After reviewing all of the applications that came in (13) I had two clear finalists.  I was interested in four candidates, but two of the four were renters.  As long as I had two home owners that both looked great, I decided to interview those two and hopefully choose one of them.

Candidate #1:

37 yr old male, lives 4 blocks from 3 of my buildings, computer consulting business, works part time at a technical college as a computer technician, owns and self-manages 27 units that he rehabbed himself, lives in one of his multi-plexes.

Candidate #2:

27 yr old male, lives 5 miles from my units, works full time from home for an asset management company (corporate-style property management/acquisition of large buildings).

Both candidates seemed very stable as far as having no plans to move away.  Both were in the business and had some experience, although I was not looking for this and thought it could be a detriment.  From the application, both were strong in sales and organization, and had good work ethic.

#1 wanted the job because he was intrigued by my systems and training offered.  He thought he could learn something to use with his own rentals and could contribute some of what he has learned to my business.

#2 wanted the job because he wanted to pay off his student loans.  He doesn’t believe in owing any debt and wanted the loans paid off as soon as possible.

I had a standard set of questions for each of them, and then tailored some more given each of their background.  Since I don’t care so much about experience or what they know about the rental business, I was mostly trying to get to know their character, work ethic, organizational skills, sales ability, how they interact with people, and why they wanted this job.  The interviews were very conversational.

#1 was very easy to talk to, like an old buddy.  He is very eager to learn and has aspirations to grow as an investor.  #2 was trying to impress me and I sensed a BS factor.  #2 was concerned about liability and some nit picky compensation issues.  He was also a corporate type and I don’t think he likes to get his hands dirty, so to speak.

I talked with each for 90 minutes.  About half the time was spent learning about them, and the other half was spent covering my philosophies, how we screen tenants, market, deal with issues, how our systems work, how the training will work, compensation, and how we will interact as investor-property manager.  The candidates were asked to ask questions and comment on everything I told them.

Candidate #1 was the clear winner.  I emailed him my maintenance schedule to confirm that he was ok with the skills and time committment it represents and he was.  Then I emailed him a property management agreement to sign.  I’ve shipped him Rich Dad Poor Dad and Ken McElroy’s audio set to listen to.  I am now reviewing my landlord system and updating it with a few minor changes and will be shipping that out tomorrow for him to read.

We’ll reconvene after he’s reviewed all that for a Q&A session and he’ll get the keys.  I’m paying him $300 for his time spent training.  My husband happened to be in the city where the buildings are this week so they met for lunch.  Randy hasn’t been involved in this process of finding a new manager but said that I found a good guy and he’s excited about the change.

We decided to bump our start date to Nov 15 because I ran a little behind and didn’t want to rush it.  Plus this allows our current manager to collect all the November rents and it gives the tenants two weeks to absorb the fact that they have a new manager and new place to mail the rents before December comes around.