Capital Connections
Capital Connections Podcast
Capital Connections
Ep #4 - Navigating Property Challenges with Simon Beckett
Ever wonder how a professional dancer and choreographer transitions into the world of property management? Simon Beckett, the creative mind behind Pivot Turn Property Management, joins us to unravel this unexpected journey. From handling tenant dilemmas to mastering legal compliance, Simon's company transforms the often daunting reality of property ownership into a manageable experience. He offers invaluable advice for novice landlords navigating the labyrinth of local laws and tenant rights. Plus, with a 24-hour emergency response service, Simon's team ensures that urgent issues are resolved swiftly and efficiently. Tune in to hear how his firsthand experience as an investor inspired him to create a firm that thrives on communication and problem-solving.
In a candid conversation, Simon shares the hurdles and highlights of launching a business during the pandemic. With tales of long hours and financial trials in Ottawa, he reveals the grit and determination required to build a thriving enterprise. But it's not all business—Simon opens up about his passions outside of work, like teaching dance, enjoying the great outdoors, and his culinary pursuits. Through Simon's stories, discover the unpredictable yet gratifying nature of the property management industry, and be inspired by his resilience and innovation. This episode is a testament to the notion that life's path can be as surprising as it is rewarding.
Pivot Turn Property Management
Simon Beckett
Ottawa ON
1 (343) 308-4411
info@ptpropertymanagement.ca
ptpropertymanagement.ca
We know how hard it is for investors to find reliable, professional, and transparent property management. That's why Pivot Turn Property Management was started. Specializing in single family homes, duplexes and triplexes, we serve small and mid sized landlords in the Ottawa and surrounding communities.
For Investors, by Investors. We're turning Property Management around
This is the Capital Connections Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Samuel Lowe.
Speaker 2:Yes, hello. Welcome to the Capital Connections Podcast. Today we have the pleasure of speaking with Simon Beckett of Pivot Turn Property Management. Simon, thank you for joining us today. Thank you very much for having me, sam. Yeah, excellent, can you start maybe share a bit of what you do at Pivot Turn Property Management?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely so. We are a full service property management company. Now, some people might not even know what property management is. So it is primarily because there's a lot that we can do, but primarily it is for, in our case, residential rental properties and we do everything from advertising your rental units, finding and vetting the tenants that are going to live in the rental units and then dealing with the rent collection, the maintenance, legal compliance, the day-to-day stuff that would occur when you have individuals living in an investment property. So we're kind of that middle man or we act on behalf of the property owner. Now property management can extend into the commercial world, but I'm not going to get into that because we don't do that. We strictly do residential.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you specialize on the residential side. Sounds to me like you really take the and correct me if I'm wrong, simon but you take the headaches out of the day-to-day of owning an investment property. Is that right?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. There's really a couple pain points that we are trying to solve for our clients. Number one it is the headache of dealing with that. Sometimes you might have needy tenants who are asking about things that you're like guys, this is ridiculous, I don't have time to deal with this. Well, that's where we can come in and put our foot down and say no or yes or whatever it might be. But there's also another large pain point and that's the knowledge gap that comes with being a new landlord. For many of our clients it's a property that they may be inherited or they're moving out of the country for a little bit and they don't know what, legally, they're supposed to do, whether it's the municipal laws here in Ottawa or under the laws of the Residential Tenancy Act in Ontario, right, what are tenants allowed to do? What's the owner allowed to do? What happens if I want to move back in? What happens if they don't pay rent? All those really important questions that it's for many people they don't know getting into it.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, it almost seems like it could be overwhelming with all those different considerations to keep in mind. I immediately go to what happens. If there's a plumbing issue in the middle of the night, would a tenant call you? Is that how that works?
Speaker 3:Absolutely so. We are, and I can't speak for everybody, but many companies out there, including ourselves. We are a 24-hour company, so we have an emergency response capability for issues that do occur in the middle of the night, evenings, weekends, holidays. Our job is to triage it for our clients, of course, because if it's a small little drip from the kitchen sink and it's just going drip, drip, drip, well, we don't waste our clients money sending out a plumber at 2 in the morning because you know there's a small drip. No, no, we're gonna make sure it's a quite actual emergency that warrants a 2 in the morning, after-hours visit from a plumber, because those visits, let me tell you, they're not cheap certainly doesn't sound cheap, sure, um, let me you know, it sounds really interesting.
Speaker 2:Uh, can you tell our listeners, you know, how did you start this journey? And uh, why did you get into business?
Speaker 3:so I'm gonna actually start with kind of where the company came from, because it does give a little bit of context to where where everything started. So my previous job, my previous career, is actually very different than what I'm doing right now. So I'm formerly a professional dancer and choreographer in the Ottawa area and for anyone who's ever done dance you'll recognize the word pivot turn, which is a 180 degree turn in dance, and I wanted to pay homage to my background uh, it was very cool.
Speaker 3:It was a pandemic that caused, you know, a complete shutdown of that industry. And I'm sitting at home. I quite actually I lasted two weeks sitting on my couch, you know, doing nothing before I got bored. And well, when I get bored, I I do things. And then I started a business. So you're like, wow, that's a pretty big switch between the arts and and property management and it came from. Actually, the first thing I did was I was an investor, so I'm an investor first and foremost.
Speaker 3:I ended up buying some properties in Nova Scotia a couple small multi-family buildings and through my own struggles of finding good property management, but also talking with other investors in the community, I kept hearing it's hard to find good property management and I said, really, how hard can this really be? And you know what I'm going to do this myself, I'm going to do a better job. And well, that's what I did. I'm very proud with the track record that we've built since starting the company at this point three, just over three and a half years ago. Things go wrong. Things do go wrong with an investment property. You know tenants are late on rent, maintenance goes a little higher than you expected, but it's how we deal with it and how we communicate with our clients, and for most people, that's really the big thing. What they're looking for is that communication aspect, just letting them know what's going on. So that's where we're coming in and that's what we're doing differently, and we've had unbelievable success since I started.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's amazing, and you know being a consumer of the services as well. You know living in Ottawa. Do you manage your properties in Nova Scotia or you're hiring?
Speaker 3:local. Right, I hired local and it's for the exact reason. Property management is a boots on the ground situation. You need people who are local, who understand those local laws. The laws in Ontario are very different from the laws in Nova Scotia. I'm an expert in the Ontario marketplace. I'm not an expert in the Nova Scotia marketplace, and we can really even dive deeper into that. I'm an expert in the Ottawa area. Right, I'm not managing properties in Toronto. We're dealing with the same laws generally, but there's a nuance of the area that you are operating in. So, yeah, that's why I made, as an investor, I made the executive decision to hire somebody out there who, ideally, is going to do a better job because they have that local experience.
Speaker 3:Now, unfortunately, the first two companies that we hired, it did not go well, and I was one of those people. One of those horror stories, if you would. You know we had one property that's damages of upwards of $25,000 because of the tenant quality that was put in the unit. And that's one of the things I preach, not only with my clients but anyone I ever talk to who's getting into the rental industry is the success of your rental property starts with the tenants that you place in, it really does make or break, and I have, you know, I've had the good, the bad and the ugly of that myself, as an investor, unfortunately, Sure, and you know so you had mentioned that's a foundational thing that you help your clients with and that's choosing that client.
Speaker 2:Is there anything you do specifically to uh, to vet clients?
Speaker 3:absolutely so. This has been one of our most successful uh, I guess, products or services, if you would like to call it that, and we call it our tenant selection. So when we go to rent out a property, the first thing that we do and I'm probably going to give away some trade secrets here, so, uh, if there's other companies listening, shh, don't, don't take that.
Speaker 3:We don't just go open house, we don't just do showings for people who want to come see the property. We make them apply first. We are, to my understanding, the only company in Ottawa that does this. We make people send in their application and this allows us to number one, filter out the people who are not going to put the time and the effort in to do that Right. If they don't want to put that time and effort in a friend, they're not worth our time to show them the property rent. They're not worth our time to show them the property. Number two allows a pre-screen so we can do a quick scan of that application and make sure it meets both our criteria and the client's criteria. Because if they're coming in and you know what they're making $1,000 and rent's $2,000, why are we even going to show up?
Speaker 3:There's a disconnect, sure, and you would be surprised with the types of people who will still apply for properties even though it's way outside of their price range. So this is another way and it really comes from an operational sufficiency point of view from my end. From there, I mean, we go through then all the typical things the employment checks, the background checks, credit checks and all that but with our process I tell everyone we're not the fastest company out there. If you want, you know, somebody in your property tomorrow, that's not us, because we take the time to do a deep dive into these individuals to make sure that they not only have the ability to pay the rent, but they're willing to pay the rent 100 and you see how long term that is successful.
Speaker 2:And less turnover.
Speaker 3:Bingo. That's exactly it, and you know just, happier tenants, right? When you have happier tenants who have a good rental property, that means there's less wear and tear, there's lower maintenance costs and you just touched on it there's lower vacancy costs because they're not moving out as often. And you know you get a tenant who moves out. There could be a month or two where you're searching for a new tenant and now that means you've lost income for that month or two.
Speaker 3:Now, you know, the one thing that I believe in is we back up what we do and I believe in, you know we put our money where our mouth is, type deal, and we say we're going to find a good quality tenant. And you know we put our money where our mouth is, type deal, and we say we're going to find a good quality tenants. So our promise to our clients is if we find tenants for you for a rental property and they move out at or before the one year mark, we're going to find new tenants for free. Right, it's, it's the right thing to do, because that's that's saying we believe in the process that we have in place and if, for whatever reason, something happens that doesn't work, we're going to make it right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, excellent. That's real peace of mind for your clients.
Speaker 3:Tell me, Simon, any myths or misconceptions about the property management world that you know you have this opportunity to tell our listeners about Absolutely so. The first one is you know the idea of it's our way or the highway, right. You hire a property management company and you know it's. They do everything and you have no say. Right? There are companies like that and there are people who want that absolutely, but there's also clients and there's owners who want a little bit of their own involvement.
Speaker 3:Still, it's still their property, so they should have a little bit of their own involvement. Still, it's still their property, so they should have a little bit of involvement still. Whether it comes down to making a decision on that final person who's going to move into the property or how much money is going to be spent on maintenance and repairs. Do we have other options? That's one that we have. We work with our clients on a lot of those things to make the experience very personal and customize it to their needs. Not everyone does that, so it's important that you know it's not our way or the highway. We're there to act on your behalf and if that means getting you involved because you want to be involved, we're happy to do that, and I know there's other companies out there that do that as well.
Speaker 2:Excellent. Now we've all endured hardships and challenges along your journey. Can you describe one that you rose above and you could now say you're in a better place because of it?
Speaker 3:So I'm actually going to speak about this not from the property management perspective, but from a business perspective. Right Starting off a business, I'm very transparent with everybody I speak to, in the sense of I've got nothing to hide and I like to tell my story. You know, this is my very first business, right Before I was independent. You know, choreographer, contractor thing, yeah, but it's different.
Speaker 3:Running a business is. It's hard. Anyone who's done it knows how hard it is, the hours, the blood, sweat and tears. And it's one thing that I, you know, I knew it was not going to be easy, but of course you really don't fully understand the scale of how difficult it's going to be until you're in the thick of it. And I'm one of those success stories and saying I got through when it was just me pushing those late night calls trying to grow the company, trying to set things up for success, and I don't remember off the top of my head what the statistic is, but how many businesses fail after the first couple years. You know I view this as my biggest success of of that hardship. You know very little income during that time because you're reinvesting it into the business. And I pushed through and I'm very happy to say. You know we've grown into a place. I've got employees working for myself now and, you know, a well-established business within the Ottawa area.
Speaker 2:Yeah, good for you, simon. You know, coming from a position where I've started businesses in the past, I know what the initial grind is like. I know what the preliminary very little income and the uncertainty is like. It's a job well done and you make it past that first year. You're already in that positive statistic because you're leaps and bounds beyond what most people or most businesses accomplish. So very well done. Great story there. Outside of work, simon, how do you enjoy spending your time?
Speaker 3:So I touched on it a little bit. Actually I'm still. You know, dance has always been a part of my life and of course I still I do enjoy teaching the youth, the younger individuals, so I still do that.
Speaker 3:And yes you know I still get paid for it and whatnot, but I do it because I like to and I do it because it's meaningful work, so I still do that a couple of days in a week. I'm also an avid outdoor enthusiast. We live in a beautiful region. We've got the Gadano Hills at our fingertips, so I enjoy spending time out there going on hikes even if it's a walk along the canal.
Speaker 3:Some days that's something you only got time for, and the last one would be, um, I really enjoy spending some time put making good food. So I enjoy cooking, I enjoy eating good food and spending time with people who enjoy that as well. So it's a very, uh, social activity on top of just a personal hobby of uh cooking. And this, uh, this holiday season was my forte into bread. I didn't go the sourdough route as many people did during the pandemic, but I have really gotten to focaccia.
Speaker 2:Focaccia, oh nice, sounds delicious. Very happy to say I feel like I've really With olive oil dipped in olive oil, or lots of butter, oh, lots of olive oil, lots of olive oil.
Speaker 3:It's a friend of mine, actually. We were talking about this. He says when you think you've got enough, you add more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, never enough. What's one thing you wish our listeners knew about your business specifically?
Speaker 3:Oh, this is a great question. You know property management. You're like, wow, you're taking care of properties. That's great. We are the jack of all trades. We have so much to do. That's the one thing, and it's all.
Speaker 3:Maybe flows into the question about what people not know. There's a lot to do. We are very busy individuals. We have so much to do because, if you think about it, what are we doing? We're dealing with legal issues, right, not only from a business perspective, but from, in our case, the Residential Tenancies Act. We need to know about that. We're dealing with maintenance, troubleshooting appliances.
Speaker 3:I didn't know, you know I'm going to have to know how a fridge works or what's the most common failure of a dishwasher or a stove or a washing machine right, you know. What about cleaning? What about budgeting? Would be now going into pricing rental properties? What about investment advice, right? Everyone's asking everything about? Can you do inspections? What kind of home should I buy for the right rent? You have to know you've got everything. You've got your feet in every single pool that has anything to do with real estate, properties and people's lives.
Speaker 3:There's other days I feel like I'm, you know, nearly a hostage negotiator between tenants when they're having a disagreement. So there's so much to do and there's so many different things. That kind of is also the fun about this industry there's never a dull moment. There's always something new that's going to come across your desk and there's always something that surprises you and I mean that in both a good and a bad way when you walk into a place that looks like a bomb hit it. But then you walk into a place with a tenant who you thought would be like they're going to be a normal tenant and they've got the most pristine and beautifully set up apartment. You're like what you look like? A, you know, uh, blue collar. You know I'm not gonna not judging here, but dirty construction worker comes home and puts his feet on the couch which is boots still on and opens a beer, but yet they've got this beautifully manicured apartment.
Speaker 2:You're just gobsmacked yep, just goes to show you can't. You can never judge a book by its cover you know absolutely correct. Yep, um, excellent, very cool and uh, how can listeners learn more about pivot turn or get in contact with you?
Speaker 3:absolutely so. Of course, like everybody else, it's 2025. Now we've got multiple methods of communication digitally. So, good old website. Contact information is on the website, but that website's going to be ptpropertymanagementca, and then always our phone number of 343-308-4411. And then, of course, we. Of course we've got the socials right. We've got the linkedin, we've got the facebook, we've got the Instagram. So whatever tickles your fancy, we're available, and we are the typical nine to five. So, yeah, don't call me at 9.30 PM. I'm not answering the phone for you, but if you call me at 9.30 in the morning, I will Excellent.
Speaker 2:Well, Simon, it was a pleasure getting to know you today. Thanks for connecting and hope to see you out in the community soon. Wonderful Thanks again for having me on today, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Capital Connections Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to CapitalConnectionsPodcastcom. That's CapitalConnectionsPodcastcom, or call 343-803-6268.