Cold open - Guestie ad

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Are you ready to run your short-term rental business like a super host? If so, look no further than Guestie for Hosts. Guestie for Hosts offers listing management for all three major OTAs, Airbnb, Booking.com, and Verbo. With Guestie for Host, you can create a branded direct booking website in minutes. I've been able to hit 61% direct bookings in my business and automate daily tasks such as communication with cleaners and communication with guests. Click the link in the show notes to get an additional $20 off your first month.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

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

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Hello, hello, hello. And welcome back to another exciting episode of Live Let

Snow-mageddon prep for 40 Texas properties

SPEAKER_01 0:47

D Rive.

SPEAKER_04 0:49

What's up, Micah Man?

SPEAKER_01 0:51

I'm chilling, Stevie Stacks. How you doing?

SPEAKER_04 0:53

Oh, doing good. Getting uh prepared for Snow Mageddon, Ice Mageddon Part 2 in Texas.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Did you get your firewood?

SPEAKER_04 1:03

No, I didn't get any firewood. No. No firewood. But we're on the same, luckily, you know. If it happens again, I'm not sure, but we're on the same grid as the fire station here where we're at. So none of us in this whole neighborhood lost power last year because I guess you know, emergency services, they had to keep the you know power going to them. But, anyways, you know, you never know what's gonna happen. You should always be prepared. But we are back, man. We are at episode 193 of your favorite Airbnb VRBO, home away, uber lift, all that share economy fun stuff in the world. And we have uh someone joining us, I would say guest, but he's part of the show, you know, honorary member Federico. What's up, Federico?

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Hey guys, how you doing?

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Good, good man. How you doing down there?

SPEAKER_02 1:48

Yeah, uh, doing great and during the summer. You know, you were talking about that, uh Snow Majellon. I was just thinking, first of all, here's beautiful, weather is nice, but then I was thinking, man, when it happened last time, we had like two properties. Now we have 40. What are we gonna do if it gets bad?

SPEAKER_04 2:07

Man, dude, yeah, that's true, right? We only had a couple properties back then.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Now, are you are y'all 40 in Dallas?

SPEAKER_02 2:16

Well, no, not in Dallas, but uh, I'll say 39 were in in Texas, so I mean the other one that we have is Michigan, they're ready for that. That's the bill for that, so we don't even that you know it's funny because we're we're telling every guest we we tell our BAs or uh to to to let all the guest know, you know, remind them of letting the fossils uh drip. I was like, don't tell the people in Grand Rapids. I mean that that's bill for that. It's it's Texas, but we need to let them know. So yeah, we're sending reminders every day, cleaners and guests, everyone to be aware.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

Yeah, I sent uh sent my messages out today, too. Um, one of our friends, he was actually going and dropping on fire with his guests. I was like, that's a smart idea, you know. Because yeah, you never know what's gonna happen, man.

SPEAKER_04 3:02

Yeah you know, so yeah, we were bouncing guests around last year trying to get them to units that actually had power. I remember that. Yeah, so it was but it was only a handful of units, it was like two or three units, but now it's like 40. Uh we just have to turn our phones off and wish them the best.

Myka's $3,800 cleaning quote for the Arkansas lakehouse

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Man, yeah, this Snow Mageddon part two. I don't know how bad it's gonna be, but hopefully it doesn't happen as bad as last year, and we can uh you know have some happy guests.

SPEAKER_04 3:32

Yeah, man. So what's it what's new in your world, Micah?

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Oh man, so I'm supposed to close on a duplex, this duplex on Friday. Um, once I close on that, I'm gonna try to sell it. Uh after I sell that, then I'm back to doing bird strategy. Plus, you know, I got I got a rehab going, a management project, a new man, I gotta tell you guys about that crazy shit. Uh I got a rehab project going. I got another project where we're getting my uh friend's house. My friend's house is up, but it's like a 3,000 square foot like house on a lake with this big balcony in the back for like parties and stuff, and it's this big ass house, right? So I'm calling around. So my setup team's ready, but they're like, dude, we got to clean this place before we set it up because like if they got to get all this dust down. So we called around, man, to get a cleaning quote. You know, I'm getting all these crazy prices, right? I'm like this lady, one lady saying, Hey, I'll charge you $300 for two rooms. I'm like, what the f kind of today, forget it. You know, I you know, I I called some, you know, other other type of people, people maybe have cheaper prices, man. You know, so called this guy, you know, I'm thinking he's gonna have cheaper prices. He's like, let's see the house. He comes over today. My sister meets next all the way in Arkansas. And he's like, but he was like, before I was talking to him, he's like insistent on seeing the house. I'm like, you don't just give quotes, you know, like, hey, it's three bedrooms, three thousand square foot. He's like, no, I want to see the house. So he comes over. Um, and then he wouldn't tell my sister a price. He's like, I'll just call Michael back and let him know. Man, the guy calls me. It says $3,800 for a clean. I'm like, so the guy who I'm the guy who I'm managing it for, he's like, $3,800, what, for the whole neighborhood? I'm like, for your house. So uh we were like, man, hell no. So we sent it another quote to another lady, which hopefully it comes back. But it is a big ass house. And my sister was like, it's gonna be expensive, but she was like, not $3,800 expensive, but it's gonna be expensive to do a deep clean on this house because it's a big ass house.

SPEAKER_04 5:36

Jeez, that's in Arkansas, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Man, it's it's one of our first luxe properties. It's gonna be a luxurious property, like it's big as hell, these big, huge columns in the yard, and then this big ass massive yard with the huge like you can get you. I can we can host weddings there, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_04 5:53

Nice, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

So we're trying to get this thing up. So that's one of my projects in a rehab project, then closing on that duplex. How about you, man? What's going on in Argus World?

SPEAKER_04 6:03

Argist world. You want to tell you to talk, Fede?

SPEAKER_02 6:07

Yeah, well, we have a lot of things going on

Fede and Steve at 40 units - arbitrage vs. management split

SPEAKER_02 6:09

since the last time uh I was here. Um, I mean, we've been growing like crazy, getting new new properties to manage, uh, getting new new points and you know, new dots in the map. Uh, again, we we were in Houston, but we we had another property there and another coming coming up soon. Um, we added Grand Rapids, Michigan, which is doing pretty well. Uh, we're excited about that market. Um we hired finally people that are doing a great job. So I think that was one of the big lessons in 2020 uh one, you know, is the value of hiring good people. Um yeah, it definitely is paying off right now. You know, it's finally I'm able to put my phone down for a little while to do all the stuff. Finally going on vacations after a year or something. Um so that that's exciting. Um and you know, just fine-tuning our systems and focusing more right now. I'm I'm I'm I'm looking to focus more into pricing, you know, fine-tune pricing, uh leads, getting new clients, getting new properties, um, all of that part. Um with Steve. So I think together we're gonna, you know, just make something huge.

SPEAKER_04 7:28

Yeah, this this past week I picked up two um Grand Prairie home arbitrar house arbitrages.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Nice. Are you arbitraging them yourselves? Hell yeah, let's go.

SPEAKER_04 7:40

So we gotta get those up and running, more uh streams of revenue, you know. And and um as he was uh Fed was talking about uh VAs, right? And so here's the here's the cool thing. The we went after VAs that actually had experience with Airbnb, you know. I think I mentioned that before. Whereas before we're just like, oh okay, we'll get some cheap ones and we'll train them Airbnb. But um, it's this has actually been a lot better. They've had like years of experience in Airbnb, all the PMS systems, all that stuff, right? So it's been it's been great, they've been catching on really quick, and then they've been uh also like um suggesting things to us that we should do, how we can do our business better. I mean, I that's old Federico, man. This these chicks are these chicks are smarter than us, and um, but that's I mean a smart business uh only a stupid business owner hires people that are dumber than them, right? Always higher up. That's that's what I'm realizing, man. Why why hire people that are dumb than hire people that are smarter than us, and um, so that's been really cool, and and and it's funny, you know. Also, we we give ourselves payouts in the business, right? We give ourselves like uh the partners, we equal payout, and it's gonna be to the point where we got we got like a superstar VA, and then their salary is gonna be higher than one of our than our payouts, right? But our business is growing and the pot's growing, and I was trying to explain that to FedE, but the business, you know, we own the business, we're getting yes, payout, you know, we're taking some money out, but um, but he uh fed it was a little jealous as well. She's gonna be making more of a more of a payout than I make, you know.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

I'm saying, whoa, that's a problem.

SPEAKER_04 9:15

I'm almost petting on it. But here was the yeah, yeah, it was it was he had made sense, and I thought about it too. And I was like, okay, check this out. How about the next few arbitrages that we pick up? We keep 100% of that money, you know. And I thought that would be that would kind of motivate us to work harder and get more units to because all the newer units, this is gonna be 100% that can go into our pockets, you know what I'm saying, instead of just into the pot, and then that pot goes to run the business and it goes to maybe get another property. It it's cool, but you know, it's like that uh pay yourself first kind of thing, right? The the profit first kind of thing that you're reading about. Yeah, it kind of it gets frustrating if if the business is growing it, but we're not our payouts are staying the same. We kind of we kind of do have to up that, right?

Fede quits after 10 years - it's 100% of my livelihood now

SPEAKER_02 10:03

And and you know, the other thing is that uh uh I was listening to you know, I also quit my my job after 10 years.

SPEAKER_03 10:09

Congratulations.

SPEAKER_02 10:11

Thank you, thank you so much. Really happy about that. I mean, it's it was scary. I mean really scary to to to to to you know make that that decision. Uh I know you made it uh a few weeks ago. I mean I think we we we did it at the same time, like uh um so yeah, December 30th was my last date. I had a very good career that I made in in in the urban industry. But I mean it was like okay, our just is is my future, it's our baby, and it needs a hundred percent of my attention. Uh so it came to the point where the it was a no-brainer, but still was scary, you know. Uh and of course, uh, and what what's happening right now, and I think it happens to you and anyone that is you know just putting the nine to five, is like I don't want to make any mistakes, I don't want anything to go wrong because this is 100% of my livelihood right now. So that's the scary part, you know, because you need to let if you want the company to grow, you're gonna make mistakes, and you need to let things you know just run and and and things happen, but it's scary for that reason, right? So that that's the other thing that I'm personally dealing with right now.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Man, I got a few things to touch on, man. First off, I know that fear factor, man. When you're that 100% dependent on it, trust me, because last month was one of my worst months on Airbnb. I had so many people canceling, and we had people canceling because of bad cleanings. Uh, so we had to work with our cleaning team to make sure they were doing spot checks on the cleans, um, things of that nature. And then we have the slow Houston units, and this was my first month. I took a huge loss. I was like, how do I, you know, how do I bounce back? But all this stuff, man, I just know it's mindset. You know, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna keep going. I'm gonna keep going. I'm reading this book called Relentless, and man, it's been helping me. He's like, you know, you got to find a way to push through no matter what, you know, you you can't be the you like basically, this is the dude, is it's written by Tim Grover. You know, Tim Grover is the guy who trained Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, and Dwayne Wade, the three best shooting guards of all time. And he said, It's it's all your mindset, bro. You you are enough, you're everything you need, you just have to unlock it. So basically, you know, I had to go through those struggles. And right now, I paid the price on the first, but I'm like, forget it, I gotta keep on going. Um, so yeah, man, I know what you mean, but those setbacks are nothing but learning lessons. That's all they are. Once you look at them like that as learning lessons, and you don't fall into oh man, I messed up. Just look at them as learning lessons and keep going.

SPEAKER_04 12:40

Yeah, definitely. Here's one thing we've learned too, and um and so like Feta

Get the money first, then fire the cleaner

SPEAKER_04 12:47

he he fires people sometimes, right? Like it's he sends an angry, angry message at them, kind of lets them go, and they things go a separate way, but he does it sometimes before we get our monies. Next time I told him we got to get our monies first, and then you can bitch him out all you want, man.

SPEAKER_02 13:02

Then you can find wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Okay, this is something you know. I was waiting for this time because I I hear Steve saying things about me. And it it is pretty cool, you know. As a business relationship, when when Steve mentions things that go in the in the company, I listen to a podcast, like, hmm, you know, I can't reply to him and say, hey man, listen. But it is good because it makes me think that and think about it, and maybe hey, he has a point, right? So so I actually that that that's pretty cool about listening to a podcast and listening to Steve the same things how how we're running the business. Now, one of the cleaners you asked me to fire her, and you're like, get rid of her, get rid of her. You know, the one that you saw the dog that are smoking, baby inside the apartment. Remember that one? Becky, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:47

Oh yeah, I mean, one cleaner that was.

SPEAKER_03 13:53

Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 13:55

And the other one, we just need a refund. We just need a refund, and she's not processing the refund. Yeah, you know, something, you know, going back to to to the recurrent topic cleaners, something we learned is happening, you know, has been happening often lately is that we start with a new crew and they go to the job and they do really well the first two times, and the third time they send another person that works for them, and they totally messed up the cleaning. And it happened twice in a row, man, in in one of the Houston houses that we have. The highest house, yeah. Yeah. Okay, three bed, three beds, two point five baths. You know, we we start with this new person, she did an amazing job. I mean, we sent someone to check after her twice, it was great. Third time, and uh we sent again someone to check uh after her, total disaster. We call a previous cleaner now, she did a great job the the times that we we worked with her, but what happened is that once she saw internal BNB we didn't have a check in the same day and she said, Okay, I'm gonna do it tomorrow, and we got a last minute book in. So we had to find someone last minute to book in. So we start we stopped working with her for the reason, right? So we needed someone, we called her back. She came twice, did a great job. The third time we got a guest that he asked for a refund as soon as he came in, I he sent pictures and it was bad. It was really bad. And she was like, Yeah, I'm gonna go tomorrow. She didn't she didn't go. And I gotta at that point I asked her for a refund. She was like, I don't know. And she didn't want she said, I didn't I don't want to work with you anymore. I was like, Yeah, I mean, don't worry, I'm not gonna call you back, but refund the the the last cleaning. I mean, I had to refund my guests. Uh, but no, never heard back.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Yeah, so now uh on your cleaning company, because yeah, one one thing I've learned, like when they go themselves and do it, the head cleaner, you know, they do a really good job, you know this. And then, like Steve said, the B team. Um what we did was we started working with the cleaning crew crew, right? The cleaning company. So what I said was I started working with the head cleaner, and we just said, Look, you know, how do we help you grow your business? You know what I'm saying? And we even talked to them about spot checks, and she said she would spot check it, you know, herself. I'm like, that's probably the perfect thing to do, you know. And then I started paying them $20 for every five-star cleaning. You know, if it's five star, here's a $20 tip, you know what I mean? And that might be the head cleaner's gas money to go spot check it, you know, whatever she can use it for. Uh, so we just started doing stuff like that. But yeah, those spot checks are very important. And then when you're interviewing the cleaning company, what I find is yeah, talk to them about their growth. Like, do you plan on growing this company? Is this a side hustle for you? You don't want the side hustle person, you want the person that you know is wanting to grow a company, and that's what I've found.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and another thing is yeah.

Test a cleaner on one property before assigning five

SPEAKER_02 16:43

Sorry, go ahead, go ahead, Save.

SPEAKER_04 16:44

No, go ahead, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 16:46

No, the the other thing is, you know, try them once, see how it goes, and then start assigning all the properties. Another mistake we did in the past is just you know, changing cleaning companies and you know, here's my business, here five units, go ahead, do them, and yeah, maybe you want to work with one team a couple of times in one property, and if they do well, start assigning different properties. Uh, because we we had this guy that you know, we did an interview. I remember I prepared, I was like, we were growing really, really well. I was like, I want to impress my my new clients. We were at eight properties at this time. We're taking number eight and nine. I was like, I want to impress these people, I want to make sure we do great. I interviewed this guy, and he had his company, and you know, the the the the the t-shirt with his logo, the company name, or whatever. And I asked him like 15-20 questions. I had prepared everything, he nailed it all. I was like, Man, this is gonna be great. And then he totally messed up and he was like, Well, I didn't thought you actually have this amount of properties, I I thought you were BS with me.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Yeah, I was like, Man, I told you I didn't I told you uh what so yeah, you know what I found is uh I suck at hiring. So with my VA company, the reason what attracted me to them, someone gave them to me. They're like, What this company does is they're they're a VA company, be meaning they have a bunch of VAs and they fire and hire them based upon their performance, and so you don't have to do it, you know, they'll go get the VA for you. So I've been I hired them on and they've been they started Wednesday or what's they yeah, they started no, they started Tuesday yesterday, and they've been doing a really good job so far. And if I have any problems, I just go to the head VA and the head VA talks to that VA. If that VA can't get it done, they replace the VA, which I'm like, damn, that's pretty cool. But this guy's been doing really good. Um, we've been communicating via Slack. Uh, he has access to the cleaners, access to Airbnb. Um, I'm gonna get him access to Guesty, but he's been doing pretty good. And one thing I will say about hiring VAs now that I, you know, the the last episode we interviewed Kent, right? And Kent said, Hey, I'm getting all my VA's processes, systems in place, so then I can hire one VA, then hire another one. That is the most powerful thing because I realized after I hired my VA team, my operations are very complex. And I was like, dude, I had to create so many training videos, training videos on Travelers Haven, training videos on Furnish Finder. But I got them all created, and the guy's catching on, you know, he's talking to the people on Furnish Finder, it was quick. I was like, I'm pretty happy about it so far. But yeah, I will tell people before you hire a VA, document everything you do in your business, create create a video on Loom or screencast, whatever, and always have that, you know, and create a propository and put it on. I put mine on Google Drive under training videos, and they just have access to everything. So that's my tip to people as well.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

Yeah, and and what I did, um I used Notion. I don't know, I don't know if you're familiar with that app. So Notion is like um it it combines all of these apps that are out there, Trello and Mondi.com and many of those. But it's it's built in my blogs, and what it has is that it takes a little bit more time to get started because it's too free for you to design whatever you want. But you can create different types of databases, you can embed all types of documents, videos, looms, everything, and you can create your custom website for your company, right? So it's amazing. What do you say is uh Notion Notion N-O-T-I-O-M. Um so basically here what you have is you open and you have you you have like a white page, right? And then you you do a slash and it's gonna you're gonna have a drop-down with all the options that you can you can create. You can create a title, like like a header, or you can create a database or a calendar, or you can create so many things, right? Um and from there I start building all that goes into the company. So you open that and you're gonna have you open Notion, you're gonna have like the landing page, and it's gonna be divided in different parts, and you have um policies and procedures, um you know the the SOPs, and you're gonna have lead generation. Um let me let me actually put it up and tell you exactly. But I mean, my my girls are impressed. They're like, this is how helpful because I have the videos, but I also have it explain step by step how to do specific things.

SPEAKER_03 21:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 21:21

They can put comments in there and we're all gonna see it. Um we have databases to follow up what's going on, for example, in in the properties, uh, regarding maintenance, supplies. Uh so everything that that that comes up is gonna be added there. Um man, it's so helpful.

SPEAKER_04 21:38

Here's what I love about the most the the girls, the girls love it and they're catching on to it real good. And whereas me, when I'm heading to a unit to go fix a lock or fix something that just something small that we don't need to send, like you know, we don't need a $500 handyman fee, um, or to go do something, whatever. Um I I sometimes I'll be in the truck and I'll be like, hey, can Send me the codes to get through the gate and the door real quick. And um and I'll but I'll put it out to the VAs and the VAs will go straight to Notion, right? And then they'll go and they'll they'll give me what I need to what I you know to enter the place or whatever it is. And so I really don't have to. I mean, it's good for me to. I'm familiar with it a little bit, you know. I could pull up some stuff on there. Actually, one of the VAs made a whole spreadsheet of all the properties for me with every single, you know, with all the instructions how to get in, how to do whatever, you know, the the gate codes, all that stuff, and um lockboxes. So that she made that, and and Feta just showed her with a few properties how to do it, and she took it from there. And also, what's what's really cool, I I told a VA, you know, hey, could you put you know, I made a loom on how to um go to these portals of these apartment apartments and then submit like maintenance requests, right? And so I made a loom how to do that and put it on there. So now they know how to do it, anyways. I just thought of something the other day because like I had to there was a couple of units that I that needed some stuff, you know, getting some maintenance. And so I I told them, could you could you put in the the maintenance request there? And I said, Oh, you know what also helps is when we send an email to Cecilia, you know, the manager there. I've always done that. I just forgot to put it in the loom. I said, Hey, new procedure, please email this email and say, Hey, we've put in work requests for these two units, whatever, and then thank you, whatever, and send the email. And so I sent that to um, I guess one of our one of our VAs that was working in the morning, and she went ahead and put that in Notion that it's a new procedure on one. So she she was able to, I didn't have to go to Notion, Fed didn't have to go to Notion. Now the VAs know how to put something in that we want them to use over and over again. And then I asked the other VA later if the if you know they put in the request, and she goes, Yeah, and and the follow-up email because because um the previous VA told told her or put it in Notion that that's how we do. We we follow up with an email. I was like, Oh, cool, man. I just throw it out there. Automated VAs the VAs can tackle it now. It's so freaking cool.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

Man, how much are you paying these VAs? Um five dollars an hour?

SPEAKER_02 24:06

It's been five and eight.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

Five and eight, okay.

SPEAKER_02 24:09

Yeah, but it's worth it's definitely it's worth it.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

Yeah, if it's worth it, yeah, you get what you pay for.

SPEAKER_02 24:14

So I mean that's really oh that that that that's a lesson, man. That's a lesson. It's like you you get what you the the value on people is is is incredible. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

How are y'all like how are y'all communicating with your VAs? WhatsApp, what's up?

SPEAKER_02 24:31

Okay, yeah, and that that's

WhatsApp for the team, Slack as the database

SPEAKER_02 24:33

the other thing that I remember Steve mentioned in the podcast, like he loves he loves Zach and he uses Zach and he he loves using Zach. But he's using it with a different reason. He's using it, he was using it as a database, and that's why I was going crazy with Zach. It's like he was not using okay. Uh I don't want to bring we have a phrase here in Argentina in Argentina's like I don't want to bring you know personal things into podcasts, of course, right? But it that was not funny. It's like he was like, Yeah, I love Zach, I love Zach, and is it but but still you're using it for database for database, it's easy. Yeah, but if you put something there, you can scroll up and go back to see what's the latest version of something.

SPEAKER_04 25:12

Um but here's something you told me to put things in Slack. This was your idea, and I fell in love with it.

SPEAKER_02 25:18

Oh, this is cool, it was my fault.

SPEAKER_04 25:19

And then I don't use it probably like Micah uses it. Micah uses it to communicate to everybody this and we use WhatsApp like Slack, yeah. Yeah, so it's to me, it's a database, it's a place I dump everything, you know, receipts to whatever, and and payments to clean what cleaners, whatever. I dump it all in Slack, and then um I just it just has it easily accessible in one place, but now we're um uh FedEx goes crazy with that. What's that?

SPEAKER_02 25:46

Yeah, no, but it was my fault. Um the thing is that we needed a place I I want to make things easy for everyone, right? Especially for Steve because he's driving, he's he's going around, and and for me, it's like okay, I try to automate as much as I can. And today, nowadays, you know, before you need to know how to code things. Now you have so many no-code apps, Jot forms, Notion, and all of these apps where you can set up systems to run automatically. And I know Steve is you know, he's on the run, and I want to make things that he can, you know, make two clicks and get information. So that that's that's the thing, is like trying to find that perfect thing where if he's paying for something, he can take the picture, upload it really quick. Um, but yeah, I mean, Notion is powerful, WhatsApp is powerful.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

See the reason why I like Slack is because you can literally do everything in there. Like, I mean, like your VA's, like, okay, if there's a loud noise, a loud party noise going off, you can connect Slack to your minute system, and your minute system tells the VA, and then your VA already knows, and then everybody in the group knows, the cleaner knows, the VA knows, and then like let's say on your cameras, right? If something's going on, someone's lingering or some extra people coming into the camera, you can connect it to like irritable, irritable to collect it to your Slack, and then everybody that's the only thing I love about Slack. I'm like, you can connect this shit to anything, you know. It's like you can everybody'll know. So that's my thing I love about Slack, man. I I love Slack, man. That's what I've been using to communicate, and it's been working pretty well. And then, like, remember how I was telling you the company, the VA I'm using, he comes into my Slack, but his manager's always also there, too. So his manager's in the Slack chat with him, so it's been pretty cool. That's cool.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Yeah, my my only thing with with Slack and other apps, the only challenge that I found. This is the only challenge, really. It's getting people on board that are not from your team, getting cleaners on board, getting you know, owners sometimes we we for the management that we do, just getting on getting them on board in WhatsApp sometimes is a challenge because they don't want to use some. Yeah, there's there's some owners, so some of the people we manage for that they they don't use WhatsApp, they know what it is. It's like, oh, another app to communicate, and you know, there's some resistance in there. It happens with that, it happens with the cleaners. Some cleaners is like, no, we use Telegram, you know, um, we just put it as a condition now. It's like you gotta get a WhatsApp, and that's it, that's where we communicate. Uh, but uh adding another app, you know, it's just it keeps adding and adding and adding yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:14

Once you learn how to automate one communication app, then do go for it, you know. And then yeah, you do gotta I I I I let them know, like, hey, this is our company policy. We use Slack or we use WhatsApp to communicate, you know, because that communication thing is one thing that's like even my team in Arkansas. I'm still once since I just got my VA on, I still have to get them fully onto Slack because what they do is they text or email me, text or call me. So I'm like, uh, I gotta start moving that over to Slack so that my guy can handle it, you know. Yeah, and then those SOPs are important. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 28:46

Yeah, that that that's another challenge when you have different properties with a different operation and you have different policies and different uh you know SOPs for different places, and just try to have something that that's something I think about all the time. It's like I cannot have so many exceptions for so many properties.

Writing SOPs that work for houses and apartments

SPEAKER_02 29:05

Yeah, we have to try to run things on a way for I some small things, but you know, it it's some things come out out of intuition because you said, I don't know, for example, yeah, you can offer the the the the the one extra night if they want to lay check out, tell them to to block an additional night for this much, you know, like a like a special deal, we're gonna give you an extra night so you can check it later and we're gonna give you a discount. And you think, yeah, and yeah, it's just gonna, I don't know, 30 bucks off. And then you think, yeah, but we have houses, right? And it's not the same. So uh, and then you you start thinking, it's like, okay, how do I bra how do I write down a system, an SOP that is applicable for all of my properties? And I think that's a challenge, that's something that you need to sit down and think about. It's like, okay, whenever you write down a policy, is it applicable for every place that I run for all the teams on the cruise that I have?

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Oh, that's a good question. And you know why I say that? Because I have houses and apartments. So basically, I have a spreadsheet of houses and a spreadsheet of an apartments. And what I did though, to make it easier, like I said, what amenities are what at what apartment, like at what house, like all my the apartments are usually have the same amenities, a gym, a pool, whatever. But the houses, some have backyards, some don't, you know. So you got to kind of start, you know, uh breaking it down. And one thing is having like a property spreadsheet is really important. Like, hey, this property has this, this, and this. That's a huge thing on that, that is for sure.

SPEAKER_02 30:30

And I have I have the property DNA, there is an idea that I get from get paid for your pad. Uh, they mentioned that. I thought it was a great idea. It's like property DNA. So I created that. Uh, because here's a struggle. You know, you know, I'm in Argentina, I'm not in the properties. I I also explained that to Steve. And for anyone out there that's looking to hire someone, one of the most frustrating parts from being remote and never been to a property is when you get a question that is stupid, but you don't know the answer. Especially if you are especially if you're answering on behalf of the owner, because it looks like the owner never been to the property, right? I remember one day was super stressful. They asked me, what is the switch for the uh uh garbage disposal? That little thing, it freaked me out because I don't know the answer. And I don't want to bother on a Friday night the owner, right? So for your BAs out there, seriously, is like try to give them you know all the videos that you can. I always just tell Steve whenever he goes to properties like you have to make a video of every single corner. I don't care if it's a white corner, just go make a bit of that so I know that there's nothing in there, right? Uh so what I did in this property DNA is like I I broke it down in different sections, but for example, thermostat I look in the thermostat, I uploaded a picture and I look for the user guide online, I put it there, I look for videos on YouTube and how to troubleshoot it, and I put it in there. So basically, they know how to how everything looks and how to troubleshoot every single single appliance and thing you have in the house. And that's it. So the information is there, but you have to take the time to sit down and write that down. Again, things may be logical and things may come up, you know, it's like, yeah, this is obvious, but again, for someone that's never been to the house or the property, it can be really frustrated.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

Man, that is the quote of the year when somebody asks a stupid question and you don't have the answer.

SPEAKER_04 32:26

There are some yeah, very stupid questions, uninformed. Um I guess a lot of places are used to uh, you know, people that are still used to hotels, they pick up the phone. Hey, how do you do this? You know, how does the remote work? Where's the batteries to the remote? Because you know, some hotels are like that. Um, what what I I what I'd like to get into a little bit is the the other day we had like a I don't know, it was uh it was an eye open eye-opening thing we went through. It was like a silicon valley uh interview.

SPEAKER_01 32:58

Oh my oh yeah, I wanted to talk about that.

SPEAKER_04 33:02

And um so yeah, we had uh, you know, so uh someone introduced us to these guys, the Silicon Valley guys, a friend of all of ours, you know, and they wanted we said they said, Well, they're looking for they're building out this thing, and they're gonna need a management company to come along and either work internally in the company or externally, you know, a partnership, whatever. Um, so uh we suggested you guys because y'all are you know, y'all are great. We're like, Oh, thank you for that. And so we did a Zoom call with these Silicon Valley guys over over there in Silicon Valley, and uh, we're like, okay, so they're gonna we figure they're gonna ask us about our company, you know, how do we run things? How do we run a property? You know, what do we do if if stuff happens? Do we have you know handyman? And we we thought it was it was gonna be that type of interview, right? So, you know, the formalities, introductions, how you doing, you know, so and so said great things about you. Okay, so here we go. All right, so what do you say? Uh, so how do you how do y'all uh assess the numbers to find to find the perfect property and the perfect city and this and that? And how do you you know just that questions like that? What is your lead time for properties? Uh, what are your project projections? What are you? I mean, he just asking all every all of it was data, all they cared about was data. They didn't ask us one thing about you know what happens if a party breaks out or some shit like that. They didn't care about anything like that. They just wanted to know how we got our data and what kind of numbers are we are we doing, and what kind of kind of numbers can we do for them if they give us you know 50 properties tomorrow. I mean, that's all they cared about. Nothing to do with with management, just hey, can you make our money grow? How can we know? What do your numbers say? How do you know where a great spot to invest is and what city and this and that? And we were like, I mean, they were talking a different different language, man. It was just it was just this high-paced, you know, picking us apart, man. I was like, holy crap! No, we were answering the best we could, you know. A lot of them were just you know, it's like I said, we were answering as best we could. We weren't prepared for that kind of interview at all, right?

SPEAKER_02 34:57

Yeah, we didn't know what to expect as well on the call because we thought it would be more of like, hey, I have this property to to to hand you over how you how you you will manage it.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

Money talks bullshit walks. That's what I think they were calling, man. Hey, see, but there was one question they asked you, and I was like, that is the best question I have heard in a while, and I think that is a question that is going to be the future of STRs. Do you remember what question that was, Steve?

SPEAKER_04 35:26

I do remember. You can go ahead and you can go ahead and say it.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

Yeah, they asked them, I think you said how many rentals can can Dallas sustain if can Dallas sustain 50 more rentals?

SPEAKER_04 35:37

Yeah, if we were giving you money to start 50 50 arbitrage or whatever, it goes, what kind of numbers could you give us? What kind of numbers could you promise us? All that stuff. He goes, but even you know, could Dallas sustain 50 50 new Airbnbs in the city? And um, that was a great question. Like, we didn't have the answer to that. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 36:01

That's a good question. Because we gotta start knowing shit like that, you know.

Can Dallas sustain 50 more Airbnbs?

SPEAKER_01 36:05

Because right, I've heard people say when 10% of the rentals in your city become strs, it's become gonna become saturated. Um, that could be it too, you know. Uh, because what I what I noticed, um, I'm gonna use the Houston market, for example. Um, I think I think we I don't know if we've talked about this on the cast, but the guy basically this dude in Houston was charging 85 a night for a three-bed, two-bath house, right? And people were pissed at him. They're like, well, why is he doing that? He's watering down the market. Houston's super slow. If you go to Houston, I think it's like over a thousand listings just in the medical district, like one bedroom, one bath, which tells me, okay, the problem with Houston is one, they don't have regulations. So anybody can get in. Okay, that's fine. Now you have, but you have everybody getting in, right? So you have these listings where people they can't make money, so they'll rent out a one-bedroom, one bath apartment for 40, 30, 35, 40 bucks a night. You know, you're running a cheap Motel 6, you know, cheaper than Motel 6 operation. So people are getting mad because this dude's listing his huge ass house for like $85 a night, and but he has a huge ass cleaning fleet. Now he he did have a cleaning business, which he makes money off of too. But I was telling people, I'm like, and one lady got on and said, Yeah, he buys all his properties, he he he gets his properties creatively. I'm like, this is what I said a long time ago. I think we said this probably in the episode, probably before we even hit episode 100. I said, real estate in America is gonna get dangerous when real estate investors start getting into short-term rentals. Because remember, arbitraging, you ain't really investing in real estate. You're investing in cash. You're you're investing in a cat cash on cash return. So when you start getting people doing bird strategies where they're, you know, their mortgage is really low and they can price their property at $85 a night and still make spread. See, everyone, that's when it gets dangerous because now your one-bedroom, one-bath apartment ain't that attractive to the three-bedroom, two-bath house. And a lot of people think he's losing money, but I'm like, that's where the problem is. There's a disconnect in your knowledge of real estate. People have to start getting back into knowing real estate. Go listen to your bigger pockets, understand real estate, understand how it works. Because remember, if you're paying premium rent on, because what's yeah, for as long as America's been around, why what's the best reason to buy a house than keep renting? Because I can eventually get my mortgage to come down, and then therefore my mortgage is as much as your apartment rent, you know, my mortgage payment. So I don't think that's what's happening in Houston right now. I think it's just a it's it might be a better market to buy properties in using the bird strategy or whatever creative strategy you want to use, and you can make a little bit more money, and you know, you can wash out the one bed, one bath over saturated people. But that's how I looked at it.

SPEAKER_02 38:59

Yeah, and it it in Houston is getting tough. There's something about markets that um I mean, I I'm I haven't studied economics, I'm not a genius on that or anything, but there's something that there's cycles, you know, there are cycles. And and I think when when when when a market gets saturated, some people are gonna jump out of the market, and that's another good point to be there. Uh and I was you know, we come from the airline industry, and I always remember when there was a flight. Um you know, they suddenly there were two flights between Iceland and northern Texas, right? To to to to the F D FW. So the the the the big carrier over there say, okay, if you're putting two flights, I'm putting another flight, and no, they're running on on a loose, uh, they will lose the money. But those two other airlines were out of the market in the next year. So, you know, you're pushing people out of your market. I I do think that that that's something's gonna happen after the slow months. I I think there's like gonna a lot of people are gonna drop off of the market because it's just it's unsustainable. I was running, you know, I was running numbers on uh the price of uh dashboards. It's like man, I mean we did good, we did better than the rest of the people, and we still did not not uh not not great. So that was a little frustrating because you compare and you say, Okay, we didn't we didn't do bad, but it's not what we're looking for, it's not what we're expecting.

SPEAKER_01 40:17

Yeah, I'm I'm considering pulling out of the Houston market too. It's one of those addition by subtraction, uh addition by subtraction type moves, you know what I mean? It's like okay, this unit, you know, and then plus some, and then you get the issue now where you just have shitty property management, they don't want to do stuff when you do the maintenance requests, you know.

Addition by subtraction - pulling out of slow Houston

SPEAKER_01 40:37

So it's like, is this really where I want to be? So that's another thing to consider because I'm I'm thinking about pulling out of the Houston market myself.

SPEAKER_02 40:45

We got um a microwave handle broken for a month already, and we put them the work order, I don't know how many times.

SPEAKER_01 40:53

Yeah, dude, it's it's crazy down there because like, but I the only reason I'm sticking right now, it's funny. We were just on here, and somebody just booked one of my places in Houston for a month. But the re the crazy part about the reason why I'm in Houston, and I'm kind of like, maybe I should just hold on. It's so many people selling their furniture in Houston and getting rid of places. I'm like, maybe it helps with the saturation if they quit, you know. Only the strong survive. I think I think what's Steve's favorite quote. Uh what is it, the rising tide ship? What is your your favorite quote about the rising?

SPEAKER_04 41:25

Yeah, the rising tide lifts all ships.

SPEAKER_01 41:28

Yeah, you know, and some ships, man, they're already underwater, man.

SPEAKER_02 41:32

I think they're done wrecked, man.

SPEAKER_01 41:34

Yeah, they're over with.

SPEAKER_02 41:35

So yeah, and that's that that that was my point. I mean, uh at some there's gotta be a point where you know it's unsustainable for people, it's just it's doesn't make sense. So if you're gonna hold on and you know, just I'm not saying break in even, I mean, just making a little bit of profit in this some months, and then when the summer comes, uh I mean, it's like you know, a lot of people are gonna die during the winter with those properties. It's just it's it is how it is, and that that's what we're expecting in in even in Dallas in the properties that we are. Because I mean, talking about stories, uh I mean, we picked some properties that are really bad in the buildings where we're in, right? So I don't know if if I can change the subject into that a little bit, uh, because that was a big learning lesson. You know, most of the management that we picked up is uh you know mouth to mouth, which is very strong because people, you know, uh organized.

SPEAKER_04 42:28

Word of mouth, word of mouth. Word of mouth, sorry. Yeah, mouth to mouth is uh could be.

SPEAKER_02 42:35

Sorry guys, you know, you know, you know, English is not my first language, I apologize. I I think I think things in Spanish, so in Spanish is mouth to mouth, it's boca boca.

SPEAKER_04 42:47

Um isn't that mouth to mouse though.

SPEAKER_02 42:55

How do you rate this podcast?

SPEAKER_04 42:58

Warning, parental advisory.

SPEAKER_02 43:00

Yeah, so anyways, um our clients have been you know word to mouth because people are not happy with the with the service we're provided. Now, I I I was looking in into the market where we are, and I was looking to you know, the neighboring properties I could, you know, you can tell who's in the same building you are. And I found this, you know, I found these listings, you know, what some of the some of the saddest listings I've seen. You know, the worst pictures ever, no description, shit rates. It was all bad. They're in the same in the same building. And this this was my thought. We get our guests are complaining about the neighbors we're getting. Probably those neighbors are coming from them because they're mismanaging and they're getting they're letting anyone in. So I I texted and I say, listen, if you need any help, let us know. I mean, you know, this is how you can find us. Uh let's see what you got. We did a few calls, they had nine properties, and they were man, I don't know how they were putting people in there. Like the worst of the worst. You know, it was really bad. the properties had big maintenance issues. Big, like I'm not telling you, you know, like like small thing, like something was beeping in the kitchen. We're talking about mold and things broken, like a cabinet door missing, things like that. It's like how how are you putting people in there? Uh so yeah and you know we're we're we're helping and we weren't trying to to make them work but a bit we're gonna pull out of those. Now I'm thinking what happened if we if we would have let them just try to keep running them they will fail and we would have been able to pick those properties for ourselves. And that would have been another option.

SPEAKER_01 44:37

That brings me to two things one whenever you're doing a search you we probably need to go for higher rated properties on Google. So if you go a Google search yeah because I'm in a property man they're like a 2.8 or a three on Google but we've been keeping them full but you know people do complain one lady got her carburetor I mean her uh you basically got her carburetor stole off her car another person got their whole car stolen it was like oh shit man you know it's like damn you know and this is a part of Dallas that used to be like known for being prominent but um yeah that that review rating on Google's very helpful because then you see what people are actually typing and saying like we looked at the reviews on this apartment man people just dog this apartment out like management sucks shit all in the hallway like they're going off on Google about this apartment so that is one thing to look at is look at the Google reviews. Yeah the Google reviews are are very heavy and another

Syndication and first right of refusal in apartment deals

SPEAKER_01 45:36

thing is when we are going to these apartments man two things first right to refusal is important make sure hey nobody else can operate here and the second thing is we got to learn how to uh syndicate man and I know me and Steve have been talking about it we've been shooting apartments back and forth to each other yeah that syndication piece is huge because then you automatically have the first right to refusal somebody coming Airbnb and you kick them out and we you know you keep the business going and it's your management company in it. So and I said that's I think that's the future of short term rentals is having that that owning but having control is starting to come to an end it's going back to owning and having control.

SPEAKER_04 46:18

Yeah so you know you know um speaking of I and I was thinking about this you know I was like man you know after after Thanksgiving or you know Halloween Thanksgiving Christmas yeah great holidays right it's wonderful good profits and all that stuff in the Airbnbs and um and then January comes and it's bleak it's cold not a lot of people traveling you know it's a little bit down had Omicron in the first weeks omicrons all that now people are forgetting about the first yeah yeah is it we're done with all that anyways I'm I'm starting to I'm starting to love January the best my favorite month and this is why because it's always been the best month to go house shopping right there's houses that have been sitting you know in the spring and summer they're gone in one day right the 30 30 you know five contracts on them right now I've seen them sitting there and I've actually seen a few price drops going on so our real estate's always been a great time is January right even leading into January but arbitrage hunting to hunting arbitrages right now no one was no one's moving right now right because they're they're not gonna wait till till the school year's over to move and so like I said I picked up two Grand Prairie arbitrages and right down from the stadiums and great locations big houses and um at a decent price and so I'm like man this is um if you're gonna if you're gonna save your you know a nice chunk of money for any month I would save it for January because that's the time to go you know either house shopping or arbitrage hunting man it's it's and that's that's when we got a few last year last year we got a a few of those in January as well January February.

SPEAKER_02 47:58

Because no one's out looking for houses right now or no one's out looking for um for to rent to move you know and so it's it's a great time to pick up some arbitrages you know and it's funny you mentioned that because you know what one of one of the properties you you just picked up in in Grand Prairie I was looking at the Cilo uh ad today and there were two things that they're gonna attention first is is that it was advertised like two days ago so you picked it really quick and the other thing is that the pictures because it's winter I was looking at the b but at the at the backyard and you know at the front yard and it's like hey that looks depressing.

SPEAKER_01 48:31

But yeah it's winter they took the pictures a week ago but in summer and spring it's gonna be beautiful with the green grass and you know the the all the the trees blossoming so that that's gonna be a killer but if you look at the pictures now taken in February in in January it's like yeah not that beautiful yeah that January that's a good plug man just good time to pick up arbitrage that is a really good plug yeah you can't beat that as long as you can get that good rent price because that that's because that's really the biggest thing about arbitrage and the rent your your rent is controls basically your margin you know what I mean that rent price control is the margin so yeah for sure we have a few people pulling out of some of the the the properties we're managing because the rent is going up like really high on so we've got to oh that was another question man um me and my partner Mike were talking about that like you know these rent prices are going up like on these lease renewals now the good thing about having a you know a management comp or an apartment complex who's very low rated on Google I'm not sure how much they'll they're comfortable raising the rent if they're struggling with vacancy because I see those emails that my like the apartment complex I'm at they're actually offering hey we'll give you a referral if you get some more people in to stay and I actually called them I was like hey are you guys doing any more corporate leases and they said they aren't doing them at the time I wasn't going to pick up any more but I was just gonna be like hey we'd appreciate it if you guys don't and you know so I was like already I'm glad they said no but yeah uh that maybe they don't go up on rent because I have another friend he's in a really like one of those skyries building man his rent went up 200 and my cousin's rent up in Frisco went up like 500.

SPEAKER_04 50:15

So yeah that see that's why it's like it's it keeps pointing to man you got to have like some sort of equity play in there you know yeah it helps it helps and and we're and we're doing and we're doing that our our whole goal is to use the arbitrages and the and the management to use that those profits to buy to buy properties. Yeah yeah I think that could be I think it could work together you know we don't have to say oh everything we're gonna run is only what we buy we'll grow super slow I would think but if we use that money and you know and invest it into properties and then we build equity that way and turn those into Airbnbs and just yeah it just could keeps feeding on itself.

SPEAKER_01 50:53

Yeah I use both I use the arbitrage money well I kind of use it as leverage because I don't want to go buy because a lot of people even the people I know who who are kind of using both they're like taking the huge profits of 20 and then putting it down and I'm like you're gonna grow just as slow on the buying side

Use arbitrage cash as leverage, not down payments

SPEAKER_01 51:13

doing that. So that's I was like I'll use it as leverage right so you have that heavy cash flow coming in you keep that heavy cash flow and then you can like use hard money and take bits and pieces of it then go get your money and just make it a revolving circle because that's been the issue I've been seeing as well so yeah you definitely want to do both use arbitrage I tell people use arbitrage to get off your nine to five if you can that that that's the point because and that's the other thing you know some people say only do management only do arbitrage uh and we're doing both and the operation is the same but uh the the goal is the the the the ultimate goal is always gonna be buying properties I mean when we first started Steve Steve told told me it's like man we're gonna do this it's gonna be fun we're gonna grow we're gonna make money but the goal is to buy property have equity and because that that's the thing is you know it's like you close down a a property and what what you're left is with the appreciated furniture you know good news good news Federico um we got our white girl what oh the picture oh you got your picture you know it was funny because um we managed for somebody right pretty little pretty little blondie uh yeah she's a real cool girl uh we managed a couple uh about four of her units right and it's it's funny because I it we're co-hosts on there so it's it's still her picture still her pretty pretty white girl picture and um so we've had units have troubles before with no hot water shit like that you know stuff you we can't really fix right away because the complex has to fix it anyways this one dude was staying at her at her her place and he thinks he's talking to Rachel right or whoever that girl we're managing is I'm bad at that's you but she's cool anyways he's okay where he said Rachel whatever and he's like hey hey Rachel you know um you know it's been a few days now still no hot water but you know it's no big deal you know it's actually the the the cold showers are refreshing and and my pants are fitting better now too and like I'm like man he thinks he's dealing with this pretty white girl right if he if it was one of our pictures no listen motherfuckers you better come and I'm so feta dude we gotta change our profile picture let's talk to Rachel see if we can borrow one of her pictures yeah let's tell people this power in their profile picture like that came up in another a group someone asked uh a logo or your picture you know everyone who said uh use your own picture you know who they look like uh you know other people you know you know the demographic of who they are you know other people they're like me I was like man it depends on uh what type of guest you want and also where your property's located that'll that'll tell you what kind of picture you put up so you know I'm for real like if you want a certain type of guest that picture helps you get a certain type of guest it really does like people because when we first started this podcast me and Steve were experimenting with that tough I remember Steve put a picture up of him and his family then he noticed he was getting all Mexican guests I put a picture of me and my family we're getting all black guests and we did the uh we did the logos everybody was coming then we did the white girls everybody was coming and then we're I'm for real we did it we tested this shit this ain't shit we're making up yeah I remember the episodes that's long as that was before I guess I got started in all of these I remember those episodes uh that's fun yeah so I mean you know people I mean it's just I guess if you don't know you might sometimes people live in a jaded world they just know don't know certain shit you know I'm like that profile picture has a shit it has a it has a lot of everyone is biased I mean you want it or not it's just part of human nature it's it's just it is what it is if if uh yeah if a minority goes missing in this country ain't nobody gonna say nothing if a white girl goes missing you gotta be see on CNN Fox News MSNBC all the channels gonna be looking for the white girl it's just how it is man's called amber alert you know what the hell that is no but yeah it it's power in that profile

Profile pictures and implicit bias in bookings

SPEAKER_01 55:28

picture you know um I've even man I'm gonna try to get my guy Mike uh not that Mike a different mic on man he he has a funny way of getting certain guests like he he he has a property in the hood and he was like um he changed his profile picture to himself so then he's like I hope they know what they're expecting and he got better guests and you know that area man setting the expectation is so important yeah because you know going back to those properties we have in Dallas in in in uh lower greenville you know the area I mean it's great for young people is great but if you are not from from from that target you're not gonna have a good time if you are you know a an all-married couple you're definitely not gonna have a good time if you're a young young couple you're gonna love it and that's what we're experiencing so we were actually we we we were working on and I developed something uh that we need to find a finally implement but I have the count and everything and it's having a like a second brand that Steve can't came with the name what's the name Steve Jeanne Jeanne is kind of saying that J E U N E Jean youthful it means youthful in French yeah I was like okay you we need to let people know that what we want here is young people people because that that's that's one one lesson that I got from 2021 it's like you want to get every every booking you want to get every booking because you want to make sure you're making money you're getting profits and you're having a high higher keepability and that's gonna get you in trouble for two things because you're gonna get guests that are not a good fit for your property and that's gonna end up with a bad review or refund the state or whatever it is right and then sometimes because you don't want to put too many barriers into them getting you know going through the book in you know like security deposit and uh refund the ID and those kind of things just because you want to get the book in you end up with bad guests.

SPEAKER_02 57:31

So I think I I think those those are two big things I learned 2021 it's like okay no not all guests are going to be suitable for your place and sometimes it's just better to say no or to avoid some guests.

SPEAKER_01 57:41

And another thing is man I want to say this but then you can try to write it all in the listing but you know it it doesn't always work but try to write as much as you can in that list and description yeah and get direct bookings as much as you can turn left at the threat at the third crackhead and then at the meth lab take a right and there you are just just hop the fence and you're in I I I did that uh something like you know this is an up and coming area uh and even you know mentioned like there are homeless people around the area it's never been an as a safety issue for any of our guests you tell them it's homeless people over there I put it in this in this description we never had another complaint oh really yeah I mean that that that's in the they're in the area and that I'm not gonna lie I mean they're in the area I mean it's a safe area they're not a not not a threat or not a safety issue but they're they're in the area because you gotta you what is it the thing about homeless people that doesn't bother me that bothers

Homeless people in the area - put it in the description

SPEAKER_01 58:41

some people I'm gonna tell you a story that was just so weird to me I just didn't really notice it I was working this job this contract job and uh we had all gone out to lunch right and the guy was looking for a place to park and we were trying we were going to uh Buffalo Wild Wings or Pluckers Buffalo Wild Wings I think and like he found this parking spot and I was in the front seat he was in the front seat and we had two more coworkers in the back and I got out the car and started walking up but I guess it was this homeless dude over there I had seen him but bothered me it was a homeless guy he's just sleeping on the this guy walked all the way around the car to my side and walked in this way he's like yeah it's a homeless guy over there I'm like what is he about to do fucking mug you in the middle of the day like in front of pucker in front of the the wow wings like but some people have but that just tells you it's certain demographics that just ain't comfortable with that is a demographic thing.

SPEAKER_02 59:34

I'm like what are you gonna do mug us 12 o'clock bro he's about to hop out of his sleeping bag hey give me your shit I'm just saying like stuff like that don't bother me but it's it's certain demographics that shit bothers you know but that's cool it's better to have them skip for and you know look for another property so what what I did and this was something pretty cool I work on the description and what I did is like uh I put a few of those things it's like this is what you want you want you're gonna expect these young for for example this this property is like this is gonna be young people in the in the in the in the the property on the weekends you may experience some noise let them know that may happen and again just let them know for most of our guests it's never been an issue except for the homeless um and then I put another thing that's pretty cool I added a I at at the bottom right at the end of the description I put deals and discounts um I explained like we have uh midweek specials and we have uh long stay discount as well inquire since you get to this point and you read all the details we'd love to host you mention this word and I put like a secret word and you're gonna get a $15 off your first night. And then people like that. So people are coming you know they're they're sending a book request or they're sending inquiry it's like and they send the word and I say how it works and we say okay after when you check in we're gonna refund 15 bucks from your stay and it's been working pepperoni pizza yeah I put you you I I put that I put you need to mention pepperoni pizza and we're gonna get you an idea is going to it's funny you know it creates like it it it automatically creates an engagement with the with the with the possible guests or the of all the people have mentioned pepperoni pizza what's the percentage that have left five star reviews I haven't checked that's a good question but I'll say all of them because they're all being super friendly and and you know and that that's the type of guest you want to have I mean sometimes I mean you want someone that's reading what you're putting in out there so yeah that's a fact man it is that is a pretty cool little little hack right there.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:48

Pepperoni puts whatever your your secret word is put away at the bottom right so they have to read everything to get to it and then they'll ask for a discount at the end you know oh by the way pepperoni pizza me I'm me when I see the message coming across I'm like fuck they got us for 15 bucks that's that's also a great way to know if they're reading yeah they read everything I like that that's a great way to know if they're reading yeah and I have it only on a few on not not not in all of them because I've been testing it out but I think we need to roll roll that out to every property.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:19

He's beta testing it right is that what they call it yeah yeah that's nice I like that that's a good idea man so y'all are really growing this year man y'all and got up to what almost 50 units and man around 50 now how many are you managing and how many are you arbitraging yourselves I don't have the numbers at the top of my head like weekly but I can tell you like I'll I'll say 20 is uh arbitrage on the rest is yeah now which do y'all like better to be honest to be 100% honest for me it's almost the same the only difference I even I'll say even more I put more energy in the properties we manage for the people than I put in the ones that we arbitrage because I really want our clients to do great so that that that's a fact but but it's it's the same I mean it's just you know having manage for the people is a big pressure to make sure you are performing so they're not losing money. Or they're my or uh even more they're making the most out of the property. That's what you want I mean that that's the actual the objective they're making the most out of the property and of course they're not losing money.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:34

And especially like i i I've been really stressed the last past few weeks well you know when when a property is underperforming when you're managing for someone it's it's it's really stressing because you know your client he he has an expectation uh and you know probably they have one property they're not very involved in the SDR world they should do this an investment I want to see their returns as like hey man this is your profit for the month and I know this is not what you're expecting to have every month this is what happened but you know if I I I feel like I'm I'm I'm excuse myself because I was sure like Houston right I was saying I I sent him the email today actually this morning I was like this is how the market's looking did we do better than the market did

Showing clients the three-month chart when one month dips

SPEAKER_04 1:04:17

yes we did did we do everything we could during this month yes we did this is a result you know something that just crossed my mind right now uh Fede with with um because when it is stressful when we do have a bad month for a client but there's some months that they just totally kill it right and they make like two thousand three thousand in profit and so that's what you know you know when when you look at the stock market on Google you know you google SP 500 or whatever the stock market and then you see like you whatever week that you're in and you see it just dip down it's depressing to look at or you see and you pull it back okay the month was down but you pull back a little bit okay you know three months was right here five months is here you know the last 10 years it's like this you know if we could do something like that for our clients you know okay yeah here's your monthly projection this is what this is you know compared to what you're paying out what you made and and then then make it where was this is where the last three months and and so they can see like they're actually doing good overall for the past year it's been going like this yes they had like but so that wouldn't make the look that wouldn't make the month look that much of a dip you know I'm saying if we could show them something like that that would be oh definitely and I mean at the end of the day we're working on the hospital on the troll industry and this is seasonal right again I have years of experience in the airline industry it's kind of the same you know there are gonna be seasons where you're gonna be making more money higher occupancy higher rates and then you have the low seasons.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:43

So I know and that that's for sure. It's just you know that pressure that you we know we know that and we understand that but you know the people who are just doing this for an investment may not fully understand that. And and that that's the only thing. Um At the end of the day, you know, it's it's about it. It's like it's uh demand and the how we did, we did great uh for what the market was offering. Um yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:12

Yeah, yeah. I just thought that would be um a cool thing that we could show him, you know. Overall, for the past year, you kicked a lot of ass, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:19

Especially uh you know that that that's that's one thing we we talk with Steve all the time, especially when we have a new client uh Sum call, you know, from boarding. Because you had the first call and they're like, Yeah, we set it up, uh, this is how much I invested, and uh I I'm expecting to recover my my my my investment in five months because I'm expecting to make a thousand dollars a month since the first month. And that's because uh and that's something that that you know is something we we are all sinners of doing this. Like we we of course in social media and and YouTube and all the groups and everyone, you're gonna show your profits and and all the great things. But the truth is that some properties are gonna take longer to make a thousand dollars a month, especially if it's a one-bed, one bath, right? So people are coming, you know, they're coming new to the market and they're coming with the these expectations, high expectations on how much they want to make, and you need to bring them down to earth and say, Okay, this is this is how it's gonna work. It's gonna take a while to pick up. You know, it's like for example, a house, when you put it in out in the market, you're not you're not gonna get a last-minute booking for a large house because people who travel to a house book far in advance, and if you want to put a house at a low rate to get a book last minute, you're gonna get bad guests.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:34

So speaking of that, we almost got sniped for WrestleMania for one of our houses.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:40

Uh I had to step in and

WrestleMania April 1-4 in Arlington - load up your prices

SPEAKER_01 1:07:43

say, Don't accept that bookie. Where's WrestleMania? When's WrestleMania? Here's here in Arlington.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:50

It's been like seven, eight years ago when it came back. When it came here, too. Yeah, first to three. Yeah, because first to the fourth.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:58

I remember last very blatantly the last time WrestleMania, it has been like seven or eight years.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:03

So it's four days now, April 1st through the fourth.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:06

Well, those are the days uh that that would have the price.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:09

WrestleMania brings people out. I traveled on WrestleMania weekend leaving Dallas, and it was the last day, and everyone was flying out. Man, and it's just like people wearing face paint and shit to the airport. I'm like, man, people still watch wrestling, man. I ain't gonna lie, just on some business side shit. If you ever want to run a successful company that never stops, cater it to children. Vince McMahon and the WWE are the perfect example because kids are always being born. Like, I'm talking, it's like it was people dressed up as the rock in the airport. People, I'm like, what the hell's going on? Then I start seeing the signs. It said WrestleMania because I was flying back home to Portland that weekend because it was like my birthday or something, but it was crazy. You're right. Yeah, that is one gym that if you if your city hosts a WrestleMania, man, load up on your prices, dude. Load up on your price, dude.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:09

Sinatra's unit, it's uh it's not booked for WrestleMania yet, right? No, uh, we should no no no, yeah, or the rates are really high. Uh, you got it up, you got them up really man.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:20

Price love did a great thing over there. Uh I went to Price Love and I never saw Price Love pushing a price so high. Like, what are they doing?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:29

Did you change your name? Huh? Did you change the name to like WrestleMania Event House or something like that?

SPEAKER_04 1:09:35

No, I need to do it. That's what I was gonna say.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:37

I was gonna put a picture of WrestleMania, whatever number it is, and you know, that's something we need to start doing more is putting pictures of the on the events that are coming up because something I did in some of the properties at some point that worked really well. Uh what I did is I I went to Canva. I used Canva a lot, you know, for design. And I took a screenshot of the gold maps, and I put the you know, a star on the property, and then I put like the different areas in like Fort Worth and the distance, and then another one, like a larger map, uh where you have you have the distance to DFW and to the stadiums and everything. I think that that's something that's working.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:11

Man, dude, let me tell you about Canva. I love Canva. I I use Canva to get long-term stays on Airbnb. Um, I create a so every every every one of my listings that I have, uh like my ones that uh that I own or that I arbitrage, I create a Canva listing and I have like the main picture of the listing, but then I uh I make the background transparent and then I write on it fully furnished and all utilities paid with our logo on it, and then our Facebook, and then a Facebook and Instagram symbol on the bottom. So then they'll know, oh, they can either Google me or they'll book they're more in quite more inclined to book long term. Yeah, if you guys that's a plug right there, put fully furnished all utilities paid on a Canva and then put it as your main profile picture. So all my listens are like that's the same one, fully furnished all utilities paid. And that might be how I landed that monthly booking in slow ass Houston at a very premium rate. So yeah, man, definitely do that.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:10

Let me tell you something. Let me tell you something to your audience that's gonna have like a tip. If you want to use Canva for pictures on your Airbnb, I'm gonna tell you the size that Airbnb uses for pixels so you can make optimal pictures for your SEO and that's 1024 pixels by 683 pixels. That's the size Airbnb uses. So if you go to to Canva, you go to upper right hand corner, you go to create a design, and you have the option to do a custom size because you're gonna have multiple options, right? But those options are not gonna be the ones that that fit into Airbnb image size. So that's the the optimal size when you are designing your own pictures and put your your even your you know, sometimes for photographer pictures, they send some pictures that are not the exact size, so I always resize them to the exact size so they fit properly.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:05

I might need to do that. That is dope, that was a good one. But yeah, can I realize how powerful Canva is Canvas trying to put Photoshop out of business, but yeah, I didn't realize how powerful Canvas is.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:16

Man, my wife is a graphic designer, she's so pissed off. It's like, you know, anyone can be a graphic designer now, and that's the power of no code. That's the power of no code that I was mentioning to you before. It's like before, if you wanted to create any type of app for your business, you you should go, you know, to this companies, it will be thousands of dollars. Right now, I can create a uh an app for myself for anything that I need. I have an app for my cleaners to take the pictures after each cleaning.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:40

Man, that's man, the the the power in the that's what someone asked on bigger pockets the other day how hard is it to manage your own property. I'm like, with all the things that are out there, it is really kind of easy. If you have a whatever met you need team communication, uh guest communication, and how to automate uh automate your cleanings, all that all this stuff exists. It exists, like it like Zapier, that thing is powerful. It is like you can like uh like right now, someone like my uh VA put a maintenance request in, and Zapier just sends it to my email. Hey, this maintenance request is putting in on this uh you know, on this uh on this unit. It's man, zapier it's crazy, bro.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:26

You know, it's if you google, if you go to something, you're gonna find out uh a tool to do it. I mean there's something for everything. Like it's funny. Steve was like Steve is the one that that usually manages, you know, dealing with um the troll, the troll nurses. And sometimes he needs to email the the the um access information. So I found an app where you can you know put a text, put in in that app, create a link, you click on that link, and it automatically populates an email with all the information, and you just need to put the sender, and those things are amazing. I mean, you just sit down for 20. Like if you have a problem, that's something that's uh for me. It's like if I have a problem or something that's tedious, I sit down 30 minutes, maybe with a beer, and okay, how do we solve this? Well, it's out in Google, and you know, there's always an answer for most of it. There's gonna be an answer.

No-code apps - anybody can automate anything now

SPEAKER_01 1:14:20

Ask your team, they'll know. Yeah, like somebody will know, man. That's why it's good to hire people because that's why I'm happy everyone's in Slack, and then I can ask a question that somebody will have the answer. Oh, but you can use this to do that, you can use this. It's so much, it's so much stuff out there, dude. Like technology, technology is now becoming part of the just a common man can do anything, like that's how a lot of people avoided tech because, like, man, this shit's so you know, now anybody can do it, you know? So it's powerful. Anybody can do it.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:50

It's a two-part question, Micah. Yeah, how how has quitting your job affected your business? And do you wish you would have quit sooner?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:02

Oh, how it's affected my business. Um, it's giving me the time to grow it. Um, it's giving me the time to focus on what actually needs my attention, and giving me the time to actually be able to find out what is tedious and move it off my plate. And do I wish I would have quit sooner? No, I think I quit at the right time.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:22

How do you know it was the right time?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:25

Uh, things just fell into place. Um, and me uh me being remote for like a year and me starting to see how much money I was saving, how much money was coming in, and like, oh, I don't have to buy lunch every day. What if I did that while I didn't have to work a job? I could still keep that same money, and I had just read profit first, it had changed my mindset on business. Um, I think I did it at the right time, like everything fell into place at the right time.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:56

Because I know you were thankfully laid off a few years ago, right? That that was like a blessing, right? You got laid off, so you got the unemployment, so you were still getting paid, and plus you were just running your business 100%, but then you went back to the work world. How was that transition?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:12

That's a good question. The reason why I went back was because I did not know how to manage my cash flow and I didn't understand business. I was depending upon like money that was coming in from my timeshares, like that would always be there. I didn't understand the hustle, you know. Um, and it's funny you brought that up when I brought quit this time. Me and Mahogany talked about that when I quit when I got laid off the first time, and we really analyzed it to realize me getting laid off the first time is what set me up to leave the second time because now I'm ready, I'm prepared, and I understand what it takes for me to leave. I understand how to pay myself, how to make sure I can pay myself to all my bills are paid, and then I still have my business running. So that that's really what it was. I it was a learning lesson. Everything was a learning lesson. It set me up to be here where I am today.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:01

Nice, nice. And Feta, how is how is quitting your job affected your business?

Fede finally has time to optimize everything he had in mind

SPEAKER_02 1:17:09

Man, I mean similar to what Michael mentioned. Uh, first of all, for the business, I mean, it's the greatest thing ever because I I could finally sit down and do uh you know, I had so many ideas in my mind, things I wanted to do, right? And finally I had the time to sit down and start, you know, improving and optimizing everything I had in mind. So yeah, uh that that that's it.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:35

So Steve, another question to you. What's keeping you at the nine to five?

SPEAKER_04 1:17:41

What's keeping me there? Um just some loose ends I wanna I wanna tie up, a few, you know, a few little debts I need to pay off, and then then I'll have no excuses, man. And uh that uh yeah, I just um I I set a date. Yeah, set the date, September 27th, which is the the day before my birthday. Nice to jump ship. And um yeah, I'm just I'm just getting everything organized and and like you said, doing the the deep evaluation on money in, money out, how to um yeah, how to how to keep track of all that. I've never been good at budgeting, I've never been good at any of that stuff, but I need to really really dive into that and get a nice and uh you know I'm not gonna be uh you know crazy about the budget. I make it make it doable, but I need to set something up. I need to set something up, get these last little debts paid off, and then um then I'll have no excuses, man, because the business is is is pretty much making more than me and Fed ever were making, you know. So that's that's it's still scary. It's still scary. What are your fears? I well, here's my fear because okay, our business is mostly primarily set up on on arbitrages and and managing other people, right?

The fear of cities banning Airbnb across all arbitrages

SPEAKER_04 1:18:55

And and so and then and yes, we have we we bought our first property, and that's cool, but I guess my thing is what happens if all these cities start banning Airbnb, and that that was my that's one of my biggest fears, you know. I don't I think the cat's out of the bag, I think it's like kind of like Uber now, where it's just I mean, that it's not gonna, you know, they try to do all that stuff with Uber back in the beginning, and and it was just too big, it was too uh too in demand of a technology, and Airbnb is too in demand for for all these cities to start, you know, getting rid of it. And this gets and and so I don't think I don't think it could happen. I think, but it's still a fear of mine that just all these regulations are gonna start happening, and um we'll lose a lot of business, and then we'll be back to not making very much monthly you know income.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:40

I'm happy you brought that up because that was one thing that bothers me. That's why I'm like out of the arbitrage game, and I'm gonna tell you why. Me leaving my nine to five, I can't depend upon arbitrages because I don't own them and there's no equity, therefore, there's no backup arbitrage, right? So the reason why I hopped into buying was because now I'm backed by equity if I buy at the right price and I buy a good deal. Um and I notice young people they more or less chase cash, right? They just chase cash, cash. But we all know cash is trash. You gotta have remember my in-gold's right there. My ingle says a one mil plus line of credit. That's what I want. Then I can be free to make the moves I want to make. So your fears are absolutely right. You got you gotta have those fears, like, oh shit. Mine isn't we're city banning. Mine is like, okay, what if this lease renewal is too high? What if they don't want to renew the lease? Oh shit, I only got 10 of them that are on leases. Uh, what happens, you know? So, but on we're we're really good with the management company, the management who manages those apartments. But yeah, that is one something that looms in my mind, but I know the answer to that fear. Go own some shit. So that's why I know my the answer is there. So now I'm I'm hustling. Go home, go home. So you got to find, okay, if that's your fear that they're gonna ban it, your fear is they're banning Airbnbs, right? Okay, be in a market or have units where if Airbnb is gone today, can I still make money as a corporate or anything else? Then you look at that instead of looking at the fear of banning, because the fear of banning, if you're driving 200 miles around a curb and you're just focusing on the fear of banning, you're gonna hit that wall. But if you focus on the opportunity, oh, I can corporate lease, I can do this, yeah, it'll be successful.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:27

That's the thing, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:28

Yeah, and and that that's always on my mind, the middle to long term, you know. And and and it luckily we've been we've been doing pretty good at getting those, like uh, especially if something slows down for any reason, we can fill it with a travel nurse. Um I'm pretty good at that. Um, but being able to uh that that's what that's that's also it. I mean, I don't I don't think I mean this country is kind of built on rental properties, right? In a way, and and I don't think they'll ever ban the uh like renting out your place 30 days or more, I don't think that'll ever happen, right? 30 days or less, okay, there might be some crazy shit going on and they ban it, they plan they blame it for poverty and they blame it for um housing crisis and they blame it for everything if they try to ban it. But 30 days plus, I don't see that ever happening. And if you figure out if if and we which we we're working on that, if you figure out how to um always do good in that range, you know, the mid midterm rentals to long-term rentals, then then you'll be all right. Then you'll be there's always gonna be a need for furnished furnished places too, I think. Definitely I'm working at that. Yeah, so it's a fear, but uh but hey, that's the fears fear is what motivates us, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:22:41

Now, Micah, I have a question for you because every morning I see your Instagram stories about the books that you're reading, I always take a note. So top three books that help you because you were mentioning you know about your goals, and you know, it's like every time I listen to you, I learn so much. So top three books for anyone out there, you know, that is you know, growing their company.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:04

Growing their company. Uh, this book I'm reading right now, Relentless, that

Top three books: Relentless, Profit First, BRRRR

SPEAKER_01 1:23:09

book will fucking push you to a level of like, oh shit, and I'm only 40 something pages in. Um, Relentless. Relentless is a mindset book. Um, after Relentless, I'll tell you Profit First. That's a business book, how to run your business. Um, the book that helped me get to where I am, the Burr book. Yeah, those three helped me really in the oh oh another one. The millionaire real estate investor. That one, like, I was like, oh shit. Like, he he really broke down when you're buying the power of buying real estate, and you don't have to hit a home run on the deal, just look at like how Steve said, how you look at that chart and it's doing this, it's the same thing. He goes, keep looking at that chart and you keep buying properties. You might let turn around one day, like you know, you might be a millionaire. I don't know if you guys saw that last uh bigger pockets interview. That dude was scrubbing toilets, but he was he was buying properties, and this guy was like, you know, and he started talking to this guy about what he does, and he's like, Well, man, you own all these properties, you know. Um uh, how much are you worth? And he said he didn't know, and then he went home and did calculated that calculations. He was a fucking millionaire and didn't even know it. And he was scrubbing toilets, he didn't know it. He was just like wow, he was just like, I was listening to bigger pockets, they said invest your money in real estate, but he was you know scrubbing toilets. You're the average dude, but he was a millionaire.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:35

He didn't even know he was a millionaire, but you know, and that's and that and that's the beauty of America, man. Yeah, there's so many opportunities. I mean, I'm telling you from coming from a country where uh because I I know there are uh a lot of things going on, and people you know it's a lot a lot of divided, so I can send a a message for the people over there. I come from a country that at some point it was in the same level of opportunity of America, right? So during the Second World War, Argentina was providing food to every country. We're not in war, and we're in the same level of uh United States in in every aspect, and we screwed up, and we have a hundred percent inflation year over year and things like that. And making business business here is very difficult. So, something that I love about American Man is that you have opportunities to go out there if you hustle, if you work hard, is you're gonna make it. So that's something I appreciated so much about the United States.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:30

So that's fact, right? And that's what I always try to teach people about using those

Immigrants take advantage of American opportunity

SPEAKER_01 1:25:35

opportunities to your advantage. But you gotta know, you just gotta know those opportunities are there, and I think that's why like when people come here from a different country, they're all they're looking at it's like I just said, they're driving 200 miles an hour. We as Americans, we sometimes focus on the wall of all the bad shit on CNN and Fox is going on. We don't turn and look at oh, well, let me take advantage of this opportunity. Immigrants, man, they take advantage of that opportunity because they're like shit. I came from the bottom, I gotta make it in America. So, yeah, facts. It is, it is, it definitely is an opportunity. You just gotta take advantage of them, and also the schooling system and shit plays into part of that, but you know, in America, you know, they don't teach us about those opportunities.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:14

Yeah, yeah, you just don't know geography for some reason. It's like that's that's something I find funny. No, I always find funny that people, you know, in America, you're so bad at Juraphy, they don't teach us geography. Yeah, it's like telling three countries, yeah, Africa, Europe, and Asia.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:33

Yeah, yeah, they don't know. Uh, I remember this dude, um who was it? Was it Bill Burr? He made a joke about like Americans' mindsets. He goes, he goes, Yeah, Americans, man. We like uh he goes, Yeah, we're pretty uh pretty fucked up minded. We go to like these uh we look at people and we say these people are minorities. He said he went to Africa with his friend and he said, Man, look at all these minorities, like you're an African dipshit. You're the minority. It's the mindset of people being in America never leaving. He goes, We're the minority dipshit.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:07

I remember it's so it's kind of funny because think of the politically correct stuff. But you know, how here in the United States we say African American, you know, we're supposed to say African American, right? And this lady was doing an interview. This news lady was doing an interview with an actual African African, right? Yeah, and she and she kept telling saying it over and go, Oh, so being an African American, what she didn't want to say, he's like, I'm African, and she just kept saying, Oh, sorry, okay. So, so how does it an African American? He's not American at all, but Nigeria. She's so used to saying I have to say African American to anything, any black person that I see, I have to say African American.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:49

That's the crazy part about America. You have the opportunity to fucking travel anywhere. You can just simply learn, just travel. I tell them all the time, man, travel, just simply. Traveling opens up your mind. Like that's why I think Steve, because you'd have been to I don't know how many countries. Federico, you've been to so many countries. You know, just travel, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:07

So, but yeah, especially if you're in the Airbnb world. I mean, that's something that that I definitely brought up into a company. I stayed, I've been to over 60 countries, and I slept in so many different places from high-end hotels in New York City to you know shitty places in Eastern Europe where you'll be scared to stay one night. Uh pots, you know, the the the capsules in Japan. I slept in so many airports, people's houses everywhere. I mean, and this, you know, and you bring you you understand you understand what people are going through when you're dealing with your own guests. I think that's very important. At the end of the day, and you know, what we took out all of this business uh and ideas and how to run it better, but at the end of the day, you need to think there's a person opening the door, staying at your place for a reason. And usually it's a special occasion because everyone that is traveling and staying somewhere out of the house is for an occasion. It could be something good, it could be something something bad. And the experience that you're providing is something that's gonna stay with them forever, and that's when you get returned customers and everything, right? But I think that's something so important, and you know, is I was on the I saw the other day a meme that said, you know, when you open to a hotel room and you get into a hotel room, the only thing you can say is this is very nice, right? That's a meme, something like that. I don't think I want to the people you know get into our places because we have some pretty freaking nice places, you know, designed very well by Sarah. Uh, you know, places are lovely. I wonder, you know, I I would love to just see people stepping into their properties and what they say. Because at the at the end of the day, you know, it's vacations going to be the family, funerals. You have so many, so many things. And if you just grow up, it's something they're gonna remember as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:55

Thanks. That's a fact.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:57

Great episode, guys.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:58

Yeah, it was a good episode, man. But yeah, man, I hope y'all uh listeners, y'all learned something from it, and it's really it's a lot we go through, but man, you just gotta keep pushing through it, man. Uh, y'all I definitely recommend that book, Relentless, man. That was yeah, that reminded me why Kobe Bryant was my favorite athlete. That dude was a different animal, like the stories he tells about Kobe. But yeah, man, uh, thank y'all for listening.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:20

And uh you know, you know, real quick, I speaking of books. I finally read the Richest Man of Babylon. You ever read that?

SPEAKER_01 1:30:25

That is on my book list. I did I read it a long time ago. No, I haven't. I gotta read that.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:30

You read that, Fede? No, Richest Man of Babylon. It just talks about wealth building back, like, but telling these old timey, like kind of the biblical era stories, you know, just made up stories, but in that language, and then and people are doing back then. But it's always been the same thing, right? It's always wealth building, it's always been the same thing, you know. Put aside 10% of your money to save and invest, and then go and then invest your money smartly into things that you know is gonna make it grow, and and then work hard, and then but and it even brings up you know these oh the this this this some this one guy this this opportunity to invest in these jewels and whatever. I trusted this guy, I gave my money and I lost all my money. It just reminds me, even even since then, there's been like all these schemes to take people's money, right? But if you just follow that path, invest smart, and then work hard and set a set money aside, right? You're gonna be successful. You're not there's no way you're not gonna be successful, and and in the and I and I think about this this era, you know, we got the cryptocurrency, which you were dogging on, and and then the and then the NFTs now. I mean, people are putting the picture of themselves using the bathroom and selling an NFT for like 10 million dollars, stupid, right? And and it's like, but and so people are like, Oh, that's the thing, I'm gonna put my money in here. Oh, doggy coin, oh this, oh that, oh, the NFTs, and and it's just like, and most 99 of those fuckers are gonna lose the money, right? The people that got in at first that made all the money is the big Ponzi scheme, but most of them are gonna lose their money, so but that's that's the thing, people just want to get rich, they want all these shortcuts, but there's no shortcuts, man. You work hard, you invest smart, it compounds, and then you and you use that money to invest more. I mean, it's simple, right? It's simple. But yeah, that's what we're here for to make y'all rich.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:15

Man, yeah, thank y'all for continuing to listen, man. And uh, yeah, you can follow us on Instagram, email us, and uh all that's in the that is below. And remember to like and subscribe.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:25

Hit that like button, smash it.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:27

Hell yeah, and keep subscribing, man. We got a bunch of subscribers coming in. I don't know what happened, I don't know. So yeah, keep on subscribing and uh thank y'all.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:35

Thank you for having me, you guys.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:37

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