In this episode of The Same Day Podcast, Mat Zalk sits down with Susan Olivarez, Real Estate Agent at Keller Williams Realty Advantage, to talk about her journey from abstracting to full-service property management. They discuss how understanding titles and legal histories shaped her approach, the challenges of adding property management to a sales business, and why communication remains key in every client relationship.
Building a Real Estate Career From Abstracting To End-To-End Property Management With Susan Olivarez
Susan Olivarez is a seasoned Real Estate Agent at Keller Williams Realty Advantage, specializing in industrial real estate and investment properties in Tulsa, Oklahoma. With over 27 years of experience in the industry, Susan has guided clients through thousands of transactions, including traditional sales, short sales, foreclosures, and probate deals, while also building a successful property management division to offer full-service solutions for investors. She began her real estate journey at just 14 years old, working summers in an abstract office, which gave her valuable insights into the complexities of property history and title work.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- [04:29] Susan Olivarez explains how Oklahoma’s abstract property system is unique
- [08:46] How Tulsa Housing Authority’s programs assist first-time homebuyers
- [11:33] How digital contracts changed client relationships and communication
- [14:33] Why Susan launched her own property management division
- [20:33] The top mistake self-managing landlords make with tenants
- [27:32] Susan’s strategy for growing long-term real estate portfolios
- [28:05] Why it’s always the right time to buy property
- [36:21] How rising costs are reshaping investor returns and strategies
In this episode…
Most people think real estate is simply buying and selling homes, but behind every property lies a rich history and complex background that few ever witness. From handwritten abstracts to automated property management systems, the industry has evolved dramatically over the years. What can real estate professionals learn from someone who has been involved in every stage of that transformation?
According to Susan Olivarez, a realtor with nearly three decades of experience, success in real estate begins with understanding the full life cycle of a property — from its legal roots to its modern-day management. She highlights how early exposure to abstracting taught her the importance of documentation, ownership history, and communication, lessons that remain relevant even in today’s digital landscape. Over the years, she’s witnessed firsthand how personal interaction has been replaced by technology, and why maintaining human connection is still critical.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Yonatan Schmidt on LinkedIn
- Mat Zalk on LinkedIn
- Keyrenter Property Management
- Keyrenter Property Management in Tulsa | Oklahoma City | Arkansas
- Keyrenter Property Management email address: [email protected]
- Susan Olivarez: Website | LinkedIn | Email | Phone no.: (918) 639-4824
- Keller Williams Advantage Realty
- “Navigating the Obstacles of Launching Your Big Idea” with Vondell Burns on The Same Day Podcast
- “The Characteristics of Valuable Coaching and Entrepreneurial Success” with Aaron Whigham on The Same Day Podcast
- “Renting to Own: The Advantages of a Contract for Deed” with Brook Reutter on The Same Day Podcast
- Gary Keller on LinkedIn
- Darren Hardy
- Tulsa Housing Authority (THA)
- AppFolio
- National Association of Residential Property Managers (NARPM)
- Oklahoma Housing Finance Agency (OHFA)
Quotable Moments
- “I think that I just know more about how the world works with abstracting.”
- “It’s got to interest you or it’s not any fun, and it’s hard to excel.”
- “Hiring a property manager makes that easier because the property manager is the bad guy.”
- “These are your investments, and why not hire a professional to do the job to manage it?”
- “You can talk yourself out of doing things, but it’s always a good day to buy real estate.”
Action Steps
- Maintain personal connections in real estate transactions: Meeting clients face-to-face builds trust and reduces misunderstandings often caused by digital communication.
- Set clear goals before investing: Defining whether you want flips or rentals ensures every decision aligns with your long-term strategy.
- Treat property management as a business: Establishing firm boundaries with tenants helps maintain professionalism and protects your clients’ investments.
- Build reliable vendor relationships: Partnering with trustworthy maintenance professionals ensures timely repairs, satisfied tenants, and well-maintained properties.
- Keep learning and adapting: Staying informed about market trends and technology allows you to provide better service and stay competitive.
Sponsor for this episode…
Keyrenter Property Management:
This episode is brought to you by Keyrenter Property Management.
Keyrenter Property Management is a full-service property management company that helps clients buy, renovate, and operate real estate assets.
The team helps clients build wealth while taking the headache out of property management.
That’s why, no matter what rental you have — single-family homes, condos, townhomes, or apartments — they can give you the management solutions you need.
To learn more about their services, go to https://keyrenterpmc.com/ or send them an email at [email protected].
Episode Transcript
Intro 00:04
Welcome to The Same Day Podcast, where we discuss driving incremental business growth and other topics related to real estate, property management and entrepreneurship. Now to the show at hand.
Mat Zalk 00:20
Mat Zalk here. I’m the host of The Same Day Podcast where I connect with top business experts and real estate leaders. We recently had a number of interesting people on the show, but if you go all the way back, Vondell Burns on the show was with Thankless Productions. Aaron Whigham of New You and Brook Reutter spoke to us about contract for deed versus lease to own properties. Today’s episode is brought to you by Keyrenter Property Management.
At Keyrenter Property Management, we are a full service property management company helping our clients buy, renovate and operate real estate assets. We help our clients build wealth while taking the headache out of property management. Susan, you know better than anybody because you’ve done this a million times. When you don’t have the industry experience that you have, that you have specifically, and that we have specifically the process of acquisition to renovation, to leasing can be a lot, but at Keyrenter Property Management, we do the property management from soup to nuts. We can help the renovation, leasing, management, maintenance, the whole deal.
And so can Susan. But that’s why no matter what rentals, you have single family homes, condos, townhomes, apartments. We have the management solutions that you need. Go to keyrenterpmc.com or [email protected].
Today’s guest is Susan Olivarez. She’s a Tulsa realtor with more than 27 years of experience helping buyers, sellers and investors succeed in real estate. She was born and raised in Oklahoma. She got her start in an abstract office at just 14 years old. That was seven years ago, 14 years old, gaining rare behind the scenes knowledge of how real estate really works. That’s phenomenal experience that we’re going to dig into today.
As an investor herself, Susan has guided clients through everything from traditional sales to short sales, foreclosures, and probate transactions. She has built a property management division within her business to better serve the investors she works with, offering a true, full service approach to real estate. Susan, welcome to the show.
Susan Olivarez 02:12
Hi. Thank you.
Mat Zalk 02:13
Let’s dig all the way back. You are 14, working in an abstracting office. How did that work? How did that happen?
Susan Olivarez 02:22
So my dad was the manager of an the employment office in Poteau, southeastern Oklahoma. And the man that owned the abstract office needed somebody to microfilm. So telling it wasn’t seven years ago. Take the document, the books, big old books from the courthouse over to the abstract office, microfilm them and take them back. So my dad thought that was a perfect summer job for me.
And actually, it was because I worked there every summer until I graduated high school. Wow. And actually was an abstractor at as the years went on.
Mat Zalk 03:01
Wow. So your first job after this summer internship program that your dad set up for you, your first real job in real estate was actually an abstracting.
Susan Olivarez 03:10
Well, it was just every summer I went back every summer, while from the time I was 14 until I was 18, graduated high school.
Mat Zalk 03:20
What did you learn from those summer experiences doing that? Microfilming? I don’t even know what that what is micro? Can we just talk about microfilm for a second?
Susan Olivarez 03:29
Putting pages. Put them on. Put them on the camera and you push the button with your foot and it takes a picture. Okay. So microfilm.
Yeah.
Mat Zalk 03:39
Okay, cool. What did you learn from those early experiences working with abstracts that carried forward through your entire real estate career?
Susan Olivarez 03:47
Well, I think that I just know more about how. The world works with abstracting. You know, it’s not just selling a house, it’s the property. And, you know, you start with Indian land and every mortgage deed, divorce, probate, whatever is the history of that piece of property. And I think that’s very interesting.
Mat Zalk 04:15
It is super interesting. I mean, it goes back way, way, way back, which is very interesting. Some states don’t have abstracts. They’re just title states. Right.
And Oklahoma is one of I don’t know, there might be a couple states, I don’t know, ten states. Yeah. One of two.
Susan Olivarez 04:29
One of two still left with actual abstracts. And it’s they do have abstracts because there’s a recording of every deed. They just don’t put them in book, book and page form like we still do. And some of ours now has gone to more digital than I don’t know if anybody had ever seen an abstract. The books and pages, I mean, they can be this thick.
Yeah.
Mat Zalk 04:55
And they physically reside in a in a storage facility at American Title or wherever, whatever title company they physically reside. And if you lose them or they get burned or whatever, then you have to recreate them going back to.
Susan Olivarez 05:09
Yes. And they charge and they charge for that. I mean, I have a funny story where I ask a seller one time about, you know, we need your abstract. This is your grandmother’s property. Do you have any idea?
Safe deposit box. Whatever. And she said, no, no, I don’t even know what that is. Well, we were walking through this old detached garage, and I look up on this top shelf, and I happen to know what one looks like. And there was that abstract to that property on that top shelf of that old dusty garage, which would have cost them hundreds of dollars to have that rebuilt.
Wow.
Mat Zalk 05:48
If there’s an attorney.
Susan Olivarez 05:49
Have.
Mat Zalk 05:49
To rebuild it.
Susan Olivarez 05:52
The abstract office does.
Mat Zalk 05:54
Yeah.
Susan Olivarez 05:54
Yeah.
Mat Zalk 05:55
I mean, I’ve, I’ve been in real estate for, call it 12 or 12 years and I’ve been in Oklahoma real estate for eight and I have never seen an abstract.
Susan Olivarez 06:06
So should go you should talk to your abstract office, have them pull one. And just another. Funny story is way back when when I was 14, and I would go get the probates or divorces or whatever for the abstractors because you’d have to copy it. So you could put it in the fiscal abstract. Back in the old days, the divorces were detail about this is why they were getting a divorce, because so and so did this or that, or slept with whoever.
And so, you know, you can imagine when you’re 14 or 16, I mean, that’s just like reading a smut novel.
Mat Zalk 06:45
Yeah.
Susan Olivarez 06:45
Yeah. You know, now it says irreconcilable differences or whatever, but back then.
Mat Zalk 06:51
Yeah, but.
Susan Olivarez 06:52
Something fun.
Mat Zalk 06:53
In an abstract of a house that I buy today. If I go back to the 40s through the 70s or 80s, I may see the reason for a divorce painted in more and more colorful language than we would today.
Susan Olivarez 07:06
Yeah, absolutely.
Mat Zalk 07:07
All the more reason to go. I’m going to put a couple up on my bedside table and just and read them for nighttime reading.
Susan Olivarez 07:13
It’s fun.
Mat Zalk 07:13
It’s interesting. Do you think you would have been drawn to real estate had your dad not managed this office, and kind of pulled you in at an early age?
Susan Olivarez 07:25
Probably not, because I thought I wanted to be a physical therapist. But, yeah, I think the abstract office. Yeah.
Mat Zalk 07:34
So, fast forwarding through to 18, you graduate high school, you’re no longer working at the abstract office. Or what was the first professional experience that you had post abstract world in real estate?
Susan Olivarez 07:47
Well, I went to College, got a business degree at Northeastern, and then moved to Tulsa and worked as a paralegal for an attorney’s office. Yep. Still kind of involved in the real estate side of things.
Mat Zalk 08:08
So that attorney was working on real estate transactions or working on on contracts or something like that.
Susan Olivarez 08:13
Right, right. Then I went to the Tulsa Housing Authority. Yeah, for 19 years.
Mat Zalk 08:23
Wow.
Susan Olivarez 08:23
So yeah. And worked through all the different programs there when I left and was even got my real estate license while I was still at the housing authority, was over the first time home buyer program and and all different kinds of programs there.
Mat Zalk 08:41
Wait, what is the what is the first time homebuyer program at the Tulsa Housing Authority?
Susan Olivarez 08:46
Well, there’s a That program where people Section 8, the voucher program, it had a component where people a family self-sufficiency component where people could work and set goals. And then as their income increase, that would be put aside in an account with the goal of them being able, able to purchase a home. And then there’s also first time home buyer money. OHFA has a program now. Tulsa Housing still does some where you go through classes and you can be eligible up to for down payment closing cost assistance.
Mat Zalk 09:30
Wow. Do you think do you think the Tulsa Housing Authority still has some of that?
Susan Olivarez 09:34
I think so. Yes. Yes.
Mat Zalk 09:36
So you did 19 years at the Tulsa Housing Authority?
Susan Olivarez 09:39
I did, I can’t I thought, okay, I’m going to just go here, see what I can learn and figure out what I want to do with my life. And then every year I received a promotion. And when I actually left there, I was the director of development.
Mat Zalk 09:56
So did a. Now the Tulsa Housing Authority is developing a tremendous amount. I think they’ve got the Phoenix thing up at Harvard and Pine, Harvard and Apache maybe was has has tha historically developed a good amount of real estate kind of in every season at every every decade they’re doing a number of big projects.
Susan Olivarez 10:20
You know, I left in 2005, so it’s been a day or two.
Mat Zalk 10:25
Sure.
Susan Olivarez 10:25
But and it’s all federal, you know, where the federal money goes and private money and and developing those partnerships. So yeah.
Mat Zalk 10:35
Interesting, interesting. Through the, through the ebbs and flows of different market cycles, what what have you what has changed the most from the days you got into abstracting through th through through a legal career, through THA, and then into your career as a as a sales professional. What’s changed about the way people buy and sell and invest in real estate?
Susan Olivarez 11:04
That’s kind of funny, because we used to have meet with buyers and sellers and actually sign documents rather than DocuSign. And I think there’s pluses to that and that’ll make me sound old school, but more interaction. And then you would have to take your signed contracts and meet with the listing agent, you know, hand them over to them, all of that stuff.
Mat Zalk 11:30
What was better, what was better about those days?
Susan Olivarez 11:33
Better because you got to meet more people and interact and personality versus sometimes we get lost in just quick text and emotion, and somebody implies an emotion to a text that wouldn’t otherwise be there. So I always think conversations the better answer.
Mat Zalk 11:54
Yeah, I do feel like. There are many realtors. There are many I shouldn’t say. What do we call them? Sales associates in in Oklahoma.
In Tulsa, there are many new ones, people that don’t have as much experience as you do. And there’s also a certain ego that goes along with the. I don’t know, maybe newer agents or younger agents, maybe, I don’t know what am I, a millennial like millennial agents? And I don’t know what portion of that is, because you can clip a quick buck doing a transaction and they think, you know, we’re riding real high on the horse. And what portion of it is kind of endemic to the nature of the way we communicate that we just send texts back from, hey, I shot you over this, an email.
It’s a text that comes through that says, I shot you over an offer by email, and somebody doesn’t respond or somebody gets upset, but like, you’re right, face to face communication. Phone calls are they they disarm. So much of that tension that can build between two text messages where you impute meaning or tone, as you said, to the, the communication. So, yeah, I mean, I think there’s probably a lot of that that was like just so much better when there wasn’t a quick email and a quick text message in a DocuSign form that came through. I mean, it’s.
Susan Olivarez 13:23
Fun, it’s easy, it saves you miles and steps and that kind of thing. However, I think we lose some of the communication and detail. Yeah, we assume I think we assume too much with a buyer or a seller. And that’s why people get upset, is because we haven’t gone through each paragraph of a contract legally binding document. What are you committing to?
Yeah.
Mat Zalk 13:51
So and you used to have those meetings more in person. You probably have a there’s probably still a pre-meeting. We’re going to we’re going to do the following steps as a buyer. For example, we’re going to do the following steps. And that may happen in person.
But once the contract comes through you used to review that with them line by line or paragraph by paragraph to explain what it was. And now it’s just like, hey, can you sign this document?
Susan Olivarez 14:13
Right, right.
Mat Zalk 14:14
Yeah. That can be challenging if it’s your first, if it’s your first transaction or you don’t know what to expect or whatever, I can, I can see that at some point. When did you transition from a pure sales doing transactions into having a property management component of the business?
Susan Olivarez 14:33
About four years ago, I was dealing with investors and didn’t have a property management company to turn them over to that manage the property like I thought it ought to be done.
Susan Olivarez 14:48
And so I thought, okay, I’ll do this with my investors. They were asking me to also and swore never would I ever have a property management company. And so we all know what. Never say never means anyway. So that’s how it that’s how it started out.
And it grew. And then I have other agents, even from other companies that’ll say, hey, my so and so investor needs somebody to manage their property. I don’t want anything to do with it. Will you do that? And so it’s my investors plus referrals from other agents which is a little bit, you know, but my deal is that I tell the realtors when your investor when I’m managing their property and they say, hey, I want to buy another one, or I’m thinking about selling this one.
I immediately call that agent and say, hey, if you haven’t talked to so and so, you need to call them right now because they’re thinking of. So that’s my value proposition, is that I return.
Susan Olivarez 15:57
It sounds funny saying return that client but giving them a heads up. Hey, you’re your client is wanting to do this.
Susan Olivarez 16:05
Yeah. So so we do the same thing from our from.
Mat Zalk 16:07
Our referral agents. We say we’re never going to steal that client from you or the transaction is yours. You should do it. What happens in the awkward situation where the owner says, you say to the owner, if you’re thinking about selling, you need to go back to XYZ realtor. They sold you the property.
They referred us and we have a relationship and we don’t want to. We don’t want to step on that relationship. And the and the client says, oh, I don’t want to work with them again. That becomes a challenge.
Susan Olivarez 16:30
It is, it is. But there comes in a phone call and say, hey, this is what your investor Bester wants to do, and do you want to do a referral or how would you like to proceed?
Susan Olivarez 16:43
And most of the time that’s that’s the easy answer. And when I enroll or start with an investor, one of the pieces of the conversation is, hey, this seems awkward sometimes when you have two realtors involved, but I just want to let you know my value proposition that we want to continue to work because the investor person is the one that sometimes feels uncomfortable. Yeah, and doesn’t understand the relationship where they want to be loyal to you, but loyal. So this that conversation up front.
Susan Olivarez 17:18
Yeah. Saves it saves that option for referral.
Susan Olivarez 17:22
I mean you just have to talk about it.
Susan Olivarez 17:28
Yeah.
Mat Zalk 17:25
Phone. Are you saying pick up the phone.
Susan Olivarez 17:27
You can.
Susan Olivarez 17:28
Yeah.
Susan Olivarez 17:28
You don’t even have to dial anymore.
Mat Zalk 17:31
Just a.
Mat Zalk 17:31
Friend. A friend of mine with a with a 19 year old child was saying that she handed the phone to the child and was like, can you talk to so-and-so? And the child was like, oh God, oh God. Like the thought of talking on the phone was so foreign and scary that she, like, fumbled the phone and dropped it. I had to send him a text.
What? What were the biggest challenges early on to adding property management to your already busy sales business?
Susan Olivarez 17:56
Just trying to find the balance. And I still don’t know the balance in that. Hiring somebody to help. And at what level can you afford the help? And you know what?
What’s the goal are you taking away from your sales by the time you know this, how much time it takes to manage properties and finding that balance between the two?
Mat Zalk 18:21
And how do you how do you balance between sales and management.
Susan Olivarez 18:25
Some days better than others? I have to say that, you know, rent collection the first of the month is really hard. You have to set aside the time to focus on that and getting your owners paid. So it’s just scheduling your time. And like I said, some days I do better than others.
Mat Zalk 18:45
But you’re using AppFolio property management software, right?
Susan Olivarez 18:48
Yes. Yes.
Mat Zalk 18:49
That’s a that’s a huge win. That’s a.
Susan Olivarez 18:52
Through.
Susan Olivarez 18:52
Keller Williams. You know it all has to go through the broker.
Susan Olivarez 18:56
So yeah. Yeah.
Mat Zalk 18:59
I get the sense sometimes talking to real estate agents that we as property managers are like the bottom of the barrel. They look at us as like, you guys are the. You guys are like, the low man on the totem pole, and you do all the work that the rest of us don’t want to do. So I wanted to get your your thought about that. And, and one thing that agents often misunderstand about what property management actually involves and what we do.
Susan Olivarez 19:27
I think it’s harder than people think it is. I mean, just like people think, oh, realtors, they get a huge paycheck. That’s easy. Well, we all know it’s not easy. Yeah.
And property managers, people will say, oh, I want to manage this property for this guy or whatever. I’ll say, okay, let’s talk about this. And this is how it how this happens. And oh, well, that’s harder than I thought. Yes it is.
So I think everybody I mean, it’s all real estate and there are different avenues and it’s whatever your little pocket is that interests you. It’s got to interest you or it’s not any fun. And you, it’s hard to excel if it’s not your thing. But. Oh yeah.
It’s.
Mat Zalk 20:12
What do you think a common mistake is that you see self managing landlords make. And maybe maybe that mistake is why they come to you in the first place for property management. But do you have do you see any pattern of mistakes that self managing landlords kind of tend towards?
Susan Olivarez 20:33
Probably. Just feeling sorry for the tenant. Or you don’t want to say falling for the for the line, you know, and getting behind on rent and not wanting to be the bad guy. And hiring a property manager makes that easier, I think because the property manager is the bad guy. And it’s. And it’s just not that you’re not empathetic because you are as a property manager, but you also have a responsibility to that owner. So that makes it a little easier. You know, these these are the rules. This is what we have to do.
And this is so I think that’s probably the big thing. And then just keeping up with maintenance and repair and. That kind of.
Mat Zalk 21:30
Do think putting a property manager in between an owner and a resident of a property makes it much more of a business. It’s like a black and white delineation of of the business component of owning a real estate asset or many assets. People often think, I think the residents have the tendency to think you have a bunch of properties like, why do you need my rent? And I’m in this situation and woe is me and a bunch of things. And the conversely, the landlords like, well, I, you know, I’m not struggling this month.
I did I did still get my paycheck from my regular job or my other business or whatever. So maybe I’ll let them go a month, and then a month turns into three, and all of a sudden somebody owes 3 or $4000. And it’s much harder at that point to to get caught up. And in the meantime, the resident has maybe bought a new TV or bought something else with the money that they, that they.
Susan Olivarez 22:18
Pay rent.
Mat Zalk 22:19
Pay rent with.
Susan Olivarez 22:21
I think that’s right. It’s a business. It’s an investment. The owners buy properties to make money.
And just like your investments, I mean, you use your banker or your investor to help you manage that and make the most money that you can. So I think property management is the same thing. These are your investments. And why not hire a professional to to do the job to manage it?
Mat Zalk 22:49
Yeah. We’re not running a charity. This is a business decision. And I do think residents often fail to understand at some level, if this person didn’t invest their money or didn’t save a bunch of money from whatever from their business or their job, didn’t invest it in this house, didn’t improve this house and maintain it, their options for nice homes to live in would be significantly fewer. It’s a give and take.
I mean, you you as a resident perhaps didn’t save the money, didn’t have the means, but you still have a nice house to live in because somebody else did take the painful decision to save up that money. They could have used that down payment on a $100,000 house, $20,000 to go on a vacation. They forewent a bunch of spending decisions in order, or a bunch of spending options in order to save the house, save the money for the house so that you can live in it. So it’s your responsibility to tell me when there’s maintenance issues, to keep it as nice as possible, and to pay your rent because it’s an investment decision. They could have taken that money and put it in the stock market, and then they would have had, you know, returns on Coca Cola or whatever other stock.
Susan Olivarez 23:53
Yeah.
Susan Olivarez 23:53
Yeah. True.
Mat Zalk 23:55
If you could automate one, one more part of your property management business tomorrow. What what do you think that would be.
Susan Olivarez 24:01
Automate probably. Repairs.
Mat Zalk 24:08
That’d be a good one. Let’s let’s talk about that. How would we do that? I mean.
Mat Zalk 24:15
If you could have I mean I think there are Elon Musk’s optimist robots coming out soon. I mean.
Mat Zalk 24:21
They can they.
Mat Zalk 24:22
Can hammer they can hammer nail, identify problems with artificial intelligence and go fix things.
Susan Olivarez 24:28
I think that’s one of the deals, is that determining how many units you have to have to have contracted or paid maintenance people to handle things. And with the smaller operation, you build relationships with handyman, handyman, plumber, handy women, plumbers, whatever, and you’ll be rocking along fine. Everything’s being tended to, and then life happens to somebody and they go off and you can’t find them and they’re not showing up. So I think that’s a constant struggle to find people to handle repairs.
Susan Olivarez 25:09
And the other flip side is the owner, you know, doesn’t want to spend money for repairs. So balancing that, finding somebody that does a good job for a good price and then. Yeah. Keeping them online because life happens and they go away.
Mat Zalk 25:29
Absolutely. I think it the pendulum swung pretty far towards new high school and college graduates wanting to go to Facebook, computer engineering, all sorts of stuff. And away from the trades, away from what amounts to hard work. You know, in the Midwest, southern states, we used to have a solid, you know, work ethic. And the younger generation is kind of seen how easy it is for some people on the coasts to make a lot of money really quickly in technology.
And they they said, I want to do that. And now it seems we’re swinging back towards people that want to take more, more roles in the trades and in carpentry and maintenance and other stuff. But there’s that missing middle now for that generation that we lost, where they really just did not want to work with their hands. And now that now the prices of plumbing and electrical and mechanical have come up so high that they’re recognizing that you can make a good, respectable, honest living working with your hands in the trades again. And and they’re coming back.
But there’s a there is definitely you see a bunch of, you know, older folks that are doing it and they may be retiring and leaving and going to play with their grandkids. And you see some younger people doing it. But it’s hard to find the people in the middle that are, that are still working in the trades. I think we have it better in Oklahoma than we do in a lot of the coastal areas of the United States, I would suspect. But yeah, it’s hard to to find honest, good, reasonably priced vendors and then to keep them and you got to keep them busy enough where they go to other places and take full time jobs and leave their business or, you know, service more important clients in their minds, that is a that’s definitely a hard part when you think with your investors about long term portfolios.
Not just buying a property, but maintaining it and growing the portfolio long term. How do you how do you talk to them about the value today, the value tomorrow and the value in ten years?
Susan Olivarez 27:32
I think first off, you have to just set what are your goals, what’s your intent? What are we trying to accomplish with the, you know, flips I want to do flips or I want rentals or, you know, figuring out that combination and the benefit to each of those. What did you say the end of that question? I had a thought and then went past it.
Mat Zalk 28:00
Maintaining and growing the portfolios like today, tomorrow and ten years from now.
Susan Olivarez 28:05
So Gary Keller said this in a meeting the other day. He said it. You know, it’s always a good time to buy real estate, invest in real estate. So 28 years ago, can you tell yourself, I wish I would have bought every available property I can get my hands on. And the answer is yes.
You don’t. We all wish we would have bought more. And then he said, okay, so today you need to be buying every available piece of real estate that you can find. Because in 20 years, what are you going to tell yourself? I wish I would have bought every piece of. So I mean that’s yes, you can talk yourself out of doing things. Prices are too high, rates are too high, all of those things.
And you can muddle through that and do nothing, buy nothing. But truth is in not even in 20 years and two years or five years, you you’ll wish that you would have bought more real estate at this point in time, because it’s always a good day to buy a good piece of real estate.
Mat Zalk 29:12
I was before the show, I was telling you about my client and friend Myles, who who bought reluctantly, I would say bought two houses for $70,000 back in 2018 or 19, and it was really like it was 50 over 50. I think when we presented this to him, whether he was going to buy it, and he ended up buying it kind of reluctantly, like, I don’t know, the HVAC is not that new and the roof may need to be replaced, but he bought two houses, $35,000 apiece, and we’ve got an 800, 900, 1000 $1,100 in rent every year since. And he now when I talk to him, he’s like, God, we should have bought every deal that we could have back then. I balked at some, but we should have bought them all. It’s like, yeah, we.
Mat Zalk 29:53
Should.
Mat Zalk 29:53
Have, we should have. But at the time it can seem hard. You don’t have the cash. You got to scrimp and save or. But yeah, I.
Mat Zalk 29:59
Mean, are you.
Susan Olivarez 30:00
Making the right decision and.
Mat Zalk 30:01
Yeah. Yeah for sure.
Susan Olivarez 30:04
The other thing is people do when they are running their numbers and they want to repair a home or fix it up like they’re going to live in it personally. And yes, you do want to to make a nice product to flip or rent or whatever, but there are some things that you don’t want to go to that, that extreme. So that’s always a fun conversation with new investors, especially maybe a husband and wife trying to agree on things. That’s kind of.
Mat Zalk 30:36
Fun. Sure.
Mat Zalk 30:37
It’s really it’s a tough balance, though, because if you’re doing if you buy a house and you’re doing $10,000 worth of work or 15 or 20, or you’re going to flip it and you’re putting in 50. Like if the sheet rocks out, should we do all new electrical? Well, that’s another in 2025. That’s another eight grand of work. And you got to rip out a bunch of other stuff.
And then the cabinets have to come out like it’s where do you start and where do you stop? That’s really a tough conversation to have and to really think through. And then if we’re doing the electrical and then we don’t do all the plumbing and there’s galvanized water lines and there’s the cast iron sewer lines, like, are we doing flooring over something that in two years we’re going to have to rip up all the flooring cut into the slab and and redo all the slab. Because we did that, we had bad plumbing lines. It’s it’s, you know, it’s not all fun and games.
It’s it can be very interesting. It’s not all fun and games. You hope you get a good return, but sometimes you just have to gamble and determine where you start and where you stop.
Susan Olivarez 31:32
I do say investing is like gambling. You win some and you lose some. And true, with tenants, you know, sometimes somebody looks great on paper. You you’re thinking, yes, perfect tenant and.
Susan Olivarez 31:49
Happens.
Susan Olivarez 31:49
Yeah, yeah that’s true.
Mat Zalk 31:50
You can have you can also have a tenant. You sign a renewal. They’ve been with you three years and then life happens, as you say. And they stop paying rent and they’re all of a sudden the worst tenant. And you’re like, well, that that.
I didn’t.
Mat Zalk 32:02
Say that. Unlike gambling, kind.
Mat Zalk 32:04
Of like gambling, kind of like gambling. What advice would you give Realtors who want to start managing properties for their investors but don’t know where to begin?
Susan Olivarez 32:14
Have a Conversation with several property managers.
Susan Olivarez 32:19
And talk about pros and cons and then really investigate. What’s your goal. What do you want to accomplish by doing this. And does it fit in your long term plan?
Mat Zalk 32:31
I people ask me because we manage property. Obviously they asked me as they’re getting into it like for for thoughts or experience sometimes and I, I often say that it is a business to, to speak to some of the things you’ve mentioned. It’s a business that works really well at scale and is harder at small, at small at less scale. If you have 10 or 20 homes, you can’t afford the automation, you can’t afford appfolio you can’t. I mean, it’s beautiful for you because you get a lot of the infrastructure through Keller Williams.
But if you don’t have that infrastructure set up, I guess you can go to a brokerage that has that infrastructure set up, or you do it all yourself, and you’re still on spreadsheets and paying owners and paying your management fee and having trust accounts. It can be a burden and maintenance can be a burden because the people, the plumber that you call is not giving you the best rate that they’re giving to larger companies. Nobody’s getting what Case and Associates is getting. But, you know, for for smaller landlords, smaller property managers, it can be really hard. And when as you scale, you mean more to your vendors, your, you know, you get a you fill a house, but another tenant is actively looking.
And they say, I wanted that house. Well, you don’t have the ability to say, well, I’ve got ten others that look like this, or ten others in the neighborhood or whatever. So it everything becomes easier with scale. So I would say it makes a lot of sense to if you’re if you’re thinking about property management to kind of jump in and do it, it’s a good business. It can be time consuming.
To your point, Susan, about, you know, how do you split time between sales? When does when does your your attention diverted and and when does that when do you lose money versus make money in your business. But it’s something that works with scale. What what about what about sales at this point is do you see the market in Tulsa, as I mean, you mentioned people should be buying and I agree with you entirely, like buying the downfall, buying the upswing buy. Just keep buying.
And in 20 years you’ll be really happy because as my colleague who runs marketing and sales for Key Runner, he always says everything looks cheap in the rear view mirror, which is exactly what you said. Gary said, what? How do you feel right now about the Tulsa market?
Susan Olivarez 34:39
You know, we have more inventory out there. Interest rates are falling a little bit. It’s still good interest rates. No, not like we had several years ago. The 2% and all of that.
But I mean it it’s a still a great time to invest in real estate.
Mat Zalk 35:03
Yeah I agree and I’m I, I’m not buying like I was once but I certainly am still buying houses here.
Susan Olivarez 35:10
And there It was harder because investors were on the same playing field as first time home buyers, so prices investors couldn’t get the deals that they were used to. So it became harder for investors to find properties.
Mat Zalk 35:30
And how are part of the conversation that I’m seeing with investors is insurance rates are through the roof and they’re up 3,040%. Maintenance costs for the last five years have gone just berserk. Who was I talking to that said pipe? I was talking I was talking to a buddy of mine, Sam, who does a lot of new construction. He said, pipe, there’s a period where pipe went up 128% in 90 days.
I was like, whoa. But that was a period. I mean, Covid, that was, you know, hyperinflation or as hyper as we see it in the United States, or saw it in the United States. What are you telling investors or new buyers about kind of rising maintenance costs and insurance costs and how to deal with that and property tax, to be fair.
Susan Olivarez 36:21
There, there it’s the reality. You have to incorporate that in your budget. And maybe you don’t have the 10% return on your investment initially, but you have a 3 or 5%. And that’s okay for now. That’s where it is.
It’s still a return.
Mat Zalk 36:46
Yeah. So just kind of like sucking.
Mat Zalk 36:49
And at some point it may change. Rates may come down. I mean maintenance costs are not coming down but their growth will slow certainly. And eventually rents will, will come back in. I mean, everybody everybody that’s investing in real estate or I shouldn’t say everybody, many people that are investing in real estate are expecting a reasonable return on their investment.
And so rents will have to come to parity with that over time so that they’re, you know, they’ve got they’ve gotten a five, seven, 10% return over, over the long haul.
Mat Zalk 37:21
What’s next for for Susan.
Susan Olivarez 37:24
What’s next for Susan.
Mat Zalk 37:25
How do you see your business evolving over the next five years?
Susan Olivarez 37:29
Oh gosh. That’s kind of funny because I keep saying I’m going to retire in ten years, but it’s a revolving ten years every year. I say ten years, ten years. But just continuing serving my investor clients and my repeat business on sales and and just keep learning and growing every day is fun, right? Learn something.
Mat Zalk 37:56
You mentioned Gary Keller, who’s obviously a very respected person in in the industry. Who who are your colleagues that you respect most in this industry in Tulsa and and at across the United States.
Susan Olivarez 38:10
Tough question.
Mat Zalk 38:12
Think about it. We’ll come. We’ll come back to that.
Mat Zalk 38:16
What about learning? Learning events. Keller Williams events, podcasts, conferences. What? What are your favorites to where you learn the most?
Susan Olivarez 38:27
Gosh, I listen to. Just different people. I like Darren Hardy. Yes, yes.
Mat Zalk 38:41
He’s kind of a motivational. No excuses. Every day you can get up and do something, you know, positive to change your your business, your life, etc., right.
Susan Olivarez 38:54
I just forgot the win. Lose. What is? I can’t think of the guy’s name that I listened to, I, I love all the Keller trainings and family reunion and and all of those things. Having been raised in Oklahoma and lived in Oklahoma all my life, it’s just interacting with other people from other states and the things that you learn, just property management wise, contract wise.
Just how. So that’s the fun part, is just meeting and talking to people from different parts of the world. Yeah, well and states too, how real estate differs and investors differ and.
Mat Zalk 39:39
Are you a member of the National Association of Residential Property Managers?
Susan Olivarez 39:44
No.
Mat Zalk 39:45
That’s a good that’s a good. They do a they do a few conferences a year. But that’s a great professional organization that that is helpful has taught me a lot about kind of professionalizing our industry has given me thoughts on, I don’t know the way pet, you know, screening is going for people that are requesting reasonable accommodations for, you know, no pet fees based on HUD guidance and the changes in HUD guidance. And, you know, just ten insurance liability to landlord, a whole bunch of things that are kind of critical to serving clients the best way. Interesting.
That’s that’s definitely an interesting group. There’s so much that changes in our industry so often that, you know, staying. I kind of go I may go every year, every other year to kind of leapfrog the the advances in understanding what’s happening in the two year span. But that’s a good that’s a really good one. How do people reach you, Susan, if they want to know more about property management services or investor, you know, buying services, selling services, how do they reach you?
Susan Olivarez 40:49
Cell phone (918) 639-4824 or [email protected].
Mat Zalk 40:56
Love it. Susan Olivarez is a Tulsa realtor with more than 27 years of experience It’s helping buyers, sellers and investors succeed in real estate. Born and raised in Oklahoma, she got her start in an abstract office at just 14 years old. I didn’t mention this, but at 14 years old I was just rolling burritos. I wish I had gotten a start in real estate that early. I was rolling burritos at a local restaurant in Houston, Texas.
She was gaining rare behind the scenes knowledge of how real estate really works. As you heard today. An investor herself, Susan has guided clients through everything from traditional sales to short sales, foreclosures and probate transactions. She’s also built a property management division within her business to better serve the investors she works with, offering a true, full service approach to real estate. Susan, thank you so much for being on the show.
Fascinating talking to you about your start and your kind of continued journey through real estate.
Susan Olivarez 41:48
Thank you so much.
Mat Zalk 41:49
Take care.
Outro 41:53
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