MLSullivan Property Management was founded by Michael Sullivan in 2008. The company specializes in managing single-family homes, multi-family units, and commercial properties – or “doors” – across the Triangle region. Sullivan, a licensed real estate broker since 1994, shifted to property management during the 2008 housing crisis to help homeowners rent out properties instead of selling at a loss. He launched the business with a focus on transparency, high-quality tenant screening, and proactive property maintenance. The company has grown significantly, now managing 470 properties while maintaining its commitment to providing reliable service to both owners and tenants.

The Durham Voice: Where did you get the idea to start your business? What inspired you to open MLSullivan Property Management?

Michael Sullivan: This business was founded out of necessity. I had been a general brokerage real estate agent and sold real estate for two large legacy real estate companies, and did really, really well. Around 2006, the mortgage lender talked to us about these wonderful new loan programs where buyers would be able to purchase homes at 103 percent of the loan-to-value, meaning 3 percent over what the actual value of the home was. In 2008, the bubble popped, and I knew it was going to happen. I had roughly 30 homes listed for sale with no one looking at them. I went to a local sign shop and I bought $350 worth of corrugated signs for rent. I created a company, and I named it after myself because I couldn’t think of anything else.

Why did you choose Durham to start the company?

When I moved to Durham, I fell in love with the place. At the time, Durham really was the red-headed stepchild of the triangle. Downtown was a ghost town. The real estate market was somewhat depressed when we considered valuation. What I’ve witnessed over the 30-some-odd years of doing this business is Durham really has risen and come into its own.

What financial tools did you use to fund the business, given it was in the midst of the recession?

I’ve never borrowed to fund this business, and we have never had any debt. Everything that we have, we’ve purchased outright. I say this to friends and co-workers –  I’m always going to be operating from a “refugee mentality.” I grew up kind of poor, working poor. We never wanted for food, shelter or clothing, but Mom and Dad didn’t have a lot of extra.

How long did it take for MLSullivan to become profitable?

We have always been profitable. In 2008, suddenly there were a whole lot of people who weren’t buying and needed to rent, or had been homeowners and no longer owned homes. They had had foreclosures and they needed to rent. Between 2008 and 2021, I did both – I sold real estate and ran this company. It’s only in the last few years that I’ve pivoted to only doing this.

What would you say MLSullivan does to stand out against independent landlords and other competitors?

Early on, I decided that we were going to be an interrupter in the property management space. In general, brokerage interrupters are companies like Opendoor. They come to the table and say, “Don’t put your house on the market. We’re going to buy it from you.” There are advantages and disadvantages to doing that, and I decided that we would be a bit of an interrupter when I started MLSullivan Property Management.

Earlier you talked about differentiators in the company structure, what are some of those differentiators and how do they impact your business strategy?

Virtually nobody in property management Traingle-wide was putting their pricing on their website. It was like this big secret, so I decided we were going to change that. Number two, we weren’t going to chase rent, so we were going to put into place quantifiable, measurable requirements for tenants to rent homes from us. We will, of course, bend if an owner, through conversation sees a benefit in bending those rules a little bit. We make routine and periodic visits to our rental homes to make sure that they are being well cared for and to make sure that we’re taking care of them. My team knows that I should be able to drive down any street where we have a rental home, and our rental home shouldn’t stand out from its neighbors. It should fit in with the scenery.

How have you grown the business over the past 17 years? Does MLSullivan utilize marketing or other strategies to reach potential clients?

I hired a business coach who specialized in property management, and his team really made us focus on a mission statement, and core values, and create a process-driven practice where we weren’t reinventing the wheel every time we had a new tenant. We have processes and policies for almost everything that we do, and it changes every day, because every day the human factor changes. Once we did that, we very quickly jumped to 200/230 doors by 2022, and today we’re at 470 doors.

Why do you think that most of your houses are single-family? What trend do you think caused that?

I do know why. From about 2015 to post-COVID, the federal government did nothing but pump money into real estate. We have countless landlords that have beautiful homes and interest rates at 2.75 percent and 3 percent. Instead of selling those properties when they move on, they’ve held on to them and kept them as rental homes. 135,000 people have moved here out of New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Connecticut, and Florida. People coming out of a single-family setup somewhere else don’t want to go to a four- or five-story high-density apartment home. They feel like it may be stepping backward, even though it’s not.

There are a lot of zoning initiatives to rezone previously single-family lots. How does that impact your business model?

I don’t think it will. I think by and large, the local governments recognize that what buttresses their tax base, especially in North Carolina, is single-family residential houses. I do see an opportunity with rezoning, where they are now allowing multiple properties or multiple homes on smaller lots. What kind of breaks my heart is the high-density, high-rise apartment home communities because those are corporate owners. They don’t care for the local economy. It’s all about driving their bottom line.

What would you define as your mission statement and core values?

Our core values are to take care of people and let the rest take care of itself. If you take care of the landlord’s needs or the tenant’s needs, the revenue and all of that will work itself out in the end. Our mission is to be the best property management company in the Triangle region, using cutting-edge technology and processes to drive the company forward.