In this episode of The Same Day Podcast, host Walter Bowser sits down with LaNea Garrison and Teri McGhee of Redi Carpet to discuss flooring strategies for property owners. They cover the benefits of using LVP over traditional carpet, tips for maintaining different types of flooring, and how recent market trends impact flooring choices.
From Carpet to LVP: The Flooring Blueprint for Property Owners
LaNea Garrison is the General Manager of the Tulsa branch of Redi Carpet, the nation’s leading flooring provider for multifamily and single-family rentals. With nearly 30 years of experience in flooring, LaNea brings a wealth of knowledge from co-owning a carpet store to her current role at Redi Carpet. Her expertise ranges from residential to commercial flooring, and she takes pride in leading a team dedicated to next-day operational support for property managers and real estate investors. Understanding the needs of different properties and offering tailored floor covering solutions is her forte.
Teri McGhee is an Account Manager at Redi Carpet. She brings nearly two decades of experience in property management to her new role on the vendor side of the industry. With over 18 years of hands-on expertise, Teri has transitioned to Redi Carpet, where she leverages her deep understanding of day-to-day operations to provide invaluable insights to the onsite teams. This new role has allowed Teri to merge her passion for the multifamily sector with the vendor perspective, creating a dynamic and enriching customer experience.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- [1:15] LaNea Garrison shares her background and how she got started at Redi Carpet
- [3:15] Teri McGhee talks about her role at Redi Carpet
- [4:37] Quick bid-to-installation process for rental property flooring
- [6:41] The importance of laser measurements in flooring accuracy
- [9:38] What is the expected lifespan of carpet in rental properties?
- [20:26] The benefits of Luxury Vinyl Plank (LVP) for long-term savings
- [26:32] How to properly care for LVP to avoid damage
- [28:33] Using sheet vinyl as a cost-effective flooring option
- [31:33] Post-pandemic flooring market and pricing trends
- [38:45] LaNea gives recommendations for making flooring decisions for rental properties
In this episode…
Flooring is one of the most impactful ways to enhance your property’s appeal and boost rental income. But how do you choose the right flooring options to maximize your investment?
According to LaNea Garrison, a seasoned flooring expert with extensive industry experience, opting for Luxury Vinyl Plank (LVP) in common and wet areas can significantly improve both durability and aesthetics. She highlights that LVP not only provides a contemporary, high-end look but also commands higher rental prices due to its appeal to tenants. Additionally, LaNea points out that proper maintenance and tenant education are crucial to extending the lifespan of LVP flooring, ultimately saving property owners money in the long run. Understanding these nuances helps property managers make informed decisions that align with their investment goals.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Walter Bowser on LinkedIn
- 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]
- LaNea Garrison: LinkedIn | Email
- Teri McGhee on LinkedIn
- Redi Carpet
Quotable Moments:
- “We like to consider ourselves the professionals in floor covering.”
- “If you call me by three o’clock, we have it in your building, apartment, or house the next day.”
- “We operate just on a next-day operation if you call me by three o’clock… I got a text one day from somebody needing to hire somebody as an account manager at Redi Carpet. And he said I think you’d be a great fit.”
- “As long as we can have the plan, it’s relatively quick.”
- “Starting to grow. And it’s hard to keep up sometimes with the way that they’re expanding.”
Action Steps:
- When managing rental properties, prioritize practical and durable flooring options over personal preferences: This ensures a strategic approach that aligns with the property owner’s business goals, keeping the focus on maximizing rental income and property value.
- Adopt advanced measurement technologies, such as laser measurements, to ensure precision in flooring installations: Precision is crucial for cost-effective installations and optimal results.
- Consider the expected tenant turnover when choosing between carpet and Luxury Vinyl Plank (LVP) for your rental property: LaNea Garrison emphasizes the importance of this decision, citing the longevity and maintenance differences between these flooring materials.
- Educate tenants about the proper care of flooring, especially LVP, to avoid water damage and prolong the flooring’s life: Proper maintenance not only extends the flooring’s life but can also prevent additional costs for the property owner.
- For long-term property holdings, invest in higher-quality, durable flooring materials that provide a greater return through reduced turnover costs and potential rental income increases: Durability can result in long-term savings and property value enhancement.
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 0:05
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.
Walter Bowser 0:20
Walter Bowser here I am the host of The Same Day Podcast where I connect with top business and real estate leaders here in the Oklahoma City and Tulsa Metro. Today, I am super excited about our episode. Going to have on the professionals from Redi Carpet I have LaNea Garrison and Teri McGhee. We’re super excited to have them on. Today’s episode is brought to you by Keyrenter Property Management. At Keyrenter Property Management, we are a full service property management company helping clients by renovating and operating the real estate investments. We build wealth while taking care of the headache of property management. We’ve helped hundreds of clients with their property management needs. And we’re super excited to have today’s guests on. LaNea and Teri, super excited to have you here. Tell me a little bit about yourself and how you kind of got going with Redi Carpet?
LaNea Garrison 1:15
Well, first of all, let me say we are so excited to be even asked for this. We like to consider ourselves the professionals in floorcovering. And this is exciting for us. So I’m actually the general manager for the Tulsa branch of Redi Carpet. Redi Carpet is the nation’s leading provider for flooring in the multifamily industry and the single family rental industry. We have, man we have I think it’s 39 branches across the United States at this point, we’re starting to grow. And it’s hard to keep up sometimes with the way that they’re expanding. I can’t if I were 39, 38, we at 37, we could be at 42. I’m not exactly sure I know it’s up there somewhere. So we operate just on a next day operation if you call me by three o’clock we have it in your building, or your apartment or your house, whatever it is the next day. So I actually have a long history of carpet and floor covering. One of my first jobs was working for my ex husband’s dad in his carpet store in California when I was 18. And then my ex husband and I, we owned a carpet store for 14 years here in Claremore, Oklahoma, working in the residential sector selling to you know, homeowners and doing some commercial work. After I got divorced, we sold that business and I was like, Well, what am I going to do now? And I said, I’m going to leave floorcovering and I’m not going to do this anymore. And I changed my mind. And I got a text one day from somebody needing to hire somebody as an account manager at Redi Carpet. And he said, I think it’d be a great fit. So I came in and I was just there. Well, within a year he decided to leave and then I got promoted to the General Manager position. And so here we are, now, you know, probably close to 30 years of flooring experience in and just happy to help my team, you know, and so Teri?
Teri McGhee 3:15
I’m Teri McGee, you know, I’ve got almost 18 plus years in property management. So coming to the vendor side, this is brand new. But it’s been awesome, because you know, I get to bring the day to day operations and give the insight to the onsite ready teams. And then they’re teaching me a lot of things that I wish I knew as well on the day to day operations. So for me, I think it’s a win-win. And I’m gonna love every bit of it because I get to go out and share the knowledge of everything that I love, the multifamily side, and now the vendor side. So I’m super excited. And LaNea has really educated me quite a bit and just the short amount of time that I’ve been there. I’m super excited to get to collaborate with you as well, Walter, I think this will be cool for us, since you know, you are the father of my, my sweet little baby.
Walter Bowser 4:02
Absolutely Well, no, I’m super excited to kind of talk with you guys. And one thing you said to LaNea that I really liked. And maybe I just start with this first question to you on that, as you said, hey, if I call you at 3pm I’m in and then the next day, you know, replacing that carpet and kind of doing that and that’s kind of a mantra that we live by here at Kinser and I assume you know why we work so well together is you know being that same day property manager I guess you could call yourselves the same day you know carpet supplier installer or whatever. Tell me you kind of know what that looks like on the back end and how you’re able to do that.
LaNea Garrison 4:37
So it’s a little more difficult with the single family rentals because each so with apartments we go in and we keep a computer measurement. We laser measure everything. We have a blueprint drawing that we have, we can drop in your products and things like that. And so it just stores because apartments may change the way they lay their floors or what they’re using, but the walls never move. With the single family rentals. It’s a little more challenging because we have to go measure each and every house, prepare a bid and submit that bid. But usually the entire process only takes a couple hours. So sometimes with single family rentals, like if you call me by three o’clock, sometimes most of the time my guy can get out there, get that measurement, get the bid over, and then get that approval and then you know, submit it for the next day. Most of the time, you guys are pretty much together, you give us a couple of days notice because you got painters in there, you got something going on. So we can get over there, we shoot the laser, we have the plan. Now the next time, say a year from now, that house turns, and we don’t have to go measure, again, we have the plan, it’s stored in our database. And you can just tell me, Hey, this time and sit, we’re not gonna do any carpet this time, we just want to do LVP throughout, we just drop in a few things, we shoot you over the bed, and it’s done in 15 minutes. So as long as we can have the plan, it’s relatively quick. If we have to go measure, you know, he may say, hey, I’ll measure this first thing in the morning. You know, if you call too late in the afternoon , homages first thing in the morning for you to get that bit over to you once it’s approved? We’ll even try to work to get somebody out there that day. If we can’t, we’ll do the next day for sure. So it’s a really quick process. Because we’ve already established what products we have you are already aware of, you know, the colors that we have here, like I need this, this and this, and we’re done.
Walter Bowser 6:16
Love that it’s true. It’s a seamless process. Now, tell me, I guess break it down a little bit for me. And you know, one thing you said you got there and measured right. So what are you measuring? And a lot of owners always ask, you know, is it my full force? Like square footage that they need to measure? Or is it just various that have carpet? Or? Or how does that look for you guys, whenever you go in there to measure, you know what, what carpet or what part of that property is to be replaced.
LaNea Garrison 6:41
So our rule of thumb is, if you’re in a house, measure the whole house, even if you’re telling me I just want the bedrooms with new carpet, I encourage my account managers and Terry can attest to this that, hey, measure the whole house because that tenant, there may be a flood six months from now. And you’re like, oh, I have to replace everything. And you’re like, Well, I just happened to have that. What do you want, where, and we can kind of do that if you’re like, Well, we have tile in the kitchen and bathrooms, we’re keeping that tile, I encourage them to measure that. Because you just never know, if two years, three years from now, you want to get rid of that tile, it’s cracking out this, it’s settled, it’s moved, whatever it is. And then we have it. So when we go into measure, we literally draw a blue, we have a lead laser, and it’s on our computer, we carry a laptop, in one hand, we have a laser on the other that communicates through Bluetooth. And as I put the laser on and shoot the wall, it draws it in on my computer, then I close the room off, I put a little door, put my closets and put my sliding glass doors, whatever I’m meeting, then I go on to the next room. So in the end, I have a full diagram blueprint diagram of your entire house with the closest doors. And we can even go down, we could add windows, we can add whatever we want in there, we can put notes on there, like humans do transition in this, there’s a fireplace, so we need some little end pieces or, you know, transitions around the fireplace. And so we can add all of that stuff in there for our future. And then we upload it into our system, we build a bit off of it. And it interacts with our software and with our bidding software as well. Is that a good answer for what you’re asking me.
Walter Bowser 8:21
Yeah exactly what I was looking for. I think that was perfect. And you know, really, really great for us. Because, you know, sometimes it might be just more cost efficient for the owner to go ahead and replace everything and not just a bedroom, especially when you break down the bed. It’s like, well, this is only a few extra $100. You know, why don’t we go ahead and replace everything or whatnot. And another thing that you know, I really liked that you guys do is typically, you will also give us an estimate, not only for carpet replacement, but also let’s say, hey, if we want to do LVP in here, you’ll kind of break that down and tell us you know, hey, this is the price for both of it. And that really gives us a nice, you know, added Arsenal sort of our tool belt on saying to our owners, hey, you know, this is something that we can do for this extra price or whatnot. So kind of want to get your opinion on a few things, since you are you know, the carpet experts kind of tell me what the lifespan of of carpet is and rentals and what you’ve seen and kind of you know, what your thought process is on when it should be replaced first, you know cleaned or or whatnot and what you know, typical owner should expect on let’s just say a typical tenant let’s let’s say you know a crazy tenant that has a whole bunch of you know, destruction or something like that.
LaNea Garrison 9:38
Oh, just to piggyback on what you had said before. My favorite thing about what we do at Redi Carpet is you’re assigned an account manager. That account manager’s job is to take care of every flooring that you have, so you don’t have to worry about it. You’re supposed to call me or one of my account managers and be like, Listen, I have this house. Here’s a lockbox code. Can you go Tell me what you think my account managers should go and say, Hey, listen, that that solid surface, whether it’s LVP, or sheet vinyl or engineered hardwood or laminate that you have in there, it’s trashed. Let me tell you need to make, let me make this suggestion for you. And then they’re supposed to do that, we’re supposed to come in and take that off of you. But at the same time, if you tell my account manager, hey, listen, I need, I need lipstick on a pig, I need a band aid, I need this to be as low cost as possible. That’s his job to get creative, get outside that box, and be like his or her job, get outside that box and be like, Hey, okay, let’s take some vinyl from underneath this washer and dryer in this laundry room or underneath this appliance underneath the stove. And we can patch this living room. So you don’t have to replace this living room. Or let’s take from a closet, and then we can just put carpet in the closet and get it kind of creative to meet your needs. And so that is the best thing that Redi Carpet brings to that someone who is directly responsible for helping you to make the best choice for whatever your goal is. If that’s the question, that’s the one thing you need to always let us know, is this. Because we deal with a lot of people we deal with tenants directly, right who own their house, we deal with people who have assets, this is something I’m holding, I’m renting, it’s, it’s I make money from this, then we have some people who tell us, hey, listen, I am flipping this, I’m going to put this in here, I’m going to flip it out. And I’m going to sell it as soon as we’re done. And so it all depends on your needs and the direction you want to go. But the greatest thing is you get somebody who’s here dedicated to take that from you, and give you those resources to go take to your owner at that time. So that was just a great thing about Redi Carpet that I loved, even as an account manager was my favorite thing, just you know, taking that burden. And now as far as carpet goes, so you ask him about the lifespan of carpet? Again, that question has to be qualified with? What is the quality of tenants in that unit? Right? So you we all know our properties, we all know the parts of town or, or whatever it is, if it’s out in the country, we know they have a lot of this and that that’s coming and, and a lot of dirt that’s brought in and you know, rural areas versus city areas and, and high end areas versus low end area. So what is the quality of the tenant that’s coming in there? How often do I turn this property if you’re only if you’re turning your property every week, because that quality of tenant demands that I mean every year every week, I’d be miserable every year if you’re turning every year, if you’re trying that property every year. You say to you, you know what, I need something economical because no matter what I put in here in a year, I’m gonna have to replace it again. So there’s all these pre qualifying things. And there’s also what level of carpet you get. We offer Keyrenter, a good carpet and a better carpet. And when we say good and better. We’re speaking from two ways that carpet is. There’s lots of ways that carpets are measured. You know you can have frizzy ways, you can have twists, you can have pull downs, you can have Berbers, the way that it looks, you know the style aspect of it. But when we’re talking to people like Key Renner and other management companies, we say listen, carpet, you can have it, it’s measured in ounces. So you might have heard there’s 18 ounce carpet, there’s 20 ounce carpet, 24 ounce carpet, there’s all the way up to like 60 to 70 ounce carpet, it’s not that the carpet weighs 70 ounces, it’s more of like the hand the way that it feels in the fibers per square inch inside the carpet. So inside the actual thing. So a 16 ounce carpet obviously has more fibers per square inch, or less fibers than a 20 ounce carpet. A 25 has more than a 20. And so you can see as you go up your carpet gets denser and denser, the fibers get closer together and you get more and more fiber on your carpet. So when you’re asking yourself what quality of tonnage I have, what am I demanding? Well, if I’m gonna replace it every year, then we know let’s go with the 16 inch, the 16 ounce, let’s go with a smaller ounce weight, one that’s a little more affordable upfront. Let’s put a three half inch six pound pad under there, and it’s a done deal. But then we have another one that we use constantly. It’s in our wheelhouse, we would consider this like a builder grade so that the 18 ounce is probably like it’s FHA. So sub FHA would be 18 or below 18 ounces. And that means some term that means something to more people than others. Some people have to be FHA compliant. Some people don’t depend on your tax credits, things like that. So an 18 ounce, it’s right there almost self FHA But you’re still good. But we do a lot with a 24 to 26 ounce range. And, and it’s a good quality carpet, it’s something that you can usually get with a decent tenant there that you know is vacuuming. That’s one thing to ask them, do they have vacuums, they need to vacuum because that’s going to be long in the life of your carpet. There’s some statistic out there that like 80, or 78%, of apartment dwellers at one point, don’t own a vacuum. Like it’s wild to me.
Teri McGhee 15:32
And I believe that, you know, just walking the units throughout my history and seeing that it’s almost as your welcome gift when they move in should be a vacuum because there it just does not happen on a daily basis.
Walter Bowser 15:44
It’s obvious you say that one more time you said 78% of.
LaNea Garrison 15:48
Something like that, I can’t remember the exact number, but it was above 70%. And I was like, you’ve got to be kidding me. And then the rule of thumb is, it is for every person or animal that lives in that house. So if you have four people and a cat and a dog, you shouldn’t be vacuuming six times a week. That’s that’s the, that’s that’s how they say to keep it going. And a vacuum only gets out like 92% of the dust or depends on your vacuum, right. But even the best vacuum doesn’t get all the dirt out of the carpet. So every time you pass with it, there’s still dirt in the carpet. So year after year, after year after year, there’s still dirt building up so that’s a downfall of carpet I guess because the dirt builds up and it’s not as hygienic as maybe some of the hard surface. But another thing too is the fiber which is made up. We use PET’s nylon used to be the craze you know would be clean and easy to wear as well. Now we use something called a PET and there’s this huge scientific name that I can’t say I’m not even going to pretend to know. But it’s polyethylene, something like a major long word. And basically what it is it’s it’s recycled coke bottles that they’re making these, this carpet strand from now and any of you that have any experience with a with a coke bottle, if it’s clear, you can put like spaghetti sauce and that spaghetti sauce can sit out in that Coke bottle in the sun for days, right, you could go in fact that Coke bottle open and it hasn’t stained the inside of that Coke bottle. It’s very stain resistant, it’s very strong. It also hasn’t disintegrated the bottle still the bottle, right it still hasn’t disintegrated at all no matter how many years it sits in that landfill. Unfortunately, it’s still a coke bottle. So they take that in the carpet, they somehow wave their magic wand around it and get the fibers built from that. And then they also do a solution die now which back in the day carpet was dyed topically the top of it was dyed. And now it’s solution dyed all the way through and the adage that we use for that is that we say it’s kind of like the carrot in the radish, if you cut a radish open, it’s white on the inside and red on the outside. But if you cut a carrot in half, it’s orange all the way through. And that’s what solution dye does. So it makes it easier to clean. It also keeps the color truer dye lots don’t matter as much with that. And, and so you can just so out of that 16, eight to 18 ounce carpet, you probably could get with a decent pattern or there, you could probably get two to three years depending on the quality of your tenant, right. But typically, that’s something we would put in a yearly turn. And then we’re seeing results with the 24 ounce we have one that we use from engineered floors called Marvel. And we’re seeing in Mohawk mix one two, we’re seeing they’re typically getting two to three turns out of it. So somebody’s there a couple years they come in and clean it and they can turn it and again it all boils down to how does the customer take care of the carpet.
Walter Bowser 18:57
Of course yeah, you see some people that you know they take care of their carpet, they take care of their whole entire you know house or apartment and it’s you know, in great condition and you have some people that it could be three months and it’s like oh my goodness, everything’s gonna have to you know, be flipped it’s just uh, you know, that’s why we really try to screen attendance and make sure that we have a you know, good baseline before they move in. So tell me I guess you know, let’s say two or three years now let’s let’s flip the side of the coin and talk about LVP which is you know, if correct me if I’m wrong but luxury vinyl plank, and it’s a harder surface instead of arbiter kind of tell me you know, what you suggest on you know, LVP and you know, the lifespan of LVP and what that looks like because, you know, a lot of times we ask, we’re talking to investors and they have given you want to do the most cost effective thing and you know, really make sure that you’re setting yourself up for success especially if it’s a buy and hold you know, asset. kind of talk to me about you know, where you suggested putting it out if it is just you know, in the bathrooms or the common area like the living room and kitchen? Or has it, you know, in the bedrooms as well to, you know, kind of tell me about that and what you know what style of LVP you suggest and and you know what the lifespan would be versus, you know, also, you know, the cost effective compared to carpet because carpet is, is usually a little bit cheaper than the LVP. But I’d say in the long run, sometimes, you know, LVP can be the best thing for you.
LaNea Garrison 20:26
So, in my personal opinion, first of all, LVP is the fashion or the look of the aesthetic of the future. If that’s and the President right now, that’s where we’re at right now with it, people like the look, they would look at it without having to pay with prices. And so people just like it more, and so Teri can probably attest to this on the rental side of it, it is much more appealing to those people coming into rent, it also can help you to command a larger rent, you know, it’s an increase in your rent.
Teri McGhee 21:05
The perception is it is contemporary, it’s updated, you know, it’s what everybody has. And in today’s market, I mean carpet as much as we love carpet, I mean, a lot of people want the LVT. They want that higher end look, because it makes you feel like you’re living in a very nice, clean place.
Walter Bowser 21:22
Yeah, absolutely. And we actually wrote a blog recently that, you know, one of the easiest ways to increase the amount of rent that you give your property is to, you know, update the flooring, and do stuff like that, because that’s one of the easiest ways to see a direct correlation to the amount of rent that you get. So I do agree with you 100%.
LaNea Garrison 21:42
And so typically, I recommend when I was an account manager, even as a general manager, and even so my friends and family who have rentals and, and things like that, I typically recommend that you do LVP in your common areas, and your we call them the wet areas, so bathrooms, laundry rooms, entries, kitchens, those are always that way, then I think if you can work it out, some people like carpet in their living room, some do if you work it out, on entry, like if you have an entry that shoots to a hallway LVP that hallway, the whole solid thing, like the whole thing. But typically, I would say do your living room, your wet areas, your common areas, your hallways, your dining rooms, things like that in the LVP and then use the carpet in the bedrooms if if you want to save because the truth is people like it a little softer underfoot, and so most of them are going to come down and put down a rug anyway. But with the longevity of LVP as long as they’re mopping it correctly. So that’s an important thing that you might put in with your rental stuff if it’s not a solid sheet, right? These pieces aren’t in, some of them interlocking together, but it’s not like a Ziploc bag that’s impermeable to water, right? So they, if they’re taking full buckets of water and just sloshing it out there and mopping it around, then that water is getting down in between where that LVP comes together, glue can come up and activates that glue under there things can happen it can slide around a little bit more. So it’s not completely waterproof. That’s not what it is, it’s water resistant. And so if they’re mopping it correctly, I mean I’ve seen LVP that stays 7, 10, 12 years as long as it’s being taken care of. The beauty of it is if you get a scratch down on one thing because something has happened. That glue is called a pressure sensitive glue. So with some kind of prying tool, you can get in there, pry up a piece, pull it up, and then just lay another piece down. So the smart city manager that you are, you took the extra pieces that we had left from our full box quantities when we installed and you stuck those in the attic and then you always have those to repair on that and so it’s going to cost you more up front and that’s the truth. It’s a bigger investment on the front end. And it’s super important that you keep some of the attic stock and make sure that you can make some repairs down the line. But I mean I put LVP in my house and it’s still there today and that’s almost 20 years. So it’s it’s a lot it’s it’s it’s a good product, you’ll hear a lot about wear layers, six mil, eight mil 12 mil 20 mil and the wear layers kind of like a It’s not like an actual thickness it’s just like how really strong that where the the layer is and the protection before you can actually scratch it. So people we use six mil all day long in apartments and those if We’re going to do like an office for like, you know, for you’re coming to your office to put some LVP in there. And we would recommend probably at 12 to 20. That’s a little more withstanding to like commercials, like if you roll dollies over it or you have a higher foot traffic at doctors offices, things like that. But the six mil, the eight mil is performing wonderfully right now. And the looks have come so far, and it looks really, really good. And, the longevity of it is good. But like I said, it is more of an investment upfront. Because for now there’s two kinds of LVP, there’s the click Lock, which is like a floating floor within a touchpad. And then there’s the glue that goes directly to the floor, which I think you guys are really doing. It depends. It really depends on your sub floor. And if you’ve got a wonky sub floor, that’s really crazy, then a click Lock is probably a better idea. Because that the glue down follows the floor, I have glue down in my house in my living room, just because it’s just to me, it was a little more durable. My kids like roller coasters. I mean, they were little, they roller skated there, dragged their bikes across there and stuff like that. So that’s kind of how it was for me. I went with Lutron. Again, the click luck, that’s a little more cost and material a little more cost than labor. But again, it’s just that if you have a higher end, you probably want to lean more towards the clicklock. It just gives that more elegant look that more would like.
Walter Bowser 26:32
Absolutely. So you said one thing that I want to ask you about earlier is you know, if they put too much water down when they’re mopping or something like that, tell me is it you said that could possibly No, really, you know, mess up the plank or you know, make it bubble up? Or move around? Or when no Is there a way to fix that easily or lose something that you have to replace? Or what does it look like?
LaNea Garrison 26:53
Educating the tenant first put a bathroom rug down right with kids get out of the tub, put it you know, educating the tenant, not Wet Mopping, taking them up and like wetting it out, you know, those new ring mops where they they wring them out, and they that’s fine. It’s that big, where they put the dog bowls, and the dog sloshes the water all over the water just sitting. It’s the sitting standing water, and like in a bathroom words over and over and over and over again. So a lot of it is just educating your tenant about how to take care of their floors. And, and, and that and you know, be careful, be careful how much water you use, don’t slop out a whole big bucket of water. And that’s the biggest thing. Now slab moisture is a whole other problem, right? I don’t know, if you’ve ever encountered some slab moisture, we get slab moisture in Oklahoma that comes up from the bottom, it can destroy your floor from underneath. I definitely want to think about a floating floor. And in most cases, we ended up going back to the carpet, because it allows that moisture to breathe. Because the answer a lot of times is you need French drains. And that’s a 10s of 1000s of dollars problem. Instead of just let’s put a carpet in the living room. You know?
Walter Bowser 28:01
Yes. No, that’s a great point. And, you know, we try to educate tenants and make sure that they don’t do those things. But, you know, sometimes they listen, sometimes they don’t, you gotta you gotta manage that and make sure that you’re kind of staying on top of it. So tell me a little bit about you know, are there any new products and I kind of mentioned like the LVP is kind of the thing of the future. Um, are there any new products that, you know, we can kind of keep our eyes out of as, as, you know, property managers and investors for, you know, flooring that might be, you know, the new thing as we kind of move forward.
LaNea Garrison 28:33
Oh, um, I would say number one LVP. There’s a lot of new books coming. We installed some of it a little more expensive, but like, everyone’s into that Carrera marble kind of look and, the other day, we installed some interlocking Carrera marble 12 by 24 LVP tiles. And so it looked like Carrera marble, but it was an interlocking click Lock tile that was 12 by 24. So they’re starting to get some more interesting shapes and some more interesting patterns. And they’re really starting to improve the looks of it. Where it’s starting to look more and more and more like real wood and real tile where you’re you kind of have to double like look sometimes and be like well, well that looks really good. The other thing too is I don’t as property managers, we all have our a’s and we all have RDs right? We all have our eight properties, you know shining stars, and we have our we have our moneymakers, because for me my moneymaker is those C’s and Ds that turn more often. And for us in my industry there they got to replace more and things like that. Don’t sleep on. On sheet vinyl like sheet vinyl still a thing and they’ve improved the looks and the wearability of it. And in a in in the right situation we use we use 1000s and 1000s of feet in the apartment industry every day like all the time and the looks they’re coming up with now they have these wood looks that are beautiful. They have ones that look like tile, and they they feel they’re even got a texture where they feel like wood. And so if you have a and and it’s less expensive, it’s a little more than the carpet, but it’s still less expensive than the plank, right? And so it’s affordable, and it’s a solid sheet. So it’s, it’s much more not as many gaps in it, not as many things can go wrong with the moisture, you might pull away from your tub a little bit where those kids are splashing that out. But that can be fixed and put back down with a tub strip, really not a big deal. So don’t sleep on sheet vinyl. It’s it’s, it’s, they’re really working on it making it look good. I promise you.
Walter Bowser 30:39
That’s good to hear. I’ll have to, you know, ask our account managers right here in Oklahoma City next time to give me a quote and on some sheet while it sounds really cool. That’s, that’s a great insight now, just to let you know, the thing that we’ve seen across the board is pricing has gone up, you know, with COVID. And inflation, and it seems like after COVID is just, you know, an exponential, you know, price increase on everything. And, and, you know, it’s been tough, you know, having those conversations with owners, especially with long standing understudy passing, like, hey, you know, it’s a little bit more expensive to do these torque turns nowadays, because you know, the price of everything is has gone up, I’d say, you know, you guys don’t have really, really great prices, at Redi Carpet, but kind of talk to me about how your business has been affected about that. And kind of, you know, where do you see things going? In the future? You know, do you see, you know, prices rising, you know, more? Or do you see it kind of leveling out, or we’re kind of where, how are you guys handling out on the day to day.
LaNea Garrison 31:33
So a funny thing, when I first when I started here, it was pre COVID. And pricing, pretty much stayed right where it was, we might go up a little bit might go down a little bit, freight fuel charges would increase here there, we would have some freight and fuel charges kind of stayed the same and pretty much like that for like 1520 years, like it fluctuates a little bit. And you know, with inflation, you need a little bit and especially on the labor side and things like that, but it pretty much stayed the same. Well, then COVID came, and we had struggles getting material, we had struggles keeping it in stock, we it was just so bad. And I mean, we were running out of pad, we were running out of things and so and pricing just went through the roof. So what I could sell for $1, the year before COVID, I was selling for $1.50, during call COVID You know, because it just was like, everything was just so much more expensive. But I’ll tell you, in the last year, I can’t speak for all trades. And I’ll tell you in flooring, we have come down down, down down. In fact, I have some products now that I’ve been doing for a long time, a long time, and I haven’t seen prices this low in a long time. So it’s, it’s encouraging as the homeowner, right, you know that it was gonna cost you less to do this. But I think as a nation, of course, it’s a little discouraging to see the huge swings, like the high expense and then down to the lower, you know, it’s not a good, good thing. But for what we’re talking about here, things are lower than they’ve ever been. And, that is good across the board. For us in flooring, everything is down. The only thing that didn’t really go crazy was sheet vinyl, she kind of stayed right there in the middle. And she’s come down a little bit, but she’s still right there trucking along, and the carpet went up. And then LVP went way up. And now it’s it’s back down again, I I have LVP that I can sell now glue down LVP that I can sell for right around $1 You know $1.05 You know or so like that, to $1.15 Depending on how big it is, you want to know how long and then I have some click Lock that I can sell all day long for right around $2.12. And it’s got an attached pat on the back. And, and it’s good. The only thing that has not gone down is our labor prices. So labor is still up there. We’re still paying people what we paid them during COVID. So that’s, I mean, that’s another conversation for another day. But yeah.
Walter Bowser 34:09
Understandable. It’s hard to find good workers, especially you know, right now and so you want to pay them, you know, good money to keep them in your tool belt and you know, make sure that they’re doing the same quality of work they’re always doing. So I guess the last question is kind of wrapping this up. And you know, this might be an opinion question or might be just something that you know, exactly, that’s off the top of your head. And, you know, if there’s one piece of advice that you could give to a property owner, that is kind of, you know, going through that term process for the first time. What would that piece of advice be for their flooring? Like let’s say they have a property a tenant just moved out of, it’d be their first kind of turn, they have carpet throughout the property. But we’ll be that first you know, kind of piece of advice and saying like, Hey, I know you’re gonna hold this asset for a while. Well, this is what I would do for the foreseeable future on this property.
LaNea Garrison 35:05
Um, so first I would, the first thing that I would say to somebody is make sure that you’re making your choices based on what’s best for the property and not what you like. Whether it’s color, or product, or whatever, remember, this, this isn’t your home, like strangers are going to be, as we find out with a lot of investors they want, they’re like, well, in my house, I did this, this and that. This is not your house, this is we’re going to we’re going to people are gonna live in this strangers are going to live in this. And so, you know, we’re not going to put Picasso’s and Rembrandt’s in there, right? You know, we’re going to go to Dollar Tree and get some pictures to put around. And you know, that’s how it’s going to work. And so, and just because in the end, so if you go into that mindset of like, okay, what’s best for the property? And I think, and then to always ask yourself, set realistic expectations for your tenant, like, what is my quality of tenant really going to be in here? Really, what does my real tenant really look like? And to how long am I holding on to this property, you know, you come in with all these expectations, make sure they’re realistic, and then ask yourself, Okay, so if this is an asset, I’m gonna hold on to let’s just take a scenario, you know, if this is an asset, I’m gonna hold on to, I’m gonna rent it and rent it as long as I can, I’d say, hey, let’s do LVP. Let’s do LVP through the thing, and if your floor is warranted, we can put glue down in there. And, and it should, it should last. You will buy an extra box, we’ll put it up in the closet somewhere. And then we can make repairs, and we can keep you going. And you know, you can get 10 years out of this floor. And then I also, I really liked the carpet in the bedroom. I think it adds a little more of a homier touch and, and things like that. And it’s cheaper to replace an interior and if you do need to just replace the bedrooms. But I’m seeing lots and lots of planks, just solid planks, solid planks. Even in apartments, they’re doing them upstairs or doing them downstairs, I see a lot more plank going all the time. And so that would be my biggest advice is just like I always tell them like remember, this isn’t your home. So you got to look at it as one big fat dollar sign out there. Like how can I make this dollar sign grow? And, just like granite countertops, you don’t put granite countertops in every house you have, because you don’t, it’s not in a granite neighborhood. So that’s what you got to think about. And if you can refinish the floors that are wood from those old houses, refinish the floors, it’s worth it. I promise you, if they can receive those original floors, save those wood floors. We have a really good wood guy here in Tulsa and he has done some great things with some of these older floors. And, and nothing’s going to be as good as those hardwood floors in there.
Walter Bowser 37:54
I agree with you. 100% I’m I’m a big proponent of saving that hardwood floor, especially if you can refinish it looks phenomenal. Honestly.
LaNea Garrison 38:02
I can lace it in now. And you can tell it’s wild. Yeah. So if you could save those wood floors, save them, especially here in Tulsa, we have so many of those old beautiful wood floors.
Walter Bowser 38:11
Absolutely. So I love what you said, you know, you need to approach it as a business because at the end of the day, your property is a business when it’s a rental property. And I really appreciate all the information you’ve given us. We’ve been talking with LaNea Garrison, the general manager of Redi Carpet in Tulsa, we’re super excited to have you on LaNea. If you don’t mind, can you kind of share me with me like where people can find you and your email address so that way, you know I can put that in the comment section below. And then people will reach out to you as well too.
LaNea Garrison 38:45
You can find us at redicarpet.com That’s like our that’ll help nationally, you know, so, um, to see you can see all of our locations there. Also, too, we have some interactive stuff on there that talks about having a pro rate calculator if you’re trying to charge your customer back for the carpet. And I am five years out of this carpet, but I only got two, this is what I paid for it. This is how much you owe me. There’s a little you plug all the little numbers in and it’ll help you on there to figure that out. If you’re wanting to charge back to your customer or keep the deposit however, you’ll do it out there. And so there’s a lot of interactive tools on there that you can see and talk about the way we measure the bidding process. In Tulsa, specifically. My email is [email protected]
Walter Bowser 39:42
Beautiful. Thanks so much, LaNea and I hope we can talk soon. But again, thank you so much for being on our podcast and we’re excited to have you on.
LaNea Garrison 39:51
Thank you very much. I appreciate you, Walter.
Walter Bowser 39:54
Awesome.
Outro 39:58
Thanks for listening to The Same Day Podcast. Tune in to a new show each week and be sure to subscribe to get future episodes.