STRSS 54 – 7 Steps to Survive a Pandemic for Airbnb Hosts w/ Jeremy Schmitt

Video Transcript

00:00:00

We’re dropping prices dramatically, you know, giving people 30 to 40% discounts for 14 weeks stays some unique things we’re doing that you could potentially do are reaching out directly to hospitals and saying, Hey, if you have people that need help with quarantine, if you have extra traveling nurses, we wanna provide that service for you.

00:00:19

This is episode number five, four, the short term rental success stories podcast. Are you an investor that’s looking to have your home professionally managed, go to cohost it.com for more information, welcome back to short term rental success stories. I’m your host, Julian Sage. This is a show where I talk to host about their journeys and starting and growing the short term rental business. My goal is that you’ll be able to walk away with practical information. That’ll help you become a better host and learn how to scale your business. Like any exceptional host. We all strive for five star reviews. So please go on over to iTunes and let us know what you enjoy as it really helps support the show. If you haven’t done so already going over to our Facebook group, the host nation to connect with the community.

00:00:58

Hey, what is going on? Host nation? I’m super excited. I’ll be back again with you this week. So there’s been a lot happening in the short term rental space with Airbnb making these new announcements and their four step action plan, which is something that we’ve covered on the Vacation Rental machine podcast. So if you haven’t checked that episode out where we cover everything going over, what Brian Chesky shared with us for his four steps of action, to be able to help alleviate hosts that were affected. It’s definitely an interesting, listen. This is definitely something that you do wanna find more information about as it can seriously impact your business. There’s also a lot of information coming out for small businesses in regards to grants and funding loans, to be able to help host out the SBA is coming out with a lot of resources for hosts to be able to utilize such as the COVID 19 bill.

00:01:45

There’s the E I D L loan as well as the P P P and all these different loan programs that are coming out to be able to help either pay for employees or some type of grant or a loan to be able to allow you to keep operating your business again, go on over to the Vacation Rental machine podcast, to be able to keep up to date with Jon and I, as we are covering this information as it’s coming out, I wanna say thank you to all the hosts that have been super supportive and recognizing that I’ve been a little bit stressed out. I sent out an email the other week, you know, just being honest and saying, you know, I’ve, I’ve been burnt out. I’ve been going really, really hard for the past year, the past 52, so episodes. And it was just like, exactly it, one year, it was just like, boom, all, you know, all hell breaks loose, but I’m doing okay.

00:02:32

And I thank you for everybody for your kind messages and emails and comments. So every day I was just waking up just super excited because I knew like, okay, we’re, we’re, we’re getting there. We’re moving forward. We’re progressing. So now just to be able to stop and reflect and not so much think about, you know, what’s the next thing that we can be doing? How can we, you know, make this next move? And now it’s more like, well, how can we help the people that are hurting it’s times like this, that we have to do a lot more reflecting and looking introspectively. And I I’ve been doing that myself, like how I always end every episode. We have to keep on hosting I’m in this for the long haul. And I don’t plan on going anywhere for a long, long time. And even though every day is not going to be just, you know, constant progression and strides moving forward.

00:03:18

It’s just the simple act of doing and keeping on keeping on hosting. And that’s why I’m really grateful for our guest today. Jeremy Schmidt, Jeremy was a previous guest on the show and he’s come back to be able to share his seven steps to survive a pandemic, survive this type of situation. And we also talk about the state of Rental arbitrage and what Jeremy is seeing from these companies like Saunder lyric. And MECASA all these big companies that are just really focused on picking up more units. And what that means for Rental arbitrage. A lot of people have been really bad talking about Rental arbitrage model, which I honestly believe is really just coming from the people that did not like the model. And don’t like people that are teaching how to do it. It is a model that, you know, is here to stay there.

00:04:03

There’s companies that are really doing well off of it. But again, it’s like any other business. It would be the same if you own property, but again, we covered is Rental arbitrage dead? Is it something that’s sustainable in the Vacation Rental machine podcast? So if you’d like to hear Jon and I’s perspective on that model as my partner, Jon has over 24 properties being Rental arbitrage, and then another 10 or so being cohost and a few that he owns really utilizing this whole model that we call the RCB, the Rental arbitrage, cohost buy and hold models, and how using all three can really help diversify your portfolio and allow you to be able to scale exponentially. Again, this is a really great episode that can talk about some of the different pivots that you can do in your own business. If you like my show notes for this episode, go to Short Term Sage dot com slash STR five four, or if you like my show notes sent directly to your inbox every week, then go to Short Term Sage dot com slash show notes with all that being said onto this week’s conversation.

00:04:56

Hey, welcome back, host nation to another episode of short mental success stories. In this episode, we have the special honor of bringing back a previous guest from episode number two seven. So that was nearly, you know, that was 25 weeks ago when we first started the show. That was our midway point. So I’m really excited to be talking to Jeremy again and seeing where his business, you know, was then where it is now, and also what he’s doing during these uncertain times and how he’s handling this as well as a really awesome pre resource that Jeremy put together for the host nation community and for all the hosts that are looking to, you know, just get some more information on what they can be doing. So I’m really excited to have Jeremy back on Jeremy, if you could please give a, a little brief introduction about who you are for those of you that haven’t listened to that episode. Again, go back to STR go to shorttermsage.com slash STR two seven to listen to Jeremy’s episode, but Jeremy, please, you know, reintroduce yourself. And let’s talk about where, where you are now.

00:05:49

Thanks Julian. Thanks for having me on too. Again, so our business, so I have a little company it’s called the passion group. I had it since we last spoke. And since we last spoke, actually we’ve rebranded our Chicago portfolio to be called Chicago residence club because we wanted to be more local partner with more local business. We’ve also expanded to Palm beach just to offset the seasonality of Chicago. And it’s really good for right in these uncertain talked, you know, we’ve very, very objectively and very based on data. You’ve we’ve VC players here, and a metropolitan flooding the market with supply. And, you know, in talking to the local brokerage community, talking to these developers that we have relations with, we know that they’re just making deals, that don’t quite make sense, you know, where we pay their master. So their models master lease for people who know where we pay maybe 1700 to 2000 for a one bed, no they’re paying $3,000 for a one bed and they’re doing this for one of their deals.

00:07:25

Actually one of my friends was a part of it. You know, they even have to pay the taxes, which the city, Texas in Chicago are enormous. So we just started seeing that about, you know, six months ago. And we knew just like, this is not sustainable. It’s okay during good times. But we’ve been in an extended bull market. We’ve been at the eighth inning for a long time. And Corona was kind of that last strike out, okay. Entering the ninth, maybe we’re finally, you know, gonna be entering this kinda recession area. So for us, you know, during that whole time, our big focus was one building up a stock, a stock of cash to be ready for this. So, you know, our business, we always require at least two months cash reserves. Ideally we have up to six for us. It was a little tough just because we just got out of wintertime.

00:08:18

So January and February, historically is where people lose the most money in Chicago. So it, it was not good timing cuz the Corona stuff happened like the 1st of March and hurt us. You know, St Patty’s day is a big day and we could have done much better, but putting that cash doc away was really important for us. Secondly, we went out and really seek strategic capital partners. So for our deals, you know, we don’t really take on many clients. We have two really large clients who we take on really to mitigate our risk. So, okay. We master lease and spend X amount. We wanna have, you know, maybe a fourth to a third of that revenue coming from, you know, the management side of the business because there’s no risk there. We’re not gonna be making as much in these uncertain times, but because we have an airtight, you know, management system, we’re able to make money with a lower risk profile.

00:09:19

So we’ve, we’ve built that into our portfolio. Well time I, you Palm actually really good for in these uncertain are trying to, trying to get out Chicago and get to more, more remote location. Having those units down there, you know, has really helped us during those uncertain times, but a lot like everybody else, you know, they’ve probably watched other episodes on YouTube or the Airbnb automated guys, you know, we’re dropping prices dramatically, you know, giving people 30 to 40% discounts for 14 weeks stays some unique things we’re doing that, that you could potentially do are reaching out directly to hospitals and saying, Hey, if you have people that need help with quarantine, if you have extra traveling nurses, we wanna provide that service for you. I’m also part of kind a, a, a national network of short term rental operators, and we’ve created two brands to kind help those stranded travelers.

01:10:20

And also these, these hospital stays just because the hospitals are getting overrun. We’re also putting our stuff on Zillow. So that distributes to truly a hot Zillow Craigslist and then Facebook marketplace, you know, just to expand the reach and the more we’ve done it, the more we see it’s like, Hey, this should be a continual process through, through our bookings. You know, we might not make as much money through the summertime where we make, you know, two X, three X money. But if we can make, you know, 1.5 to two with longer term rentals, it’s easier for our operations and cleaners, you know, and it really decreases the risk when things happen, when things hit the wall, you know, and things are happening now. And one of our top competitors is really struggling, seems to be going under few other people have just kind of given up on it in the market.

01:11:10

So me and my team, we just decided, Hey, let’s create a resource. So maybe it doesn’t help now cuz we’re already in that uncertain time. But if you’re in this business for the long term and you see the true value, I mean let’s start building the business, the right play the right way and make it foolproof. That’s we’ve our business as I you’ve our at now, no problem. But you know, we’re happy at our amount just cause you know, we know we’ve made great deals and we know we have the right systems and partners in place to take care of that. So, you know, we wanted to share kind of from our standpoint, you know, how we’re surviving this when most aren’t. So we created kinda a seven part series that we look forward to sharing with your, with your group and your,

01:12:07

Yeah. Thank, thank you so much, Jeremy. You know, I, you know, I think, I think what you said about, you know, the, the finding the counter seasons is, is something that’s really smart from a manager perspective. A lot of managers, they might just focus on a particular area, but let’s say, you know, like you said, everybody’s moving from those highly dense populated areas down to the, you know, more, you know, set apart areas like, like Florida for those properties in the Chicago, New York area where people, you know, you’re, you’re finding those vacancies, like you said, what, what, one of the things that you said that you’re doing is you’re listening them on long-term Rental sites. Are there any other pivots that you’re doing right now in your portfolio and especially because you’re working with investors, so are your investors expecting certain things or how, what are you doing to be able to work with them?

01:12:59

Yes. So this is actually one of the parts in our, our ebook is strategic capital partners. And the really important aspect of this is, you know, strategic capital partners who understand our business, like our, our business is real estate, but it’s not, it’s, it’s, it’s a hotel asset, it’s a hospitality asset. So for us, you know, all of our partners understand this, you know, and they know when times get bad, they get bad quickly, but it, if we can survive, you know, and we have the right buffers in place, we’re not only gonna be able to survive this. We’re gonna be able to work with our capital partners to start to pick up other units. So we’ve gotten contacted by two, three other groups to, you know, take over their portfolios right now. And some of them are a fit. Some of them are, are not a fit, but that’s really, what’s important, you know, in terms of us and working with, with our partners, you know, in terms of pivots, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s just a matter of having open communication.

01:14:07

I mean, that’s what our business is in hospitality, it’s communication and providing a good service. So talking to the landlord saying, Hey, this is going on, you know, New York, LA, Chicago hasn’t really, but you know, they’re doing you they’re halting evictions, which we think it might have been smarter to just defer rent payments. Cause people are just gonna cry Wolf and say they don’t the money. But you know, it’s just having conversations with saying, Hey, this is where we, now we have reserves and we’re gonna stay. We’re not gonna default on you. We’re here to be your partners in the long term. You know, what can we do to, you know, ease this burden? Can we defer the rent for, you know, 30 days? Can we Def, can we defer, you know, the utility, you know, can we talk to, you know, your, you know, your partners, your investors, even your tenants to see, Hey, can, can we provide an extra service for your building, you know, in case families need to be together.

01:15:02

So those are the small pivots that we’ve been doing, but that’s why, you know, I sold my former company. We started this, you know, having the right partners who really understood this were being in it for the long run, you know, is invaluable. Cause anybody can do this when it’s good and you’re making anybody it’s very easy, there’s low barriers to entry. It’s very simple. But you know, you can really differentiate the professionals from the amateurs in times like these and, and that goes for, you know, your capital partners too. So our capital partners are understanding our investors are understanding. Nobody’s happy, you know, but you, you know, you just have to have that conversation and say, Hey, these, these are bad times for everybody in Chicago. The market occupancy is about 9% when right now it should be closer to 40%. You know? And our units are typically this time, you know, anywhere from 70 to 90% occupied in this low shoulder season, but it’s tough. You know, you, you gotta bite it and you gotta be ready for, you know, the waters to calm, which is why we’re thankful to have, you know, those capital partners,

01:16:07

You know, Jeremy, I, I really appreciate the, your, your stance on where you are and how you’re communicating. You’re, you know, you’re very reserved, very leveled during these uncertain times. You know, a lot of people are freaking out. A lot of people are scared, but you know, you’re, you’re coming at this from a very, you have to be the person that has to be confident and you have to be the person that is, you know, helping these investors, these, these capital partners feel like they’re secure. You know, you can’t be the one that’s freaking out and saying like, you know, we don’t know what to do. We’re just slashing prices. This is, this is really bad. So I think even just your mindset, I think your mindset is really important and where, where you’re coming from. So I hope that everybody that’s listening to this can see, you know, how Jeremy is, you know, the way that he’s communicating, the way that he’s, you know, talking about the numbers, talking about the facts and just saying, this is what it is.

01:16:55

And you know, this is what we’re doing. I think that just, just that alone is, is, is really powerful. So I want to, you know, definitely talk about what, what are these steps that you, that you wanted to share if we could kind of highlight what it is. And then if anybody wants to get a little bit more detail, they can, they can get this free ebook. Hey, it’s Julian again, have you ever thought about buying or selling a short Rental business? STR broker.com allows you to list one property 10 or even a hundred. If you’re an investor, that’s looking to get into the space and you’re looking to pick up properties, or maybe you’re someone that’s already been in the space for a while and you’re looking to sell for more information, go Tor broker.com to list your business now on the show

01:17:35

That sounds or I’ll try not to. So we broke it down into seven steps and, and it’s really just thinking about your overall business and beautiful thing. These down times when it’s so slow is that you actually give time to think about it and work on it. Cause you know, your operations are slower. So number one, we just say, run a light in tight shift, you know? So by light, we mean we wanna systemize your operations as much as possible. So, you know, optimize your cleaning systems, optimize your channel managers, optimize your distribution. You know, we’re lucky that, you know, this is a repeatable business. So 80% of the stuff can be systemized. And the tight aspect of it is playing with a players. So, you know, when it’s light and it’s tight, you know, rather than just one manager, only being able to take care of say 15, 20 properties, you know, he can do 40.

01:18:35

So, you know, and, and he has that buffer in, in times like these that, you know, he, he feels like he still has room to maneuver and you don’t, and you don’t necessarily have to, you know, let them go because you know, you’re running on a very light and tight ship. So that’s really the important thing, you know, we ask like, what are the 80% of operations that can be automated and optimized to do that? So, number two, you know, we really say, be ready for a market swing at any time. You know, we’re in a global connected world. If you’ve ever read now, Nicholas EBS books, you know, fooled by randomness, antifragile, the world gets more connected every day and black swans, you know, unexpected turmoil events, whether they be good or bad for our business, oftentimes they’re bad. Cause we’re at the forefront of discretionary income, you know, in the travel business, you know, you see it around hotels, airlines us are getting hammered.

01:19:32

You, we just have to be ready for it at time. You know, it’s, COVID-19 now it’s gonna be something else in three years. So no matter how good times are we just, you have to be ready for it’s, it’s simple three. And I, I won’t touch on this too much, but it’s just having the right partners, the right partners. And when I say partners, it’s also, it’s also your community, right? It’s like, it’s what you provide Julian, you know, in connecting with people, you know, all of your levels of communication, where you can connect with other hosts who are going through the same struggles, you know, I’m also part of Eric’s, you know, short term rental legends, he’s done a fantastic job of coordinating and collaborating with everybody, making everybody just feel like they’re we’re in this together. Okay. So let’s get a level head and see how we get to the, this the end of this number four.

02:20:25

And I said this in the beginning with our business is creating cash flow redundancy. So redundancy is an engineering principle. It’s you don’t create any systems without fails. Stuff’s gonna hit the wall. You know, shit’s gonna hit the wall, sorry for swearing. I dunno, that’s allowed here, but it’s like, you have to just have all of your, so the two points are here are make sure you know, your financials and that they’re organized very well. So this is important one for good times, because if you want get loans good and bad times, if you to financial intermediaries and investors, you have be ironclad, you have to know how, what your monthly nut is, what are your, what’s your monthly costs and build in a two to six month reserve into that. And we’ve done that. And that’s why, you know, we feel confident. We’re gonna see the we’re gonna see the under end of the tunnel.

02:21:19

You know, if Corona lasts for, you know, six months a year, I think maybe we’re all Sol, but I like I’m, I’m naturally an optimist, but when anything happens, you have to have these reserves on hand, talked about this earlier, too. So I won’t get into it, but having the right strategic capital partners, it just allows you to take advantage of a disruptive playing field. So rather than just trying to survive, you can really thrive and take over deals, properties when everybody else is freaking out. So having set smart, we talked about this too. Part six is marketing multiple channels, you know, OTAs, Airbnb, VRBO, booking Rental Rental sites, like Zillow, truly a hot pads classified like Craigslist, social media liked marketplace, your local community, your local relationships, just spreading the word out, not being too dependent because I think a lot of hosts got hurt by Airbnb, Airbnb in their stance, you know, and that’s, it’s really tough and it’s, but we’re at the whim of that platform because we’re using that platform.

02:22:25

You know, I don’t wanna say it. I don’t wanna say what they did was right by any means, but you know, diversify that, that marketing risk that’ll make your business much more resilient. And lastly is just mitigating your portfolio risk. When we say this, you know, there’s, we think about the three main ways that you invest in short term rental. So it’s the purchasing and property, which is most risky, requires the most equity, managing a property for somebody else, which is the least risky or master leasing the property, which is kind of the in between for us. You know, we’re doing a combination of all three, you know, and then when you integrate the right team and the right strategic partners into it, we feel, we feel like we’ve really minimized our risk and you know, the greatest investors like the Sam, he’s one of the best, you know, he, they always say, you know, focus on the downside.

02:23:20

You know, the upside will take care of itself. We always have to focus on the downside. So that’s why we put, mitigate your portfolio risk. So those are our seven points and we just, we, our team created it. Our team really did a great job. You know, my partner, Josh created it just, just to help people during these times and really rethink it’s. We’ve had an extended bull mark for a really long time. Everyone knew no one knew when, but everybody knew, you know, the ball was gonna drop at some point. So now after that, after, you know, everything settles, you know, let’s, let’s get back to it and let’s be just that much stronger, you know, using, using business principles like these.

02:24:00

Yeah. I, I really appreciate that last point. And, and again, for anybody that does want to, you know, read this, read this ebook, I’m gonna be including a link in the description of this episode. So if you go to a show notes page, you can get that from, from Jeremy. But just to highlight a couple more things that you said really appreciate what you said about, you know, during this time, you know, like, like everything is gonna, you know, people are gonna be able to do well when things are going up, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s kind of easy to, to trip on when, when everything is just going up that way, but focusing on where we are right now, focusing on that downtime, that’s where we really need to be, be looking and finding those creative ways. I think that that’s a really positive perspective.

02:24:46

One thing that I did wanna roll back to that you said earlier was, you know, these three models that we teach the, you know, we, we call it cohosting arbitrage, you know, which is the asset light asset heavy. And then you’re purchasing, you said, though, that these companies like Saunders, they Alfreds, that they’re actually acquiring these leases. You said that the numbers weren’t looking right. Is there something that maybe us hosts that are coming into the space, cuz you know, a lot of us that a lot of the listeners of this show do, you know, dabble in all three, the arbitrage asset heavy model is what is what we call it. But are there, you said that these companies are doing something that is not what we’re doing. Cause you know our, for us, you know, we’re, we’re trying to find those leases that are, you know, at, at, you know, market rent. But you’re saying that these companies are, are inflating the price just so that they can acquire more properties. ES essentially

02:25:40

These VC back firms are very different in, you know, essentially two ways. I’ll explain to everybody, number one, they’re making deals with landlords predevelopment. So basically they’re getting leases in place and allowing developers to build during an extended bull market where assets are priced very well. So when they take on a master lease, they’re already paying a premium, new construction’s expensive assets are priced very well. There’s not really a good place to find deals. So two is that they are forced to grow. They are forced to grow due to their investors. So rather than getting smart deals, which you teach, they teach, you know, just spray and pray. You know, let’s pick up as many as we can at any one time. So we see a lot of their being taking place in the brand new class, a buildings, which guess what those are the most expensive and no matter how nice something is, if my property’s better located and better designed and tailors to a specific traveler, say a business traveler, cause it’s close to a convention center.

02:27:04

I know I can make as much money if not more money than so I know that they can’t be pushing rates that much higher and I see their rates and they’re not. So their profit margin, you know, their level of safety, their margin of safety is this, you know, rather than what you teach, it’s like, okay, let’s find good smart deals. Let’s maybe go to a redeveloped class B building or a redeveloped class C building where it’s the rent is for two bed, $2,000 versus $3,000. So you you’ve already, you boom, right there with that deal, you’ve built in a thousand dollars of safety versus versus the VC players. But they do that because they’re forced, forced to do it. Their, they, their goal was market share. You know, most of our goals is profitability. You know, profitability separates, you know, the professionals from the amateurs.

02:27:56

So they’ve just had, they’ve had different models. And I think, you know, we’re gonna see, you know, who’s really swimming naked as this already I’ve competing, pull back out at like the ninth hour. They were just like, Nope, we can’t take out any more deals. And this was before Corona now that this has hit, I don’t know. So it’s just different, you know, so that’s why I really respect what you teach. It’s like, let’s do arbitrage, but let’s just do it smart. Let’s not try to take on, you know, $6,000 unit because it looks beautiful and cool. You can make it look beautiful and cool with your beautiful design, bring in a professional designer, you know, and make up for, you know, make up for that cost, you know, make it cool and then bring in a professional photographer, make it pop. And it’s gonna look just as good as their brand new class, a building that costs two times as much.

02:28:57

So do you think that they, this model because I, I never really thought of it that way that you know, the investors are, are pushing them to really pick up more units. It’s not like you said, it’s not about the profit. It’s about the, the, you know, what’s their market share. And you know, the, the, when you’re looking at these companies, you’re seeing beautiful branding, you’re seeing beautiful apartments. You’re seeing, you know, really expensive furniture and I’m just, everybody’s looking at this and they’re like, man, these guys must be killing it or something. But what you’re saying is they’re, they don’t care about what their profit is. They care about how much, how much market share compared to everybody else. It is if I’m getting that correctly,

02:29:34

Correct? Yes. Well, it’s, they, they are forced to grow because in essence, like the, the basis of a venture venture capital investment is, you know, the investors want to, you know, 100 X their return. So they’re gonna push their portfolio companies, IE, the SAS to stay efforts, to grow as fast as possible to build revenue as fast as possible. You know, because they’re seeing these founders and say, efforts, make know X amount of margin, cause times are good. But you know, if we’re, if we’re being logical, we’ve been in an extended bull market for a long time, they’re not gonna be able to make this as long. And when Corona hits closer to this or maybe even negative, so it’s, we don’t know how sustainable it is, you know, hopefully, you know, those guys are great guys, you know, I’ve met some of them. I, I know how much, you know, they spend on their furnishing and everything.

03:30:30

And I think it’s a little too much, but you know, they have big capital partners. I actually heard Simon Lehman. It’s funny. It’s one of the major, really Vacation Rental guys, you know, and he said about them. It’s like they need unlimited cash, unlimited cash to run their business through. Good and bad times. Just the fact how fast they’re growing. So, you know, Sandra has fidelity backing them and some other people maybe, maybe they do, maybe they don’t. But I think for the majority of these VC players, they’re hurting a lot and as, not as much cash is liquid anymore in the market and just the major macro markets as it was, you know, six to three years ago, they could easily turn over within a month or three months.

03:31:20

You know, that, that’s one of the things that even, you know, John and I were looking at our business and we’re saying, you know, moving forward into the future, you know, the majority of, of the portfolio that, that Jon has right now is, is this asset heavy master lease model. About half of it though is, you know, the management cohost asset light. So moving forward though, do you still see that there is potential for, you know, us, us, you know, we’re not venture backed we’re, we’re, we’re, you know, we’re bootstrapping it. We’re trying to be scrappy taking those, you know, like you said, those BC properties and really pushing the profit boundary, we’re, we’re always thinking, you know, profit first rather than, you know, quantity. Do you see arbitrage still being a profitable thing even during a downturn? Or is it mostly just gonna be focused on, you know, the cohost cohost model moving forward? If, if we are in more of a, a bear market

03:32:17

In a downturn yes. In a disaster. No. So we’re, we’re in disaster epidemic mode, nobody’s traveling. So historically I was at a conference historically travelers travel about 20 or the margin for hotel travel decreases about percent when a recession hits. So people still travel, people still have to travel. There’s really just, so you have to think about that. You also have to think about your types of travelers, you know, are they leisure? Are they business travelers? You know, they travel for different reasons. Your business travelers are gonna be more, any elastic they’re gonna travel more often because it’s their work leisure’s gonna travel a little bit less. I think absolutely can during a downturn, as long as you consider that 25% buffer. And as long as you’re making smart deals, not necessarily rushing into these brand new class, a buildings because you know, they look super pretty, you know, it’s for these local guys, you know, to your point about, you know, us smaller, not being BC. I think it’s one of the only ways it’ll ever work because our business is about being hyper local, you know, and providing a great service ongoingly. And when you’re hyper local, you tend to build relationships with the local community. Then you should know where you can find the best deals and it takes time and relationships. And you have to add your value on where you can. But I do absolutely think during a downturn, but not during a disaster like this, I think everybody’s hurting.

03:33:55

Right. And that’s, that’s why I appreciate you coming on here, Jeremy, you know, talking about those pivots, what we’re, what we’re trying to do to be able to just make it through this disaster moment. But I’m really curious, you know, where we’re gonna see in the future, you know, this short-term rentals, you know, they’ve been around for a while, but not like not like right now, we’ve, we’ve Airbnb really came during this time where it’s like, they came right after, you know, right, right. After that kind of recession where people were trying to get more creative, find different ways to be able to save money. And now we have all these businesses, you know, you, me, all, everybody that’s been on the success stories. This is really kind of a first time for us to experience something where we’re gonna be going into this, you know, potential bear markets. So how we, how we move forward is, is, is really curious. So I’d love to have you on, you know, in the future, Jeremy, I think it’s so cool to be able to see your pro your progression, see where you’re doing. And I love that you, you wanted to share with the, the host nation community, your advice I’ll include a link down in the description as well for that book. Is there anything else that you wanted to share with anybody? Any, any words?

03:34:57

I mean, thank you for having me on Julian. It’s always you. You’re great. This is invaluable for the people who are listening. You know, we’re in Chicago, we’re also investing in south Florida area. If anybody is in those areas, our brand is called. You can find us on Instagram, we’ve pivoted. So I own a company. Our investor company is called the passion group, a S I N. And we want S group, but on Instagram, we’re Airbnb profit pros. That’s where we’re sharing a lot of like Harry on knowledge and know how it’s Chicago residence club for our business. You know, if you wanna see it in action. So those are the two places where you can find us, or you can always email me at JW Chicago residence club com. I’m always happy to chat and just help people. I mean, it’s really hard, you know, and I’m lucky to have really good partners and people and to talk to like you truly, and thanks for having me and, you know, right now it’s just the time so that we all help each other. And you know, let’s, let’s get to the other side and wait till these waters calm.

03:36:02

I appreciate it. Well, thank you so much, Jeremy. And until next time, host nation, keep on hosting. Hope you host benefited from the show. If you found value, please going over to iTunes, leave us a review and let us know what you enjoy about the show. If you’d like to talk to hosts that have been featured in these episodes, as well as the community, going over to our Facebook group, the host nation.