In this episode of The Same Day Podcast, Mat Zalk sits down with Jason Jaboor, Business Development Manager at Keyrenter Property Management St. Charles, to discuss real estate investment opportunities in St. Louis. Jason breaks down the best neighborhoods for cash flow and appreciation, explains the challenges of occupancy permits and city regulations, and shares insights on the rental market. He also gives advice on handling evictions and selling rental properties under Missouri’s lien waiver rules.
Investing in St. Louis Real Estate: Market Trends and Opportunities With Jason Jaboor
Jason Jaboor is a Business Development Manager at Keyrenter Property Management St. Charles, a company that provides comprehensive property management solutions for homeowners and real estate investors. He specializes in full-service leasing and management for single-family homes and condos, offering property owners a hassle-free experience. Additionally, Jason supports fellow realtors by offering unlimited rental analyses for investor clients to assist in their decision-making process.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- [3:10] Jason Jaboor explains why investors are drawn to the St. Louis real estate market
- [05:07] The best neighborhoods for investing in rental property in St. Louis and St. Charles
- [9:31] What are the challenges of owning investment properties?
- [17:24] Selling a rental property and navigating Missouri’s lien waiver requirements
- [21:10] Understanding the eviction process in St. Louis and what landlords should expect
In this episode…
St. Louis has emerged as a prime market for real estate investors. But what makes this region particularly attractive, and how do investors navigate the challenges of property management, appreciation trends, and municipal regulations in the area?
According to Jason Jaboor, a seasoned real estate expert, St. Louis offers some of the most affordable investment opportunities in the country, with areas like Florissant providing properties that meet the coveted 1% rule for rental income. He highlights that while certain markets offer higher cash flow, others, such as St. Charles, provide greater long-term appreciation potential. However, investors must also navigate complex occupancy inspections, municipal regulations, and evolving market conditions, which can significantly impact rental profitability.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Mat Zalk on LinkedIn
- Yonatan Schmidt on LinkedIn
- Keyrenter Property Management
- Keyrenter Property Management in Tulsa | Oklahoma City | Arkansas
- Keyrenter Property Management email address: [email protected]
- Jason Jaboor: LinkedIn | Email | Phone no.: (636) 204-8881
- Keyrenter Property Management St. Charles
Quotable Moments
- “St. Louis offers some of the most affordable real estate markets, making it a great place to invest.”
- “Florissant provides properties that meet the 1% rule, making it a strong option for rental income.”
- “Occupancy inspections can be unpredictable — what passes once may not pass the next time.”
- “St. Charles County is a long-term play with strong appreciation, but Florissant offers better cash flow.”
- “Missouri’s eviction process is landlord-friendly, but you still need a lawyer to handle it properly.”
Action Steps
- Research real estate markets before investing: Understanding cash flow versus appreciation potential helps investors choose the right property for their financial goals.
- Prepare for occupancy inspections in advance: Anticipating inspection requirements prevents delays, fines, and costly last-minute repairs before renting out a property.
- Keep detailed records of property expenses: Having lien waivers and paid receipts ready streamlines the sales process and avoids title company delays.
- Work with a knowledgeable property manager: Experts handle regulations, inspections, and tenant issues, reducing stress and maximizing rental income.
- Understand eviction laws before leasing a property: Knowing Missouri’s legal process ensures landlords can act swiftly and effectively if a tenant stops paying rent.
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: 00:05
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.
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. 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. Jason, you know better than most how hard it is to line up contractors to get make readies done, get occupancy permits and everything else before, during, after a tenant being in a property. Contractors are busy, the city is busy and that work seems to drag on forever. And all of that distraction, all of that delay leads to loss of rental income for investment property owners and Keyrenter. We line up our dedicated vendors, and we have a network at the city so that we can turn units fast and get people into those properties quicker than most. We can get money back into the pockets of our property owners. And that’s why no matter what rental you have single family homes, condos, townhomes, we’ve got the management solutions that you need. Go to keyrenterpmc.com and that will take you to Keyrenter St. Charles.com or email us at [email protected]. Today’s guest is none other than our own Jason Jaboor. Jason comes with a passion for real estate. He’s got nearly five years of experience working in the industry and a focus on working with investors, and he’s always keen to talk deals and how to make them work. Jason’s driven by a desire for growth and building strong relationships within the community. He’s an avid sports enthusiast and he’s got a particular love for baseball, soccer, and basketball. In his free time, he enjoys fishing, embracing the outdoors, and beer. Softball, which we’ll talk about today, and Jason’s commitment to excellence and his genuine enthusiasm for real estate make him an invaluable asset to our team at key renter St. Charles and for the broader community. You can reach him at [email protected]. Jason Jaboor, welcome to the show. How are you?
Jason Jaboor 02:24
I’m doing wonderful, man. How have you been?
Mat Zalk 02:27
I’m good. I’m doing great. I was doing a little bit of research in advance of this, and I was looking surprised that the numbers in St. Louis, the MSA are, are significant. I mean, there’s the 21st biggest market in the country, 2.8 million people. That’s that’s big. I mean, Tulsa’s only a million folks. Obviously ranks much lower in terms of the the cities, the great cities of America. But that led me kind of down the path of why would an investor be considering buying a rental property in the St. Louis metro area? St. Charles and some of the other townships of the MSA.
Jason Jaboor 03:10
I think there’s a lot of leading factors into that. A big one is just cost of real estate in general, where and I think the top ten most affordable real estate markets in all of America, which is a big thing that investors look for. So, you know, up in like our Florissant area, you can buy properties for around, you know, 150 to 250,000 that are it’s a great rental area. You’re getting you know, some areas you’re getting north of like $2,000 in rent for like three bed, two bath depending on condition. You know, market is probably around 1500 just average there. But you know you can get some good deals. A lot of fixer uppers there as well. So you can get a lot of instant equity up in that area.
Mat Zalk 04:00
Wow. So, I mean, even on if you did 1500 on $150,000 purchase, that’s the 1% rule that everybody is chasing. That seems to be so hard to find these days.
Jason Jaboor 04:09
Yeah, I mean, Florissant, we have a handful of investors that are up there. A lot of, you know, my industry friends here, that’s one of their favorite areas to invest in because of that exact reason. There’s a lot of leading factors to it. It’s right next to the airport here. So easy transit. There’s also room for short term market there as well due to the airport being right next door. And then it also goes down to everything else being there. There’s a lot of industrial sites close by. And, you know, it’s just a great area for investors to buy low, put a little bit of money into it and then be able to hold it long term. And already have some instant equity.
Mat Zalk 04:58
Love that. So are there other markets? Are there other markets that are like that in the St. Louis area, or is Florissant really the the best one?
Jason Jaboor 05:07
No, I mean, there’s a lot of areas, you know, that are like that. St. Charles, the whole St. Charles County area is amazing for appreciation. It’s a newer, more modernized version of like, St. Louis County. You know, the municipalities out there are ran very well. Because they got to learn from St. Louis County. So, you know, it has a lot of younger generation out there. Which is driving, you know, home prices up and rent prices as well. So, you know, just in the last, you know, year, we’ve seen about a $50 increase on rent in the St. Charles market and month over month from December to January. We’re up about $130. So we’re seeing you know, and the average rent price is 1930 right now in St. Charles. So you know it’s a pretty healthy market out there. We get things rented.
Mat Zalk 06:10
What would that property in Florissant for 1500. For 150,000 be in St. Charles County.
Jason Jaboor 06:19
St. Charles County, you’re probably looking at upper 200, low 300 for for that kind of property. Three bed, two bath.
Mat Zalk 06:26
So the yield might not be as good on a rental from a rental perspective, but the appreciation potential is greater.
Jason Jaboor 06:33
Yes, appreciation is better. It’s way more of a long term play. And you would be getting a lot of equity based on appreciation. That way you would not be cash flow and fluorescent. You’re looking more, you know, 5 or 6%. And St. Charles County, you know, when interest rates were lower, your cash flow kind of at that price point, but now it’s closer to like 3%.
Mat Zalk 07:01
Yeah.
Jason Jaboor 07:02
4%, if you’re lucky.
Mat Zalk 07:03
Yeah. What do you think drives the demand for rental housing in the St. Louis Metro?
Jason Jaboor 07:13
Honestly, I think the demand is the amount of people that moved to St. Louis. So businesses are moving to St. Louis because of the affordability of it. So we have a lot of people that transfer in that need rentals for a year or two. We also have a lot of new construction happening here in the St. Louis area. So we have a handful of renters that are waiting for their new build to be completed. You know, a lot of people through Covid had their building plans pushed out farther because of material costs. So that was, I think, a lot of the leading factors over the past couple of years for our rental market was a lot of new construction and a lot of companies moving into town needing to locate, you know, short term living well, long term living for their employees.
Mat Zalk 08:04
But so a lot of our clients are also accidental landlords, are they not? They they buy a house. They either have to move out of of the area or they decide they want to a bigger house. They’re expanding their family. They needed home, office, whatever it is, and they and they keep the house. They didn’t really expect to keep the house. Maybe they thought they tried to sell it, but they couldn’t get the price that they wanted. What is unique about accidental landlords as property investors?
Jason Jaboor 08:33
Yeah, I mean, it’s for sure a unique area because it’s people that have heard about real estate investing but don’t really have any time to invest in, like learning about real estate. Yeah. So they have an understanding about it, but they have no idea of how to actually go about doing it So that’s when they come in and hire the property management company. And it gives them that reassurance that we’ll put in good residents and collect the rent. Abide by all of the municipality rules, all of the national rules as well. And keep all of their checks and balances as well, in case they ever want to sell the property.
Mat Zalk 09:09
Let’s talk about that for just a moment. There are certainly challenges of of owning investment properties in St. Louis, St. Charles County, other municipalities that we don’t face in places like Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Northwest Arkansas. What are the most challenging aspects of owning an investment property in your area?
Jason Jaboor 09:31
Yeah. Occupancy inspections are probably one of the more challenging things when getting started in investing in real estate here. You have to apply with the municipality for a occupancy inspection. Most of them are good for 60 to 90 days once you pass it, but the county will come in or municipality will come in and inspect the property. Check. You know all your outlets, make sure that your windows are windows are functioning. Make sure that the property is, you know, safe for the residents to live in. Most of the time they’re going to ding you on some stuff, and then you’re going to have to go and fix the property up to their standard. They also, you know, hit you on fire alarms, carbon monoxide detectors. All of these different things. But the challenging part is communicating with the municipality. Some of them don’t take, you know, debit or credit payments. Some of them you have to go in person and pay cash. Others, you know, you have to be at the property whenever the inspector is there. So all of the municipalities are different in how they operate it. But the whole general idea of it’s the same in every municipality.
Mat Zalk 10:40
Is there a is there a learning curve that you, that you can take advantage of? If you’ve got 50 properties or you intend to have 50 properties, you do it the first time. It’s really hard and the second and third and fourth and fifth time it gets sequentially easier. Or is it always kind of a pain in the butt?
Jason Jaboor 10:58
It’s always kind of a pain in the butt due to employees changing in the county or in, you know, municipality. They have, you know, churn in their positions as well. So having working relationships don’t always stay that way. Sure. And municipalities change their ways constantly. So, you know, they’re trying to implement more technology. Sometimes the technology isn’t working in their favor. And then coordinating between the municipality and inspectors, it all kind of changes. I wouldn’t say all the time. But, you know, definitely maybe once a year things change per, you know, in municipalities. Yeah. Which is the challenging part. It isn’t it isn’t one, you know, you can create the process, but the process might change every year. Yeah. And you just have to stay on top of it. Some places occupancy you have to renew on a yearly basis even if the resident stays the same. So.
Mat Zalk 11:52
And they come and do an inspection again.
Jason Jaboor 11:54
Yeah, Yeah. So and then, you know, in University City you have to have what’s called a rental license. If you’re going to be managing a third party entity, you have to have a rental license with University City so that they are, you know, aware that you’re managing the property, not other. You know, Baldwin doesn’t require you to do that.
Mat Zalk 12:19
So some of. The significant differences between different cities.
Jason Jaboor 12:22
Exactly. Yeah. And if you’re an out-of-state investor or an accidental landlord, those are things that you’re not really going to pick up on unless you have a local expert in the market to, you know, verify those things.
Mat Zalk 12:33
So what what happens if you just put your property on Zillow? You’re in California. You own a rental property in in University City. You put it on the market, you find a tenant, you move them in. What’s what’s the what what is what recourse does the city have?
Jason Jaboor 12:48
The recourse the city will have is if you didn’t get an occupancy inspection, they’re going to realize that a resident’s living there. living there. That’s not the person that owns the property. So they would probably send out a letter notifying you that, hey, you need to have an occupancy inspection done within 30 days or you’ll have a fine. We just had a property get condemned in University City due to a fire sprinkler system bursting in it. And you know, the county had things that needed to be in place with the owners and stuff that they didn’t have in place when they owned the property before they even gave it to us. So, you know, sometimes it might go unnoticed in the municipality, but once they do notice it, they will make sure that you 100% get caught up to, you know, code for them.
Mat Zalk 13:39
Yeah. What has your experience personally been with getting occupancy permits?
Jason Jaboor 13:48
It’s a challenge. Challenging because one time you might pass the occupancy inspection, and then the next time you could get it done on the same exact property and it won’t pass due to something, right? We had one up in Newtown that happened about a year ago. We passed occupancy the first time and had a resident that lived in it for 12 months. They moved out and then we had it re inspected for occupancy and then they pulled permits on the basement. Well, when the owners got the work done, there was no permits pulled on it. So we had to tear out the whole entire basement.
Mat Zalk 14:22
Oh man.
Jason Jaboor 14:22
Because there was no permits and it was too expensive to make that correct. So, you know, occupancy inspections, even though they go smoothly the first time, does not mean that they’re going to go smoothly the second time because, you know, the inspector could change or anything else. So realistically, like the frustrating part of occupancy inspections is not knowing the standards that they’re going to hold you to. It’s probably the most frustrating part.
Mat Zalk 14:46
It sounds a little bit like the housing authorities that we deal with in various municipalities for, for section eight vouchers, where one housing inspector could be very focused on the electrical. And then the next inspector doesn’t care about electrical. He only cares about gas, heating and heating the house. Making sure that there’s proper ventilation for the hot water tank. Making sure that there’s a ventilation system of some sort for the stove. Whatever it is, burners are all functioning. Doesn’t care at all about electrical. Then the next person only cares about windows opening and closing. The next person only cares about lead based paint, so you never know what you’re going to get. You’re optimizing, trying to make sure that all of it passes. But you know, one outlet that’s not grounded will fail your whole inspection. You’re like, well, jeez, that’s painful. So yeah, I understand that. I understand how that frustration works.
Jason Jaboor 15:34
Yeah. You know, yesterday we got dinged on a property for improper ventilation on a washer drain, and they didn’t even get up into the, you know, so things are just random that they pull you on, you know? So that’s just the just the frustrating part of them.
Mat Zalk 15:54
Yeah. What about what about the world of hose in St. Louis? Why is that difficult?
Jason Jaboor 16:00
Yeah. HOAs are just difficult because they’re all they all have their own mandates. Some of them you have to get you know, we have a duplex that we manage and, you know, a subdivision and any exterior renovations or exterior plans that you have on the property, you have to get approved by the HOA first. You know, so if you don’t read your HOA indentures, things can happen. Other HOAs they have clauses that they want to be added into leases. So that you they know like yeah. So that they know like the people that are living there. Some HOAs require you to give them the lease so that they have their information on file. You know, they’re all kind of different in their own ways. Whenever it comes down to the HOA.
Mat Zalk 16:52
That’s super difficult to Difficult to manage. And if you’re a rental property owner somewhere else and you don’t even know that that’s you didn’t read all the covenants and restrictions associated with the HOA, then all of a sudden you fall afoul of it. You’re again in California and you’re, you know, needing to deal with this in the middle of your day. How annoying is that?
Jason Jaboor 17:08
Yeah. And that’s why we always ask our owners to give us the HOA indenture so that we can read through them and make sure that we, you know, are following all the rules and managing their property effectively.
Mat Zalk 17:19
Yeah. What about selling a rental property? Selling an investment property?
Jason Jaboor 17:24
Yeah. Selling rentals can be a challenge in Missouri due to them wanting lien waivers and paid receipts for any work done 12 months prior to selling the property. There is one workaround on it. 45 day like attempt to sell, so you can post a notice on the front of the property 45 days before you go to sell it. And that kind of gives all the contractors 45 days to file liens. And if they don’t, it’s, you know, too bad. So sad on their part. But if you’re not aware of that, whenever you open with title, they’ll start asking you for all of your paid receipts and lean waivers from all your contractors that you had in the past 12 months.
Mat Zalk 18:10
So let me just understand, if you if you if it’s June 15th and I want to put the house on the market today on the MLS, must I have done it on May the 1st posted that or do I do it 45 days prior to the property going under contract? Of course, we don’t know when that’s going to be, but what is 45 days? When does the clock start on that?
Jason Jaboor 18:34
Ideally, you post it before you ever post on the MLS, because you want that 45 days to be before you hit the closing table. Got it.
Mat Zalk 18:44
So that’s what it is. It’s 45 days. Just has to be prior to hitting the closing table. They’re going to run the final title work and just make sure that no liens have been put on it. Yep. Got it. So it could be 15 days or 30 days before you actually market the property.
Jason Jaboor 18:58
Yeah.
Mat Zalk 18:58
Yeah. I mean, really fast. And it takes 30 days to close or whatever.
Jason Jaboor 19:02
Yep. So you just need a 45 day window pretty much to have that posted.
Mat Zalk 19:11
What does it take to get the paid receipts? Evidence of paid receipts and a lean waiver from every vendor that’s done work. Especially if you’ve just. If you flipped a property, you know, when you completed the work. I don’t know, 11.5 months ago. The final touch up and you just put a tenant in, and now you’re, you know, 12 months later, whatever you want to sell it.
Jason Jaboor 19:35
Yeah. It’s honestly, you know, a lot of it has to do with how organized your vendor is as well. If some vendors don’t provide paid receipts whenever you, you know, pay the invoice. So sometimes you’re relying on that vendor to provide you that paid receipt. And if it’s 11 months ago. How organized is that vendor to give you that paid receipt? And, you know, so we have some vendors that we’ve had an email chain going for a couple of weeks now, trying to get some paid receipts from about eight months ago. And, you know, I’ve spent probably a couple hours back and forth with them trying to find this paid receipt just to.
Mat Zalk 20:17
Not just put it. Can they not just put a take an invoice booklet and write, you know, key renter this property thousand dollars paid and take a picture of it.
Jason Jaboor 20:28
I mean, yeah that’s realistically all they need to do. But the invoice needs to match like the numbers need to match up and stuff. So if wow if it doesn’t I mean title companies can be a little picky if it like the invoices don’t match up because that’s what the deal is on this one. It said paid on it, but the invoice number wasn’t the same. So now we have to go and get one with the same invoice number.
Mat Zalk 20:54
How annoying is that? Let’s talk about the final. The final really annoying part about owning a rental property. Sometimes you put in a tenant that you thought was going to be good. They stopped paying. You’ve got to evict them. What does eviction look like in St. Louis?
Jason Jaboor 21:10
Yeah, St. Louis, we have a pretty easy eviction process. Missouri is a pretty landlord friendly state, but it does require you to go through a lawyer. And from our experience, it’s about a two month process from start to finish. You know, you’ll get your court date once you have the court date, you’ll go in as long as it’s non contested, meaning that you know they’re in violation of something, then you’ll pretty much just get your eviction date at that court date once you provide your evidence. And then they’ll say, okay, you know, today’s February 12th. We’ll be there on March 15th to evict them. Then we have to go and post that notice saying, you know, hey, March 15th is your time. Missouri does allow them up until that date to come up to speed. So like if they’re, you know, late on rent, they can pay the rent, then it’s up to us if, you know, we want to allow that to be satisfactory or not. So that’s pretty much the the gist of it is you got to get a lawyer and go, what does it cost?
Mat Zalk 22:18
What does it cost generally to evict the tenant?
Jason Jaboor 22:21
About 5 to $600 in the St. Louis area with our lawyer that we work with.
Mat Zalk 22:26
Got it. Jason, you’re a wealth of knowledge on everything. Real estate in the St. Louis area. Where do people reach you if they want to find out about buying or selling a property, or. Signing a property management agreement for professional property management services.
Jason Jaboor 22:45
Yeah. I mean, they can reach me on pretty much every social media platform at Jason Jaboor. Draw. My phone is (636) 204-8881. And then my email is on our website. But it’s [email protected].
Mat Zalk 23:01
Love it. How long have you been in? Been in real estate now?
Jason Jaboor 23:04
I’ve been in real estate for about four and a half years overall, and I’ve been in the property management world for a little over a year now. But four years ago I started with investing, and then I did a little bit of residential work and got back into the investment side of things.
Mat Zalk 23:24
What are you what are you doing when you’re not slaying in real estate deals?
Jason Jaboor 23:29
When I’m not slinging real estate deals, I don’t know, playing beer league softball, going fishing and relaxing.
Mat Zalk 23:40
Tell me a little bit about beer league softball. You’re playing softball and drinking beer.
Jason Jaboor 23:45
100%.
Mat Zalk 23:47
And what’s the order?
Jason Jaboor 23:50
The order is you get there about 30 minutes prior. You get a pitcher of beer for about ten bucks. You enjoy it and then you go out. You play a game, you drink some more beer while you’re playing the game, and then you have a little bit like a five minute break, and then you play another game, and then at the end of it, you know, you’re you got to hang out with, you know, 15 of your buddies and hopefully you won. And if you didn’t, oh, well, you get to go and play next Thursday.
Mat Zalk 24:18
Yeah I love it. Yeah. Sounds great. If I didn’t have four kids, I’d play beer league softball.
Jason Jaboor 24:26
Yeah, I mean, I where I do one with real estate friends and then one with a lot of buddies from high school still.
Mat Zalk 24:31
So that’s awesome. I love it. Jason, thanks for being on the show. Appreciate you.
Jason Jaboor 24:36
Thanks for having me. Take care.
Outro 24:41
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.