The Keith Andrews Podcast

Making Property Management Great Again | Robert Johnson E20

• Keith Andrews • Season 1 • Episode 20

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In this special 20th episode of The Real Estate Junkie, Keith introduces his new business partner, Robert Johnson, an active-duty Army officer stationed in Colorado Springs. Since 2020, Rob has been investing in rental properties, and now he’s preparing to transition out of the military to focus full-time on their exciting new venture—a property management company dedicated to serving the Colorado Springs area. Together, they share their journey of building a successful real estate investment portfolio and how their combined experience will bring a fresh approach to property management in the Pikes Peak region. Tune in to hear the backstory, the vision for their new company, and why this is a game-changer for local investors.

Connect with Rob:
https://www.instagram.com/robdoesrei/
https://www.youtube.com/@robdoesrei
https://www.x.com/robdoesrei

Connect with Keith:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamkeithandrews
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@iamkeithandrews
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@iamkeithandrews

Interested in the Colorado Springs Real Estate Market?
Explore Alpha Zulu Realty—Colorado Springs' #1 Investor-Focused Realty. From A to Z, we've got you covered in acquisitions, sales, and property management. Visit https://www.AlphaZuluRealty.com today.

Like in this market, it's almost impossible to have a vacancy for more than a week. I've never had it. Personally, maybe I have a few times, but that's only because I was doing some type of renovation between the tenant turns. And so there's just this lack of urgency here in the Springs when it comes to property management. I would say it's everywhere. mean, I have properties in four different states. Well, three different states that are actually rentals. And I have tried to find good quality property management for all of them. It's hard to find. It is. It's. Welcome to episode 20 of the real estate junkie podcast today. I'm excited to have joined with me Robert Johnson Robert Actually was a client of mine initially and today we're gonna announce something that we're pretty excited about But to start things off. I want Rob just to introduce himself Tell us about his real estate journey so far and then we'll dive into what we're doing together in the springs. Yeah, thank you Keith for having me on. first I want to say congratulations because you are one episode away away from being in the top 1 % of all podcasts. nice. I didn't even know that. Is it 21? Is that the episode? 1 % of all people who start a podcast make it to episode 21. So congrats early. Congrats on that. that's pretty incredible because I have like literally another 20 episodes lined up already with the guests and everything. So You're gonna continue to see this show grow. Good, good. Yeah. Thank you again for having me on. I'm Rob Johnson. How did I get started in real estate? Actually, my wife and I are both in the army currently. So. And the army let you have that beard? No, I'm on baby leave right now because we just had our first kid. So if I don't have to shave, I don't shave. But so we bought our first house in 2020 and it. Like through COVID, it just appreciated like crazy. And that kind of woke me up to how real estate is a really incredible thing. And I was like, I am making so much more money. I'm building my wealth so much faster having real estate than if I were just making money off of my W -2 job. And my wife actually came across this thing called Active Duty Passive Income, a Facebook group, a couple of years ago. And I started diving into that and realizing like, cow, real estate is really a really great ticket to start building wealth. and, and from that I found bigger pockets. I started diving into all the episodes, and learning everything I could. And we soon after that PCS, which for the listeners is a fancy term for moving, that the army makes you do fairly often. And we were only going to be at the next duty station for about nine months. So. we planned on renting and we actually did. signed a lease, we rented. and the more I learned about real estate and the more I read the books and listened to the podcast, was like, man, why am I re renting? We should, we should be buying more real estate. And the fact that we're only here for nine months is actually a better reason to buy more real estate because I can turn it into a rental quicker. It's not a reason to rent more. It's a reason to buy more. So we actually paid a big, a big fee to break our lease. bought another house. So we bought a house there and it's being in the army. We got to use the power of the VA loan. So I wanted to use the VA loan as many times as we could while we're still in the army. for the listeners out there, that'll sharp shoot me for saying that we were only going to be there for nine months, but I was going to use a VA loan. We actually planned on being there longer because we planned on having our kid there, which would have taken us over the 12 month mark easily. But It ended up not happening. ended up getting orders to move before the baby came. So, but it was legal. We planned on staying there for 12 months. and then when we found out we were coming to Colorado Springs, I interviewed 15 different realtors. Keith was one of them and he was a clear winner for an investment and investor focused real estate agent. So he helped us find our, our next house here, which is a great. Like fixer upper, live in burr. It's a live in burr. Yeah. It, there were carp, there's teal carpet in the bathrooms. So we're, we're doing a slow live in burr now. the, top floor is completely done. We still have, we still have to think about what we're going to do with the basement, but we're slowly revamping it. So it's a, it's a slow live in value, add burr for now, and it'll eventually become a really great rental. and then soon after that, I, I. got a little more creative. did a wrap around mortgage, which is a version of seller financing deal on a house in Texas. Sorry for another podcast. Yeah, I think we will do that. Let's let's plan on a future episode where we do do a deep dive on that because wrap around more anything creative is a lot of people get confused. And I was literally just talking to someone today about the difference between sub two and a wrap around. And so yeah, definitely. think we should plan on having that episode. Yeah, that's I'm down. That was a, that was a ton of fun. That was the most fun deal I've done and I've never even seen the property. So yeah, that was the last house I bought. So I'm still, fairly early in my, in my real estate entrepreneurial, career, but yeah, in the last 12 months we've gotten three houses. so we're starting to build fast and being in the army, like Let me preface this by saying I love what I do in the army. I love the mission that we have. love leading soldiers, leading paratroopers, doing the fun things like jumping out of planes and shooting guns and all that stuff. It's a ton of fun. having our first kid was a big catalyst in me realizing that I would really love to have a little bit more time, money, and location freedom. The army does not really allow you to do at least two of those things. The money, like, The money is okay. They pay okay. They have good benefits. So I have, I have financial freedom to an extent, but the time and location freedom, absolutely not. And when I was coming to Colorado Springs, and joining the, joining the military group at Fort Carson, I was actually supposed to go to unit that was going to go to Korea for nine months. And they were, they are still leaving, to go to Korea for nine months, right before my daughter turns one. And that was another reason I was like, man, like the army likes to do, the army likes to send you away for a long time. Sometimes those things are very valuable and the, the U S needs people to go and do those things. Other times it's kind of a rotational thing. It's like moderately impactful to national defense and national security. but I still, it was kind of a wake up call. was like, I, I don't want to miss literally more than half of my kid's life before she turns two. with a guarantee that it's going to happen again until I do my 20 years and get out of the military. So because I had been getting into real estate and learning about finances, not even just real estate, but investing in general, personal finance, all the Facebook groups about the fire community, the financial independence, retire early community, and learning about that whole world, I realized I don't have to work a normal W -2 job until I'm 65. I plan on working until I'm dead because I would get bored, but I want to do it with more time and financial and location freedom. And I think I have a little bit of a different definition than most people do with that because most people, when they think they want time freedom, they want to work less than 40 hours a week. I don't care if I work more than 40 hours a week. I just want to be able to choose the hours of the day and the days of the week that I do it. I also want the location freedom of not necessarily being able to work. anywhere I want, when I want that, that would be great. That's an eventual goal, but I at least want to be able to confidently stay in the same country as the rest of my family for most of the year. And the army, as much as I love it is, is it's very difficult to do that. So I have really started aggressively, taking control of my finances in buying real estate, buying rental real estate. That'll appreciate in cash flow and getting into other investments like normal brokerage accounts and whatnot but real estate really helped me kind of kind of pivot my Pivot my thoughts about how our lives are gonna go from here on out. Well, it's definitely Very powerful. It's the you know, I say it all the time it's the biggest builder of wealth in America and Time is on your side, right? If you the earlier you start the sooner you'll be financially independent and it doesn't really take a lot to get there. There's gurus out there that are selling all different kinds of systems and formulas, but the truth of the matter is five homes would get you there as little as five homes, as little as three with more time will even get you there. So you don't need hundreds of doors. But what was interesting about Robert is I saw how he had just like really sunk his teeth into real estate. You know, he just mentioned he did that creative deal and he all, we were sitting at lunch one day. We went to lunch. think we went to, where do we go? Sugars. And he was like, yeah, man, I, I, I really been thinking about like starting a property management company. And it, it's funny because I had been thinking about the same thing. I mean, I'm already managing all my properties myself. I'm practically managing my friends properties for free. have lots of friends and family that own. real estate out here that I helped them purchase. And even though they may be managing it themselves or using a property manager, they always get into a situation where they need help. And I always have to go in and save the day. For example, I have a friend that was working with a property manager and his house has been vacant for like three months now, just sitting there on the market. You can see the listing and see that there's been plenty of you can tell on Zillow, right? There's been plenty of people contacting the property management company about the property, but no one's moved in yet. And so literally, you know, when you have a rental property, one month being vacant could wipe out the cashflow for the entire year. And so he came to me, I get people like this all the time that come to me. And I can usually jump in and get someone in there. Like in this market, it's almost impossible to have a vacancy for more than a week. I've never had it personally. Maybe I have a few times, but that's only because I was doing some type of renovation between the tenant turns. And so there's just this lack of urgency here in the Springs when it comes to, property management. I would say it's everywhere. mean, I have properties in four different States. Well, three different States that are actually rentals. And I have tried to find good quality property management for all of them. And I, it's hard to find. It is. It's, it's, you know, for this last one that I just bought in Texas, I interviewed four or five different property management companies, which is all of them in that area. Cause it's kind of a small town in temple, Texas. And, like the, the one that I thought I was going to go with who seemed like the best property management company, the guy I was talking to went on vacation and he didn't have a backup to even answer the phone. I'm like, that is a red flag. What happens when a tenant calls you? And needs something done. Or another property manager told one of my tenants one time when the dryer vent clogged to just unplug the dryer from the dryer vent and run it anyways. I'm like, dude, what are you doing? Yeah, we hear this story over and over and over again. I go into friends' homes that have been managed by a property management and I check the eight, HVAC and the filters like never been changed in like three years and you're like what who's managing this who's like maintaining this making sure that the there's certain standards are met and so I Realized that there was a big need and I had been thinking about it But the reason why I didn't want to do it is I'm like, man They make it so complicated with all the licensing and insurance and all these different things that you have to do In the state of Colorado in order to be a property manager. You have to have a real estate license And many of the brokerages that are out here They don't even allow their agents to manage properties So the only way to really do it is to join one of these big property management companies that are failing failing people or to do it yourself So I was already on that mind track and then when he brought it up and he he was you know Robert was saying you know I was thinking maybe when I get out of the army that's what I'll do is is I'll continue to grow my real estate portfolio and that will manage my properties as well as other people's properties. And so we kind of like, we had some synergy there and finally one day I just said, let's do it. And so that's what the exciting announcement is today is that we are doing it. It is official. I think we're like probably a week away, but knowing the bureaucracy and everything else that you have to go through, I would say we could probably safely say mid September we should be fully in gear, but we probably won't take on clients until maybe October, I'm thinking, beginning of October, because we're testing our systems right now with our own properties and then bringing on like friends and kind of, want them to be the beta testers for everyone that's out there because when we bring on other clients, we want to make sure we're doing just a rock solid job and not missing anything. So. Anything else you want to add to that? No, I'm excited to get rolling with it. I mean, we've heard all the pain points of of so many different investors in Colorado Springs and I will be able to provide a solution that I think will outcompete everybody that I've heard of. Yeah, not just on price, but on service. Yes. And everything else. we're really putting our all into this thing. We're jumping in so we could probably bring on 100 houses right now and be OK. What we want to make sure, though, before we bring on those 100 houses is that our systems are finely tuned. When maintenance requests get in, they get answered immediately. These types of things. So we're setting up the website, the portal, and all the little things that you need to do to be successful. Yeah, yep, absolutely. Yeah, it's a fun time. Yeah. So it's so the name is Alpha Zulu Realty. So we are actually not just a property management company, we are going to be a full service reality, but we will only be working with investors. So if an investor comes to us, and maybe it's someone new that wants to buy a rental property, we could definitely help them with that. I think at some point we'll have probably turnkey rentals even that we can offer our clients. But we will we could buy we could sell we can manage your property for you and we can also offer all the cart services So that's something else that we're talking about because I know there's a lot of landlords out there that are happy doing it themselves But they need a little help on certain pieces and we could definitely help you with that. So Stay tuned for that. It's alphazulureality .com the website is in progress, but I think By next week, we should have it up and running. Yeah, I think so. And if anyone has any questions, if you're listening to this and you're in Colorado Springs and you own a rental property, maybe you're managing yourself or maybe you're just unhappy with your property manager, do shoot us an email. The more people that we get inquiring about our services, we can get you set up so you're one of our first clients to join us. So you could just send us an email at info at Alphazoolureality .com. And I just want to say why, so let's talk about the name Alphazooloo and why we came up with that name in the first place. Do you want to say anything on that? You start. Go Yeah, start. Well, it was really, it's because we were kind of like torn. We didn't want it to sound like a military thing because, you know, Alphazooloo is the phonetic names for the letters A and Z. But what we were trying to do is say, look, we're gonna do everything from A to Z when it comes to property management. And so that's really why we wanted A to Z, however, we couldn't get A to Z. The domain was 750 grams. Yeah, so we weren't gonna spend 750K to buy that domain, but AlphaZulu was. Yeah. And so we went with that. it says a lot, for my non -military folks, they don't even have a clue. Like I've had some friends say, Hey, like Alpha, that's strong. You guys are like dominant. And I'm like, yep, that's right. then Zulu, you guys are like part of some African tribe. like, no, but you know what? We will definitely take care of you. So I'm happy with the name and it's easy to remember. And there's not another one out there. So we are the first one. And who knows one day we may be managing and taking care of people outside of Colorado Springs, outside of the state of Colorado. Who knows? Yeah, someday as soon as we get growing. I think eventually our bread and butter is going to be taking an investor, whether they're a new investor or an experienced investor, and taking them through the whole finding a great investment property, helping them purchase that property through any kind of finance, whether it's standard conventional mortgages or creative finance, helping them through that whole process, and then bringing them into the ownership and if it needs to be remodeled or... renovated or anything we'll help them with that and then we'll and then we'll put them under the umbrella of standard property management. And that's something that I've already been doing here in the spring for the last couple years is I've been working with a lot of investors, new investors, veteran investors in like helping them you know rehab homes, fill vacancies, although I wasn't doing that part officially I was helping them find these properties and so now this is just another component of that and we can finally put it together and have control of the wheel ourselves instead of being dependent on anyone else. And so that's what I'm really excited about. I'm actually excited for my tenants, what it's gonna mean for them, right? Because Rob has been working really hard on this stuff and he put together a lot of SOPs and residential manuals and stuff like that that we're gonna be able to start giving the tenants. So that's gonna be another important part of our mission is really to provide quality housing to our residents. if that's a, if we're managing your property, your tenants are going to be taken care of and so are you. Yep. And that's not just, we're not just taking care of the residents because it's the right thing to do. I mean, it's a good ROI. Like it is a happy resident keeps, it takes care of your property. stay longer. I, yeah, these, landlords that don't take care of tenants end up shooting themselves in the foot. Residents owners us. We're not just clients of each other. We're partners with each other and everybody's investment journey. It's that's right Yeah, well, I'm excited Rob. This was a plan to be a really short podcast more of a Special announcement than anything else just announcing that hey, we're diving into this thing And we want to try to help as many investors that are out there in Colorado Springs. So again alpha Zulu realty Dot -com that's the website it will be up in in the next week or so if you have any questions for us If you're interested in any of our services, please do email us info at alpha Zulu realty comm You could also follow Rob if if why don't you give your social media content as well? Because he robs been pumping out a lot of great advice Lately on his social media and you definitely want to follow this guy Yeah, I'm new to the social media game, but it's ramping up quickly. So I'm getting better. But you can follow me on YouTube, Instagram, Instagram threads, and X now at RobDoesREI. Awesome. Well, Rob, thank you so much for doing this with me today. And we'll definitely set up another episode maybe in the next couple of weeks where we can deep dive into some creative financing and talk through that deal you just did. That'll be fun. Sure. Yeah, I nerd out about real estate, especially creative stuff. Well, that's what this podcast is really about. It's just nerding out about it, and that's what we do. So everyone is out there. Thank you for joining us. God bless. Until next time, peace.