[Stephen Husted] (0:00 - 1:07)
I don't think there's a fail safe way to secure your property from thieves or squatters. I think if they want to get in, they're going to get in. But what you can do is deter them as much as possible with some tricks.
And I'm just going to share a few that I've learned over the years. First and foremost, when a property goes vacant, you can get some of the big ticket items into a storage. Usually property management companies have storage units.
They can basically hold your water heater, refrigerator, things like that, and install them the day that the tenant moves in. And what this does is when a thief sees your property online or however they're going to look at it, they just assume that you have these things. It will stop them from wanting to break in when they don't see a water heater or a refrigerator, and it gives them less to steal.
And another trick that we do is we put a cage over our AC unit. This is not a fail safe scenario. We've had thieves come up and literally chain up the cage and pulled it right off with a car.
So if they want it, they're going to take it, but at least put something in place that deters them.
