Nate Armstrong of Home Invest
Nate Armstrong is an investor chair for a smart real estate company called Home Invest. With a long track record of successful ventures, he has a history of profitable transactions that date back to his college days. Prior to his investing endeavors, he worked at Target where he handled a multi-million-dollar improvement venture. He also spent most of his time working with a team of more than a hundred professionals.
Nate Armstrong built a name for himself before even entering the business field. Back in his college days at Saint John’s University, he was selected as the recipient of the Minnesota Collegiate Entrepreneur of the Year. Additionally, he finished as one of the Top Ten Global Collegiate Entrepreneurs of the Year. These achievements helped propel him on a path of success in a few different roles that include everything from management to investing.
What would you say is the most difficult aspect of property management?
The answer to that question is highly dependent on one’s particular style of managing. For example, there are people who enjoy dealing with tenants and thrive on social interactions. For them, the drawbacks to this job might be the administrative duties that must be done on a daily basis. For others, however, the administrative duties are very enjoyable as they prefer those types of tasks over constant customer-service-based responsibilities.
How do you go about your tenant screening before approving individuals for leases?
Well, we start off with a quick review of their application to see their history. This means reviewing some of their previous renting experiences that show us the length of stay, reasons for leaving, and similar. Then, we run a background check on everybody who would like to live with us. If it comes back clean, we run a credit report to see if there are any areas of concern that may be a red flag for us. We like our property managers to always contact the previous landlords. This step should always take place.
What kind of tenant are you most likely to approve without any concern?
Based on the aforementioned input of everything that we look for, there will always be candidates that fly through our screening process in a matter of hours and get approved very quickly. These are typically people who have a reliable job with a great credit history. Also, their background check comes back clean so we quite literally have nothing to worry about at that point. Moreover, if they are proactive enough to come by our office and introduce themselves, that is always a plus.
How do you make sure that your tenants continue enjoying their experience at your property?
It revolves around a solid customer service experience. Although we provide an asset-based service where the tenants pay for a property, we still have to offer them satisfaction through professionalism and timeliness. In order to do so, however, it all begins with a solid team of maintenance workers. Here at Home Invest, for instance, we contract with companies that have been proven successful by working with us for years. So, we seldom have to worry about a certain matter getting resolved as we know that our team will make sure that everything is handled appropriately. Additionally, you always have to be open to feedback and listen to what the tenants are saying. After all, they are the ones who are paying for your offering and often have great ideas for improvement.
What are some of the most common complaints that landlords will hear from their tenants?
Well, it kind of depends on the property in question. I noticed that some of the most common complaints are generally not related to anything that is landlord-related. For instance, people will frequently make written complaints about excessive noise levels. Obviously, this is something that is caused by another tenant. Additionally, there are cases where maintenance requests are not handled immediately due to the fact that we may lack the manpower or resources. In these situations, we simply make sure to be as transparent as possible and let the tenant know that we are working on resolving the issue.
