Happy Holidays and Happy New Year from everyone here at Stone Oak!
We greatly appreciate your trust in us, and we look forward to another great year of working with you!
Holiday Hours
During the holiday season and end of year there will be closures in an effort to give everyone here at Stone Oak more time off with their families and friends. You can view our holiday closing schedule on our website. We will resume normal business hours on the next business day following the listed holidays.
End of 2024 Market Update
In the last few posts we’ve give some year end updates, so please take a look at the video from October and/or the info posted in November. Market conditions haven’t changed a lot since then other than the usual seasonal fluctuations.
Winter Weather
It’s that time of year again when we have extreme cold weather events. We are reminding tenants about the need to protect people, pets, pipes, and plants. While we can remind them and give them tips, there are still many factors in whether a given property will end up having frozen pipes or other issues. Pipes and exterior water heaters are extremely vulnerable when they are on an exterior wall on the north side of a home. Properly preparing a home doesn’t guarantee that pipes will not freeze, and unfortunately, there are external factors like power outages that we’ve experienced quite a bit of in the last few years. If a property is impacted by the freeze we will communicate directly with the owner, however we will do everything we can to ensure that the tenants are fully aware of any pending inclement weather.
If your property is vacant we will attend to it ahead of any deep or prolonged freezes by default. If you want to attend to your own vacant property during a potential freeze please let us know in advance so you do not incur expenses for our visit to prepare your property.
Corporate Transparency Act
In the last few posts we’ve mentioned the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN) registration requirement for entities, however “on December 3, 2024, the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas issued a nationwide preliminary injunction that suspends the enforcement of the CTA and its BOIR requirements, including the BOIR compliance deadlines.” The injunction is being appealed from what we’ve read, however we recommend that you communicate with your legal and financial advisors to keep up with any future developments on the enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act.
Interested in Selling or Buying More Property?
We want to remind our clients that we are a fully licensed brokerage, and all of the property managers are licensed to practice real estate in Texas. If you want to sell your managed property, or are interested in buying more investment properties please let your property manager know! We can help you, and as an existing client we will work with you on the commissions to save you money versus using a third party agent.
Liability Insurance Policy and Landlord Protection Program
On June 5, 2024 we sent out an email to all of our clients with some general updates and about changes to how we handle the liability insurance requirement of the management agreement, and the Optional Assurances program that many of you are participating in. If you missed the email please take a moment to read it, and if you didn’t receive it let us know so we can send it to you again.
We continue to work through processing these changes and will follow up over the next several weeks. These emails will have important information so please keep an eye out for that correspondence.
Landlord Insurance
We are partnered with Andor Insurance to help our clients ensure they have the best options and coverage for your investments, home, and other insurance policies. Please reach out to Ryan who is happy to help you review your current policies, evaluate your coverage, or search out other options.
Data Breaches and Scams
In our last few posts we’ve covered several data breaches, and it seems every day a new one is being announced publicly or by mail to affected parties. In the context of being a client of Stone Oak we want to continue reminding our clients about these breaches because a lot of this data can be used in social engineering and phishing attacks, which could involve your data being used by someone who poses as your property manager or other contact as part of a scam. We see these attempts internally as scammers send us email posing as fellow employees or managers of Stone Oak
That being said, we want to remind you that we will never call you to ask to confirm or provide your bank info, social security number, or other personal information on the phone or by email. We will also never ask you to pay for anything with gift cards, cryptocurrency, etc. All of our emails will come from our domain, www.stoneoakmgmt.com, or through our software as a long string of letters/numbers from the domain @stoneoak.mailer.appfolio.us. Our property management software includes a texting service that will not match our office number, but if you try to call that number it will go directly to our main office phone line.
Here is some helpful information about Caller ID Spoofing, and other common scams. Also the US Federal Bureau of Investigations resources about common scams are good to be aware of.
Please stay vigilant, maintain a healthy amount of skepticism, and contact us directly with the number on our website or our direct emails if anything looks questionable.
Thank you for being a client of Stone Oak Property Management. Please don't hesitate to contact your property manager should you need anything at this time.
Reminders:
Maintenance Approval Process Changes
In addition to the info below about funding repairs we want to notify all owners that we are modifying our escalation process when we can’t reach our clients in order to make sure we are complying with property code requirements. In bonafide emergencies we are acting within our authority to mitigate damages, however after it has been contained or in non-emergency situations we reach out to our clients for work authorization that is required above the limit set in the management agreement. In those cases we now have a strict process going into effect that will have a time-based escalation if we cannot reach you. The time frame will be that if we can’t reach you by the 3rd day from when we first reached out we will then reach out to your emergency contact who can aid us in getting authorization or contacting you. If you’d like to update your emergency contact we have on file please contact your property manager. Keep in mind that this contact should be someone outside of your immediate household who you trust to make decisions on your behalf if you cannot be reached by them or us.
Funding Make-Readies & Maintenance for Your Property
Please note that it is Stone Oak's policy that the owner has reserve funding on hand with Stone Oak to help us commence work faster when it comes to make-readies and maintenance on your property. Stone Oak cannot perform maintenance without first receiving authorization and funding, which can slow down the turn-around times of our vendors and their availability in this market. This can also potentially create a negative experience that tenants will remember when it comes time to renew, and we always want to avoid turning over the tenants. Any time we request authorization for work on your property, the best practice is to immediately fund your account when you provide written authorization to move forward. This is as simple as going into your owner portal and using ACH for a free transfer, or if you prefer a credit card the processor charges a fee as part of the transaction.
Keep in mind that tenant charges on your account are not considered an offset to this amount as we keep a strict accounting system for both our and our client's benefits. Any tenant chargeable items will be posted to their account, and once they are paid it is immediately credited to your account. If you have any questions about this reserve amount held with Stone Oak please contact your property manager.
HOA Compliance Notices
Did you know your HOA can send important notices and compliance letters directly to Stone Oak to enforce? Yes! We can take care of that for you! Please be sure to provide your HOA with Stone Oaks direct contact information so we can ensure timely delivery of notices.
Please contact your PM for more information.
