Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast number 1192, Using a Property Management Company.
This is English as a Second Language Podcast, episode 1192.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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This episode is a dialogue about using a company to help you run a property.
Now you might not own any property, but you will learn some interesting vocabulary in this episode related to business and renting.
Let's get started.
Hello.
Fickle Property Management Company.
Hello.
I own an office building on Broadway Boulevard and I'm interested in hiring a property management company.
You've called the right place.
We help you advertise your vacant units, show empty properties and screen prospective tenants.
The building is partially occupied right now.
And I want to be sure that any new tenants are financially sound.
That's why we require a rental application with financial details and check their credit history.
We are very thorough.
Will you also draw up the rental agreement?
What if tenants have problems?
We are on call 24-7 and will send out someone from our maintenance department to deal with any problems.
This sounds like what I'm looking for.
What is your fee structure?
Oh, our services are very reasonable.
Great.
Can you email the agreement to me right now?
The building has some stopped-up toilets that need attention ASAP.
Sonia says to Frank, Hello, fickle property management company.
She's answering the phone, of course.
The word property P-R-O-P-E-R-T-Y can refer to a piece of land or a piece of land that has a building on it.
A property management company is a company, a business that takes care of buildings such as apartment buildings and office buildings.
A property management company would be responsible for getting the rent from the people who are in the building.
It would be responsible for fixing any problems in the building.
In the United States, if you rent an apartment in a large apartment building, it's likely that the building is run not by the people who own the building but by another company a property management company.
Sonia works for the Fickle Property Management Company.
This is sort of a joke.
The word fickle F-I-C-K-L-E describes a person who changes his mind a lot or who isn't very loyal to one person or to an organization.
We might describe a fan someone who likes a particular sports team as being fickle if he only likes the team when the team wins.
He doesn't like the team when it loses.
That would be a fickle fan, someone who changes their mind depending on the situation.
Frank says hello.
I own an office building on Broadway Boulevard and I'm interested in hiring a property management company.
The word hire here refers to signing a contract to have a business work for you.
Sonia says, you've called the right place.
We help you advertise your vacant units, show empty properties, and screen prospective tenants.
Sonia lists some of the things that a property management company might do.
This includes... advertising your vacant units.
The word vacant means empty and is used to describe a building or a space within a building that is not being rented, not being used.
If you say we have a vacant house in, You mean you have a house that isn't occupied, in which no one is living.
It's empty.
Sonia says her company will advertise, will let people know about vacant units.
The word unit, U-N-I-T, here refers to a space in a building.
Sonia says her property management company, or the one she works for, will advertise vacant units in a building.
It will also show, S-H-O-W, empty properties.
To show means to let people look at, to give people a tour of empty properties.
Refers to buildings or units within buildings that are empty.
Sonia also says her company will screen prospective tenants.
A tenant T-E-N-A-N-T is a person who rents either a space in a building or an apartment in an apartment complex or apartment building.
We would call the person who is renting a tenant.
So if you rent your apartment, you are a tenant.
A prospective P-R-O-S-P-E-C-T-I-V-E tenant is someone who is thinking about renting but hasn't rented yet.
A prospective tenant would be someone who would come and look at say, an apartment that you are renting and be interested in renting it, but has not yet rented it.
To screen S-C-R-E-E-N someone means to determine if this person is qualified, if this person is someone qualified to whom you would want to rent a unit, in this case,
We use this verb to screen in a lot of different circumstances.
For example, a business might screen applications or screen applicants people who want to get a job.
The company will look through all the different applications and decide which people it wants to interview.
That's part of the screening process, we might say.
Frank says that his building is partially occupied right now.
To be occupied means that there are people there in the building renting in the building or renting spaces in the building.
To be partially P-A-R-T-I-A-L-L-Y occupied means that there are some spaces or units that are rented and some that are empty.
Partially means not completely.
You may ask someone if he is finished with his project and the person may respond I am partially finished.
That means I haven't completely finished it.
I'm 50% or 75% finished.
Frank says he wants to make sure that any new tenants are financially sound.
To be financially sound.
S-O-U-N-D means to have enough money to, in this case, pay your rent every month.
Sonia says...
That's why we require a rental application with financial details and check their credit history.
A rental.
R-E-N-T-A-L application is a piece of paper that you put information on about who you are and how much money you have and what kind of business you want to run.
In Financial details would refer to your bank accounts or how much money you have, what kind of business you have and how much money the business is worth.
Your credit, C-R-E-D-I-T, history, is a list of all of the loans and debt that you have.
Debt, D-E-B-T, notice we don't pronounce the B, is money you owe other people.
So if you have a credit card, You have credit card debt.
You have money that you owe the credit card company.
Your credit history would list all of your credit cards, for example, in addition to any other loans you have.
Frank says, will you also draw up a rental agreement?
The phrasal verb to draw, D-R-A-W, up, means to write or create a document.
Usually we use this phrasal verb when we're talking about a legal document, such as a contract.
You may talk about drawing up a contract to rent a property.
That contract is usually called a rental agreement.
The word agreement is another word for a contract.
Sonia says, A deposit, D-E-P-O-S-I-T, sometimes called a security deposit, is money that you pay before you rent a home or an apartment or a unit in a commercial building that is kept by the owner in case you do any damage to the building or the apartment.
A deposit is money that will be given back to you when you are no longer renting the apartment or the building or the unit.
So in the United States, for example, if you want to rent an apartment, you usually have to give the person or the company you are renting from your first month's rent, your last month's rent and a security deposit.
Some apartments will just require the first month's rent and a security deposit.
How much is the security deposit?
Often it's the same as the amount you pay for one month's worth of rent.
So if you're renting a unit for 1000 a month, your security deposit will probably be around 1000.
That's money that the property management company or the person who is renting you the property will keep until you leave the apartment or leave the unit.
Then if you haven't damaged anything inside of the unit, you will get that money back.
However, if you did cause any damage, the owner or management company will use that deposit to fix whatever damage you did.
In fact, sometimes it's called a damage deposit.
The word damage D-A-M-A-G-E means Sonja says her property management company takes care of the deposit and the delivery of keys, meaning the company will give whoever is renting the apartment the keys to the apartment or the unit.
In this case, it's an office inside of an office building.
Frank asks, what if tenants have problems?
Sonia says, we are on call 24-7.
To be on call... means to be available.
24-7 means 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
In other words, all the time.
Sonia says that they will send out someone from their maintenance department to deal with or take care of any problems.
Maintenance M-A-I-N-T-E-N-A-N-C-E refers to taking care of something so that it keeps working, or fixing something if it's broken.
Frank says, that sounds like what I'm looking for.
What is your fee structure?
Your fee, F-E-E, is the amount of money you pay someone, in this case to do something.
Fee structure S-T-R-U-C-T-U-R-E refers to a list or a chart of all the different prices that you will have to pay, depending on the different services or things you are asking the company to do for you.
Sonia says, oh, our services are very reasonable, meaning they don't cost very much.
Frank says, when can you start?
Sonia says, as soon as you sign an agreement with us.
Frank says, great.
Can you email the agreement to me right now?
The building has some stopped-up toilets that need attention ASAP.
Frank is saying that the building that he owns has some stopped-up toilets, T-O-I-L-E-T-S.
A toilet is, of course, a place in a bathroom that you use to do what you must do in a bathroom.
I think you understand what I mean, and I don't mean showering.
If a toilet is stopped up It isn't flushing properly.
The water isn't going down through the pipes properly.
It isn't working properly, we might say.
ASAP means as soon as possible.
Frank, in other words, has a problem in the building that he owns and he wants to get a property management company to go and take care of it right away.
ASAP.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Hello, Fickle Property Management Company.
Hello, I own an office building on Broadway Boulevard and I'm interested in hiring a property management company.
You've called the right place.
We help you advertise your vacant units, show empty properties, and screen prospective tenants.
The building is partially occupied right now and I want to be sure that any new tenants are financially sound.
That's why we require a rental application with financial details and check their credit history.
We are very thorough.
Will you also draw up the rental agreement?
Yes, we handle all of the rental details, including the deposit and delivery of keys.
What if tenants have problems?
We are on call 24-7 and we'll send out someone from our maintenance department to deal with any problems.
This sounds like what I'm looking for.
What is your fee structure?
Oh, our services are very reasonable.
When can you start?
As soon as you sign an agreement with us.
Great.
Can you email the agreement to me right now?
The building has some stopped-up toilets that need attention ASAP.
You can listen to our wonderful scripts 24-7. and we thank our on-call script writer, Dr. Lucy Say, for her wonderful scripts.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2016 by the Center for Educational Development.
