Up everyone. This is Niyi Adewole host of the, Ekabo home financial freedom mastermind group. This group meets virtually every Wednesday at 7:00 PM Eastern and the members of this group are committed to achieving financial freedom. Well before the traditional retirement age. So in this podcast, you are gonna get VIP access to the conversations we have about different forms of investment and creative ways to get your dollars working harder for you.
And you originally worked to obtain those dollars tonight on the acaba home financial freedom mastermind podcast. We are joined by Jim Norton, who was a full-time real estate investor based outta Louisville, Kentucky that has built up a portfolio of over a hundred multi-family units in close to 340 mobile home park lot. Jim we're truly honored and, and happy to have you here, man. Thanks for joining. Thanks ne great to be here. Looking forward to that.
Absolutely. And, and Jim, I wanna take it back, you know, to start off you didn't wake up one day and all of a sudden have all these units, I wanna understand kind of what you were doing before you got into real estate and the mindset that drove you toward real estate. But, but first that first part, what were you doing before real? Sure. So I I'm an accountant by trade, I guess I'm a CPA.
So before that I was doing tax accounting for eight years as a, you know, professional, I guess, before I got into real estate. Okay. Okay. And what inspired you to, to move into this path? Were you, I know you mentioned you were a CPA. Were you working with investors while you were a CPA? You know, I, I was really doing corporate tax planning and reporting that sort of thing. Really. I think what inspired me was just, I was just getting burned out at the, uh, nine to five.
It wasn't really a nine to five job. It was more like a, a nine to nine job or nine to 10 job, most of the, most of the day. So I wanted to do something my, on my own, I wanted to have financial freedom. Right. I wanted to be able to just kinda have that flexibility to. You know, life, how I felt I, I should be able to. And, and then also I'm a family guy. So, you know, I wanted time for my wife time for my kids. And, uh, I wasn't getting that in a corporate job.
So friend of mine recommended bigger pockets. He said, you know, he said, you gotta check this podcast out. This was about six, six years ago, a little over six years ago. So check bigger pockets out, start listening to podcast. So I did, and I got, I became addicted fast, you know, and I, I toured through all the podcasts from episode one. So whichever one that was the newest six years ago.
And, uh, at the end of really, I think I made it through maybe two thirds of those podcasts and I felt comfortable that I knew enough to buy a duplex at least. That's that's when I bought a duplex to live in one side, ran out the other. And from there I moved pretty quickly because of all it worked. I was like, dang, this works better. Get, get rolling. that is pretty awesome. And it's, it's similar to, to my story, right.
I, I listened to the podcast, starting back in was this 2015, and I listened to just about every episode I could. And when I finally had the capital, I, I bought a Plex, lived in one unit, rented out the other two, and I can tell you that it was a scary experience for me. Do you remember just thinking back, like, Hey, once you started putting the down payment down and earnest money and, and going through the process, how did you feel? And how'd you overcome some of those fears?
Yeah. I mean, it's, it is pretty nerve wracking just to dive in the first one is the hardest, for sure. Not knowing for sure if you're making the right decision, not knowing for sure. If it's gonna work out, you know, you hear so many success stories and then you hear the nightmare stories at the same time. So you don't know which category you're gonna be in, but I got over it because. I'm a numbers guy.
And so I could look at the numbers and what my metric has kind of been from the beginning is that I, I want my rent, my gross rent each month to be double whatever my principal interest taxes and insurance payment is. So I looked at it just from that. That's a pretty simple metric, like double whatever that is. And as long as I'm double, I feel really comfortable. So. It got me comfortable with the duplex idea because I had enough rent coming in to cover my mortgage and double really.
I was double my mortgage. So I was like, well, even if that side I'm, I'm sorry, I was living in one side of it. So like the rent that I was getting in was just cover my mortgage. So at first I was, I was like, well, with it rented covers my mortgage. If it, if it goes vacant, then I have a home payment, a normal home payment, like everybody else. So I can handle that. And, and then when I found out that the. Next door was pretty, pretty great. Didn't have many problems out of them.
And, uh, the rent kept keep coming in, you know, each month about six or seven months after that, I was like, okay, I need to go find another one because this bigger pockets thing is, is real. I mean, they're telling the truth on there and, uh, and it does work. So that helps me. That's awesome, man. That's awesome. And, and you mentioned that after you got that first duplex, you started to accelerate pretty quickly after that and start to move into more and more units.
What was your second deal like after that first one. And, and how soon after did you get that one? Yeah, so, so I bought the first one and I used my own money with that, you know, for the down payment and everything didn't have much after that to use toward another property. But I think six months in, I saw, you know, This not only works, but I can find better deals. The part of the country I was in, I was in Fort Myers, Florida area.
And, you know, I feel like it was somewhat providential for, for my life in the direction that God wanted me to go in to kind of drop me down in that area. At that point in time, it was, you know, late 2016 and down there, the market is still recovering from, you know, the 2008, 2009 financial crisis. So you could buy a duplex down there. For, you know, during the foreclosure times of 2008, 2009, they were going for 90, a hundred thousand dollars.
By the time I was buying 'em, they were going for 180 5, 200,000, you know, now they're going for 350 to 400,000. So like, I, I kind of got dropped down right at that time. Where prices were going up, but they hadn't gotten outta control yet. And so I looked around and I saw, man, I can buy, I can meet this metric all day long, where I'm buying a, a property and I can be double the mortgage and cash flow at well.
So, so the second deal I bought was within six months later, it was a fourplex in the same area down there in Southwest Florida. And I borrowed, I borrowed some money. I think from my brother and from my dad, took them, took a lot of convincing, especially my dad. I talked to him for a long time to convince him because he's had, he's just, he's, he's more of a long term traditional investor in stock market and mutual funds, et cetera. And so the idea of real estate and he is a big Dave Ramsey.
And so Dave Ramsey pushes a lot of times, you know, if you're gonna invest in real estate, due with cash rather than with leverage. So anyway, overcoming that to be able to convince him, to lend me some money and convince my brother to lend me some money to get my second property was great. And so I got that second property and, and that one went really well as well. So then I, you know, reached out to them to do another one and then reached out to other family and friends.
Everybody was pretty excited to see how well it was going. And I was paying them, you know, a good return on their. I think like 7% interest on their loans. And so it was way better than they could get in a, with cash sitting in the bank. Yeah. And that's the method that you used is even true today, right? You, you did a, a test case with purchasing one yourself, and then you're able to kind of use that as an example of, Hey, this is how it could work out for other investors.
I know I've done the same to try to. Bigger quicker. And you found a way to get around that capital constraint cuz when you're getting ready and getting started out, that's probably one of the biggest hurdles, right? Is that capital? Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah. If you can get past that then the sky's the limit because I mean really there is whether it's friends and family or friends of friends, friends of family, et cetera.
It's there's a lot of people out there who have been financially responsible and saved up some money. And, you know, even if it's just borrowing $20,000, you know, that could be a down payment or that could be half of your down payment, then you go borrow 20 from somebody else.
And if you're being disciplined and you're here and you're buying properties that are good deals and in places that have potential to appreciate or, or just cash flow really well, then you're going to be able to refinance you. Two years down the road and pull out enough money to pay back your, you know, your investors, at least that's kind of how the way I've done it is I've always kind of planned for that. And, and Jim, I wanna just zoom out, right?
We talked about your first and second deal and kind of some of the struggles and the mental hurdles to get over, to, to close those two. But how many units multifamily units do you have today? I have 106 as of last month, I bought 30 last month to bring me to 106, whoa, 30 at one time. Like, was it one building or multiple like a portfolio? It was 14. I'm sorry. It was four buildings. It was an 18 unit. And then three, four plexes. That is amazing. And it's.
It's coming a long way from, you know, six years ago when you bought that first duplex and we're like, Hey, is this gonna work out? If the tenant's vacant next door? , , it's funny how fast that happens. You just get comfortable and you just keep rolling. . Yeah. And, and one of the things that really wanting to get into and dig into is it's. Great to acquire these properties, but you have to manage them effectively if you're gonna reap any of the benefit and be able to hold onto 'em long term.
So how have you been managing the properties from start to now? So I've, I've tried a property manager at least once, but mostly it's been self-manment all along originally. I got into. Doing self-management because I, my goal was to replace my income at my w two job. So I thought, you know, self-managing, I can bring in more cash flow and this will help me work myself outta my job, faster, doing that. I mean, helped me just gain a lot of knowledge.
And it became a really, you know, as I bought more, it became easier to manage. That's been my experience because as soon as you get some scale, it's much easier to find contractors who are reliable. You can give them a lot of work. Frequently. People take you more seriously in the real estate business. You know, if you have more units and really I've found that it's helped me get more deals because people know, Hey, you've got a track record, you've closed X amount, amount of properties.
You have some people who are willing to lend to you so that you have the ability to, to close. So I. I think the property management side is a great validator for raising capital. You know, I, when I go out to race capital, I can tell people I can answer any of their questions about property management. I mean, I can tell nightmare stories. I can tell 'em the great stories I can tell 'em, you know, what makes a good tenant? What makes a bad tenant? You know, what things to look out for?
You know, if I'm analyzing a property and somebody else is analyzing property, who has no property management experience, they're likely to. Some things, you know, that I would, I would think about just from the experience I've had and to that point, right. I wanna dig into some of that experience. And first off talk about some of the systems, right? I I'm assuming you're not using pen and paper to manage 106 units.
What are some of the systems that you've put in place to, to manage it effectively? Yeah, systems are key. And I would just say, you know, for anybody who might be listening, who's not overly technology, you know, literate, you know, as long as you, you know, know how to use a smartphone and you can get around on a laptop and that sort of thing. Use the spreadsheet. There's property management software out there. That'll fill the gaps for you.
So like me, I'm not super, I have systems in place, but I am not, I would not call myself a technology guy. I use property management software. I've used Buildium. I used that for the first, maybe four years. And then when I, when we started buying mobile home parks, you know, we. Switch to rent manager because rent manager is a system designed for management and mobile home parks. And it's got a lot more, it's got more functionality.
It's not quite as user friendly, but it provides a good system for managing parks in particular. So property management software is key. I would recommend that. I mean, as soon as you get more than maybe 10 units, I, you might even wanna get it before then. Over 10 units. I've found you need a system to help you track and collect rent and all that sort of thing. And then other systems, you know, bookkeeping, if you're gonna do your bookkeeping within the property management system, that's fine.
And if you're just keeping, you know, revenues and expenses, that's enough to report on your tax returns and for you to know, you know, how your properties are performing, but that can be really time consuming. So I'm going through right now, hiring a bookkeeper. I've been doing the accounting myself up until this point and I have an accounting background. Maybe it's easier for me than some people, but it's really hamstrung me with my time.
I mean, I I'm spending time working on the books when I should be managing properties or looking for deals or doing other things that are more valuable to the business. So if you can put a system in place around that, that's, that's great. There's a bunch of other tools you can use that, that are helpful, you know, any sort of like project management software that you might be able to come across. I've struggled with that. You know, I I've heard Trello's pretty good.
And there's some other software or apps that you can use to help manage projects, because if you, as you grow and if you're buying properties like I do, which are properties that are mismanaged or have some sort of problem with them, you're gonna have projects going. And you know, right now I have. I don't know, probably can't count on two hands, over 10 projects that are really significant going on. And so it's, it's really hard to keep track of it.
If you don't have systems in place, you know, maybe at a bare minimum, a spreadsheet where you can keep all your projects listed out and people you need to talk to and touch base with on a day to day basis. I also use my, my smartphone a lot. I mean, the reminders apps, the, uh, calendar, of course, I I'm always looking at my calendar and putting stuff on there to help manage my time. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I resonate with you on that Buildium piece.
That was the software that I used and it helped me get up to 15 units before I said, Hey, I think I'm good on this. Let me move this to property management and got away, but I'm with you. If you're able to put systems in place, it just gives everybody one central location to look to in one central location, to communicate from, to where you're not running all over the place, trying to keep up one other piece.
Jim that I I'd be remiss not to mention is that your units are not all based in the same city. Right. So how were you going about managing some of the ones that are further away from where you live? Especially if you have an active project going on. That's a great point to make. Yeah. So while I've self-managed everything, I guess I have people in house who have hired to be managers for me to help me. So at each mobile home park, you know, we have five mobile home parks.
Each mobile home park has an onsite manager. Who lives in the park or lives nearby the park. So that's, I mean, that's invaluable. You have to have that because the way mobile home parks work, I mean, you need to, you need to have somebody driving through the parks on a daily basis, uh, to help spot issues, enforce rules, et cetera. I have, I think about 30 units in Florida in Southwest Florida, which is, I live in Louisville, Kentucky now. I started buying in Southwest Florida.
When I lived down there, held onto the unit since I moved up to Louisville. And, you know, I've just been really blessed to come across a guy who is actually the husband of, of one of my coworkers. When I was working down there, he he's done this. He's kind of been a property manager for other individuals in his life. Just kind of like a. done this as like a side gig. And I tried him out, you know, on a small scale at first and he's worked out really well.
He's turned out to be a re really reliable property manager. I mean, this guy, he, uh, he will hire contractors when I need contractors and he will oversee them doing the work. He will. Address tenant issues calls now go, instead of coming to me, they go directly to him from tenants. So I have really pretty much a full service property manager down there.
The only thing I do with those units is I track the financials and make sure that tenants are paying rent so I can see, I see all the deposits coming in and I pay the bills. So I think that's key when you're outta state. I think you gotta have somebody on the ground, whether it's a property management company, whether it's an individual you hire, I, I think it'd be really hard to do. On your own for any extended period of time. Agreed, agreed. And, and I felt and had a similar experience, right?
When I was managing in Lu, everything was good. You know, I was taking care of it. I was showing the units, I was getting the tenant in there, handling all the maintenance concerns. But then when I moved, you know, a thousand miles away to the Northeast, it got extremely difficult and had to do exactly what you said, which is find somebody that could be the boots on the ground and could manage the day to. To where I could just meet with that person and make sure everything's kind of on track.
So, no, that's an amazing tip, Jim, and thank you for sharing. And you've mentioned it a couple times, but you said you have five mobile home park, separate mobile home parks, which total to, you know, close to 340 lots. Before even getting into the mobile home investing world and kind of how you navigate that. I really wanna jump into the partnership piece, right? Doing a little research. I know that you formed the partnership with two others in around the 2018 timeframe. Two questions.
One. How did you find those partners that were aligned in your vision? And two, why did you choose mobile home park? Great. Great questions. So my two partners are one is my brother, a younger brother by, uh, two years. And then another one is a good friend that I graduated college with. When I started investing in duplexes in Southwest Florida, six years ago, very quickly, my brother. Reached out to me, you know, he lent, he lent me money to buy my second one.
So he reached out to me and said that he wanted to get involved from an equity standpoint in something. So that was out, he reached out to me and told me that. And then, um, kind of simultaneously a friend of mine who we weren't even, we were friends, but we weren't close enough friends to where we talked frequently or anything like that. But he heard. That I was getting into real estate and his name is Joe and, and Joe is a go getter.
I mean, he is an entrepreneur through and through, even though he works a w two job right now, like he's got the entrepreneurial spirit and he wanted to get into something he's fascinated by real estate. So he, he was in Florida for, for his job, a couple hours away from me and he contacted me and invited me to come hang out with him for the weekend and talk about real. He just wanted to know what I was doing. This is early in the game. I'd bought in a few duplexes, I think at that time.
And, uh, so he invited me up and by the end of the weekend, he was like, we gotta do something, you know, together. And, and he, he and my brother, John, they know each other too. They both live in Dallas, Texas. And so they're, they're great friends live really close together. They kind of started talking to each other and they talked to me and they challenged me to think bigger. They said, you know, if we're gonna make this into something, you know, and scale it quickly, we need to go bigger.
We can't be buying duplex, Plex duplex one by one. We need to go into. Some sort of commercial property. And so we looked at, we looked at apartment complexes, we looked at self storage. We looked at, you know, maybe a little bit of office and that sort of thing. But I came across a I'm a big podcast listener. So I came across a podcast that was led by Kevin B and another guy. And it was a podcast specifically geared toward investing in mobile home park. So I listened to one or two of those.
And, and then Brandon Turner on the bigger podcast podcast just happened to mention on an episode that he was starting to look into mobile home parks. It was before he had gotten into it too. And, uh, and I was like, okay, something's going on here? I got this podcast over here telling me. Mobile home parks are like a great overlooked space. Right now you can get things for way better value at mobile home space than you could apartment complexes at that time.
And then Brandon Turner was talking about getting involved in it. So, so I really dove in and kind of hit the, hit the research hard on mobile home parks. There's a, uh, the fifth largest mobile home park operators. Country Frank and Dave Roth, Frank Roth, and Dave Myers, I think is his name. They, uh, they've built a whole educational system around investing in mobile home parks.
So you can take, you can, you know, pay to go to their boot or you can buy, I bought a manual from them, a book they wrote about investing in mobile home parks. And, uh, I just followed the manual, you know, Joe, John, and I read that manual and then we started looking for deals and we found our first, you know, we formed our company. September, 2018. And we found our first mobile home park after making offers on several in April of 2019. That is awesome.
And it's kind of like that first story, right? Where you just found the bigger pockets podcast started listening to every episode. And after a couple months, you're like, Hey, I gotta get into this same thing with the mobile home parks. Jim. It's a, it's a reoccurring theme here. And a lot of people struggle with even getting past that first mental block of analysis paralysis. But I, I can tell you don't have that struggle. Right?
You, you hear something, you do that research and you're like, Hey, I'm gonna get into this and I commend you for it. That's that's amazing, man. Appreciate that. It's one thing I, I have been able to, I, I just, uh, I like to pull the trigger, I dunno, for better or worse. It hasn't burned me too bad yet, but I like, I don't like to dwell on things too long. I like to make a decision and just move on.
So starts to kill me if I'm a. If I'm, you know, dwelling on something, I'm like, I gotta do something, just do it or don't do it and move on. . Absolutely. Absolutely. And I have two more questions before kicking it to the group and kind of opening it up for any questions from the mastermind group one, you mentioned at the top that you love looking at value, add projects, things, you know, within the apartment community, within. You know, the mobile home parks.
And I just wanna understand what do you look for from a value add that that makes the light bulb go off in your head like, Hey, this is a deal. So with mobile home parks, I'm looking for mismanagement, typically low rents either because the, the owner's not aware that the market's higher or the park is mismanaged so that he can't charge higher rents because people won't pay higher rents to live in that park. I'm looking for infrastructure issues.
So if there's, you know, problems with the sewer lines problems with the septic systems, if there's water leaks, water problems with the water supply, things like that, you can, the first park we bought had a septic system, it was, it was 62 lots. And it had a septic system on 12 lots that was failing. It was, it was in failure. So while that is kind of scary to get into, to buy something like that, if you do your research and you understand.
How those systems work and understand the costs around replacing them. It's just a great, it's just a great chip that you can use and you're negotiating. So, you know, most people will run from a park that has failing infrastructure. They don't want to take on the risk that comes with replacing those things. Um, But, but if you can educate yourself enough to be comfortable with that, then you can buy parks at pretty steep discounts.
Get the jobs done, to fix the, fix the things, and immediately with a, you know, new infrastructure, your mobile home park is worth quite a bit more. And then if you're able to raise the rents, I mean, with commercial real estate, the values contingent upon, you know, your net operating income and how that's applied to cap rate to determine your value. So it it's. It's just a great deal. You can find something like that.
If you're with a, if you're doing apartments, I look for, you know, low rents, of course, that are in, in an area that can support higher. I look for upgrades that I can do, hopefully that won't be too expensive. You know, whether it's, it's typically like moving walls around. If I can knock out a wall to. Create a bigger living space in like a one bedroom unit. Something that can set me apart from the competition in the area.
So like in the city of Louisville, I look around and a lot of apartment buildings are older in Louisville and they don't have washers and dryers in the units. So like a very quick value add you can do is if you can. Add a washer, dryer, hookup in a unit. Then you've got a leg up over the competition. You can charge a little more rent and people you'll get a better tenant because people love having a washer dryer in their apartment.
Other things you know, that I've found are just upgrading appliances. I mean, if you're in an area where all the appliances are outdated or everybody's replacing appliances, when they fail with old, with used appliances, well, replace yours with new, you know, you might be paying. $600 for a stove, a range rather than 300. But I mean, that's a, that range is gonna last you 10 years and it's well worth actually $300, cuz you're gonna get a better tenant. Absolutely. A hundred percent agree.
And, and I love those tips and especially around the appliance piece, I, I found that, you know, everybody watches HGTV. We like the stainless steel appliances. We like the, the nice countertop. So if you're able to put that in your unit, you're gonna stand out from the competition. Almost a hundred percent of the time. Yeah. That's that's awesome.
And the last question from me before kicking it to the group is what are you working on right now that those listening on the line right now or on the podcast can help you with? I am I, I am working on, I'm trying to continue to grow by more units. So we're actually looking. Potentially exit the mobile home park business. If we can sell that business, we'll one to 10 31 into other properties. And so, you know, if we buy more in Louisville, I need more help.
You know, I'm really looking for a go getter, somebody who is willing to work, you know, hard for fair pay and just learned the business inside and out. I've been looking for somebody who might want to just work alongside me. So I can teach 'em everything I know, and they can take over things for me. I wanna buy more, but I don't have time to buy more and to grow while I am managing all the properties at the same time.
And so I gotta find somebody who I can trust somebody who is willing to look at these properties like their own. It's so hard. I know you understand this too. It's so hard handing off your properties to a property management company when they make you all these promises and then, you know, you, you get into it and you're like, oh, they just, they don't care. Like I care, you know, it's, , it's tough. So I, I need help.
You know, it'd be great to find somebody who can might be interested in, in a job or something like that, or, you know, deals, it's hard to find deals. So if there's anybody out there who is hunting for deals, Wants to partner on something or wants to wholesale something I'm always, always looking well, you heard it here first. That sounds like an awesome opportunity. He's looking for a successor, somebody that's a go getter that can go and partner with him.
So I'm definitely gonna reach out to my network. And if anybody wants to take Jim up on that offer would highly recommend we'll put his contact info in the show notes, but I wanna go ahead and open it up to the group for any questions for Jim. Hey, Jim. Thanks for sharing. I did hear the tail end here where you said you're trying to exit the mobile park business. So I was just curious why and what next?
Sure. Well, I. Over the past three years, the mobile home park space has become really overheated. It's just really overheated. The apartment complex space has been really competitive cap rates and are being pushed really low and purchase prices are, are going really high. The same thing is starting to happen in mobile home park. So we felt it is a good time to exit. Um, At a good sale sale price, and then go reallocate our proceeds into a sector that is maybe less competitive.
Maybe there's a little more value add or value to be gained. So we are, we don't know for sure what's next yet, but if we 10 31, we'll have to 10 31 into some kind of real estate. So we haven't gotten to the point to where we figured anything out yet, but we've looked at development potentially. Um, It's a little bit riskier and something that we haven't done before, but it could be that, or it could be warehouse.
We've kind of been looking into some warehousing opportunities and that sort of thing. Yeah, that makes sense. And I'm curious with the partnership you did with family, it seems like you had success with that, but. I would say maybe the more popular advice is, do not mix business with family, because if things go worry, then it's hard to repair the family front as well because it suffered.
So if, if I'm not pry too much, I'm just wondering if it was all rosy mixing business with family, knowing that the popular advice is more so do not do that with friends or family, but you seem to have done it successfully intimately. So I'm wondering if they were. Any lessons, maybe when you didn't go as well. And even if you didn't have that negative experience, how did you manage to keep both the business and the family lines of relationships strong and, and clear?
I think, yeah, I think that's, that's a great consideration for sure. Um, I think it's important to have everything in writing. Um, so EV you know, um, if you're doing a part, need a partnership agreement, you know, I'm in business with my brother and with another guy who's a really close friend. Um, You know, we're like family.
So we get, you know, we get along, we fight, we get along, we fight it's like any anybody else's family, but if you have a partnership agreement, then everyone can agree that this is what we put down in writing. And this is where it stands. So I would say, get it in writing. And then also you need to make your family, if you're in business with your family or anybody aware that, um, things are not always gonna. Well, I mean, there's gonna be problems.
Um, but you need to just make sure everybody realizes that when they get into it and everyone needs to know the risks involved, they need to know that, you know, worst case scenario, you could lose your money or you could lose all of your money. So, um, you know, when I talk to my dad or my brother or whomever, when they, they first started out investing with me, I told him, I said, look, I'm 99% sure that this is gonna go great. I've done a lot of research.
And then I research and I, you know, would try to create a presentation for 'em or whatever helps make them comfortable, provide them with resources. And, uh, but I said, I'm never gonna let you a hundred percent. There's not gonna be a problem. So there's always a chance that you'll, you know, lose some money or this or that will go wrong. I think as long as everybody can get on the same page with that, and you have things in writing, then I'd say jump in. I mean, That's been my experience.
I know some people will still stay away from doing things with family and I understand that's been my experience. Sure. And Jim, while we still have you for the next couple minutes, you mentioned some nightmare and horror stories. This is something that we don't share as much. Most of this podcast is highlights. Right. But I think it helps for those that are going through some of those struggles to hear somebody like you that's come out on the other end, you know, with 400 plus combined unit.
What was one of your, what is one of those nightmare stories over the last couple years? Well, they, they just become more and more frequent to be honest. The more units you get, the more nightmare stores you have and it, unfortunately it becomes, those are what you remember. You know, you don't remember, oh, that 75% of your tenants paid rent on time and everything went great with them. You remember, the one unit that burned down, uh, cause all this problem.
So anyway, I guess one, one horror story that I did have recently is that I did have, there was a fire in an apartment building that I have. So it was an 11 unit apartment. Um, what the investigate fire investigator believes happened was the tenant appears to have left the stove on, um, something caught fire. Uh, think he was hurt. Everybody got out of the building, but it completely burned one unit. The unit accidentally destroyed that.
And then five others were damaged out of an 11 unit building. So, uh, this is an ongoing thing right now for me. Um, you know, I've moved seven tenants out and I'm working with the insurance comp to, um, You know, with an insurance claim to get this, uh, this building put back together. That's a pretty big horse story. I mean, hopefully you don't, hopefully, you know, you never have one of those, but I think some point in time you're gonna run into something, a fire, a flood, whatever.
So my advice has always been. Have have good, have a good insurance policy, um, read your policy and make sure you understand it. I've struggled with that. I mean, I don't understand everything that's in there, but I try to make sure that I understand what I'm covered for and what I'm not. And it's good to put it on a spreadsheet, keep things organized. That's probably the biggest horse ahead lately.
I've had plenty of others with, um, You know, tenants, tenants causing damage and, uh, water lines, breaking sewer lines, breaking, um, Jack hammering through, uh, to repair sewer lines and water lines. And, uh, yeah, I could go on and on about those no, I'm trying to sleep well tonight, but I appreciate you sharing that. And it happens to all of us the longer you're in this game, you're gonna come across something like that.
I could tell you one that sticks in my mind is I was renovating a unit, right. That a tenant had had just moved out and, you know, literally, you know, while we're renovating, there's a, a steady drip coming from the roof. So I said my roofer out there and he's like, Hey. This whole thing is shot. It's gonna be about 6,500. I'm like, okay, you know, let's go ahead and get that, get that going. And then he starts getting the shingles off and he's like, Hey, all the wood underneath is riding.
That's gonna be extra 3,500. So 10 K in the blink of an eye. And this like two weeks is gone, that you don't budget for. Right. And it's, it's, there's things that are gonna happen. But as long as you keep that long term view and you make sure that you are keeping money in reserves and things of that nature. It's it's gonna be okay. And at the end of the day, the longer you can keep these properties, it's most likely gonna go up. Yeah, you're right about that. And reserves is key.
I'm glad you mentioned that you definitely need to have reserves because you just don't know when you're gonna have an unexpected, large expense, like a roof or a storm come through. That does a lot of damage. True, true, Jim, we truly appreciate you joining us tonight. Thank you so much. And I know a lot of people are gonna get a lot of value out of this story.
And if you're gonna have some people hitting you up, I, I, I don't doubt that to try to partner with you on those Louisville properties. So just be ready. I, I will. Thanks a lot. This was a lot of fun. Yeah. If anybody, you know, wants advice, if anybody wants, you know, to talk about anything, just let me know, reach out and I'd be happy to done and done all you. Thank you.