About Us

 

About Dave Zundel
HomeLovers Co-Founder, real estate investor

Dave Zundel has been building businesses for over 20 years, including hands-on consulting work with the owners of nearly 200 companies.

Recently, his experience allowed him to redefine residential property management and implement new levels of efficiency for a local Phoenix real estate investment and property management company, resulting in aggressive growth from 300 homes under management to nearly 2000 homes – almost a 600% increase. With a focus on numbers, Dave created tools to assist investors with avoiding purchasing mistakes, maximizing ROI and attracting ideal tenants.

In the same time frame, Dave accumulated a personal portfolio worth over $3 million that included 15 single family homes. At age 40, Dave retired from his position as CEO to focus on his personal real estate investments.

After three years in retirement, Dave could no longer resist the lure of reentering the business world. In looking at all the different types of businesses he had worked with over the years, none had more appeal to him than property management. With the luxury of hindsight, Dave was able to reflect on things that had created challenges and unhappy clients. After nurturing the idea for several months and launching a joint partnership with Mike Sargent, a dramatically improved property management model evolved.

About Mike Sargent
HomeLovers Co-Founder, real estate investor

Mike Sargent has personally owned and managed more than 30 investment properties, both residential and commercial, and was recently instrumental in growing a local Phoenix real estate investment and property management company into the largest property management firm in Arizona.

His leadership, investment and portfolio management experience allowed him to rapidly expand the number of homes under management to 2,000 homes during his tenure.

Prior to this, Mike spent 18 years as an executive at Inter-Tel, Inc., a major public telecommunications company; and Cirillium, Inc., a hi-tech Inter-Tel spinoff, both headquartered in the Phoenix area, where he was influential in launching VoIP  (voice-over Internet Protocol) to major clients worldwide by leveraging his software design engineer background, financial acumen and boardroom experience.

He is an experienced international traveler who has visited more than 30 countries. Mike has a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Systems Engineering from Arizona State University.

About HomeLovers
One of Arizona’s fastest growing real estate investment and property management companies

To take the model of a drastically improved property management firm from an idea to fruition, Dave Zundel and Mike Sargent partnered in early 2008 to build HomeLovers, an Arizona-based property management company that specializes in residential rental properties including purchasing and managing rental property to building and growing a robust, profitable investment portfolio.

Their combined experience has allowed them to avoid predictable problems, implement technology in revolutionary ways to improve customer service and improve efficiency and profitability.

HomeLovers is rapidly establishing itself as a customer service leader in property management and today is one of Arizona’s most rapidly growing home rental and property management companies.

HomeLovers is one of few property management agencies that offers its owner/investor clients instant access to real-time online accounting, documents and reporting. Ask about it today at http://www.homelovers.com.

1
Dec

SmartMoney Article Offers Advice to Tenants

Dave Zundel, HomeLovers’ co-founder, shared his expert opinion with SmartMoney.com in “10 Things Your Landlord Won’t Tell You.”
The economy has hit rental property owners hard and created a lot of fear for tenants.  Successful landlords will always separate themselves from the pack by addressing tenants concerns.  One tenant worry highlighted in the article is property [...]

23
Feb

Inman article debates rental glut in the Phoenix rental market

HomeLovers was included last week in author Steve Bergsman’s “Don’t call it a glut” article on Inman News.  (No membership to Inman? You can also read the full article here.)
Bergsman took another look at a claim from one of his earlier articles, which stated that cities like Phoenix and Denver were showing signs of a single-family-home rental [...]

11
Nov

New Investment Property Article on eHow.com – Screening Tenants

When it comes to az investment property, one of the most important factors impacting profitability is selecting the right tenant.
Read the new HomeLovers article on eHow.com here on “How to Screen a Prospective Tenant for your Rental Property.”
It has nine tips to help ensure you are putting the right tenant in your home for maximum [...]

28
Oct

Are AZ Landlords Negotiating With Renters?

HomeLovers had an interesting interview with Arizona Republic real estate reporter Catherine Reagor recently on renter trends and issues – real life examples of what’s going on in the rental market with tenants right now.
One of her questions was the current renter market – are landlords negotiating with renters or bargaining? Are they settling for [...]

6
Aug

Short Sale Deals Often Collapse – How To Help Prevent It

USA Today recently ran an interesting article on how home sellers are increasingly frustrated as short sale deals collapse – often months into the deal when potential buyers walk away due to lengthy delays. Read the article here.
The author wisely points out that the banks are only part of the problem. Buyers/sellers can’t do much [...]

28
Jul

Bio – Dave Zundel

Meet Dave Zundel
Co-founder, Real Estate Investor
To take the model of a drastically improved property management firm from an idea to fruition, Dave Zundel and Mike Sargent partnered in early 2008 to build HomeLovers, an Arizona-based property management company that specializes in residential rental properties including purchasing and managing rental property to building and growing a [...]

22
Jul

Phoenix Foreclosure Sweet Spot

According to MSN, Phoenix is still one of the top three leading destinations, regardless of all the marketplace grumbling. Read the article: http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=19873357&gt1=35000

In spite of all the stress in the economy, people on the move are still coming to Phoenix. This steady growth in population over time is fueling our recovery and contributing to the [...]

21
Jul

Bio – Mike Sargent

Meet Mike Sargent
Co-founder, Real Estate Investor
To take the model of a drastically improved property management firm from an idea to fruition, Dave Zundel and Mike Sargent partnered in early 2008 to build HomeLovers, an Arizona-based property management company that specializes in residential rental properties including purchasing and managing rental property to building and growing a [...]

26
Jun

Renters Hit By Foreclosure Market: Upside-down Investment Property Options

For an interesting article in today’s Washington Independent, click here. It talks about the Phoenix market and how renters are hit by the foreclosure crisis.
As owners/investors land in a bind and either are forced into foreclosure or a short sale, they need to do the right thing when it comes to their tenants.
WHAT TO DO?
You’ve [...]

1
Jun

Getting a Great Deal on an Arizona Foreclosure

There is a new feeding frenzy developing in the Arizona housing market. The buzz words are auction, foreclosure, short sale, REO, etc., but the common theme is “deal”.
During the run up of 2004-2006, people were pretty much buying anything with a “for sale” sign and we all know how that story ended. Today I am [...]

29
May

Housing Demand Stabilizes

According to Business Week, recent signs point to a stablizing housing market. Read the article here.
What does HomeLover owner and real estate investor Mike Sargent have to say? “Those that wait for the bottom of the market to be obvious are acting too late.

What we are seeing in the Phoenix metropolitan area are investors [...]