Live Let Thrive Podcast
Airbnb, PadSplit, Corporate Rentals, Arbitrage, and Live Let Thrive cover all the creative ways to rent out your properties to maximize profits. We also cover creative ways to buy properties. Come along for the ride and have some fun along the way!
Live Let Thrive Podcast
Pad Splits, Airbnb Fee Hikes, and Tax Savings Explained
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Steve's C-class Arlington house is pulling $4,350/month as a six-bedroom PadSplit - over $2,800 clear above the mortgage. He walks through the math on trash removal, utility absorption, and why cheap cleaners cost him a shut-down listing when one flaked during high season. Myka runs a free cost-seg analysis on his new duplex, discovers he can write off $95,000 year one under the restored bonus depreciation rules, and both hosts dissect what that means for anyone making W-2 income who suddenly wants to dabble in short-term rentals for the tax benefit alone.
Airbnb's new 15 percent fee for property-management platforms, the end of chargeback protection, and VRBO's one-hour lockout-refund policy all get air time. The pair debate whether self-managing to qualify for bonus depreciation is worth the hassle, share a squatter removal that cost $150 in private security, and explain why mid-term construction workers never ask for refunds. Myka also reveals how ChatGPT told him to stop cutting costs and go find more management clients instead - advice that flipped his entire growth plan.
Work with us. Interested in professional management or consulting?
Myka — Sharebnb: www.sharebnb.com
Steve — Argest Rentals: www.ArgestRentals.com
Sign up for PadSplit with Steve's link and get a free 1-on-1 PadSplit strategy call with Stevie Stacks: padsplit.com/hosts
Myka's other podcast, Entrepremarriage — building wealth without losing the marriage: youtube.com/@Entrepremarriage
All our links: linktr.ee/liveletthrive
#airbnb #airbnbhost #shorttermrentals #midtermrentals #padsplit #rentbytheroom #coliving #corporatehousing #BRRRR #realestate #realestateinvesting #VRBO #shareeconomy #airbnbsuperhost #airbnbpodcast #sharebnb #liveletthrive #liveletthrivepodcast #biggerpockets #directbookings #bookdirect #dfwrealestate
Cold open
SPEAKER_00Welcome to Live Let Thrive, a podcast about the Airbnb life, the shar economy, and everything in between. Here are your hosts, Micah and Steve.
SPEAKER_05Hello, hello, hello.
SPEAKER_01And welcome back to another exciting episode of Live Let Thrive.
Episode 330 and drinking on air
SPEAKER_05What is up, Micah Man?
SPEAKER_01Chillin' Steve Stacks. How you doing, man?
SPEAKER_05Ah, just chillin', just uh busy, busy day. Um, yeah, man. I just uh it's funny because well, first of all, this is episode 230 of your favorite short-term, midterm, long-term pat split podcast in the world coming at you for foot worth. 330. Oh shit, we've been doing this for a long time. 330. Wow, that's a lot of episodes.
SPEAKER_02Straight up. Yeah, you said 230. I'm like, man, we're 100 past that. That's a bunch, man.
SPEAKER_01For real, man. We're gonna be at the four. We should hit nah, we probably won't hit 400 this year. We'll try.
SPEAKER_05400. What are you having to drink over there?
SPEAKER_01Ah, just the old mics hard I had in the refrigerator. I was like, eh, I guess take it out and drink it.
SPEAKER_05You know what's funny? Because I'm having me an adult beverage too. This is one of those shows, man. We hadn't done that in a minute, so it's gonna be fun. It's gonna be fun.
SPEAKER_01You know what's funny about our adult shows where we drink on them? Uh, so I was at uh I was at one of I was at Noble's GovCon experience, man, and uh I ran into a fit, a fan of our show, Sean Costley. Shout out to Sean. He was like, Yeah, man, I I learned a lot on those Friday episodes, and you or Steve are throwing them back, man. I was like, huh. So yeah, I was like, uh, those are our famous episodes. I guess this is one on a Wednesday.
SPEAKER_05They were unfiltered. For real. Yeah, man. Episode 330. Wow. Still coming at you from Fort Worth and Arlington. Yes, sir. Um I guess back in the day it was Hearst and Arlington.
SPEAKER_01Hearst, then Arlington 100%, then Arlington and 100%.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, we did in-person events all the way through Arlington. That's true. Yeah, yeah. So we did in-person uh podcasts back in the gap. Uh at my we started at my little hurt, my little house in Hearst with the front room. That now it's a bedroom there because I'm turning that into a pad split. Oh, yeah, let's go. And so I'm adding two two more bedrooms on that one, and then plus uh turning the half bath into a full bath. So I got the renovations going on.
SPEAKER_03Let's go.
SPEAKER_05And uh, yeah, we're gonna talk heavy about pad split today. Of course, you know, because I'm all up in that. I love it. I'm trying to convince Micah to get him his first pad split because he's gonna be he's gonna be addicted, you know. I'm saying uh and so I'm gonna check it out.
SPEAKER_01I'm kind of doing a pad split with my house hat. We'll see, we'll let you know. Stip your toes, man.
SPEAKER_05And I sent you that text today
$4,350/month from six bedrooms in a C-class Arlington fourplex
SPEAKER_05about the the earnings.
SPEAKER_01So that that is bro, social media been blowing up about that. Oh no, no, no, no. You're talking about the earnings from pad split. Yeah, yeah, go into that.
SPEAKER_05Oh, the pad split earnings. So I sent Mike a text. So my little it's actually the first house I lived in, and it's not in the best area in Arlington. And um let's say C class. Let's say C class area, but um nice, uh nice enough house built in the whoosh, built in the 50s or 60s. I don't know, it's been a been a minute. Uh four-bedroom, two-bath house. I turned it, you know, I've talked about it on the show, but I turned it into a six-bedroom and kept it two-bath because you the the three to one ratio is pretty good. Three bedrooms to one bathroom ratio is okay. Um, anyways, so that house I sent Micah the thing now that it's completely full, got six, you know, six bedrooms, six guests. Um it's pumping out over four thousand three hundred and fifty bucks. And it's like a it's a it's a 1500 square foot house in the I say in the hood, in the in not and not the best area. And I'm like, these are nice returns. These are nice returns, man. Especially if you can get houses like that in a not a not the best area, C-class neighborhood for a good price. You know what I'm saying? It's all about you make the money when you buy, they say, right? Yeah, so if you get a good price on something, let's say your your mortgage all in with taxes and insurance and everything is around 1500 bucks and you're making 4,000 bucks, that's a pretty good return.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I can't beat that.
SPEAKER_05You know, and and you're not competing, you're not out there trying to buy the McMansions with the people with money, and you're not trying to buy the starter homes in the nice areas with people, you know, that want those. You're competing against C-class uh competition. You know what I'm saying? Because if someone's gonna go buy a name, let's say you bought in a neighborhood like that, and your mortgage all in is gonna be around 1500 bucks if you you know how much you put down and all that, and you're gonna make, you know, 1700 bucks a month. That's not that's not really appealing to a lot of people. So they stay out of areas like that, right? Yeah, and um, but for pat splitters, those that's the bread and butter areas. Yeah, so that's where I'm headed right now. I'm trying to do everything I can to scoop up as many as can that as I as I can with owner finance. Staying away from the banks, I don't want to deal with no banks no more. So it's owner finance all the way. Everybody at everybody I talk to, you know, that's into real estate or even dabbles, is like, oh, there are the rates gonna go down finally. Oh my god, please, fed chairman, please. I don't give a shit about him.
Owner finance beats waiting on the Fed
SPEAKER_05I don't give a shit about the rates. I'm dealing with this person who wants to sell their house to me, owner finance.
SPEAKER_01That's not tell people, man. You can get away from the rates. I mean, who cares about the rates? If you get a good deal, if you know how to do owner finance or get a good deal that even at the 7% you can cash on, and if the rates dip, shit, that does nothing but help you. Either way is winning, baby. Straight up. Now, on your passwith, the one that you're talking about right now, how much are you charging per room?
SPEAKER_05Uh, it varies on the size of the room. Um, so I would say between 700 and 800 bucks a month for each room, somewhere in between, in between those. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_05I'll just stop this one room. And they get a place, you know, it already comes furnished, and they get a place with uh, you know, all bills paid, electricity and and internet, everything, water. So it's it's it's all included. So you gotta you gotta factor that in, you know what I'm saying. Um, but like I said, if the spread is so so far from you know, let's say like I said, 1500 to to 4300, if the spread's like that, you got enough, you know, wiggle room with the utilities to to absorb that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, straight up, easy.
SPEAKER_05Just like Airbnbers, man. I bet there's a lot of Airbnb beers listening to this and going, Whoa, I wish my house made 4300, my Airbnb made 4300. You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_01And yeah, yeah, and Airbnb is taking a hit right now.
SPEAKER_05Well, Airbnb is taking a chunk, as always. You know, we're gonna get into the Airbnb new updates, and you know, don't they don't don't even there's some places, you know. I know set let's say 7% taxes, uh hot taxes, hotel occupy taxes is base level. There's some places that's nine, there's some places that's like up to 15, depending on the city. You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_01So Dallas is nine.
Airbnb's new fee hikes and the 15 percent platform charge
SPEAKER_01On top of them trying to take 15 out of you.
SPEAKER_02That's 20 something percent, bro.
SPEAKER_05And you got property management on top of that.
SPEAKER_02That's 40%.
SPEAKER_05And that's that's what that's what shittiest city shittiest.
SPEAKER_02That's what cities for shitty. That's exactly shitties.
SPEAKER_05That's what they should have done instead of doing all these legal battles and trying to ban it, just just tax the hell out of it. That's how that's how government tells people what to do is by taxation, right?
SPEAKER_01Man, I got some we got some tax news too, man. So yeah, we got a bunch of stuff to talk about because all this is coming full circle, bro. Um, but yeah, the pad split thing, I'm liking that, bro. I'm liking it. Because I think that's it's the future of where America has to go because of how we set up housing here. So, like everyone has to go to compartmentalized living. Uh, pad splits and tiny home communities. Um, tiny home communities are gonna be the the future of America. Watch. And the tiny homes are already popping up in Mansfield. They got they're clearing out acreages and just putting a bunch of tiny homes on them. Acreages. And so tiny homes and uh rooms, private rooms, that's where it's about to go, bro. Everybody's about to be looking like New York here shortly. Straight up, man.
SPEAKER_05Well, because people they said, you know, in America we built out instead of up. You know, and so like like going to New I would go to New York back in the day with some friends, and we'd hang out and stay at certain friends' houses. And and they they I mean, there was one place we stayed, they were above a uh Dunkin' Donuts shop. Their their apartment was right on top of a Dunkin', you know, it goes all the way up too. It's businesses down there, and then you're living on top of the businesses. And I smelled like Dunkin' Donuts for like a week afterwards, man. It's crazy. Mixed use development, bro. Straight up here. Uh all the nimbies. Oh no, no, you can't build that here, and all this mixed use. We don't want that in my backyard, you know. It's just it's so much of that here, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, see, and the only place that I would say is really dove into that since I've been in Texas was Houston. Because you know, Houston ain't got no zoning laws, and I was like, damn, just do whatever the hell you want down there. If you ever like ride down the street in Houston, like you'll see like the turkey leg hut right next to some damn brand new apartments and everything. You're like, what the hell is this? Like for real. But when when it was up, but yeah, it's just like you got this commercial right next to this residential. It's it was it's interesting to see.
SPEAKER_05People firing machine guns at the mall. Yeah, it's crazy over there. Basically, H Town, but all that's that's what all the Airbnbers went there, like, oh, there's no
Foreign land ownership ban in Texas
SPEAKER_05rules, hell yeah. And then everybody lost their ass.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I'm hearing H Town's bouncing back, man. I heard it's bouncing back. My boy Mike told me he was like, Yeah, bro, we're bouncing back. I was like, damn. So it's always those markets.
SPEAKER_05It's cycles, man.
SPEAKER_01Cycles, yeah, it's cycles.
SPEAKER_05So you want to talk about the new Airbnb updates, man. You've been you've been sending me some text messages about it. I'm like, holy crap.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so basically, if you're using a property management platform, they're charging the full 15% to you. So um basically just raise your prices by 15%. Um, if you have like hostfully or a property management platform, you could just say, hey, Airbnb prices, make sure they're listed 15% higher. Um, you know, um, but but you brought up an interesting point. You talked about property management companies and property management companies are gonna have to get a little bit better at what they do, and some of them might you might see start to see property management companies start to kind of tilt downwards because of the new tax bill that Trump just
Myka's raise, the free cost-seg offer, and the $95,000 write-off
SPEAKER_01passed. I talked about this on my last solo app, you know. Um the cost eggs.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I listened to that. That was a good app. I was listening to that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. The 100% bonus depreciation is back, so cost eggs are back. So I wasn't I wasn't gonna do it, right? I was just like, whatever. And then like I told the story, you know. I I I asked my manager for a raise like a few months back, and I didn't think about it. I was like, hey, he was just because I have a one-on-one meeting with him every month, and he was like, Yeah, they're working on it, man. So Mahogany ends up getting a raise to her job. I was like, okay, cool, whatever. And then they called me in and they, you know, they sent me a piece of paper, they're like, Hey, this is what we're raising you up to. And I was like, Oh shit. I looked at I was a little bit higher than what I expected. I was like, oh, okay. So I was like, okay. Yeah, yeah. Oh, nice. So I was like, oh dang. But then I was like, we made we did pretty good on our short-term rental business and our management company this year. I'm like, oh man, I'm gonna have to write some stuff off. So I kind of that's when I bought that um that duplex. Um I bought that and then we furnished it. And you know, that was a bit of a write-off, but I still had a little bit more to write off. And then the uh 1031 company that I used to 1031 the property, they were like, hey, we're giving free cost seg benefit analysis to anyone that does a 1031 with us. And it was free. So I'm like, it's free, whatever. And they were like, Yeah, you can write off 95,000 year one. I'm like, so I was like, okay, and the guy, I talked to him, he was like, Yeah, he goes, if all your other properties are short term, we'll go back 10 years and cost seg those too. I was like, dang, and he was like, You can just choose to do one a year, so you can just keep doing it. So I'm gonna go ahead and do a cost seg on the duplex. Um it's gonna be easier on the duplex because I can you know I don't like short term, but I was like, I can do short term for like three months because you have to have an average stay of like seven days, and then you also have to um you can't do midterms because of you know the uh if it goes over seven days, you know you're quali disqualified if your average stay is over seven days.
SPEAKER_05Well that's for bonus depreciation, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, that's for bonus depreciation. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Because you can still you can still uh cost seg anything. You can cost seg any property. But uh what you're referring to is like when to get that extra bonus depreciation because it's uh actively managed property short-term rental, then then you have to yeah, it has to be rented uh uh below 30 days. Under 30 days, right? No, under seven average of seven. Oh, under seven days. Ah, okay, that's fine. And then most of us would qualify for that, I would believe.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, no no no no no midterm, you'd probably be marked out.
SPEAKER_05I mean, I'm I'm saying if you're uh Airbnb or yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01If you're 100% Airbnb, yeah, easily qualify for that.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_01So I was like, okay, cool, let me go ahead and you know do that. And plus, you can't have a management company, it has to be your you have to show that you're actively managing it. I was like, okay, let me try it out. And then I saw the tax savings on it. I was like, dang. So I was like, let me go ahead and try this out.
SPEAKER_05So but doesn't your management company manage your Airbnbs?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, see, and I asked him about that. I'm like, you know, I have a management company. He goes, Do you own it? I was like, Yeah. He's like, Oh, well, it's it's yours. He goes, You're managing it, you know.
SPEAKER_05Okay, cool.
SPEAKER_01That's what I was asking too. Our play, our minds in the same place. So I'm like, Yeah. So he's like, Yeah, so I'm gonna go ahead and do a cost seg and then the get the bonus depreciation and all that stuff, finish this up and then see what it does for me. Um, but yeah, it's just one of those things where you know you just gotta be able to go with the flow. I tell people luck is when preparation meets opportunity. So that was kind of a luck thing I lucked into.
Why self-managing qualifies you and property-management companies might not
SPEAKER_01But yeah, Airbnb's fees are going up to like if you use a property management platform up to like 15%. And then I think you make a good point. If a city's charging you nine percent and then a property management charging you 20%, property management companies might start, you know. If people I don't know if people really want to get into self-managing though, I that's the only thing I don't think they I don't even think they have the systems to do it, and they don't want to get the systems to do it. You know, because I'm on a I'm doing a campaign right now to increase my property management business and like get a few more under and like, yeah, people just don't want to do it. And it's just like the tax savings. Some people like screw the tax savings. I just want a property that makes me a few dollars here and there every month, you know. So I was like, you know, cool.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, some people are cool. Even breaking even, man. They just want the tax benefits, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. Some people really do.
SPEAKER_05Um so yeah, that's a big, that's a big thing. I love the the cost seg and and a real quick thing on what the cross, you know, we didn't even, you know, people we assume people know all this stuff, but what it is is you're you you do a uh cost segregation study on on a piece of property you buy, right? And they go in there and they count everything in that thing. You know, it's not it's not just because you can do your own uh what's it called, depreciation study on your own house, and you know, and you do the one on the that on the on the forms that's that's real simple, but it's not it's not as extensive as these guys. These guys are engineers, they'll go in there and they'll count every screw that's used, every nail that's used, every piece of wood, every every plank of uh hardwood flooring. I mean they they go in and they you know from something that you could have written off uh let's just say fifty thousand bucks on a house, they're gonna go and find a hundred thousand dollars worth of stuff, you know what I'm saying? So that's first the thing. And then the the other thing, the bonus depreciation that you can take off the first year. Yeah, that's like I said, if you're gonna write off $100,000 on a house, you could take all $100,000 on the first year. So so if you made uh on your Airbnbs, if you made $100,000 in profit that year, you really made zero dollars because you wrote off, you can write off $100,000 on that one house purchase.
SPEAKER_03Straight up.
SPEAKER_05So that's a powerful thing, and that's what rich people have been doing forever. They say rich people don't pay taxes, right? They'll buy a like a big old apartment complex or skyscraper or something and write off all that, you know, write off all that depreciation year one, right? And then they'll make zero dollars and they'll pay zero dollars in taxes and they'll buy another one the next year. The thing is, you they kind of you get addicted to buying you have to buy another property every single year. Otherwise, once the music stops, you gotta pay taxes.
SPEAKER_01Straight up, yeah, man. And that's what people don't understand. It's power in that, though, man. Just keep offsetting your taxes. And right now, you know, if you can do that and keep buying right now, if you get a good deal, you can't lose, bro.
Millennials, mindset, and the no-excuses internet era
SPEAKER_01You can't lose, it's a good place to be in.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I mean, you can always lose. You can everybody everybody can fuck something up, right?
SPEAKER_01You can lose, but there's the only thing you can lose is a loss is only a learning lesson if you have the mentality. And I wanted to talk about mindset today because I'm starting to notice like everyone's mindset around like everything that's going on in regards to like the tax bill. Uh I don't know. It seems like a lot of millennials just feel like they can't do stuff. And I'm just like, why do y'all feel like that? Y'all have the internet, you have chat GP2 to do half your damn work for you. Like what are you like? I'm for real. I've been looking at people like, what don't you know it's like you can do it for real? It ain't no excuses nowadays. But yeah, man, obviously, if you have a positive mindset, try some new stuff, man. Just try it and you know, um, take the good with the bad, keep on rolling. I don't know if you've finished my whole last episode. That's what I was talking about, man. They called us back into the office full time. So, like, yeah, they gave me a raise, and they're like, Oh, yeah, by the way, we're gonna go everyone's coming back to the office full time.
SPEAKER_05Ain't nothing for free in life.
unknownStraight up, bro.
SPEAKER_01So, yeah, they're they're like, so they they they they sent the email out to the entire department, I think, two days ago, and they're like, Yeah, well, we'll just make it so uh we'll you have four days in the office and one day at home. And I was like, Yeah, I was like, we'll see how that works out. So yeah, I was like, well, uh so I just started looking at the positive in it. I'm like, okay, maybe I can go to the gym a little bit more because I was a little bit more consistent with the gym when I was going to the office. So yeah, finding the small things, you know.
SPEAKER_05There you go. Um, speaking of that, real quick, uh, the no excuses thing, and I my kids they love YouTube, those freaking
The Russian YouTube family making millions in dubbed English
SPEAKER_05YouTube family shows. I don't know. You probably your kids too, everybody. And I look at this thing, and there's this one that that's called the uh Nastia. It's like a little Russian, little Russian girl. Well, she's they're Russian American. Her parents are from Russia. I actually looked into this because I'm like, these videos are cheesy, you know, they're running around and their parents with their parents doing stupid stuff, and and but my kids freaking can't get enough of it, right? And then they put the sound effects and they chop it up all cool in the sleek and everything, and um, then they're trying out all these toys. Of course, all these companies send them all these toys to try out all that shit, you know. So they're getting paid to play with toys, they give they're sending them to Disneyland, they're sending them to Disney World, they're sending them to resorts and to try out a resort because they know they're getting a lot of views, yeah, and all these kids are watching it. Mama, I want to go to Disneyland, please take us. You know, they're gonna start saying that, right? And so, um, anyways, uh and and speaking going back to the no excuses thing, the early episodes were dubbed over because I think these people were from Russia, they didn't even speak English, right? So they did their whole shows in Russian, they paid for someone to to do the voiceovers for them, so all the shows are like dubbed over. So, so they didn't speak English, and these they're making hundreds of millions of dollars on YouTube, you know what I'm saying? So there's no damn excuses for anybody out there that's living here in the United States to go out there and and make some money, you know, to get that money.
SPEAKER_01None, bro. No excuse, bro. Like, you can try something straight up.
SPEAKER_05I just I just thought about that today. I was like, man, they didn't even speak English and they're making millions off the freaking YouTube, man. Straight up, they found a way, they found a way because they were dedicated, it was the mindset. They was like, we ain't about to lose. I'm gonna find someone to dub our show in Chinese so we can get all them Chinese listeners. Straight up, yeah, straight up, man.
SPEAKER_01Well, I don't know what's his name just said can't nobody buy land over here, our governor.
SPEAKER_02Oh he just signed it in law. Foreign entities can't buy land in Texas. Boy, why would he do that? Oh who knows? I would say no, I was for America, but I don't know.
SPEAKER_05Okay, oh yeah. Did you did you dive into the Airbnb updates? Yeah, okay. You did the 15%, and then the other one, the here's the here's the big one. Okay was the um and you told me this that chargebacks, which which were always an issue with booking.com, right? We're supposed to collect the money our damn selves, right? Booking.com or even using your own website, whatever. You got to protect yourself from these people that say, Oh, I never stayed there. You know, I I c I call fraud, they call their credit card company. Someone stole my credit card and somebody charged a bunch of stuff on it at an Airbnb, blah blah blah. And then we get shut, you know. Well, not Airbnb, because Airbnb would protect us from that stuff.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, straight up.
SPEAKER_05Booking.com says you're on your own. Call up Stripe. Stripe would say, We're going to shut down your account and freeze $5,000 of your money. Also, you know, Stripe didn't give a damn. And so it was hard. And I remember Mike Brown telling us a long time ago that he had visual camera evidence of this person checking into his place. And they still denied him. They said, no. Sorry. And then it didn't get paid for the whole long ass stay. And um, so so chargebacks, um, you're telling me that Airbnb is no longer gonna protect us from chargebacks.
SPEAKER_01That's what it was saying from the and even in this update, they're saying, like, yeah, if somebody's complaining about something, and if there's a chargeback that it's now stuck on, you're gonna have to pay the fee. Now, this is what I was thinking. I think that gives us a glimpse into the short-term rental as a whole. So the only way Airbnb was eating those chargeback costs if it if it was backed by insurance, right? So maybe those insurance costs started getting into Airbnb's pockets. They're like, nah, forget that, we're passing that on to the host. So now I think they're in a situation where maybe that's giving us an insight into the short-term rental market. That's why the pad splits, the midterm rentals are really the place to be right now. Because I'm loving the short-term rental, midterm rental like the the combination of it. It's been working really well in like I can manipulate my calendar in certain ways to attract those reservations. So, yeah, I think that's more of like let's look at the insights of how is the short-term rental market really doing and not not only how is it really doing, but is it viable while where everybody's bragging about this big tax bill?
Will the tax bill flood short-term rentals with reluctant hosts?
SPEAKER_01Is it viable in the long run? Because I think a lot of people are about to get into short-term rentals for the tax benefits. So there you go. You're gonna have a whole new slew of hosts that are doing it for tax benefits, but they really don't want to do it, don't really want to learn it, and they may be they may be one of those people in for a few months, out, then out the next. Because right now, you can get the bonus depreciation for run it as a short-term rental what for three or four months now, collect it, and then January 1st, turn it into a midterm or a short term, midterm, short term together. But I don't know if them people are gonna do that. So it's it's it's it's interesting that Airbnb is doing that.
SPEAKER_05I'll I'll push against that a little bit. I'll say I don't think this is um okay because of the big beautiful tax bill and the and the cost egg, you know, 100% bonus appreciation. I don't think it's gonna turn a whole bunch of people into um into Airbnbers or turning their homes into Airbnb's. I think you either do you do want to do it or you don't want to do it, you know. Just from what I've seen, because I've known people that work that have regular rentals and they've had them for a while, you know, they're cool with having one, two, maybe three, and they're good long-term rentals. They don't want to do no Airbnb, they don't want to rock the boat, they don't want partiers in their house. You know, I don't I don't think this this tax bill that's coming. And I might be totally wrong. I don't think that's gonna change their mind because this bonus appreciation, this 100% bonus appreciation, you know, it was happening a few years ago. You know, and look how many people hopped in. Well, I don't I think I think people hopped into Airbnb because of the popularity and it was growing, and people with grandma's furniture in their house were making 5,000 a month. You know what I'm saying? I think it was because of that, and all the influencers started talking about it, and that led a whole bunch of people into it. But uh fuck little people hopped out of it too, because they lost their asses.
SPEAKER_01True. But listen to Carlton Denise and all these CPAs, bro. I'm on I'm I'm like, I'll be listening to him on uh bigger pockets. He was like, What's gonna happen? He goes, You're gonna see a surge of short-term rentals of people that don't even need it and don't want to do it, but they know because we have to also look at who are we talking about? We talking about people that's running mom and pop shops or some dude that makes $200,000 a year, and I need to write that shit off. You see what I'm saying? Like I was uh I was doing a room for my mentor the other day, and I was talking to this dude out in San Francisco at a he's like, Yeah, man, I'm getting like 1600 something thousand a month. I'm like, oh like you're in a different time, right? You can you he's like, yeah. So he started asking about the like the bonus depreciation. So I think those people will, but the other people like who don't want to rock the boat, like you said, yeah, they probably ain't gonna do it. Because I was one of those people, I was like, man, I ain't about to do this, but then you know, somebody puts a free, hey, well, here's this free analysis. I can tell you what you're gonna say, and then I see it and I start seeing dollar signs. I'm like, oh well, hold on. So yeah, I don't I don't think the mama pops, like you said, the people that ain't gonna rock the boat, I don't think so. But I I could definitely see a lot of people hopping in because even uh remember the story I told you about the guy who was telling me about the HVAC companies being bought. The only reason I ran into him was because his mom was selling her business and she wanted to hop in for the bonus depreciation, but she had a bunch of cash on her hands, so it's I think it's those people that will, but there's a lot of those people out there, man, especially people buying up businesses and people having sitting on chunks of cash. So it just depends on I think it's the audience, the the target market of it.
SPEAKER_05No, I will say I forgot who hopped on our show a long time ago. It was a dude out of California. I think he was uh he was a doctor. Uh he worked in the he worked in the medical industry of California, and then he started snapping up big houses. He started doing Airbnb out of big houses like in the Midwest and Tennessee. Uh man, I forget his name. I wanted to say Kent He, but I don't think it's Kentucky.
SPEAKER_01No, that's Kenton. I just talked to Kent the other day.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, he's a good dude, man.
SPEAKER_01He's still doing the Bachelorette party stuff. Yeah, he did. He is. He's in Arizona. He found his niche. So who okay? So and what is okay?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, what happened? Yeah, this guy was in the medical industry. Uh he's another another Asian dude. That's why I was thinking of Kent He, but it was another Asian dude. But he um and he still had his medical job. He still had his medical job, but he was out buying properties um every year, buying these big houses out there, like I said, Tennessee.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I know you're talking about. I talked about it the other day. I know what you're talking about. Keep going, keep going.
SPEAKER_05I know you're talking about, anyways. He what he said was he got the you know, he he was a big uh bigger pocket fan, right? So he called he um he found that lady who's out in California too, that the accountant would always that accountant lady, the Asian lady would come on.
SPEAKER_01Uh Alex Alex Sabio.
SPEAKER_05There it is, Alex Sabia. He he was the one that hopped on hopped on our show. He's a great dude. But he got he got the accountant from Bigger Pockets, he called her up, right? Oh, okay, okay. And and I think I think she's out in Cali too. Either he saw her in person or he called her up and he's and he's explaining to her, you know, I'm making all this money. He's making a buttload of money in the in the medical industry. And he started, I want to buy rentals and this and that, but I need some write-offs because we're making we're making both of them worked, you know, him and his wife, and they're making a shitload of money. And California's gonna take half your money or more. So they need some write-offs fast. And she said, How about you turn one of your rentals into a short-term rental? He's like, and he and he's like, What do you mean? Like the Airbnb, you know, he was he go back go back to that episode. But she's like, she's like, Yeah, yeah, that's what I mean. He goes, Why would I do that? I just I don't want to think about it. I'm working so much. He goes, Well, if you do that, you can write off 100% bonus depreciation, and you could take all that money and counter your uh income with it, you know, your rental income. And so he that's that's why he started doing it. Yeah, and and he even explained on the show, you know, every year I have to buy at least one house so I could take that big chunk of bonus depreciation, you know, out year one and then counter our our money that we're making on the rentals. Yeah, and um, so so yeah, so that conversation with his CPA directly, you know, yeah uh inspired him to do it. So I don't know how many of those conversations are gonna happen. Maybe a bunch. Maybe me and you with our with our management companies will say, hey, rich people, I'll I'll run your Airbnb for you. You know, well, that's the thing.
SPEAKER_01They can't, that's the thing. Well, they don't get it if we manage it.
SPEAKER_05Oh shit.
SPEAKER_01That's what I've been saying. They don't they don't get it if we manage it.
SPEAKER_02We'll co-host, we'll co-host it.
SPEAKER_01Can't you can't show any on your tax line? You can't show you're paying anybody to do any type of management service. You could play a cleaning cleaning now, we could be the cleaning company that you pay 20% to. Now,
Self-manage or pay your cleaning company 20 percent?
SPEAKER_01I don't know. See, and that that's fucking I'm gonna keep it a buck. Now that's that's one thing, and I'm pretty sure there's a savvy ass CPA out there that didn't figure it this out, right? Like, okay, you don't want to you you can't manage it, but uh let's just say you play your cleaning company 20% to clean your business, clean up your places. Now, I don't know if this is uh legit, but I'm pretty sure somebody's out there working on it. Like, hold on, man. If I if I can't manage it, what if my cleaning company charges me 20%? So I don't know.
SPEAKER_05Um when when you when next time you're in the hood, when you're when you're driving through the hood, right? And you see the the Statue of Liberty with the sign saying we'll do your taxes dancing around, go in there. They probably know all the ins and outs.
SPEAKER_02Straight up. State Lives in New York Liberty, what is it called? Liberty Tax Advantage.
SPEAKER_05No, they'll shut down the rest of the year, but they'll be open for taxis.
SPEAKER_01For real. But that that is one thing. That's kind of what I was touching on. I'm like, if of something like dang, because that's why I was saying the people are getting into it, but they don't want to do it. So, and shout out to you know, Avery and Luke, Carl, right? The short-term shop. That's where their power business is so powerful, is they will help you choose a short-term rental market, but teach you how to manage it yourself. So a lot of those people are going over there. Like my friend, I told them, I'm like, go to go to the short-term shop. I'm like, they're the ones you because they're gonna teach you how to self-manage it. Because but the people that don't want to self-manage it, I think those are the ones. The ones who don't want to self-manage at all, the bonus depreciation thing, they're probably like, hell no, I don't want it. But I mean, like in Alex's situation, hey man, you got a bunch of shit you gotta write off, then yeah, you kind of end up in that situation. So it's gonna be interesting, bro. It's gonna be real interesting, you know. Because whenever there's tax breaks, you know, somebody about to figure out a way to figure it out and then create more tax breaks. So you we we'll figure somebody's gonna figure it out.
SPEAKER_05Yep, the Statue of Liberty in the hood gonna figure it out for you. Now, I recently, so so um bad cleaners, right? Oh, we'll go we'll hop on that a little bit. Oh, yeah, yeah. So, so um, and I should have learned my lesson a long time ago, but it's always it's always very tempting when you find an opportunity that's gonna save you a lot of money doing business, right? Yeah, it's always it's always it's always tempting. Not always a good idea to do it, but you're like, okay, let me give this a shot. Yeah, so um, so the my my these are like the houses that I have as arbitrage and and the ones that I own that I do Airbnb out of and and corporate whatever. And um so I've had the same cleaners for a while. And you know, once you get with a cleaner for a while, the prices start creeping up, creeping up, and then you like start, mm-hmm are they missing things? Uh oh, they can't take the trash, they're gonna do an extra upcharge for that, this and that, you know. It gets a little costly if you don't check it, right? And so, but you know, as long as they're doing a great job and you're getting good reviews, that's that's you know, should be all that matters. But you know, I understand inflation and all that stuff, and people need to get paid more. But friend of a friend said they're using a cleaner and this and that, and then we just started getting a conversation, you know, and they said, and I said, Well, how do y'all how do y'all handle the trash out of houses? You know, I know Grand Prairie, all of a sudden they started getting real, real strict about that, and they're talking about fines and shutting you down if you're putting the trash out at the wrong times and all this stuff. And so it's just out of the blue, they just started really cracking down on the trash thing. And I was like, damn it, you know. And um how do you how do y'all handle that? Because because okay, the there's the canned monkey thing, you know, where they where they where they take the bins to the curb, but the thing at Grand Prairie is bags, you put the bags on the curb, you know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_01And so that's how Richardson is, bro.
SPEAKER_05And then the animals get into it and rip it up, and you just try it's stupid. Yes, and and so anyway, so so that didn't really help me so much. And um, my cleaners, they're they're always either in a hurry or they can't they have little cars, they're not gonna put it in their little cars. And I was just thinking, man, how do y'all get how do y'all do the trash? I don't want to pay twenty dollars each time I want someone to take out my trash, or or this one cleaner was like, Oh, if there's a lot of trash, we're gonna we'll take it to the dump, it's gonna be a hundred dollar charge. I was like, God dang. You know, I was like, this trash trash thing is eating me alive. So they with the the the friend I was talking to said, Well, my cleaner takes the trash every time. I said, Really? I was like, they take it with them? He's like, Yeah, yeah, they take it with them. I was like, Oh, shoot, let me talk to them. And I and I talked to them, you know, and a local person in Grand Prairie, and he said, Yeah, yeah, we'll take it every time. And and then we'll he goes, we'll start doing your houses if you want us to try one, or you know, and I let them try one house, and they're doing a good job taking the trash with them, you know, and it was a lot less, dude. It was like hundreds. I mean, let's say let's just say a cleaning fee around was usually 225. He said, Ah, I'll do it for like 125. I'll clean your house. Sounded too good to be true, right? And they did a decent job. The first one took all the trash with them. I didn't have to worry about that. He even said, Hey, 10 bucks or more each clean, then I'll I'll even stock your place with supplies, right? So that I was like, damn, again, supplies too. This is too good to be true. It's hard to sound like a company, I know, but go ahead. We'll talk off the air. So, yeah, they were offering all these services for free that I was paying a lot of money for. And I was like, this is cool, man. You take all my houses, take all my houses, anyways. Anyways, so I started getting they started slipping, people getting there saying the whole garage is full of trash, you know, and um the stuff ain't clean, and started getting bad, you know, a couple bad reviews. I was like talking to oh, I handle it, I'll go over there, handle it, handle it, handle it. And he handled a few, and then um, and then he got to the point where he said, Oh, I'm gonna go over there and handle the situation, and then he didn't show up. And the next day he's like, Hey, you didn't you didn't go do that thing that you know the people were waiting for you. Oh, a family emergency. You know, there was a few too many of those family emergencies, and so but he got one he got one of my houses shut down because of the battery views. So I went cheap. Here's the thing where they say it's expensive to go cheap. So I went cheap and I ended up getting one of my big producers in the in high season, the pool house, to get shut down because of this. Yeah, it sucked, dude. And you know, I had to figure out a way because it's harder to get your get a backup listing, you know, up and running nowadays, because they have all their softwares where they can detect if you're using the same exact pictures that they'll they'll get you, you know. I'm saying Airbnb will get you. And um, so I'm here here like on VRBO. I even started a booking.com account again. I was desperate, man. I started booking.com up up again, and and then of course uh all these scammers trying to book it off. Booking, I was like, oh man, I guess y'all ain't never changed, man. And so but I was able to get an account up again, you know what I'm saying? And luckily, and I'm getting it booked again. But I I I had just I had to fire. I was like, man, yeah, I'm sorry, dude. You just messed up too much. You got some you got some accounts like hanging by a thread, now you got an account shut down, and it's just if it sounds too good to be true, it's it's not true, man. And it's tempting. You know you're gonna save all this money. I'm gonna save hundreds, but you end up losing thousands.
SPEAKER_01You know what's funny about what you just said? You were trying to cut costs, um and it and it backfired, right?
ChatGPT says stop cutting costs and get more management clients
SPEAKER_01Dude, so okay, the other day I was um I was looking at my books, and um, I was like, dang, we got this new duplex up, we had to spend money to get it furnished. I'm like, where can I cut some costs, right? So that's the power of AI. I took all my stuff, I took all my stuff, and I was like, hey, like all my money I was making, all the money we just put up, um, and I was like, hey, tell me what I should do to increase income and where can I cut costs? And it like broke it down. It said, at this point in your business, you shouldn't cut costs because the cost that you cut would probably mess with performance. So instead, what you should do is look to get a few more management clients and then reassess the business after you get the more get more management clients.
SPEAKER_02I was like, damn.
SPEAKER_01So man, you can chat GBTV hitting every time, bro. If you if you give it the right data, man, it hits every time. So that's when I was like, okay, I told it create me a campaign to get more management clients, and it gave me a seven-step action plan right here, actually. Uh STR growth binder. It gave me a seven-step action plan. We printed it out and it says this is what you need to do. Um, strengthen your your brand invisibility, go network with out-of-state investors, local property owners, developers. It gave like the full rundown and gave a 12-step check plan of how to do it. I was like, dang. So, like as soon as you start talking about that cleaning issue, I'm like, oh man, I know what you mean. You're trying to cut costs, but it dipped into performance. So I know exactly what you mean, bro. Um, yeah, because right now, our cleaners are really good. We have really good cleaners, but I just don't ever want them to be spread too thin. That's why I will always like to develop a relationship with your cleaners. I would say take them out to eat, talk to them, chop it up with them, and just be like, Look, um, if you ever feel like you know you're overwhelmed or you need to step back, or we need to find a backup, like a backup company, or if you want to start, we'll even help you build your business up. You know what I mean? So building those relationships is tough because it sounds like he was probably overwhelmed, couldn't do it, and got in over his head, you know. So, and then now you didn't build your whole business around this dude, and man, he didn't left trash in your garage. So, yeah, bro, it's it it happens, bro.
SPEAKER_05That's you know, and that's it's all about it's it's all about mindset, like you said, because I didn't even think about something like that. Because and it's and it's a trip that that Chat GPT picked that up. And we're looking, like I say, we want to save money, and and and it brings it, it brings me back like to um what's something that um you know Brandon Turner and those guys would say, you know, there's there's uh a limit to how much you can cut out to try to be thrifty and and save in life, you know. There's a limit, you can't go to you can't just walk run around naked, no house, no car. You know, there's there's like a baseline limit to how much you can cut out of your life to save money, to be frugal, but there's no limit on how much money you can make. And I was like, and and when you when when you said that about Chat GPT, I was like, man, that's so true. Uh instead of me trying to, oh, I gotta save you know a few hundred bucks and these cleanings getting you know high or uh having to you know take the trash, I gotta figure the problem out. Why don't I get two or three more units to to manage or even arbitrage or or or or houses to buy, and that's gonna make me you know three thousand dollars more a month. That's way more than trying to cut out a few hundred dollars and then the whole business is uh hurt because of it. Straight up. Straight up. Wow, chat GPT is deep.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it is, man. It is, bro. Because like I was in the same boat. I'm like, man, maybe if I cut this, and I'm like, oh, if I cut this, but then I'm like, it broke it down. It's like, nah, but what about your performance? Because now you have to look at the performance of your own properties and the performance of the pro of the people you're managing for. If their performance dips, that's on you. You gotta now you you're the one holding the integrity bag on that and how you operate your business. So yeah, bro, you gotta always assess, okay, if I cut this, how's my performance gonna be?
SPEAKER_05Um just like just like Jerry Jones and the Cowboys.
Jerry Jones and the Cowboys marketing playbook
SPEAKER_05Why pay Mark Parsons when you can just have some you know college guys that you know free agents in there to play defense for you?
SPEAKER_01Or why even win at all when I know how to I know how to market the Cowboys to where y'all gonna watch them regardless.
SPEAKER_02I think he can.
SPEAKER_01For real. Like he I tell people, people always ask, why is the Gallus Cowboys America's team? Because of Jerry Jones. That's why. Dude knows what to say to get everybody on board to think the cowboys are gonna win.
SPEAKER_05Yep, he he he dropped that Netflix show right before the season. Because I was already like, F them cowboys, man. I ain't watching this crap this year. Now I can't wait to watch.
SPEAKER_02For real, bro. He made his own hard knocks on Netflix, bro.
SPEAKER_05A harder knocks, man.
SPEAKER_02For real, man.
SPEAKER_05Like, he went back to the glory years, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because I tell people this all the time this is the only thing you can ever say about the cowboys. You can say, Oh, the cowboys suck, right? The cowboys are one of the only teams in the NFL that can suck, but everybody's still gonna watch them. The Cleveland Browns can't do that. I know the New England Patriots ain't been doing it. They lost Brady and uh Belichick. Oh, well, they're done. Yep. See you at 12 o'clock. Straight up.
unknownStraight up.
SPEAKER_01I'm like, bro, the Cowboys can go good. Jerry Jones can run the the winning side of it into the ground, but he knows how to market it, bro. He markets it like Jerry Jones is a modern day pimp. That dude be selling crap, selling wolf tickets, and everybody buying every year.
SPEAKER_02Like, yeah, baby, I'm gonna get you off this corner. Hell no. Give me that money. Jerry Jones pivoting all the way to the bank, bro. Go on, get. For real, man. Jerry Jones is the Mac.
SPEAKER_05Oh, man. Yeah. How did we get to Jerry Jones? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're talking about it.
SPEAKER_02Business operations, man. We not to tie it all together.
SPEAKER_05And even that was a pimp move, too. He's like, Mike, I'm gonna make you the highest paid defensive player of all time, you know, and give you all this money. Well, let me let me talk to my agent. Why do you need an agent for it? Just sign the damn papers, man. What the hell? You don't need no agent.
SPEAKER_02I'm your agent. Straight up, man.
SPEAKER_01You know, and that that's like, hey, but his his performance always works, man. It always works, man.
SPEAKER_05Straight up. Well, not for winning Super Bowls.
SPEAKER_01Not for winning Super Bowls, but for selling tickets. He knows how to do it.
SPEAKER_05I just wish he would stick to that side of it and not the GM side of it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, when he passes it on, I think his son will do a lot better. I think his son will make him so they'll win. I think he I think his son kind of sees it, but he's like, Jerry's at the end of the road. I'm gonna let him ride this one out. You know, so I'm thinking, no, I'm for real. Like, I'm gonna let him ride it out, man. Go on do what you do, dad.
SPEAKER_05Boy, they were mad, his sons were mad when they paid Dion all that money.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they were.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I mean, according according to the the Netflix show. Sorry, it's sorry we're detouring guys, but you know, we it's about money. It's about business. It's about business.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's about business. You gotta like you you okay. I can use another sports analogy the same way. When you're about business, you have to understand what's going on. I brought this up on a TikTok, and this guy just didn't get it. I was like, you know, the Phoenix Suns went and paid their player Devin Booker all that money. Like they paid him more than they just paid uh SGA. SGA just won a championship, he just won uh the finals MVP, the MVP, and a championship. Like, bro, that's we ain't seen a player do all three of those in one year, like probably since Jordan, I I would assume, right? So they paid him all SGA all this money and they gave Devin Booker a little more. I'm like, why would you give him more money? That doesn't even the market doesn't even fit that, and he ain't done jack crap in Phoenix. And you've given Devin Booker everything he's needed to win. You've given Kevin Durant, you've given him Bradley Bill, you've given him Chris Paul, DeAndre Aiden, and it don't work. You have to be aware of the decisions you make, especially in business. Is this decision really worth uh the company and what you're doing? Now what are you about to do? You're about to pay him all that money, and guess what? Y'all ain't gonna be winning nothing, and y'all ain't the type of city or have the type of owner that's about to put asses in seats. That's what Jerry Jones knows he knows how to do. I can run this into the ground as far as winning, but I know how to put asses in seats, bro. And it works every time.
SPEAKER_05You know, you know, and is and you said is that that's from a scarcity mindset, right?
SPEAKER_01Yes, it's from scarcity, bro.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so scarcity mindset. And what and what an article I read today, and it's interesting enough we talk about AI, right? Because at the end of this article, it said this article was we pretty much said it without saying it, but it was written by AI, and then uh uh uh what's it called? Uh editor proof read it and made sure everything was good. I'll I'll I'll read how exactly it said it, but it's I was like, AI wrote this shit. It's a damn good article. But anyways, it talked about there's
K-pop Demon Hunters: Sony sells for $20M, Netflix makes billions
SPEAKER_05a there's a movie, and you know, like I said, we're going everywhere on this show because it's it's one of them, one of them shows, Micah. One of them shows. And so there's a there's a big popular uh movie that came on Netflix. I don't know, I don't know if your kids watched it, but it's uh it's called K-pop Demon Hunters, or if you heard about it. I've seen it. Seen it. Uh my kids haven't watched it, but I've seen it. Okay, anyways, um my niece, you know, we were all hanging out at my dad and stepmom's house over there in Keller, and my niece put it on, and all the kids were in there and watched it. I was like, what the hell is this? Is K-pop Demon Hunters? What a weird title, right? K-pop band, you know, girl band. It was a girl band, and they're out there fighting demons and shit. And and I was like, this is weird, you know. The kids were captivated, they freaking love that movie, right? Anyways, uh, fast forward, it became the the most viewed Netflix movie of all time. K-pop demon hunters. It's like a cartoon kind of deal. And Sony made it, you know, Sony made the movie, and um and it is so popular, it went from Netflix and they did like uh uh this past weekend uh release uh limited release showing in in theaters, uh a K-p K-pop Demon Hunters sing-along. And so they have the letters on the screen, the girls are all packing the theaters, and they made me you know millions off of that shit, right? And just I mean, it's this thing became like this huge phenomenon, dude. And and it and it had four of the of the songs from the from the movie top the the top ten of the music charts. You go to Spotify, they're probably still on there, and and so it's it's good music, and the movie was actually pretty good. You know, I've watched it a bunch of times with my daughters, but anyways, long story short, uh this article I read was in Fortune magazine, right? Yeah, online. But but um it said that Sony, you know, made the movie, and it was around COVID times when they were shopping it around, and Netflix said, you know, they'll buy the movie, and so it cost Sony about a hundred million to make this thing, you know. It made it's it was a good movie, it cost it cost them a hundred million, it made a real good movie, and but Sony don't have like a real good strong distribution arm, right? Yeah, so they said, Well, and it was right at it was right coming out of COVID, nobody was going to the movies no more, and they're like, Well, I don't know, we can't release this, or we'll just get it to Netflix is gonna pay us a nice chunk of change for it. We'll make around 20 million dollars on the deal. You know, they profit, that's a pretty good profit, right? For this movie. Made it for 100, you're gonna make 120. And and when you give it to Netflix, when Netflix buys it, they own all the rights to it, right? 100%. And so they bought it, and then it came out this, I guess they well, they they finished it, they finished the movie. It came out this year, and and Netflix released it, right? And it just took off, it just grew and grew and grew and became this huge phenomenon, right? And it's like I said, the most viewed um uh freaking Netflix movie of all time. And and so not so they own this thing, they made they already made their money back, like you know, 10 20 fold. But they that now they have the rights. If they get is there gonna be a sequel made, Netflix owns that. If there's gonna be um, you know, any more mute movie releases or music or or whatever, merchandise and merchandise go crazy. There's gonna be live shows, you know, they're gonna go around town and doing the the the K-pop bands are gonna be playing out this. They're talking billions of dollars. This movie, this movie's gonna make billions, B-I-L-L-I-O-N as dollars, you know what I'm saying? But Sony was kind of nervous, kind of scared, they didn't have distribution channels set in place, and they said, Well, we'll just take the safe, we'll take the safe money.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_05And then Netflix, they said, Oh, we'll take a bet on this thing. Man, billions.
SPEAKER_01You know what's funny? Because I'm gonna tie this all back together, what you just said. Sony had a scarcity mindset, and when I talked to ChatGPT about like what was going on in my business, it really just unlocked, like, dang, I was operating off scarcity instead of off abundance. Chat GPT was operating off abundance, like, no, just go get more management clients. You have the operation to do it. You've been doing this a long time, you can go get more clients.
unknownI'm like, damn.
SPEAKER_01So, yeah, people, you have to, yeah, when you operate off scarcity, you hold yourself back because you're you're up you're you're not even realizing the potential that's in yourself of the abundance because you're not looking at it from abundance. Yeah, you have to have an abundance mindset, man. It'll it definitely hold you back.
SPEAKER_05So you know, you know, um, I keep hearing this book being being thrown around. It's called like um unmatched hospitality or un I've been hearing it too.
SPEAKER_01Uh Brandon Turner's podcast, uh Something Hospitality. Unreasonable Unreasonable Hospitality. Yeah, like I think that's the name of it.
SPEAKER_05Over the top, you know, that's what it's saying. Over the top hospitality, whatever. Yeah, and it talks about uh what what chain is that? I don't know. I want to say the four uh the four seasons and one of those big chains that's that's known for their hospitality. Yep, yeah, one of those. And some if we're getting it wrong, we're we're drunk, guys. So don't worry about it. And but we, I mean, me, you're drinking a hard drink. I'm drinking, I'm drinking a hard, hard drink. Um one of those weeks, man. It's uh and so um so, anyways, that book goes into like you know, going above and beyond with the customer service. And I and I remember I remember hearing excerpts about that particular hotel chain and saying they had a client that was going to stay in in England, but he loved to read the New York Times every morning. This is like back in the newspaper days, you know. And so they found a way to get him the New York Times there every morning waiting for him. And it wasn't it wasn't so easy back in the day, you know what I'm saying? Now, you know, you I mean, well, of course it's all internet now, but but now I mean I mean, even the New York Times was was everywhere in the country or whatever, everywhere in the world or it spanned out, but but they found a way to get this thing like shipped to him to be ready at his door. I mean, and they didn't charge him not they didn't charge him no extra for it, but they just went out of the way to with exemplary customer service. But what did that do? That's who they were, right? That's who they were, and so they weren't afraid to spend money to maintain that. They weren't saying, ah, you know, we'll just get them a regular you know newspaper close by here, you know. No, no. They they they spent money, they weren't afraid to spend money, they didn't look to where they could take shortcuts and and then cut, you know. And so, but that made them who they were, and that made them the most you know sought-after place to stay, you know.
SPEAKER_01That's exactly what it is, man. Unreasonable hospitality. Um there's two places that always remind me of that, that go above and beyond uh Chick-fil-A and Safeway. They they their customer service, they go above and beyond no matter what, even if it costs them extra money. Like Safeway, they got I don't well, I haven't been there in a long time, but I'm gonna assume they
Chick-fil-A, Safeway, and why response time is everything
SPEAKER_01don't have the self-checkout. They have somebody bagging your groceries up for you and it'll walk you to your car. That's unheard of nowadays, right? Right, but guess what? You're the only one doing it. People love that. People love that interaction that especially because older people usually gonna be there, they don't they want somebody to talk to. You know what I'm saying? Like I remember when I used to walk people out to the car when I worked at Safeway, man, they'd be offering you $20, $30 just to walk into the car. Bro, I'm telling you, I'm like, damn. But but we weren't allowed to take the tips, man. So you had to like reject the tips. So, but that just shows you when you go above and beyond what hospitality it the it's limitless of what you can perform. Because that's why I always remember, I always said in my business, I focus on always responding to people within like three or four minutes. If you keep that response rate up, they can have the worst time ever. Like I've had bad reviews, but my communication was a five. You know, they're like, but you can always reach them. That right there, I think is that is what Airbnb, like, and if you look at most of like Airbnb, VRBO, like VRBO just made a new rule change too. We haven't talked about it. Everything is about can a customer reach you if they need to reach you? Because Verbo just put the new rule out. If a guest is locked outside and they can't get within get in within the hour, you have to give them a full refund. I was like, damn.
SPEAKER_05That's reasonable.
SPEAKER_01I agree. See, and that's what I said. I agree. That's reasonable. I mean, if you don't have a backup situation, you that's that's on you and how you're running your business, you know. Because I'm like me, we just had a lockout situation. We got the guy in in five minutes. Hey, there's another code on the door on the door, there's the uh lock, just use the key, get the key out of there, and use it until we get the door fixed. You know, simple. But yeah, man, if if you go above and beyond, you know, like Chick-fil-A can charge more, Safeway charges more for their groceries, they can do it because guess what? They have the hospitality. And uh, I remember Brandon, he was talking about he goes, Yeah, that that hotel's way more expensive, but they treat me so good I don't want to go nowhere else. So yeah, man, that that's always uh unreal I still haven't read that book, but I want to read it.
SPEAKER_05You know, and and we go to when we go to Guadalajara, yeah. We we stay at this um well outside of the city a little bit. We stay at this uh hotel. It's um Sarah Hotel and Spa, it's called Serra Hotel and Spa. Did you podcast from there one time? No, see that was the Ryu. That was up there. That was up there in um in Guadalajara, the down close to downtown. It's the huge building. It's a resort kind of. I mean, they they do resorts all over the world. But this one's like a just a small, a smaller hotel right there close to where her parents live. It's a nice hotel, you know, and a medium-sized town. It's not huge like Guadalajara, but it's a it's a nice hotel and a nice town. They got a a pool on the on the on the rooftop and all that. But they always provide us with excellent service, man. They always, I mean, they're waiting on the you know, you you tell them, hey, we need some ice to the room. They're in there like a couple minutes there, there with the ice, you know what I'm saying? If you know y'all need anything, snacks, let us know. And they're you know, and so they treat us good. And we and I had never I still hadn't stayed at Airbnb's around there. And I look at the reviews on the Airbnbs, you know, and it's not a lot of people complaining about how the how the owner of the Airbnb. I guess it's a little different over there when you go to Mexico or something, uh in the set of here, you know, that people, yeah, there's my house, stay in it. I don't know what the hell, you know. Maybe it's like early days, like like how we used to do things back in the day. But um but we're happy with this hotel. We love it, we love it, the kids love it, you know. And um, but uh and you brought up the review. Well, we did a podcast, and they had I I I got to use the boardroom and stuff like that. So the first the first couple of times we went there, and they had this like little small room like that we could use if you're if you get that little well now, you sign up for that. I don't know, it's executive status or whatever their their status thing is, right? And and you get access to this this small room downstairs that has like snacks and it has like cold cuts and it has beers and wine and coffees, you know, and you can sit there and chill out on the sofas and watch TV. And and and I'll try to make a long story shorter, but but but like when you said that, I just automatically thought, man, I love that one, you know, that small one we go to, that small hotel we go to. The Ryu, uh, the last time we went to that one, because I wanted to try it, you know, you get to see the whole city from like uh 33 stories up in this in the sky, you know, it's pretty cool. Um I asked, hey, you you know, can we, you know, we want to use that room, whatever. And the lady at the at the at the door, oh, sorry, you have kids, you can't bring can't bring kids in here. Well, uh, you know, I'm I'm this status, you know, I paid for this extra so I can get these perks, right? So I'm sorry, we just stopped, we just stopped letting kids come in here. It's like, what? You know, so they're going the opposite way. They're going there, you know, you know, you know, trying to to take things away from from guests, or the other ones giving more things to the guests, you know.
SPEAKER_01That right there, bro. I'm happy you said it because I mean that's how we started operating our business. Remember, remember back in the day we wouldn't allow pets. Now, I'm like, midterm people need pets, so I gotta go forward. Okay, yeah, pets, kids, I'm allowing all that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, you hated kids in the in the play in your places.
SPEAKER_01Back in the day, yeah, bro.
Allowing pets and kids: pivoting forward instead of backward
SPEAKER_01Now, you know, I understand, but now, okay, let me get more kid-friendly furniture, furniture that makes that a little bit easier, you know what I mean? You just change your business up to be more accommodating. Um, it's funny you said that when we're going backwards, that's all I was kind of talking about my damn job going back into the office, man. And the thing is, it came up after there was a big change up top. So we we have a new director. So he's the one who called everyone back in. But those changes, you know, it it starts trickling down, and I'm like, I just I hope it doesn't affect morale, but I think it will. Just certain people, you know, the morale change and having to change up your schedule. But yeah, man, you always the whole point of that is you always gotta push forward. Just push forward, man. Try to find the new way. Pushing forward, you're gonna learn something. You know, you're gonna learn how to operate in this new way we're pushing forward. If you're allowing kids, okay, how do we allow kids? Not say, oh, well, we're not just not allowing kids anymore. What happened? Fix the issue. Whatever happened, because something happened, you know what I'm saying? Fix the issue.
SPEAKER_05So I mean, except for Karen's, you really can't do nothing to please a Karen.
SPEAKER_01There's a lot of Karen, man. There's a lot of Karen's out there, especially when it comes to short-term rentals. There's a lot of Karen's out there.
SPEAKER_05So I asked you with that with that new policy, with the Airbnb might, you know, or that's gonna put in place with the the chargebacks are on you. I asked you, so I mean we've all got these. We've all got these. Um, and and when I told Mike Brown, he's like, I just got one of those today. When someone at the last minute, either the day before or day of, say, hey, uh sorry, uh, we have a death in the family and we have to cancel. Can you give us a plea a full refund, please? They don't even say who died, right? They just expect a full refund. And then if you say, Oh, you you know, our there's a script that our our R VAs say, I'm terribly sorry for that. You know, they you sympathize with them. He goes, please, here's a number to contact Airbnb and let them know, you know, kind of push it off on them. And then some of them will some of them will just go fucking ape shit. They'll just go uh on your ass, you know, they'll go irate. What do you mean you're not gonna give me, you know, they just start going crazy. You know, and it's that it's that deal, right? So my thing to you, I mean, maybe not all of them, maybe some of them are legit. I don't know, but the whole thing, you know, we gotta assume we can't just, you know, that you know, someone's gonna book our place for like seven days for you know three or four thousand dollars, you know, it's it's just say, hey, I got a death of the family, we're supposed to give them all their money back, but we couldn't book it that whole time. That's the whole thing on our end, right? We're we're gonna lose out all that money, and then it's gonna be hard to get that booked last minute, you know what I'm saying? So so you you can see it from both sides, but anyways, that's what um traveler's insurance is for, too. But but anyways, anyways, um, my my question to you is like so the people that do that and get pissed up at us, they can just go and do uh a chargeback on their credit card and then we'll lose all that money anyways.
SPEAKER_01That's what I've been hearing. So I'm I'm I I need to verify fully on that, but that's what I've been hearing too. So that'll be crazy, bro. Um I'm gonna be honest, that's why I think it's dangerous to accept midterms through Airbnb. I've kind of always kind of hinted at that. Like if you're taking midterms through Airbnb, you're putting yourself, your business at a huge risk. Because if they can just say whatever and get all the money taken back, bro, it's like it's a risk. So yeah, I mean yeah, I'd be careful with it. Like try to get direct, like I tell people when you're in the midterm rental space, you want to be people directly to you. You know, I I have not in the last I'll say probably the last four or five months, with most of my places being booked murdered midterm. I've had two Airbnb reservations. I'm happy about it. You know what though? Honestly, and this is another thing you should really cater your place to guests that don't ask for refunds, and you know who that is? Midterm construction workers don't ask for refunds. If you want every time midterm construction workers, so there was this dude. Um he was in Sean's group and he posted some,
The demographic breakdown post that kept it a buck
SPEAKER_01you know, people got mad because it it had some stereotype stuff in it. He was like, hey man, he he posted it, but I was like, I I got on the post too because I I agree with some of the stuff he said. He was like, is there a certain group of people that are on Airbnb? He said a certain race or ethnic ethnic group of people that uh always ask for refunds. And uh everyone was like, Well, who are you talking about? You know, and I we found out who he was talking about. He eventually said it who it was. He was talking about um about some Indian people, right? And then this guy gets on there and he goes, I'm gonna be honest. And he posted every single thing he noticed about every demographic of people that posted that came to his places. He goes, and he was a white dude, he was being honest, and I I liked it because he was being honest. He said if you get the younger black crowd, they're usually gonna throw parties. If you get the um he said the younger college kids, they're usually they might not throw a party, but they're gonna have a get together and leave a bunch of crap. He goes, but honestly, my worst guest ever is a white woman from California because they're gonna be a Karen. But he he kept it a buck. He kept it a buck. He said, That's the worst guest I've ever had. He goes, he goes, I'd rather clean up after a party than have to fight with you about every single nitpick that you want to pick out and then try to get a refund. I was like, I can see that. Because even because let's say somebody messes up your place, let's say they trash your place where you can't book it. There's insurance to cover it, there's Airbnb reimbursement to cover it, there's things you can fix. But somebody you gotta sit here and fight with and you're trying to act like all this happened, this happened, that's more of a headache, right? So that that goes back into pumpkin planning your business. What's the type of guest I want? That's like the best thing is what type of guest I want. These midterms I got through VRBO, man, they've been great. You know, if something doesn't work, they let us know. But they they they're busy, they have to work, they got work to do, and they they they got stuff to do. But like man, midterm professional, midterm professionals like who are going out doing construction or whatever they're doing, those are the better guests. Straight up, those have been the best guests.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, those guys. Are awesome. I love the construction, the construction bookings.
SPEAKER_01Dude, it works every time, bro.
SPEAKER_05Like they don't extend and extend and extend. Never rate, never lower your rates while there's a construction team still there. Don't lower your rates till they're gone.
SPEAKER_02Straight up, bro. They extend it today. That's why when you said it, they extend it today. Like, hey man, can we extend for two more days?
SPEAKER_01They're like, oh man.
SPEAKER_02Then hopefully tomorrow they're like, hey, we need another week. The project got put cool.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_05Anyone knows how to drag a project out as construction people. Straight up, man. Why kill the golden goose, man? Oh, yeah, we'll finish in a month. No worries. We'll finish in a month. You know, something came up. Yeah, man. We gotta redo the plumbing, man. Sorry.
unknownStraight up, man.
SPEAKER_01Straight up. So we're telling y'all now, man. Like, know what guests brings you the most joy and is the easiest to deal with. You know what I mean? Some people are good at dealing with cairns. I ain't, you know, and knock on wood. It's been a while since I didn't dealt with a cairn.
SPEAKER_05I'll tell you, I'll tell you something real quick. Okay. The um at one of my places in Fort Worth, uh, a dude booked uh a young brother. And and I, you know, I let my team handle everything,
The squatter with three automated reviews
SPEAKER_05right? I let my team handle everything. This guy came with like three good reviews. You know, like I said, I wouldn't even, you know, I saw it come through one day, you know. But here's the thing the photo, the photo was a little bit thuggish ruggish, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I was like, uh it caused me to think, but I was like, you know, like I said, I let my team handle it. They make sure he's, you know, what's he here for, this and that. And going back and looking at at the at the booking after the fact, after this thing happens, then I'm like, oh, there's flag red flags everywhere, you know. And it's a learning lesson for my for my people more my team. I have a question about that. Keep going, because I have a question about that. So, anyways, he was extending out, asking for discount, extending out, asking for discount. You know what I'm saying? Is it started like uh like a five-day book, and he started adding a couple days, card didn't go through, you know, tried to extend out. Oh, y'all need can y'all give me a break on the you know, give me a discount. And like I said, I let my team handle these things, right? I try not to be a micromanager. And so day 10 happened, right? Day 10, and then he's all saying, Oh, can you give me this rate? And sir, we can't give you that rate. That's like you know, 50 bucks a day. We can't do that. That's too low, you know. And he goes, It's past your checkout time, and you you haven't extended, so you have to book a new booking. We'll wait for you to book a new booking. Radio silence. We don't hear from him anymore. His phone number doesn't work, you don't receive texts or calls, it don't work, and he's just not responding to us. And of course, you know, I happen to be in my day job at the time, so I can't go all the way across town over there. And and then um my cleaners happen to be over there in Grand Prairie, so they can't go back to four. I'm like, I need this, I need to get eyes. And my camera just happens to be dead at the time. My ring doorbell camera's dead. So I don't know if this guy's there or not, but I'm assuming he is. The way that he went off, he said, Oh, then he started you know talking all ghetto and shit. Oh, y'all acting like fools, you know. He started saying, you know, as soon as he started throwing away the the throwing around the ghetto, I was like, oh crap, this is gonna be an issue. So I sent I sent um shout out to Craig Swan. Uh if you're in the Dallas area, private security, Craig Swan, uh hit him up. Uh hit me up if you need his info. I don't have it on me right now. But, anyways, um they went out there and and they had they got him out, handled it. You know, I went over there after work and um, you know, changed the door. It's the apartment, you know, the apartments come with the lock, so I had to go change the door code on there, the apartment on the apartment lock, right? And I was talking to him, and it was funny. I asked the dude. And they mean these guys, they dress up, look like just like cops. They got all the stuff all over them, you know, the walkie-talkies, the gun. They got they got this mace, they got the the you look at this guy as a cop, right? Big big brother. And and um, I was like, Well, what did that what did that guy say? You know, what did he say? He said, A whole lot of nothing.
SPEAKER_02He just real serious and shit. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_05That's I gotta make a small talk while I'm changing changing the lockout. And so, anyways, cost 150 bucks to get him out, right? 150. That and that's way better than an eviction, right? And so, and so, or missing bookings and all that shit, too. But um, and they did a great job, you know, 150 bucks. And and um, so I sent that to we sent that to Airbnb. We sent out, you know, the fee for the late checkout and all that shit. And Airbnb denied it. They denied paying out, and and and we're like, listen, this guy he's a he's he's looking to squat somewhere. It's it's you know, we've seen this before. He's looking to stay somewhere until you kick him out. And he's like, Well, send us the the video footage. I'm like, the the the ring was dead at the at the moment, you know what I'm saying? And and they're like, Well, without the footage, I said you saw the messages coming through. He's calling us names and this and that, and then his phone don't work, he don't have a working phone number, and then he just stopped he stopped answering us. You see, you saw this coming through way past checkout time, right? And they still denied it. And so, you know, my bad on the end of the not having the camera charged, you know. Okay, I understand that, but still, this guy's gonna still be able to book Airbnbs, and he's gonna pull this over on someone else, too. He's gonna, you know, and he gets he gets a week one, he's gonna I told him as soon as I saw that crap happening at the end, I was like, do not let this guy extend, do not let this guy rebook, because I know what he's trying to do. He's gonna try to get past that 30-day mark, and he's gonna try to squat somewhere, right? And he did have a record. I looked him up and he had a record, and so yeah, Airbnb's like there's criminals on Airbnb, uh, even though they say they're they're checking people.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they kicked a friend of mine off because he had a record. Wow, they yeah, Airbnb. I'm telling you, bro, Airbnb knows something. They think that short-term rental space is taking a hit. Go ahead, though.
SPEAKER_05Anyway, yeah, so so we're just we're just telling Airbnb listen, you just know that this guy is a squatter, all right? Yeah, he's trying to squat somewhere or bully people into dropping their prices while he's staying with them, whatever, and then um, and then he's on to the next person. And y'all aren't gonna stop this. And so let that be a warning to all you people operating out there. See the warning signs. If someone's there and they're trying to extend out, or their card's not working, or they're or they're start complaining about price, or they then they start complaining about your place. Oh, it's crawling with bugs, it's this and that. This don't work. You know, they start they'll start saying all that crap, right? Their thing is to make you the bad guy, right? And you're and you and a lot of people get bullied into oh, I'll just give you a discount. Okay, you can extend out for 50 bucks a night or whatever. Do not let them get them out as soon as you can. And if they refuse to leave, get don't call the cops. The cops ain't gonna do a damn thing. Call private security. There's I'm sure there's private security in your area that that uh that's it's become and that's the thing with that with that guy, the private security guy. He's like, I was like, Oh, you know, you it was just like a normal thing. How'd you get him out, man? He's like, Yeah, because man, that's what we do. I was like, he said, you y'all do that, y'all stay busy doing that? Yeah, we're this is all we do now is get people out of Airbnb's.
SPEAKER_02I was like, damn. There's like business behind it, bro.
SPEAKER_01Imagine that, bro. Imagine a big I know they make him bank doing that, bro. Okay, man, you gotta get up and get up out of here, bro. Imagine you a big six foot dude show up at a door with a gun and bro.
SPEAKER_02Imagine if you had him for the other time, the other dude. Yes, yes. I wish I did. He would have got that dude up out of there, man. It's time to go, bro. You ain't gotta go home. You ain't gotta go home, but you gotta get the hell up out of here.
SPEAKER_05Oh, live and learn. So they're two and oh for me so far. Damn. Out of one thing.
SPEAKER_02So and they get white, they're getting white people out too, dude.
Training VAs on American cultural red flags
SPEAKER_02One of those episodes, man. One of those episodes.
SPEAKER_05So that's the that's the thing that's scary about Airbnb. They will not help you in squatter situations at all. It's on you to get housed. They'll put them in there. They'll put them in there, no problem. They'll get their money, but they're not gonna help you get them out for not one cent, man. They're not gonna give you nothing.
SPEAKER_01You know what's crazy.
SPEAKER_05It's that message from Airbnb. Oh, their card didn't go through. If you want to kick them out, you can you can cancel their reservation.
SPEAKER_01But it's up to you to get them out. That's crazy. Yeah, bro. That's why insurance is the only thing that'll protect you in some private security. Now, you you brought up something very important with that story. You said your team let this person stay. Now, is your team mainly in America?
SPEAKER_05Uh no. Philippines. Okay.
SPEAKER_01That's my team too, so this is my question. Because this is a struggle I had. How are you going about teaching them the customs of the US when it comes to like cultural behavior? Because now, now, now for real, the reason why I asked that is if you would have looked at the messages and seen them, you understand American culture, you know, alright, I'm denying this. They let them stay, they can't catch it. Well, how are you training that? And this is for everybody out there, because if anybody wants to answer this question, like email us. I want y'all to email us because that is one thing I I've kind of struggled with.
SPEAKER_05All right. Like for that incident in particular, you know, he had good reviews, right? To book the place initially. He had the good reviews, five-star reviews. If you did if you dug deeper into it, you'll see that two of the reviews were from the same place he stayed at, like two months in a row. And they were automated reviews. They're like, Great guest, have him back anytime. Great guest, have him back. It was the same exact word. So whoever that that host was, they just had automation send a review. So you you can't really tell with that one. And if he stayed two different bookings back to back at the same place in Houston, you know what I'm saying? It's he probably was doing that same shit to that guy. And then he got he went on to the next person, and then the third person left a review, you know, good great guest, whatever. And so he had this, he had his five-star, he has five star reviews. And so on that, on that merit, you know, okay, it seems it seems like safe to book. But right, when you look at the photo, I said, look, look, that's not a very professional photo. He has his hat on, all he's doing some stupid shit in the can in the in the can. I'm like, like, like, yeah, uh thuggish ruggish, you know, and I'm like, at least look, semi-professional. When you're taking a profile picture, you want people to let you in their Airbnbs, you know, not racism, not anything, even you know, Mexican, whoever you are, you get up have your hat off, you know, after doing stupid shit. And the that's that's a red flag, right there. I mean, you don't give a damn about yourself or or your appearance to to where you're gonna stay at, right? Etiquette, yeah. Yeah, and so um, so there's that, and then uh the other uh training part of it is say once they start, you know, wanting to extend and then complaining about stuff and wanting a cheaper price, no, no discounts, that's the price. You know, your card didn't go through once. No, we're not gonna play that song and dance. No, you you gotta go. You gotta go pay full price, get that card sorted out, or you gotta leave.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So how are they how are you how are they starting to are they starting to understand it or kind of it's like because you you said if all the reviews match up, that's kind of what they kind of can go off of, but like how me and you were looking at it, we looking at the picture, we looking at okay, these reviews come from the same person. Is there a way to teach that?
SPEAKER_05That's a good question. I uh yeah, that's a good question. Um, be be profiling folks, right?
SPEAKER_02I don't want to say and you know what though? This is the crazy part.
SPEAKER_01I don't want to tell them to profile people, but it's cause certain things are cultural American culture that we know to say yes or no to. You see what I'm saying? Yeah, and I don't know how you would teach that to like a VA.
SPEAKER_05Now, here's a strange part of the story. I said, I said this is a red flag at the beginning. Because he said, like, um, he said, yeah, they're gonna come, the the pest control is gonna come to my house and treat my house, and so I need a place to stay for a week. What pest control company tells you to leave your house for a damn week? You know, if there's not people that can just take a seven-day vacation for getting their house sprayed. First of all, most of the time when they come and spray your house, you could be there, no problem.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Now, if they're gonna set off some bombs in your house or something like that, they say four hours.
SPEAKER_01A few hours. Yeah, a few hours.
SPEAKER_05Who says seven freaking days for a pest control treatment?
SPEAKER_01Well, they got bed bugs, or what you got going on? I would have asked them. See, yeah, yeah, we would have asked what why so long, you know? Okay, yeah. This is a good thing too, though. This is another thing I I I could kind of see on how to train them. So, like, I do have my um I have my VAs ask what's your reason for coming? Well, you could use AI add is tell them like if they don't really know cultural stuff, like ChatGPT would have asked that. Like, what's how why are you taking so long to you know, what's it taking seven days? What kind of press control are you getting? You know, you can set it up to be like, hey, ask them in a friendly tone. So yeah, that there's a few things I'm starting to wonder, like with I don't know, could AI put I think they could, but could you see AI eventually just replacing VAs as far as cultural norms?
SPEAKER_04I don't know, man. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01That's been a struggle, man. Like cultural norms, like understanding certain cultural ticks that you know, you would say no to. But they wouldn't, they're like, well, he has good reviews. I I don't know, man. That's one thing I've been kind of struggling with.
SPEAKER_05If his name's Big X the Plug, oh bro! Bro, I was gonna tell you. You know who Big X the Plug is, right? You told me he's like a big time rapper.
SPEAKER_02That's probably the biggest rapper in Texas.
SPEAKER_05Really?
SPEAKER_02Probably in probably in the rap industry. No shit. Yeah, I'm the biggest, the largest. He's the one who he had the playoff song. That was him. Yeah, I'm the biggest. That's big X the plug. That's what we said. Big X the Plug? I would have been like, bro, just play an extra cleaning fee in a book. Put it on your Instagram.
SPEAKER_05What?
SPEAKER_02He's like the biggest rapper out there. That's why I was like, Big X the plug, not the book.
SPEAKER_05Well, here's the thing. Okay. So it's it's a house that we manage in Cedar Hill, right?
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, Cedar Hill's gonna attract that.
SPEAKER_05And it's and it's in in the in the well, it's this part of Cedar Hill. It's like kind of like a farm kind of community.
SPEAKER_01It's all black out there, bro.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. Well, the the it's like an older house, and it's got like a big parking area. You can fit RVs and shit under there. It's got like a whole acre back, two acres. It's two acres deep, man. I never you're looking like you're looking forever at the end of the yard, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, so he wanted to rent it, or his publicist called us, right? This is back up. We had it on Peer Space. He said, Hey, we you know, uh, I represent this this rapper, Big X the Plug, and they want to rent this place out and they want to do this music video, like uh Snoop Dogg style. Um what's the one where all the cars are hopping? And and back in the back in the day, um Gin and Juice. Yeah, when they're juice and they're the pick the picnics outside, you know, all the all the families are together. Yeah, yeah. Okay, came to mind. You know, yeah, gin and juice late. Yeah, it was one of those, one of those, you know, classics. Uh he goes, We want to do something like that, all the families there and having a barbecue and all this stuff. And I ran it past the owner, and he's also he's the black dude. He owns he owns the house, you know.
SPEAKER_01He probably said no, huh?
SPEAKER_05He well, he was like, Do you think it's a good idea? And this is we just took over this house, man. I'm like, man, I don't want to get the cops called on this house. Day one, we're managing this thing, you know. We had so we had to tell them no. We said, No, we we really can't do it. Oh they reached out again like a like a month or so later and asked again. I was like, Man, we can't we can't do it, man.
SPEAKER_02Sorry, you know, and they're gonna so yeah, that's no, I didn't know it was Big X the plug, man. Yeah, listen to him. I listened to him while I'm in the gym, man. You can pump out an extra set to Big X. I'm like, dang, bro. Yeah, because when you send me the picture, I'm like, Big X the plug wanted to plug it.
SPEAKER_01I'm like, yeah, he wanted yeah, that's like the number one rapper out of Texas right now, bro. And probably out there. He's damn good. He has some good ass music. He can rip rap, man.
SPEAKER_05He yeah, he got he got busted for Marijuana and in Arlington. Oh wow, in Arlington, and um, and um uh weapon possession or something.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's the only thing. If he yeah, he gotta stay out of trouble, but he usually isn't the trouble type, but yeah, bro.
SPEAKER_05He's he's all smiling in the picture, too. He's all cheesy.
SPEAKER_01He knew he was getting out.
SPEAKER_02Street cred right here. This is this is my brands, yeah. So damn, when you send me the picture, I'm like, big ass the floor tried to fuck. I was like, damn, bro.
SPEAKER_01But yeah, Cedar Hill. That's the only thing about Cedar Hill, because you got them big ass houses out there. Because you know who lives out in Cedar Hill. Like Jerry Rice has a house out there. Jerry Rice, hell yeah. Jerry Rice has a house out there.
SPEAKER_05Is he from here or what?
SPEAKER_01What's a lot of them football players have houses out there, bro. I don't know why.
SPEAKER_05Oh, it'll be Dion and them, yeah.
SPEAKER_01I don't know if Dion.
SPEAKER_05Well he coached at Dion, he coached at Cedar Hill, right?
SPEAKER_01I thought it was up in Prosper.
SPEAKER_05Oh, is it Prosper? Okay.
SPEAKER_01Dion has a house in Prosper, I know. And then uh Michael Crabtree has a house out there. Um the guy from uh Tyler Perry's show, Meet the Browns, that big ass one on the hill. The big one on the hill. Like looks like a round one. That's his house. So yeah, bro, it's like yeah, it's money in Cedar Hill, bro. So I understand why he probably was like, Man, no, I can't have y'all over here. They thinking we turning this into South Dallas, man. Y'all can't have y'all over here.
SPEAKER_02So I understand the brother. He's probably like, man, hell no, you better get out here with that shit. But damn, I didn't know.
SPEAKER_05Shout out to Big X, shout out to Big X.
SPEAKER_02Shout out to Big X. Yeah, he's the one who sings uh I'm from Texas. The you know when the Rangers won the uh thing, the World Series, the World Series, and everybody was in Dallas, was had the uh Texas song playing.
SPEAKER_01Bitch, I'm from Texas. That's Big X the plug. That's crazy. I didn't know that was that that you'd had big X during the book.
SPEAKER_05That's crazy. Well, this is a fun show, Mike. Uh it's been we've gone at it for a long time, like an hour and a half.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's been a while. It's been a while.
SPEAKER_05But salute, yeah, it was a fun, fun episode to have one of these again. Uh it's funny that you had a drink, and I had a drink. Cool. Straight up. Um, so where can people find us, Mike?
SPEAKER_01Man, you can find us on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, all that stuff. Send us the email, livelet thrive at gmail.com, man. Happy we went over time, but it was fun. And uh hope y'all learned something, you know, about marketing and all that good stuff and how to run your business.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and and a new a new rapper you want to add to your Spotify list. So there you go.
SPEAKER_01Big X. So yeah, man. Uh yeah, thank y'all for continuing to listen to us, and man, uh, we gotta start holding some events again. We gotta get some events on the board.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01I was looking at some of the old pictures from 2021. I was like, dang, we had like a whole room of people, man. And I was like, and some of those people I still talk to today, so we gotta get some events going.
SPEAKER_05Heck yeah. LLT back. Straight up, man. Alright, man. We'll see you on the flip. Peace.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of Live Let Drive. Be sure to tune in next week for all the latest in the world of Airbnb and all that entails. Bye-bye.
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