The Filing Habit That Cut One Firm's Eviction Rate by 80%” | Loebsack & Brownlee

A Podcast | Loebsack & Brownlee

Pete Neubig: Welcome, everybody, to the NARPM Radio Podcast. I'm your host, Pete Newbig, the voice of NARPM. And usually I always say this, every week we have a great guest. Well, today I have the three-headed monster from Loebsack and Brownlee. I got Chris, Hans, and Jared. Most of you guys know Chris. Chris Loebsack is the founder and managing principal of the eviction services law firm Loebsack and Brownlee, focusing primarily on representing MFR and SFR property management firms. These are the good guys, folks. These are the people that are here to protect us. So they fight the good fight for us. So Chris, Jared, Hans, thank you so much for being here.

Chris Loebsack: Pleasure. Nice to be here, Pete. We love being on your show.

Pete Neubig: And I know that Loebsack and Brownlee is a big cheerleader of NARPM. You guys have done a lot of stuff for NARPM. So before we get into it, where do you guys service? What markets are you guys servicing right now?

Chris Loebsack: So we're in all six southeastern states. We have 12 going on 13 offices now throughout Tennessee, Virginia, both Carolinas, Georgia and Florida. So we have the entire Southeast footprint now under our operational purview.

Pete Neubig: And I heard some rumors that you may be expanding into Texas next year. Is that true?

Chris Loebsack: Everyone wishes that were true, but no, not currently. That's not on the radar. Okay. All right. All right.

Pete Neubig: This is a false hope here.

Chris Loebsack: All right. All right.

Pete Neubig: So obviously, you guys seen lots of evictions going on. What is the trend with evictions right now? I know before the pandemic, it was kind of stabilized. And then after the pandemic, nobody was getting evicted. And then funds kind of dried up, it's evictions. So where's the current state of evictions right now? Jared, why don't you wrap that?

Jared Schmidt: Yeah, absolutely. Things have gone back to pre-pandemic trends. And it really depends. It's kind of comes in ebbs and flows depending on the time of the year. And numbers have increased since pre-pandemic in our area. And I think that directly correlates to the increasing population of the Southeast as a whole and in the markets that we service. But yeah, you're correct that it came to a screeching halt during the pandemic. But things have bounced back to where they were prior to that.

Pete Neubig: So we'll talk a little bit about how to... We're gonna talk in a little bit about the application stuff. But when a property manager is filing an eviction, what are the common mistakes that they make that causes them to either lose the eviction or postpone or whatever?

Hans Dara: I'll let you get it. Yeah. Great question. I think evidentiary issues or something that we heard at a conference recently is documentation, right? So be sure that you are documenting all these violations, all issues. And then telling your attorneys is going to be a big one. We're here to assist you. We're here to help you. And we want to just ensure that you guys are fully abreast of all the issues. And the only way that we can do that is if you tell us. So not providing timely notice, not providing timely documents. Those are going to be the primary issues that we're seeing upfront. Not following up on various topics that we ask for or various other document-related concerns. That's going to be the big one that we're seeing.

Pete Neubig: Now, I'm assuming that most eviction courts are similar in nature, but they have maybe a little bit different processes for each one. You guys noticed that in just all the states that you guys manage? Yeah.

Chris Loebsack: I mean, with a footprint as big as ours, you have a really substantial amount of variation. There's tons of similarities because most states approach evictions as a necessary evil. And so it's by and large done at the lowest level of court in your particular state, right? Like they assign it to either what is always basically small claims court is where it starts in basically every state. So there's lots of similarities with that. But even within the same state, in many cases, you don't have the same process in one county that you do in a different county. It just depends on the locality in many instances. And so one of the primary things that we do as a firm is to make sure that we've got people who are familiar with all the areas of your state because the law in the code books for your state does not necessarily equate out to how it works in this city versus that city. And so knowing the differences is really a big part of the puzzle. And for NARPA members that have properties that they're managing across multiple jurisdictions, understanding how the rules are and how they play out in that jurisdiction versus a different one is really important to having good counsel to help you with that's really important.

Pete Neubig: Yeah, because you don't need to be an attorney to file an eviction. That's correct, right? So anybody can file the eviction. I mean, obviously, you have to have the management agreement if you're filing on behalf of somebody. But the big thing is, yeah, if you don't know the way that court is looking for certain documents, you could actually cost yourself a lot more money. And of course, there's lots of time and effort that go into just going to the courthouse and filing, then going to the courthouse and representing and going to the courthouse and filing the writ and going to the courthouse and going to the courthouse.

Chris Loebsack: Well, you started off asking about how things have changed since COVID. But I think one of the biggest ones that a lot of people, a lot of your members would acknowledge if they thought about it is the world changed and how the courts operate changed. But they really changed with regard to evictions in a really dramatic way. Right. Like before COVID, evictions were something that everybody just sort of overlooked. They knew it was there, but nobody was really paying attention to it. And since COVID, since we've come out of the pandemic, it's actually the opposite now. Most places are paying high amounts of attention to evictions, and that never used to be the case. So for property management folks that used to go to court for themselves, by themselves all the time, that just doesn't work as well anymore. In some cases, it's borderline detrimental because you have legal aid attorneys, you have tenant advocates that are all over the place that didn't used to be there in 2019. And so there's a lot of, you can't just do it yourself anymore and expect to have good results, especially in big metropolitan areas.

Pete Neubig: So that's a good point. So you're seeing more attorneys that are representing residents. We're also seeing more legislation, yeah, to kind of help residents or to make it difficult, make it more difficult to do evictions.

Chris Loebsack: Hans has really plugged into the government affairs side of things. He's seen a bunch of that.

Pete Neubig: So Hans, tell me, from your experience, what's the worst state as a landlord to file an eviction?

Hans Dara: I mean, probably a state we're not licensed in. California would be my guess.

Pete Neubig: That one comes to my mind too. New York, California.

Hans Dara: New York, okay. Sure, California. But I mean, there are some various state statutes that we've seen and have addressed over the last several years. Back in 2024, Georgia passed the Safe at Home Act, which required a certain time period for notice for the ability to cure the default for nonpayment of rent, the method in which that notice is actually submitted to tenants. And it has to be done almost perfectly, or there are those tenants' rights advocates that we're seeing and court judges that are dismissing cases for those things. Virginia, Chris can probably talk a little bit about that, just move forward with a new law, right, that they're trying to work out.

Chris Loebsack: Yeah, July 1st, Virginia changed their state statute from a five-day late rent notice to now it's 14 days, almost tripled it.

Pete Neubig: Really? So rent is delayed until the 15th of the month now?

Chris Loebsack:It's not late until the 15th day after you give them a late letter. Oh, okay. So if you don't send your late letter until the 5th, it's the 20th. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So yeah, stuff like that's happening all over the place. But Virginia has really, like you were just mentioning, Pete, like states are pushing back and are bringing the pendulum back towards the tenants. Georgia made a small move in that direction, but Virginia's move was much more substantive. That just happened.

Pete Neubig: Okay, so one of the things that I'm always curious about is we do a lot of, what do you call it, self-showings, like tenant-turner and rent lien, all that stuff. And I've been hearing more and more of like people having some challenges with squatters, right? So people are getting in, there's a lot more, I guess there's just a lot more of this happening than when I was doing my property management firm. Knock on wood, I had it for 15 years and never had a squatter, but it's happening more and more for whatever reason. What is the latest with the whole like squatting? Is there anything going on in there? And then how do we handle this?

Chris Loebsack: Is it like- Do you want to grab that? Tell them about North Carolina's statute?

Jared Schmidt: Yeah, absolutely. No, Pete, it's a great observation. And we all know the status of the world today. Things are becoming more expensive, which has effects on a bunch of different areas. And that is one of them, that if housing becomes too expensive, people will go to drastic measures. And that includes things like squatting. With the advanced technology that allows you to do self-showings and things of that nature, that even adds to it. You give somebody access to a property and they simply refuse to leave.

Pete Neubig: Or worse, they paid somebody rent, right? They think they got scammed.

Jared Schmidt: Yeah, yeah. They got scammed. A couple of victims. Yeah. Yeah, we see that all the time as well in court. You know, the folks that are innocently paying somebody come to court thinking that they had paid a landlord. And in reality, they had paid a robster. So, you know, it got to the point where it was so bad that we've seen a number of states, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, all come to mind that have implemented new legislation to address squatters. And there's, you know, I'm licensed in North Carolina and Tennessee, but, you know, I'll speak to North Carolina. The new legislation they put in place drastically decreases the amount of time it takes to get a squatter out. And it simplifies it. Prior to the legislation being put in place, there wasn't a real good method to get these folks out. You couldn't file an eviction because they weren't a tenant. There was no landlord-tenant relationship. So that left you trying to...

Pete Neubig: And the constable wouldn't get them out, right? Because the constable wouldn't get them out. And so like... Sheriff wouldn't put them out because...

Jared Schmidt: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's a civil matter. Exactly. So the new legislation in North Carolina, it drastically speeds up the timeline for getting them out. It eases the process.

Pete Neubig: Does it put the onus on them now to furnish a lease? Like...

Chris Loebsack: Yes, that's one of the common themes through all those three state statutes is it basically says that unless you can provide a legitimate lease document to the court, we're going to treat you as a squatter because that's what you've been accused of via affidavit. So all three of the statutes require you to submit an affidavit under oath, you know, under penalty of perjury, stating that I didn't rent to this person. I have no idea who they are. I haven't taken rent from them. And unless the tenant can come forth and provide believable evidence that refutes that, they're going to lose. But you're right. That's the key is that they're all presenting fake leases or imaginary leases. And the court now has...

Pete Neubig: Or they get a lease from this fraudster. Like... Yeah, that's true. Recently, we ran into this where somebody rented a property from a buddy of mine. They have a lease. They're like, well, I got a lease. Of course, when the lease is like for $800 on a $2,500 house, like this one was $800 for a $900 house, though. So like, it was believable, you know, fraudsters are getting better to making it more believable on the pricing. Because if it's too good to be true, but now it's becoming a challenge. How do... Okay, so let's talk about the front end. How would you, if you were my attorney, I own a property management firm. Let's just say it's not in Texas, in Tennessee, somewhere you guys are licensed. What would you tell me to do on the front end? How do I prevent, you know, because if I don't get the right applicants, then I end up having eviction. If I don't protect my, you know, messaging, then somebody can steal it as a fraudster. So what are the things that our listeners can do or should do that can help prevent evictions and frauds and fraudsters?

Chris Loebsack: So the starting point is to remember that fraud in the marketplace is being driven by the advances in technology. And so if you're still using the methods of vetting applicants that you used 10 years ago, that's step one is stop doing that. Because what worked 10 years ago doesn't work anymore. The technological advances people have made will put your archaic 12-year-old application process to shame in no time. So step one is get invested in new updated technological help to do application processing. That's above all else, that's the number one thing. Because the bad guys are using AI, they're using chat GPT, they're using the dark web. And, you know, depending on the size of the target they're going after, the more sophisticated they'll be. But even if you're a mom and pop that just operates in one city and has, you know, a few hundred doors, you're still dealing with people that have a lot more sophisticated tools. Even regular folks have the ability to edit PDFs, right? Like people know how to do that now. So they can make their pay stub look like it needs to look. If you're not paying very much attention to it. So I think a lot of the mom and pop NARPM, you know, classic NARPM operators should start by doing sort of an overview of what have we updated on our process? And when was the last time we did it? Because if the answer isn't very recently, then you probably should start there. There's plenty of other tips too, I'll let Hans and Jared chime in. But to me, that's always the starting point is make sure you're updating yourself and your process because the bad guys are certainly updating themselves all the time.

Hans Dara: Yeah, I think as we've been in a kind of concession market, right, so that also breeds a lot of fraud individuals. So one of the best vetting methods is actually asking for legitimate pay stubs, looking through those pay stubs, working on kind of the front end to actually contact folks, reach out to former employers, former individuals who are listed as landlords on the front end, taking actual time to do those things on the front end. I know occupancy is a huge issue for everyone. They want their occupancy as high as possible. You want, you know, people in leases. But the more you can do on the front end by vetting the process, looking at former pay stubs, contacting employers, contacting former landlords, the better your chances of avoiding fraud are going to be.

Pete Neubig: How do you how do you determine if somebody's got their buddy down saying that they're their landlord versus the actual landlord or their buddy saying like, is there any way around like, like, is there certain questions to ask that might give you a kind of or like, like, it's that's great, Hans, but how do I know I'm talking to the right person?

Chris Loebsack: That's the that's sort of the magic of the process. There isn't there isn't one magic wand you can wave at that. But the my my friends who are operators tell me that the best thing that they do to sort of fight against that is to do some do some social media sleuthing, right? Like, look online and see if they've got a LinkedIn. And if so, does the LinkedIn match what they gave you on the letter? Right. Like if you got an offer letter, for instance, from somebody who claims to be the head of HR, go on their LinkedIn and look them up. You know, anybody who's with a company of any repute has at least a basic LinkedIn page. And if that doesn't match up, then you've you've already found clue number one, that this might not be on the up and up. That's I think that's the easiest one for everybody to do because it's costless. But, you know, verifying who you're talking to against an email address, sending an email to them, reaching out to them by LinkedIn, sending them a direct message. Hey, I got some guy, Bob, that says he wants to lend here. And he says, you just got an offer letter from you. And and that person's like, I'm sorry, we don't have a Bob. You know, that those are the kinds of things you can do that don't cost you anything. But, you know, but 30 seconds to send a quick email and in a minute to do a little research on their LinkedIn. A little bit of time. Stuff like that is is always still useful because it catches the low hanging fruit pretty well. Yeah.

Pete Neubig: Yep. Do you guys have anybody that you that you work closely with as far as an application processor that that you say that's a good one or do most of the ones that help with NARP and Merle pretty much do it?

Chris Loebsack: Yeah, no, there's not one that's sort of any better than the rest that I've ever heard of. All of my clients regularly are updating me on who they're trying now. And there seems to be a lot of acknowledgement that most of them are getting into a space where as long as you're using one of the ones that people know, you're probably going to be in a good space.

Pete Neubig: Yeah.

Chris Loebsack: Like operational files differ. And so which product fits your operational style is always kind of changing and adapting. But using one of the ones that most of your friends know, that's a good start.

Pete Neubig: Yeah. And I would say if you're doing it yourself and not using a third party to to kind of run this, I think you're doing yourself a disservice because we run property management firms and we're trying to be the best we can. These folks run application processing firms. And so they're on top of the latest trends. And so this is one thing where I wouldn't be cheap on like, hey, you know, give up that application fee money to, you know, because having access to the right databases is really worth its weight in gold. Okay. One of the things that used to just drive me crazy when I owned my property management firm here in Texas is somebody would violate a lease. And every time I wanted to go and evict for a lease violation, I was always told like, good luck. Don't do it. It's not worth it. And just wait till they don't pay and evict on nonpayment. So has this got any better since 2012? Or like, have you guys even done any evictions on lease violations? Or is it all nonpayment?

Chris Loebsack: Jared does them all the time.

Jared Schmidt: We do them all the time, Pete. You know, yeah, Chris is telling the truth there. And there's no reason not to, you know, you know, based on the lease, how do they know, like, they're gonna file the eviction on a lease violation? Have your attorney read it to them. No, that's actually spot on as well. You know, you have to have somebody who can advise the court in most cases, because you're right. You know, a lot of these magistrates, a lot of these judges, particularly the ones that aren't attorneys, they may not be familiar with these lease violation clauses. And so you have to have a good advocate to convince them that it's worth evicting and that this truly was a lease violation. Because sitting back and just waiting for nonpayment alone is not going to help you when you have somebody selling drugs out of their apartment, who's committing crimes in their apartment, who you know is a fraudulent applicant that isn't who they say they are. Things like that, you can't just sit back and take and, you know, hope and pray that they stop paying rent at some point. So it is actionable. We do it all the time. And we've had, on the whole, good success with it. I think, you know, things have changed a bit, at least in our jurisdictions, based on what you said. There are still a few where we know that if we file based on a lease violation, I mean, it better be airtight. Otherwise, you know, we have a chance of getting it dismissed. There are some courts that just don't like them because they're hard. A lot of cases, they're difficult to prove to, you know, they may not be as egregious in the court's mind as they are in the landlord's mind. But they certainly are something that you should act on.

Pete Neubig: So something that you think could be on the line of criminal, let's go ahead and get rid of them. But if it's like an unauthorized dog, like I'm not going to be a victim on an unauthorized dog. Is that what I'm hearing between the lines?

Chris Loebsack: I would, but dogs in particular are near the top of my list because they create liability in ways that you don't want. That's right.

Pete Neubig: Even if it's an unauthorized dog that we didn't know about and they bite somebody, you're the property manager and the owner of the house is getting pulled into that lawsuit.

Chris Loebsack: Yeah, I've I had that arbitration hearing about seven or eight years ago. And, you know, I spent the whole time trying to prove that we didn't know the dog was there. Like, how do you prove that you didn't know the dog was there? You know, you were just talking about the magistrates and sort of how they they seem to not want to do anything complicated. You know, if you're there and you've been sued because the dog bit somebody and you're the landlord, everybody in the room assumes that you should have done something about it. Right. Whether you had the knowledge or not is not where you want to be. So I always take the position that if you know about the dog and it's not supposed to be there, then either they need to do what's necessary to get qualified or you need to do what you should to get rid of them. Because otherwise, the dog bite liability is just staring you around the corner. So I don't I don't like those. But back to your point, Pete, I think back in 2012, a lot more things were done a lot more loosely and a lot more of our of my clients back then felt like you did, which is, well, I don't know, I don't I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to get this one past the magistrate. And it's mostly because a lot of those clients were doing it themselves. And proving unauthorized occupants are living in your house is not simple. And it isn't something you can just walk in and tell the magistrate, I'm sure they're there. And the magistrate's going to say, well, how do you know? What evidence do you have? And, you know, regular mom and pop property management, property managers, 12, 13, 14 years ago, didn't come to court armed with all of their evidence ready to present with witnesses. And that's why they didn't do it is because they didn't know how to win those cases. It wasn't that they couldn't win them.

Pete Neubig: It was they were under or just, you know what, we can win. But, man, it's gonna be super expensive. These guys are paying rent. Just leave the dog there. They don't pay the pet fee. We don't care. Like, no harm. Right, right, right.

Chris Loebsack: Yeah, yeah. And certainly, you know, if, yeah, to Jared's point, like, you know, the one that I was worried about with that is, you know, if they're paying the rent on time because they're running drugs out of the unit and they got a lot of spare cash. That's a that's a double edged sword for sure.

Pete Neubig: All right, so I'm gonna ask each of you guys individually. Same question, though. So, Jared, what's one thing a property manager can do today to help reduce the evictions to help reduce evictions?

Jared Schmidt: I think. The best thing that they can do is to. I would say two things, number one, read the lease, be familiar with the lease, what the residents can and can't do. And number two, keep an open line of communication with the residents. You know, so many of the cases we file. You know, there has been a lack of communication between them. They could have perhaps been avoided or even, you know, once the case has been filed, they can be resolved via communication and you don't actually have to go through. You know, a lot of times what happens if you've got a nonpayment of rent case, some of these folks are embarrassed. They don't want to talk to the property manager. You know, they didn't mean to not pay rent. But if you have that communication and you know that this person has a good history of pain and you've got a good relationship, you trust them because they have communicated with you. You can perhaps avoid multiple filings on these folks going forward.

Pete Neubig: What about communication, just like phone calls or do you want everything written at this point? Text messaging and emails is what I'm getting at.

Jared Schmidt: No, absolutely. You know, as an attorney, we always say everything written is better because you have a record of it. You know, sometimes, though, you can't communicate in writing on an informal basis. So we know those conversations happen with the landlords and the tenants. And sometimes those are the most fruitful ways of communicating when it's not, quote unquote, on the record. So really depends on the property manager and their style.

Either can be effective.

Pete Neubig: OK, Chris, what's one thing that as a property manager I can do to limit my evictions?

Chris Loebsack: I'm going to give you a surprise answer.

Pete Neubig: Get out of the property management.

Chris Loebsack: The factual evidence that we have from watching various clients do their eviction process various ways, right? There's a whole spectrum of how our clients approach their eviction process. The evidence, however, is uncontrovertible that the clients that file early in the month and consistently on everybody every month have the fewest number of lockouts of everybody that files with us. The clients that file more cases sooner in the month, over time, every month, convince the tenants that they have that they are going to go through with the process and the tenants will then modify their behavior to become better payers of their rent because they know that you're not fooling around with them. The one client that I watched do this most recently took their writ percentage, the percentage of people they filed on that needed a writ to get locked out from the average across all industries is about 27 percent of cases filed that resulted in writ filing. And they took theirs to 4.7 percent after about five months of getting religion about we file every month, everybody on the nine, no questions, no exceptions. And after about five months, all of their tenants got amazingly better at paying their rent on time.

Pete Neubig: I love that. I really do. Because have a process, have a policy, right? So at my PM firm, we did it. I think it was the rent was due the first. It was late the fourth. And I think we sent the notice on the seventh. So we had like this process. And then by the 10th, we filed. We filed eviction. And I think if they owed more than 50 percent of the rent, we filed eviction. Like, so we had to put something because we all take 20 bucks. I'm not filing eviction, right? So we had to come up with some kind of whether it was X dollars or whatever. And those first few months, though, it was a lot. It was a lot because people were just like they would talk to our property managers and they just work a deal and then they would forget to pay, you know, forget, quote unquote, to pay. And so those like so just like your clients, those first few months would cost us a lot of money and cost our clients money because they had a you know, we send that we create the file, the eviction. We charged the you know, the owner to do it. But just like your client, we reduced that that that number of people that were late. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Right. And if you're if you're, you know, if you're putting a hammer down on them every month and you're not deviating, they know, OK, I got to go ahead and call the utility company and not pay them this month or pay them later or whatever. So I think that's great. That's a great observation. All right, Hans, you got anything to top that? That was a good one, man.

Hans Dara: You know, I mean, Jared, Chris, I think they covered a good number of them, I guess, just coming in because I got to say something. The two that I could think of on the front end going to be betting right for lease violations. You know, Make sure you know who's in your properties, what they've experienced beforehand. That's going to hopefully help reduce the eviction amount, at least as it relates to certain lease violations. Something I always say is that you are, like Jared said, with communication, you are free to negotiate with tenants. You can do a cash for keys kind of situation. You can do a release agreement. I've done several of those in the last couple of weeks alone, both of them. And those are highly effective at making sure that you don't spend several months sometimes in a lockout situation.

Pete Neubig: Yeah, I like the cash for keys. You guys actually would run that program if I needed to?

Hans Dara: I've drafted it, for sure.

Pete Neubig: Yeah, that's awesome. All right. What is the question that I should have asked that I did not? Anything from a property manager? If you were sitting listening to this as a property manager, is there anything that you would say, man, I really wish Pete would have asked this of these attorneys, because I don't get three attorneys for free, folks. We got them here for free. I should be asking the right questions here.

Chris Loebsack: My favorite one is always about how can I get more of my tenants to be more understanding of the operation we have to follow, right? The dilemma with so much of property management operations today is the disconnect between tenants' expectations and your realities. You, Pete, being the former property manager that you are. And I really think that the thing that has changed a lot from back 15, 20 years ago, when you and I were doing it much more often, Pete, there's just not as much handholding anymore. There's not as much personal interaction with your tenants. There used to be like, come to the office, sit down, let's go through the lease together. Let's set expectations. That disappeared.

Pete Neubig: And it's getting worse, right? With AI, it's getting even worse. That's right.

Chris Loebsack: And I think that's the one thing that I would try really hard if I was in your shoes as the former property manager, to find ways to bring that, inject that back into the process in whatever virtual way you can. But I think when things went virtual, people just stopped doing it all together. And I think that's a big, I think that's a big loss to the operational system that used to be very helpful at setting expectations about what your company wants to have the experience look like. And I would, to me, that's the thing that I would say. People should do more of that. Find ways to inject that back into your process, even if it's with virtual technology.

Pete Neubig: You can use AI to help do all the backend work and then use your remote team members to actually reach out and build those relationships with your residents. Use your property managers to build relationships with your owners while you utilize AI to do the backend work. I'm going to put you guys on the spot. Last question, I promise. Not to get too political, but there is a wave of these democratic socialists talking about how they will give back properties if the properties are not maintained. This is a big talking point in New York, where I'm originally from, so it's kind of near and dear. What do you guys think this would actually do to our country? As attorneys, how do you, can you even fight this? Basically, what Mondani said is he'll take the house or the property away from the owner and from the property manager if it's not serviced to the level that he, I guess, I don't know who determines this. And then he's going to either take it or give it to the residents. Okay, crazy, crazy stuff. But just this concept, any input you can say to help us as property managers.

Chris Loebsack: I always like quoting the constitution to people when they get in spaces like that. I was like, well, the government already does that, right? The government's allowed to seize property. They just have to pay for it. And there isn't any scenario under which that idea would pass muster under the constitutional takings clause. They can say it all they want to, because it sounds really great in the news, but there's zero chance. But the truth is, the government already does that, right? The government will take-

Pete Neubig: Don't pay your property taxes. See how quickly you own your house.

Chris Loebsack: Yeah.

Hans Dara: Code violations, foreclosures, all that kind of stuff.

Chris Loebsack: It does happen. But yeah, when the politicians get to grandstanding like that so that they get much better news coverage and likes on social media, I always just kind of shake my head. I'm like, yeah, I get it. We all know you can do some things and that's all fine and good, but you know good and damn well that you're not actually going to do that. You can say it though, because it sounds great.

Pete Neubig: I can't wait for the first building in New York to get confiscated from a landowner and given to the residents. I'm sure they're going to upkeep that building.

Chris Loebsack: Yeah, that'll go really well. They'll be awesome at managing it jointly.

Pete Neubig: All right. So somebody's listening, guys, and they want to reach out. They have an eviction question that maybe is in Southeast or they just need some help, just guidance on how do I even talk to an attorney to help me with my eviction case? How do I get in touch with you guys?

Chris Loebsack: Yeah. Our website is loebsackbrownlee.com and we have a contact us page where you can reach out anytime. It's super easy, but you can also email anybody at NARPM. We're pals with all of y'all and they can get you in touch with us. But we're happy to try and help and give guidance to anybody that's looking for some good landlord tenant guidance. Reach out anytime.

Pete Neubig: Loebsack is L-O-E-B-S-A-C-K brownlee.com. These guys are at a lot of NARPM events. They're big supporters of NARPM. They give back a lot. So reach out to them. Even if they don't service your area, they may know somebody or may be able to help you interview somebody that you need in your market. And if you are looking for remote team members, go to vpmsolutions.com or shoot me an email, pete@vpmsolutions.com. As you bring in the AI to do the backend, use your remote team for your front end. And if you're enlisted and you're not a NARPM member, how dare you? Go to narpm.org, N-A-R-P-M dot O-R-G, or give them a call at 800-782-3452. Jared, Hans, Chris, thanks so much for making the time. Talk to you all soon.

Chris Loebsack: Thanks, Pete.