💸 His Longest Tenant Has Stayed 25 Years. It Costs Him About $150 a Year 🏡

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Hey RE Rockstar,

Rich here from RE Riches.

A few editions ago we covered someone who cut her turnover time from thirty days to four.

Today's subject went after something harder: not having the turnover at all.

His longest tenant has been in the same house for twenty-five years. Ten, fifteen, twenty-year tenancies are normal across his portfolio. And the budget he spends keeping it that way is about $150 per tenant, per year.

He arrived in the United States with two suitcases and $100.

His first property, bought after watching a late-night infomercial, was — his words — "a complete and utter disaster."

Meet Dr. Joe Asamoah.

WHAT WILL YOU GET TODAY?

✔️ See the two levers in a rental — and why most people pull the wrong one.

✔️ Learn what a Section 8 voucher actually pays for.

✔️ Get the screening step almost nobody has the nerve to do.

✔️ Understand why your property manager may not want what you want.

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INVESTOR SPOTLIGHT OF THE DAY

Meet Joe Asamoah,

Born in Ghana,

Who moved to England at five,

And arrived in the United States in the mid-1980s

With two suitcases and $100.

He watched an infomercial, bought a property,

And by his own description it went

"a complete and utter disaster."

He kept buying anyway.

HERE'S THE BREAKDOWN

He wasn't chasing an escape.

What pushed him was watching a mentor lose his job —

And deciding he wanted income that couldn't be taken away by one phone call.

So he bought rowhouses in Washington DC, slowly, over years,

While still working.

Around 2005, rental income matched his salary.

He left the job.

Today: more than thirty single-family rowhouses,

All in one city, in neighbourhoods he already knew.

Thirty-five years. Four market cycles.

And a strategy he describes in one line:

Buy C or D-class properties in B neighbourhoods,

and rent them to A-class Section 8 tenants.

JOE'S BLUEPRINT TO SUCCESS

Here's the thing most investors miss. A rental has two separate levers, and they are not the same lever.

• Bedrooms raise the rent. Finishes do not. A housing voucher is calculated on exactly two things: the zip code and the number of legal bedrooms. Not the kitchen. Not the floors. So he buys three-bedroom rowhouses and adds two legal bedrooms, usually in the basement — proper ceiling height, egress, closet, outlets, permits, inspections. In DC that moved one house from roughly $3,700 a month to $5,462. Same house, same street. About $1,762 more per month — call it $21,000 a year — for a construction cost.

• The renovation buys tenure, not rent. So why renovate to HGTV standard if the voucher won't pay more for it? Because it changes who applies. He stages the house with furniture, shoots it properly, and advertises it as "Section 8 welcome." One property drew 172 calls and 16 applications in ten days — which means he gets to choose. The finish quality isn't buying rent. It's buying the pick of the applicants, and then a decade of them not leaving.

• Screen like it matters, because it does: An eight-page application. Current landlord and the one before. Credit, income, ID, background, eviction database. And then the step almost nobody has the nerve to do — he visits the applicant's current home. It's stated in bold on the application, so nobody is ambushed. His reasoning is blunt: "How their house is today, is how your house is going to be in three months, guaranteed."

BACK TO JOE'S STORY

Then comes the part that actually produces the twenty-five-year tenancies,

And it costs almost nothing.

Mother's Day: flowers to every tenant. About $30.

Christmas: a gift to the family. About $30.

School reports: a $50 gift certificate for a child who brings home A's.

Plus a short holiday — a couple of nights away.

Total, per tenant, per year: roughly $150.

Now put that against the alternative.

He puts the real cost of one turnover at one to three months of rent

Once you count vacancy, make-ready, advertising and time.

On a $3,000 unit, that's around $6,000 —

Gone, in a single move-out.

So: $150 a year to avoid a $6,000 event.

Ten years of that attention costs $1,500 —

Less than one turnover.

He also stopped using property managers, for a reason worth sitting with:

Their fees are earned on new leases, deposits and repairs.

A manager gets paid when a tenant leaves.

He gets paid when they stay.

Those are not the same business.

LESSONS FROM A SELF-MADE MILLIONAIRE

LESSON #1: KNOW WHICH LEVER YOU'RE PULLING

A better kitchen and an extra bedroom do completely different jobs.

One buys you a tenant. One buys you rent.

Confusing them is how people spend $40,000 and raise the rent by nothing.

LESSON #2: THE TENANT IS AN ASSET YOU ALSO OWN

In his words: "the human asset, if you don't take care of it, it will destroy you."

You underwrite the building for twenty years.

Underwrite the person the same way.

LESSON #3: GO AND LOOK

Every landlord checks credit. Almost none go and see how someone lives.

It is uncomfortable, it is disclosed up front, and it is

the most predictive thing he does.

LESSON #4: CHECK WHO PROFITS FROM THE OUTCOME YOU DON'T WANT

Turnover is expensive for you and revenue for your manager.

That doesn't make them villains. It makes their incentive

point the other way — and you should know that before you sign.

There's a version of this business that only works if the tenant can't afford to leave. This is the opposite one. Joe Asamoah's entire model depends on people choosing to stay — for ten years, fifteen, twenty-five — and it turns out that's worth about $150 a year.

Pull up your rent roll — or the last place you rented, if you're not there yet.

How long has the current tenant been in it?

Then work out what one move-out actually costs you: the empty weeks, the make-ready, the listing, your own time.

Now ask what one per cent of that number, spent on being a decent landlord, might buy.

Hit reply and tell me what you find. I read every one.

To tenants who never leave,

— Rich, RE Riches

The content of this newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial advice. Conduct your own research or consult a financial professional before making investment decisions.