A Guide to Off-Campus House Searching, Renting, and Living (w/ Carmelo Carrasco)

Tired of landlord jargon and confusing housing advice?  This episode is your cheat sheet for navigating the crazy world of off-campus housing.

Join us with property pro Carmelo Carrasco spills the beans on finding the perfect place, whether you're a renter or a landlord.

In this episode you'll learn:

• Secret strategies for dealing with the ever-changing rent market (no more roommate drama!)
• Why colleges need to step up their housing game (seriously, more dorm rooms please!)
• Life lessons you WON'T learn in class (like how to handle a leaky faucet or deal with a messy roommate)
• The golden questions to ask before you sign a lease (avoid those hidden fees!)

This ain't your parents' off-campus housing search.  Carmelo shares real-world tips and tricks to make sure your rental experience is smooth sailing.

Ready to find your dream apartment (or snag the perfect tenant)? Listen to this episode and get ready to navigate the off-campus housing market like a boss.

FIND YOUR OFF-CAMPUS HOME WITH AXEL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT!
CALL: 610-424-3744
https://www.axelpm.com
https://www.instagram.com/axelpropmgmt/

This episode is brought to you by Premier Ridge Capital.

Sign Up for our Newsletter and get our FREE E-Book where you'll learn everything you need to know about creating financial freedom through multifamily syndication.

Visit www.premierridgecapital.com now!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:32

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Wealthy AF. And what does it really mean to be Wealthy AF? Is it just about money in your bank account, or is there more to it? Well, today I have a special guest and he's my property manager and he's doing a bang up job, and today we're going to talk about 10 points for college students to successfully find off campus housing. This is an important topic, as students often have a hard time finding off campus housing and their parents, and a lot of times they don't even know what to do, where to start, where. Carmelo is a 30 year veteran in the property management space and a true professional, and he's going to be sharing with us today how to do that successfully. Mello, what's up, my brother? Thank you for coming on the show.

Speaker 2: 1:20

Thanks for having me again Second time.

Speaker 1: 1:22

Yes, sir, second time on the podcast. Mello, why don't you just really quick give us a little bit of background on you, who you are and what to do and what earns you the right to be having this discussion and giving advice on this particular topic?

Speaker 2: 1:37

Well, I'm not getting any younger, you can tell from all the white hairs. Well, I started. Well, obviously, my name is Carmelo Carasco. I started in the real estate management world in 1996, believe it or not, this was before we had smartphones, social media. You know, back in those days we had apartment guide booklets and newspaper ads and that's pretty much that was your resource for finding housing back in those days. But I started in 1996 in the property management world and I have been in 28 years and counting now. So it's pushing that in years. But something I enjoy is passion real estate. I love the rental business, student housing, conventional mix use you name it. I pretty much have done it and mixed up my experience in pretty much all type of housing, outstanding brother.

Speaker 1: 2:26

So I know that you and I talked about, and we talked about you presenting today 10 points. Right Before we get into those 10 points, I just want to get 28 year veteran right like yourself Might as well call it 30, right, 30 years in this game. What differences have you seen in the market? You know that's a long time, carmelo, 30 years to see. You've seen up down sideways, you've seen the market do all kinds of things. And just really quick, really brief, I know this is not the topic, but I am curious to get your perspective on it and I'm sure my listeners are also curious. What are you seeing in the rental market currently in this economy with high interest rates? You know this administration is telling us that things are great. Unemployment is low. What is really happening with rent on the streets? You manage over 500 units, I think it is, or something somewhere in that neighborhood.

Speaker 2: 3:22

You know all the years I've been in this industry. You know, obviously, technology has come a very long way. You and I had this discussion. With AI and automation, the differences of you know how you find housing today versus how it was back when I started huge difference, you know, and I tell you, know the younger generation now there's so much information out there what's affecting our housing and I can tell you this right now, with the high interest rates, the election year, what's going on right now in the economy, there's still a big need for housing. People need to live somewhere. People are waiting now longer to buy their first home or their forever home and what we're seeing in the market right now. People are tending to renew their leases for two years versus a year because they already know they want to wait to see what happens with the economy, the interest rates, with the workforce, affordability at housing that's a tough one.

Speaker 2: 4:15

That's a topic that you know a lot of people have. In fact, I've gone to different board meetings with different organizations and government funded programs where they're talking about affordable housing. And how do they help those people in homeless shelters? How do they help those people? You know who are holding Section 8 vouchers and they have nowhere to go because the amount of rent that someone would ask for is super easy amount on the Section 8 vouchers. So we're finding a lot of people looking for affordable housing. They're more price savvy, they're looking to find out what's included with the red. You know what utilities are included, what's not. So there's so many things that factor into looking for an apartment nowadays, whether you're looking for a one bedroom or you're looking for a home that's big enough to fit the needs of your family. And I can tell you from experience what we're finding now is that a lot of landlords now I've seen a few where they're either dropping rents to make them more affordable or they're offering some type of concession. You know, and I haven't seen that in a long time and honestly, in my experience, you know pre-COVID and I can tell you just from experience, I've been through the wars. I've been through 9-11, you know I was in the middle of Jersey for many years so I saw the economy, you know, go up and down through. I went through the 2008 boom. You know crash with the home boom, and so I've been through every generational. You know change in housing and I can tell you that. You know the number one thing landlords do is you have to know how to adapt Pre-COVID, post-covid.

Speaker 2: 5:47

You know we went through the moratorium. We went through the CARES Act. You know that was a tough one. You know there was a lot of people that were. You know, even though you couldn't evict them legally, you can still enforce the non-payment through the Magistry. You weren't able to act on the rate of possession. So we saw a lot of people all behind and they were able to catch up through government funding. But you know I can tell you that you know what we do is we actually use our resources to help people with housing, in case there are in our affordable housing sector.

Speaker 2: 6:16

But for the most part the housing market is still strong. You know we're still finding high occupancies. We're still finding market rates. You know they have increased after. You know, post-covid they went up. You know some markets were over 20%. Now, you know now we're stabilizing. You see a lot of more affordable, you know market rates. But I do see a lot of people now holding off on buying their first haul and they're rather stay renting for two years and wait to see what happens after the election. And the industry is straight, so you know you've got to know how to adapt.

Speaker 1: 6:46

Okay, great. So that leads me into right into the topic of today, which is off-campus housing. Right, I am curious, though, as to in the past, when, in your experience you've been in this game for a really, really long time in the past, when we've experienced situations like this. So in 2006, if you remember Mello, we were in a similar situation that we're in today, and the similar situation that I'm referring to is that affordability was an issue where housing went so high right in 2004, five, six it went up so high that I remember I was the mortgage broker doing those loans. What impact did that have on college kids, on kids that were, you know, if any and you can go into your points, you know from there but I am curious as to what impact did that have on rentals for kids going to the university and looking for all that?

Speaker 2: 7:49

It's a great question, you know, and I've seen this time and time again throughout the years in the student housing. So it's a different. It's a different property management business model with student housing. But what I did see universities get get smarter. They started building on-campus housing and they were able to offer, you know, their on-campus housing versus those students living off-campus. And really, you know, it's always been where you can save more money by living off-campus. That was every landlord's pitch. You know why live on-campus when you can get a few roommates rent the house and make it more affordable for you and your family, especially if you're on a tight budget. So what I did see in the student housing was one universities started having students live on-campus their freshman and sophomore year, where in the past, historically it's always been, you most likely live on-campus, unless you're a community student, depending on the size of your university or your college. You would have housing on-campus your freshman year and your freshman year. In the fall of your freshman year, you are already looking for off-campus housing for your sophomore year.

Speaker 2: 8:51

I mean, and this, this is not for generations, right, and students would, you know, and I'll talk about the, the, the, the, the, the 10 topics, but they would literally stand in line and, you know, use all the resources they could and able to secure a house off-campus because it's very competitive in some markets. You know some markets they carry high occupancy, it's very in demand. Some students, you know, they hand down their homes from roommate to roommate. So landlords, you know, were cashing in on these off-campus properties for many, many years. And now, you know, still the affordability aspects still comes into play because not only you pay for tuition, the housing and books and and what that you have to pay for your, your housing, and most likely that's a big expense. It was like everywhere, everyone else, you know, looking at price per bed and they can get up there and get expensive.

Speaker 1: 9:38

So what's your point? Number one kids should be looking out for. Why don't we go through your list of you know you've got some really good content to share with students and their parents on things to look out for and things to do. In your 30 years of experience, I mean, this is a wealth of knowledge. This is literally a walking book.

Speaker 2: 9:55

We have here a real life experience, right Well you know, I think the biggest question and you know when we have, you know, housing. I used to host housing seminars and housing fairs. I used to team up with off-campus housing offices. So every college, every university, what they do is they have platforms where students can go to and use those resources in order to find housing. Because the biggest question we get from parents is where do I go? How do I find an apartment for my, for my, my son, my daughter? If they're looking for roommates, what do I do? They don't have roommates now. They're like are they going to make new friends? They're probably going to want to live, you know, in a house, maybe a three or four or five bedroom house. So where do we go? And that's always been the question, I think, for the most part through generations of students living off campus, they all know each other right. So you have the seniors who are graduating, but they're friends with sophomores, they're friends with freshmen, they're friends with juniors and they all talk right. They all go to each other's houses, they have parties. You know that's a college thing to do. But, most importantly, when it comes to finding housing, you know, you use your online platforms and you know, and, like I said before, I came from an era where, you know, we had newspaper ads in the student paper. We'd run a full page out of the student paper. We use the bulletin boards at the universities.

Speaker 2: 11:07

Some universities and colleges have an off campus housing office and, believe it or not, they actually help landlords fill their vacancies, but they also enforce the university's rules and regulations to live off campus. So you know these are younger, younger. You know adults, right. So we're teaching them how and what to do and how to be a good tenant when they live off campus, what their responsibilities are. So we have to educate students on what they need to do, questions they should ask and also inform them. You know how to communicate with management so we can take care of their needs throughout their stay at the off campus property.

Speaker 2: 11:42

So you know the number one thing I have is online listings, your first resource. So you have obviously your zildos, youraparmentscom and so on, but you also have the university resources, which is the off campus housing office. You have their online database. In most cases, you have a website where students can go to on their university's website and it has a little you know button that may say you know off campus housing. You click on there and if you're a landlord that advertises on that platform, you can hopefully gain some traction on filling up some of your vacancies. So it's a great resource.

Speaker 2: 12:14

I love when you're in colleges and you'll find this a lot with bigger colleges and universities, where they have this resource where students can go to, and they also have housing fairs. They have bullets and boards throughout the campus. So there's a lot of ways, multiple ways, of finding off-campus housing. That's the first thing is how to find housing and use all the resources that you can through the college, through the newspaper, the student paper, which is governed by the university, and students themselves. You know you can put yourself in those situations to help you fill in those vacancies.

Speaker 1: 12:42

Who do you think the response? You mentioned something that's important. You kind of put the responsibility part of teaching young people how to be responsible residents and things like that. Who do you think that responsibility falls on? Property management company or the parents? So when you think that the parents also should be as their kids are getting ready to go to college, don't you think that they should be? Or the kids? If your parents aren't having the conversation with you and you're listening to this podcast, they think you should go to your parents and ask them hey, mom, dad, what are the things that I need to do when I live off-campus? This is my first experience. I think partly the parents' responsibility, mainly the parents' to educate their children on how a responsible adult conducts themselves when he is or she is living off-campus living. What are your thoughts on that? What has been your experience from that?

Speaker 2: 13:29

For the most part, almost every university or college has a some type of handbook that explains to the students what the rules and regulations are to live on or off-campus or just in general, to be a student at the university and for the most part, we do a great job on actual property management. My company does a great job on educating not only the students but the parents. We have a welcome letter when you move in. The welcome letter pretty much outlines everything they need to know as far as how to pay your rent, how to submit a service request, how to handle an after-hours emergency. We put out bullets in throughout the holidays when they're going on break. Make sure you keep your heat on at a decent temperature so we don't have freezing pipes. Believe it or not, I had this experience happen many years ago, so I went to turn off their heat and we have frozen pipes and then flood at the entire house. It was pretty bad experience.

Speaker 2: 14:21

So educating the residents, I think it falls on everyone, not only the parents, the university, the students and management. It's really a team effort where a lot of these students they've never lived away from home, they just graduate school, they're fresh from in college. They're looking for housing to be on their sophomore year. Most guys are junior year, so I think education falls on everyone. It's almost like you have a son or a daughter in school and they have to listen to the teacher in elementary or high school. There's no difference.

Speaker 2: 14:53

When you go to college, the difference is you're not being supervised by your parents every day. You're living at some landlord's house. We don't expect you to damage the property. We know you're going to have parties, You're going to have a good time. Listen, you're young. You should be enjoying your time in school, your studies.

Speaker 2: 15:09

I've seen the flip side of that. I've seen students fall into some really depression and anxiety and they get homesick while they're failing out of school. And there's a lot of different things that come into play when it comes not just to finding housing but living off campus and being a student in general. You have to keep up your grades, you have to keep up your social life, your party life, and I think it falls on everyone when it comes down to educating the students on what the expectation is for sure. I mean in our welcome letter outlines everything they need to know with us, with management and their expectation as a student living off campus and we also conduct every six months we do conduct a property inspection just to make sure that the property is being taken care of on all of our properties. So you know that definitely is a team effort.

Speaker 1: 15:52

Absolutely, absolutely. What other points do you have on your list?

Speaker 2: 15:56

So, university resources you know again the bullets and boards, the housing fair, social media. Social media is a big one because most colleges, universities, they have groups. They have different groups, right, you have your Greek life, you have your fraternities, sororities, you have your athletic department, so there's a lot of resources that the university has in different groups for a lot of these students, depending on what major you're in. You have groups that have, you know, facebook pages just for students in their major. Right, they study, they have study groups, they have gatherings together. They all communicate.

Speaker 2: 16:28

Looking for roommates Word of mouth is the biggest one, you know, I always tell you that there's no better advertising than word of mouth, right, if you do a good job, you're a good owner, you're a landlord, you're a good management company, students know you know where to live. They already know where to live off campus if they're looking for housing, because they already have a platform of landlords and they usually have those landlords that people know that they tend to go to because they have a good reputation. Right, they take care of their properties, they have great locations, proximity to campus. So all those things factor into looking for housing off campus because for most students they want to live as close to campus as possible because if not, you have to walk or you're going to take a shuttle. You know whether you're taking up a student housing shuttle or some kind of service where you can get to and from classes right Throughout the day throughout the week. A lot of these little things come into play when you're looking for off campus housing.

Speaker 1: 17:19

What constitutes a good landlord? So let's say I'm a student or I'm a mom or dad and a parent and we're looking right. What would you say? A couple of things that people can do to determine whether there's a good landlord? Give us a couple of cues here and there.

Speaker 2: 17:33

We love personally to assign a house manager to a group. So let's say, you look at your living in a five bedroom house off campus. We like to have at least one you know, not one, say the most responsible person in the group, the one that really communicates with all the students in their house, all their housemates, so having a resource at the house where you can communicate to. However, with the platform that we use, with our property management software, we can send out an email blast, we can send out a text message blast where it goes to everyone, not only the house itself in question, also the entire portfolio, right? So we can let all students know. Like you know, we're doing an inspection on said date and type. But, to answer your question, the good landlord absolutely communicates with their residents, understands their needs, right? Especially after this just happened recently, we had a no heat emergency call for a student housing property and the student put in the service request that came in through our, through our management software. We got notified, we contacted the student immediately and one of the parents contacted us. So we you know we had a rake space to the parent look, we received the work order. They did what they needed to do on our platform, we responded our technician gonna be out there within the hour, just wanted to let you know your heat will be up and working tonight and we also provided space heaters, just in case you know, just in case there was an issue with parts and whatnot.

Speaker 2: 18:49

Yeah, to be a landlord, you have to number one, you have to understand the needs of the resident and, to be honest with you, for most students, all they cares about high speed, that's all they care about. They don't care that. They don't. They don't care about. You know who's the, the maintenance person. I know who's coming. They just want to. You know if they, if they have something that needs to be fixed, they just want us to fix it.

Speaker 2: 19:09

And they use a button to submit a work order and we call them. That's that. Then we can email back and say, hey, we received your work order. We have a technician coming out within the next hour. It's being handled today. Please let them in when they arrive. And this is who's coming to your door. That's being a good landlord, taking care of the needs of the students, so that you know. And that's in any student housing or non student housing, they take care of the residents, and that's something that you know. We're very, you know passionate about what it comes to servicing the needs of the community, the property, and they will let you know if you don't do a good job. I can tell you that. So we're on hot.

Speaker 1: 21:04

I'm sure they do. So what else do you got there, brother? What are some of the other points that you do you want to share with?

Speaker 2: 21:10

So one of the things that you know, you know on and off you saw the news recently what's going on with the more, with the real estate industry station or realtors, yes, or commission jobs. That's affecting a lot of people, but some agents, believe it or not, they're just not buyer seller agents. You can use your MLS, you can use your real estate license to rent properties. So I like to want to make sure we're working on that this week as we're going to post some available properties on the MLS to attract some agents. If I've I spoke to a couple of agents last week about you know, do they do they handle rentals? Because most agents don't like renting properties? Right, they usually are buyer agents or seller agents. However, some of them are supplementary income by in league of few rentals and some of them, you know, may know someone looking for housing off campus, if you are a student housing or non student. So one of the things I want to play, you know, one of the platforms you can use is use your your license on the MLS, word of mouth, the bulletin boards on and off campus. Use those resources with track leads to help you fill in those big.

Speaker 2: 22:15

The other thing was matching roommate matching is a big thing. We had this happen last year. So we had a few properties where, you know, we had a five bedroom house. Two students were graduating, the other three were going to be seniors and they wanted to retain the house for another year but they didn't have two roommates. So we were able to come in help them find two roommates After we had a housing fair. You know, roommate matching is very, very sensitive Because you know you have to have all these. You know standards of what you're looking for. For the most part, they prefer to have someone that's in their same major right, so non smoking, same major. You know some of the same qualities that they're looking for when they're roommate matching. So there are some apps out there, there's some platform where you can use to do roommate matching. But obviously we were able to fill in those vacancies by helping them fill in those those two bedrooms, because they wanted to retain the house. So we were able to renew the lease. You know, capture two roommates and fill in the vacancies Pretty awesome, they guys do that. They ended up working in our favor.

Speaker 2: 23:17

But yeah, absolutely. I mean there's a lot of resources. Housing fair is a big one. You know some universities they do have a fair, you know, once a year or twice a year, and that's really a place where you can go as a mail or set up a showcase of your available properties and then you can give out. You know we used to give out stretch balls and lanyards, we used to do all kinds of activities and spend the wheel and make it fun.

Speaker 2: 23:39

It's supposed to be fun. You know, like listen, you're, you're in college, you want, you know you're looking for housing. You have your roommates picked out that you want to live with for the next two to three years. So making it fun, not making it more like a landlord tenant feel, because that's so like it feels like derogatory around innocence, because we don't want landlords down, you know. So we don't call them tenants, we call them residents. So really it's kind of like just living away from home and we just take care of your needs at the property. You know you're living maintenance free and the expectation is that you must enjoy your space, have a good time and we're to take care of your needs.

Speaker 2: 24:13

And then when we do have parents that contact us, they have questions and concerns. We talk to them just like everyone else. You know they're usually the ones paying the bill, so we talk to them as well. So the last thing I would say is, when you are looking for off campus housing, there's certain questions you should be asking as far as, like, the terms of the lease, what's included, what's not.

Speaker 2: 24:34

Do you allow pets? Do you not allow pets? You know down to like who handles the trash on the property, because you'd be surprised, some students just don't know, like what do we do with our trash? So really that's where we come in with the welcome letter and we explain everything to them from you know A to Z, and so they have an understanding. But if you are a student looking for off-campus housing, you should ask those questions. Your least terms, you know some parents are number one question that that we get with with parents Are is my child going to be safe? You know. And the tough one, because some markets, you know you might be living like I don't know, and I don't want to point out any university, but you know you can be a Philadelphia, you could be at temple, oh yeah, and some off-campus areas that were even at temple. At least my niece is there to help and you know there's some.

Speaker 1: 25:20

Philly all comfort dude. I've been to the. I've been there. It's rough. I've read stories, melo from students have been jumped and things and it's like you go two, two blocks down, four blocks one way, two blocks the other way, and it's not a safe place for kids to be not a safe place.

Speaker 2: 25:40

That's why it's very important to use the college resources. I know they had a escort type Service at, I know, years ago when I was down at university at Ken and we had, you know, thousands of beds back in those days. Um, they had an escort or they had some kind of buddy system where you could walk to and from wherever you were, back to your home, safely, right, or shuttle, where there was an university shuttle or private landlord shuttle that would take you to and from your home. Um, and that's important because you know, I tell parents all the time listen, crime has no address. We can't guarantee safety and security, no one can. That's a police matter.

Speaker 2: 26:16

But we do have what we call controlled access entries. Right, every building has a locking system. Before you get into a building, every resident, every apartment door has a deadbolt and has a knob lock. Some properties have cameras most property nowadays, most landlords have cameras on the exterior of the building. Just, you know it's not a security system but it's a monitoring system in case something does happen. You have some type, you know some type of recording around around the building. Um, and that's helped, you know, solve some cases. You know and I, there's some tragic um housing, off campus housing cases in in the years. But you know, again Asking those, those hard questions. It is always good because you can have that open conversation with a parent or student right about safety, proximity to campus, the affordability on the rental rate, you know, the roommate situation, what amenities are included, what utilities are included. Those are all big questions that you should be asking when securing a house or or an apartment off campus.

Speaker 1: 27:11

Those are important, really, really important question Um, was there something that you didn't share that you should have shared? That would be extremely valuable Parents and or students when they're considering to live off campus, when they're looking for an apartment or just even considering a property management Right, because there's all different types of flavors. Um right, sometimes the sometimes is not the landlord. Sometimes the landlord is good, sometimes it's the management company is not good. Sometimes the management company is doing their best and it's not the management company, it's the owner.

Speaker 2: 27:45

Yeah, I mean not just off campus housing in in general, I mean that's, that's the pretty much everything I reviewed in the top 10 Things that we covered today on securing off campus is is the main. But once you do secure that off campus property and you're ready to move in and you know everything you need to know about living at this property, I think the hardest part of student housing is Students getting along right, and I find a lot. I find a lot of those situations happen, um, when there's no communication and so you make five students living at a house and three of those five really get along. The other two are kind of like the outcast, so they weren't really what they expected to live with. And now we have parents involved and now we have students involved, and then the quality of life, you know, goes down and to live with that person, you know the contract, um.

Speaker 2: 28:36

So I think really, when it comes to to parents and students and communicating with management, you know a lot of those things are civil issues. They're civil between you know adults and we tell this to parents all the time. Listen, I know they're young, but they're young adults, they're over 18, they interact, they're living on a property. I think communication between all the students and all the parents should always be key, especially when it comes like the most exciting part is when you have to move in right the moving day, and you see a lot of like. You know you see that movies, all the colleges, all the students are moving in, they're all packing their bags, they're all having a good time, but sometimes it doesn't.

Speaker 2: 29:10

It doesn't remain that way. Sometimes you have a lot of issues with conflicts with personalities and parents, and you know management and really what my, my spiel and and my communication with parents has always listened to young adults. They have to learn how to get along and have to know how to be civil. They have to know how to work out their differences. I can't manage that. You know when they're Stay out, you have to let them live and you have to let them learn and grow and we can only do so much when it comes to students, like getting you know I'm on her team or getting along exactly. So that's really a big one once you're living off campus is staying together and having a good time together and getting along. That's a big one, because some parents can get feisty, they get upset and they think it's your fault. And I'm like, yeah, I think the roommates, they all move in together, they all knew each other and now you have to let them live. Yeah, so that's a big one.

Speaker 1: 30:03

Yeah, well, metal. Thank you, man. Thank you for sharing your wealth and knowledge and experience in the podcast and I hope that this information we shared on today's podcast, a little bit different, would be empowering to parents and College students looking for off campus housing and I think a lot of what you shared also is very valuable or just folks in general, right, looking for an apartment, just adults in general, because a lot of people maybe haven't had the college experience, maybe young people are looking to move on their own and this is a this is a good episode of good, good conversation for them to listen in to a 30 year veteran property manager that's sharing some gold here on what to do and how to navigate certain things and what to expect. I really like what you shared about you know having good systems in place to make sure that the tenant, the residents excuse me, that the residents are taken care of, like for work orders leaky faucet, leaky sink, is that the other? And that stuff is just all automated. That's one of the things that I love about you know, your company and us doing business with you guys.

Speaker 1: 31:09

Is your system really a flawless system for all parties involved, especially my residents? My residents go in there and they put a request and full, actual property management automatically on it. They, you know you'll have whatever tech out there within whatever timeline. It is that you know it's a lot it to do that, so that's, that's a big thing. I think that's the, that's the biggest thing a responsible owner and property management company that's going to be taken. That was my biggest take, one of my biggest takeaways, because I think a lot of young people I don't think there's something that young people really know or even think of. Just think about it, young people. Not think of your first house, your first apartment in. Think about that stuff. You're just.

Speaker 1: 31:47

I'm gonna live on my own, without mom and dad on my ass, right? That's what you're thinking about.

Speaker 2: 31:51

Let's be real one of the micromanage or how it happened, man, you know. So you know, listen, I had some some fun experiences. I had some some not so fun experiences, but it's always educational. And you know, we don't scold these students. They're young, we know we treat them like adults I do, you know, I have, I have all the children but really, from a parent's perspective, is really not only educating them. But you know one of my things, what was always like? You know, I had a situation. I tell you a little story, not let's take a more time and I had a.

Speaker 2: 32:20

I went to a property and there were holes on the walls and these and these were just damaging the property punchy holes in the walls, body slams on the walls and and I just couldn't believe the damage because the property. So I went in there. You know, of course my blood pressure goes up because I'm thinking I want to fix this. These guys are not to pay for all this. Sometimes I saw and I literally I call all the students downstairs and they all, and they all looked at me. They knew that they were. You know, they did some on the house. I put into the wall the walls that were broken. I said, would you do this? I am up in that house, just looked at me with this, you know freight, and stare in their face and then they just, you know they go like this and I'm like, well, why did you do that in my house? You know nothing. That's what it clicked, because I wouldn't do that in my parents house so I would wear on like Another landlord house living off campus. So you know we had a fix. It had to pay for the damage, everything. You know they please don't tell my parents will fix, it, will pay for everything. And you know that's really like one of those experiences where they're never gonna forget that the rest of their life. That's a life lesson and we didn't make a big deal of it, even though it was a big deal, because you know they knew they were all. They learn their lesson. You know some students got, you know, drank a little too much. Was that what? What they said and they told me all explanations list.

Speaker 2: 33:26

I understand that you're supposed to have parties in college, when you go to school. Suppose that the time Be supposed to also make sure you don't damage the landlord's property. And that was just a life lesson, that we had a fix and correct. But you know it's happened and that's part of the business, as part of what we do when we provide housing is not always gonna be perfect. You know, we shoot for the stars, we try to make things perfect, but those students are never gonna forget that lesson that they learned, what they did, and I think they're probably gonna take that part of this data by time my, my landlord came.

Speaker 2: 33:53

They thought I was the landlord, I was the management company and we had a. Set them straight and explain to my you just can't do this Right. You can be in trouble. Some universities and force off campus housing rules and regulations where they won't even allow you to graduate. If you cause damage to a landlord's property and you have to pay for the repairs, and that's a lesson. And when you have parents involved, that can be even worse. So you know, and that's one of those stories that you know.

Speaker 1: 34:14

Always great story. It's a great story and I think young people, if you're listening, parents, if you're listening, take heed right, because these are the things that we need to be telling our children. Like when you live on your own, if you don't do it here, you don't do it there. You treat your your place. That's your new home. It just is. It just is what it is. That's your new home, your temporary new home, and you treat it with the same respect you treat our home. Is that right? Because someone's gonna be held accountable for Carmelo man. Thank you so much, brother. Really appreciate it if people wanted to get a hold of you. Maybe there's a parent and no, and I know you manage a lot of beds in the Lehigh Valley area in Pennsylvania for my friend Dallas, which he's been on the podcast a couple times. Great guy, and no, he's got a large portfolio there and you doing a lot of work with a lot of different people in that area. By the way, carmelo does not just rent to college kids, he rents to regular working class folks.

Speaker 1: 35:03

This podcast episode I just wanted to touch on that. The people wanted to get a hold of you, they wanted to follow you, they wanted to get more of your content. Maybe they're looking for an apartment. Maybe there's a college student in the city of Scranton, because you're in Pennsylvania city of Scranton, the city of Wilkes Bay or Lehigh Valley, allentown, pennsylvania or anything. They just want to get educated. Where do they find you? How do they connect?

Speaker 2: 35:21

so, yeah, give you. Our website is Axel axel pm. So axel pmcom. Our phone number is 610-424-3744. You can go on our website. You can find availability. There's actually on our website. You can click a fine housing and it says student housing. Click on that. I give you a listing of properties that we have available for off-campus housing at the high university. Currently have a few houses available or they can just give us a call number. They can talk with one of our agents yeah, and we'll make sure we put that.

Speaker 1: 35:51

We put all that information you just shared on the show notes, so it's easy. So you're listening to this. Maybe you're not watching this video, but you're listening to an. Instead, just go to show notes and click on. We'll have all that information there the phone number and the formella website. I can definitely speak to that. So, thank you, come out. Thank you for coming on and sharing all of this wonderful information and my hopes is that it empowered some students and parents, or even just human beings Listening that are looking to rent an apartment. Thank you, brother, appreciate. Thank you so much for sharing.