Ep032: Protecting Rental Profitability in 2026 – What Smart Landlords Are Doing Right Now (Pillar #3)

Chris McAllister: Welcome to the Landlord Profitability Playbook podcast, where it’s my job to create and coach business opportunities and strategies that support and add value to real estate investors. I’m here today, as always, with my partner in all things marketing, Laci LeBlanc.

Good morning, Laci. 

Laci LeBlanc: Good morning, Chris. 

Chris McAllister: So today we’re gonna dive into part three of our three-part series called What Smart Landlords Are Doing Right Now. In our last episode, if you tuned in, we discussed operational precision and why tightening up daily execution is critical during times like these.

And times like these, I mean, it’s just, it’s just tough. You know, the, the real estate market is, is, uh, in an odd place. Interest rates are still high. Inflation is high. Rents seem to have plateaued just about everywhere across the country, so it’s a little bit different, uh, situation we’re in right now than we were over the past two or three years.

But today, for part three, we’re gonna talk about the difference between being busy and being in control. So that’s the big theme of today’s episode. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah. Control versus chaos is what this episode is all about. So set the stage for us, Chris. What do you mean by control versus chaos? 

Chris McAllister: It’s just… A- and again, it seems like, you know, I- I’m a broken record b- uh, the third episode in the series, but there’s a lot of malaise out there.

And there’s a lot of landlords that, uh, they’re not failing by any stretch of the imagination, but they still feel stressed. They still have this existential angst, so to speak, and, and it’s… They’re carrying it with them daily. And, and that usually means something, right? You know, stress, stress often comes with a message.

And it’s not that the properties necessarily are doing badly, right? But sometimes that, that stress comes because as, as owners, maybe we don’t have enough clarity about what’s actually going on, not just in each individual property from a financial standpoint, but within our overall portfolio. So we’re…

we, we might be missing some clarity. We might be missing some structure, and maybe we just don’t have enough confidence in, you know, the, the day-to-day processes that are happening or are happening around us, you know. And, and I think that goes for landlords who are managing for themselves, and it also goes for for landlords who have somebody helping them, a property management company.

So that’s what kind of gets me into this. And I know this sounds really fuzzy, and I apologize for that, but that’s what kind of gets us into this conversation and this thought process about control versus chaos. You know, it, it… Control is the difference between feeling like, you know, you’re running your rentals versus feeling like your rentals are running you.

And when you feel like your rentals are running you, that feels chaotic. That, that is chaos, right? But if you feel like you’re actually running your rentals, you know, that, that gives you a feeling of control and confidence that I just feel a lot of us are missing right now. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah. As someone who’s very familiar with existential angst and who desires control to manage it on a daily basis, that you know, I think that’s a really great way to put it.

But what I’m hearing is that this is not just about the performance of your rental properties, it’s also about how owning re- rental properties feels. 

Chris McAllister: Yes. I… That, that’s perfect. So a lot of landlords are working really, really hard, right? And the rent’s coming in, properties are occupied. You know, maybe there’s not even…

Maybe we’ve gone, a few months without, you know, a major crisis, and yet there’s just this underlying feeling of unease. And s- to some degree, a- and I think this is a huge degree because I, you know, I see it with, with, uh, landlords all the time, even the ones we work with, is that there’s this big difference between, working hard and being busy and being in control, right?

So a lot of our landlords that we talk to, they’re in the reaction mode all the time. Again, their properties are running them. They’re reacting to repairs. They’re reacting to move-outs, vacancies, complaints, trying to get people to stay past the, the, the lease e- end date, right? Getting renewals done.

They’re worried about expenses and, and just surprises. And that kind of ownership where you’re constantly sort of behind the eight ball or just waiting for the next bad thing to happen, that’s the kind of ownership that wears people down, right? And that’s where being busy doesn’t help, right?

Because you’re just, you’re just wearing yourself out. So yeah, it is about performance, but it’s also about clarity, confidence, and, and decision-making, and sort of getting ahead of the cycle. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah, one of the big points in this pillar is that investors who feel like they’re winning right now aren’t guessing.

Mm-hmm. They’re tracking everything. So what does that look like? What does that mean in real life? 

Chris McAllister: Well, you know I’m all about tracking, right? It, it, it goes back to, anything that we… You have to… If you don’t track something, y- you, you can’t measure what you don’t track, right? I mean, I think that’s just a standard business maxim.

So i- if you can’t measure it, right, you can’t improve it. You can’t make it better, right? I- i- without tracking, you know, you don’t even know if you have a problem sometimes, and then everything feels like a problem or worse yet, you get blindsided. So when you’re tracking, it means that, um, you’re not running the business just by feel or your emotions alone, right?

You’re, you’re, you’re not running the business just based on the headlines you, you know, you read on the newspaper this morning. Reactive landlords tend to guess a lot. You know, they guess about whether the property is doing okay. They guess about whether the leasing is moving fast enough. They guess about whether maintenance feels too expensive.

They don’t have any benchmarks, you know. Uh, for instance, th- they guess about whether their property manager is doing a good job or doing the right things. You know, they… When you’re not tracking, you know, certain performance metrics, and, and, a- and this isn’t micromanaging, Laci. This is really, uh, this is about control, but it’s not about micromanaging.

It’s about… A- again, you can’t, you can’t affect any sort of change or improvement if you don’t know what’s happening, and if you don’t measure it over time, it’s really, really hard. So a strategic landlord, somebody who’s in this for the long time, wants to make a lot of money, wants to expand their portfolio, they track everything.

They know what’s actually happening. They know how fast the turns are taking. They know how quickly, you know, a tenant request is getting handled. They know if the rent is coming in, you know, by the fifth of the month or at least before the next mortgage payment’s due, right? They, they, th- they know if vacancies are going on too long, if they’re gonna miss another month’s rent.

You know, we talked about that in the last episode. You know, they know whether or not that property is performing on a month-to-month basis, and they also know whether or not that property is performing better or worse than it did last year, and they know why, right? This, this doesn’t mean that, you know, the owner who’s tracking is obsessed with spreadsheets, though they might be.

God knows I am. It just means that, you know, we don’t wanna operate in the dark. So I think for a lot of us, getting into the details, at least understanding exactly what’s happening, you know, where any potential breakdowns are, that gives a lot of us confidence, and that’s confidence that, that doesn’t come from guessing.

It comes from knowing. 

Laci LeBlanc: I think avoidance is not a strategy, right? Just because you don’t look at those numbers, you don’t look at time to turn, you don’t look at how much rent you’re collecting on time, you don’t look at your actual performance doesn’t mean that you’re doing better than you are, right?

We talked about feelings. Like, it just… avoidance can make you feel good sometimes, right? Just not knowing, just not knowing the true facts, um, is enough at some point. Yeah. Uh, but it’s not gonna help you improve anything. Um, and that leads really well into your second point. If the mar- if the market feels uncertain like it does right now, what can investors, uh, do to actually give themselves confidence?

Chris McAllister: It comes down to clarity. A- and let me be clear, I do believe the market is uncertain right now, but you still gotta know in what respects it’s uncertain and, and in what respects that uncertain- uncertainty is actually affecting, your rental properties, your business. So clarity is the answer. A lot of landlords say this market feels uncertain right now, and they’re right.

The costs are up, margins are tighter, mistakes hurt more. The market’s less forgiving than it was last year, two, three years ago. But uncertainty gets heavier and heavier when visibility is weak, when you don’t know the details, when you don’t have visibility into your operations. If you don’t know whether your property is truly performing and you’re just relying on magical thinking, then anything that goes wrong, any issue feels bigger than it might be on its own.

You know, if communication is vague, you know, with your property manager or with your tenants, you assume more is wrong than may really be wrong, right? So it can sort of work both ways. I tend to catastrophize, right? If I’m not hearing something, I expect the worst. 

Laci LeBlanc: Amen. Amen. 

Chris McAllister: And, and, and that’s not healthy either.

But again, we still have to have that, that communication with, with your tenants, your property manager, your vendors, whoever you’re working with. And if you only hear about problems after they’ve already grown out of control, then it’s absolutely easy to feel behind because quite frankly, in that situation, you are behind.

But that’s why confidence doesn’t come from optimism, you know, on its own. It certainly does come… doesn’t come from magical thinking, which, you know, we’ve talked about before. I’ve been guilty of more than once in my, uh, real estate career. But confidence does come from clarity. Right or wrong, you know the score.

So better reporting, better communication, better systems, better visibility into what’s happening and what needs attention, that’s what gives landlords confidence today. 

Laci LeBlanc: I think that’s really true. A lot of landlords think they need to be tougher or they need to be, something that they don’t, when really all they need is better information.

Chris McAllister: Right. That’s exactly right. I, y- you know, it’s just like- Or 

Laci LeBlanc: any information. I’m thinking of Nana here. Yeah. She, she’s very anecdotal, right? And that has worked- Yeah … so well for her for so long. But I can see as things get tighter and her vacancies are kind of… She has one vacancy. She’s waiting on contractors, she’s waiting on this, she’s waiting on that, and she is just torn up about it.

And everything else is going well for her, but this, she just doesn’t have all the information she needs to put her mind at ease because it’s this one property that’s eating up all of her, like, head space. Yeah. And she’s only focused on that. Who knows what’s happening with the rest of them while she’s focused on this, getting this one property back up and running.

Chris McAllister: I think that’s interesting and, and, and I think what I wanna say is not something that we, we talked about, that we were gonna discuss today, but- Every property goes vacant at some point, right? It just happens. So part of that clarity, part of, of knowing your business is how often, does the property go vacant?

Is it two years, three years on average if you go back and look? Whatever that is, you know, part of gaining clarity is knowing that, every, every 30 to 36 months somebody’s going to move out, and I know it’s gonna cost me at least X amount of money plus 20% to get it fixed. So part of clarity is people hate math, people don’t like to budget, but, a spreadsheet certainly will help, forecast what…

you know, how much money do I need to be setting aside each month in reserves so that when, you know, inevitably that person moves out and I’ve gotta do a turn and I’m gonna miss at least one, probably two months rent, that’s in the budget. You’ve got reserves for it and it doesn’t just throw you completely off track.

And that’s the kind of thing that makes people more resilient. It makes people more anti-fragile, right? Th- the, the thing that’s gonna really make things worse is the landlords who think, “Well, I gotta toughen up. I, I got, I gotta, I gotta expect more. I gotta, I gotta knock on their door. I gotta email them more often.

I gotta call them.” I… th- that toughness almost always translates into something unhealthy, and it doesn’t do a damn bit of good, right? You, you- 

Laci LeBlanc: I don’t know how many times these contractors have heard from Nana, but no one has shown up yet. Um, 

Chris McAllister: so… So in any case, you know, again, it comes down to clarity, it comes down to information, it comes down to knowing your, your properties, it’s knowing your history, and it’s budgeting forward.

You know, a lot of us just think that stress comes with the territory, and I guess to some degree it does. You know, owning rental property will always involve some uncertainty. Anything that’s got a, a, a great return on investment historically still involves some sort of risk, so things can happen, right?

Whether it’s maintenance or turnover or, you know, something happens with the city, they have a new law coming up or whatever it is. But again, y- you wanna know about that stuff. You wanna be aware, you wanna be open to it, but constant stress is certainly not the goal. Being busy is not the goal, and certainly constant confusion is not the goal either.

Either? Either. A landlord who feels out of control usually doesn’t need to work harder. We can’t work any harder. We’re working as hard as we can. They don’t need to hustle, right? They just need better visibility, better systems, better communication, better rhythms, and a better decision-making structure.

So maybe I’m gonna do a podcast and just talk about what a spreadsheet can do for a landlord. 

Laci LeBlanc: I mean, pour one out for a spreadsheet is all I have to say. 

Chris McAllister: Anyway, I, um- Uh, cl- uh, focusing on clarity, focusing on understanding and, and again, focusing on the numbers. It’s gonna give you such a more powerful insight to your business, and that alone is gonna give you a tremendous amount of control versus what you might be dealing with today.

Laci LeBlanc: I think that it goes back to a point we make frequently here, especially as I’m thinking, you know, about Nana, who’s run this very, very successful business for decades and decades, right? But a spreadsheet is never gonna be in her skillset. You know, uh, she definitely has, she definitely tracks, she definitely has, you know, her paperwork, but just that overall kind of overarching view of how everything is going in a spreadsheet form, um, and even translated into, you know, layman’s terms so you don’t have to look at, look at the spreadsheet itself, c- can be so powerful.

So if it’s not in your skillset, if that’s not something that you feel like you have time to do, if that’s not something you feel like you have the skills to do, then it’s okay, you know, to get help with that. And I think that can lead to, you know, such great visibility, not right now, but, like, for the future, right?

You can predict- Yeah … things. So we’re talking about these vacancies and how every property’s gonna go vacant. If you know in advance what you need to do with that property, even if you don’t know when the vacancy’s gonna happen, you’re gonna be in a much better position, right? Um, you’re going to have talked to a contractor about, something that needs to be done in the future, or you’re gonna at least have a plan for what you need to do in that situation.

So I think that’s that really actually gets into your third point really well, and that’s… Talk to me about what is the difference between feeling stressed and actually being in control, practically speaking. 

Chris McAllister: I can tell you what it’s not, and it’s not extra effort. You know, a- again, a lot of stressed landlords are working hard, they’re answering calls, they’re handling problems, they’re staying busy, they’re making decisions, but they’re doing it in a reactive way, right?

Being in control doesn’t mean there are no problems. There’s always gonna be problems, but there’s gonna be a lot fewer surprises. 

Laci LeBlanc: Right. So it means- That future visibility, right? Right. That you can see into the future almost. It’s like a crystal ball of co- a spreadsheet- Yeah … like a crystal ball. 

Chris McAllister: Exactly.

You know, it means seeing patterns instead of just reacting to one-off events, you know? It’s having enough structure to make informed decisions and, and, and make those decisions with greater confidence. It’s not perfection. It’s not zero problems. It’s just more clarity and less chaos.

Laci LeBlanc: So i- if your property manager is not talking to you about these things, which this is the fourth point in this pillar, but if your property manager isn’t talking to you about these things, then we see that as a problem. Explain that to me. 

Chris McAllister: A lot of property managers are really, really busy too.

They’re processing activity. They’re reacting to things that happen. They’re gonna collect the rent, they’re gonna put notices up, they’re gonna get maintenance out, renew leases and so forth. But for a lot of property managers, you know, they’re, they’re acting like a lot of owners that we’ve met over the years just at scale, right?

Uh, and just reacting and doing that kind of work, which is critical. You gotta do the work, but it’s just not enough, right? You want a property manager that’s, that’s actually going to, you know, hopefully at some point turn into an asset mor- manager for you. They need to understand the performance of your properties, and they need to help you understand the performance of your properties.

So when you’re talking to the, to your property manager or prospective property manager, y- y- they need to be talking about what’s going well in the business, what’s working in their overall portfolio for all the people they manage with, what’s not. What are they struggling with? What’s slipping? Where, where, where are owners struggling right now?

What timing is being lost? What… You know, where are expenses rising? I mean, if, if, if a property manager can’t look you in the eye and say, you know, that maintenance and, uh, rehab costs have increased by 25 to 30% year over year for the past three years, either they don’t know or they’re lying to you, right?

They need to understand the trends in their own business in order to understand the trends in their client’s business. And, you know, they need to be talking about decisions that need to be made now that are going to influence your performance down the road. You know, so many of the things that we’re talking about when you s- when you begin tightening up operations and, and, uh, you know, going deeper on things, quite frankly, sometimes that results in some short-term misery, right?

You may decide to do a couple of things, make a change here or there that might cost you a little bit of money for the first three or four months in order to get the lift that, that you’re going for and deserve to get four, five, six, a year out. So anyway, there’s a big difference between, administrative level day-to-day management a- and strategic management.

The admin level management that most property managers are working, that keeps the machine moving, keeps the money flowing, but strategic management is gonna help you as an owner think better. And in a tighter market, I, I gotta tell you, that difference matters now more than ever. 

Laci LeBlanc: So what you’re saying, what I’m hearing is that the real value of having a property manager is bigger than the convenience of the day-to-day admin.

It’s kind of like connecting the dots in those dot-to-dot pictures to, like, see the larger image. 

Chris McAllister: You know, we, we talked about for years and our tagline was automate your rent collection and get on with your life. Right? And that’s still- Dot, 

Laci LeBlanc: Dot, and. 

Chris McAllister: That’s a basic expectation. But these days that’s not…

Uh, uh, that, that’s just what gets you into the door, I think, these days, you know? One of the things that we’re trying to do and, and w- we’ll do a podcast about this, but we actually have a, um, a link on the Invest with Roost site where you can see what goes on with what we call portfolio reviews. So a portfolio review is when, uh, Gretchen, sometimes I get on there with her, we’ll meet with an owner on a Zoom meeting and we go through their property or their portfol- portfolio address by address.

You know, we look at the rents they’re collecting or look at… We look at what they should be collecting. We make a plan to get there over time. You know, we look at whether or not the property has been maintained to the neighborhood standard and what it would take to get there, and what’s the, what’s the lost, you know, potential rent that’s being left on the table by not, upgrading the property is a huge thing.

So we go through all of that. You know, we go through what they’re, what fees they’re paying and making sure that, uh, you know, we’re meeting all of their expectations. But the other thing that we do in those meetings, and this is powerful, especially in a, in a year where, cash flow hasn’t been where you want it to.

But we also, on that same spreadsheet during that meeting, you know, we go across the board for rent, you know, what rent should be, you know, getting things ready, what’s it gonna cost, uh, fees to Roost, so forth. But then we go to, “Hey, I just wanna remind you, you bought this property in, in 2018. You paid $100,000 for it.

I know your taxes have been going up. I know all that hurts, but just let me show you what you know, we think that property could sell for right now.” And, you know, a lot of times people who paid 100 grand for a property in 2019, they’re looking at 300, $350,000 in market value. So yes, that’s an unrealized gain, but that’s still a huge boost to your net worth.

And having a property manager that can speak to that story and not just get the rent in, but show how that rent is building your long-term wealth over time, either wealth that you can use, you know, later on in life or pass along, to, to the kids and so forth. So that, I think, is really more what an asset manager’s job is because quite frankly, automate your rent collection and get on with your life is just table stakes at this point.

Laci LeBlanc: we talk, we also talk a lot about how, if you have a property manager, then, you know, there are plenty of people who’ve been in this, been landlords for decades, like Nana, right? But if you have a property manager, then they have access to so much more data, um, which gives them access to, uh, really the ability to identify trends earlier or identify trends that you might not identify on your own because you’re s- you’re viewing hundreds and hundreds of doors, right, at a time.

So I think that’s a, a big thing because a lot of people might hire a property management company to take over the automate your rent collection and get on with your life part, and then rely on themselves to do more of the asset management. I think that’s traditionally kind of how property management was.

That’s what you were saying. Um, but having access to a property manager who also looks at it that way, looks at themselves as an asset manager, and then them being able to see trends over these hundreds of doors at a time is a real advantage, I think. Not just for bigger investors with lots of properties, but also for the owner with one or two rentals, right?

Chris McAllister: Yeah. I, I, I think you’re absolutely correct. I mean, that, that extra layer of knowledge and, and context, quite frankly, is uh, you know, it’s invaluable. A- and it’s worth- That’s a 

Laci LeBlanc: good word for it, context. I think it’s, uh- 

Chris McAllister: And it’s worth every penny you pay your property manager to get that expertise ac- across potentially hundreds of properties versus the one, two, three, 20, 30, whatever you own.

You know, a lot of small landlords assume, like you said, that systems are mainly for larger investors, and I think that’s a mistake. I don’t care if you own one house, two houses, a handful, one vacancy, one bad repair decision, or one long, long turn, you know, a turn that takes too long can hit you hard.

It just means that you can’t cont- you can’t afford to continue running your portfolio just on gut feeling, memory, instinct and, hit or miss communication. You gotta establish some rhythm. You, you gotta get some tools. You need some visibility. What you really need is a partner. So that’s what I want you to look for in a, uh, a property management relationship.

Laci LeBlanc: So tell me, this whole thing is about what smart landlords are doing right now. So what are smart landlords doing right now in this context that sets them apart? 

Chris McAllister: Well, I think I think what it comes down to is, again, they’ve got to get more serious about clarity and getting real strategic and financial insights into their business.

You know, they, they need to start asking better questions. You know, w- what, which numbers actually matter, right? What, what numbers and, uh, should I be looking at? You know, how often should I be reviewing performance? I say every month, you know, right? And you know, we, we do check-ins for our owners every 10 days, right?

So you know, for us and our owners, the 10th, the 20th, and the last day of the month, those are check-in periods, right? That’s when we know what we got, how we did. Did everybody pay the rent? What did things cost? And so forth. So that’s how you, you get into, talking about rhythm and cadence, right?

Am I seeing trends or am I just reacting to isolated problems? Is my manager helping me understand the business or just forwarding activity? Do I know where my, you know, my weak spots are, right? Am I making decisions based on me just being frustrated, right? Am I being reckless and, and, and rash, you know?

Uh, and, and also it comes down to just building better habits, Laci. It’s, um… Let me show you this. Let’s just go off script a little bit and, again, I am really- weird in this regard, but I’m just gonna share this, uh, spreadsheet if I can, and maybe we’ll do a a whole episode on this spreadsheet.

But this is what… And I know this is gonna be really small, but this is… And I’m j- just gonna take a minute on it, but this is what I do personally to stay i- in control of my business and to gain some sort of clarity, and I’d be happy to help anybody set something like this up. So, you know, today’s the last day of the 

Laci LeBlanc: month.

Happy, like e- ecstatic. Like, what a fun ac- Yeah … like, it’s like a hobby. 

Chris McAllister: So this is, this is New Ohio Investments, right? We talked about this before. Roost manages these properties for me. We just paid the bills today. So again, there’s stuff on here that there’s probably way too much information, but I know after the June bills are paid and after the July mortgages are paid, that there’s gonna be $4,000 in the bank.

I also happen to know that I’ve got a refi coming that’s gonna put back some money in my pocket on a house that I paid off and fixed up. But I also know that these are the rents that are due for July on every one of these properties. And sometimes you’ll see, like this particular property, I know that the rent is scheduled to go up next month by 20 bucks, right?

Now, you really wanna know how crazy I am? This spreadsheet goes years out.

So we’ve got the rents coming in, right? And this is the thing that people don’t do. So whatever that gross rent is, right, whatever the amount of money is I’m supposed to collect in rents every single month, it, m- I think it’s like 20,000, 25,000 or something, I immediately peel off, as an expense line, 8% to cover vacancies that I don’t know what they’re going to be, and I peel off another 22% for, uh, labor and materials on repairs.

So I literally have had to… I’ve structured my business so that I know that any given month, 30% of all the rent that I cr- that I collect is gonna get used up in an unforeseen vacancy or on repairs and maintenance. Some months it’s more than enough, some months it’s not enough, but it’s enough to keep me going.

I know that I’ve got some major turns going on that are gonna cost me some big bucks. I’ve got some, uh, HVAC system. I’ve got some windows. I’ve got a huge turn coming up, and then I’ve got the mortgages. So I go through all the mortgages. Then I’ve got the insurance bill. Berkshire Hathaway gets paid every single month.

And then the property taxes. Holy crap, look at that, it’s July, the property taxes are due, Laci. 

Laci LeBlanc: I think this is what control looks like- 

Chris McAllister: This is what control looks like … in real life. Yeah. You know, this is, uh, this is the Coventry property in Florida. It’s an Airbnb. You know, I gotta pay Spectrum for that.

I gotta pay the water bill. I gotta pay the electric bill. This is the office, you know, where we w- uh, in Springfield that we own. This is a, a midterm rental I have in Springfield. All the water bills, all the mowing. This is what detail looks like. This is what gives me a feeling of, of control and confidence.

I’m not saying it’s right for everybody but th- I guess what I’m saying is if you really value peace of mind, you’re gonna have to get into the detail. And it doesn’t mean that it’s a constant 40 hour a week, to be in the detail or understand the detail, but it probably is a one-time event to, event to set something like this up.

And you don’t have to be as crazy detailed as I am, and I actually do one of these for every business I own. But it’s what keeps me sane, and I honestly believe if more landlords, took the time to sort of forecast out what reality, uh, is going to be based on what reality has been, I think they’d be a heck of a lot, uh, happier and, and feel like they were in a lot more control.

So I know, Laci, that’s probably too much information today, but, uh, I think that’s where the conversation took us. 

Laci LeBlanc: Absolutely it is. And I wanna… I do wanna point out that if you are listening to this and you can’t see, we do have video of this available, so you can go to, uh, landlordprofitabilityplaybookpodcast.com and check out the video.

We’re also gonna have it, we post it on YouTube. Um, but I do want everybody to have the opportunity to see that spreadsheet if they, again, are just listening. And I think that, again, I’m belaboring this point, I feel like, but if that is not your skillset, if you look at that spreadsheet and you say, “OMG- Absolutely not.

There’s no way. Like, we I think the next step is to call Chris because Yeah. He basically… this is like a system for him now. I

think we need- He can do it with his eyes closed and 

Chris McAllister: blindfolded and his hands behind, his feet tied behind his back. I th- yeah, I think we need to do a whole episode on this, and we’ll actually go through an owner portal. Although we have a video of an owner portal on the website also. Um- 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah, we’ll link to that too so they can take a look.

Chris McAllister: But, you know, to pull up your, you know, last 12-month cash flow statement and the system will actually let you set it up against the year before so you can see your progress. That’s a piece of clarity that I think a lot of owners are missing. And I mean, I know a lot of our owners don’t look at all the things that are in their portal, but they’re there, and that’s one of the cool things of when, uh, Gretchen does a portfolio review with an owner is she pulls all those up.

She shows them where they are. She goes through them and, uh, uh- uh, that alone gives people a I guess a warm, fuzzy feeling. That- that’s what clarity feels like. It’s warmth- 

Laci LeBlanc: I love the baseline, unbiased word clarity because I feel like there are so many landlords out there. Nana is, kind of obsessed with property taxes.

She’s paid off all these properties decades ago, but the property taxes are going up and she needs to cover these property taxes and… right? So she probably is unnecessarily concerned about that. But there are probably also things that she feels great about that maybe she could improve, right?

So I just feel like clarity is such an unbiased word, and it gives you a nice base starting point to know what you should be concerned about and what you can already have confidence in.

Chris McAllister: Well, but let’s just, let’s 

Laci LeBlanc: just touch on- And I think that that spreadsheet is great … 

Chris McAllister: property taxes for a second.

There’s not a damn thing you can do about them, right? Other than know how much they’re going to be. Give it to God. How much they’re going to be, right? So every year they move. A- and every year they move up. So, you know, we get those. First, we get the bills in January, and they let us pay, you know, in two installments.

But, you know, I get the bills. I go through them one by one. Once a year, takes 20 minutes, and I go through and I update the spreadsheet, and then I copy and paste them all the way through to the end, knowing that they’re gonna go up again next year, but it’s a baseline, right? It gives you a place to start.

But once I know that, okay, they’re in the budget. I know I’ve got money in the budget. I’ve done what I need to do to make sure everything maths, and I’m always positive at the end of the month, regardless of whether it’s a, uh, a tax month or not. My point is, there is zero upside to stressing over how much property taxes are.

Right? Dan Sullivan says that i- if you have enough money to solve the problem, you don’t have a problem. 

Laci LeBlanc: Smart man. 

Chris McAllister: Yeah, and clarity comes down to knowing if there’s going to be a problem, and if you can see that there might be a problem, you can solve it now. That gives you peace of mind.

So I’m not gonna belabor the point on the spreadsheet anymore. It helps me, and I think we should do a a segment on that at some point in the future. So let’s wrap this up, Laci. I 

Laci LeBlanc: think that’s great. Yeah, so, um, again, my favorite part of the podcast is when we talk about what steps you would want a landlord listening right now to take next.

Chris McAllister: Well, I think, um, you know, it’s like the questions that I want you to ask your property manager or ask yourself. I mean, that’s critical. But, you know, a lot of landlords are not in crisis, right? But we do have some landlords that sadly are. But so much of it is self-inflicted, and so much of it comes with operating blindly, right?

It’s again, it’s that lack of clarity. If you don’t even know how much your property taxes are when they’re due next month, you, you know, th- you’re gonna feel some anxiety. E- either feel it now and get ready for it, or feel it after the fact when you don’t realize you don’t have enough money in the account to handle it.

Anyway, I do think that a lot of people are, you know, undergoing more stress than they need to. I think they’re working hard. I think they’re busy as hell. They’re doing the best they can. But with a little more clarity, I know they would make better decisions, and they would sleep better at night.

So again, the real issue here in July or June 30th, 2026 is, it’s control versus chaos, and I choose control. So 2026 smart landlords, they’re not trying to guess their way for uncertainty. They’re tracking, they’re reviewing, they’re asking better questions, and they’re building or buying better systems, you know, through hiring a, a property manager who’s a real partner to them.

So because in a tighter market, the real value of management isn’t just convenience. It’s, it’s not just automate your rent collection and getting on with your life. It’s about control. It’s about looking into the future, making better decisions for the long term and, quite frankly, peace of mind. 

Laci LeBlanc: Well, I love an off-script moment, so this has been a thrill for me.

I hope it has for you. I look very much forward, in all, in all honesty, to a segment on the spreadsheet and how you, w- you know, what control actually looks like in real life. ‘Cause we talk about things, but actually showing people, I think is really powerful because it gives them… You know, they can pause it, right?

And they can recreate this spreadsheet for themselves. Yeah. Or they can get a partner that will help them recreate the spreadsheet. They already have their own spreadsheet. They can absolutely take insights from this. So I think that, you know, it’s really powerful what you’re doing in, in- Yeah, every, every-

being willing to being open and show the whole shebang. 

Chris McAllister: Every one of our owners has a private portal that has all their financial information in it, and it’s updated every single month. Actually, Laci, I think it might be updated with every check run, so it may be updated three times a month, but that’s a Gretchen question.

But that, that information is in there, and all the historical information is in there, and it’s it… when we actually are able to sit down and show an owner, this is where you, where it comes from, this is what you do to get it. If you want, just email me, I’ll get it to you. But that that alone sort of takes the temperature down.

And one of the other things that, you know, Gretchen’s been doing, um, over the past year or so, when we sign a new owner up, she immediately schedules a Zoom meeting to do an owner review three months out, right? So if somebody signs up July 1st, so August, September, by October 1st, I guess October 1st, it’s you know, they’ve got a a Zoom scheduled on the calendar, and they’re gonna go through the owner portal, pull all the reports to show exactly what happened for the first three, first three months with us, get all their questions answered and so forth.

So again, we’re all about helping people gain clarity and gain that feeling of control and gain that peace of mind, so. 

Laci LeBlanc: between now and next time, I want people to ask themselves, like, what are my specific stresses? Because there are a few bottom line, right, numbers that everybody’s gonna wanna know, but Nana’s specific stressor is property taxes and making sure that, you know, she’s funded that in advance.

Everybody is different. Every owner has different concerns different things weighing on them. And think about what those big stressors are and how having complete clarity over the situation could relieve some of those for you, because that’s the goal in the end, um, is to take this information and then kind of customize, you know, what you get out of it.

But I’m, I’m very excited about it. I think this has been super helpful, and I’m so looking forward to next time, Chris. 

Chris McAllister: All right. Thanks so much. We’ll see you later. 

Laci LeBlanc: See you later.