Nov 27, 2023
Maximize Income by Doing the Maintenance Correctly with Ray Hespen
How can streamlining maintenance help maximize a rental property's net operating income?
In this episode of The Passive Wealth Strategy Show, host Taylor Loht talks with Ray Hespen, co-founder of Property Meld, about how their software helps property managers efficiently track and resolve maintenance issues at their rental properties. They discuss how taking a data-driven approach to prioritizing and quickly addressing problems can improve tenant satisfaction and retention, resulting in higher profits for property owners.
Ray Hespen's opportunity to start Property Meld came from a bad personal rental experience where maintenance issues weren't being addressed. He and co-founder David Kingman did market research with property managers to understand pain points, then built software to connect renters, service providers, and property managers to streamline maintenance coordination. This solved a major renter's frustration while saving owners and managers money. Hespen and Kingman quit their jobs and invested fully in the new venture, with Hespen working from his basement while Kingman built the platform. Though complex, Hespen's engineering background helped him understand system scaling and processes. The Ascent Innovation Center at Mines offered space as the company gained traction. Now a major success story, Property Meld has 40 employees and is doubling in size, becoming a leading real estate software provider that's especially critical during COVID. Hespen is grateful to watch the company grow and help property managers leverage technology.
[00:03:00 - 00:06:00] The origin story of Property Meld
* Ray and his co-founder started Property Meld after a terrible personal rental experience trying to get maintenance done
* Their goal was to fix the coordination issues in property maintenance
* They now serve over 575,000 rental units
[00:06:00 - 00:09:00] Identifying and prioritizing maintenance problems
* The software captures maintenance requests and uses data to triage issue priority
* HVAC issues need to be addressed within 3 days to avoid dissatisfaction
* Plumbing issues can wait 4.5 days before tenants get frustrated
* Electrical issues have a 5-day satisfaction threshold
[00:09:00 - 00:14:00] Finding and managing vendors
* With 50,000 vendors in the system, Property Meld evaluates speed, cost, and tenant ratings
* This data helps optimize spending on maintenance
* Can identify the best vendors for quality, reliability, and fair pricing
[00:14:00 - 00:19:00] Scheduling repairs efficiently
* By using text reminders and algorithms, 85% of repairs are scheduled in under 4 minutes
* Tenants today expect a high level of coordination
* Software facilitates faster scheduling between tenants, vendors, property managers
[00:19:00 - 00:25:00] Getting owner approvals
* The system enables streamlined approvals from investors on bigger repairs
* Owners can review images and info, approve via their phone
* Average approval takes around 6 hours
* Still faster than traditional methods
Quotes:
"The second largest impactor to net operating income is maintenance. I’ll tell you the breakdown. 5 percent goes to vacancy. 15 percent goes to property taxes...12.7 percent is maintenance repairs and maintenance." - Ray Hespen
"If you get an HVAC issue, you don’t have more than three days. You will get a bad rating, a bad experience, a bad potential decrease in the chance of renewal three days yet on a plumbing issue, you have four and a half on electrical, you have five." - Ray Hespen
Connect with Ray
Website: https://propertymeld.com/
Apply to Invest with Taylor at www.investwithtaylor.com
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