve also been offering our other long-term tenant, Hey, would you like us to help with personal VPN? Just to kind of help further protect your tenant’s online privacy. We all have our probably logins and passwords on our laptops or mobile device. So keeping that extra layer of privacy there.

Ashley:
Well first of all, I’m pretty sure after listening to this episode, no one’s ever going to hand their phone over to anyone to get their phone number. Yes,

Eileen :
Don’t do that.

Ashley:
Yeah, that’s another great piece of advice as to being able to protect yourself, all your passwords and everything. Not letting anyone hack into your email is getting your VPN set up or different ways to protect yourself online too. Not even if you’re just a tenant, but everybody should be doing that. And then too, there was something I had seen about using solar panels too for security that you were using.

Eileen :
So for our short-term rental, we installed a ring camera has solar panel chargers, so it helps make sure our camera is always on and that we don’t have to, our cleaners handyman don’t have to worry about all the batteries die. They’re not able to get there till next week. There’s that kind of uncomfortable feeling that you’re not sitting there looking at your phone watching the camera, but just making sure who’s going into the property is the person that should be going there. So that’s always a great feature to have if you have rain camera set up on the outside of your property.

Ashley:
I think that’s also a great advice for a light too. Another exterior light, if you don’t have electric run to a pole or something, my dad has this land with a cabin he built and it’s actually all solar electric, but there is this big pole he put in the driveway or whatever and it has a solar light on it and it just illuminates the whole thing and he never has to worry about charging a battery or actually running electric to the pole to have it. It just constantly will turn on every night when it’s dark. And I think there is a remote or something for it that you can turn it off if you want to, but I never actually thought about that for short-term rentals of just adding in more lighting. We have an a-frame and it has this long twisted driveway and that actually would be a great idea to put a solar light at the end of the driveway as to here it is, pull in here for if anyone’s arriving at night too. Okay, so what about the neighbors dealing with this situation, your neighbors? Do you have any tips or advice or lessons you learned from that experience?

Eileen :
So another one would be for rookies out there, know your neighbors for multiple reasons. Having a personal connection with your neighbor helps deescalate issues that could snowball, whether it’s with them or with the tenant or it just helps deescalate any kind of situation. Also gives a second opinion on what’s going on. So in this example of my horror story, my husband was talking to our tenant, but I was able to talk with our neighbor and kind of hear, okay, spill the tea, what’s going on? And also it gives another set of eyes looking at your property because you’re going to take the best care of your property, but your neighbors are also probably going to look out for you. Give us a call, Hey, you probably want to get a tree trimmer over there. This one’s leaning, especially if you live in the wooded mountains like we did up there.

Eileen :
And then the third takeaway I would say from all of this is investing in a property manager for the onboarding and offboarding process. If you’re new to this or only if you’ve done it a couple of times, like I said, we’ve learned a lot of tricks through the trade, but one of those, for example, our property manager up there have mentioned that it’s better to show a vacant home versus a home that has all your stuff inside, even if it’s clean the first time around scrubbed it was spotless, but even with stuff inside it makes the desirability of rent for someone to rent it faster when it’s vacant, they can see their stuff. Another thing we’ve learned is educating a tenant on, again, nuances about the property. So hey, when you turn on the dishwasher, you might get a little bit of less water pressure upstairs and the upstairs shower versus them calling you. So it’s little things like using a property manager, making sure you educate your tenant, knowing your neighbors and then digitally making sure that their safety is protected.

Ashley:
Yeah, the little bit there about informing your tenants of little nuances that are in the property is such a great idea to set that expectation forward as most likely. Not every house is going to be perfect, even a new build property that you’re buying. There’s still going to be little things, but so we provide a tenant handbook as to here’s the water shut off, here’s where the electric panel is. And then also just some common how-tos that aren’t actually that common as to an outlet won’t work. Okay, first track, make sure the breaker didn’t flip and little things like that as to go through this process first before submitting a maintenance request. And now what about building your team in place? So do you have any advice on that as far as the lesson learned as you lived near the property and then you guys moved and you’re kind of a lot more hands off?

Eileen :
So we have our A team established, you’ve got your cleaner, your handymen, but having that B team and C team there, even though it’s only been a few months that we’ve been away, it’s been such a blessing that we have them there. And over time I would say, how do you get all of these people on your team? And again, we’ve got a spreadsheet with everybody’s name number on there, but going to our local real estate investors association, getting on BiggerPockets forums, really networking and see who’s the best fit for what. And then we also hired a couple of these B team, Z team people to do a couple jobs for us that we needed to have done anyway before we moved. So we got a chance to see their work and we got a chance to develop that relationship with them.

Ashley:
And then my last, if you have any lessons for this would be about doing new construction or new development.

Eileen :
Yeah, I know it’s very popular to do something like the Burr strategy, but with two kids under two and working a full-time job and all the chaos that comes with life new construction just happened to be something that we found works for us. And I would say in growing areas specifically like Western North Carolina and down here in the Pensacola pace area using either a saleable loans or the primary resident home loan benefits, we’re taking advantage of the builder incentives. Quick example of this property here in Pensacola, we closed on January 29th of this year and they offered a 4.99 interest rate, all appliances included, blinds installed, new construction, you get that one year home warranty. So a quick tip on that is anytime you have a new construction home, only schedule a second inspection on that nine 10 month before that home warranty ends that way. Any little things that’s that come up, that’s a great advice.

Ashley:
Yeah, that’s a great idea. One question real quick on that 4.99% interest rate is that amortized over 30 years in a fixed rate for 30 years? Wow.

Eileen :
Yeah, so I mean there’s a ton of benefits of, and with this being if you choose your market wisely and location and going back to due diligence and research, but if you choose your market wisely, you can cashflow a little bit. So we will cashflow a little bit on this property that I’m at in Florida right now and with the hopes that it’ll appreciate over time we see the growth around us and it’s tremendous. So it can work out for some people. It’s not that forced appreciation like the bur, but still lots of benefits with new builds.

Ashley:
Yeah, I mean it can be less of a headache with less capital improvements, less maintenance, not having to do a manager rehab project, things like that. Definitely a whole different strategy in itself compared to doing a bur. And it doesn’t mean that one is right or wrong and that’s why it’s so important to figure out what, why are you investing and what are your skillsets and what can you bring to the table and what do you want your lifestyle to be like? Because there’s people like, oh, wholesaling can be the best way to get you started because you’re just making money. You can have little money invested into it, but do I actually want to go and knock on people’s doors? No, I don’t. So finding why is what you want your lifestyle to be, what skill sets you bring and kind of incorporating that into helping you pick your strategy is such an advantage as to thinking, oh, I can maximize my return by doing this because in the long run you might actually make more mistakes and be way more miserable. And part of being a real estate investor is that you get to be happy and you get to live the lifestyle that you want and sometimes it’s hard to, you kind of lose focus on that. We

Eileen :
Were probably one of the younger couples at our real estate investment association up there in Asheville, but it was great how the older generation really wanted to help us out. They knew what we wanted to do, but new build is a great way for families with very small children, like I said, 202, so very small families to start getting their portfolio up and going to,

Ashley:
Let’s talk about the Asheville market. What are some of the advantages? If I decide today I’m going to invest out of state into Asheville, what are some of the reasons you would say this is an advantage to invest in Asheville?

Eileen :
The population growth one is just off the charts. We saw in Covid that people were coming down to Florida. Now we’re kind of seeing a little bit of an exit to that in some areas, but the population growth in North Carolina in that area of North Carolina has just been increasing over year after year. And it has been even before Covid as well. There’s companies coming in like Pratt and Whitney just built a 1 million square foot facility right outside Asheville City limits. So there’s more company, bigger companies coming there. A couple other things, year round activities if you like the outdoors. Asheville is perfect if you like craft beer.

Ashley:
Wait, are you describing Denver or Asheville? Yeah, I know

Eileen :
It’s the Denver, I always thought of it as the Denver and Portland meets the East coast and

Ashley:
Probably more affordable too,

Eileen :
Probably. It’s gotten a little pricey, but it’s probably more affordable than Denver. But you can go hiking just about year round up there. Pretty much any outdoor activity you can think of the side surfing, but the built more the Blue Ridge Parkway. And if you’ve got a short-term rental up there, which the great Smoky Mountains, which we’ve heard it on the podcast before, but it’s made for hospitality so you really can’t go wrong there. And we are booked through the year with our short-term rental. I will say that word to note is Asheville, Buncombe County, the county that Asheville is in, they are going through some short-term rental restructuring and restrictions. So that would be mindful to keep an eye on if that was your strategy going into that market. But the other thing I did want to mention is I love that area because you get the perfect amount of each of the four seasons without any extreme weather things going on. So not like three feet of

Ashley:
Snow or anything like that.

Eileen :
Yeah, very rare. Very rare does that happen. And no, you might get the tail end of a hurricane come up or a bad storm, but nothing extreme is happening over in that part of the country. So insurance costs are also low there too.

Ashley:
And what about is North Carolina a landlord friendly state or tenant friendly landlord?

Eileen :
Very landlord friendly states. That was another reason why that we chose that area as well. So crossing your T’s and dotting your, i’s there.

Ashley:
Well Eileen, thank you for that insight into the Asheville market. So what is next for you guys? What do you plan on doing?

Eileen :
This won’t come to fruition for a few more years, but we are working with our network up there with a few other experienced investors and we’re hoping to build some more affordable housing. The Asheville market has gotten pretty pricey for first time home buyers. You definitely have to have a little bit of a higher income too if you’re a first time owned buyer. So we’re looking at building some affordable housing communities up there.

Ashley:
Wow, that’s awesome. Well Eileen, thank you so much for joining us and for sharing your story. If you want to learn more about Eileen, we’ll link her information into the show notes and this is coming soon. We will be able to find you guys a property manager on biggerpockets.com. Eileen has been working hard to vet and do the due diligence work for you guys on finding property managers that will fit your portfolio to manage, oversee them, and operate your properties for you. So make sure to check out biggerpockets.com for when this will be available. So if you have a horror story or a therapy session with me to talk about a deal gone wrong, a contractor that did not show up or ran away with your money, or maybe you have a neighbor that is harassing your tenant, go to biggerpockets.com/reply and please fill out the information and we can get you onto the show to talk about the situation that you encountered as an investor so others can learn from your experience. Well, Eileen, thank you so much. We really appreciated having you on. I’m Ashley and we’ll see you guys next time on the next Real estate rookie episode.