Cameron Tope - How To Manage Your Rental Property
Jul 30, 2026
Cameron Tope comes back to our podcast as a Part 2 on property management. Cameron is the founder of Emerson Property Management, and also a real estate investor and entrepreneur who used rental properties to break free from the unpredictability of the oil and gas industry.
After seeing firsthand how unstable the corporate world could be, he began building a rental portfolio that would eventually allow him to quit his W-2 job and create life on his own terms. When he couldn’t find a property manager he trusted, he built his own company from the ground up. Today, he manages over 300 properties in Houston, owns more than 30 rentals himself, and successfully runs Emerson Property Management remotely—all while living in San Diego, California.
On this episode with us, he digs deep on what you should be thinking about as it relates to managing your own rental properties. He shares how to scale and build so that you can manage your properties yourself, and shares important information so that you can properly process and strategize to build out your property management on your rentals.
In this episode, you will be able to learn:
- Great property management can make or break a deal. Strong operations are just as important as finding the property itself.
- Value-add investing is about improving properties, increasing occupancy, and creating better living experiences for tenants.
- Real estate investing is a long-term game. Consistency, patience, and strategic growth build lasting financial freedom.
- The best partnerships help you go further. Working with the right team creates opportunities, shared knowledge, and scalable growth.
- Real estate creates wealth through multiple streams — cash flow, appreciation, loan paydown, and tax benefits all work together over time.
- Bigger deals create bigger economies of scale. Multifamily investing allows investors to access opportunities that are difficult to achieve alone.
The key moments in this episode are:
0:00 - Avoiding Cataclysmic Real Estate Mistakes
1:58 - Oil Bust Sparked The Real Estate Shift
4:44 - Escaping Analysis Paralysis With Smart Risks
8:06 - Finding Early Deals Through People
12:26 - Houston Market Reality And Hiring Experience
15:20 - From Self-Managing To Property Management Company
22:01 - Moving To San Diego And Going Remote
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Full transcript here:
Cameron Tope
Because if you just want one or two houses, you can probably manage those over over time. And again, it's it's risk versus reward too. Like if you're available, you're gonna be grateful with tenants and you're okay with a little confrontation, handle it. And you're not worried about the risk. You didn't get an attorney to draw up a lease agreement or use an agent to help you with that and screen the tenants and whatnot, you're probably gonna be fine. But if you're looking to scale, once that management starts taking away from you scaling, that's when I would say this might be the decision point of either systematizing the property management so it reduces the time involved, or you need to hire it out.
Mike Swenson
Welcome to the Real Freedom Show. We inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. I'm your host, Mike Swenson. Let's get some real freedom together. I'm your host, Mike Swenson. If you want to get started on your real estate journey, check out our website, freedom through realestate.com. It's where we put all of our content, all of our podcasts for you to be able to dig in and learn and figure out what your next steps are. And today we got a part two, just super exciting. Happy to have Cameron Tope back. For those of you that didn't listen before, want to tune back in. So episode 336 was the episode he was just on a couple months back. The highlights W-2 turned real estate investor, built his portfolio in Houston, runs Emerson Property Management, over 300 properties, and your own portfolio of 30 in Houston. And now you live in California. So we're gonna talk a lot about property management 101, what to think about, lessons learned, and all that, and then talk about running your property management company from a different state and be able to be somewhere else and still have a very successful and thriving business at the same time. Cameron, so excited to have you back on the show.
Cameron Tope
Mike, I appreciate having me back on. You know, there's so real estate is such a broad topic. There's so much. So appreciate you having me back on to dive in a little bit more about property management and talk a little bit more about what we can do with you know some of the lessons and things that you mentioned that we can share with the
audience.
Mike Swenson
And we won't go back to the story. You know, we like sharing your story and talking about your journey, but obviously we already had covered that before. So let's kind of dive in, bring us to building and growing your portfolio in Houston, then let's talk about that decision of going in and doing it yourself. And then we'll talk about the lessons learned and how you battled through that.
Cameron Tope
When I first started, I remember thinking, man, if I just had like five properties, I think that would be like perfect. You know, oh my gosh, five doors. And then you get there and you're like, whoa, okay. And it's the same thing. Like, especially if you're if you're getting specific in your market or you've selected a market and you're you you know the market, every deal you learn it a little better, you learn a little, you know, maybe you build a more relationship with a private money lender or a a loan officer, and your agent trusts you more. So they're gonna send you more deals. So every subsequent deal, not that it's like easy, but it it's simple, and you're you're refining that system. So I it was probably about seven-ish doors, maybe plus, maybe minus, where I was like, okay, I think I was still working W-2 with with British Petroleum, and I'm like, you know, I think it's time to try to find a property manager. And I was because I was focused on the real wealth for me, was the long-term rentals, was owning the asset. I read Rich Dad Port, I was all into that. I was like, I need to own these things. And so it wasn't, hey, I could make a quick wholesale buck. It wasn't flipping. That wasn't the thing. So I never really thought about the management side. It was how can I own the most amount of real estate, let this cheap financing at the time, you know, we're talking 2013, 14, it was I got loans at 3, 4%. So how do we leverage that and build up a massive portfolio and then just let inflation and rents increases and appreciation, all the great tax benefits, create wealth? And it was right around there, Mike, the seven door mark, where I started going out and trying to find people and couldn't find a you know, a good, uh good property manager or somebody who was a guy in a truck, and then it was a huge national company. And without rehashing that whole story, it was just like I'm gonna do it myself. And I think that's probably the point where a lot of people would just decide, like, okay, let's actually start creating a lot of systems for this. Before then, I was just kind of going to ad hoc. I was doing Zell payments, I was just doing whatever was easiest. At that point, it was okay, let's start getting systematized. Engineering by training. So I was like, okay, let's get I got Building. They were the only company. There's so many more now, but they were the only company at that time would take you under, you know, I think you had to have a door or two. I it might have been five minimum, I don't remember, but it was small enough that I could get in. App Folio and all the other big companies are like, you have to have 50 or 100 units to start. And I'm like, oh my gosh. So started with Building and then just started with the basic, basic processes. And when I say a process, I don't mean something very complex, Mike. It can just be a simple checklist. Everybody, especially with AI now, they want to build a beautiful dashboard and they want to, you know, how do I make this to connect with this and automate this? You don't know what you don't know. Just start with a super simple outline. It can be literally a checklist in Trello or on a Google Doc. We still use a lot of Google Docs when we're flushing out a new process. We create a Google Doc and it's just the highest level you can get. What is step one, two, three, four, five? And then when we kind of figure out, okay, well, maybe this, if then this, this, and when then we start going once we have that, that's when we put it into our uh true process workflow software that's we call it's lead simple that we use. But that would be overkill for most small uh property you know managers or real estate investors.
Mike Swenson
What did you find took up a lot of your time finding new tenants, the maintenance requests, being able to handle that kind of stuff? Like as you're working your W-2 and you see your phone or you're checking your email and you're kind of getting sucked in from your real estate business. What were the things that were really kind of the cog and the wheel for you in those early days?
Cameron Tope
For me, it was dealing with tenants uh as far as applicants. So, you know, the maintenance, that was okay. You know, when you have five or or so properties, you're not getting a lot of, you should be getting a lot of maintenance requests. So you do a good turn, you make sure the property's in good good repair, you drain the hot water tank. We can talk about actually, I think we have on the website some of the free stuff for that, but like what we do in between turns to make sure everything's in a good spot. So if you do that, and again, you'll build that checklist out, then you shouldn't have a lot of maintenance. So my thing was, especially back then, we put a four-rent sign in the yard and I would get a hundred phone calls. I mean, it was just stuff was flying off the shelf. You know, I like to say that time we were in a supply shortage, you could put lipstick on a pig and rent anything. So I'm fielding these calls, and it's you know, somebody doesn't get your uh, you know, get your answer, or they get your voicemail, they might call three times in a row. And you're like, oh my God, you know, so is it something wrong and you don't know the numbers? And so Mike, that was the big thing for me. And I was talking with somebody else about this from a business perspective. Some people say start with the lowest value task when you're gonna hire out. That's fine. That that's fine. But for me, what helped me the most was was farming out or maybe saying, What can I what can I delegate for the task that took the most energy? They drained me. And what drained me was talking to the same tenant or the same situation a hundred times on each leaf listing. And it was, yeah, I've got this. Do you what what is the what are the requirements? What is this? It's like, oh my God, I've talked about this a thousand times. So that was draining and it was kind of, I don't want to say low value, but um, I could hire it out so uh very cheaply. And so that's where I started. That was what ate up a lot of my time.
Mike Swenson
I still remember uh when I only had my one rental and we had very good luck with with having people that stayed a long time. And then yeah, the one time you list it, you're getting all the calls. And I was like, I tried to schedule like a 6 to 9 p.m. on a Tuesday night, and I just told people here's when the showings are gonna be. I'm gonna be there. There's probably gonna be some other people there, and then half of them don't show up. And so at least I wasn't doing like certain times for every person, but like I learned pretty quickly too that yeah, that that sucks a lot of your time, and then I'm calling people in the back stairwell on my lunch breaks to try to set that stuff up, and so it's it's a it's hard.
Cameron Tope
Well, and unlike and I guess a lot of maintenance requests, but mostly tenant comms, a lot of those are not time sensitive. Hey, we want to talk about at least renewal. Well, that you should be doing that, you know, 100, 200 days ahead of time or 100, 120 days ahead of time. And but the the response to the leads, speed to lead is huge, especially in today's environment where the tenants have a lot of options. If they're trying to reach out to you and you're gonna take, you know, wait till your lunch break or wait till the end of the day to call them back, they've probably already talked to somebody. It might even be an AI agent, but they're getting something back with somebody else on another property. So that is one thing that I think you could outsource or figure out how to get somebody who's responsive to those, because as soon as you get it done, then it's done like you said, you're done for another year, hopefully two, three, four, five years. And that's a but when it does hit, when that turn does happen, you have to be on the ball with those. And for me, working, like you said, it was just it was one of the things I could outsource, pay somebody to do, have an AJ that did it, and that was her job, just follow up with the leads.
Mike Swenson
I should quick back up the decision to do it in-house and to be able to build out your systems. Were you originally kind of thinking, I'm just gonna see how long I can ride this train and do it myself? Or were you thinking like at some point maybe I would have a conversation with somebody and maybe you never got that far. But early on, were you always just thinking, like, I'm gonna try to keep it in-house, build my systems, and as long as I can hang on for it, I'm gonna do it myself? Because I know there's a lot of people thinking that right away, like, hey, let's outsource right away because I want to stay in my W-2 job and I don't want to take that time. And then kind of some ways you already get get in bed too deep with that. And then it's like, well, now if I do try to do it myself, now I've got all these problems trying to do it at seven properties versus just doing it at one. So, how long were you originally thinking you were gonna go in-house?
Cameron Tope
I was just like, I want to get five doors. That was my my big thing. And once once I got there, I realized, well, uh, you know, five is great, but that's not gonna like retire on five, especially in the Houston, maybe in California or you know, the Bay Area and New York, you probably retire on one or a couple, but in Houston, you need you need a good portfolio, a decent size. So that's when I was like, okay, I need to get more, but it started to inhibit me being able to find a deal is well, I'm spending all my time managing contractors, making sure the turns are going well. So it was taking me away from being able to go to a showing with an owner, or hey, they'd call and it was a distressed seller, and I'm like, uh, well, I might ask a few more questions instead of going to the house, getting in front of them, start talking to them about it. And so I probably missed some deals. And that's when I was like, okay, I need to, I want to hire it out. And then when I couldn't, that's when I'm like, I'll just do it for me. And then when people started coming in, it was like, okay, I need to system. And when I do it's doing it for me, I'm like, I have too much stuff going on. I need to write the checklist. Then when people start coming, I'm like, okay, we need to get this more uh, not just for the Cameron, you know, way to say something. It's like this needs to be written out so anybody can understand what this means, not stick sign in yard. It's okay, go to the storage, put the writer on this, clip this, you know, and just get get more specific on that. So yeah, Mike, when I when I first started out, I was more like trying to accumulate the properties. Um, I wasn't really thinking long term. But if you are, you know, I think when people start out, you have to know what your goal is or where you're trying to go. Because if you just want one or two houses, you can probably manage those over over time. And again, it's it's risk versus reward too. Like if you're available, you're gonna be grateful with tenants and you're okay with a little confrontation, handle it. And you're not worried about the risk. You didn't get an attorney to draw up a lease agreement or use an agent to help you with that and screen the tenants and whatnot, you're probably gonna be fine. But if you're looking at scale, once that management starts taking away from you scaling, that's when I would say this might be the decision point of either systematizing the property management so it reduces the time involved, or uh you need to hire it out. I think that's kind of the big piece. So you can focus more time on growing, you know, getting another deal.
Mike Swenson
Yeah. And to your point, yeah, like you said, hiring it out doesn't necessarily mean I'm doing all of it and then I'm doing none of it, right? You can leverage the technology, you can build the systems, you can leverage out pieces of that without having to just hire a company to take care of all of it. You can find ways to do the pieces, just like growing a lot of companies, right? It's you're trying to outsource parts of it, and then eventually you might bring it back in-house when you do have a full-time employee or a part-time employee, but you can leverage a lot of things piecemeal as as you go and as you grow.
Cameron Tope
That's a Mike, you said it very well. It's uh when I first started the the lead side, the applicants, when I put that property up and I'm like, oh my God, I went and found a leasing agent. And that's what she did. And so she used, we talked about the criteria and the qualifications, but she took all that off my plate. So what when I stepped in was, okay, the tenants in, boom, okay, let's get you set up and build in. You got to da-da-da. And then I would handle the maintenance and everything from there until the property turned again. So it, yeah, you don't have to go all or nothing. You can dip your toe in, find a good, you know, you're doing that with a contractor. They're instead of you having to go swing the hammer, you're having them go clean the carpets, paint, do the flooring, whatever it is. So yeah, I think piecemealing, and then, like you said, let's just say, you know, like our our size now, you know, we used to have that agent. And then I think it was like 50-ish doors, maybe 75 doors. That's when we brought that in-house. And so what if you're going to scale, um, you know, there are decision points where you'll bring that stuff back in. It just makes more sense.
Mike Swenson
So you mentioned about people started coming to you and asking, can you help me? Right. It's a different story because you're setting up your own systems. Now you're gonna have to play now now. Your customer has changed from just the tenants to the tenants and those people you're managing properties for. Did that come in kind of in that five to 10-ish property window, or what when did that start for you?
Cameron Tope
I would say probably the 30-40-ish is where that really because family friends, they were like, you know, I trust you. I and I was doing the same thing I was doing with with my properties with theirs. It was just like the same guys. I had a general system, but it wasn't anything crazy. You know, I talked to these people and they knew me very well. So getting approvals or talking through stuff was very smooth. And I do think if you're gonna scale your own portfolio, um, it's a lot easier to manage because you don't have to ask for approval. You just, you know, you have your vendor, you have your two bids, you know you you've already worked with these guys, you're going with that one. Where for us, the third party management is a lot different process because okay, I'm gonna spend the owner's money. I need to make sure they're comfortable with me doing that. You know, we have a $400 reserve, so anything under four will make the decision on the owner's behalf. But anything above, we need to make sure we're clearly communicating. Hey, this is a 13-year-old hot water tank. We spent some money on it, and and here's the bid. We've already gotten some other bids, but this is the best one. We can get this done in a couple days. Boom. So yeah, it is a different system. And then renewals, like for me, uh, you got to think strategy too. So as an as an individual owner, you are marching towards one goal. When you're managing for 10, 20, 30, 40, 100 other people, they all have different goals. Some people are are leaving, they're on an international assignment and they're gonna come back in three years and they want you to take care of their home. Some people are, hey, this is just another piece of property that I want to buy in my portfolio so I can retire in 30 years. Some people are like, I need the cash flow now because I'm trying to get the hell out of my job. So everybody has a little bit different strategy. So when you get into the property management for third party, it is a much more complex beast. And honestly, you don't know what you don't know until you go through that and you're like, oh my God, yeah, I would definitely renew this tenant, but I need to communicate that to this owner. So, what do I need to put in this communication to get the approval? And we have to have timelines for that because we have to let the tenant know within 60 days. And yeah, Mike, it can it definitely starts making the if-then logic a lot messier than when it's just you solely operating. I mean, I could probably have half the staff if it was me operating 300 properties that I own.
Mike Swenson
That is big because I'm even just thinking, you know, I manage some short-term rentals, they're mine, and then all of a sudden I took on three from somebody else and having to remind me, yeah, I've got to communicate that stuff with these other people, and then collecting their payments and g sending them money, like it's it just it slows everything down. Um, not that it's bad, but at the same time, it's a totally different process because your client changed.
Cameron Tope
Yes. Yeah, it's it's uh if you're thinking, if you get to the you know, a few door mark and you're really thinking about third party management, um, that you need to start thinking about that early because you you don't want to get yourself in a position, and and we've done that before, but it was a lot like I said, it was early for me, it was with family and friends, it wasn't seeking that out. So they were they're like, what the hell? You replaced a you know hot water tank for eleven hundred dollars. What what was that about? I'm like, Well, they didn't have hot water, man. What are you talking about? Or the furnace was out. I was like, okay, well, I tried to get a hold of you and you didn't answer, so we had to go forward with it. That's a lot different conversation on somebody you don't have a pre-existing relationship with. So I agree with you, Mike. That's a it creates complexity, not necessarily bad, but you just have to think through that.
Mike Swenson
So leasing agent, great opportunity for people looking to scale on the maintenance side. So you you had mentioned, you know, hopefully you don't have a lot of maintenance requests. What if that is kind of the the spot where people are getting bogged down? If I'm owning, you know, five to ten properties myself, and I do find that those maintenance requests, maybe I bought some buildings that were a little older than I than I had hoped, and they had a little more TLC that was needed than I had hoped. Talk through managing some of that stuff if if that's where you're getting stuck on your time whilst you know still trying to work your W-2 and do this on the side.
Cameron Tope
Yeah, and I would say that's you know, over the life of the tenant, those, you know, hopefully you don't have a lot of vacancy, which means the property's full, which means you got tenant comms, and the majority of tenant communications are around maintenance. We average two to three maintenance requests per property per year, Mike. Now, if you got a new build, we're seeing a lot of new construction, difficulty selling, great buyer terms. So for anybody looking to buy, you know, I don't know everybody's market, but in our market, the the builders are giving great incentives. Um, I've heard actually I was talking with a builder the other day who's got a 399 interest rate locked for seven years. So they were helping them buy down the rate. So that you know, a six, seven percent interest rate environment, that's a big change in cash flow for that time. Um but yeah, the the piece of the maintenance side, you're you know, typically the handymen are great because majority, I would say 80, 90 percent of requests can be handled by a handyman. You know, um I would say we normally, you know, we'll do a little troubleshooting, but normally you're going to have um a handyman dispatch. I wouldn't dispatch a plumber, even if it's a leak under the sink, sometimes it's just a uh leaky sink trap and you just tighten it up. If it's a faucet, it might just be a small gasket. Um, you know, a lot of that stuff a handyman knows how to do. Now, if we start getting into okay, oh uh all you have old uh CPVC piping or you've got you know all these uh old pipes or crack pipes or a sewer line with a belly in it or tree roots in it, that's when I would get a licensed person because the severity is a lot higher. Now, that's rare. That does happen, but it's it's it's less likely. So finding a handyman, if you have somebody in the handyman and generally they can help you out with the turns as well, because a lot of turns should be paint carpet, you know, small touch-ups. Um, you know, maybe you put in some new cabinets or a fanity or have to change the commode out or shower surround, but it's not, you know, a lot of that, none, none, you don't have to be licensed to do any of that. So yeah, Mike, I would say getting a good handyman would be that and having that contact. For me, what I did is the guy that I asked a, you know, I was networking and had a friend who was like, Yeah, I've got about five, 10 properties, and this guy's really good. And I, you know, hey, do you mind if I had I didn't have that many properties at a time? I think some people get apprehensive about giving out referrals to people with larger portfolios because they're worried that then that guy's gonna go with them and do all the work for them. So uh but when you're early, you can grow with people. So, you know, you got one or two properties, you don't have anything, you know, enough work to keep somebody busy full time. So I went to this guy and you know, I had I forget again a handful of properties, and I told him, Listen, I'm gonna put give your number to the tenant in our lease. You have the maintenance line, and you'll respond, and then you bill me whatever happens. And so I didn't even get the maintenance calls from the tenant. If it was about the lease or something, I'd say, just tell him to call me or send me an email, we go through that stuff. But you know, getting and and letting him know. And at the at one time, you know, then he's like, hey, I'm starting to get a handful of calls on nights, weekends. And so I said, Listen, how about a hundred dollars a month for just having that access? If it, you know, if it's emergency or if it's not emergency, don't answer. But if it is an emergency, I would like for you to take care of it. And he's and again, this takes a little bit of time to build that trust up. But he was like, for $100 a month, and you know, again, I had five properties, he might get a couple calls on the weekend throughout the month. He was like, uh, yeah, I'll do that. And if it's not, it's was it 200? And what's it worth to you? You know, and you know, at a handful of doors, you really shouldn't have that many, you know, at 300 properties now. We probably have I would say a couple a month that are real emergencies that need to be handled, usually around hot water, uh, in the summer, people without AC, in the winter people without heat, um, major leaks, stuff like that. So, yeah, Mike, I would say, I guess that's a long-winded answer of saying I would start with a handyman, and the best place to tap is the network. Um, one thing I would dissuade people from going on is going on to Google. Uh, the reason I say that is because I have found an inverse relationship between the quality of a vendor's website and the quality of their work. Meaning they have a great website, they're great at marketing, they got great Google reviews. Oh my God, they look, you know, look at all this stuff. They have everything, it's perfect. Well, then you get out there and they charge you, you know, they got the van wrap, they got all this stuff, but they're really expensive because somebody has helped them design the system. Maybe they're a franchise or something. And nothing against franchises. Listen, I love Chick fil A. I love you know, some of those, the franchises, and and and we all value from some of those or get value from those. But as far as a handyman, you know, you don't want somebody with a pretty website. You want somebody that knows what to do on the job. So tap your network. I've heard people going. Home Depot and poking around there early in the morning and asking people, just be honest, like, hey, I got one property. I just need somebody I need some help with. Do you mind? I'll use you. And don't just do one. Find four or five because you're going to go through a couple. Or whoever they're helping out might grow their portfolio and they get more work and they go away from you. That's just that's just kind of how it goes. But that person then might slow down. I've had people come back and say, hey, listen, this was a flipping operation. It's not a great flipping environment. You got some more property management work.
Mike Swenson
Are you looking to get started or scale in real estate investing but don't know your next step? Are you overwhelmed thinking about finding deals, analyzing deals, doing due diligence, and managing properties on top of it? Go ahead and push the easy button and invest with us. Real estate investing is what we do full time. We've done dozens of deals with hundreds of doors. We have the knowledge and experience to handpick the best deals that most investors can't find. We've got large off-market deals all the time where you can hopefully find returns and economies of scale that you just can't find on your own. The best thing is it's 100% passive to you for less capital than you put down trying to acquire a property on your own. Don't let this year go by or you don't make the leap, add to your portfolio, or you just did an analysis by paralysis. To find out more, visit freedomthroughrealestate.com and click on invest. You can book a call and learn more there. So get to scaling your portfolio now with us by your side. That's freedomthroughrealestate.com and click on invest.
Mike Swenson
Now the other thing I'm thinking about that the W-2 folks, you know, that that might get sucked into problems is issues with tenants' pain. So everything's great when the checks are coming in, when the ACHs are rolling in, and then all of a sudden something starts to slip, and then you're like, okay, I don't know how to do an eviction. I don't know how to properly handle that conversation with somebody. And these are all the right like landmines that you don't anticipate, but when they go off, they suck up all of your time and all of your stress. What do you recommend for people that are starting to run into that issue of kind of like, how do I proceed with that? Because yeah, it's gonna take my time to find somebody new, it's gonna take some time to kick them out. I might lose some cash flow. Talk through that.
Cameron Tope
The first and easiest way to stop this is on the front end. So the first thing I would do, well, after you've got this person out, we'll talk through that. But then the very last piece is what we call we used to call an engineering and AAR, after action review. What happened? How did we let this person in here that was an eviction? If you're doing decent screening, and again, um, I don't know if I mentioned this the first round, but if you go to our website, I have a qualifications page. It's free to the public. You guys can use that, steal it. It's our exact qualifications every year. Well, we stack up all our evictions, which we don't have that many, but we stack those up and we say, What did we do wrong? What what gaps exist? And people are getting more and more clever with fraud, and we update those qualifications. So I can't promise right now they're the most up to date, but we will review that at the end of the year and make our annual update to those. So you guys can have that 100% free. Um, I think it just helps out everybody. But um, so what on the front end did you do to allow this? Um, if you have a very high eviction rate, you're probably doing something with that. We evict less than eight out of every 1,000 tenants we place. But once you do get somebody who doesn't pay, well, and let me even back up a couple other tips there. So with the property management software and system, they're payment processing. And we have had tenants who have claimed fraud after being in our property for two, three, four, five, six months. And all of a sudden, $10,000 of rent has been taken out of our account. And we are fighting with the bank, the payment processor, building on this who our property management software is, and Wells Fargo, Chase, whoever it is. And that can get very messy. So if you're a small mom and pop, I would 100% recommend using some sort of guaranteed payment system like Zell or Venmo. I think I think Zell's a little more secure than Venmo, uh, but I'm sure there's equivalence to Zell, but Zell is almost guaranteed funds, I'm pretty sure. Um, so we use we use that on the front if we ever got to take money immediately or we have them go to a cashier's check down to the bank. Um payment processing, you gotta be careful on that. So that's one, how you accept payments. Um, that's that's the first way to prevent any fraudulent or nefarious activity. Once you do have somebody not pay, well, again, start on the front end. Make sure that's should be one of your main conversations when a tenant moves in. That's something we talk about. We actually have a move-in meeting and say, tenant, do you understand how to submit maintenance, when your rent's due, what the amount is, and so they can't ever say, Well, I didn't know. They didn't tell me. It's like we went through all of this. It's in the lease one, but nobody reads 16-page leases. Or if they and or and maybe now with ChatGPT, they're getting a little bit more like, hey, review this for me. But we make sure we have a recorded meeting with them that we walk through all that stuff. Make sure you say rent is due on the first, late on the second, but the the the late fee will be charged on the third, fourth, whatever your state law provides or allows. Once they understand that, so you say on the fourth, if you haven't paid, we are sending you a notice to vacate. After that uh period to cure, three days in in Texas, we are gonna start filing the eviction process. So make sure they kind of understand. You you know, say, hey, listen, this doesn't happen very often, Mike, but I just want to walk you through this. You know, if you don't pay on the rent, we know things happen, but you'll get a late fee on the fourth, and we'll let you know on the third that, hey, you know, it's coming up. Tomorrow we're charging a late fee, and we're gonna start the uh late notice, uh, send you a notice to vacate. As long as you cure that with the fees before uh the three days after the notice is delivered, you're good. We won't file an eviction. If we don't, we have to move forward with that eviction process. Just want to let you know that. So you you explain that to them so they know, and then you talk to them throughout this process. Um, and what I would say, because especially in various states, Texas is a little bit more landlord-friendly, but I would find an attorney or a company that does this. Um, I don't think this is wise. I think all the communication that I mentioned about up to this point is what is wise for the owner to do. It can be confrontational, maybe you don't like it, so you can outsource that to somebody or or something, but um, you have to be able to tell people no. I don't care how many relatives you've had died. Sometimes I wonder how many uncles and aunts people have, but I've heard, you know, it's like, damn, everybody feels like everybody in your family twice over has passed away. You know, and I've heard every story in the book, Mike. So you have to be able to say, I'm sorry that happened, rent is still due. You know, this doesn't absolve you of your responsibility. Some people can't handle that. So make sure you can have the confrontational and just firm but fair, and then get an attorney or look in the local, you know, all these networking events, I'm sure you can find somebody that does there's companies in Texas that just do evictions. So get with them, and usually it's worth the money to spend a little bit more because if you screw up one word, and I have been in court where it said notice to pay or quit, and when it was or quit, that was not that was not right. You have to tell them no notice to pay. And so that has been thrown out in court. So subtle things like that that could start you two months in the hole. Now you got to start the whole process over again. So don't make those mistakes with evictions. Those are too um high, we call it high severity. There's just too much of a severity on it. It's not a low, it's not like cutting the grass. Oh man, I I I dinked my fence or you know, I missed a couple blades. Like, okay, who cares? With this, this could cost you thousands and thousands of dollars.
Mike Swenson
Thinking about hiring somebody in-house. So you you're kind of outsourcing, you've you've got your leasing agent, you've got your handyman, you've got your attorneys kind of working and piecing things together. For you, when did you decide I'm hiring an employee, part-time, full-time, whatever? When was that decision for you? And then also kind of going back to uh W-2 into taking this on full-time, would love to kind of hear when you were making that jump.
Cameron Tope
Yeah, I think it was about 30, 40, 50, somewhere in that range, hire an employee, and I was very clear that, like, listen, you're basically going to be my assistant because there's no like, there's no role. Like, if I just did had you do leasing, you would starve to death. If I had you just do maintenance or I would lose every, you know, all the money would go to that. So I just need you to be ready to do what I say and help me build these checklists out. So that's I think being clear with somebody on that, and then you can have them start helping you build the process and say, hey, listen, come and create a check. Next time you do this, I'm gonna show you how to do it. You write the checklist, you watch me do it, and then you know, you improve this and you make this a little bit better. Um, so 30, 40, 50, sometimes, you know, listen, if you're doing a lot of short term, that number might be a lot lower. If you're doing longer term or in a cheaper environment, it might be higher. Um, it just it just really depends. Um, so that was the first is I I like to hire generalists in the beginning. You almost have to, uh, because again, you don't have enough trade. You outsource all the specialties you can, and then you get a generalist to help you. But I also think that's one of the hardest jumps. Like I somebody we were talking about this not too long ago, is the jump right around 100 doors to me was the hardest piece. And the reason for that being is you can't, you're right on the cusp of being able to hire specialists. You're right on the cusp of being able, okay, they can just hire, they just need to wear two hats. They can do applications and leasing, or they can do maintenance and turns. Um when you're 40, 50, 60, it's generalist, generalist, generalist. And then it just starts swelling and swelling. So at the size we're at, we can hire somebody for just leasing. We can hire somebody for just maintenance. And it it it it's just that you're kind of in that no man's land and in purgatory, for lack of a better phrase. Um, so it's very difficult to me in that third-party management about that 80 hundred doors. Um once you hire somebody and you build those checklists and systems out, that's when you can start delegating more or understand where your time's getting eaten up. And for me, then the jump, the jump was really when I decided I wanted to make it a real business. You know, I thought I had this assistant, we were just gonna do little odds and ends and just keep growing for family and friends. And then when I was like, okay, I really want to do this, you know, I'm I'm I'm not gonna half asses for lack of a better phrase. I'm gonna I'm gonna full asset. And so that was when I jumped and uh it allowed me to freed up a lot of my calendar to be able to focus on that. Um, some people say, hey, wait until you're at your wit's end and then quit. Um, some people are like, hey, when it, you know, when it makes sense doing in the economic cycle, or if it's taking away from being able to do deals like we talked about when you hire a property manager or somebody to help you. Um, if it's actually costing you money, like out of the deals you're losing or out of the attention on things that uh you you need that are revenue generating. Uh, but that was the big thing, Mike, for me when I made the jump was okay, I want to do this. I need to, it's not something people are trusting us with two, three hundred thousand dollar, four hundred thousand dollar assets. I have to be only focused on this rabbit.
Mike Swenson
Talk about being able to relocate and uh taking this off site.
Cameron Tope
Yeah, so that uh I jumped in full-time in 2020, the end of 2020. Um, and then 2021 hired a couple more people, and then in 2023, um, my wife was in a very, very rough, rough job. And yeah, I guess it would have been in late 2022. And so I was working remote because we don't have an office in Houston where spread it's so big, you don't need to be, you know, if you're in one spot, then you can't cover anything. So we we work remote. You can drive an hour from downtown Houston and still be in Houston. Um, so we we went for a month out to San Diego and kind of doing a little reset with her, like thinking about before she jumps in a new career, and we loved it. It was like the Truman show, where like this is just set up perfectly. Like everybody is so nice here, the weather's great. And we we started thinking, could we could we make this a reality? So when we came back, um you know, I talked to the team, I thought very hard about it, and I made a decision that if I have to be present in Houston for this to work, I really do not have a business. And I'll tell you, Mike, the business has doubled since then. You know, we were probably around 100 and some doors um then, and it's over doubled. And so I also think it's like a necessity thing. You're like, oh, I'll go down and take the check to the water department. Oh, I'll go respond to this. Let me, oh, I'll go run over there and meet this owner. But that's taking you away from the high value stuff you should be doing, thinking about strategy, thinking about developing your team so that they have more capabilities. So I think it forced me to pull my claws out from doing property inspection. It forced me to stop taking the checks down to the water department. And instead of that two hours being at a property or two hours delivering a check that anybody on the team could do, I was spending that time coaching, developing, thinking about building a better business.
Mike Swenson
You had mentioned checklists, freebies for people, but for people that want to kind of reach out and learn more about you and hear more about your story, how can they do so?
Cameron Tope
Emerson property management.com, uh, get it on Google or you can search my name, we'll come up. Um, we have so many tools on there, ROI calculators, vacancy loss calculators. If you're having trouble selling a property, I actually created an accidental landlord toolkit based on my experiences. So you could walk through everything. Um, we have a free rental analysis tool on the website, you know, a free free. Now, uh I don't think it's gonna work in Minnesota or some of these other states, but it'll work in in Greater Houston. So if you do have a property in the greater Houston area and just want a free rental analysis, punch in your information, it gets you gets it to you for free. So yeah, Mike, there's um there's infinite resources there. I mean, it's just so many. I've been doing stuff like this for almost a decade. And um, there's just like we talked about, there's just such a plethora uh uh of information. And you can go, once you start pulling on the thread of, oh, single family rental investing, it just keeps going and going and going. Um there, you know, I feel like I'm still like we're still learning. We still make mistakes. And I've been in this over 10 years, I think 13 years uh this year, and and I feel like I could be in this another 30 and still not know everything.
Mike Swenson
I love it. No, this is just a great story because there's so many people starting with one or two, they get to four to six, and then they're trying to get to 10, they're working their other job. And so for somebody like you who's done it, been through it, has some great advice to pass on. And then, two, like, you know, we talked about just the piece of now running it remotely, you certainly are a success up to now story in terms of how to navigate that and how to do it well. And and not everybody's gonna want to do the property management company thing either. So you're kind of just that that right combination of the person that wants to do it, can do it, and has done it well. And so, congrats to you for what you've built and and thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with people that are in that boat because there's so many people I know that are wrestling with those decisions how to do this, just like you laid out here in this episode. So, thank you so much for for sharing with us.
Cameron Tope
Uh Mike, I appreciate you know, you doing stuff like this, educating people. I mean, that's the the most important thing. There's a lot of gurus out there. I do not sit on a beach, I work probably harder than I ever have. Um, uh, and but it's it is rewarding. And guys, real estate has been one of those things. I state, I I I believe strongly that still the average Joe or Jane can can is the best avenue for the average Joe and Jane to make it uh to make it the their way, whether that's retire, whether that's you know, uh retire their spouse, whether that's just spend some more time with their kids, real estate still is the best path.
Mike Swenson
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I know for me, there's certain episodes where you know I get so many questions and I just say, go listen to this episode. I know this is gonna be the one for property management in terms of how to build and scale. So thank you so much for your time and uh best of luck in the future.
