Jourdan Murray 22:41
I have a clicker actually. And I love her properties are located in areas that are very, very heavy and kind of transient and homeless activity. And we have weekly meetings and the poor girl every week has some some story or some something that happened related to that, you know, and it’s something that kind of never doesn’t ever close out or go away. Just something that you kind of like manage transforms a little bit and you keep managing it. So but she’s a trooper about it. It’s definitely not easy.
Greg Owens 23:13
Yeah,
Jourdan Murray 23:14
it’s definitely not easy.
Greg Owens 23:15
And I’ve seen something like so a lot of companies have done for retail is especially where like the front entries where there’s like a little covered space, because that becomes a very good attractive place to sleep. It looks like right, you know, and it makes sense. But they’ve like done things to like put screen doors in and that kind of thing to keep to make it not as pleasant a spot, right? Um, is there anything that you guys have looked at or done or I know that one client has done a lot of things with lighting to make it less, you know, so that they won’t sleep right in the front entryway, that kind of thing? So it’s brighter?
Jourdan Murray 23:51
Yeah, you know, I think well, lighting is always important. And obviously that’s something that you get, we stay on top of lights out or dim lights is never good, never attract the right things. On our end, there’s not anything proactive from like a construction standpoint or a barrier standpoint, we’re doing to help with the homeless issue. In my experience so far with it, you know, for example, what I was talking about earlier, I decided to meet with the lieutenant of the city, kind of talk to them about you know, my situation poured my heart out about you know, being new to the company not being close by how do I manage this and help this you know, what are you guys doing? How do I get more more presence more rounds? And it was interesting because the specific person I was most concerned about the lieutenant went to high school with so knew that person and
Greg Owens 24:51
this is small town America. This is Oakland. Yeah.
Jourdan Murray 24:57
So um, you know In that example, it was really about, again, going back to me kind of going, taking that extra step meeting with the police department letting them know that I was really committed to trying to do you know, keep the place safe and do whatever I can, I’m building that rapport leaving her with a nice, you know, handwritten card and following up every couple of months. And, you know, that’s kind of 111 piece combined with, you know, the lighting, getting an additional camera, you know, other sorts of things like that. But the the thing that is most important, it seems, in my experience, so far dealing with homeless, you know, issue we’ll call it is you have to just get really connected to your community, get connected, you know, to your police department, find out what’s going on, let them you know, allow them to know, you, you know, your police department or just people to and by, you know, creating a relationship and just saying like, Hey, I manage this doesn’t guarantee that they may do rounds, you know, extra, but just by being in someone’s mind, it’s very natural for someone to, you know, to care, just because they know you,
Greg Owens 26:12
right, that may it makes so much sense. That’s like a brilliant move to go and find out what service Yeah. I know, how awesome is that, that you talk to the police person? And like, Yeah, I know that guy. We went to high school together, I’ll I will take them to breakfast. Like sleep somewhere else.
Jourdan Murray 26:32
Right. Exactly. venison, for retail, it’s hard to because like, going back to kind of what I was saying earlier, you know, and someone who works at like a retail store will call their corporate person maybe or in saying other someone homeless outside, you know, do something. But I’m hours away, I can’t see that person. I don’t, you know, I don’t, I’m just not very helpful at that. So what happens though, is that that company maybe did not train their staff of what to do, like when they see a homeless person or they feel uncomfortable. So they’re just like calling, like, what do I do, and really, you are, you are the best first line of defense, because you’re looking at this person, you can read the situation. And there’s been a couple of times where people have called me like, with describing someone or saying, like, I feel uncomfortable, someone’s like our backdoor. And I’m like, the worst thing is to try to call the police on someone else’s behalf and not have an accurate description of who that person is, or what they look like, or what’s going on and getting the police involved. It’s horrible, right, you don’t want to do that. So what I’ve been trying to do is just align myself with my tenants to really empower them to talk to their employer to say, you know, if you see this person, if you feel uncomfortable, call the police. If you don’t, you know, if they don’t come, um, it could be that you didn’t see them, or I’ve learned through talking to the police department that they get a lot of their budgeting and funding from, like algorithms that captured the amount of calls at a certain area. So it’s like just calling calling, you know, type thing that makes
Greg Owens 28:03
sense. Doesn’t make sense. I didn’t realize that. But they’re, they would have ways of monitoring where they are trouble, because based on how many calls they’re getting, and sign, they’re like, hey, when they have their meetings, like we all have meetings, they’re like, hey, so we’re getting a lot of activity in, you know, the 16th to the 24th blocks, right?
Jourdan Murray 28:25
Go there.
Greg Owens 28:26
Go there more often. Yeah, yeah.
Jourdan Murray 28:29
So that’s what was explained to me. And of course, trying to explain that to a tenant. Some times they’ll say like, the police don’t even show up or they’ll say something like that. But, you know, we have to work with our resources with what we’re given. And then also, you know, frankly, the type of person I am, I’ve been on property visits and I’ve seen you know, someone there start to set up shop in front of a in front of something, I’m just like, hey, you know, you can’t stay there. And I understand that not every situation calls for that. It’s not always appropriate. But I would love to see people getting more comfortable talking again, just in general.
Greg Owens 29:03
Yeah, there’s, there’s a lot of power and being kind, right,
Jourdan Murray 29:06
just in being kind, you know, it’s okay to approach someone you know, and like you were saying earlier, it is kind of a new day people are homeless sometimes because it’s just very expensive to live here. You know, people can be homeless for all different reasons, it doesn’t mean that everyone approaches you know, a dangerous person, it’s usually quite opposite. So, the my approach usually is just to you know, talk to people be a human ask them, you know, explain your plight it’s no ma’am, you can stay here because I got a call. But you know, and my job is to do this and I understand your your role, but you got to go and most times it works that way. But you can’t you can’t be scared.
Greg Owens 29:45
Yeah, no, I love that. And I’ve had quite a few different conversations with homeless people because, you know, I am fascinated by what’s going on and like you said, there’s so many different stories, right and right, and some of Like I’ve met met some that are wanting to escape the rat race in a lot of ways, right? They’re just like fed up with it. They’re doing they’re doing gigs. They’re didn’t do the gig economy. They’re finding money here and there to get in. And they’re like, No, I don’t want to get back into having a utility bill and having to pay rent than having to have to get I know. Exactly, right.
Jourdan Murray 30:25
I know, I know.
Greg Owens 30:26
Right? Yeah. Yeah, there’s something about that, that does sound somewhat appealing. But at the same time, like you’re trying to, you’re trying to make it so that there’s the retail establishment can open in a customer’s feel safe going into the so having that conversation with them with homeless people that are camping out there saying, Hey, I’m gonna, I’m gonna have to call the police and I don’t really want to be you seem like a cool person. Can you maybe find another spot?
Jourdan Murray 30:52
Exactly. Right. Right. Yeah, it doesn’t it does go far. Yeah, just want to be, you know, seen. So
Greg Owens 31:01
yeah. Every time I’ve talked to, every time I’ve talked to her, and sometimes there’s been some people that are what, a little far out there on the spectrum of not the same, not the same wavelength design I’m on. Right. Right. And, and but every time I’ve had them, say, Thank you for taking some time and talk to
Jourdan Murray 31:23
me know, and when you think about fundamentally, just you know what that means? I think that you will get farther with with dealing with that sort of problem in general, and treated as such, like an invisible problem, I guess. Yeah.
Greg Owens 31:39
I believe most people are good in their in their nature, right. Like they’re not out to do harm and that kind of thing. I mean, there is there is evil out there, for sure. Right. And that’s there is there is dangerous that and I’m also a six foot five, man. So I don’t have to worry about my physical body as much.
Katrina Stephenson 31:59
You have a black belt to hold somehow, you
Greg Owens 32:06
know, not as concerned about my own personal safety when I have these conversations, for sure. And I understand that. Right. So there’s a there’s a time, right? Yeah, not three o’clock in the morning downtown park now. Which I did have a wonderful conversation with some homeless people at three o’clock in the morning. They were into some of the same books that I was reading, which is Oh, that’s awesome. I don’t even know how we got to that subject. Yeah, for sure. For sure. We even have a client, and we’re doing work for them right now. And they keep getting tagged by by graffiti, right in San Francisco. San Francisco’s got these rules are it’s like you have to don’t you’ll get fined if you don’t take care of it. Literally, like their whole building gets tagged the whole way around it. It’s like it’s probably 15,000 square foot building. It’s massive. Right? Yes. And it gets tagged. And then we paint it. We were there on Saturday and Sunday, this last weekend painting it. And it’s ridiculous. Because I know that like by Monday morning, it’s all right. We come back the next day in the same way we just pay it we have to document like, hey, just so you know, we’re here. Yeah, that was gone. painted this whole thing. It’s gone. And now it’s back.
Jourdan Murray 33:32
I know. Crappy graffiti removal. The moment you remove it, it’s like people are like, Oh, it’s gone like fresh canvas and go right back.
Greg Owens 33:42
Right. And and I’m not convinced like so we’re trying some samples of graffiti. Paint that makes it easier to remove the graffiti, right? Stuff’s crazy expensive. It’s like $200 a gallon. Yeah, that doesn’t go very far. And then we still have to come out or somebody thought to come out. powerwash yeah, there’s another hole, you have to powerwash the whole process, right? It is. And so in my mind, I’m thinking it’s easier, just the pain, because like, we could just show up and paint. We don’t have to find water. We don’t have to wash this whole thing down. And we’re in a drought and all these things, but you know, the clients want to see these things. And then the other piece is I keep telling Katrina, like, there’s this there’s this organization that does that hires graffiti artists to do graffiti on, boom. I was telling I’m trying, can we get the client to just have like graffiti contest and tell the city like, hey, we gave up and we’re just gonna, we’re gonna showcase the top graffiti artists of San Francisco and
Jourdan Murray 34:38
it’s a bad idea.
Greg Owens 34:42
And just embrace it. Right? Embrace it. Yeah. I mean, these these kids that are doing this, I’m assuming they’re kids. They’re spending 1000s of dollars on paint.
Katrina Stephenson 34:51
Paint. I know. Maybe they’ll hear this podcast and they heard of your folks.
Greg Owens 34:58
Right, right. We could say to him after. So what? What other challenges have you come across are or what have you? Yeah, like in, in, in the retail in the retail area.
Jourdan Murray 35:11
Um, you know, another interesting challenge has been, again, you know, Class A office, I had a team of engineers, right that I usually worked with. So a chief assistant chief, the whole, you know, crew, so as a property manager, you know, obviously, your job is to know a little bit about, but there’s a bit of like, a, there’s still a bit of like a layer, I feel like because you have to know a little about everything, but you still have your like your chief and your assistant or your you know, engineering team that really are the ones that have to like, really know about that wet engineering, you know, specific thing, whether mechanically inclined, they are the ones that are mechanically inclined, right? So I have to be able to understand it to be able to present it to the client, you know, conceptually, why is it failing? Why is it broken? Why do we need to spend the money type thing but not so much mechanically, like, you know, what’s going on? It’s just different, right? So the structure I’m at now, we do not have a engineering team or like a name, right? And every property is spread out and, you know, different. So a lot of that role falls on me. In terms of, again, not being like the roofer. Right, but being the person who meets the roofer, who has to really understand it enough to go back to my team and say, like, you know, we need to reroute, or this section is failing, or I noticed, like, this is something’s happening, you know, there’s been a huge learning curve in terms of me having to elevate my understanding and willingness to understand the mechanical and technical side of, of how to run a building. Yeah, and that’s, you know, that’s been interesting. I will, and I actually, I don’t know if you can see, but I got this necklace, it has a ladder on it, that my friend got me out, it
Katrina Stephenson 37:07
wasn’t a
Jourdan Murray 37:09
matter because, oh, yeah, because I’ve conquered my fear, it’s no longer have ladders, you know, climbing ladders, you know, go up to these to the roof, up to the roof and jump on. And, you know, it’s just quite frankly, if my boss ever hears this, she’s gonna laugh, it’s just kind of like, I don’t know what I’m looking at, you know what I mean. And she’s so good, because she’s been working with this company for 15 years, you know, since inception. So, so much of her training has been a lot of, you know, from a seed, so she really knows about roofs, and she’s so well versed, and just so knowledgeable. So she’ll, you know, when I started, she tripped me up, she’s like, this is TPO. And, you know, this is this, and I’m like, Wow, you’re so good. You know, like, I wouldn’t even know, I just would have called it a roof. But now it’s like, they’ll send me out to say, you know, I want you to check it the roof. And I’ll have to refer back and say, you know, I think I think it looks good, or I think it looks crappy, and then you know, the rain comes, and like we get a leak call. And it’s like, I thought you went up there and you didn’t say anything it’s like, but I just don’t I truly have never had to use my brain or understand things in that. In that capacity.
Greg Owens 38:21
Yes, you learn more of the mechanical ways things are put together. What? What goes on first, Can you repair? Can you or do you have to replace those kinds of questions? All the time, right? And it’s
Jourdan Murray 38:33
because I just don’t have this, you know, awesome engineering staff that I can just get that question and just shoot to that person and say, you know, I got this question about whether the roof is failing, go look, man meet
Greg Owens 38:45
with the roofer. Because he knows more about this particular roof. Right.
Jourdan Murray 38:51
So then I find myself meeting with the roofer, you know, and having this hour long thing and, you know, climbing the ladder and doing my part, but still on a learning curve. So I leave that meeting still, like, what is it that I just took all in? Because I’m not a roofer? Like, there was so many things he just went through about the options and the structure and the, you know, the layers and this, then it’s just, it’s been it’s been a lot and then being that person that then you know, goes to, you know, my Boston team and gives a recommendation and feels confident about that recommendation, knowing fully well, sometimes, like, you know, I’m learning. And I’m not always 100% Because, you know, I have not had to be in this sort of capacity. So that’s been that’s been different.
Greg Owens 39:41
Yeah, no. And congratulations. Congratulations on conquering your ladder challenge. I mean, Katrina, Katrina, has has accompany me and helped me on many projects we used to do. I used to do a tremendous amount of steeplejack work or working in high areas like Painting flagpoles on top of skyscrapers or Katrina has helped me a few times out out at Alcatraz where, where we had to like clean gutters on a building, but it’s like five storeys, metal roof, and we’re up there, up there with their harnesses, and all of the
Katrina Stephenson 40:17
only thing she knew was like, I gotta get pictures for the gram I gotta get only because I’m also very scared of heights. So I still, I mean, thinking about it makes me lose.
Greg Owens 40:31
I know, I didn’t know you were scared of heights.
Katrina Stephenson 40:35
Because I’m not telling you up there. I just got to do it for the gram, you know, focus on the pictures,
Greg Owens 40:41
before Instagram, some of these things, whatever.
Katrina Stephenson 40:51
tell you, when we’re up there, that I’m scared, you know, we got to just go for it. Right, right.
Greg Owens 40:55
Yeah, that’s great. Good. And, you know, and I take it for granted that I’ve been in this industry so long, right, that I, I’ve learned, and I’m a general contractor, and a painting contractor. So there’s so much about all aspects of building construction, all of those things that I can easily sort of, like recognize, right, but at the same time, you know, each area’s got very, very specific, you know, so I, you know, I know, I know, who to talk to about welding, and I know who to talk to about, like, root the type of roofs they are, what we can do, and, you know, in order to fix these things, right, so just having that information of who to call. Right. Right, and then trusting their information, too, is so much right. I think so many people get in trouble. You know, you hear this all the time with car mechanics a lot where you feel like you’ve sold a bunch of things right? And, and a lot of people have I just started again, a friend of mine told me that their car broke down and and they felt like they way overpaid and that they were needed in many also feel like they didn’t need stuff. And I know me that I there’s so often that when I talk to my mechanic, I’m like, No, I don’t want to do those eight things you want to do? Yeah.
Katrina Stephenson 42:06
Charcoal ventilation air filter. Right, right. Yeah,
Greg Owens 42:09
exactly. Right. And it can make those kinds of decisions where there’s other people that like, just listen to them, and they follow the, you know, the Honda rulebook and you know, replace each thing that needs replacing, and its maintenance schedule, right?
Jourdan Murray 42:23
Well, that’s why I’m just so like, you know, excited at this time in my career, and just want to keep rowing and going, because I feel like, you know, the only thing that allows that sort of like development and knowledge to happen is time and experience, you know, and so I’m just like, looking forward to this to this, to this time, because I have no other choice at this moment, then to really just dive in and try to you know, absorb as much as I can.
Greg Owens 42:53
That’s great. That’s a great. That’s a really good outlook on it. Definitely. So and how, tell us Tell me a little bit about your origin story of getting to this place in time. Because you mean, you seem you seem like you really are very passionate about where you’re at and, and the type of work you’re doing. And you’re obviously loving the learning that you’re having to go through in this process. Yeah, but yeah, let’s, let’s hear how did you get to this point.
Jourdan Murray 43:19
So I’m, like, so many of us in property management. I never knew a career like this existed and did not put any vision of doing this when I grew up. I born and raised in the Bay Area. After high school, I or my forte. Growing up, I had dreams of moving to New York, just because I just thought it was a big city and like, want to get out of here and move to New York when I grew up type thing. And graduated high school, New York seemed a little bit out of reach a little bit bigger. I don’t know didn’t fit as much in the game plan Chicago, um, seemed like more of a, for whatever reason, at the time, just like a little bit more achievable. I was talking to a mom’s client at the time, who was describing it like great sports town and great place and kind of just said, go for it, I guess. So. At 18 I moved to Chicago and I spent several years in Chicago. I’m doing many, many jobs. I mean, shamefully, way too many to mention, but I literally was just finding myself and doing everything that I couldn’t figure out, you know, what I wanted to do as a career. And I really do say it like that, because I can say my entire life. I’ve had this very sort of deep rooted feeling of just wanting to be someone wanting to be successful, wanting to feel important, wanting to just feel proud of myself, by me by way of a career, something that would bring me money and you know, stability. So it’s always just sort of been my vision and just trying to like figure out what that could possibly be in my brain that would give me all of those feelings, but never knowing what that was. Yeah, so all most I would say 90% of my work history is in hospitality industry, bartending serving event coordinating, and unbelievably proud of all that experience, because I don’t think that there’s any other industry that teaches you more about people in a very raw way than the hospitality industry. And I credit so much to it. Um, but after meeting my husband in Chicago, and deciding to move back here to California, I call it wanting my big girl job, I kind of like had a kind of like a bit of a breakdown. And I was like, you know, I really want to do something, you know, I really want to be someone it kind of started really like hammering into my brain and like a constant sort of, you know, fashion, like, what is it that I’m going to do? So still working in restaurants, when I moved back, and then talk to a friend, again, having like, probably another breakdown, like, what am I. And she basically said, you know, I fell into this staffing agency in San Francisco, she got placed in a property management business, she was like a property assistant, right? Working at a company in San Francisco. And she was just like, I, you know, I don’t really quite know what I’m doing yet. But it’s like the most grownup job I’ve had so far to him. So you should reach out to them and see, you know, what they say. So, I reached out to the staffing agency in the city, and literally described it exactly like I’m describing it to you, I want to feel important, I want to work during the day, I’m sick of working at nights, I want to be up in the morning, be off at five, I want to have a lot of responsibility, I want to be able to grow, I want to be challenged, and just like started, you know, going down my laundry list of what I wanted out of something. And she said that property management would probably check off all the books that I got my first temporary assignment in Concord for about a week while someone was taking a vacation, and then that same company reached out with another opportunity. And then that’s how I ended up at in Emeryville, and with Cushman for several years. So it was literally all by by, you know, just the universe, having its way and taking me through my path. But I had no idea I would end up in this career at all. Because I think you just don’t know, it’s not something they put on, you know, on the list of what you can be when you grow up, you just don’t know it, it’s even out there. But it checked off everything that I wanted as a career about, you know, how I feel and what it does for me and I Yeah, it’s awesome.
Greg Owens 47:54
That’s a beautiful story. But you also knew you also knew and specified the things that you wanted, right? In your, in your both your life and your sort of career. And, you know, and, and I can see how Property Management checks off a lot of those boxes. That’s, that’s awesome, right? Because, and there’s, there’s a lot of autonomy to being a property manager, right. And a lot of ways your every day is, is completely different. And you get this sort of, yes, you have emergencies and things you have to do are important and urgent. But then you also have like, here’s the things I want to go do. To get kind of get ahead of problems, right. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s a that’s, that’s a wonderful, that’s a wonderful origin story there.
Jourdan Murray 48:38
Definitely. I like to think so. I mean, it’s not it’s hard sometimes not to be intimidated by the people who, you know, grow up knowing what they want to do, or are college graduates or, you know, just have more experience in certain ways or whatever it may be. But in the most, you know, not please shoot cliche way possible, putting it, you know, you have to believe and I, I, you know, shamefully, my whole life have just felt like, I, I have to end up somewhere, right? I gotta, I have to, I have to, you know, yeah, so, um, I do think that by always sort of knowing that and feeling that deep down in my heart, it has allowed for opportunities to grow and present them being your own advocate, believing yourself being an unwavering and what you want to achieve is so important. And then you know, you don’t always see it day by day, kind of where you’re headed. But you look back and you just realize, like, everything was so on purpose, and you’re usually exactly where you need to be. And that’s how I feel. That’s wonderful.
Greg Owens 49:45
Yeah. Yeah, that’s, that’s really cool. And any big plans coming up for the future here and like, things you’re looking forward to in the next few months? Um, suit I know we’re going into winter doesn’t feel like it today, it’s like 70 degrees outside right now.
Jourdan Murray 50:05
Well, um, you know, on a personal friend, my kid, he’s turns five tomorrow. Oh, I know, I can’t believe it, it happens so fast. So, um, we’re, we’re headed to do a big family sort of trip to celebrate him and he just had his first report card for transitional kindergarten, I guess parent teacher conference, you know, pseudo report card as much as you can have a report card for for your life and killed it. He’s doing so well. So I can’t wait to celebrate him. That’ll be great. holidays are coming stuff is slowing down a bit. So it’s going to be nice, it’s going to be really, really nice. And then my boss, you know, returns from leaving the spring. So my goal is just to get everything, keep everything flowing, you know, hopefully even exceed expectation a little bit so that when she comes back, she has no worries and she she is happy and ready to just, you know, fall back into her role organically naturally. And without any issues.
Greg Owens 51:09
I can imagine that they she comes back though, and and you managing 14 properties. They’re like, hey, you know, you did such a great job. We just why don’t you just
Jourdan Murray 51:21
he will see. I’ll let them tell me what they think right now. I’m just trying to do the best I can with right with. So one day at a time.
Greg Owens 51:31
That’s a lot. Well, thank you so much for taking the time and being on this podcast. It’s a pleasure to talk to you.
Jourdan Murray 51:38
Oh, thank you so much. Pleasure to talk to you guys as well.
Greg Owens 51:42
All right. Yeah, have a great day. Have a great day.
Outro 51:45
Thanks for listening to the Watching Paint Dry podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.