Cold open

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Welcome to Live Let Thrive, a podcast about the Airbnb life, the share economy, and everything in between. Here are your hosts, Micah and Steve.

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Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to another exciting episode of Live Let Thrive. How y'all doing? This is Stevie Stacks, and I'm coming at you from Fort Worth, Texas. This is your favorite short-term, mid-term, long-term Pad Split Rentals in the World podcast. And we're gonna have a great show for you. Let me set this timer for an hour real quick. Hey, Siri, set the timer for an hour. And so I'll know. I don't want to see it though. That'll put a lot of pressure on me, right? Um so we have a good show for you. Um, Micah couldn't join us today, but yeah, you got me. You got me, and you have to deal with it. You're gonna have to see what comes out of this brain of mine if there's anything good in there. I don't know. It's a bunch of cobwebs, I think. But um we're gonna dive into it. We're gonna always we always talk uh heavy uh pad split lately because that's what I've been doing. And um, of course, we talk about corporate bookings, we love corporate and um some Airbnb, of course. Um regular long-term rentals, you know I don't like those. But um it's gonna be uh be a fun show, and uh we'll dive right

Systems stress test: operating without Manu for a week

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into it. What I have written down here. Huh. How strong are your systems? Nobody likes to talk systems, it's boring, but systems is everything, right? Systems is uh what is a business, but a collection of systems um that run smoothly, I guess, if it's a good business. But um, I I came this came to my mind because uh recently, and um thank God Manu just got back today from his um week-long vacation. Um and so he went to um cool place called um Copacabana Beach in Brazil, whatever. Um so he yeah, he had a long uh well-deserved vacation. And so I'm happy that he got to get uh get that in, get a good relaxation and all that stuff, get refreshed. Uh it's very important. Um so, anyways, so he went on his week vacation. So as as I probably mentioned on the show before, Manu is like my right-hand man in as far as all the corporate stuff and all the listings, creating the listings, uh, Airbnb listings, uh, corporate listings, Zillow listings, listings, you name it, whatever, whatever listings there are, he's the one creating them, and he's the one curating them for us. Um and also he's he does the pricing. He he handles all of the price labs pricing, he handles all of the rule sets, he handles um adjusting the pricing daily, weekly, monthly, all that, all that good stuff. And um, so he's an invaluable asset to our team. And I I guess I consider him a specialist because he handles mostly those things. He does do reach out to outreach to um new clients and um new arbitrage properties. And even he started doing outreach to um new um uh what's it called? Uh seller finance properties, which I'm trying to to pick up. I'm successfully picking up, we're successfully picking up, and those are becoming pad splits. Um so so yeah, he's he does a lot for the company. And and I realized um so he said before hey, before I leave, I'm gonna do um I'm gonna do uh like some reels to show how to do certain things, which is cool. And um of course let me do something real quick. Um so yeah, he was gonna do some reels so people would um know how to do some of the things he does, right? And let me rename this to Stevie Stax. I don't know if y'all can see that. There we go. Uh had that weird name. You know what's funny, a long, long time ago, uh as I jump around here, if you don't mind, um, we had to do um we did an eviction, my very first eviction. You always remember your first, right? At um an apartment over there in in Dallas at the one of the ghetto apartments we used to have. No longer, thank goodness. Um and so this was like a professional tenant. They knew how to hop around and stay in someone's place, and and and once you try to evict them, they they know how to appeal, appeal, appeal, and delay, delay. You know, they were there for like shoot five, four or five months. It was a long time. But anyways, uh I learned a lot. I learned a lot, thank God. I'm uh, you know, I can go, I can go back, I can say now that I'm uh I'm grateful it happened because I learned from it. And the next eviction was less scary because I knew the processes to get someone out, and then um, you know, hopefully there's no more, hopefully I'm screening good, but you never know what's gonna happen. So, but you kind of lose that fear. You kind of it's like part of the business, right? If we're in the real estate business, hey, unfortunately that's part of it. There's some a-holes out there that try to take advantage of people and hardworking people who who spend their time hard, hard, hard-earned money and hard-earned time to get these rentals up and running, and people go out there and try to scam you. So, anyways, long story short, and this um the the final the final um uh what's it called like court uh yeah, when you go to court for the eviction, the final whatever it was, trial date or whatever. They did it on Zoom. So we did like a Zoom call, and um it and they said, in your Zoom, put your name and your case number. And and I did that. And every time I open up Zoom, for some reason, I gotta go into the website and change what my what my name displays as because it displays as my full name plus case number, blah blah blah blah blah for the for the eviction. So it's a bitter reminder of of those days. And it's um anyway, so that if you ever if you ever s notice that whenever you open up one of the podcasts on YouTube, that's

First eviction and the Zoom case number reminder

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what that is, and I need to figure out a way to fix that, which of course every time I I turn off a podcast, I forget all about it until the next podcast. So train of thought totally busted. Um back to Manu. So he was doing everything, you know, as far as the corporate side, outreach, uh creating listings, curating the listings, uh, pricing. So when he left, um oh, he was handling furnish finder inquiries as well, furnish finder outreach. Um, so he was doing a lot, and um, and the team, so I have have my new on the corporate side and doing all that stuff, and then I have the team on the operations side. So I have three VAs on that side, three shifts, you know, uh day shift, afternoon, a midnight shift, of course. And I like to have real humans uh doing real um talking to the guests and and handling problems and reaching out to the to the um handyman and stuff like that when it's when it's necessary. I like to have them do all that stuff, uh, even though you know the youngsters are coming up and say, oh, just get AI to do all that. Okay. Um I'd still like to have a human in place. So that's how I that's how I roll those three shifts. They're doing all the operation stuff, answering all the the calls, dealing with all the cleanings, dealing with all the turnovers, dealing with all the problems, dealing with all the maintenance. So that's a bunch, you know. So that's three shifts on that side, and then so that leaves Manu, he's like doing the the corporate side and then the outreach and all that. So I have it set up that way, it runs pretty smooth that way, and um of course I I jump in if I need to, but the the it's funny in a way, because I think like the the company can run without

Hybrid coverage model while lead VA vacations

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me pretty good. Um, but when Manu left, that was a bit challenging because I had two choices either you know, encourage the team to pick up some of the stuff that he was doing, you know. Actually, I had three choices not do any of Manu's uh job and say no one's gonna answer any corporate inquiries, no one's gonna answer any um uh furniture finder requests, no one's gonna answer all this stuff on that side, but that's lucrative stuff, right? Because you get a uh corporate guest, you know, that's three, six, nine a year booking right there at a high rate, or you get a furniture finder travel nurse, you know, to fill one of your pass split rooms. That's that could be a three-month stay right there. So, but so then yeah, that's like I said, there's choices. Either, either, hey, for a week, we're not gonna do any of that stuff. That's one choice, which isn't very good for your company, because then you're not answering all these messages that people are like, screw you, screw um Argus Reynolds, whatever. And then the second choice is um I'm gonna do all the Manu stuff myself, which I know how to do, you know. I taught him how to do these things. Of course, he took it to the next level. Um, but that was the second choice. Do I do I become Manu for the week and ignore my my my my job and my family and do that? Um that was the second choice, you know. And I don't then the third choice um is rely on the team with the the limited resources that they had, as far as they had like some a few, you know, some ex rules and or um directions and um looms showing them how to do certain things that he does, and so but still that's uh they were they had a lot on their plate already, plus adding um Manu stuff, that's uh that's a lot to um it's a lot to put on them, and um so I guess what happened it did more of a hybrid thing where I was handling a lot of Manu's side and they were handling a lot of Manu's side too, you know, let me 50-50. And um I had drew up a lease for the first time in like man, I can't remember the last time I drew up a lease because I've had Manu do that since I mean I got that off my plate quick because I hated it was tedious, I hated doing that. So I got that off my place, my plate quick. So I drew up a lease, and while he was gone, I was like, Well, I'm gonna do this. Um, the team's busy. Uh, I then I you know I could teach him how to do it, but let me just knock this out because um, you know, Manu's coming back tomorrow, but I'm gonna get this lease. I'm gonna there's a fish on the line, I'm gonna pull this fish in and I'm gonna get the lease done. Manu will be back tomorrow. Um, no need to sit there and try to train somebody uh to do it if he's gonna be back. So that that's how it kind of ran. So it was a pretty stressful week because you know, in this world, uh a lot of stuff goes wrong. A lot of it ain't just hunky dory, guru, you know, sunshine and rainbows. Uh a lot of stuff goes wrong every day. And then the more properties we get, the more stuff goes wrong. Ain't that ain't that weird how that happens? Um, it's just so uh if you're dealing with like um you know 50 plus units, which is like I think we're at like 60, um, it's gonna be a lot of stuff going wrong, right? Um, so it's just like having a 60 unit apartment complex. Always something's gonna something's gonna break or someone's gonna do something stupid and blah blah blah blah blah. So, anyways, that's what um it was kind of a hybrid approach. So I was I I got I I did a lot of the the work myself, which I hadn't done in a while, even creating that lease. But it was it was cool to to get back in there and see how how that side of it was working again. And what what I what I got out of it was um I needed I know that he's gonna need another vacation. Now the team when they they they like cover for themselves that the the when they're on vacation, they cover for themselves, you know, they do a thing where they cover. And so that's and they're all operations, so they know how to do that side. But this Manu is like a like a specialist. Um, so what needs to be done, it what I what I foresee is he needs to sit down with um my head, my manager, which is shout out to Princess, sit down with her one-on-one and go through what he does and how he does it, and then have her create notes that'll make sense to her, and um, and that way she can teach the rest of the team to do it. Because I I believe uh that's how I like to do things. I like to have like a a chain of command, you know. And so I'd like to, you know, I've be bestowed wisdom into Manu how to do all this stuff, and uh he's he's gonna be the one to train our manager how to and then she's gonna be training her the people under her that do the operations. So yeah, that's how that's how I foresee it. Now, is it gonna be perfect when Manu leaves again? Uh probably not because no one, you know, he's he's a superstar, he's a rock star. Um but will it be good enough where I won't have to do as much and I can focus on what I gotta do, you know, the big picture stuff, as they say. Yeah, it'll it'll run pretty good that week that that Manu's gone again. And so that's where that's where I'm at with that. It doesn't things don't have to be perfect, because let's just say like a basketball team, uh, you know, Michael Jordan's gonna be hurt sometime. Well he didn't get hurt a lot, but or or Kobe or or Shaq or whoever it is, you're gonna lose your superstar for a while. Are you gonna still be dominant and win every game by a bunch? No. Can you get by for a few a few weeks or a month until that superstar's gone and then comes back? Um yeah, if you have a good enough squad, you have good enough uh systems in place, you can get by, and you maybe you'll you'll get stay at 500 on that that stretch that they're out, um, until they come back and you and you're you're back rolling again with your superstar. Um and maybe that time where the superstar is away, the team will grow stronger. You know what I'm saying? Uh you've heard of the Ewing effect. There's a basketball player, superstar named Patrick Ewing back in the day. And it and it was weird because every time he left the team or with injury, he got injured a lot, the team would do better when he was gone. But he was a superstar, he'd get 20-30 points a game, you know, and a bunch of boards. But whenever he was out, for some reason they won more, and they call it the Ewing effect. There's there's certain superstars on certain teams that when they're not there, they're not playing for some reason, the team does better. I don't know, I can't explain it. Maybe because they all look around and let watch the superstar and see what they're gonna do instead of trying to play as a team. Maybe that's one of the things I'm not saying that at all about us because yeah, definitely we fell off a uh a bit when when Manu was out. But anyways, long story short, yeah, you got uh we plan to gotta plan for it better, gotta put better um you know, training tools in in place or better um instructions in place for what to do in certain situations where it were and how Manu handles those things. So they'll have a reference. Like I said, it's not gonna be perfect when he's gone, but it'll be pretty good, and we can get we can go a week and um and still stay stay alive, stay afloat. Um, anyways, yeah, the the the the uh my team's much better without me when I'm gone, but that's all uh self-degrading humor. Um so what I um another thing that funny that happened today. I'm gonna turn this fan on, it's getting hot here. Um another thing that happened today. What do I want to talk about? Oh I'm I'm gonna gripe one second because I what I I have my my office up here, right, slash my pod room, right?

The sold-out Mac Mini and AI bot demand

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And I have my my laptop that I always have in my back pocket. Wherever I go, I have my laptop so I can do some work, you know, whenever I get a chance. It's always on me, and I can always just hop in and do some work with my laptop. Now the thing is my laptop is also my my computer like that I use for you know here in the office for the podcast. I I plug it in, I'll plug in the the screen, I plug in the the microphone, I plug in the light, I plug in everything, you know, keyboard, I just all these dongles they call them, whatever they these things that come out of the the Mac MacBook Um MacBook Air, not that I'm rich, but all these things that come out, you gotta plug all the stuff in. And it gets tedious, a lot of wires everywhere. So what all I wanted, all I wanted was uh I was like, oh well, there's this Mac Mini thing I heard about, and I could just this little bitty thing, it's like so little, and you put it on your desk, and you plug in your stuff, your your screen, your keyboard, your mouse, your your um whatever you want to plug in, even uh you know, microphone or what uh uh headphones, and it's a little computer, and and it don't take up much space at all, but you it works like a like a high-powered computer. I was like, and it's $599. Oh, $599 for a Mac, you know. I'm using my own stuff, I'm using my own screen and all that stuff, but $599, and I don't gotta take my laptop out, you know, get it rolling and plug in the everything to it and and all that jazz, you know. And I just have a MacBook here always on my desk, ready to roll. So I can just go up here, hit record on a podcast if I wanted to, or do a meeting, or do some work, you know, it's ready to roll. I don't have to plug and do all that stuff. And that's the number one to me. I know a lot of people as a business in life is to remove as many barriers as possible, right? Um, and and so that was gonna be a big barrier, it's gonna move, so I can just hop up here, knock out some work, and go out, unthink, unhook, unplug, take things out of my bag, find my bag, all that fun stuff. And all I wanted was a damn Mac Mini. But all you um AI people out there snapped up all the Mac minis. And Micah, I heard Micah explaining it to me a little bit before I even was like ready to pull the trigger on my Mac Mini. I was like, he said, Oh yeah, my buddies, or we're doing the the clod bots and all this stuff. So I guess these these clod bots, I you know, I'm no I'm no AI expert, you know. I still use Chat GPT as a glorified Google. No, I use it for more, you know, documents and and cool stuff. And uh, but but when they're talking about these clod bots that are like little AI bots that'll go and do work for you, they're like your little worker bees, you know what I'm saying? They'll work for you when you're awake, work for you when you're asleep, work for you when you're when you're out of the country, they just keep working and working, these little AI bots, you know. And I don't know how it works, it's like magic, little little fairies in these things. But what they're doing is they're buying like one, like he said, his his um friend or cousin or whatever does day trading, and he has three. I don't know why you need three. It doesn't make none of this makes sense to me. Like three Mac minis, MacBook mini or Mac minis, uh, on his desk, and they're just like full of these these clodbots, and it does day trading for him. So as they're executing his trades, and he's like making 2,000 bucks a week, you know. I don't know how I don't know how it how it does it, but these little clodbots and these little Mac minis, but he had he had to get three of them, um, is doing all this stuff for him, and so then I started hearing, oh, that's a thing. People people are using these for AI, and um, so people are just buying the crap out of it and plus it don't help that it's fairly cheap for a Mac for a Mac computer, a powerful Mac computer for $599. Um, that's fairly cheap. And anyways, when I went on to the the Mac store, they were all sold out. You couldn't even order them, you couldn't even back order, back order, you can do nothing. They were gone, all of them are gone. And my my wife actually went to the store to get a new um a new laptop there, and they said that um they don't know when they're gonna have any more. It's just there's they didn't there's no information on them. As soon as they're in, they're gone. Um I just happened to that was like last week. I just happened to get on there today. Now the the price of the Mac Mini is $7.99. They they raised the price by a bunch, $7.99 now, and they're still all sold out. So that's my little gripe about the Mac Mini. Um, maybe if you know how to get my hands uh say I'm not gonna pay $7.99 for one now. But anyways, that's that's what's going on with that. Sorry for sorry for venting. Let me get this. Um okay. So what I'm gonna talk about next. What's a good topic, you

Five of six rooms full in a week at $25K all-in

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know? Um, the new pad split. So we can talk about the new pad split. So it's in a house I did subject to to get, and I and I and I've talked about it before. But this house, they did a really nice job. Looks really modern, really pretty. Um, and I and I furnished it myself and I and I put bedding and I made it look almost Airbnb quality, but pretty damn good. And it looks clean, and we and I took the photos myself. Because photos are getting expensive too. And then Manu cleaned those up. That's another thing he does. You know, he cleaned up those photos on um I now I didn't make I didn't false advertise or nothing, but he cleaned them up pretty good. And it looked professional photos. They look like professional photos. And um and we loaded those up. And as soon as the property went live, I mean within a week, five of the six rooms are full. They're totally full. I got one room left to rent. Um I got great people in there. And so that to me, I'm like, okay. My first house, I was like, okay, grandma's grandma's furniture. That's what's gonna that's what's gonna happen, right? Um now I did fill it up with uh a lot of old Airbnb furniture that I had that just accumulated in in some of my other two pad split garages, right? I did fill up the um this new pad split with old Airbnb furniture, which is which is really cool in a way. If you're like thinking of transitioning from uh Airbnb to pad split, I bet you got a lot of uh furniture already, and um even furniture that you thought you'd have to get rid of or whatever. And and uh you can you can use that furniture for your next pad split and save a lot of money, man. Especially sofas, you know, we change those out and everything. And Airbnb, Airbnb people will bitch about a sofa, they will, they'll oh, it has a stain on it, or it, you know, it's it's not comfortable or whatever. They'll they'll they'll complain. And maybe rightfully so. They're on vacation, they want to stay somewhere nice. I understand. A pad splitter. Um I haven't seen them lounge in in the living rooms too much. So I haven't heard anything knock on wood, haven't heard anything knocking my my sofas. I put decent sofas in there, and um, maybe even a Walmart futon in there, and it's a place to sit. I hardly ever see them lounging there, maybe just a little bit, like if they're waiting on their laundry or something like that. But um, so they're not really nitpicky about that there. They're not nitpicky about uh kitchen table, too. If it's a place to sit, a place to eat your food, it gets the job done, right? You don't need a uh like a thousand dollar Havertes uh table. I don't know if anybody knows what Havertes is, but it's a high-end furniture store. Maybe that's $2,000 now. Who knows? Me, a thousand bucks was for a table and chairs was is still a lot of money, but that's pretty much becoming the norm. Um, so so what's cool? You can you can recycle your old Airbnb furniture and get it used use it again inside a pad split. Now, what I just thought of now, because you see all these uh Facebook um posts of people just I need to get out of this arbitrage now, I need to get out of all this furniture, come pick it all up for a thousand bucks kind of deal, you know. And in the past, I'm like, oh man, you know, where am I gonna put it? But here's the cool thing. Uh two of my pad splits, they have full garages, right? And they're still six bedrooms each, but they still have full garage, which you don't park cars in there because you can't really park a car in those garages because you know, if someone will park behind you, you won't be able to get out. It's it's just so people park in the driveway at pad splits. So I do have extra furniture that I can store in these two garages, right? And I do, and I have furniture there. And so when the pad split, when a pad split pops up, I'll just go grab something, whatever ends in there. I try to use as much as I can, and I use it into the new pad split, and it saves it saves me money. And plus, I'm not filling up a landfill with all this stuff, right? And I'm thinking back to all the furniture I used to throw away um because I I couldn't sell it, couldn't give it away, so I ended up throwing a lot of this stuff away, which was decent stuff. Um, it just wasn't the prettiest anymore. But I could use it for the next pad split. Um, so yeah, that's that's a cool thing about pad splits. I you can you can reuse and then and then um save the planet in the process, right? Um so I I told y'all I furnished this house for around 3,000 bucks. And yeah, it was around 3,000 bucks for a six-bedroom house. And the the construction, I did I had to I had to create uh two more bedrooms and then finish off a loft that was up there, like an open, exposed loft. Had to build walls and a door, you know, to make it a room up there. And so Pablo did all that for he'd built out two full bedrooms and all the stuff you need, you know, electricity and everything, and then the loft for like 12,000 bucks. So up and running, 12, 30, 40, 10. So they say up and running for like 15 grand. After, you know, of course, you I bought the house. I bought the house with 10 grand down. So that's I guess you can look at it like that, and then 15 grand for all the the all of the renovations and all the furnishings and everything for 15 grand. So you're looking at 25 grand to start off, and I'm looking to make um in this house about 1500 a month profit, uh, hopefully. Um at least a thousand, maybe two thousand if it does really good. But I'll say I'll keep it around. I'll make I'll look to make fifteen hundred profit. So how much how much how long would it take to pay that off? That would be uh 12 months. I'll say 15 times two is uh 1500 times two is three thousand, three thousand every two months, three thousand times, so then you'd multiply that by six, that'd be twelve. So in a couple years, a year and a half, you you you pay off all your startup costs, and you just pure profit, which is pretty cool. Pretty cool. Um and and so that that being said, I haven't said that all day. Um what what's what's interesting is you know, I'm you know, working class working class people are the ones that have been renting these rooms, but I got um recently uh a computer engineer in in one of the rooms, and and I called

Computer engineer and nurse choose PadSplit to save money

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him, talked to him, real cool dude. And he's just like, yeah, he just um graduated here in Arlington and he moved back to the city and he's doing he's a computer engineer, makes a lot of money, and he's choosing to stay at a pad split, right? And and just he just needs a room, just needs some good internet, place to work, because he works a lot of hours. He goes, I mean at the place he works, he does a lot of hours, but then you know, needs a place to it just needs a room, and so and he's saving money, and and I thought that was pretty cool. And I you know, I just you you figure pad splits all about you know working class people, but hey, there's there's um people with with like um now I'm seeing people that make pretty good money that are choosing to stay in pad splits just to save money, and that's pretty great. And and uh as far as a need for pad split, I I still see a high demand for it because and it's just gonna get higher because everything's getting more expensive. Um I mean there's a girl staying at at the Pad Split, she's she said, well, she chose to to stay there because she's she was paying fifteen hundred bucks a month on an apartment. She's uh plus utilities, you know, plus she had to put a deposit to get an apartment. She had to put um you know first month's rent and last month's rent, all that stuff. To get an apartment is expensive, right? And um so she said she'd just just go around, she's just gonna stay at a passplit uh to save money because she's all she does is work and go to school. And and so if you're working to go to school, you just need a place of sleep. I mean a passport is it's the perfect place. It's the perfect place. If you get a good one when people are all cool and you know ain't rowdy or nothing, then you and I've man, all three passports I go when I go to them, they're just they're just quiet and chill, you know. I did I put the right people in them. That's a learning lesson, you know, get the right people in, keep the wrong people out, and then um it's just it makes everything so much easier. And so what um what what um what's cool about it is just that it's just like you know, you see all different types of people renting them now, and then you pee you see people that are just trying to to save money and improve their situation, and that's great too. So I love it in that sense, and I'm starting to to love it even more because real quickly you can you can get a lot of a lot of units, right? A lot of doors, as they say. Um, because I went from just the six doors and then all of a sudden 12 and doubled, and then all of a sudden another six, another, so that's 18 doors already. If I get another one, that's you know, 18, 90, 21, 2, 3, 4, 24, 20, you know, or if I do seven, better do 25. Like real quickly, you can get to like you can get to 100 pretty quickly if you just keep doing what you're doing and recycle that money and put it into the next project. So I'm liking Pad Split a lot. Um, I like talking about it. It's just a new thing. I'm glad I tried it. I'm always scared to try something new, but it's always worth it to try something new. Now, as I mentioned earlier, the um when you get more units, you're gonna have more um more maintenance stuff pop up. It's just the the nature of the beast. And so I I had mentioned like uh uh a pool house that I have that uh that um I was renting to an arbitrager. Um it had a leak in the kitchen and it messed up the floors and messed up some of the bottom of the cabinets, and it just yeah, it was it was uh flooded the house a little bit. And so um luckily USA, hey, my insurance company's gonna pay for it as I had to pay 2,000 deductible, but it seems like I'm gonna get um of course get the leak fixed, and then I'm gonna get all of the flooring replaced. And um, you know, the carpet carpet seems damaged too. So the the rooms only had only the rooms had carpet, so I'm gonna switch that out with some with some um nice um tile or plank tile laminate, I don't know, something like that, but it looks nice. So I'm gonna get new floors, uh, get the cabinets redone. Uh the house is gonna look really good. You know, it already looked pretty good, but it's gonna look, I mean, wow, you know what I'm saying? And and so I highly recommend USAA insurance if you can get it. If you know someone in the family that that was in the military or something, you can you can have access to USAA insurance. And um the contractors that I've been talking to, they they love USAA because they say they pay out. And so that's great. Um, more houses, more maintenance. Just gotta be, you know, have your systems in place where like my team will will handle the maintenance. And they'll they'll get the request, they'll go they'll they'll call my maintenance guys and they'll they'll get them out there and they'll get it fixed. And and um, yes, it costs money, but is it's one thing one less thing I'm taking care of. So it's um I can use that that time to get another property, get another source of income, you know, or six more sources of income if you're if you're doing pad split.

The $2,500 truck flip Steve walked away from

SPEAKER_01 33:30

Um the oh if I'm gonna stick on the the the pad split, uh I can hop around a little bit. Let me see. I can hop around. Um I tried to flip flip my brother's truck. So my brother had this old truck, and it's a quick story. Um it just was sitting there in the back of my my dad's house forever, right? And and um and is it's just been it it it runs and everything, but it's like old 89 GMC, it looks really cool, right? And I just saw it all dirty and stuff. I was like, I just want to I just want to buy that thing just so I can give it a bath. And so I ended up buying it from him for for 2500 bucks, right? And it did need like a new full fuel pump and um uh taillights, but that was it. And and so 2500 bucks, I was like, man, you know, I'm gonna try to get like five grand off of this just to do a quick flip on it, right? And I got it, I got it home, and I got all this other stuff going on. I got so much stuff going on. I got home and I was just starting thinking about it. It's like, man, so why do I do this? Why? I mean, I can't help myself. I saw a potential profit situation, and I went and spent, you know, $2,500 to buy this uh truck, and I just um now I gotta do the whole um uh what's it called? Uh Facebook Market. I was gonna say Craigslist, Facebook Marketing, Facebook Marketplace uh song and dance to try to sell this thing. And and I was like, I just put something else on my plate. I got plenty on my plate right now. And I thought of my buddy uh David, shout out to David. I rent uh I managed his house over there in Grand Prairie, and um he's got a nice big old corporate booking. Uh hit me up if you want a corporate booking at your house. And and um I said, dude, you need a truck, right? He's like he's like, Yeah. I was like, I said, I got this truck here. Um, I bought it for 2500 bucks. I just sell it to you for the same price. You know, I had to pay a little taxes on it, you know, just absorb that what I paid. I don't want to make a penny off of you. But if you want this, I get it to you now because you don't have a truck at you know, he don't have a truck at the moment. Um, so he's like, Yeah, he got he got permission from his wife. And so he's gonna buy the truck. So I'm I'm happy I I could get the truck to someone who needs it. And also I'm happy I'm getting it off my plate. I'm not gonna make a penny off of it, you know. Um, if anything, I lost some time, you know, dealing with this situation. But uh, you know, I could have made maybe I could have made a couple grand off this thing. Or, you know, a thousand to a couple grand, something like that. It's it's it's money, but I was like, but how much time do I have to put to get that thousand or two thousand dollars, right? Um, where I could do, where I could focus that time of what I do best is finding properties that I know will make money and putting them into putting them into play and making me money. So that I had to weigh all this stuff out, you know. I just shiny object syndrome. Um, how could I how could I have taken advantage of that situation with with my brother without using a lot of time, you know, and money and going to the uh changing the title and all that fun stuff. And I thought about it, I could have done the same kind of like arbitrage situation where I said, you know what, let me take that truck home with me. I'll even put it on my insurance. I'm not gonna buy it just yet. Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna wash it, I'm gonna scrub it inside and out, I'm gonna take beautiful pictures of it, and I'm gonna get it out there. And you know, let's say anything, if I make anything over 2,500 bucks on that truck, I'll keep it. And and then um you keep, of course, you keep the 2500 bucks or whatever you whatever I agree with. He's oh 26, 27, still. And if I sold it for 3,500 bucks, I'd make a quick thousand bucks, right? Without having to do all the stuff, just just washing it and then putting it out there and marketing it and then selling it, and then I don't have to go to the DMV, I don't have to change the title. The title's gonna go straight from my brother to that guy. That's that's what I should have done, you know. Instead of taking on this, this I wouldn't say burden, but taking on this thing, buying it, spending my money. Now I gotta sell it and and do the whole transfer again and get you know get my money back. Um, I should have just done like an arbitrary situation. Um, anyways, that's that's what um that's what my wisdom uh took me to. It's good that it's good to take advantage of money-making situations, but but is that gonna take away from my time that's that's better spent doing something else that makes

$7,500 corporate pricing vs. World Cup last-man-standing strategy

SPEAKER_01 38:08

even more money. So there's that. Um we'll jump over to the World Cup bookings. I don't have I don't have any World Cup bookings yet. And you know, I'm here in the the Dallas Fort Worth area, right? Uh and so the World Cup's coming here in middle of June. Middle of June, like a month away, a month and a half away. And um, but I don't have any World Cup bookings. I our places are priced pretty high still. Now I look at it this way do I just um start chopping my prices, slashing my prices just to start attracting bookings? That's one way to do it. Um but what I what I you know I'm um I am all about a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. And so but let's say I did slash my prices uh and started getting some World Cup bookings and and now my calendar far out is kind of like dotted with what uh the World Cup games, right? It might be pretty lucrative, but like I said, if I'm gonna cut my prices to get them, it's not gonna be super lucrative, it's gonna be pretty lucrative. Now what what I came up with, um, because I like I said, I love corporate before everything else, because corporate pays out the best and it's and it's um a lot less work, right? Um after that I probably probably pass put second and then um Airbnb third. Third out of three. Uh so um what I what I came up with is this I will keep my prices high for the World Cup right now. Also, I've raised up my my um corporate um pricing. So let's say right, you know, I was content to get $5,500 a month for a house, right? For a corporate stay. Um right now they're at $7,500 a month. Now, there's people out there, and and my adjuster I spoke to, that you know, I'm dealing with that that flooded house. Uh, my adjuster, he was we were just talking about it and and about the World Cup coming, and these he knows that I do corporate booking, uh, corporate rentals, uh, short-term, whatever. Uh, and he he was like, Yeah, man, um, because you know, his job is to you know solve problems for families and get their houses fixed and put them up in a place uh until their house is fixed, right? That's what he does. That's his that's his his living. And he said that man, this and he services the areas, Arlington, Grand Prairie, Mansfield, all around the the cities around the stadiums, right? Uh he services those areas. And and um he said the man, everybody's got their prices jacked up super high, and he's talking like you know, 8,000, 9,000, 10,000 a month right now. So and he's gotta put families in these homes somehow because they're fan their their house, and he said, well, you know, the other route is for them to put them in hotels, but all the hotels are, you know, the hotels probably filled up first, right? Um, he goes, the hotels got their house, and he goes, the ones that aren't filled up, they have their prices super high as well. And so they have he said, pretty much we have no choice but to pay a high price to to house our clients. And so when I heard that tidbit, first of all, you know, I still had them priced in a I raised them a little, I raised them from 5,500 to like 6,500, right? So after I talked to him, I was like, I told my team, raise all the prices to the houses to set to 8,500. I raised them all to 8,500. I was like, you know, uh, if everybody else is priced high, I'm gonna price them high so well. Now after I did that, I was like, you know, I thought about it. I was like, you know what? I'm gonna bring it down to 7,500 because still price high, higher than usual, but it's not like those gouged gouging out um prices that everybody else is priced at. So they're not gonna stay at those 10,000 a month places, but they look at mine, 7,500. Okay, that's doable because everything else is so high. So I have been landing these corporate bookings, like I said, I filled out the at least the other day, and this next one coming up is like uh a seven-month uh corporate booking. So I um at 7,500 bucks a month. Um, so I've been I've been landing these, and I and I think what I what I'm thinking is I'm still gonna leave my prices high for the World Cup. If I get a huge booking, if I get a big booking for the World Cup and it's I make twenty thousand dollars in that span of a month, that's great. That's great. Um do I count on that happening? No, no. Um now if I get uh a corporate booking at $7,500 a month for six months or a year, I'd rather have that. I'd rather have that. And of course, it's it's more money, more but a longer term, you know, less money per month. But the World Cup, this thing it's it's it's here one month. It's here like it's here between uh the middle of June and middle of July. It is one month you're gonna make you try to make as much money as you want, and that's everybody's goal right now. I'm still my goal is still corporate first. So, yes, I have my prices high. If someone books ridiculously high price, okay, I can live with that. That's for the next month coming up. But I if I if I get a corporate book, if it if it keeps my calendar clear and available to get these corporate bookings at the price that's not super gougy, uh then how then that that's a win. That's a win because I'm always corporate first, corporate first. Now, um so so that's that's my strategy. And if it doesn't rent, doesn't rent coming up to that point, then I can readjust my prices at that point, or I'll be last man standing and get super high price. You know, super high rates for for the World Cup when people say, you know what? Uh, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna see tickets. There's still tickets available. Maybe there is, maybe, maybe the the scalpers have dropped their prices significantly. Let's hop on a plane and go to the freaking World Cup and we'll find a house, whatever's left. All the houses are gone. Oh, there's still a few. Uh it's a high price, but it's 10 of us going. We're gonna split it 10 ways. We can rent that house for 20,000 a month. Let's do it. Let's freaking do it. That's what I'm saying. So uh I'm using the last man strategy, last man standing strategy. But if a juicy corporate booking hits, I'm gonna choose that instead. Um, yeah, so that's I hope that helps with people's decisions right now, the World Cup people decisions. Um, but yeah, burn in the hand is we're two in the bush. Um so what else y'all want to talk about? Uh yeah, I did say high high corporate demand. It's it's really high.

Plumbing is 99% of maintenance: replace it upfront

SPEAKER_01 44:52

We're getting a lot of booking inquiries. Um maintenance on the pad splits. Yes, there's I talked about pad split maintenance. There's a few issues going on in some of my pad splits. Um plumbing. Plumbing is the freaking number one, freaking number one issue, right? I'm starting to rethink the whole the whole plumbing deal because it's uh it's by far and away the biggest maintenance issue is plumbing. And when you're buying older houses, you have a lot of plumbing issues, and so it's almost to me like when I now I'm thinking when I negotiate with the seller to buy their house, um the things to fix that I can just add to the to the loan, you know what I'm saying? Rip all that old plumbing out, put all brand new, I think they call it pecs or something like that, plumbing. That's not gonna give you no issues. That's that won't freaking expand and and and break and you know in the winter time and or in the summertime and just all this old plumbing junk, just rip it out of the house, put all new stuff in, and that'll eliminate 99% of your maintenance stuff right away. So I just thought about that now. And how will I implement that? Uh on the purchase where I can roll it into a lease. Because if you do it without uh if you do it, you just pay someone to do it. I know it's tens of thousands of dollars, but if you roll it into a lease, you don't feel it as much. It's just uh like a hundred bucks a month more on your on your mortgage that you're hopefully gonna make a thousand, uh two thousand a month doing um a pad split. So there you go. That's what uh another Stevie Stacks tip of the day. Um one situation that happened um over at my my pad split

Wall leak solved by moving tenant to the new Arlington PadSplit

SPEAKER_01 46:40

uh close by uh in a city down the way. I I it's it's full. And I and one of the girls we had heavy, heavy rains, right? And like I said, older houses. I did have older houses. So somehow the the the water was was seeping in through through the side of the house where her wall is, and it kind of like got in between the wall and it and it bowed out the wall inside her room. And um, so I I was like, okay, let me get my handyman out there to Pob shout out to Pablo again to go examine it and fix it. And he said he could do it like probably in the weekend. Um, it might take a little longer, and I said, Well, and I just just got this pad split up and running, right? And I said, Well, here's what I can do. Here's I got a new pad split up and running. Would you like to transfer to that pad split? Because we have an extra room there, or would you like to just stay there a few days and then um until Pablo's done with your room and then you can go back to your room? And she chose that because over here where we're at, it's close to her work and all that stuff. She don't have to you know go far. But over in Arlington, where the other pad split is, she it's it's a bit of a drive. Uh, and I think I don't think she has a car at the moment, so she has to Uber it, a long Uber. Um, so she chose to just stay in that room for a couple days, and then when it was ready, she just hopped back over there. And and luckily he knocked it out in two days, and everything was fixed and clean, and she was happy. Thank you so much, got her room back, and she and she's good to go. And so that was that was really cool. So when you're uh that's another thing with when you're doing these path splits, you know, as soon as you get a new one up and running, you know, it might take a week or two to get them totally full, but you can you can help people like if there's a situation at one of the other pad splits, you can house them at the other pad split while that's going on. Because you know, people come and go at the pad splits too. Every few months there's there's some turnover, so there's always um one room that might be empty for a few weeks. Um, so that's a cool deal, man, because you have extra options for people that need a place to stay. Um what else am I gonna talk about? Uh that's I think I gave you all a lot of stuff today. Um at another pad mate uh at the new Pads Pad Split, and he would just like because he came from he tried a couple others and he he was about to give up. He was like third time, either third time's a charm,

Airbnb hospitality standards applied to communal living

SPEAKER_01 49:07

or I'm gonna get I'm gonna get a hotel until my family gets here. He just need a place for like two or three months until his family got here from from out of state, and then they were they're gonna get an apartment together or rent a house. And so um he was just like kind of like give about ready to give up on past, but he was he saw he saw my new one and he saw how you know it looked good in pictures and everything looked good, and um he decided to give it a try. Real cool dude. And anyways, I met him at the house, like I guess it was probably the second day he was there because I had to go get something, and um, and he's hey uh you know, I said, Hey, what's up, man? I'm Steve, the owner. Oh, hey, how you doing? You know, and blah blah blah. Thank you, thank you. He goes, I just want to say thank you so much for providing a great place. This place this house is beautiful. I mean, come I was about to give up on Pad Split, but I saw how how nice you made yours, and and it's just yeah, it gives me I have faith again in the in the Pad Split model, and I was like, well, thanks, man. You know, that means a lot to me. I do come from the the Airbnb world, so we do, you know, we know a little bit about hospitality and and um how to make things look good and take care of things and make make sure their maintenance is on point. So Airbnb, you know, baptism of fire, it did teach me all that stuff, which I'm able to use in Pad Split. Um you look on Pad Split, you see a lot of ghetto-looking places, right? They don't even put the sheets on the bed for the photos, for the iPhone photos, you know. Uh it looks ugly rooms, and it just doesn't look very inviting. But we come from the Airbnb worlds, and we're used to, oh, it has to look really beautiful and it has to take real good pictures with a lot of lighting, and you gotta you gotta think about what the guests need, and you gotta tell the story to them, and then because they're gonna be swiping a lot of properties. So you tell them a good story, you capture them, you get them to click, and you get them to book, right? That's that's what the whole Airbnb worlds. Um, so using that for pad split has been um has been a big deal, and it's been uh helping us be more successful than than we um than we would be otherwise. Because I think a lot of people that come into the the padsplit world are coming from the side of they've they've done rent to the rent by the room before, you know, either Craigslist or or or you know, marketplace or whatever. It's the rent by the room model is not new. Passplitz um, you know, been around for a few years, but it's becoming the the Airbnb of Rent by the Room. And um, so people are coming from that world and not really knowing the the Airbnb side of the hospitality side, you know, of renting out your house. So, anyways, that's a good that's a good thing. Um I like I said, I won't go overboard on a pad split, but I'm gonna make it nice and neat and comfortable. Put I'm gonna put bedding on the on the beds. Because I mean, think about it. You you could buy a nice little comforter set from Amazon for like 30, 40 bucks, and it comes to everything, right? And and then um and it makes a bed look really nice and buy some throw pillows and piece of artwork and and you know, it's a desk and a chair. You you don't have to spend a ton of money to make a room look nice. And so so yeah, like I said, like I mentioned before, if you want my Amazon list how to make how to put together a PadSplit uh under 3,000 bucks, then then hit me up. I'll I'll help you out. So anyway, so yeah, thank you for for listening to me ramble for almost an hour. And um you can find us at you know hit us up at Livelet Thrive at gmail.com uh if you have any questions, want to chat with us or whatever, you want to hop on the show. And um yeah, I think that's pretty much it. Argus Reynolds, if you need a if you need a um a great management company now. I'm gonna start managing pad splits as well. So if you need your pad split managed, I could do that. I'm I'm learning this business pretty good, and um I feel more confident in managing other people's pad splits as well. So thank you so much, and I will see you on the flip side. Peace. Uh peace, love, and chicken grease or whatever. All right, Stevie Stacks out.

SPEAKER_00 53:02

Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of Live Let Thrive. Be sure to tune in next week for all the latest in the world of Airbnb and all that entails. Bye-bye.