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Rent Recovery Training

Credit Reporting and Rent Collection

Post move-out collections with Rent Recovery: the laws, the process, and why it is a marathon.

55 lessons 7h 2m of video 4 modules

Taught byRobert M. Locke, RMP®, MPM® & Monica Gilroy

Read the full transcript

Introduction to Collections

Will. Greetings. My name is Robert Locke and this series that we're gonna do is called Post Move Out Collections, a new revenue stream. We've got about 10 of these on our website. You can kind of watch 'em as you need to and then, sign up for a drip campaign and it'll be on our website.

We'll tell you at the end of this video how to do it. One of the things I wanna make a note, they're all gonna be five to seven minutes long. We know you don't have a lot of time to watch a 15 or 20 minute video, so we're gonna cut 'em way down. That means there's gonna be a little jerking and a little pausing and some, you know, it's gonna look kind of funny as we edit out and cut down things

Property Management Lifecycle

that don't need to be set so that as a warning, our first, conversation we're gonna have is this collections is a natural extension of your management business. It's amazing to me how little the idea of receivables or collecting on your receivables is talked about in the nrpa world or on the property management community. But really it is a natural extension of what you do. Here's what I mean. A decade or two ago, I came up with the idea of a property management life cycle.

Kind of a natural sequence of events that you, go through in the property management arena and you'll see how it makes sense. First thing you do is you market to owners. When an owner says yes, there's a whole process called setting up the owner. Once you've set up the owner, you begin marketing the property. Once the tenant is in the prop made application, you kind of move on to resident signups.

This is a great way to organize your office, organize your documents, okay? Once the tenant has moved in, you've got this ongoing management. It might last for a year, it might last for 15 or 20 years. It's called managing the money, managing the owner, managing the tenant, and managing the physical condition of the property. The next stage in the process is manage the move-outs.

When the tenant gives notice, then it's managing the separation. And look at what the last one is. A couple of decades ago, we're gonna realize that when tenants move out, often they leave owing a bunch of money. And we didn't do very well with that in the first couple of decades of our business. We were too, too, you know, too much of a steep learning curve on the property management arena.

But we're gonna kind of talk through that.

Enforcing Lease Terms

This collections idea collections is really the wrong term. We ought to call it something different because the word collections has kind of a negative bent to it. Nobody wants to talk to a debt collector. You want to get rid of the conversation telling you're with the IRS or you're a debt collector that'll, that'll make your, that'll make 'em go away. It's wrong term.

It's really enforcing the terms of the lease. Now, when you're in property management and the tenant is in the house, you know how to enforce the terms of the lease. You've kind of got your thumb over their, over their occupancy. It's called an eviction. So you can kind of snap 'em into shape a little bit, kind of force 'em to obey the rules.

And so while before move out, you know what to do. The problem is, I faced it back in 1980 and 1990. Once they've moved out, after they've moved out, it's kinda like, okay, I don't have any power over 'em anymore. I have nothing to really enforce. How do I collect the money that I'm due?

And that's what this whole series is about.

Post Move Out Collections

Now, most people, I'm including us for the first couple of decades. Most people ignore it. And there's a very important reason why we ignored it. And the reason is cuz there's no money in it. When you collect from a tenant after move out and you collect $3,000, most of it belongs to the owner.

It's unpaid rent. It's damages above the security deposit and the amount left over unpaid late fees or renewal fee or bounced check charges, chump change. And even if you're really successful today at post move out collections, no reason to do it cuz there's no money in it. Well, we figured it out. We figured out how to make lease enforcement member Alice, not call it collections, okay?

We figured out how to make lease enforcement that is post move out a big revenue stream. I mean a giant revenue stream. I mean millions, hundreds of thousands of dollars. We figured it out over time. Took us a while.

Now here's what most of you are doing. Here's what really most property managers are doing. They are sitting on a pile of money and they're trying to make ends meet. You know, we all know property management is a penny anti business. There's not a huge amount of money in it, but, and, and we're kind of poor and we're breathing the financial fumes, so to speak, of property management.

And there's no, you know, there's no really big money. There's no extra money that you can take home and pay off houses and fund retirement programs and such things. Well, there is, it's just that the property management community up to now has kind of avoided it. And it's called receivables. You even go to the, the people who teach us NPA standards and NPA accounting standards.

They never give any attention to the balance sheet and this thing called receivables. And yet the property management industry has got gobs of money sitting on the sidelines. We just don't have a way of, of cashing in on it. Well, we do. And collections, collections is a natural extension of the property management business.

It's just foreign to most of us cuz nobody really has figured out how to do it. Well, we have, and we're gonna go through this series and tell you how we'll do it for you, how we did it, who's involved, you know, how does the whole system work? And we're gonna do it in a little tiny five to seven minute chunks. Okay? This one might be a little long cause I had the introduction.

Now the next one in the vi in the series of videos, next video, we're gonna talk about our experience with post move out collections. Before you do business with somebody and a new id, you wanna make sure they've done it and not just they've done it, but have done it really, really well. Not a single or a double, but a real home run. So we wanna show you what that looks like so that you can kind of make this, will help you make a decision as to whether or not you do any business with us. Now here, if you're on a social media or somewhere out on, on the internet, you might want to, watch these videos.

You can go to rent recovery.com/video, video or videos. We got it set up both ways. So if you want to kind of hook into this and see what this is all about, that's where you go. If you want to reach out to us, do it at [email protected]. Thanks for listening.

Let's move the conversation forward.

About the speakers

Robert M. Locke RMP®, MPM®

Property management trainer and consultant

Residential Management Professional (RMP®) designation, 1998
Master Property Manager (MPM®) designation, 1999
Led Crown Management to the Certified Residential Management Company (CRMC®) designation, 2000
Founded Crown Management in 1980 and grew it to over 1,000 single-family homes under management
Sold Crown Management in 2015 to a Fortune 500 company
Past president and board member, Atlanta chapter of NARPM
Certified instructor, National Association of Residential Property Managers
Georgia Association of Realtors Partner in Education (PIE)
Expert witness on real estate disputes in magistrate, state and federal courts
Licensed in real estate since 1973; B.A. in Business and Marketing, Michigan State University, 1969

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What this course covers

Rent Recovery 29 lessons
Rent Recovery Myth 3 lessons

Post move-out collections with Rent Recovery: the laws, the process, and why it is a marathon.

Curriculum

Rent Recovery29 lessons · 3h 36m

Collections Is a Natural Extension of Property Management Free 6:45
Our Experience With Traditional Debt Collection Locked 8:46
Common Issues Managers Raise Locked 8:30
6 Stages Managers Go Through Locked 5:23
Who We Are Locked 7:05
How Successful Will I Be? Locked 7:49
How Much Is Available to Pursue? Locked 9:29
What Makes Rent Recovery Different Locked 7:56
Characteristics of Traditional Consumer Debt Collection Locked 7:51
Drip: Can I Add My Costs of Collection to the Amount They Owe? Locked 4:57
Why Is It a Marathon? Locked 11:49
When Is 50% Greater Than 60%? Locked 6:50
Most Common Pushback From Tenants Locked 5:18
Co-Signers Locked 7:48
You Must Work With Tenants Who Value Their Credit Locked 6:13
Post Move-Out Collections Will Improve Your Sale Price Locked 4:49
How to Get Started Locked 4:16
24/7 Online Reporting for Managers Locked 10:57
My State Law Doesn't Allow Me to Report Outstanding Charges Locked 6:59
Who Is Monica Gilroy? Locked 8:15
Financial Reporting Locked 7:10
The Anatomy of Post Move-Out Collections Locked 6:28
What Involvement Does the Manager Have in the Process? Locked 9:22
Why a Retainer? Locked 5:38
We Will Make You More Than We Cost You Locked 5:02
Most of the Money Ends Up With You Locked 8:23
Who Do We Partner With? Locked 6:39
Why Post Move-Out Collections Is a Marathon Locked 11:49
'I Want This Process Fully Automated' Locked 8:00

Rent Recovery Myth3 lessons · 22 min

If They Are Broke, They Are Not Worth Pursuing Locked 7:42
I Need a Judgment to Collect on Tenants Locked 8:02
You Don't Need Post Move-Out Collections If You Rent to Good People Locked 6:24

Recordings and extras22 lessons · 2h 54m

Collecting Post Move-Out Balances: Webpage Intro Video Locked 8:26
How to Collect Post Move-Out Unpaid Balances (Series Introduction) Locked 8:26
Does Pursuing Unpaid Balances Make You a Debt Collector? Part 1 Locked 9:02
Does Pursuing Unpaid Balances Make You a Debt Collector? Part 2 Locked 7:42
Email Collection Examples Locked 7:07
How to Collect Unpaid Tenant Charges in North Carolina Locked 4:42
How to Collect Unpaid Tenant Charges in Oregon Locked 4:48
How to Collect Unpaid Tenant Charges in Washington Locked 4:45
New Service: Collect Unpaid Tenant Charges Locked 6:22
CredHub Reasons: Helps You Manage Rent Collection (Enrollment 2) Locked 5:00
CredHub Reasons to Enroll: Helps Collect Unpaid Tenant Charges Locked 6:26
00741b Andy Ritan: Our Experience With Traditional Debt Collection Locked 8:46
Rent Recovery Warning: When Someone Is Unfamiliar With Something, They Cast Aspersions Locked 7:56
Rent Recovery Warning: Just Because You Say It Doesn't Make It Enforceable Locked 11:57
00791-B Andy Ritan: Our Experience With Traditional Debt Collection (Take Ended Early at 2:15) Locked 8:46
If I Report an Unpaid Balance, Why Doesn't It Affect Their Score? Locked 5:51
Financial Reporting for Your Collections Business Locked 6:53
We Want This Fully Automated (Why Automation Fails in Collections) Locked 8:14
How to Get Started With Rent Recovery Locked 12:11
Am I a Debt Collector? Locked 16:22
How Does Rent Recovery Manage Court Filings? Locked 4:44
What Are the Laws That Govern Debt Collection? Locked 9:14

Lessons1 lessons · 9 min

Collecting Unpaid Balances Post Move-Out (Points to POT.com) Locked 9:29

Robert M. Locke, RMP®, MPM®

National property management trainer and landlord-tenant litigator. Built Crown Management to 1,000 houses and sold it in 2015 to a Fortune 500 company.

Monica Gilroy

Real estate trial lawyer, general counsel for NARPM’s Atlanta chapter and frequent NARPM speaker. Twenty years co-developing these documents and courses with Robert.