Why the Best Landlords Treat Tenants Like Customers

What separates landlords who constantly deal with headaches from those who build stable, profitable portfolios?

In this episode of The Rent-ish Podcast, Zach and Patrick sit down with Ray Glymph, a real estate investor with over 100 doors, to break down one of the most overlooked success drivers in real estate: how you treat your tenants.

Ray explains why treating tenants like customers leads to better retention, fewer evictions, lower turnover, and why lowering rent is often smarter than lowering standards. He walks through practical tenant-screening principles, communication strategies that prevent problems before they start, and lessons learned from managing dozens of units at scale.

You’ll also hear Ray’s approach to fix-and-flip investing, why “ugly” properties can be the most profitable, and how mentorship accelerated his growth as an investor.

If you’re a new or growing landlord looking for practical, real-world education, not hype, this episode breaks down what actually works.

You’ll learn:

• How tenant treatment directly impacts cash flow
• Why strong screening protects your properties long-term
• How clear expectations reduce landlord stress
• What experienced investors do differently from beginners

Ray's courses: 

• Real Estate Inner Circle
• Inner Circle Masterclass

https://ledgre.ai/?utm_source=Podcast&utm_medium=OrganicSocialMedia&utm_campaign=Feb2026Promotion

Learn More https://innago.com/podcast/ 

https://joincohorts.com/

Sponsors: 

Innago is a free, online property management software designed for landlords, particularly those managing small to medium-sized portfolios. It offers a range of features to simplify tasks like rent collection, lease management, maintenance requests, and tenant screening. 

Ledgre is an All-in-One Accounting Software Built for Rentals. Organize property transactions, track expenses, and automate rental accounting with simple software focused on your industry.

Cohorts where serious real estate leaders level up. Join a curated peer group of founders, principals, and GPs who meet monthly in small, high-value circles. No fluff—just real insights, real accountability, and direct access to people who’ve done it before.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Alright, what's going on, everyone? Welcome to the Rent Dish Podcast. I'm Zach here with my co-host Patrick.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

We're two hosts on a mission to learn real estate investing. On this podcast, we'll share what we're discovering about property management, wild stories, and the lessons we pick up along the way.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

And that's the fun part. We're learning as we go, just like you. We bring in experts to guide us, break down the tricky stuff, and figure it all out together. So let's laugh, learn, and dive into real estate. Patrick, it has been a minute.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Yeah, I'm still not used to that new intro, but yeah, it's been it's been a sack. I haven't seen you in so long. Have you been?

SPEAKER_01 1:10

I know. It's like we're we're distant friends. It's like we have we're writing to each other via like carrier pigeon. We just haven't had the time to like actually talk and hang out. I've been good. I've been good, but it's been a while since we've done one of these shows. So excuse us out there on all the rent-ish what do we call our fans? The renties? Renties, I think. Renties. Yeah. Excuse us if we're a little rusty today. Uh, we're gonna try and get into the swing of things. I got my caffeine here. Did you finish yours?

SPEAKER_02 1:35

Uh I've got like a third of it left.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Third of it left? All right. We're I'm gonna finish this in the next two minutes. Uh okay. Follow the show at the the rentih pod. Email questions at therentish pod.com if you want to follow the show and uh like and subscribe on all of your podcast services. We're available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and basically anywhere online that you get your podcast. So be sure to follow us and uh stay tuned for new episodes. But Patrick, let's not dilly dally here.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

So we're at the chase.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

We've got serious business to talk about. Exactly. We've got a really special guest joining us today. Uh, we're excited to welcome Ray Glimph to the Rentage Podcast. Uh, Ray is a real estate investor with over 100 doors, an NAACP award winner, and a 40 under 40 business of the year on rate. He's known for helping people build wealth through real estate, focusing on strong landlord practices, smart long-term rentals, and realistic fix and flip strategies. Ray also mentors and educates new investors through his real estate masterclass and mentorship programs. Ray, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

What an introduction. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

We try and make it as like regal as possible. So it's like everyone feels like they're, you know, they're accepting their Oscar when they get on the show. That's kind of the vibe.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

That's awesome. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

No. Thank you for coming and hanging out with us. It's good to good to have you on the show. We're excited to learn a lot. Patrick and I gave the rundown of like, we're two real estate rookies. We don't really know a lot of what we're doing, but we're so excited that we have smart people like you to come on the show and kind of teach us a little bit. Let us leave here with a little bit of a lesson. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 3:10

You want to hear something crazy and everybody listening to the word expert, when you said, you know, welcome our expert. I remember like a few years ago, I was just in your shoes of not having like not having that knowledge. And I still consider myself of always learning. I think that's one of the most beautiful things about real estate is that you can always learn something new. So I'm happy to be here. Hopefully, somebody can take something from this episode.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

I'm sure someone will. I'm sure someone will. Hopefully, that's one of the two of us, too. That'd be nice. That would be really nice. Uh okay. So we'd love to hear a little bit about you. Like what makes you tick? Where'd you come from? How did you get into the world of real estate? Just kind of give us the basic summary of like your your journey into the the world.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Sure. So I'm originally from Brooklyn, New York. I uh live in West Virginia right now, and I invest in West Virginia in the Pittsburgh area. And the craziest thing is everything is an accident, but on purpose. And when you look back, it's always with purpose. So real estate was an accident. Ended up having a house and I rented out a room. We call it house hacking now, but I ended up renting out a room. And uh it was to a buddy of mine. Uh, we worked together, and uh he was like, Man, I need a place to crash. And I was like, Well, what are you paying now? And he was like, Well, I pay about 500 bucks, and it's a the roof's falling in and it's leaking all the time, and my landlord won't fix anything. Um I said, Well, I got a space right now, and I don't have anybody live in my house. You want to just room up with me? You'd be my roommate, and that is kind of how it happened. And I remember when he paid the rent at that time, I owned a house, but my mortgage was like a thousand bucks. I'm like, man, he's paying half my mortgage. All right, and so it became what if I rent my basement out and what if I rent this, and then it just slowly grew to man, we can really have something here.

SPEAKER_02 4:52

We hear that a lot. The house the house hacking is. So, what what made you make the switch to going from like the house hot hacking, renting out rooms in your house, to investing in your like second property? Because like obviously, once you have two properties, you're not living in both all the time. So, like, what what prompted that jump?

SPEAKER_00 5:15

So cool. I was still in my my primary residence. That was my primary at that time. I was still in my primary residence, and uh, I don't come from much money, I'm not the smartest guy in a room, never pretend to be. Uh, in this in this room, you but uh I I never pretended to be, and I always wanted to learn from other people. And uh at that time, you know, I had a little bit of money coming in. I had my started my first second business. I was doing really well, and I had a uh a meeting. It was kind of just like some guys hanging out at a bar, and uh, we were all talking. These guys were way ahead of me. They were entrepreneurs and attorneys and and all types of other professionals. And me, I'm just like this this bar owner, a restaurant owner, like I don't know anything. And they started, we were all just having a drink, hanging out, and they started saying, Hey, look, we should all put some money in, we can go buy some property, and then we can uh pay cash for it, then then renovate it, refinance it, pull the money out, and then we can do this five times. And before you know it, we'll have two million dollars. And I was like, Oh, I'm sold. What do I gotta do? At the time, I was like, hey guys, I'm I'm down to do whatever you guys need, I'll put the money. At that time, it was like five thousand dollars each. And I'm like, I could come up with five grand. And at that time, everybody backed out when it was time to do it. Nobody actually did it, but I had started to get the knowledge of hmm, this is real estate, this is how I can get into it. And at that point, there was no looking back. So I I bought my first property. It was I tell a story, it was probably a decade ago. I bought it from a wholesaler, and if you don't know the wholesaler, I can explain somebody that finds a piece of property, and pretty much they sell a contract. Um, but I bought it from a wholesaler, I didn't know what the guy was. I found him on Craigslist. Um, it was real sketchy. I met him outside of my car, he didn't know, and uh I gave him my check, and I thought he was gonna run over my check, but sure enough, I bought the property for like$25,000. My first property, man. It was in a worse neighborhood, and I'll tell you, I did all the things wrong, right? It was in a worse neighborhood. I overdeveloped it, it was it was an F class, but I did okay with it. And you know, I still remember the day the tenant, the new tenant who moved in, gave me the first check. It was a thousand dollars in rent, right? And they gave me that thousand dollars, and I had I worked, I worked for everywhere from McDonald's to Starbucks. Um, I like I said I didn't come from money, but I remember that thousand dollars. I was like, man, I didn't have to scrub a toilet for this, I didn't have to you know cook a burger. Like, she just paid me and then she paid me again, and then another month when I was like, okay, I got something now. I got sure.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

That's awesome. Well, to talk about like landlording at a scale, like I love Patrick. When obviously a lot of our listeners are people that are trying to get into real estate, they're going from that first property to the second property. But once you pass a hundred doors, like what is one principle that you absolutely refuse to compromise on when it comes to making sure the tenants are treated fairly? I mean, like you must you have so many people coming to you with so many questions and issues and everything like that. I mean, like, is there some principle that you just absolutely will never compromise?

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Yeah, I I think one of one of my mentors, he told me tenant is your customer, right? You are running a business and it might not be, you know, you might not be in Starbucks or any, you know, uh restaurant, but the customer, the tenant, there has to be some type of level of customer service.

unknown 8:24

Right.

SPEAKER_03 8:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

So the tenant is your your customer. Um, and then I look at it like this was a place that I was living as a landlord and I had to live there as a person, what would my, you know, what would I want? And so I'll always keep that to high quality. Like, do I want service? If I message my landlord, if I message the property manager, is it gonna take 13 hours for them to get back to me? Two days for them to get back to me. If I have an issue, is it a big issue? Is it gonna take you know 24 hours for this issue to get fixed? Are they gonna send somebody immediately? You know, those are the things that I think are fundamentally important when you start to get to this scale, because at the end of the day, real estate's really simple and turnover is what kills most profits.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

So you're you're saying that like maintaining or like retaining tenants is like one of the best things you can do for business. And in order to retain, you have to be like a what you what a tenant would consider like a good landlord. Is that kind of what you're saying?

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Okay, correct. Most people, I I'll tell you right now, my portfolio, I have over like 140, 150 units, and my portfolio, I have pretty I'm looking at my board right now, I have three vacancies right now. I have a wait list for those units, too. Right? I don't have much move in and move out. My my average tenant stay is exceeds more than four years. Wow, wow, that's really good.

SPEAKER_02 9:39

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

So when we look at vacancy, I think and you look at you know, tenant moves out, you gotta look at it a different way. You know, okay, the tenant's moving out, I can raise the rent fifty dollars, a hundred dollars, but what does that cost you? Are you gonna be you're gonna be empty for at least a month, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:54

So long term, yeah, I see what you're saying.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

So that's one of the keys.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

Do you have any idea what just speaking like what the national average is in terms of retention for for tenants? Like, do you do you think that there's like a generally like, do you think it's like a year, six months, two years? Like, I'm sure it varies all across the board.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

Yeah, if I think it varies based on the class of tenant that you rent to, too. So, like an A-class tenant is somebody you expect to move up, an A or B plus. Trisha traditionally, they would rent for you for a year, two years, three years, and then move into permanent housing. They might go buy a house. Then you might have your your C's and D's who sometimes tend to move around. They move around from year to year because most landlords can't keep up with the maintenance, or you know, they might fall behind because of other circumstances. But usually most of the calls I get is hey, I need a new place to live. My landlord didn't take care of this, and now the building's condemned, or my landlord didn't do this, and now this has happened, so we have to move. And so I one of the questions, and if you're listening, you might want to tune in and write this down. One of the questions I always ask is, Why are you moving from where you're moving? I think that really gives you some insight. People will tell you the truth, believe it or not, they'd be like, Man, I'm I was late on my rent, and uh the landlord giving me all types of uh, you know, and at that point I know, but you know, that's one of the most powerful questions I think I asked during my vetting process.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

Why are you moving? Interesting. Yeah, and and a question, because it sounds like, and I've never heard it uh explained like this, where as a landlord, you're you're giving, in a way, customer service towards the tenant who's the customer. That's a really interesting way to look at it. I guess my question for you is you know, in doing so and also running a business, where do you think the line is between being like ethical and and working with the tenant to retain them and being taken advantage of by by the tenant? Like where where do you draw that line and and where how have you learned like how to balance those two things?

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Yeah. Um, so the first thing is gonna be a strong lease. I think that that is gonna be your your biggest key is to make sure that everything is understood from the beginning. Hey, look, you can't call us to change light bulbs. That's one of the biggest things, you know. And I'll you you won't you'll be surprised. And here's the thing, though. I have older tenants. There was a lady, her name is Ms. Johnson. Ms. Johnson passed away two years ago. But guess what? Even me with 140 doors, I'll go talk to Ms. Johnson. I'll go change the light bulb. Ms. Johnson, understand that you you can't get up on a ladder and change the light bulb, right? So understanding that these people are human too. Yeah, sure. But also having, like I said, clear leases. Now, Ms. Johnson, you're gonna have to get the light bulb next time. I'll take care of you this time, but next time you're gonna have to buy the light bulb and then I'll replace it, right? Just setting that expectation in front of the beginning and making it clear. And I think that's where a lot of people lose touch of people. Having that conversation before you give them the lease, discuss the lease with them. Hey, this is my my expectation. So some people, you know, they just have them sign it and they never go through it. Even when I use, I use the Nago for my platform, when I have them sign it, I actually have them initial certain parts of it too, right? So, hey, no pets are allowed. You initial right here that so right here it tells me you read it. By you initialing, you acknowledge that you read that. So those types of conversations set expectations from the beginning. And that's I think that's how you stop from being taken advantage of.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

That's cool. I'm sure that takes a lot of extra time, but like I've I personally as a renter, I've never actually had a landlord that sat down and like actually read through a document or like add the questions to ask about the lease document. It's usually just here's this thing, sign it, get it back to me, or whatever. So it's like, yeah, on the tenant to kind of go in and read that. But I think you know, that's a nice, like, that's a nice subtle gesture, I think, to make sure that everyone's on the same page and communicating correctly to each other.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Well, here's the thing you could do at scale too, since we're talking for investors moving forward too, and it's great. The same systems I apply at one door or 10 doors, you apply at 100 doors, right? So maybe as a landlord, you don't have the time to go and say, hey, I gotta meet with every tenant, but you set up a system where, hey, look, I'm gonna send you this video. Once this video is received, I can see that the video was watched through fully. Once it's done, cool. That's part of your lease up program, you know. So that way you don't have to have that conversation. Or if you have a property manager, they can get on those calls or some type of Zoom recording where you just record the video, send it right to every tenant.

SPEAKER_02 14:27

Yeah. It's cool tactic. I like that. Another another follow-up question. So obviously, you didn't start with a hundred doors and you you grew and grew. What's something that you have learned now managing a bunch of units that you wish you had learned when you were first starting out?

SPEAKER_00 14:46

Well, one thing, like I mentioned, the the way you start is gonna be the way you finish. So I paid attention to detail, um, but I didn't know everything, right? And so I uh I'll never forget the first tenant. I was like, yeah, she didn't pay her rent. One of the tenants they didn't pay the rent, and that's the first, that's when you really get into real estate when somebody doesn't pay. And I was like, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna take it to Victor Court and I'm gonna go after you, and I'm gonna get, you know, funds. And she knew the game better than I did, man. That was the craziest part. So you have to, you have to know what you were getting involved in, right? Everybody thinks it's as simple as, hey, I rent this property out, and then tenant's gonna pay rent, and then it's rainbow and sunshines, you know. You know, you might have to fix a toilet every once in a while or call somebody. But there are other sides to it that I wish I did know. And some of that becomes getting around the right people, having podcasts and shows like this. Super essential. Listen to this and continue to gain knowledge.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Yeah. That's awesome. Uh, tenant screening. Uh, I want to talk about this real quick because, like, this is this is a make or break thing for a lot of landlords that we get, we get these conversations all the time on the show with our guests that are really, really into making sure that you also do the due diligence to get the right person that's going into your place as well. So, uh, I mean, what's uh what are some mistakes you still see landlords make when it comes to tenant screening? And do you have any advice for for folks out there?

SPEAKER_00 16:05

So the biggest mistake right now I see just because of financial hardship. I know a lot of landlords are going through some financial hardships. We see uh taxes increasing, insurance increasing, et cetera, they can't bite that bullet. Um, I got a strict rule. I'd rather lower my rent than lower my standards. Okay. So I want to make sure that if I have a vacant unit, sure, I need to fill it. But I also want to make sure I can attract the quality tenant. Hey, if I got a credit score that needs to be met at this standard, hey, look, maybe I can't get that top market rent. I get a little bit of a lower, but if I get that credit score, or if I get that right tenant, maybe I don't want to pets or something like that. I'm gonna adjust that rent to make sure that I can get the right tenant in this place. Because at the end of the day, screening is the most that's your that's your protection. That's your protection for your property. If you can't screen properly, you fail. Another one, I I just see baking basic landlords not doing the basic things, right? Like we aren't screening at all. Oh, I I like this person, I judge their character, they're a good judge of character. That doesn't work anymore, right? I I just I just passed uh a lady, we passed up on her, it was probably about two, three years ago, and she was the nicest old lady. Hey, sweetheart, yeah, we'll take care of you. Oh my god. Did a background check. She had three evictions year over year.

SPEAKER_03 17:20

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

Right? Uh criminal record. And it was just like, well, I wouldn't know. She great judge of character. I would I would fail the character judgment, but making sure you do your due diligence, protect your property, because nobody else is going to protect your property like you are.

SPEAKER_02 17:33

Yeah. No, that that makes that makes sense. I I have a I have a quick question kind of about that, because I'm not super knowledgeable about like the eviction process. Like I I vaguely like I know things about it, but I I've never personally gone gone through one. And I guess one of my questions.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

He says he says on live on the show to make sure that it's recorded version.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

Yeah. I'm ask asking for a question. Of course I'm kidding, Patrick. No, so I guess uh my question about that is because I no landlord wants to go through an eviction, right? But like and let's say you have you're in a situation where a tenant is is is going through a hard time or maybe is like slacking, is not being, is not paying promptly, and it's it's like a situation where you're not getting your your like they're not following the lease, you're not getting your rent fast. Do you go straight for the eviction? Or like what are some things that you do to maybe like minimize the risk of having an eviction and holding on to the tenant? You know, I I I don't know if that makes sense or if that's fairly informed thought. But like, you know, you don't necessarily I would think landlords don't want to jump to the eviction. So what other things can you do in a situation where the tenant's not being the best?

SPEAKER_00 18:47

All right. So again, I think, and it's so I can host a masterclass on this, I swear I've been through so many. Um, one is gonna be the screening process. That's most important. You can't skip that. But if you've if you're dealing with a tenant, deal with them individually, right? So, like sometimes, and I'll tell you my portfolio, uh, I have a property manager meeting every week. We meet with a property manager, and and in my portfolio, I have single moms, right? They're going through hardship right now. I get it, right? I want to help them as much as we can, you know. So sometimes we'll say, hey, let's get on a payment plan, we'll help you. Um, people who lose their jobs is a big one, right? All right, well, you know, you've had great experience. Let's try to work something out. Okay, we'll try to work it out in the back end because we don't. Hey, look, if you need, I have commercial tenants where, hey, Ray, you know, uh, we're sales were bad. We had one, the street was blocked off, and they didn't do well that month. Hey, sales are bad. Okay, look, hey, we'll prorate the rut for the next five months. You might pay 300 more the next month, but we'll get you back on track, right? We just want to help people first. Yeah, but if they are setting a bad example from the beginning, you got to nip it in the butt from the beginning. Okay. Sometimes you have to go straight for the juggler. Hey, look, this isn't working. Um, you've had I've had tenants who uh are super dirty. You know, everybody thinks everybody lives like them until you see that not everybody lives like you. And so those type of tenants, you just gotta go right at it from day one. Now, we don't want to send eviction usually from day one. I'll send notice. Hey, look, you know, we had the exterminator here, he noticed these type of conditions. Please make sure that this is you know corrected and then follow up.

unknown 20:18

Right?

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Yeah, there has to be a follow-up behind it. Some landlords be a little lazy sometimes. You don't want to follow up. You gotta follow up. And if things aren't being done to your expectation, you are the boss. You gotta fire them. And the eviction process is part of firing. Depending on where you live, sometimes it might be what we call cash for keys. You know, if you're in California or New York and you can't get them out, hey, look, here's$3,000. Get out, go find your next place.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

To avoid going through the whole eviction process, you just give them money and get them out.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Yeah, yeah. And you want to know, I good screening will help you because in my whole portfolio, I've probably done less than 15 evictions. In my whole time, less than 15. The biggest tip for people listening is if you go do background check, you call a landlord, right? Everybody calls the last landlord. Most people don't, but you call the last landlord. What you need to do is call a landlord before. Okay. Because the current landlord, if you got a tenant that's causing you all types of hell and and they they break it, so you just want them out. Well, hey uh, so and so from apartment A, they said you uh rented them now. Uh I'm thinking about renting her. She said she's ready to move in. Take her. Yes, please take her. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. She breaks that.

SPEAKER_03 21:25

That makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

But you call a landlord before, and they're like, oh my god, you're you're gonna get into a mess. Call the landlord two landlords before. Check the rest of it.

SPEAKER_02 21:34

Yeah.

unknown 21:34

Huh.

SPEAKER_02 21:35

That's a no, that's a really good point. I never thought about that before. There's a conflict of interest in calling the landlord there's currently living out of their event tenant.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

That's fascinating. I've never really thought about that. Yeah, that's a good point. All right. I want to switch gears just a bit. And we got to talk about fix and flip. This is like uh this is a buzz with buzz term that I think we we've had a few people on the show that have talked about this. So it's been a few weeks since we've had like a standard episode of our podcast where producer Moussei is able to chime in and hang out. He's there, the the ghost of producer Mousse is here in the room with us.

SPEAKER_02 22:10

Spirit is with us.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

The spirit is with us, uh, even though he doesn't have a mic right now. But he he put on he put on our little doc uh document here to for our interview with you, Ray, and he said, Fix and flip, this is where you separate Ray from TikTok flippers. Now, I gotta I gotta know because I don't know what that means. You obviously we want to hear about your journey with fix and flip and like what you do with it, what like your passion for it, but like what is a TikTok flipper? Like, what is that I'm I'm guessing that has some sort of negative connotation to what's going on in the industry right now.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

But I I would correlate it maybe to the HGTV of the previous time where um hey, look, we're gonna find This house, we're gonna you know put a hundred thousand for it and and we're gonna sell it for two million. A lot of people thought these sexy numbers, high numbers, high ROIs, they exist. They do exist, trust and believe. How common is it though? Yeah, right, and that's the reality of the industry. So when I when I post stuff, whether it be Instagram, TikTok, wherever, I'm showing you the real. I'm showing you I'm on timelines, I'm on deadlines. Today I just posted and I put five days left, six days left. Are we gonna make our are we gonna make our deadline? Don't know. I hope my guys do, but I don't know. And that's just the reality of it. So um I think you know, social media, we see so much junk out there, so much nonsense. And I just want to show people like there are mess ups, there are hiccups, but this is the real real estate.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Right. That's cool. That's cool. So fix and flip from your perspective. Obviously, we've had people talk about it before on the show. You know, you buy a property, you know, fix it up, and then you flip it. But in your in your words, what what does it mean to you? Like, where do you start? What are things that you look for? I'd love to hear about the the whole thing.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

So I heard this a couple years ago, and that everything in real estate is a fix and flip, right? And it all has it, real estate has the same fundamentals, right? Fundamental number one is the buy, right? That is the most important part. You have to buy at the right price, right? Now the flip is who's your end customer, right? So if I'm a landlord, my end customer, my person I'm gonna flip the property to is my tenant. If I'm if I'm flipping houses, the person I want to sell the house to is my end client. So you want to make sure one, you buy right, two, you know the person who you are selling to. Right? And so in my first rehab that I ever did as a, you know, just a landlord, and I did the property like I was selling it, right? I made the property beautiful, put laminate floor stew out, and redid the cabinets and redid everything to tenant that was gonna move in, it was a wow house to them, but it wasn't necessary and it wasn't what the market needed, right? And so you have to understand what is missing and what is necessary in your market to be successful at flipping. And here's the key a lot of people think I need, you know, depending on your market, I gotta find a biggest house to flip. Most of the time, the biggest houses have the smaller buyer pools, right? So if you can get to an affordable housing, if you can find something around that, everybody's looking for that starter home. And that's I know that's my specialty. I can help people with starter home, getting your first house.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

Right. Yeah, cool. Who shouldn't be flipping houses right now?

SPEAKER_00 25:26

TikTok TikTok flippers. I think um, you know what? This is actually the time to flip more than buy and hold.

SPEAKER_03 25:35

Right?

SPEAKER_00 25:35

Interest rates are high, so a lot of deals don't really cash flow. It is very hard to find a good bird deal, which is buy, renovate, refinance. It's very hard to find a good bird deal, but flip if you can buy it and buy it with the right numbers, you can actually make a lot more money than the you know, buy and hold right now. Now, buy and hold still, tried and true, works. Um, cash flow is just really tight for long term with the high interest rates. Of course, if it cash flows, you can always refinance later down the line. Uh, I think flipping right now is probably it depending on who your customer is and what your market is like. Okay, because real estate is very local. So whatever your market is like is gonna be the most important.

SPEAKER_02 26:10

Got it. And we when you said Burr, I knew what that meant. We had we learned, no, it was great. I I like uh, you know, because we learned that a couple episodes ago. I'm like, I know that term. It was an exciting moment for me. Um I guess one of my so I had a buddy who bought his first house and it was in rough shape, and he had to redo everything. And from me, my perspective, I'm like that that whole fiasco that he went through was really unattractive to me, I guess. Um, my my question for you is like, how bad of shape of properties do you get? And like, how much legwork are you willing to put into a property? Like, you know, when you're going and seeing what to buy. I don't even know if that's something you look at. You're just looking at a number.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

No, we 100%. So, one, the uglier the property, the better. I'm gonna tell you that now.

SPEAKER_02 27:07

Really?

SPEAKER_00 27:07

Okay, yes, because here's the thing in real estate, you make money from force and value. It is very hard to make money turnkey in real estate. And when I say turnkey, I mean if you go into MLS, so you go on Zillow.com, you buy a house, and you rent it to John Smith, it is very difficult to make the cash flow numbers work. The real value is in the flip game, the rehab game. Yeah, that's how you really make the money. So the people who make the most money in real estate are gonna be developers, they get the dirt and they turn it to a structure. Flipper is next. We find an ugly house and we turn it to the structure. So, for example, we could still find, we got a house right now. This is a cosmetic rehab. I'll share my numbers with you. I'm I'm a transparent guy. We have a cosmetic rehab, we bought it for$56,000. Uh, we have, I think our our number on it uh for rehab is$20,000. We put new floors in, paint, touch-ups,$75,000. Call it$80,000 all in after we pay closing costs, call it$90,000 if you want, closing cost fees or whatever else. Yeah, profit on that, our sales price should be about$150, that's$60K.$60K in 30 days. That's not too bad.

SPEAKER_03 28:11

That's really good.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

Now you see, so our key is we want to do one every month. So that is the value of flipping. So if you see a lot of flippers, it most of the time on HTTV, those people who are really doing it, doing a really good job at it, making a lot of money doing it. Now, of course, you pay higher taxes, etc. It is it is taxes differently, but the value is there in flipping. So um, I know last month we did a flip, we averaged a flip every month, or last year we averaged a flip every month, and this year our goal is to get it to maybe two a month if we can.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

Wow, okay. So can you explain why the taxes are different on the fix and flip? Or I don't know if that's even like something that's like.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

So it's it's uh it's active income. So you're actually working, you're you're buying something to sell it, right? Whereas the buy and hold it's passive income. You're buying it and renting it. So the money comes slowly over time.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

Okay. Got it. How do you manage like the the actual like rehab of it? Like, do you does your team handle that directly? And I don't know like how many people like you work directly with on a regular basis, or if you contract new people each time, like I don't know what that process looks like at all.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

Yeah, I can I can spend I can spend time on the process too. I spend a lot, but I'll keep it very simple. Um, one, develop a scope of work, clear scope of work. And what that looks like is a piece of paper that says, hey, we're going to take off all the trim, we're gonna paint this, this is what I want, and then walk it through with your contractors. Usually for some of these, I'll be with the GC or the general contractor. I have a partner, he'll GC it with me. And we'll go in and we'll say, Hey, we want this done, we want this one, and we'll either find subs which are gonna be, hey, I need an HVAC guy to come in and fix this part, right? Or I need an electrician to come in and fix this part. That's where the real money is made. Or you can hire out a GC, right? And a GC manages the whole project and you don't, you just kind of are hands off, you go check every once in a while, make sure things are good. But if you have the subs, you can make a lot more money. So um, the key is it to keep subs. And as you get to scale, to everybody listening, if you got one door, two doors, it's very hard to do some of these things. Like to have a handyman, yeah, you can consistently call with just one unit or two units, it's difficult because you don't have enough work for them. Yeah. Right? So when you're actually going to scale, I tell this people, once you get to scale, if you get to 10 doors, handyman is very comfortable with you because you constantly have something breaking, some you call him once a month, twice a month. You got a good relationship. You can negotiate prices, but one time, two times is a little difficult. When you get to 30, 40, you pretty much have somebody on payroll that that is constantly like, hey, I got this today, and they're relying on you, like, hey, what work do we have today?

SPEAKER_01 30:41

Yeah. No, that makes sense. Cool. One more shift of gears to mentorship. So when we were going through your bio, we were learning a little bit about you before we had you on the show. One of the things that uh we learned a lot about uh is that you do mentorship training for people. Obviously, this whole podcast is part of that. People get to hear our show and get to listen to you talk about all this stuff, and it's really, really awesome. But I'd like to learn a little bit more about like what what what specifics you do with mentorship and like if you can share some stories about how you realized that that was part of your journey as well.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

Yeah, I'll start with how I realize it. I was at a conference a couple years ago, and uh it was uh I'll never forget, I forget who was on stage. I know it was like Grant Cardone, there were some bigger names there, and I know the speakers before though, Grant was like the headline, and there were some speakers before. And I listened to the speakers before, and they were like, Yeah, you know, we have 10 units and we're making$4,000 a month or$5,000 a month, and you should invest into our next. And then I remember, I'm like, you got 10 units and you're only making$4,000 a month. I don't add up. And then I remember I'm like, well, I got a hundred right now. I should be up on stage. And uh I started asking people at the conference, I'm like, yeah, well, how many units you have? And they're like, uh, I haven't got started yet. And it hit me like, man, I got some systems right now. I should be sharing this stuff.

SPEAKER_03 32:01

Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

Yeah, I can't be in the seats. People need to hit it. And at the end of the conference, I had crowds around me asking me questions. At that point, I was like, all right, well, I gotta get deeper into it. I can help more people. And that that was really the key behind uh the mentorship. I used to do one-on-one mentorship, I don't really focus too much on mentorship one-on-ones because it takes time. I help people out. If you want my time, I try to spare what I can. Um, usually what we do is we got a group mentorship on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Tuesdays are 100% free. Just come. We teach real estate for free. You, I mean, if you listen to this podcast, you're getting taught real estate for free every Tuesday. And and what got me too is I I paid, I spent about like 40 or 50,000 educational courses and stuff like that. And the stuff I'll never forget, one course I bought was like a$10,000 course, and it was all stuff I knew. And I was like, man, I got zero value out of this. Yeah. Um, it is like very beginner level. And so at that point, I'm like, man, I I just spent this money. I didn't even get to meet the guy, I didn't get to do any, you know, anything with it. It was just some videos. I'm like, I could help people more than that. And um, it's been great. We've helped people get their first investment property. Uh, one of our people in our mentorship just they bought a seven unit uh building uh last year, then they just finished the maintenance on it. Um, so just seeing people, and these are real people in real in real estate, you know, building that people who talk and are able to see growth, it's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

That's awesome. That must be very, very fulfilling to see, you know, what you've been taught being taught to others, seeing them go off and explore bigger and brighter things, you know, that must be amazing to feel.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

And you got to think about what you guys do. Because I want to give you your flowers too, because a lot of people don't give you flowers. You guys are educated. You might not, you might say, okay, well, I'm not as educated. You guys are educated in space. I bet you if somebody wanted to know, hey, look, can I get started? You would be able to lead them until, hey, look, this is what I do, this is what I think you should do. You are educated. Most people don't take the delete. So kudos to you guys, too. You don't get enough of your flowers.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

Oh. Well, that might be the that might be the nicest thing a single guest has ever given us. So we appreciate that. You've officially locked yourself into as many appearances on the show as you would like the rest of the time. Patrick, do you have any other questions that you want to fire off before we wrap this bad boy up?

SPEAKER_02 34:08

Yeah, I I I don't know. One one more, probably completely shifting gears again. Um you said you were originally from, did you say Boston? Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. All right, Brooklyn. Um, what how did you get into because you said your main markets are West Virginia and Pittsburgh. Yeah. Um, just curious about like, was that kind of random? Was there strategy behind that?

SPEAKER_00 34:29

No, I live here now. So what happened, how I got how I even got here, I left the city. I wasn't doing anything big in the city, man. And I still remember I was working, I was working at a bar at the time. And uh I loved my job, it was cool, and but it wasn't the end of life. And uh I'll never forget, I tell a story all the time. My cousin and I were standing at the train station. We waited on the train. He asked me, Ray, what do you want to do with the rest of your life? At that time, I was like 18, 19. I had no idea. I got some mail that said police officers make 50,000 starting, and firefighters make 60,000 starting. I was like, you know, I might be a police officer, firefighter, something honorable. He gave me this quote and it changed my life. And he said, Firefighters don't draw Ferraris. And I just remembered, man, I really want to drive a Ferrari. I deserve to drive a Ferrari. And so he said, Look, uh, come out to West Virginia. There's uh I'm in school there. He was going to school to be an engineer. He was like, industrial engineers and engineers make a hundred K coming out, you don't have to risk your life. And I was like, uh well, that sounds pretty cool. And uh I came out here, I actually dropped out of school, started my first business, and uh ended up staying here, did really well here.

SPEAKER_02 35:31

Nice, cool. I was just I was just curious because I know people like you know look at different markets and stuff, but yeah, that makes sense if you you live in West Virginia now.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

The the biggest key I can give anybody it is if possible, invest in your market, right? Because nobody knows your market like you know your market. And we all have these streets in our neighborhood with invisible lines. Like, hey, if you cross that line, nobody really wants to live there. That's not the good side, you know, going to the bridge or over the you know, over the tunnel, and uh you know your neighborhood like no one else does. So if possible, invest where you are because people, you know, I looked at ARVs when I got started after repair values of a house, and I'm like, man, this house right here, this will be worth 300,000. Well, it's on the wrong side of train tracks, it's not nearly worth that. And so be familiar with your market.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

It's cool. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

Um, all right, I've got one more question. Keep shooting. I'm here, I'm here for y'all. One more question. We're we're we're doing really well. We're good on time right now. So uh Patrick and I uh we'll we'll end it on a fun note. Patrick and I are big uh big nerds. I think that's part of the reason why they asked us to do this podcast. Uh one question we ask every guest when we get to the very end of the show is uh what's your favorite movie of all time? You don't have to say one, if but if if you if one jumped to your mind just now, maybe one of your favorites.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

If you had to answer it I've got to give it to Avengers Endgame, man. I don't know if I could watch that movie. I'll probably watch it 15, 20. It's a three-hour movie, and I can watch it again at any given time.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Oh wow. It's beautiful. I love that pick. Absolutely love that pick. Get emotional thinking about Cap just tightening the shield at the very end. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

I mean, it's a good movie, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:09

All right, awesome. Uh, Ray, tell the people out there listening to the Rentish Pod, like, tell them where you can find, they can find your resources, places they can find you, anything that you want to plug before we get out of here.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

Yeah, you could um honestly just uh if you want to Google my name, Ray R-A-Y, Glimp G-L-Y-M-P-H. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram. It's really me. I really respond. Uh uh no bots or anything like that. I'll respond. You you can message me at 3 o'clock in the morning. I'll message you when I wake up. I'll get to you, and I'll answer all questions. I'm just happy to help people.

SPEAKER_01 37:39

Awesome. Well, thank you very much for being on the show. It's been really insightful. It's been really fun getting to hang out with you. And uh, I'm sure we'd love to have you back at some point. I mean, you've earned that, you've earned the permit. Say nice things about it.

SPEAKER_00 37:52

Thanks for having me, guys. It's been a pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 37:54

Awesome. All right. Well, uh, remember, follow the show, Rentish Pod, email questions at the rentishpod.com. If you have questions for Ray, feel free to fire them off to us and we'll get them to him and then he'll get back to you. We'll figure we'll figure out some kind of chain to get back in touch. Uh, but yeah, follow the show on social media, notified when new episodes go live. Spotify, Apple, rate the show, review the show. We'd appreciate your feedback. Uh, but until next time, I've been Zach, and that's been Patrick, and we'll see you guys later. The Rentich Podcast is recorded in Cincinnati, Ohio, hosted by Patrick Giro and me, Zach Rotello. Produced by Mousse Gabermesquel and Charlene Mulcindani. Edited by Elliot Mongenis. Theme song by me, Zach Rotello.