ResMan’s Affordable Compliance experts, Rue Fox and Janel Ganim, are back with a delicious cocktail to honor New Year’s and Valentine’s Day along with PropTalk’s latest episode of Cocktails & Compliance! Pop the champagne with Rue and Janel and hear all of the Winter updates on the Affordable housing industry. Hear everything from updates about TRACS 203-A and the CARH conference as well as the status of electronic signature adoption and upcoming events right here on PropTalk!

Follow along here:

Rue Fox: [00:00:00] Hi, I’m Rue

Janel Ganim: Hi, I’m Janel. Welcome to Episode 4 of Cocktails & Compliance. We are so excited to be here as you can probably see from our setup here. So since we’ve last talked or recorded an episode, we’ve been through some holidays. And so at this point, we’re going to say cheers to the new year.

Oh, oh, such a good noise

Rue Fox: Happiest sound on earth.

Janel Ganim: So cheers to the New Year!

Rue Fox: Cheers to the New Year!

Janel Ganim: And also because it’s almost Valentine’s day Rue spent some time this morning, making chocolate covered strawberries for us. So we kind of have a pink theme going on here. We’ve got bubbles and chocolate covered strawberries because you know, it’s delicious.

Rue Fox: Oh, all right, so let’s get this started here.

Janel Ganim: Absolutely. Cheers, Rue.

Rue Fox: Cheers. Janel!

Janel Ganim: You hear the clink? It was like a little baby clink.

Rue Fox: It can’t “clink” very hard.

Janel Ganim: It can’t clink very hard. Yeah, do it again. Cheers again.

Rue Fox: Cheers.

Janel Ganim: Oh, that’s my favorite.

Rue Fox: Oh, so good. My favorite, too. Okay. All right. So for today’s cocktail, we are having…

Janel Ganim: Some bubbles. So we have lots to cover today. We’re ready to just jump in and get started. But I am going to say you are going to want to hang out with us the entire time, because we have a very big announcement.

Rue Fox: Ooh. It’s so much fun.

TRACS 203-A

Janel Ganim: Good stuff. So excited. So we’re going to dive right in. And what do we always talk about first?

Rue Fox: Ooh, TRACS 203-A. We might as well have a drink cause we know it’s not coming any time soon.

Janel Ganim: Cheers to that. So the update is there’s no update as is our typical update on TRACS 203-A. So I think in the [00:02:00] last episode that we were starting to see some movement, we were starting to hear a little buzz. The HUD staff had said at NAHMA, ” Hey,, we’re ready!” We’re like, “Whoa, you forgot to tell everybody else.” so we were thinking there was going to be a working group call in January and we were going to start moving forward. We waited, waited. Didn’t happen.

Rue Fox: Now it’s February. We still don’t have one on the calendar.

Janel Ganim: We still do not have one on the calendar. So what I have. From my industry, colleagues is we are at the point where all of the form changes have to go to OMB (the office of management and budget)

Rue Fox: How many times is that? Like the 9,000th time or something?

Janel Ganim: Something like that. I don’t know. So the forms have to be approved and they go out, there is a comment period. There is a review period. That’s a good three months right there. Minimum, and then we’ll look at finalizing a spec and moving forward. So if I were going to make predictions, I would say 2030 possibly. Right? (laughter) I caught you off guard. I had to think about it. I was like maybe, maybe if I had to make predictions. It won’t come out to be implemented to the industry this year. Now, maybe at the tail end of the year, if some of all the magic puzzle pieces fall into place, could the software vendors get started on something? Yeah, maybe, but at this point: Will it implement this year? Not a snowball’s chance. My prediction.

Rue Fox: I got a thought on that, too. If anybody that’s listening out there, if you hit our LinkedIn page: If you are currently working on RAD (rental assistance demonstration) conversions, why don’t you just ping us and let us know. We’re just curious to see how many RAD conversions are really going on out there. I’m not hearing about many but just curious to see what what’s really happening out there. Cause it’s been a minute since we’ve all been face-to-face and been able to network.

Janel Ganim: It has been, and I’m glad you brought that up Rue because [00:04:00] really that’s really where I have a heart for all of those people that are doing RAD conversions, because so much of this 203-A update is to make some tweaks to the technical side of how all of that information gets transmitted to tracks and how things happen in your software. And so I, I know that they’re dealing with work arounds and they’re, they’re managing those contracts.

Rue Fox: The first-year boundaries are tough.

Janel Ganim: Yeah.

Rue Fox: But I haven’t encountered a whole lot of that in conversation. And so I’m just kind of curious to see what’s really happening out there in the space, you know, just to learn a little bit about what’s really happening rather than what we think is happening. So hit us up on LinkedIn if if you are doing that.

CARH Mid-Year Meeting, Legislation Updates, and Election Season

Janel Ganim: Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Moving on. So speaking of being able to get back out and, and go and see people, Rue and I just came back from a conference. We went to the CARH mid-year conference, right. They call us this one their mid-year.

Rue Fox: This is their mid-year, yes.

Janel Ganim: Yeah. So CARH is the council for affordable rural housing, they meet twice a year. January is always, I’m not going to lie, a fabulous location. And June is always in DC every year. So this year… did not disappoint. Oh my. So first of all, San Diego, one of our favorite cities to beautiful, but, Rue and I talked about this. We’ve been to so many conferences and for some reason we have danced all around this location, but props to the CARH staff, it was at the hotel Del Coronado, gorgeous venue. Wonderful!

Rue Fox: Very old, hollywood elegance glamour. Fabulous. So if you’ve never been, you should go,

Janel Ganim: You should, even if it’s vacation, if you get to land a work trip there the main conference area where we had a lot of our general sessions and where our [00:06:00] trade show which is basically just tables are around the room. As Rue said earlier, go check out our LinkedIn pages. We posted pictures. Best trade show view ever. It’s around ballroom windows all the way around ocean views. So I’m not gonna lie. It didn’t suck at all.

Rue Fox: No, it did not.

Janel Ganim: It was, it was fantastic. So but beyond that wonderful view,

Rue Fox: What did we really talk about? (laughter)

Janel Ganim: So some of us paid attention, some of us just looked at the water.

Rue Fox: Some of us stayed at the booth.

Janel Ganim: We like to divide and conquer. I get to go take notes so I can come back and share some things with you and Rue is at the booth. And does a wonderful job of that in talking to people because they tend to come by at all times throughout the day to chat. So having said that there was some really great content, and I think one of the sessions that really stuck out the most was the news from Washington. So what’s going on in the political environment that impacts housing and impacts the CARH members. So there was a lot of talk about what’s going on. One of the speakers made a comment, you know, that the House and the Senate are split, just like we see a lot throughout the rest of the country. And they were talking about the continuing resolution that was extended in December. It is up in February on the 18th. It may get extended again. But no, one’s really sure how it’s going to go because there’s… I don’t know, I want to say there’s a lot happening, but not a lot getting done is really my, my takeaway that there’s a lot of talk, but really the general consensus is that extending this continuing resolution is better than a government shutdown.

Which means, you know, we’ll at least continue to get funded at our, at our current rates. But one of the things that was brought up is this could cause issues for Section 8 contract renewal. HUD is actually moving to PDF and moving to mobile notaries to get signatures on [00:08:00] these, but they’re not all back in office yet. And actually one of the things that’s interesting too, with trying to get things done with the House and the Senate is they’re not always in their offices either, so there’s still a lot of work from home. So it was interesting to hear that the government is going through the same things that we hear. Our industry staff is going through the, how do I manage this from a remote location?

Rue Fox: I don’t know. Electronic signatures.

Janel Ganim: I dunno. How about that? So, Right. So it’s interesting to hear that head is moving to that for contract renewals, but if you have a renewal coming up make sure you’re in contact with your PBCA and make sure you’re staying on top of that. And encourage them, you know, they did allow electronic signatures for a lot of things, and it sounds like contract renewals is seeing more adoption because people are still working remotely.

So the other thing that was a big topic of conversation was the Build Back Better program.. So this spending bill was originally 3 trillion with a T– trillion. Right. And if you’ve been playing along at home and following along with the news, the House passed it, but at a 2.2 trillion with the amount, but what the Speaker was saying is that the Senate can’t get together 60 votes to get it through. So what does it mean for housing? It was really the question on everybody’s mind at this conference and you know, how do owners and agents get support for funding?

So, one thing of note is that several retirements have been announced in both the house which means it’s time to educate new members. So people that have been champions of housing are now moving on. And so it’s making sure to have those conversations with your representatives in DC and, and really what I hear works best is those grassroot efforts. You’re talking to your representative, you’re Senator explaining to them what’s going on in their district or their area of representation, how this impacts their constituents. That’s really a good way to get their attention for sure.

Rue Fox: Maybe they should just tell them to stop fighting amongst themselves and pay attention to the things that are really important. Like [00:10:00] housing. (laughter)

Janel Ganim: Could be, they did say that the Democrats are pushing forward funding provisions for housing. And so continue to thank the people that are moving housing forward, but really to keep talking to both parties about housing, like I said, they stress quite a bit. We need new champions on the Hill for housing and that really works best with owners and operators going to their representatives and talking about the impact.

Rue Fox: And I know that that sounds like that’s climbing a big mountain to be able to do that. But what I have learned is, is they do make themselves accessible and most, especially when they’re back in their home offices, rather than being in DC, make an effort to reach out to them and have conversations and convey your concerns and the things that it really does mean when these things don’t take place.

Janel Ganim: Yeah and Rue, that’s an excellent point. And I think we’ve heard that at one other conferences as well, you know, with people working remotely and people being back in their districts quite a bit, and you know, we talk about this with, with CARH and with NAHMA there is that time to go up on the Hill and go meet with your Congress people and senators. If you’re not going to those conferences in person you’re not in DC, then try to catch them when they’re in their local offices back in their district. For sure.

Emergency Rental Assistance Plan (ERAP)

Janel Ganim: There was also some continuing conversation on emergency rental assistance plan (ERAP). So we talked about this in a previous episode that there was a lot of talk about this program and distributing those funds out to states and some states were better able to move forward with these programs and get the funds distributed to the right people. Other jurisdictions weren’t as equipped to take on a new program and work through all of the pieces to execute this. And so there is still a conversation about recapturing those funds from those districts that have not spent this money and [00:12:00] redistributing those two districts that have been a little bit more effective.

Rue Fox: I mean, that’s kind of a hard argument not to have, right. If they’re going to use the money for what it’s out there for, and by all means, let them have some money.

Janel Ganim: Yeah. And it’s not entirely fair for people in those areas where it wasn’t efficient.

Rue Fox: No.

Janel Ganim: But the money needs to be spent.

Rue Fox: It does. It’s sitting there doing nothing right now when it could be helping people who absolutely qualify for it and need it.

Janel Ganim: Agreed. So they wrapped up this session with kind of a, if you had a crystal ball, what’s your prediction of what’s going to happen this year from a legislative perspective. And so one big question, and we’ve talked about this as we wait for a final rule on the average income test with the IRS, you know, it had been suggested, well, they need to hurry up because there’s a new tax bill coming. So that was one of the questions from the audience is will there be a new tax bill this year?

And their response is “Work is being done towards it.” But do you know what season we’re in now, election season? So that tends to impact how much work gets done because the focus tends to be on getting reelected. So all that to say the prediction was we won’t get a tax bill this year. On the bright side, maybe that means the IRS can stay focused on finishing the final rule for average income tests, because they won’t be distracted with this new tax bill. So silver lining,

And then there was also a, “Hey, what do you think is going to happen with the build back better program?” And what they predicted is it will move forward in pieces. So that ginormous spending amount that’s in it will likely get chunked up and just pass it in little bits, so that changed. I’ll be very curious to see if those predictions come true.

Rue Fox: Yeah, I will too. It’s going to be a very interesting year on that.

Janel Ganim: Yeah. So the other thing that was really important at the CARH meeting was going to the management committee and listening [00:14:00] to the owner agents and what’s going on. What other challenges do they have on staff? Because we know, especially for us, that’s where most of our customers fall. They’re developers, but they’re manager c ompanies as well, so

Rue Fox: Here, cheers to them, because boy oh boy, man, has it been hard for them. These last couple of years have been rough. We celebrate you guys for sure.

Eviction Moratorium

Janel Ganim: So there wasn’t as much talk about evictions, which was interesting. Cause we’ve talked about eviction moratorium for quite some time, but there was talk about tenant rent payments, and they’re still seeing instances where tenants think that it’s been rent forgiveness, not just a delaying of paying those rent payments. And so they’re either seeing tenants that haven’t paid rent or have short paid their rent for the last one to one and a half years. So they are bracing for higher legal fees for evictions. When that day comes and we’ve talked about this in the past too, with that also comes higher maintenance fees to turn those units. And then you’ve got the leasing costs.

Rue Fox: And in reality it’s almost like the people that haven’t paid their rent at this point or made any effort to reach out to the office staff and work through it. Those units could be in really bad shape at this point.

Janel Ganim: It could be. So again, I’m thinking about higher maintenance costs.

Because we’re at the beginning of the year, one of the things that we heard quite a bit about, and I’ve actually seen some follow-up from the CARH staff post-conference is the approval of the 2022 budgets. And one member spoke up and said he had 65 properties and 37 of those budgets have not been approved yet.

Rue Fox: When are they due to be approved?

Janel Ganim: I believe it was at the beginning of this year.

Rue Fox: A little behind.

Janel Ganim: And so, you know, what does that mean in reality? Because you know, okay, a budget is approved, whatever, but that’s tied to rent increases. So they’re saying at the rate they’re going, you know, rent increases that they would have liked to have put into place in January may not happen now until April at the earliest. So again, you’ve [00:16:00] got these properties that, that need to collect those rent payments.

Rue Fox: Desperately need cash flow.

Janel Ganim: Absolutely. They need it for their mortgages. They need it for salaries. They need it for maintenance costs and things like that. So I know they desperately want to see those rent increases come through, but I hate to see that delay for them.

Supply Chain Issues & Staffing Shortages

Janel Ganim: So there was the ongoing conversation about supply chain issues and how that impacts developments, new developments, new construction. But also just maintaining, like you said, you know, how are. How are these units now? Right. And if you’ve got to go back and if you’re rehabbing units or you’ve got to replace appliances or things like that.

So still some delays there.

Rue Fox: I mean, how do you get them otherwise? It’s pretty tough. Pretty unfortunate.

Janel Ganim: It is for sure. The other thing that we heard too, was just the ongoing discussion about staffing shortages.

Rue Fox: What are they doing though? Because you know, this has been an ongoing conversation. And how is our industry getting out there and encouraging younger people to step in?

Janel Ganim: I think it’s tough now, in some cases, property management in particular, we do see some of this being generational, right? So you’re bringing in family members, you’re thinking about succession planning so that’s certainly a wonderful way to do this. I know that there are some universities that have property management programs. I know there’s one in Virginia. I can’t think of it off the top of my head. I want to say it’s in Richmond maybe I can’t remember, but I know that universities are doing property management programs. So certainly trying to recruit from there, but you know, one of the things that they said and I don’t know that you and I have run across this before, but they said part of the labor shortage is older workers who were just saying, you know what, I’m just going to retire and I’m not going to come back into the workforce. And that was actually where a lot of their maintenance staff was coming from. So, you know that’s unfortunate to see that because that’s a lot of experience walking out the door. And then they said their issue with younger workers then [00:18:00] is if they’re paying 14, $15 an hour, they don’t want to work at that rate. They are expecting a higher rate. So, and you know, it’s not just this industry we see this challenge across the board. I mean, how many times have you driven down the street and you know, there’s a sign on the fast food place with a $500 signing bonus offer. I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that. Job fairs, I think are great as well, but it’s networking and it’s, I see lots of posts all the time on LinkedIn, too. Right. You know, who do you know? Who’s excited. And it has a passion for this, you know, there, there’s lots of people hiring. So I think anytime people can refer people, you know, to openings through their network. I know that we’ll repost a lot of times when we see people that are looking for employees,

Rue Fox: You know, I think colleges should offer an educational course in affordable housing, as well. I don’t run a college, but if any of you guys out there run a college. There’s an idea.

Janel Ganim: Maybe there’s our next level thing where we go start an affordable housing college. No big deal. True. It’s easy.

Rue Fox: But we do know people who are really smart that could help.

Janel Ganim: We do. Yeah. You know, the other thing that was brought up and it was, I hate to kind of leave this one on a down note, but, you know, they said with shortage in staffing, the increased wages… you know, someone made a comment that there’s properties that have been financially stable for years, and they said this could be a huge turning point for those properties. And really kind of just a breaking point that they’re really concerned about budget impacts and, you know, getting those rent increases and looking at those increases in expenses and it, and it’s really sad to see that.

Rue Fox: I don’t know how they can pay higher workers’ wages when they can’t even collect their rent.

Janel Ganim: Yeah. So it’s going to be tough. So again, our hearts really go out to you. We, we know that it’s a challenge. And we’ve been hearing this for the last, I don’t know, several months when, as we’ve attended conferences and listening to member calls and things like that. And it’s tough and anything we could do [00:20:00] to help, you know, if we can refer candidates over to you from our network or repost your job openings, we’re happy to do that, but it’s, it’s tough right now for sure.

Rue Fox: It is tough right now. I’d love to have a conversation with anybody out there that would be willing to talk about how you think that you could reduce your expenses and be more efficient with what you’ve got.

Electronic Signatures, Documents and Storage

Janel Ganim: Yeah, for sure. So thinking of reducing expenses. You know, moving into our next topic. I really wanted to spend some time talking again about electronic signatures, electronic documents, electronic storage of those documents. This industry spends a lot of money on paper.

Rue Fox: Yeah they do.

Janel Ganim: A lot of money on paper, a lot of money on storage of files, things like that. So, you know, we’ve talked I think in every episode about electronic signatures and about what a wonderful thing this is that this industry can take advantage of. But we continue to see really low adoption of this, which is somewhat surprising to me. But you know in conversations in the industry and talking with some of our colleagues, there tends to be a lot of analysis paralysis with the “Where do I start?”

Rue Fox: Well, and part of that is too, some of it is expensive. Some of it (other software) is not really cost-effective. I happen to know a really cost-effective solution.

Janel Ganim: There’s the shameless plug. Cheers.

Rue Fox: (laughter) If anybody has any interest in learning anything about it, please reach out to me. Yeah. Sorry. I’m very opportunistic.

Janel Ganim: And that’s okay. We love you for it. So I think the thing to remember and my advice to any of you that haven’t gotten started on. It’s not all or nothing. Really one of the key things to start with is just get your applicant or your resident’s permission, right? You have to get their permission to allow electronic documents. So there’s a couple of ways you can do this. You can add a question to your application. “Hey, are you okay receiving electronic documents?” You can add it to an annual [00:22:00] recertification checklist for your residents: “Are you okay getting electronic documents?”

I’ve also seen people do a one-time form during that interview, whether it’s moving or it’s annual recertification, you sit down with them and give them a form. I know that there are people in the industry that have created forms and sell form packages. You might want to talk with your attorneys on making sure you’ve checked all the boxes, that you you’ve covered everything, but give them a form. Get that permission. That’s really your first step. Right?

Rue Fox: I don’t disagree with that, but I’ll take it to a different place too, because I’m not sure that the whole industry really understands what is truly an electronic document or electronic signature. Though it is education as well.

Janel Ganim: It is education. I know that the AHMAs do a good job of talking about this at their conferences. I know Rue and I have attended SAHMA I’ve spoken at it there. I’m speaking at it at a conference again in a couple of months. SAHMA Kentucky.

Rue Fox: That was one of our big announcements at the end.

Janel Ganim: It’s one of the big announcements but it’s not the big one. So still stay tuned. There’s more coming. But your regional associations, whether it’s CARH whether it’s your AHMAs whether it’s NAHMA and look at trainers in the space. They are doing sessions on electronic signature and offering suggestions on how to get started too. So. Take advantage of that. You know, we’ve talked about this before, read the notice following up with your software vendor. If you’re not really sure what they handle I can tell you the major software vendors all do this and are compliant. So if you have concerns about whether or not it’s legally acceptable, we’ve, we’ve checked those technical boxes for you.

Rue Fox: We’ve all worked with HUD to be sure that we are okay.

Janel Ganim: We have all done that and we’ve talked about this before: we’ve been doing it for a long time on the conventional side, military student, you know, they all use it as well. But again, think back, think about starting small first and foremost. Get that permission from your resident or applicants to accept electronic documents.

And here’s the [00:24:00] thing you don’t have to make all of your electronic documents available. Start with a required form. Start with your VAWA documents, your 9987 packages for consent, your resident’s rights and responsibilities, your house rent determined on the AR side, start with your 120 year and 90 day notices. And it can be as simple as sending them links to your forms, putting the forms on your applicant and resident portals, your websites, if you have that for your properties, which by the way, I highly recommend that you have, if you don’t. It’s a great way to get traffic. As people look for housing in their area, it’s a great way to get some leads. And I know a lot of you, and especially in the bigger markets have really long wait list and getting leads isn’t really your issue. But if you think about even rural properties, you know, in trying to attract people and, you know, making people aware that there is housing available in that area.

Rue Fox: Well, thinking back to what you were talking about about the consent, if you’re using an online application, there is a place in your online application process that your applicant gives that consent. So most likely if you’re using an online application, you’ve already gotten their consent. So you might follow up on that. And then the other thing is be sure you’re collecting all the emails because today, I would wager that almost every household has an email. They’ve all got smartphones. They’ve got some kind of Gmail and Outlook, something.

Janel Ganim: Yeah. That’s a great point, Rue, because we see that sometimes where people aren’t gathering that email address. Get it from your prospects, get it on your guest cards,

Rue Fox: Make it required!

Janel Ganim: Yeah, absolutely. Make it a required field. You know, again, your website, if you’re bringing in traffic that way and you’re having them fill out a form make it a required field. Make sure you’re asking your residents during your annual recertification process. You haven’t collected it? Add that to your checklist. “Do we have a current [00:26:00] email address for you?” Because in addition to putting links on your website and saying, I’m not going to print out the paper form, but here’s the link right here on my website that you can go and download these. There are other forms that while you have to give them out in paper, how many people are going to pay attention to a piece of paper that you’ve posted on a bulletin board, or you’ve shoved it under their door or whatever the case may be? Even if you’re required to have a paper document, you can always follow up with an email. So you know, things like changes to the lease changes to utility allowances that 60 day notice for annual recertifications, follow it up with an email. If you think about how many times you’re printing out all of those paper documents for your applicants, for your current residents, think about those paper costs. So back to budgets and how am I going to keep my property solid from a financial perspective? It adds up, guys. I mean, it’s a simple way to cut costs, but it adds up so well.

Rue Fox: And here’s the other thing. It’s not only the paper cost, but it’s efficiencies because if all of your forms are in electronic format, guess what? You don’t have to download them and print them and send them somewhere to the corporate office for review or whatever it is. Right? You’ve always got access to those electronic. And that’s efficiency because how many hours is somebody has been doing that? If you’re a large company, a lot of hours are spent there. If you’re managing a large property, a lot of hours are spent on that. So, yeah, there’s so many efficiencies that this functionality can bring you.

And I’ll be happy to show you how ResMan works. Just let me know.

Janel Ganim: Lord. All right. Take a sip for your shameless plug.

So the other thing with electronic signatures that we still hear is, “Well, I have a senior property. My seniors, aren’t going to do this.” But you know what guys? Stop and think about it. And I don’t want to give anything away about my age or Rue’s but senior properties are 62 and older. How many people do you [00:28:00] know that are 62?

Rue Fox: Well what about your mom and dad? Do you send them stuff on email? Seriously, they have adopted this technology, whether you even know it or whether you think about it, they have adopted this technology.

Janel Ganim: My parents are in their seventies. They have iPhones, they have Macs. They text us all the time. You know, and now they’re tech savvy. They’re probably more tech savvy than you think. So, think about that. Now, if you think about older residents, someone in their eighties or they’re 90 or whatever, are they filling out those forms? Probably not. It’s probably their kids who guess what? Are tech savvy.

Rue Fox: Or you have a tablet in the office or a computer in the office where they can come into the office and fill out those electronic forms…

Janel Ganim: Absolutely. Set up a kiosk. But you know, if you think about those residents that maybe their children don’t live in the area, they’re remote… they want electronic forms and they do want that electronic paperless process. And you know what, here’s another bonus too, for your site staff. That’s way more legible than people writing some of these forms. I can tell you from some time that I’ve done compliance file reviews, and you’re trying to think about income calculations and things like that, I can’t read the form sometimes.

Rue Fox: Right.

Janel Ganim: So I’d take an electronic form any day.

Rue Fox: I can’t read the forms I fill out sometimes. (laughter)

Janel Ganim: I can’t help you with that. Alright. So again, our biggest takeaways here today are talk to your representatives. Be an advocate for housing. Ask them to continue to be a champion or educate them on the need for housing. Work with your contract administrators, Section 8 guys on your contract renewals.

Rue Fox: Well, and I really can’t stress this enough and I know I talk about it all the time when we’re on this. There are so many things that your NAHMAs and your AHMAs and your CARHs do on behalf of owners and agents. And they that grassroots level [00:30:00] of effort and they start things and they’ll even send you letters that all you have to do is download it, put your name to it, and send it out. So there are so many things to do. If, if you’re lost about where to go. Consider even doing something like that. It is very valuable and beneficial for owners and agents to be a part of that.

Janel Ganim: Yeah, absolutely. And again, if you haven’t gotten on the electronic signatures, electronic documents, electronic storage bandwagon, I’m going to strongly encourage you. It is a way to save some money. Stop buying so much paper. Stop storing files. Start somewhere. You don’t necessarily have to go back and scan all your documents and file them. Some people are doing that right? And some people will hire interns or whatever the case may be, and they just kind of chip away at it. But start now, start with your AR, start with your move-ins, whatever the case may be. Start with the permission from your applicants and residents. Start with the links on your website. If you’re unsure, reach out to us on LinkedIn! We’re happy to talk through that process too.

Upcoming Events and Big Announcement!

Janel Ganim: Or you can see us on the road. Rue and I are going on the road again. We’re so excited that things have opened up and there are more conferences that we are going to, so

Rue Fox: Where are we going to be, Janel?

Janel Ganim: Well, it’s funny you asked.

Rue Fox: I get to be at the next one.

Janel Ganim: So, in March is the NAHMA meeting in DC. As Rue said, she will be there. I’ll be there in spirit. Let’s be honest. It’s spring break for my kid. I’m going to be in Cabo, but anyway, I’ll be there in spirit and we’ll still give you updates afterwards. Rue’s gets to take notes this time. Yay, Rue!

Rue Fox: Oh boy. That’s a lot on me cause I am not the greatest note taker, no pressure.

Janel Ganim: And I have every confidence in you. In April, we’re going to be on the road a couple of times in April to o. Rue said, I let the cat out of the bag. We are going to the SAHMA Kentucky conference early in April. I’m going to be moderating a panel on my favorite topic, electronic signatures. Yay! I’m excited about that, but then we’re also going to be headed up to the Pacific [00:32:00] Northwest.

We are going to the AHMA Washington conference, as well. It’s in Spokane, Washington. And we’re excited. We’ve got some customers that are in the Pacific Northwest. We’re excited to go and see them.

And then in May, where’d you go, we’re just going to keep the suitcase packed. Well, before she gets too excited in May, we will be at AHMA PSW which is in Southern California.

So I’m excited about that one that was in LA and Rue isbouncing in her seat right now, clapping.. And I don’t know if you’re going to hear her clapping, but we did say that we had a big announcement for you at the beginning. And…

Rue Fox: I wish I had a drum roll.

 (Rue and Janel drum roll on table)

Janel Ganim: ResMania. We are ridiculously excited. So it is our ResMan user conference.

Rue Fox: Get ready to rumble! (laughter)

Janel Ganim: We have been talking about this. We had it scheduled in 2020. We all know what happened there. We thought about it again for a hot minute last year and well, you know, variants. And so now we’re like third time’s a charm. It’s happening.

It is May 9th through 11th. It is in Plano, Texas. It is at the beautiful Renaissance hotel that is in Legacy West. Rue and I like to frequent that area. It’s got some fantastic restaurants. So we’re excited! We have been working on the agenda. That’ll be finalized, I want to say this week. Registration is open. We have already had a phenomenal response to this. I am so excited.

But, one of the things that I am the most excited about. And again, if you’re not watching the video, you should see our faces. We’re grinning ear to ear. There is an entire track of sessions that is affordable. So we have got an amazing lineup for you guys. And I think the thing I’m most excited about is the last session that day will be. A live recording of Cocktails & Compliance from ResMania

Rue Fox: With our studio audience. And can I say it?

Janel Ganim: Absolutely.

Rue Fox: We have two of the most [00:34:00] amazing people in the affordable housing space. Jenny DeSilva with DeSilva Housing Group and Stacy Day with Karen Graham Consulting. So that’s a HUD expert and that is a tax credit expert. They are going to be guesting with us live on Cocktails & Compliance. So we are so excited. If you don’t know about them, go look them up on LinkedIn, please. If you’re, if you’re interested in joining us, you know, shoot Janel or I questions that you might like to have us address during that session, because we’re going to have some really, really expert people in the field. So we’re super, super excited.

Janel Ganim: You know what else we’re going to have?

Rue Fox: Oh, my goodness. We’re going to have cocktails.

Janel Ganim: So I’m sure we’ll come up with some sort of signature user conference cocktail to celebrate our special guests. But I’m so excited to do this with a live audience, take questions from the audience, if you guys submit stuff. But we would love to see you there. So, so excited about our special guests. Rue and I have known Jenny and Stacy for a really long time. I think that we’ve all been in the industry, probably the same amount of time.

Rue Fox: Ooh, I’m not going to lie. I am pretty honored that they accepted our invitations to speak for us. So we are super excited to take the stage with those two.

Janel Ganim: All right. Speaking of getting ready to rumble with us at ResMania, here’s where you can register. Go to ResMania.myresman.com and sign up and we will see you there. As always check out PropTalk powered by ResMan for Cocktails & Compliance Updates. We have other podcasts as well. Watch our myresman.com website. We put blog content out. In fact, we put something out recently about electronic signatures and about that adoption, things to look forward to this year, things you should be considering. So watch for that content as well as always, Rue and I will share content on LinkedIn. We’ll share on Facebook. If you [00:36:00] haven’t connected with us, please do so.

Rue Fox: And I’ll just go ahead and warn you. If you look at my profile and we’re not connected, I’m going to send you to connection requests because… Why don’t we connect?

Janel Ganim: She does she figures if you’re going to take the time to look, she’s like, oh, we’re connecting.

Rue Fox: Oh, we’re on.

Janel Ganim: It’s on. So everybody again, we appreciate all that you do in the industry. Thank you for joining us. And we will see you next time.

Rue Fox: Happy New Year and Happy Valentines’ Day, everybody.

Janel Ganim: Bye guys.

To listen to more episodes of PropTalk, visit https://learn.myresman.com/proptalk/.