Natasha Vinitsky is the Senior Property Manager at R&C Brown Associates, a privately held real estate investment company that specializes in acquisition, redevelopment, leasing, and management in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has years of experience working in the commercial real estate industry as the Property Manager for Longfellow Real Estate Partners, LLC, the Assistant Manager of Operations for Irvine Company, and the Assistant Property Manager for BioMed Realty.
Natasha has a bachelor’s in communications from Notre Dame de Namur University. In her free time, she enjoys traveling and spending time with friends and family.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Natasha Vinitsky talks about the price of maintaining a property and her thoughts on the ongoing labor shortage
- How to create value in rental properties through tenants and property enhancement
- A look at the financial environment of commercial rental properties
- Natasha discusses keeping tenants and properties safe from theft
- How Natasha effectively handles property emergencies
- The various ways to build a portfolio of commercial buildings
- What are the advantages of building relationships with your tenants?
- Natasha shares why having an established network is crucial for success
In this episode…
How can you build value in your leased buildings and manage the risks that come with ownership? What does it take to create a comprehensive portfolio for steady growth and scalability?
Natasha Vinitsky has extensive experience working in the commercial real estate industry, which she uses to help cultivate healthy relationships with her tenants. She says it’s essential for you to find the right balance and opportunity for development. The result? A place of value that you’ve helped create.
In this episode of Watching Paint Dry, Greg Owens sits down with Natasha Vinitsky, Senior Property Manager at R&C Brown Associates, to discuss the complexities of managing and creating value in rental properties. Natasha talks about cultivating a sense of merit with tenants and distributors, the financial ecosystem surrounding building maintenance, and how to establish a network of properties for your real estate portfolio.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Greg Owens on LinkedIn
- Katrina Stephenson on LinkedIn
- McCarthy Painting
- McCarthy Painting Contact No.: 415-383-2640
- McCarthy Painting Email Address: info@mccarthypainting.com
- Natasha Vinitsky on LinkedIn
- R&C Brown Associates
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by McCarthy Painting, where we serve commercial and residential clients all around the San Francisco Bay area.
We’ve been in business since 1969 and served companies such as Google, Autodesk, Abercrombie & Fitch, FICO, First Bank, SPIN, and many more.
If you have commercial facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area and need dependable painters, visit us on the web at www.mccarthypainting.com or email info@mccarthypainting.com, and you can check out our line of services and schedule a free estimate by clicking here.
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:02
Welcome to the Watching Paint Dry podcast where we feature today’s top leaders, industry experts and more to discuss issues affecting facility managers and property owners. Now let’s get started with the show.
Greg Owens 0:22
Hello, everyone, this is Greg Owens with the Watching Paint Dry podcast where we have been continuing our series of talking to property managers, facilities, managers, building owners, and the contractors that support that entire global industry. This podcast like all our podcast is sponsored by my company McCarthy Painting, we do both residential and commercial painting throughout the San Francisco Bay area. We’ve been just finishing up some projects for companies like Zooks are the autonomous vehicle company, and Autodesk and chase Chase banks, too. So if you want to know more about McCarthy Painting, and our services, you can go to McCarthypainting.com. And I’m really excited to speak with Natasha Vinitsky Sorry, I had it is one of the podcasts and then I lost it and it’s the under the pressure I lost. I blame my mother. She named me Greg, it’s just too simple right. Now 90s And you you’re the senior property manager
Natasha Vinitsky 1:36
for R&C R&C.
Greg Owens 1:41
Right. Okay. And how are you doing? I mean, it’s it’s spring out there. It’s we’ve got you’re in the Bay Area, San Francisco Bay area.
Natasha Vinitsky 1:49
So I mainly in San Jose. So then yeah, so it’s South Bay, Campbell, Sunnyvale, that is a is my primary location. So but it’s been busy, it’s been nonstop. Never really had the luxury of working from home.
Greg Owens 2:06
Right, right. Yeah. It’s hard when you have property management, and you have properties to work from home when there’s actual properties like tangible, something tangible to walk through, right.
Natasha Vinitsky 2:17
And even if their weight they can, there’s they still need to be maintained. So, you know, when I was working for Irvine company, you know, we had an engineers on site, or whether right now I don’t have an engineering team, we, you know, we outsource, I still have to walk the properties, making sure everything is running smoothly. And that’s why I save I save money on my PMS.
Greg Owens 2:40
Yeah. And people don’t realize, like when you just mentioned it, people don’t realize how much a building needs to be maintained, even if nobody’s in it. And sometimes even more. So it’s really this odd phenomenon that happens where things just start breaking down, because they’re not being used. And yeah, and if you’re if somebody doesn’t walk the property and discover like something’s leaking, or something’s not working, and it could be unbelievable amounts of damage that can happen.
Natasha Vinitsky 3:07
Yeah, and you know, water damage is our worst enemy. Yeah. And a lot of the times, so walking those empty buildings, making sure the roof is intact is definitely one of the biggest priorities. Even though it’s cold. We still need that each pack moving. Yeah, yeah,
Greg Owens 3:24
he needs to he needs to breathe, the buildings need to breathe. I know, I’m involved in managing a martial art studio and their facility space and all of that. And they they’ve been keeping the heat off. And they’ve been keeping because they have COVID and keeping all the windows open, but the moisture is building up inside the place. And we need that ventilation to dry. So PowerFlow airflow, right to keep the mold and mildew from lying, accumulating. And yeah, so it’s done. They’re like, Oh, well, we’re saving money. And it’s COVID times and we don’t want to, I was like No need to
Natasha Vinitsky 3:58
wait until you call or take care of that mold. Right?
Greg Owens 4:03
Yeah, and those guys are not cheap. It’s crazy money.
Natasha Vinitsky 4:06
And yeah, no, everything is done triple though. Right now. It’s just everything is so expensive. Is that
Greg Owens 4:13
what you’re Is that what your experience on your on your end? Is that it’s like triple what it used to be like before, like during COVID I guess and pre COVID day?
Natasha Vinitsky 4:22
Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean, labor prices went up material prices have tripled. Whether it’s ru four h fac. Obviously landscaping prices went up, everything’s just skyrocketed. And it’s it’s ridiculous. I mean, it’s I understand why, but you know, every landlord obviously wants to save a penny where he can and even even if you triple bid.
Greg Owens 4:49
I know it’s like, if you get six more words, Doc gonna change.
Natasha Vinitsky 4:54
It’s really not it’s gonna be you know, 1000 here, maybe a couple 1000 Here. But at the end, it’s the prices are just skyrocketing for everybody. It is.
Greg Owens 5:04
I mean, I’m seeing it on our end and, and I was helping somebody trying to get a roofing contractor. And I made a bunch of phone calls to people I knew and I hit their answering machine. And it said, unless you’re like a previous customer, we’re not even going out to do new bids right now, right, like because they’re overwhelmed and understaffed, same as us, as a painting company where we’re understaffed right now, right, like we need, we could easily use a bunch more people and we haven’t been able to find them.
Natasha Vinitsky 5:33
And yeah, I’ve been definitely experiencing shortness of you know, labor, and a lot of vendors don’t have enough to send out to the jobs that I need. And so And of course, that’s why labor cost also goes up. You want to try to hire people. And nobody’s gonna go work for pennies anymore. No, yeah. Yeah. It’s hard to find good labor. That has been a problem too.
Greg Owens 5:58
I think keeping the people we have right like that’s so so critical to all of this.
Natasha Vinitsky 6:04
Yeah. People are moving out of here. Did you friend warmer places, so
Greg Owens 6:12
he for warmer and warmer? That’s funny saying that you’re in San Jose. I mean, you’re perfectly
Natasha Vinitsky 6:18
raining. It’s foggy. Right.
Greg Owens 6:21
But you’re usually typically 10 degrees, like or 15 degrees or more sometimes.
Natasha Vinitsky 6:26
Yeah. I moved from San Francisco. For me. This is like Arizona.
Greg Owens 6:31
Yeah, no kidding. No kidding. Yeah, I heard. I heard a statistic recently to about U haul trucks. If you wanted to get a U haul truck. I think from like Milwaukee to here. It was gonna get they were saying it was gonna cost like three grand to rent a U haul truck. Right. But to go from from here to Milwaukee, it was like 16 grand. Wow. So many more people are fleeing California
Natasha Vinitsky 6:59
to be able to afford a house. Right? That’s so true. Anything more than a one bathroom studio.
Greg Owens 7:07
I had a friend visit me from Switzerland. And and when she came to my house here in Mill Valley. Why do you live in like a tree fort? Just a substantial homes that have concrete. Right? And she gets here and it’s like wood. It’s in the trees? Like, you know, it’s it’s an okay, house. It’s you know, but it’s yeah, it’s not. It’s not made of concrete. Right. It’s stick built.
Natasha Vinitsky 7:35
Wow. Yeah.
Greg Owens 7:36
You didn’t appreciate that?
Natasha Vinitsky 7:39
Well, there’s still a lot of things to appreciate about the Bay Area. Yeah. Yeah, it’s pricey, but it’s still beautiful. I wouldn’t live anywhere else.
Greg Owens 7:47
Now. What? What types of properties? Does R&C Brown? Look for? What is what is their niche? Or what is it? Or is it?
Natasha Vinitsky 7:57
Yeah, um, so R&C? Basically, they’re privately held real estate agency, and they’re all there specializing in acquisitions, and redevelopment. And then we lease them out? And obviously then and manage them? Yeah. But you know, they’re always looking for opportunity, you know, whether the building doesn’t have to be a class or B class, they’ll get a C Class building. And then I’ll you know, we’ll step in and, you know, hopefully bring it up to B or an A class, and then we lease it out. So we do complete C eyes, exterior interior, we give our tenants to TI dollars as well,
Greg Owens 8:36
you probably that’s probably a good opportunity for you to really sort of find sort of buildings that haven’t lived up to their full potential. And then yeah, and then transform it into something that, like many of your clients, or the companies that you know, are looking for, really like to use.
Natasha Vinitsky 8:53
Yeah, so you know, we have just acquired a new property. And you know, that it’s been abandoned. I mean, it’s fully occupied, but the previous landlord did absolutely nothing for it. Right. So here I come. You know, it needs roof needs, paint needs, asphalt and concrete work. You know, so some, but the, the most rewarding part is that when you do get those properties, and it is fully occupied, the tenants love you. Something is actually going to get done. And you they’re finally getting some attention.
Greg Owens 9:30
Yeah, yeah. That’s great. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it over and over again, as a painting contractor where, you know, the, and I understand it, too, from the owner standpoint that we once upon a time, they were very involved, and they bought a building and it was really nice, you know, maybe back in the 70s or 80s. But then over time, it deteriorated and they didn’t want to put more capital into it. They just kept taking the rent out of it, right. Yeah, that changes hands. That’s the opportunity to upgrade the whole thing and do a total makeover, which is amazing.
Natasha Vinitsky 10:03
Yeah. And, you know, I mean, from a landlord perspective, I get it. But then at the same time, you know, those are triple net leases, you aren’t gonna get it back, it’s going to be, you know, over time, obviously, those capital expenses there, they’re going to be back in your pocket within five years or so. So and we do at R&C, our leases are pretty much all,
Greg Owens 10:29
triple net. And for so for viewers that don’t understand what triple net means. And you just saw triple net?
Natasha Vinitsky 10:35
Yes, that’s triple net lease is basically where, you know, we do all the repairs will take care of the exterior only. Which is landscaping, security, painting, roofing, anything that is core and shell of the building. Yeah. And, and the tenant then gets billed for their square footage of the building, which they occupy. And, you know, obviously, we do estimates of how much we’re going to be spending each year. And then the 10 basically pays that op x, which is operating. Maintenance. Mm hmm. And, you know, within five, you know, within that year, yeah. So, and obviously, we don’t we try to be nice.
Greg Owens 11:20
Yeah, I mean, you try to be you try to keep it to really some realistic numbers, right? Tough in this environment where things have gone up triple, right, like, like you said, like, all of a sudden, you know, you might have these older leases, and now things are skyrocketing in price. Right. Yeah. And
Natasha Vinitsky 11:37
you know, and you know, I get a lot of the questions from the tenants why? I’m like, wow, you want this? You asked me to paint your building? I’m not doing it for free.
Greg Owens 11:47
Yeah. Yeah, we should have done it last year when we were talking about.
Natasha Vinitsky 11:54
Yeah, I mean, I came on and, you know, there’s some quotes for proposals for roofs that were done by previous managers before me, for 2018 2019. And when they went to rebid them, I mean, it triple it, you know, literally, especially the roofs, roof word. coatings, all of that just
Greg Owens 12:18
skyrocketed. Yeah, the roofing industry is so affected by oil prices so much faster than we are, we are to painting painting products, or put there’s a lot of petroleum used in that. But moving product, it’s crazy, how much. And it’s always interesting, too, because like the roofing, roofing prices, usually half the price. So if they give you a price of like 10 grand for a roof, five grand is like materials correctly, it’s a significant, it’s a significant part of their bids.
Natasha Vinitsky 12:47
As far as painting out, what’s the increase in percentage that you’re seeing?
Greg Owens 12:52
Yeah, I just looked at so it’s not quite triple, sometimes double, depending on what the type of project is, and then kind of stuff and paint prices have been all over the place, the actual materials have been going up. And then they’ve been really sneaky about it, because they put in these like fees of like 5% for supply chain issue fee, which, which is across the board for everything. And you’re kind of like, hey, some of this stuff is made right here in the Bay Area. So why is that affected by supply chain thing? Um, we keep running out of materials has been a big thing, too. And then we’re being told that like another I think we’ve gone up 10 or 15%, in material prices since beginning of the year, and they’re supposed to go up again. Yeah,
Natasha Vinitsky 13:40
again. Yeah. That’s not good news for us. Yeah, things that need painting.
Greg Owens 13:48
Yeah. And labor prices are going are going up? Um, for sure. You know, California turned around and did this thing of like, $15. What is it minimum minimum wage being at $15? an hour? Right. Which is interesting seeing 16 Yeah, maybe, right. Yeah, I kind of mixed it up. Because we haven’t, I don’t know, for the last 10 years, we’ve never started anybody. We started people at like 18 Right, with no strands never painted, never anything. We’re going to teach them how right and then they start quickly moving up. We just couldn’t get people to work at that price to do hard labor. Moving ladders around and moving equipment and all that around a building is hard labor. Right? And, you know, when they’re I think when people are weighing those options of working in Starbucks as a barista, which is also I couldn’t do that job. I mean, I think that’s super hard. Or, you know, but it’s air conditioned, and it’s a fast pace. You’re not gonna get bored, right, but
Natasha Vinitsky 14:46
it was my first job when I was 15. Oh, yes.
Greg Owens 14:49
You know,
Natasha Vinitsky 14:51
it was a French bakery, not Starbucks, but it was a second I turned around and it’s lying outside the door and I’m like by myself.
Greg Owens 14:58
You’re just All right,
Natasha Vinitsky 15:01
trying not to, you know?
Greg Owens 15:06
Where was that? Where were
Natasha Vinitsky 15:09
you? It was in San Francisco, San Francisco. It was I was getting paid 575. And I thought, Oh my god. This is the life.
Greg Owens 15:18
This is the life and in you got tips, but yeah, a little bit, I guess like I mean, it’s only been recently that we’ve been tipping more for takeout, right. Like I tip. I never used to tip for takeout now I took for takeout all the time.
Natasha Vinitsky 15:32
I feed off DoorDash the convenience of Yeah, but when you get that final bill, I mean, just the taxes and the tip and alone, the snake. I might as well just go pick it up.
Greg Owens 15:44
Right, you’re like, I just paid $40 for a burger. Which I did want. Right? Yeah, it’s amazing. Um, what do you have any in any particular types of companies you prefer to have to lease to? Is it? You know, are you looking at like the Googles and the those bigger sort of those kinds of companies?
Natasha Vinitsky 16:08
Yeah, I mean, our portfolio is really, you know, we don’t discriminate. It’s very wide and variety. I mean, I have, you know, we have a property that has about 300 units for artists threatened so, so it’s, you know, it’s downtown San Jose, and artists, they rent those studios for their artwork, and they put on shows there. Oh, yeah.
Greg Owens 16:37
Is it mix spate mixed use spaces, like size wise? It’s
Natasha Vinitsky 16:41
it’s units. It’s, like small units. And you know, some artists need a bigger studio. So we, you know, we have bigger, smaller, seeing snow sayings. And we’re
Greg Owens 16:51
talking like 2000 square feet to five, not even less. Wow.
Natasha Vinitsky 16:56
laughs You know, it can start anywhere from 600 square feet. Wow. 2000 square feet. It just depends on what the artist is looking for. So that’s a very interesting property.
Greg Owens 17:09
That is very interesting, because there’s a lot of interesting activity going on there. Oh,
Natasha Vinitsky 17:14
yes. Yes. All right. Now they’re, you know, they’re working hard. They’re putting on a big art show. This weekend, so
Greg Owens 17:21
Oh, so then all the artists in their individual units collaborate and say, Hey, this incoming now we’re gonna have a big art show everybody open up, put out your best work, and we’ll get to
Natasha Vinitsky 17:32
Yeah, so there’s a certain group that works together, they all come together to have these meetings they put on an art show and amazing. Yeah, so that, you know, it’s, it’s very interesting part of my job. Yeah, part of my portfolio. Um, you know, and then again, we have, I have a property, which is RV storage, you know, and as boring as it can get, and how it is the most, it’s one of my most interesting business.
Greg Owens 18:01
Oh, really?
Natasha Vinitsky 18:04
Yeah, it’s, it’s funny, you think that all people do is just have an arc and lean, but
Greg Owens 18:09
oh, it’s it’s a public storage? Uh, huh. Oh, right. Right. Yeah, that’s a different story. Yeah, I was thinking because we just painted, we painted a massive building that is, um, file storage for companies, you know, where they want to, like, lock down their file cabinet. Paper, which is amazing to me, or maybe it’s their hard drive. I don’t even know what but it’s cold storage, right? Like,
Natasha Vinitsky 18:32
this one is actually all outside. Right. So people park their toys there. And, you know, they come and play on site with it, you know, within the business hours? Or do you take them out for camping, during, you know, long weekends, but it is a very busy property?
Greg Owens 18:49
Those are great investments to in a lot of ways. I’ve looked at them at times.
Natasha Vinitsky 18:55
The landlord and the owner Barnsey, they definitely look for those interested in good profits long term.
Greg Owens 19:02
Yeah, I guess you make it so it’s turnkey, so that you don’t really have to have a person on site, or as much on site every single day where like the tenants can come and let themselves in and let themselves out during actually, those
Natasha Vinitsky 19:15
two properties that I just mentioned, are the only two that I have property managers on site daily, because they are open seven days a week. So, you know, so, you know, the RV storage unit, people come and go every day. So we have two property managers on site within those shifts. But yeah, I mean, the you know, right now, it’s just the business property just because of my believe a lot of people can relate is the homeless concern right now that’s going on
Greg Owens 19:48
some major challenge. Yeah. So San Jose has been hit pretty hard with that too, huh?
Natasha Vinitsky 19:53
It’s been hit really bad. Yes. And that’s one of my biggest challenges. Right now is how to keep my properties and my tenants safe from theft damage, just you know, and San Jose doesn’t do anything about it. It can. It can flow. Capital doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t do anything. And so that’s been one of my biggest challenge is how to keep the property safe. And
Greg Owens 20:21
yeah, more than ever before. Like if I go in, even here, I mean, I live in Marin, which is marinas, super nice, but you’re in Marin, I don’t leave my backpack with my computer in it. In the, in the car in my truck. Yeah. Right. I always just take it with me because it’s people are so quick to break the window and grab and grab and go, even here in Marin, let alone the city where it’s like 60,000 Breaking enters into cars, like per month, I think it was alright, which is crazy numbers. And then like you said, the homeless like we’re painting for a company, we keep having to go and like paint over graffiti because the city has a mandate that you have gone in a certain amount of time. Yeah, but but we literally like I’ve told the property manager, like, I don’t know what to do. Right? We paint the wall, and then they’re right behind us painting, and we can’t stop them. We can’t that’s uh, you know, and we can call the police, but the police won’t come and do anyone do anything. Right? And, you know, security guard for the company comes out. And he’s like, What am I gonna do, I can write or you can call the police that they don’t do an ad. It’s like, a vicious circle. And we’re like, I was like, Maybe we just give up and you hold like a, an art exposition. And you invite the best graffiti artists in the city to come here and like, spray and you know, change it up every month, right or something? Because this isn’t working?
Natasha Vinitsky 21:49
No. I mean, you know, you keep spending the money to fix it and fix it in steak, you come up. I’m working with vendors right now trying to come up with Bulletproof solutions. Yeah. And they just come back. And they come up with the most imaginative ways just to get in and using tarps and ropes just to get into the property. And I don’t know what to do. I can’t you know, electrify the fence.
Greg Owens 22:18
Yeah, if it was South Africa, you’d electrify the fence. Yeah, I mean, anywhere. But here. The client was asking me what we could do. And I was like, well, maybe we can hook up like a sprinkler system on the building. So it drips water down it, right? I periodically so that when they’re spraying, it’ll like just wash it off, they’ll get ruined right away, they asked, they asked me to put anti graffiti coatings on it. And I, I need to talk to the NT, I should get the anti graffiti company on this podcast,
Natasha Vinitsky 22:48
because that actually, uh, they have those, they have
Greg Owens 22:51
an anti graffiti coating. And it’s what it is, is like just a really hard shiny coating that you can then powerwash the graffiti off. Well, now we run into a new problem, though, we have to send two painters to two people out there to do the power washing, right? And they have to they have to find water. And on a commercial building. That’s not always easy, right? We have this water and a drought. That’s not good. Right? And then we we ran into this thing where the city also has people running around painting over graffiti. So they painted over our anti graffiti coating, which causes now we have to blast all of that paint off to which causes this massive mess that we also have to then clean up. So I was like, This isn’t working?
Natasha Vinitsky 23:37
Yeah, no. I mean, I’ve talked to police departments I’ve talked to you know, just, you know, and I’m like, Well, this is technically trespassing. Like, if it was me doing it, I be arrested in a heartbeat because it just doesn’t do that. What is the difference? They’re like, nope, like nothing we can do. You can either they suggested for me to go talk to them, and make sure I bring them doughnuts and coffee.
Greg Owens 24:00
We had that idea to maybe we maybe we hire some of the homeless people that are living in the tents on the sidewalk where these guys are doing graffiti work. And we say, Hey, if you could get them to stop doing a graffiti, we’ll get your coffee and
Natasha Vinitsky 24:18
maybe we should just do it all together. Right? In your cars you in my cars