Today I had the honor of speaking with Lindsey and Judah Michael. Lindsey and Judah are a power couple based in San Diego California who are full-time real estate investors. They had humble beginnings renting out a single room but quickly realized that STR was something they should start to scale and since then have had over 20 listings. Lindsey and Judah now follow the STR BRRRR method and have found a lot of success.
Lindsey and Judah share so much golden information such as their secrets to making properties look like a magazine for $2500, their approach to analyzing and finding properties, and how they have been able to capitalize during slow months and renting out room by room.
Video Transcript
00:00:00
Okay. You want to know the down and dirty, quickest way to make this place look absolutely beautiful. I will tell you right now, first of all,
00:00:08
This is episode number 13 of short-term rental success stories. Welcome back to short term rental success stories. I’m your host, Julian Sage. This is show where I talk to hosts 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. Since we are a new show reviews would greatly help us grow. So please go on over to iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google play YouTube Facebook, or wherever you’re actively listening. And please leave us a nice review and we’ll give you a review or rental a shout out in the next episode that I had the honor of speaking with Lindsay and Judah, Michael Lindsay and Judah are a power couple based in San Diego, California, who are full-time real estate investors.
00:00:48
Lindsay and Judah had humble beginnings renting out a single room, but quickly realized that short-term rental investing was something that they should start to scale. And if since then had over 20 listings since 2012, Lindsey and Judah now followed the short-term rental Burr method and found a lot of success. They share so much good information in this episode, such as their secrets to making properties look like they come from a magazine for $2,500, their approach to analyzing and finding properties in new markets and how they’ve been able to capitalize during slow months and renting out room by room. If you haven’t done so already going over to a Facebook group, short-term mental success secrets to talk with Lindsey, Judah, and other successful house. If you like my show notes for this episode, go to Short Term Sage dot com backslash or if you’d like my show notes sent directly to your inbox every week, then go to Short Term Sage dot com backslash show notes with all that being said onto this week’s conversation. Welcome back hosts today. I have the special honor of speaking with Lindsay and Judah, Michael Lindsay, and Judah. Would you please let the audience know a little bit more about who you are and what inspired you to get into short-term rentals?
00:01:56
Hey guys, Lindsey Michael here, and you and Michael, and we operate out of San Diego, California, but that in of itself was kind of a deciding factor on how to get into short-term rentals. Because as you know, you probably want to go to San Diego. You may have been to San Diego, you know, how awesome it is. So I was actually referred by a friend who was doing Airbnb up in Oakland, and I was kind of at my wits end at this point, it was back in 2012 and I was dealing with long-term roommates. And basically what happened was I had my own apartment. It was, it was a two bedroom and there was, I was in one room, two girls in the other room, they were long-term and they decided one day to not pay their rent. And the landlord told me this later that they didn’t pay the rent.
00:03:01
And it decided to just take everything that they owned, plus some of what I own too and say Sianora and they just checked out and they just went off and became invisible midnight move out. Yeah. And they left me with the bill. So I got sick and fed up of these roommates who have like a right to your home and they don’t have respect for it. So a friend introduced me to Airbnb and the whole concept of short term rentals back in 2012, it was relatively new at the time. Yeah. And I was pretty sketched out by it, but I looked into it a little bit and I was convinced to go out on the ledge and I paid off the landlord and I went for it and I furnished the room with salvation army actually. And I put the place on Airbnb. And before I know it, I was not only covering my, my own, like that rooms rent my own rooms rent plus an extra, like several hundred dollars a month. So I became totally sold at that point. That short-term rentals were definitely where I needed to be.
00:04:20
I think it’s, it’s, it’s always so interesting hearing people’s stories, how they start, because it’s never like, you know, it’s never the approach like, oh, I’m in this to make money. It’s always some type of an interesting situation like yours was that your roommates stole from you. And now you want to, you know, decide who gets to live with you and who stays here. And from there, you’ve, it’s kind of blossomed into this very profitable, very successful journey for you. Now you said that you’re a interior designer and you’re also a real estate flipper. W w from that point, when you decided to start doing your Airbnbs, when did it kind of click where it’s like, okay, I need to kind of push this a little bit farther because obviously 2012 wasn’t super, super popular. Like it is now how, you know, what, when, when did you decide to kind of go full on and start purchasing more properties and scaling this up?
00:05:23
Yeah, that’s a great question. So at the time Judah and I were just dating when we got, when I got started, he wasn’t, he wasn’t a part of it, but we were, we were planning to get married. So tell him about what we did with our first place together.
00:05:41
So we were searching, our lease was up our, we had been, and the, the person that owned the place was going to sell it. So we’d started doing Airbnb and we just had, in our mind, we’re going to find a place where we can live in one portion of the house, but rent out the other rooms individually. So we specifically were looking for a place in San Diego that would allow us to be for instance, on the top floor, but the middle level was maybe the entrance. It had its own room. And the bottom level was like its own studio or its own Caseta. And we actually managed to find something just like that close to downtown, which is really popular year round. So the convention center, all the business people would come into a town and it was very close, a little Italy. And so when we found it, we’re like, wow, this could be a really good opportunity for us to feel like we have our own space where nobody’s coming in and using our bathroom. But at the same time, two thirds of the home is rented out. And it’s basically subsidizing our portion of the rent to the point where then eventually we don’t have to pay our rent at all because the middle level and the bottom level are, are providing all of that. And it was in an HOA which provided, you know, some additional challenges and hurdles to overcome. But we were immediately thinking when we were engaged and about to get married, let’s find places like that from, from the jump and continue to do so
00:07:18
Now, so you, you were, you were basically house hacking back then, but Airbnb house hacking could the, could you’re just renting it out long-term rentals. Could you have been able to afford you’re basically lived rent-free off of that?
00:07:36
I don’t think so. I think it had to be Short Term because we would, we would have somebody in there really low rate midweek. It was just a commuter that was maybe willing to just pay a very modest amount, but for the convenience of not having to commute two or three hours, you know, back and forth from Los Angeles or, or out from, you know, Arizona, and then on the weekends, you’d have families and couples and different people. So you basically had two to three times as much income produced per room or per level than you would from just a, long-term a person with like a 12 month lease. So this is definitely way more advantageous for what we were looking to do for sure.
00:08:21
When, when, so, so you, you, you purchased this prop or your, your subletting this property. When did you decide to, did you, did you stick with the rental arbitrage approach or did you decide to go the, the, the owning a w w w where did you decide to go after this?
00:08:40
So from that point, we were in there for a year, and then we moved on to another awesome spot the
00:08:47
Next year. Yeah.
00:08:49
So great location, 3,100 square foot property, including a detached cottage. And it had a pool and a lot of rooms in the house too. So we did one more year, like the rental arbitrage. And we even got permission from the landlord that did not stop her from wanting to sell the house.
00:09:09
She revokes that permission later on. So that was an adventure in and of itself.
00:09:17
So then the, then what we were basically doing was saving up money and we put down a good down payment on a house about 20 minutes from downtown San Diego. So it ended up being a pretty good location, not, not as much for like the nightly, but it ended up turning into more of like a weekly type thing and also even some monthly as well. So we are living in the master suite and granted, you know, this is our own home. We can do whatever we want with it, which is great. So we had three extra rooms and we would do week to week, month to month. And I mean, some people even like to pay by the week and would even stay up to like six months and fine. I mean, Hey, if you want to rent my Airbnb for six months, while means, cause you’re making a lot more,
01:10:14
So six people, people were paying the nightly rate for their Airbnb, but doing that for six, six month term, what did they just like, just say to you like, Hey, we’d like to extend this contract a little bit longer and, and just keep on paying these, these rates. They didn’t want to do like a longer term rental.
01:10:35
We do week to week and occasionally even months a month on Airbnb and on some of the short-term rental websites, but also on Craigslist and others. And what we found, and this to me is very valuable. There’s 95 or 98% of the market is geared just towards the six month, 12 month or longer long-term lease. You’re locked in the rest of the market. The other three or 5% is just basically very short term, like just a weekend a week. At the most, there was no niche. There was no portion of the market that was devoted to the transition housing or the bridge housing. As I like to call it where you have somebody they’ve just moved to San Diego, they need a place to live, but they don’t want to commit to a 12 month lease just yet until they explore kind of feel out the different parts of the city and decided where they want to put their roots down.
01:11:26
So we got a ton of people that instead of spending 600 a month, we’re happy to pay about a thousand a month for a furnished room, not the whole house, just a furnished room, even though they knew that was like way more expensive than walking into a contract. They were wanting to do that for about four to six weeks and they can do this through Airbnb. But like I said, a number of these were through Craigslist and it was typically people that were out of Elise and about to move from San Diego had just moved to San Diego. We’re going through a divorce, we’re in some sort of a transition and they needed something longer than short term, but shorter than long-term. And it’s, it’s been very, very popular for us because so few people are willing to do it. So we kind of carved out our own little unique hybrid in between short-term and long-term.
01:12:13
And during the summer months, we would normally have seven to 10 applicants for every one room we had available. But occasionally you’d have people to be like a thousand dollars for a room that’s ridiculous, even if it is furnished and I’d be like, well, extended stay America is 2250 a month. You can always go with them. And then they understood that it’s not for a long-term thing, but some people would get there and they would just want to stay longer because there a need to explore, send up taking three, four or five months. And we were happy to host them. We oftentimes became friends with a lot of the people that lived with us for a, you know, a medium range period of time.
01:12:47
I was, I was pretty curious because when we were talking before the interview, you said that you were, you were doing rooms and that that’s, it’s not as common to do individual rooms from, from, you know, from the, from the Facebook groups and what everybody says. So I was pretty curious as to why you’re doing that, is that the market that you’re still kind of the niche that you’re in the longer-term short-term stays for the individual rooms?
01:13:16
No. So we wanted to, we wanted to simplify, even if it was going to possibly even bring down our monthly income a little bit, we wanted to just rent out the whole house on Airbnb instead for that particular residents. So what we did was we, even though we’re, we’re living in another house, you know, totally separate house at this point, we’re doing room by room over there, it’s around the corner. So it’s really close and convenient, but we just decided to do just regular Airbnb for the whole entire residence at that point, and just kind of make it a little bit easier.
01:14:01
Okay. And what, what have you found to be more profitable? The, the renting, the whole house or the, the room by room,
01:14:08
You know what, we’re coming off of a wall. It’s pretty similar. Yeah, it’s pretty similar, but we’re coming up on the summer season right now. So I know it’s going to jump up on that monthly income for the whole entire house. So I think we’ll probably end up getting five to 7,000 a month off of that house, at least during the summer months. And the payment is like 1800, 1900 a month. So that one’s going to be a great cashflow.
01:14:44
It was that the one that you’re, you’re a you own, or that you’re a rental arbitrage. We all, not one,
01:14:50
Not one as
01:14:50
Well. One thing I was going to say that you can’t measure with, with the cashflow is that it’s certainly a lot more convenient and easy to do the whole house versus the individual rooms. Because when you’re doing the individual rooms, you’ll have some people saying longer term relative short term. So again, if you like 2, 3, 4 months, some people that are just staying there for a few weeks and you have to be very aware of the demographics that you have. So if you have a single man in his fifties that works at a car dealership and is just in transition and looking for four to six weeks, and then you have a young female college student, and it’s a four bedroom, two and a half bath, obviously they’re, they’re sharing one of those bathrooms. And you just kind of generally, generally either want to have all women or all guys, and generally all kind of middle age or all young people, but ideally not all young people, still trash the place.
01:15:44
And ideally not all guys cause they’ll trash a place too. So you just, you have to be aware, you kind of, you get an eclectic mix, but you want to try to put people together that are going to get along and are going to gel pretty well. And that’s not always easy, especially in the winter months, you don’t have as many options. There are as many applicants. So that’s one of the like interpersonal dynamic hurdles with viewing room by room, as opposed to the whole house. It’s just a family, you know, mom, dad, and a few kids.
01:16:12
So when we were living like in downtown and right next to see Royal and everything, so this is like right in the heart of the action room by room all day long, like definitely like living downtown, very urban walkable neighborhood definitely do room by room pretty much all year long.
01:16:34
Oh definitely. Yeah. People just treat the rooms like their own little unit and they just hibernate in a room. They don’t really interact. So
01:16:40
Yeah. And then since we moved R and bop bought a house 20 minutes from downtown, it just ended up, you know, we just, that kind of changes things because you don’t get as many nightly requests and people want to say weekly and pay a little bit lower price. So you just kind of have to adjust the measures and everything.
01:17:04
You know, I think, I think kind of the ideal client in a lot of people’s minds is that person that’s going to stay there for like that six month and pay the, the larger, you know, the larger fee kind of like that long-term rental, but paying more short term rental rates. Do you treat them any differently? Do you still do like the cleaning services? Cause you know, that that’s something that does take a lot out or do you treat them more like a long-term long-term tenant?
01:17:29
You know what? That is a great question and you know what I actually want to get in there and please like, I want to get in there and have my cleaning person come and help me because sometimes like when people are there for a really long time, they don’t clean the,
01:17:47
And they don’t tell you when they spilled, why
01:17:49
The sheets or, you know, clean up there. Yeah. Soak up their wine on the carpet or something. So for me, short-term rentals have been better because you can get in there and clean often and make sure it’s kept tip-top shape. And then it’s really respected and well cared for. So I definitely do try and get in there and cleaned as much as I can. It’s sometimes like they don’t want somebody to come in and disturb, but they’ve found to be their space.
01:18:17
So, so the short-term rental tenants are actually better than the long-term rental tenants, but the long-term rental ones are paying more.
01:18:24
I love short-term rental tenants, like for so many different reasons. One of them being the fact that you’re not stuck with anybody for a really long time, you can always say like, Hey, just so you know, we have somebody else checking in next week. So we wanted to give you a heads up or even, you know, if it’s month to month next month, if it’s just not a good thing. So, I mean, we have had literally everything happened in the book when you’re doing this, like, geez, how eight years or something like, yeah, we’ve had literally everything happened in the book pretty much. So it’s, it’s nice to have that out.
01:19:02
And what, what would you kind of say is your ideal customer after having dealt with so many different types of, of people and situations?
01:19:10
Yeah, that’s a really good question. We’ve talked about this before.
01:19:13
I would say somebody at is basically just there to eat breakfast, shower and sleep. And the rest of the time, they’re at the beach, they’re at Balboa park. They’re out with family for graduation or, you know, a wedding Keaton era, whatever it is. But, but they’re hardly there. You don’t even, you know, if you’re doing it by the room, you don’t even realize that they live with you. You see them once a week and, you know, catch up briefly. And if it’s just an Airbnb, you know, Vacation person, that’s there for the weekend or the week, you know, they’re only around for a few hours to kind of clean up and get some sleep and then go out to their next event.
01:19:50
So, so from my understanding is you kind of catered depending on the season, how you’re going to be advertising the unit for longer term or shorter term rentals.
02:20:02
I’ll drop the price a little bit in a winter and I’ll also open it up for a little bit longer term. And then in the summer it’s definitely just short term because it doesn’t make sense to give away a room in July in San Diego when there’s Comic-Con and you can rent out a tent in your backyard for $500. It doesn’t make sense to lock somebody in for the whole month.
02:20:23
Yeah. But we always want to start advertising for longterm kind of like mid August because here, and it’s not going to be the same depending on your city, but here, everything dries up to
02:20:35
September, just plumbing.
02:20:38
It’s so hard to rent out the spots.
02:20:40
So from getting messages like nonstop to just totally flat line.
02:20:44
Yeah. So that’s when we want to start doing our like month, five months in some cases, depending on the location.
02:20:53
And are you doing a lot of direct bookings with that or is it mostly through the OTs?
02:21:02
I would say I would say half and half. We still get long inquiries. A lot of times, for example, on Airbnb, we’ll get like a three, two, I would say maybe two to three week inquiry and then they come and stay. And then once, once they’re talking to you, you find out that they actually want to stay like a couple months. So we’ve had some luck converting the, some of the, the services out there into more of a direct relationship with
02:21:34
When we had recently, that was like that they were looking to buy their first home. It was a mom, dad, and two kids. And they rented the place for, I think, five weeks and then one extra week kind of outside of, of Airbnb. And that gave them time to get into, to find the home, to get into escrow and to close. So it was really cool. They were super appreciative. And for us, I mean, we, we got like two months worth of income since they were paying that higher Airbnb rate. And they were happy for it because it saved them a lot of money versus a hotel.
02:22:11
Yeah. That is a, that is a very unique situation. That, that is, I feel like it’s kind of untapped that, that transitionary period people that are looking to purchase properties or to move to relocate and they need like that transition stay because you don’t want to get into, you know, a, a long-term contract with someone that’s going to be, you know, if you’re just going to be staying there for just a few months, you said that your, your, your, your full-time real estate investors. Now, I’m curious to how you approach properties when you’re, when you’re looking to purchase them, you know, having this short term rental background, but also doing the fix and flips and the long-term rentals. How do you approach an investment?
02:22:54
Yeah, that’s a great question. Well, okay. So first off, I mean, I love looking in neighborhoods that I know we’re going to make us great short term rental. So I’ve got my peripheral vision on I’m looking at like big bear and like Arrowhead. Cause we have one up in that area now, obviously San Diego and then kind of along the coast and other parts of Southern California. So that’s kinda step one is, is targeting. Where, where are you going to be looking step two is just evaluate whatever you can get your hands on. At this point, we probably have at least one property come into our email inbox, I’ll get a call or whatever, at least like one per day. So we have people on staff that work for us that can help us evaluate those. So we want to make sure that not only is it going to be a great short term rental, if we want to go that route, but also we want to make sure we’re getting we’re buying in at the right price.
02:24:04
And then when the time comes to actually sell and liquidate that property, we want to make sure that we’re going to be able to be able to cover all of our costs, cover the salaries, cover the payments and make a good profit as well. So there’s a lot that goes into evaluating and of course we want to get a property inspection and make sure there’s nothing terrible going on. And if there is, you want to make sure that you can adequately handle it and, and get that budget like that too. And you want to make sure you’ve got capital partners on board and people that see the vision of where you’re headed with this project and can finance your project. So there’s, there’s a lot that goes into it, for sure, but that’s all part of the fun.
02:24:53
And even on a fix and flip, I think in the back of our minds, we’re thinking, okay, worst case scenario, if the numbers don’t end up being what we anticipated, can we keep this as a rental and do Airbnb and at least cover the monthly payment plus utilities, maybe recoup a little bit of our investment initially while we wait for it to appreciate again, or, or better cops to come around so that we can sell it. So fortunately that hasn’t happened yet, but definitely kind of the plan B in our mind is, you know, if something were to happen on a fix and flip, then just kind of switch gears and go into a short term rental as a way of, you know, making the investment makes sense.
02:25:35
So, so from my understanding is the first thing that you’re looking for is you’re looking in the neighborhoods that would kind of be prime areas for short-term rentals. What, what type of areas are you looking out for
02:25:48
Tourism? And even where we live people will, of course, I mean, anywhere that people live, they want to drive, let’s say anywhere from an hour to maybe three and a half hours to go out of town for a weekend. So we want to look at where are they going to head to what’s around in your, in your state? You know, what kind of fun things are going on, and then look at how far of a distance people are willing to drive from that central location. So for example, one of our properties is located at running Springs, California, and it’s halfway between big bear, big bear lake and lake Arrowhead. So you can drive, you know, just down the, down the way a little bit and reach both of those. So that happens to be a good neighborhood for that. And then the ones in San Diego we’re looking at what’s nearby. Do you got the convention centers or do you have theme parks nearby hiking, hiking, restaurants, Starbucks, everybody loves to walk everywhere these days in an urban neighborhood even better. And then you also kind of want to gauge crime and what’s going on with that. So, yeah, there’s a lot of good stuff to keep your eye open for.
02:27:07
And then when you’re evaluating these, I kind of, I’m interested in your guys’s approach. You said that when you’re looking for these fix and flips, your, your intent is to, is to fix it up and make a profit on it. But in the back of your mind, you’re also thinking, well, if this doesn’t work out, we can Short Term rent. It are, are you looking to purchase the property to short-term rent initially? Or do you look to fix just fix and flip it and, you know, take the cash out? Where, where, where do you weigh the, the, the, your values on, on that?
02:27:43
We have different guidelines when we’re looking for something that’s going to be a long-term buy and hold that we’ll then do Airbnb. And we’re just counting on it. Being able to produce that monthly income. And we’re looking at the tourism and how popular the area is we’re looking at, you know, are there a lot of shops and restaurants and boutiques and different places that are going to attract people that come on vacation for weekend are going to be in town on business? I say some, some vacation rentals, you can treat them almost like corporate housing and they do even better. Whereas with the fixing flip, it doesn’t necessarily have to be in a trendy or cute area. It can be out in a more rural area, and that can be part of the appeal. So it wouldn’t necessarily be a place that people are going to go on vacation, but it can still make a lot of sense. So a lot of times we kind of just have different filters for what we’re looking for, if it’s a fix and flip versus if it’s a short term rental, but there can be some overlap.
02:28:42
And you kind of use the short term rental as a safety net. Like if, if the fix and flip, if you go a little bit over your budget, you can use that short term rental to kind of hold you over until you find another property that you can liquidate that out of and, and purchase it. Do you ever, when you are doing these low, do you say like, this is a property that we just need to keep because it’s a cash cow and it’s, it’s doing real well.
02:29:07
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. For example, the mountain house, that’s one of them where you’re like, okay, well, I mean, why would I ever want to sell this? I mean, I’m even struggling to want to sell it at this point. We’ve owned it for coming up on a couple of years now, but you know, like, why don’t we want to sell this when winter comes along and it’s like, just earning so much money, like hundreds and hundreds of dollars per night, sometimes up to like a thousand dollars a night, cause it’s two separate units. Right. And that’s one of them to where you’re looking at the deal and you’re like, okay, definitely fix it up and flip it. But I really want to capture as much of that short term rental as possible and pick up on that cashflow along the way. So it’s kind of like almost man, I, I want to keep some of these as like a, a family vacation destination. And there’s just so many possibilities that become lit up in your mind when you start really getting into the nitty-gritty of this business.
03:30:18
When we look at short-term rentals, a lot of time, we’re thinking is this someplace that I’d like to go, or if I buy this and there’s, you know, a couple of weeks where it’s not booked, is this a place that I’d like to, you know, invite my family to come out and spend a couple of weeks in the summer.
03:30:34
Yeah. And it’s been great to have family come to our Short Term metals and say, you know, especially up in the mountains and things like that, or even just friends in town. Yeah. You have a good crush out. One of my places, family all the time, you know, they’re always like, Hey, can we come and stay here? Or whatever the case, what do you have open on these dates? Friends always calling us up. What do you have open on these dates? So with that said, I want to make sure as we expand our business and open up into different states and different parts of our own state of California as well, I want to be targeting places that I like to go visit. So where do I like to? Because I like to go to like have a SU we got a trip coming up there next month and different places in different parts of the country as well. Oh yeah. I’d love to, they have a lot of restrictions as well. There’s restrictions with a lot of different cities as you guys know, but you know, if you’re going to be going to these places anyways, you might as well get a rental there
03:31:45
Going, going back to when you’re, when you’re evaluating a deal. Because I think that that’s so interesting. How, how you kind of approach your short-term rental, investing, doing the fix and flip when, when you’re looking at a property, what, what, what are you, are, are you like, cause you’re, you’re, you’re obviously buying places that are needing a lot of work done to them. W are you fixing them up or when, when you’re analyzing the deal, are you thinking about it from a standpoint of like a short term rental? Or are you looking from it from a standpoint of just like, we just need to be able to get the cash out of this as soon as possible?
03:32:25
Well, there’s a lot of benefits to, and tax advantages to holding the property longer. So when you’re able to cross over from that capital gains of that fix and flip money into the, it’s a basically passive income and be able to depreciate the asset and things like that, it opens up a lot more benefits that you can use when you’re actually analyzing the property. So it’s not just about cashflow, but it’s also about right offs and how you’re able to, you know, obviously like write off the interest on the property and, and all the taxes and stuff. So the longer that you can hold the property, the more write offs that you could get and the less taxes that you have to pay. So all of this comes into play when you’re targeting that property and deciding on if we want to make a move on it.
03:33:23
And do we want to make a short term flip kind of move on it, or do we want to do a long-term play and do short term rentals for a number of years? So for example, we’re going to be expanding out of state. And those I’m just looking at exclusively from the short term rental front. So any kind of money that we can make rehabbing, those is just going to, I’m just going to call it gravy because we’re planning on holding the, those ones for at least 10 years at the very least. So when you’re looking at holding something super longterm, it’s like, I don’t care if it appreciates, like, I don’t really care how much I make of a margin. It’s just all about that short term rental, passive income. Okay.
03:34:14
Wow. Very, very cool, very interesting approach to how, how you guys are, are looking to utilize your, your, your guys’ skills to, to maximize that. What has been the most challenging part of starting your short-term rental business?
03:34:29
Well, that’s a great question. Well, I mean, we had some definitely some unique experiences and some can be kind of like a double-edged sword. And for example, we use on our mountain house, we use a vacation rental management company. So I feel like there’s always a learning curve when you’re outsourcing the work to other people, especially ones that you don’t know. So I know there can be some opportunity there, for example, for co-hosting instead of maybe using a vacation rental management company. So there is challenges with just making sure that you have your systems completely ironed out. So everything from the guidebook, from check-in procedures, check out procedures, extra keys in case people from the back of the lock box. Yeah. And just really thinking super thoroughly about what’s going to happen when I get a call in the morning, like to two o’clock in the morning, because the electricity went out
03:35:41
Or when the check-in and they can’t figure out how to work, the Amazon fire stick. There’s all kinds of stuff that,
03:35:47
Yeah. So there’s just things that are case by case, you know, and, and you get random calls all the time when stuff kind of is going awry, but that’s just part of it. So I guess the challenge is just kind of keeping calm and, and trying to figure out how to best meet the customer’s needs while also, you know, not having them cancel and also getting that thing fixed right away, that thing that they need. So it really does help to have people that you can rely on and call up that live close to the property, especially when you’re managing things that are hours and hours away.
03:36:30
You want boots on the ground. So you don’t want to be getting in your car on Friday night. I didn’t crap. And for four hours to get to a house that’s two hours away. And, you know, by the time you get there, everybody’s really frustrated. So he wants some people you can delegate and put on these tasks that are live a lot more local to the properties themselves.
03:36:50
Do you have that approach with every investment that you guys are going to be making? Like, is there going to be someone that’s going to be able to manage this property for you?
03:36:59
Yeah, absolutely.
03:37:01
Otherwise you max out at about two or three, cause you just get spread too thin.
03:37:05
Yeah. And we don’t want to max out at that low of numbers. I mean, we want to have, we have had, like I said, like 20 something listings and we want to, at this point have like 20 something properties in the next couple of years here. And so we, you want to make sure that you have your system set up and kind of checks and balances of testing, different things to make sure that what you’re growing is sustainable and that there’s room for that growth. So you don’t want to, you know, hit a glass ceiling here. This is your business. You can structure it however you want. So I say structure it for the most freedom of as possible and looking at that and deciding, you know, which Vacation Rental management companies to work with versus do I want to just be managing all my, them all myself. We just, we decided to, to open up that avenue and go with management companies because, you know, we do take a 10% hit on the fees, but it’s definitely worth it when you’re freed up to be able to work on other projects that are gonna make you, you more money in the short run.
03:38:27
So, so for every, every property that you’re going into, you, you go in there with the intent to have a vacation rental management company manage all the, the systems that are in place. Or do you have systems that you already have that you ask them to, to implement?
03:38:47
I would say the systems that we already have that we asked them to implement, or like, we like to pick our own cleaners a lot of times, like who they have recommended their prices have just been astronomical. And when we’ve been able to kind of build that personal relationship, one-on-one with somebody that we find ourselves, or maybe even that has been a referral and you kind of get that cleaning system down, pat with, with those people where you’ve got that personal relationship, like it’s just so much,
03:39:21
It really is in a specific example with the house that Lindsay’s been referencing them out the house, there was a number of repairs that would come up pretty much every other guest, you know, something would not necessarily break, but just malfunction or, you know, there was just a little issues that sprung up here and there, which is typical with homes, even if they’ve been renovated, you know, cause there’s a lot of wear and tear from, from different guests.
03:39:44
We’ve been like the toilet clogging too. It could be like the blind, like the, the string for the blinds came off.
03:39:53
No, the heater wasn’t working or it was, but it keeps up the bottom unit too quick. And then the top unit too slow, just little things. Right? So one thing that I’ve found is when you can choose your own cleaning service or cleaning staff, cleaning crew, a lot of times, one of the women or one friend, her husband will also be basically a handyman. And so when she goes up, she’s going to be there for like six to eight hours, doing all the laundry and servicing all the rooms, he’ll be there fixing the shower valve, the broke, or he’ll be there, you know, fixing that the screen or the band or X, Y or Z, not always, but sometimes. And that’s awesome because if you just have a handyman out, he’s going to charge you 200, 2 50, you know, and then you’re out another, you know, 1 75 to 200 for the cleaning fee. But if you get them both together, you just end up spending a lot less. And they’re grateful because they saved money instead of having to take two separate trips, he just carpooled. And so there’s little things like that. And that’s a specific example, but the premise applies across the board that when you can choose your own people that you work with, you tend to get a better value and you tend to get things simplified as well and get more for your money.
04:40:59
No, that that’s, that’s key choose and choosing your own people. You, you, you could let the management companies handle handle that, that type of stuff, but you, you don’t, you know, it’s not your quality assurance that, that you’re guaranteeing you’re you’re depending on, on theirs. And, you know, Lord knows where, where they’re getting all their references from what has been the most,
04:41:19
The ones that are local here in San Diego, we tend to manage ourselves just because I’m, for whatever reason. I mean, they don’t really give us that much problems or hassles. Oh, wait, I take that back. There was a giant plumbing incident.
04:41:33
Oh gosh. It’s like sewer. Not just like, yeah, that was, I don’t want to gross out in the viewer. So it won’t go into the gory details. One thing I found, this is super random when we got found it’s actually really ideal to do as a host is to text a welcome message. Like not just for the app, it actually through the text, it says, Hey, welcome to San Diego. If you need any recommendations on coffee shops, restaurants, hotspot, or places to visit, don’t hesitate to reach out. We’ve lived here 19 years and we’re happy to give you some recommendations. That information is already in the book, like the welcome packet or the welcome binder that they see when they walk into the home. But when you text that, there’s just, I think it’s like it’s endearing to the person staying that they know there’s a real couple on the other side of this transaction. This is somebody’s home. And if we do have questions, we can reach out. But also it’s not just a giant like faceless corporation, but it’s, you know, somebody named Judah and his wife, Lindsay, and I did want a recommendation on where to go for a nice dinner Saturday night, you know, with the family. And so I tried to do that cause I think it just helps to make a positive experience for that. Renter’s
04:42:46
And, and, and you do that through your outside of the platform.
04:42:50
What I can do it on the message on Airbnb or HomeAway, but sometimes if they text me first or if they’re, if the numbers in there instead of just email, then I’ll do it that way as well. Cause I feel like it’s a little bit more direct as opposed to going through email, but either way works.
04:43:08
Okay. And what has been the most challenging part of scaling your short-term rental business?
04:43:16
For me, it’s organizational stuff. So this, the systems and the systems and the software and all that stuff, it, you have to be willing to let go of certain things and, and delegate. And that can be challenging from just an organizational perspective.
04:43:33
Every, I think it’s probably time. We have a little baby and I just became a first-time mom.
04:43:47
She’s sleeping right now. So she’s out of the way right now, but there’s a lot of things that can pop up just to where you’re like, man, I really want to analyze that next property right now, but what am I going to schedule that in? So the challenge is definitely like, I know exactly where I want to, where my next property is going to be. Like, I know exactly where I want to go. I know like exactly what I’m looking for, but you just have to be diligent about scheduling in those activities that are going to get you to the next level.
04:44:27
So it sounds like a creating systems, Judah was, was yours and then being diligent to create the systems is what yours was Lindsey
04:44:36
Yeah. Systems and implementing and being, being consistent about it. For sure.
04:44:41
And w what type of systems do you guys have in place? I’m, I’m kind of going through that process myself with like, you know, with like a, I’m starting a cleaning company. So having systems in place for like recruiting funnel and, you know, dealing with employees, you have to have all these different systems. What type of systems do you have in place with your business that you’ve had to create?
04:45:02
Well, that’s a good, that’s a good point of
04:45:04
Sinking calendars through Google so that, you know, your cleaners are notified immediately. Once you get a booking, that’s just simply like one small example, but when we’re analyzing a fix and flip, we have like a property analyzer spreadsheet that puts all the different, hard costs of acquisition, and then as well, selling and the rehab and the whole costs and utilities, all of it, the points, the fees alone, and you get a much better idea, something that looked like a grand slam on paper, and all of a sudden, you know, you put it into the spreadsheet and you’re like, Ooh, we’re going to lose money on this. So it’s important. That’s a system in a very concrete way in terms of like an Excel spreadsheet, but we almost never make a decision without really pouring over the numbers. And that’s a good way to see it visually and be able to crunch the numbers and determine whether or not it’s going to make sense.
04:46:00
Do you have a system in place for when you’re trying to find these properties that would fit your criteria? Or is it you’re you guys are just kind of searching, searching through like the MLS and stuff like that?
04:46:12
That’s a great question. So we do have a virtual assistant who lives in the Philippines and he works for us full-time so I would say nine, at least 90% of his job is reaching out to people about possibly either buying or renting their house. So that I would say is a huge system that we have in place. A lot of people would never think about doing anything like that, but it’s, I mean, it’s a great kind of first step towards, towards getting your next property. And then of course, from there, we have to go through our analization process.
04:46:59
You know, that, that is super interesting. And I never thought about using like a virtual assistant to actually, you know, to reach out to potential people that you could be doing, like rental arbitrage from, you know, there’s so many, so many people are listing their properties, you know, as rentals, but I haven’t ever heard of anybody using a virtual assistant to reach out to them to say, Hey, are you open to having us, you know, rent your property and then sublet it, like, that’s, that’s pretty, pretty unique. Is that basically what you’re doing with, with them?
04:47:34
Yeah. So we have kind of like several different types of people that we’re targeting and they’re, they’re just across the board really. So they get an email and maybe they never expressed interest in selling their house or renting it out or anything, but we’re just kind of approaching the blind. So that’s one kind of email and then maybe they already have their place up for rental for sale. And we’re reaching out to them kind of just starting a conversation, getting things, going with them on that front, seeing if they want to sell it or lease option or sublet it, of course, or kind of do a seller carry type situation where we can buy it. And they’ll finance us and kind of seeing like how much they’ll take for month, how much money down do they want different things like that. So that’s getting the conversation open. That’s kind of getting the ball rolling. And then there’s what to do with all the success that you’re having, because you know, all these people want you to come and look at their place and it could be big opportunities. And you’re like, ah, okay, how do I fit everything in?
04:48:48
Yeah, by the way, we got to go look at them
04:48:53
That that’s, that’s a really useful tip that to have the virtual assistant that is generating those leads for you so that you don’t have to spend all that time. And now you have a system in place that, that they can implement to be able to collect those leads. And then you can just basically analyze that, you know, is this a good fix and flip? Is it a good short-term rental? Is this something that we could potentially rental arbitrage that that’s very, very unique in a golden golden tip? I think anybody listening to this episode should definitely take, take that, take that and run with it. That’s that’s, that’s definitely key. What do you do to set your units apart? I know Lindsay, you said that you’re a interior designer. Do w what do you do specifically for your units?
04:49:34
Okay. You want to know the down and dirty, quickest way to make this place look absolutely beautiful. I will tell you right now, first of all, go on Craigslist, offer up, let go of whatever and put in the key terms. All four, that’s it all four or everything for something like that, or put it look in moving, they’re moving out of state, putting out of state. So you’re looking for these and you want to find the people who have to sell their whole apartment, and then you also want to make sure it’s good stuff and you can get a good deal on it. So a lot of times like we’ll locate these people and they just need to sell everything and move out of state for whatever reason, they just want to sell it all for a cheap price. We’ve done this a few times now, and then, you know, what you’re looking for are of course, beds and tables and couches and lamps and all kinds of good stuff.
05:50:37
So a lot of times, I mean, for example, we did a two bedroom unit and we got pretty much everything for $900. That was like pretty much furnishing everything, dressers, a flat screen at Keurig pots and pans carts. Yeah. And you, again, you want to make sure this is beautiful items. So once you have the basics, then you want to get your fill-in items. One thing that we do is we, I mean, I used to, I used to just hit up a lot of like Goodwill, salvation army type things. And I would look for your neutrals. So anything that’s clear or white or gold, silver, beige gray, and just kind of get a bunch of stuff, but they’re good for like flat, let’s see plates and vases and things like that. And start filling in with, with the cheapest things. First, even hit a dollar store as little basis, little, little plants, just little things like that.
05:51:44
And then go step up, hit up places like factory two U D, these discounts, ROS, and that, you know, step up Ross, Burlington. And you’re always looking for the most bang for your buck. You’re looking for neutral, beautiful decor. And of course, if you got a thing going on, look for the theme, but when in doubt, just get neutral things and then spend a little bit more money on something. That’s like a pop item, like a reclaimed barn, wood farmer’s table, you know, something like that. Even, even if you want to get a pop piece, I’ve had a lot of luck getting those secondhand on Craigslist. So believe it or not, guys, I have furnished a mansion for, I think, less than $3,000. I think it was around $2,500. I furnished like a huge giant mansion. A couple of them actually were mentioned makers. So we flipped mansions and ranches. So right now I think I have six residences fully staged and it all looks like absolutely beautiful, amazing lust top of the line. Perfect. It’s great.
05:52:52
And all of these through basically wholesaling other people’s apartments when they’re moving, like all the, all the interiors.
05:52:59
Yeah. Yeah. They’re moving and they just want to liquidate everything. Really.
05:53:04
You can get all of the, all the furniture and all of the big items that you need when somebody’s moving. Cause they got a job promotion. So they’re moving out of town or out of state, they’re just getting rid of everything. And like Liz said, we’ve done that before in $900 a week, build a, a big U-Haul and had probably 75% of the things we needed. And then what we did for all of like the plates and fans and general individual items, we went to Ikea, spend a few hundred dollars there, you know, like 500 bucks,
05:53:33
I think even less, like, I think you could do 1 75 and get all of your basics out of the way at Ikea and Walmart and
05:53:43
Things like that. Yeah.
05:53:44
For a little extension cords coffeemaker.
05:53:47
I don’t need that if you’re staging like a fix and flip, but it’s going to be somewhere where people are staying for a weekend or stay for a week. You want to have all those little, you know, on the ice, in the freezer, stuff like that. Then he has a really great place to supplement all the things you could find on Craigslist offer up or like Facebook marketplace.
05:54:08
Wow. That’s that’s golden. That’s an awesome, awesome, awesome tip. Is there, is there anything that you do that has helped your guests leave positive reviews?
05:54:17
That’s a good question. For whatever reason. I mean, anytime that you start some kind of conversation with them, something personalized that just lets them know that you’re thinking of them like to just talking about even over a text, just reaching out, checking in, they usually appreciate it. Good enough to leave a good review. So anytime they they’re coming in contact with you, and if you’re lucky, it’s, it’s face to face in person or on a phone call. But if not, you know, usually a text we’ll make something happen,
05:54:50
Alex, to send a text it’s in checking them on Friday, Saturday morning and say, Hey, and there’s a blank because I copy and paste this, but then a customize it, Hey, and then the person’s name, just wanting to make sure that you find everything okay. You know, please let us know if there’s anything we need to bring over or if there’s anything else we can supply. And that kind of gives them an open door to say, Hey, you know what, if we could get one more space heater, that’d be great. Or, oh, you know what I meant ask if you have a, a blow up bed or, you know, an extra set of pillows, whatever it is, right? So you kind of, you’re inviting them to make a request so they don’t feel awkward about it, but you’re also checking in and making sure they, you know, slept relevant and was comfortable. And I feel like people really appreciate that nine times out of 10, they say, no, everything’s great. We’re heading to the beach. But for those people that, you know, want an extra set of towels or whatever, you can let them know it’s in the linen closet. And I feel like that again, helps to kind of establish that rapport and tends to generate better reviews than yet.
05:55:54
And then I think that also opens up having extras at your property helps definitely to get good reviews. So like he mentioned a few of them outlet, strips, surge protectors. I think those are great because if somebody’s low drying their hair and the, and it pops up a fuse like, oh my gosh, it’s just a nightmare to have to go outside to surge protectors space heaters are really also to have extra blankets, extra pillows and it’s paper towels, toilet, paper, coffee, like you want to just have as much as you can overview unit, even cleaning supplies. Some people love theirs up, but I like to leave it out and just kind of, you know, condiments snacks. We used to do pastries for every single morning that they were there. They’d get a pastry,
05:56:44
The Costco that’s, that’s a golden tip right there. All your shopping. Yeah. You all your shopping for guest related stuff.
05:56:52
And then sometimes a bottle of two buck, Chuck, you know, like the wine, but a lot of times we would get wine. Like they would give us wine. And then another thing I like to do is like, write a little, thank you card if I had a chance. So that is pretty much a guarantee. Leave it on in front of your door. The day that they checked.
05:57:13
Is there one house rule that has really saved you before?
05:57:19
No, no claims, no cigarettes or incense or anything
05:57:24
Flammable. So that’s a
05:57:26
Big one.
05:57:27
I have, I have made it a point to remove all the wicks out of my candles because I don’t want any kind of fires happening. And I also put, if they’re going to start a fire in the fireplace, they need to get specific permission, even if it’s just a text or something to
05:57:46
Text when you start it in texts, when you put it
05:57:48
Out. So even if it’s just birthday cakes and somebody’s birthday, I’ll get a text or a call like, Hey, is it okay if we do a birthday cake? I know you have no candle policy. So that has been a big lifesaver. Even still, I get people who will light a candle and leave, and the wax has fallen on the furniture or wax is like spilled over. And it’s like, thank God the fire wasn’t started. Right. I mean, it’s just scary what can happen. So I usually will get all of, I like to decorate with candles. So we’ll get the kind that come on automatically every day at like 5:00 PM during the golden hour. And they only stay on for like four hours. So that’s what I’ll decorate with. And then if I need to get wax candles, because they’re cheaper, I will literally pick out the wick and just set the candle there. So there’s no fires,
05:58:44
Right? It’s a very create, I’ve never heard of the, the no fire rule, but I mean, it’s, it’s important. And I, I like, I liked that tip about the, taking the wick out. That’s, that’s pretty, pretty creative. Get the beauty of the candle without the WIC.
05:58:57
One thing that’s a really good if you’re booking outside of Airbnb or HomeAway or any of the major platforms, if you’re just doing something through, you know, Facebook or Craigslist is I asked for everybody’s ID and I make it like a, a deal breaker. So it could just be, you know, mom, dad, and, you know, aunt, uncle, and a couple of kids and it’s a family and you’re like, oh, you know what, safe. I still, everybody, if they’re going to have an additional person over, even though they’re just having them over for dinner, I’m like, Hey, that’s cool. But text me a photo of their ID because I want to know who’s on my property at all times. And I just explain it to them. I’m like for liability reasons. And they’re normally pretty understanding, but if they’re not, then that’s a red flag.
05:59:39
Definitely. And if you could do, if you could do anything differently, what would you do? Start from scratch.
05:59:49
I would go after more. Yeah, definitely. And I would have expanded to other states like a lot more earlier on and yeah, just not, I would say like, don’t be afraid and go for it. And another thing is, if you’re doing the rental arbitrage method, make sure you have like really good clauses in your contracts to where not only are they verbally saying that you can do this, not only are they writing, signing off on it, that you can do this, but like maybe even its own special page to where they understand, like they are definitely giving you permission to do it. And
06:00:44
Exclusively you’re, you’re exclusively the one in charge of selecting and subletting to the renters of your choice. Want to make sure that that’s that’s clarified.
06:00:57
Yeah. And I think maybe another thing would be to, I would’ve started doing the background checks a little bit earlier on, so we have a membership for spy fly.com. It is at this point I saw a reason they gave it to us for like three bucks a month. I think the intro costs was 30 bucks a month. And then after so long, it just dropped down for us. But that was like super imperative to screening and vetting your potential guests online.
06:01:32
Especially if you’re staying longer, not so much for like a weekend person, but somebody that might be there like 2, 3, 4 months.
06:01:37
Yeah. Yeah. And usually when they’re booking through an online platform, there is a little bit more vetting that that goes on and there’s good reviews that speak for them and all that kind of thing. But I would say definitely a good tip is to have some sort of background check service that you can at least do a public record search. Cause there has been, there has been many different people that we’ve had to turn down because we saw like felonies and stuff like that. So
06:02:11
You don’t want somebody living with you. That’s got like domestic abuse charge. You know what I mean? Like you can, you can help me. It’s not ideal.
06:02:19
Definitely doing, doing the background check is, is definitely very important. And spotify.com is something that we can definitely look into. And is there, if you could give one piece of advice to someone who’s trying to start their Airbnb business, well, what would it be?
06:02:34
Oh yeah. I would say, see if you can get a house and maybe it’s already where you live now. Maybe you’ve got your own place already in this kind of description is going to match up well. But if not see if you can rent a house that has the master suite with its own private entrance, and maybe it has a slider on there. Maybe it’s got French doors, maybe just a regular door, but it’s got like ideally its own private entrance. Yeah. And this would be like, you know, in a, in a situation where you want your own privacy, maybe, maybe you’re a small family, you know, and you have a baby or kids, but I would say get a place that you, that has a master suite that is self-contained, it’s got a bathroom, a full bath in there and it’s got a decent size.
06:03:29
Guests can come and go as they leave and they don’t need to come into your space. They don’t need to bother you. So we had done this a couple of times, it’s worked out well, but in that situation you can set up kind of like a Hutch. You could put a microwave there, a mini fridge, a hot plate, a coffee machine, and you can, you can make it like a little suite, like a hotel room. And in that situation, of course, if you’re doing rental arbitrage, you want to get in permission in writing and whatnot. But if you’re just doing out of where you live now, go for it, just get it started. And especially if you have kids or something, you know, that’s a way to get going. And that eliminates the number one fear that most people have, which is, you know, a stranger in my house.
06:04:27
I would say my number one tip, if you’re just getting started with Airbnb is don’t be afraid of them. The best of both worlds approach, where from, let’s say September through March, it’s a, a long-term rental and you maybe have a month to month agree with somebody. And then, you know, April 1st or May 1st rolls around. And for the next, you know, four or five months, you have it as Airbnb. You don’t have to Airbnb something year round to make 90% of the profit you’d make on Airbnb. So depending on if you’re in a winter town or, you know, if you’re in a city that has a big tourist draw because a sports team, you know, this would be relative to when that sports team is playing. Or if you’re in a coastal area where the summers are really popular, just focus on the four, five months where everybody’s coming to your neck of the woods to visit an Airbnb at that. And the rest of the time, just have it monks, come on. If it’s furnished, you’re going to get more month to month then by about 25% and you would just having it be a year lease anyway. So it’s a win-win and then you can kind of test the water, so to speak or dip your toe into Airbnb when it’s most.
06:05:42
No, that that’s, that’s a great tip. And it directly applies to the place that we live in, where we can only short term rent half the year, the other half can only be long-term rental and with more and more regulations coming to short-term rentals, people have to get creative that way, you know, looking at a property, not just with the approach of, can we Short Term rent this oh, there’s regulations, I guess not, but if there are those kinds of stipulations where it’s like half a year doing this, then you kind of have to approach your investments with the mindset of, well, you know, what can we make on this as a long-term rental? And can we still make the, you know, you know, that, that amazing return off the, maybe the six months that we are allowed to, to rent. So great, great advice. And where do you see short-term rentals in the future? I know you’ve been in this space for a while being real estate investors, fixer fixer-uppers, I’m sure that you have some, some insight on where short-term rentals are going
06:06:32
Well. I mean, there’s a lot of, I guess, regulation that we are up against at this point, as far as what’s going to be the next city to ban short-term rentals. But I think where we’re going is you see a lot of people lobbying for this. They want to be able to have the right to do their short term rentals. So, I mean, it’s, it’s kind of replacing hotels. So you’ve got that pushback from the hotel industry. But for example, I mean, Airbnb personally hired like lobbyists, or I guess you want to call them just kind of signature gatherers that canvassers for San Diego. And they dumped, I think it was over a million dollars into that in San Diego. And they were able to overturn a ruling to keep Airbnb’s legal here. So I think that, I think that where it’s going is it’s going to be a lot more opportunity for just an average person, just somebody who has even a spare room in their house that they want to everybody, I think is just a much bigger opportunity. It’s opening up doors, it’s bringing people to other parts of the country that they wouldn’t be able to go to because of the fact that there’s an affordable Airbnb there. So it’s opening up travel. It’s, it’s opening up experiences and new relationships, new friendships. And I think where it’s going is it’s going to be easier for people to jump in and there’s going to be more opportunity available
06:08:14
On that note where I see it going is, and this has already started to happen, but the hotels and the motels and the lodges are going to begin even more listing their institutional, basically properties, these hotels and whatnot on Airbnb. They’ve already begun doing that, but I think it’s going to become more and more, not just something that’s a small portion, but, but the majority in order to compete in order to basically have that exposure. And of course, then that kind of undermines a little bit of what Airbnb was about, where it’s just, you know, a person or a family opening up their, their home. And so then the way individuals like us kind of have a competitive edge is we’ll include a trip to Lego land, like tickets for Lego land or tickets for Knott’s Berry farm, or, you know, tickets for Disneyland, for instance, or a water park or the zoo.
06:09:10
And you include those tickets and put in your title, like cute two bedroom cottage, SeaWorld tickets included, right? Something like that. All of a sudden now you’re not just getting a place to lay your head at night and take a shower in the morning and breakfast before you go out. But you’re actually getting the experience that you came there for take the kids to Lego land or whatever it is, you know, go see a concert you’re getting that included. So it’s more about the experience as a whole, as opposed to just, you know, place to place to crash. And I think that’ll begin to be that disparity in between the individuals that are doing Airbnb and the larger hotels that are also on Airbnb
06:09:50
Now. Very, very, very interesting approaches. I love how both of you have your, your own kind of creative ways of, of imagining how short-term rentals are going in the future and, and definitely appreciate your guys’ insight. Is there any way that anybody can reach you if they have any questions about short-term renting or investing in the San Diego area or anything?
07:10:11
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, first of all, we got on our Facebook page, which is just facebook.com/mansion makers. So we would welcome anybody who wants to add us on there. And what about like texting or emailing you?
07:10:30
Yeah, my email is info. I N F O at mansion makers, llc.com. The website’s not up. So if you go to mansion makers, LLC, right now, there’s nothing there or we’re going to build out a really good webpage, but right now, at least I have the, you know, the URL and the, and the email address info at mansion makers, llc.com. And
07:10:55
Yeah, we’d love to hear from
07:10:56
You. Yeah. By all means SV rehabbers at Gmail. That’s another one. So find us on Facebook. Happy to connect with anybody. Make new friends.
07:11:07
Yeah. If anybody, if anybody needs a rancher mansion rehabbed with other people’s apartment buildings, then, then definitely they can reach out to you guys. And so thank you. Thank you so much for, I think it’s just so awesome. You guys are a brilliant success story, just starting from renting out your room and, and now you’re having this beautiful, beautiful child and you’re, you’re, you’re killing it. And you’re looking to expand. You guys are truly a short-term rental success story, and I was so glad to have you on the show. I can’t wait to keep on seeing where you’re going and without further ado until next time, host nation, keep on hosting, hope your hosts benefit from the show. If you found value, please go on over to iTunes or Stitcher, leave a review and let us know what you enjoy about the show. If you’d like to talk to the hosts that have been featured in these episodes, as well as the host nation, then going over to our Facebook group, short term rental success secrets, talk to your hosts and the next step. So keep on.
