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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. I am your host, Stevie Stax, coming at you from Fort Worth, Texas. And this is episode 340 of your favorite short-term, mid-term, long-term podcast. Also Pat Split Podcast in the world. And I think, you know, um, yeah, man, this has been this has been a bunch of episodes. Uh Micah he might join us later. I just hit record and he might be able to hop on in a little bit. But either way, I'm gonna we're gonna have a good show today. And it's gonna be uh a fun show. Fun, very exciting show. Let me do this so we can make sure it's about an hour. Hey Siri, set a timer for one hour. And that way we'll know how we're doing on time. Uh that's technology, y'all. I'm just kidding. Everybody's talking about the AI, tech stacks, all that fun stuff. I've never really, I mean, I got a tech stack, but I never really like, hey, you know, this is my tech stack. Check it out. Like, yeah, I guess people do that on um on the IEG, on the whatever the social medias. I haven't been on social medias in a long time. But um yeah, I remember people doing that. Look, show me your show me your tech stack, and and they'd say, oh, hospitable, um, what else? Uh Price Labs. So I use Price Labs, hospitable. Um, man, that's pretty much it. My tech stack is like real people. It's um it's um my team, my my virtual assistant team that I have in place on each shift, and they um and they run the show for me, and which is really cool. But I mean they use all the the technology, they know it better than I do, which is which is that's what you want, right? You want to have a a company where your employees are um are smarter than you, which for me that's pretty easy to find people smarter than me. Um anyways, we're gonna talk some fun stuff today. Uh, where do where do I want to start? Where do I want to start? I wrote some notes down. So we got through this winter storm. This is um in Texas. We got through this Texas winter storm, right? And I used um, you know, I'm getting smarter every year on how to handle these situations. And I have a great team of handy men. Uh, I have my one handyman guy, shout out to Jose Torres. He I told him, um, well, of course, here we go. I try to honor the chain of command as much as possible. This is very, very important to me. I hate dealing directly, okay. The handyman needs to do something. I don't want to be the one to tell them because what happens, I become a bottleneck, right? So I tell my team, hey, have the handyman go and winterize all the homes. And and we they know what what I mean by that is put the um spigot covers on the outside of the houses where the you know where the where the water hose plugs into, I guess it's called a spigot. And and they have these covers you put on because here's here's the thing. In Texas, uh we got I guess we got weak pipes that aren't aren't built for the winter because our winter pretty much consists of like maybe two or three weeks of really cold weather. That's pretty much it. Um but we so uh our houses and and pipes aren't built for to handle that. So what we gotta do here, and I'm sure there's other parts of the world that um the country and then the world that has to do it, they gotta we gotta cover all the spigots on the outside of the houses and we gotta drip the water continuously, right? Um so so the pipes won't freeze. And then then what happens? Well, a few things that happen. When the pipes freeze, you don't get no water. There's no water to the house, right? And then um, once that happens, um the pipes can break. And once that happens, you get leaks in the house. Uh, depending on where your pipes are, leaks in the ceiling, if there's pipes going through your ceiling, through your walls, leaks in the walls, leaks in the the floor coming up from the ground and ruining your floors. It's it's it gets really bad. So this year I made sure to have the team uh handle this with our with our number one handyman. And he went and um and put those covers on all the houses, right? And he the houses that were happened to be vacant that day he went, you know, the the Airbnbs and corporates, he went inside and started dripping the waters, made sure the waters were dripping. And then um the teams every single day the um the guests would get a reminder to keep the to keep the sinks inside the house continuously dripping, right? So it wouldn't be no frozen pipes. And so that went um, I say knock on wood. But what's cool about nowadays, as far as I mean, even just a a couple years ago, you wouldn't know you had a leak until you got that water bill, right? Let me take a drink of tea. You wouldn't know you had a potential leak unless you got that water bill. Now, if you have 50 houses you're doing, um some of those water bills go under the radar, because you know, we have everything automated and everything is paid. Um, you know, uh what's it called? Auto pay. And so we don't always look at all the bills. You know, I mean things can slip to the cracks. The the VAs are supposed to look through the bills and um yeah, give us a breakdown every month of what uh what each house is paying. So, anyways, but what's cool now is pretty much every city that we're in in Texas will send emails saying, hey, we notice a high um water usage uh going on at whatever house it tells you. And that gives you an indication if there could be a possible leak. Now, if it's just a small, like during the the freeze and stuff, if it's just a small um water usage, then you're like, okay, that's from the all those sinks dripping, right? Um now if it's huge, if all of a sudden it goes, I mean you see a little chart, all of a sudden it goes, shoot, like shoots up, then yeah, you probably have a leak, and you probably need to send a guy out to go find that leak and handle it, right? So so, anyways, there's that technology. Technology's getting better, you know. Um and I guess with AI, it's gonna get even better, whatever. To me, to me, I still use AI, like they say, like like Google. I say, hey, uh AI, tell me this, and it tells me, and it's um, but I'm starting to get a little bit uh more into it, you know. I guess we have to, and I don't I don't see a problem with it. Um I don't see a problem with AI. I think it's gonna be another great tool. Um, I don't want to rely on it 100%. I still want to have a a real person, a real person on each shift because I've dealt with the big corporations calling them for um whatever, you know, phone company or internet company, and they try to AI the F out of it, out of and uh I I really hate it. I don't I don't like give me a person, give me a person, give me a person. Anyways, I'm sure it's gonna get better and um and people will lose all those jobs, maybe eventually. Um but I still like having a real person on each shift uh and running our properties. So, anyways, the winter storm went as good as it could, and um we had um my wife's uh friend stayed with us through those through those ice days. It was like about four good ice days, right? About four good everything frozen outside days with snow and ice everywhere. So she didn't want to be by herself at her house, so she stayed with us at our house, and and her dog was here too. So um her dog's old. Her dog is old, so uh they they and they don't like the cold too much. So there was a lot of um cleanups to do in the house, if you can imagine, with two old dogs with um bladders that um they can't control so good no more. Um shout out to Cheekies laying over here. Sucks when they get old. Um that's life, right? Um, so that was going on. Um and also, you know, after all that cleared up, because you know, being indoors, you can't go nowhere. I try to do some work, I didn't get a lot of work done. And then um, and then um after all that cleared out, then my wife ended up getting sick, and my and my my baby boy also, you know, he's he's under the weather. And they um they have COVID. Yeah, that old remember we were all terrified of COVID, but they both um they both have COVID. Um they're getting over that. And so so yeah, that I mean going from the ice week to to this week of, you know, I'm you know, have I always do help. I'm just saying. Uh there's times where, you know, she needs a lot of help with the girls and stuff like that, and I'm toting them around everywhere. And I'm so I'm not really I haven't really dug into getting a lot of work done. And what but what's cool, I have the team in place. And they know how to do everything and they and they know how to send handyman out. It's cool. I can see I see the messages go through and they're like, oh, they're sending him here, they're sending him here. He's handling things, right? And without me having to to put any input into it there and and and um you know be the bottleneck. I I just I know things are getting handled throughout all that and throughout of me um having to handle a lot of stuff at the house since the wife is sick and the and the baby helping take care of the baby and of course the girls. So so what what I uh I thought of automatically when I first started doing out of my first Airbnb, which was uh the second house that that I owned that we we lived in, you know, back it was me and Lupita, and then while we were there, she had the baby Lucy, our first baby together. And so she um um yeah, so we were living there. We had our our little our our baby Lucy and when she turned one year old at that house. Well, um actually we we had moved we lived there for a year, had Lucy. Lucy was barely there for a little bit, and then we moved out, right? And we got we we we were house hacking, so we moved from house one to that house, and that house, um, that's the house me and Micah started um uh Live Let Thrive out of the front room of the house. Micah jokes and says it's a trap house. It it wasn't a trap house, it was a it was a decent house and a decent area. It was actually a B B plus maybe area. That's the right area. It was a small little house, right? So in the front living room, I set up a little podcast studio with uh with the um with the like the rock and roll singer mics, because I used to, you know, used to do some rock and roll. And with the pantyhose, uh with like I made like uh he he he laughs at this, but uh, you had these little makeshift mic stands, right? And then we had this um this I I used uh I guess I freaking YouTube it back then, but a wire hanger. I fashioned it into like a circle and I attached it to the microphone, and then I put pantyhose pantyhose around the circle, and then I put it in front of the microphone so to keep it from the popping and the cockle, you know, and the microphone picks up all that stuff, right? Um this mic I use now doesn't really pick up all the popping and the but those mics did, it picked up all that stuff, so we put the pantyhose in front to capture all that, anyways. Long story longer. Um, that's the house we started our pod, our podcast many, many moons ago. I guess that would be like nine years ago. Nine years, yeah. And so I didn't even have a uh Airbnb at the time, but Micah was doing Airbnb out of his house in his um upstairs bedrooms. He was writing out each room, he was pad split before PadSplit was Pad Split. Um and so he um when he told me, yeah, I've told this story before, but when he told me about uh what he was doing, because he came to like a stock meetup, a uh stock investing meetup that I was throwing, and he was telling me about his weed stocks, and he told me about Airbnb, you know, what he was doing, and making he was like, Man, this thing's paying my mortgage. I was like, what? You're living for free? And um, and so um we I said we should start a podcast. And we started the podcast at that house. So I'm sure I've told the story a thousand times, but anyways, so it just so happened. So we found the next house we were gonna hop into, and I had told my wife, we're gonna we're gonna house hack, we're gonna hop into a new house every year until we accumulate some houses, and she was cool with it. Um and so she so um we found the house we were gonna move into, and I told Mike, I was like, well, I guess I I don't know I I I can long term this one too, or I can I can try my hand at Airbnb. He said, do it, man. You gotta try, you gotta do Airbnb. We have an Airbnb. And I thought to myself, yeah, we we do have an Airbnb podcast. At least it, you know, I'm scared as as hell to do Airbnb out of a house. Like I said, this is nine years ago, so it's the wild west of Airbnb when you when you can make money with grandma's furniture, right? Um, but anyways, so so I started the Airbnb at that house. That was my very first Airbnb. And so we were living at the new house, at their house number three, and one day um Lucy got real sick, right? She like started like fading, like like passing out, like while she was eating her food, and we're like, what the hell? Took her to the rush her to the doctor, and and um I think he gave her like a popsicle or something, it helped a little bit, but he said, Y'all gotta take her to um Cook's children's hospital over there in Fort Worth, the big the big hospital, you know, where they do serious, they treat serious stuff for kids. So we're freaking out. We're driving across town, speeding and all that stuff, and and she's in the back fading and everything, and we're like, what the hell? Um yeah, it was a it was a rough, uh rough rough few days. Um they ch they admitted us, they started checking her, they gave her like this like this stuff that was pretty much like sugar water, and she she kind of snapped out of it and she was back to being a little a regular baby again, but they wanted to admit her and be there for a few days and and run tests and do all kinds of stuff. And it was um they were sticking these tubes and these needles in her and her wrist and this put this thing on her to monitor. Oh man, we had to hold her down and she was screaming. One year old, you know. And um, it was um it was nerve-wracking. I mean, it was it was it was excuse me, it was very difficult. I'm not getting chunked up, I'm just um need to take a drink. Excuse me. Drinking some tea. Um so, anyways, we were there and they they admitted us. And and it was, you know, I was still working a lot of hours at that time at my day job, and then I was doing the Airbnb, you know, making sure everything's good with that. And I was still in my work clothes when we did all this stuff when I rushed to the hospital with with um with my wife, and so I hadn't, I mean, I went straight from work, we're there at the hospital, we're staying with her, you know, at the hospital, and it's late at night, and I get a phone call from from the um the guests at the Airbnb. And they're saying the and this is the summertime, so they said that yeah, the AC's not working, it's it's it's hot in here. Oh man, so I started calling around. It is the middle of the night, like on a Friday night. So as anybody that runs Airbnbs knows that that's exactly when air air air conditioners break. They always break on Friday nights when you can't when you can't get anybody out there to fix them, right? Or to look at them. And then who knows if you find somebody at work weekends, but especially back then, they didn't work weekends. So um what happened? I I I tried to get a hold of a few people that and I couldn't, you know, nobody everybody was busy or they were going to sleep, and we was late. And I told them, all right, I gotta go, I'll I'll be I gotta go I'll go check it out. And I drove over there in like middle of the night, worn out, you know, going through all the stress and drama with with our daughter, and then um, and then um, you know, just I mean I for my job I you wake up like I would wake up at four in the morning. So I've been I've been up since four, and this is already like I don't know, ten or eleven or twelve, whatever it was. It was late. So I hadn't slept nothing, plus I had all that um stress on top of that, and then worrying about my daughter, and then now I gotta leave them there by themselves. Well, you know, at least she had mama there. And I had to drive all the way across town to go check on this freaking AC, right? And so I just did some diagnostic stuff and I just poured I remember pouring um uh water from the water hose onto the coils of the AC outside AC unit and um and it thawed it out and then it started working. Luckily, you know, and um so that kind of was it just got you know frozen up and but I just remember alright, well see y'all later, and I just took off back to the hospital and I was just like man this is this sucks. Um but but um that takes me all the way to now. To now, you know, I I won't, I mean I won't go to uh to one of the Airbnbs if something's going on. I have my I got like three handymen, and one of them will be able to do it. And if they can't do it, I'll make an an offer they can't refuse, and I'll say, how about this amount of money? Get your ass out there, okay, I can do it now. Um, so that but I put it that way because I don't want to be the one to do this, because it's just gonna I mean imagine me trying to do everything, you know. You could sustain that for a certain amount of time before it kills you, man. Or I mean it makes you seriously messes you up, right? So I mean the early early days, yes, yeah, be the one to do everything, that's fine. Learn all the stuff, but try to build a team as fast as you can because um I was gonna say you can't catch me on the gingerbread. Um, but try to build a team as fast as you can. Um because trust me, it's I mean your time is everything, right? And if you're spending your time going out to the houses and fix trying to fix things yourself and save a few bucks, you're gonna you're not gonna get anywhere, you're not gonna grow, of course. Oh, that was a long story. But what else you'll want to talk about today? Um so I'm I'm working like three days a week at my job, right? Plus I get a bunch of vacation weeks and and stuff like that, so so I'm working about three days a week there. And and I'm doing that primarily to keep my benefits. But I started to think the other day, you know, I'm um even those three days going into work it it kind of throws me off a little bit, right? But um I was saying, well, the insurance through my work, it's about what is it about? Let's say six hundred bucks a month, right? And I get um Blue Cross Blue Shields, pretty decent insurance. Um and I started I said, you know what, I'm gonna f I'm gonna talk to a friend who does who's self-employed and see who they use for insurance and um just so I can start testing the water, start seeing what's what my the difference would be, right? If I um if I either took a a leave of absence or if I um you know decided to retire. Um because my main source of income is the is the rental properties. And so I went ahead and um and and talked to somebody that does insurance for people, you know, the people that either uh don't get insurance through their job or or are self-employed, right? And that's the first thing you gotta do. You gotta take steps to, hey, I wanna quit my job. All right, well, see how much you gotta pay for insurance if you don't have a job. Um check out, you know, you check out several things and see what the see what it looks like if you can do it. And that was the biggest thing for me is the is the health insurance, right? Because I've always had it subsidized through my work. And so to get insurance, like my job, it's gonna be around sixteen hundred a month, right? Outside of my job. Well, he found me uh one that it's very comparable, right? And so me doing the math, I'm like, well, that's a thousand bucks more a month, right? If I don't because I'm I'm paying six hundred at my job, so it's for it's like a thousand dollars more a month to get me and my family insured, pretty much like I'm insured at my job. Sounds like a lot of money, right? And of course it is to a lot of people but would would that one thousand dollars more I'm paying a month for insurance would that allow me to to grow the company you know more efficiently and faster I mean how many how many more phone calls is that to like potential to landlords to people selling their houses owner finance seller finance I mean how many more phone calls is that which means how many more rentals would I acquire in a month and I and I started thinking you know even if I let's let's say let's start off in the beginning of the year and I'm gonna pay a thousand bucks more or more a month for health insurance right and it's all um it's all um tax deductible by the way so anyways so if I got one more house that first month right that's an and that could potentially let's just say it's a pad split right where I can get it pretty cheap C class neighborhood and I can make it you know six bedrooms six or seven bedrooms and it could profit me like you know one thousand to two thousand bucks a month or fifteen let's just say fifteen hundred so that one month would produce would make would find me something that'll make me fifteen hundred bucks a month the rest of the year insurance paid for right so but I don't plan to just find one more house a year. I plan to find at least one more house a month or two or three. So how so me being able to just purely focus on that and not having to worry about going to a day job and doing all that stuff you got to do at a day job. And like I said I'm doing three days a week. So that's three extra days that I could put a hundred percent towards um finding um more deals and finding more management clients or whatever building out my my funnels better. So I think it wouldn't be too hard of a trade-off all I need to do is would get one more thousand dollar producing house to pay for that insurance for the whole year right so I think my next step will be to look into doing like a leave of absence from work before I take the full plunge to just retire you know from my job. It's not a hard job it's an alright job but um but I'll have three more days that I could you know focus on the business and three more days uh a week that or what will that free me up with you know I'm saying if I could produce in in a few months I could produce you know five or six thousand dollars a month more of income that'll be less and if I built out my systems where I'm not doing it anymore I'm not making the phone calls to talk to potential landlords and homeowners. That's more time with my family, right? And that's the number one thing man. The number one asset in life of course is time. I mean it's cliche but it it is true like if I'm able to do that I got rid of those three days a week of going into the job waking up at four in the morning being there till you know two thirty and then doing all that stuff. But um so that start looking at it that way I'm like well I could do a leave of absence. I could try it for six months right and see how much in six months I would um I would create for the business. And if it's like man I'm just growing like crazy I went from I'm pretty stalled out around 50 units I've been like that you know some come some go whatever I'm around 50 but if I'm able to get that in six months up to a hundred units you know what I'm saying that's just um I mean that that would make my my decision for me I believe so but the cool thing about about my job is I can test the waters I can do a I can do a six month um leave of absence and then um get my own insurance and then try to um try to see how how it works out that way. Yeah it's a big it's a big jump but but I mean what am I waiting for? What am I waiting for? I could leave but I just want to be able to I'm I'm people come people say I take a lot of risks but I um I I say I think I'm pretty conservative dude. I'll buy a house if I know it'll be a good rental even long term right um but especially as a Airbnb or corporate or um or Pad Split but I'm always like push come to shove I just sell the house if it's not producing if it's not making me money I just sell it I might might even lose a few grand on it oh well I tried and that's not to me that's not a huge a huge risk right anyways um that being said we can jump around to the next thing um and you're gonna I I'm currently chopping up a podcast that I did with um my buddy or new buddy Matthew um buddy of of Micah's he he's the vending machine guy every time I brought up vending machines um Micah was like oh I got a guy for you got a guy for you all right so he's the vending machine guy his name's Matthew and he and I just wanted to chat with him I was like hey man you know Micah's you know you're Micah's friend he told me to talk to you about getting a vending machine I'm thinking of putting him in my um pad splits and yeah yeah well let's chat let's chat you know we went back and forth for a while he's a busy dude he's an entrepreneur every entrepreneur is busy as hell and um finally he said okay well let's link up today let's do a zoom and they said okay I got time blah blah blah it was like some it's like Saturday morning or something like that and and we started chatting and I was like it's like man this is a great this is a great chat it's like I'm gonna hit the record button is that cool I said I said I think this would make a great podcast but I you know I I'll I'll you know I'll let you hear I'll I'll just make a copy and you can hear it and then you can decide he was kind of like I don't know if I want to be on a podcast or this and that and I was like I was like man this is so much great information you know a lot of us uh entrepreneurs a lot of us uh in real estate and Airbnbs and pad splits or whatever you know we've um a lot of us have considered making more income at these places and I think that a vending machine might be um might be the answer and so count electricity um sorry and so and so I told him um I told him I I convinced him he's all right cool I said don't worry I'll I'll send you a copy and then I'll have a copy I just want to hear this information over again he said oh that's cool so we hit record on the zoom and next thing you know I'm into uh I'm full I'm in full podcast interviewer mode because I just can't help it you know when I start talking to somebody I just ask him a million questions and it it just comes it turns into a podcast right if I find someone interesting and I just and I want to learn what they're doing and man he was he was as as uh Micah says he was dropping some gems I don't know if they still say that anymore but he he was he was really dropping some knowledge and and it got me fired up to to do what I always do. I mean I try I I always you know back in the day I would say hey I want to I'm gonna try something I'm gonna try something but now I just you know when when I learned about pad split I said screw it man I'm gonna do I'm gonna do a pad split and um and I'm like it it it makes life a little more exciting right I mean you can plug along you know how to we know how to do corporate we know how to do Airbnb and just plug along and do that that's fine. And they say you know I guess pick your one thing and all that stuff but but once you do you find another thing it kind of opens up your mind in a different way and so a Pasplit did that for me and it's like learning curve all the frustrations and stuff but then you you finally kind of learn it a little better and get good people in and keep bad people out all that fun stuff and and um so what when I heard about and I started thinking about oh man I wonder if uh these um guests would would like a vending machine so I started thinking about that and then Micah said to hit up this guy I was like I did and I and then I talked to him and did the whole it's gonna be like a it's gonna be a long podcast I got to chop it up a little bit but because he wanted some things cut out because he didn't he know you know he didn't know he we he was just talking off the cuff he didn't think it was going to be like a real podcast but um once I talked to him about it and he was telling me yeah it's doable this is this is how much one costs this is how much you can make I mean he makes he has like 42 or 45 vending machines in different areas and hospitals and stuff and he he makes he profits six figures six figures from vending machines and that's a trip to me I'm like holy smokes selling you know chips candies and drinks you you're making six figures holy smokes I was like I I wonder how much you know because my my tenants at my my pad splits or my pad mates or they're called um you know they they might enjoy the convenience of just going to the vending machine that's there in the house and just getting some snacks and getting some drinks and and I make a little profit on it you know and so I'm gonna that's I told them yeah I want I want to get one and and from that from that thinking about putting putting one in my uh one of my pad splits or both of my pad splits I started thinking where else can I put one you know and there's a small compartment complex where I have a few Airbnbs at it's like a 12 unit complex and it has a lobby an enclosed lobby with doors locked and everything and I started talking to the the manager of the complex seeing if I could put a vending machine there. I think that would do really good because people they all enter through the lobby and they all go up the elevator or the stairs to their to their you know unit and there's not really anything walking well it'd be a long walk um to go get snacks or late night snacks and stuff like that. But but I think it would be convenient for for the guests there to you know or Airbnb guests or corporate guests to have access to like snacks and drinks and power what do they call it power um monster drinks energy drinks and Red Bulls and stuff like that. People love those things but that would be another way but I I wouldn't just make um income off of my Airbnbs that are in that complex my three that are there I would make income off everybody's Airbnbs that are there all 12 units would potentially be buying from that from that machine and I could coordinate with my my cleaner to restock it when it needs to tell her to take a picture of it when she gets there to clean one of the units so I'll know what I need to order and what needs stocking. So I mean it's um it is definitely um another way to make income and and so it just got me it opened up my mind I talked to my brother hey at your job you know he works at a small office place y'all have a vending machine no okay maybe I could put one there you know I just started it gets your mind thinking when you start doing something new I know I know they talk about shiny object syndrome but if it's to me synergetic as they say oh big college word if it's their synergy there because I already have a pad split there or I already have um uh Airbnbs there I'm just I'm just you know like we talked about the barbershop in the hood you go in there for a haircut you end up buying some snacks you buy some drinks you buy some weed you buy some you buy they got toys for your kids it's just maximizing what you're already doing so I'm already having rental property making me you know this amount of money why can't I bump it up to this to the next amount of money because just people are there they people get hungry people got the munchies especially at my units um why not feed them and and have some drinks for them and then make some profit off of it. So the Vinny Machine episode it's gonna be a a really really good episode I can't wait to post it um I saw an article well my buddy Ben who lives in Houston shout out to Ben he sent me an article about these these um homes that they're building for Pat Split I think it's um in conjunction with Pat Split so they're building homes from scratch it is so funny they look like these narrow three level high boxes right it's it's hard to explain they're narrow looking because they're building it on this little plot right and it goes three stories up in the air and it's a 10 bedroom 10 bath pad split three level pad split but they made them look pretty cool man they made them look some um they put some murals on the walls you know made it look hip and trendy you got your little kitchen area everybody's I guess everybody got a little shower you know I'm saying in the and so is 10 bedrooms 10 baths I was like holy smokes that's that's pretty cool and they're brand new they're building them for co-living they're building them for pad split and so they said they're gonna you know make a few they said they don't think that's gonna be like the number one thing they're doing they just wanted to make a few um and see how they go but it's not gonna really excuse me undercut what what us mom and pop because padsplitz still heavy mom and pop right um it's not gonna cut what us mom and pops are are doing at our Pad Splits uh I don't believe but um it is pretty interesting to see the growth of Pat Split and they're even calling Pat Split the Airbnb of co-living right so I mean real quick if if people don't know what Pat Split is is when you you pretty much rent out your house room by room right and and the the key is to get like a three bedroom two bath house and turn it into a six bedroom house you know I'm saying um now they'll now they're building those new ones like that with everybody having their own bathroom that's gonna be an upper hand because they're gonna be able to charge more because you know having your own bathroom is a big deal right um but but anyways so so that's going on in Houston and of course they're doing it where in the what do they call it the fifth ward or whatever the in the hood pretty much in the hood right in the hood adjacent or however you want to say it but they're building them there and I think that's a that's a cool thing man I think that's I think Pasplit is the future and my buddy my buddy Ben was like man you know this he goes you don't know I don't know how to feel about it. It's kind of sad that people can't afford their own places you know anymore. And I was like I was like you know I don't I don't feel sad because I if if Pasplit was around when I was um when I was in my 20s and broke right working minimum wage or whatever the hell barely over minimum wage I would have I would have strongly considered getting me a Passplit room you know of course rents were cheaper back then but I mean a Passplit now is equivalent to half the I mean you're gonna get your you're gonna get your own room right you're gonna pay half as much what what regular rent on a one bedroom place is at least half and plus you're you're not gonna have to pay for any utilities you're not gonna have to it's already fully furnished. So it's like um you're saving a ton of money. So if I was young and uh like I said in my tw when I was broke in my 20s I would have definitely considered it at least uh at least to have something cheap for a while where I saved up for a car or saved up for um to get my own apartment if I wanted one or saved up or if I wanted to start like a business and I want to save money and then just work and then work double shifts and just need a place to sleep. I mean it would have been perfect for me for for in that era my eras in that era of my life um so I don't I don't feel I don't feel bad. It's feeling a need and I think it could it could really go a long way to solving the housing crisis. But um no man it's it's it's fun to watch and it's even funner to be a part of you know so I'm looking at getting uh my third pad split um hopefully in the next couple weeks um because I'm talking to someone about uh uh purchasing their house um sell their finance and it's a pretty much a done deal I just had a few um contractors go in there uh foundation guy go in there and and check everything out so we're negotiating the numbers but I should be able to close on it in the next couple weeks and um then I'll get my handyman in there to um to add a couple rooms because currently it's uh it's four bedrooms so I want to turn it into six bedrooms so I'm gonna have my handyman go in there and and create two more bedrooms for me and then I'll and I'll start renting it out on pad split as well because like I said it's C C plus neighborhood um it's not a neighborhood where people call the cops you know what I'm saying it's not one of those neighborhoods with the HOA and the and the lady looking out their their blinds and stuff at you so anyways I'm looking at getting my third pad split and I I do really like I do really like um the pad split model um because very profitable plus you're getting a lot of um benefits by buying houses uh fairly cheap right because they're not the in the in the A neighborhoods and stuff like that I still I still want to acquire homes in in higher end neighborhoods without HOAs of course because so I can do corporate and and Airbnb but it's good to know that if none of those are available but something comes available that I can do past split now I got three different possibilities. I got a I can do a house that'd be great Airbnb you know I'm saying um has all the cool stuff and a swimming pool and stuff like that or I got a house that makes a good corporate you know a big house that's in a nice area that'd be a nice corporate or I got you know if I can't find any of those at the moment I could find uh something at a at a good price in a sea area that I know will make you know four or five thousand a month as a pad split so it's um it's just it's just having um different tools in your tool belt as they say so I understand the whole focus on one thing blah blah but let's just say you focused on on Airbnb when everybody got into it and it got saturated and you didn't have any fallbacks. Luckily we had corporate to to get us through that mess right we started getting really good at corporate and so then everybody's gonna try corporate right so we got PASP so it's just cycles and then people everybody that was you know uh oversaturated in Airbnb's leaves because no one's making money and then you start making money again in Airbnb and then then corporate people leave because they can't make money you can make money again there and Paspa gets oversaturated you can turn that into Airbnb so I mean it's you should always you should always have different ways to to rent out these houses I believe so yeah I can just I can just talk and talk about this stuff. Let's see oh yeah wife's Airbnb ha ha shout out to the pita um so I got my wife her first Airbnb over there at Fort Worth and our friends um Allie who Allie and Edgar they run um photography Dallas they do great photography over here in the in the area they've done all they've taken they've photographed all of our our Airbnbs right past future present all that stuff and I've had them before do some refreshes at some of our our Airbnbs and I noticed and the revenue just like like took off after they did like a refresh and a refoto shoot you know I'm saying and they just did some decor and simple stuff and then and then I had them do you know some more at my other you know I yeah I had them do a few refreshes then I had them just go ahead and do like an overhaul at one of my condos and that one's booked up right now. And and just an overhaul means you know getting a few more pieces of furniture um mounting some TVs doing some more stuff than just you know throw pillows decor blankets bedding you know carpet maybe so they did a bit more at one of my condos and it's it's staying booked right now and in Dallas and so I I I was I was talking to Lupita and she's like oh yeah you know I still want an Airbnb and I said you know what let me talk to the because then they got see it's Allie and her mom shout out to Martha Martha she um they they really were like thank you for letting us do that condo that was so fun she did it with her mom you know her mom and her and um it was all all in the family thing because they the the um uh Martha's husband helped helped her put it together edgar helped um uh her Martha's son helped and Ali helped And they had so much fun putting this, um, putting my condo together, right? Doing a refresh and everything. And I asked them, okay, well, I'm gonna get my wife an Airbnb. Could you do one from scratch? And hell yeah, you know, they they're all excited. They're like, thank you, this is so cool. And so they um I I told them a budget. They said, give me a budget, so we'll know we'll know how when we're gonna when we're going past it, because they're they don't plan to stop it when the budget stops. Um great, great, um, great girls. But they um so they put together my wife's Airbnb over there in Dallas, and plus they took badass photos, right? They gave they gave us like the the the highest in photo package. They threw it in with with with um you know, the course the cost of the furniture, the labor, put everything together, and then they threw in the photos like on top of that, pretty much for free. They said it's like wow, like a $700 value. And so, but these photos, you know, of course they do a bunch of photos on the inside, take you know, Airbnb style photos and exterior, bunch of exterior photos, plus they did twilight photos, you know, and the sun's going down, it looks all cool and everything. Plus, they did drone photos of all around up in the sky and all that stuff, and it's like and it's like a like they like I said, it's like a $700 package, and they threw it in with part of their um putting the Airbnb together. Anyways, it came out freaking awesome, right? They did an amazing job, and it that place has been staying completely booked. I already told um uh Manu, you know, my my assistant, my uh at Argist, he I asked him, hey, I've already asked him like two or three times to raise the price. Keep raising the price, dude. Is people keep booking this place? I don't want it to be too cheap. So you know, as they say, if you're 100% booked, then you're you're charging too little, right? And so I want it to be as booked as possible, but making the most money as possible. So she's really excited about it. I'm excited for her, you know. I'm glad that she um she's getting the bug, the Airbnb bug, and and and so it's a cool, it's cool to bring my wife aboard. I mean, she's always kind of helped, you know, with the messages and ordering stuff for the Airbnbs and stuff like that. But to have her own, she's really, really um really excited about that. And I'm excited for her. Um and I'm even more excited that it's kicking kicking serious buttons yeah, that's a that's a pretty cool deal. Uh what else? I canceled, I went to go see a house today, but had like a fiberglass pool, which I thought was cool, it comes out great in pictures, but um it really the house needs a lot of work inside, needs a lot of refresh upgrades and stuff like that. So if I was just uh infatuated with that pool, it wasn't even a concrete pool or what do they call it, granite or whatever. I don't know. I have a pool and it's I don't know, it's gun gunite or I don't know what the hell it's it's like a real pool. It's not a fake, you know. I'm not hoping offend somebody that has that has a fiberglass pool. I'm sure they're great, but it just um you could tell they're not as sturdy. I'll say that much. They cost a lot less too to get a dig a hole in the ground, stick a piece of fiberglass in there instead of pouring thousands of pounds of cement. Um anyway, so I I'm backing out of that deal. Um that deal is gonna be a DSCR loan. So that um the DSCR loans, I mean, they're pretty much it's it's kind of like traditional. You gotta put 20% down to get something. And like I said, I'm trying to put I'm trying to buy seller finance, owner finance deals, um, subject to deals, where I don't I'm putting as little as possible down and not going through all the hurdles of doing the um uh what's it called? Yeah, not going through all the hurdles of of um of buying a house and just deal straight with the owners. So whereas this house I'd put like close to 70,000 down if I'm gonna do DSCR. So I mean if it's if it's um if it's worth it to do a DSCR, you know, I'd probably do it. But I'm trying to keep as much money in my pockets as I can and buy as many houses as I can with with uh with that same dollar, you know what I'm saying? So anyways, um I think that might be a good place to end it. I had mentioned earlier uh I had some topics earlier of going and checking out like a high-end uh house to do possibly do pad split, but man, I've just heard the stories of people putting them in good neighborhoods and they're just yeah, they're getting shut down. The HOA shuts them down or they get the cops to shut them down because they just don't they just don't mix with high-end areas too good, man. Um yeah, I I just yeah, that's I talked a bunch today. I think um Michael will surely join us um on the next episode. I'm just looking to see if there's any more things that I could I could bring up. Um that's pretty much it for now. We talked about a lot of good stuff, so let's save some for the next episode. I'm gonna go get get to chopping that um that vending machine episode. Y'all are gonna love that, man. Y'all are gonna be wanting to buy vending machines right away. So before I get that one out, I'm gonna buy my vending machine because then y'all are gonna make it harder for me to buy mine at a good price, right? Because you can buy them used for half price at least. So, anyways, uh thank y'all for continuing to follow, listen, and share the show to people you know. Um uh liveletrive at gmail.com hit us up, and we will see y'all later. Peace.

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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.