(Photo | Courtesy of BendWorks LLC)
Patrick Dailey, the owner/property manager of BendWorks LLC, discovered the beauty of Central Oregon through his adventurous son “My son is a professional outdoorsman, a skydive instructor and avid hiker,” Dailey said. “After he graduated college in 2011, he hiked the big three trails in the US. He came across Bend on the Pacific crest Trail and fell in love. In 2015 he said ‘mom, dad, come visit’ and we fell in love with the area, too.”
Dailey and his wife moved to Bend, but like many other families, faced difficulties during COVID. A longtime employee of Sikorsky Aircraft, Dailey was met with an unexpected proposal in 2020, “When I moved out here, I was able to work from home before it was cool,” Dailey said. “COVID hit and the company was restructured. After 21 years, I was advised to retire early.”
Dailey, at the age of 60, found himself in an early retirement. However, he said he was too bored to “sit at home and watch tv” so he found an opportunity to keep himself busy. “I asked myself what I can do out here,” he said. “Drones were becoming popular, and I decided to take my experience with aircraft and combine it with my other love, real estate investing.”
Dailey had an idea. He thought about his vacation home in Florida and thought about how it was frustrating to not be able to receive video or photography of portions of the house as a rental property. Dailey got inspired and got a property managers license in Oregon. In December of 2020, BendWorks LLC was launched.
BendWorks LLC is a full-service property management agency that offers a level of management most competitors don’t: drone tech.
BendWorks provides clients with in-person and recurring drone visits, monthly reconciliation reports and full-service tenant lease and collections management. The best part? The drone portion is free of charge.
Dailey offers these services on commercial, residential and land management projects to help ensure that property owners have more security and peace of mind than ever. “Imagine you own a 20 acre property out near Sisters,” Dailey said. “If you don’t live there year-round, you might not be aware of some things happening on your property. With our drone services, we can send images and videos to the property owner to make sure people aren’t dumping trash, illegally camping or damaging the environment and landscaping.”
The thought process behind this business venture came from Dailey taking a look around Bend, and realizing that tons of the properties in town are primarily used as vacation rentals and therefore are empty for several months out of the year. He also mentioned how as a mountain town, Bend is unique in that the Mt. Bachelor Ski Resort doesn’t offer vacation rentals or luxury property like other resorts.
“We thought it would be a good business model to cater to those clientele who may own a home here but don’t live here full time,” Dailey said. “Those who might come to town for ski season then rent the rest of the year, or something similar to that arrangement.”
All services put together, BendWorks offers one of the most comprehensive property management services in Central Oregon. Utilizing drone tech to provide clients with up-to-date info is a key component to Dailey’s business model, but maintaining good relationships with clients through top tier customer service is equally important.
“Our reputation is everything, and one of our major goals is to prioritize customer service,” Dailey said. “Our main focus isn’t just growth, either. I only want to have 10-20 clients at a time.”
By maintaining a select list of clients, Dailey and his team can ensure that each client and their property are getting the personal treatment they deserve.
An example of this treatment is a real life case where a hailstorm damaged the roof of Dailey’s house, and he was able to send in drone footage of the damage to the insurance company for a claim. With drone footage, homeowners can make claims like this one easier than ever.
For agricultural properties, drone tech can actually be very useful. Dailey said that in the future, he would like to offer more services to agricultural clients, “drones these days can count the livestock and fly during night to watch for predators,” Dailey said. “If coyotes are a problem, we can fly missions to confirm what’s going on and assess the situation. There are tons of properties in Central Oregon who could benefit from this.”
Outside of property management for property owners, Dailey can offer his drone services to local brokers who don’t have the required certifications to manage drone flights; this would address an unfortunate trend seen in recent years with some brokers learning the hard way that you need a drone license from the Federal Aviation Administration for any non-recreational drone flights. Even then, there are several restrictions that must be followed, all put in place by the FAA.
As an experienced and licensed professional who’s been working under FAA regulations for decades, Dailey is a local expert who’s drone services can be utilized by brokers, “I can’t sell property, they can’t fly. These relationships can be good for everyone,” he said.
BendWorks LLC • 541-639-5026 • bwllcpm.com
