Cold open

SPEAKER_00 0:00

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 0:11

Hello, hello, hello.

SPEAKER_03 0:13

Welcome back to another exciting episode of Live Let Drive.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

What is up, Micah Man?

SPEAKER_03 0:23

I'm good, man. I'm good. I'm chilling, just getting back, getting nursed back to health. But uh, I'm good.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Yeah, what happened, man? What happened?

SPEAKER_03 0:30

Ah, dude, I caught a case of pneumonia. It was crazy. Um, I drank a bad supply of water. Um, the doctor found it, and uh I ended up having pneumonia. I couldn't breathe last week and I was like having a

Myka's pneumonia from contaminated water supply

SPEAKER_03 0:41

strong struggle breathing. I went to the doctors, uh, I went to the doctor, they sent me to the ER. The ER sent me to the big hospital, and still recovering, as you can see. Uh, but yeah, just had a case of pneumonia from drinking some bad water. I think I know where I got it from too. So I informed the people. So it was crazy.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Bad water, like what kind of how'd you how'd that happen?

SPEAKER_03 1:01

Bad water supply. Yeah, it was up in North Arlington where I think I got it. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Damn, damn, damn. Yeah, that's scary stuff, dude.

SPEAKER_03 1:11

Pneumonia, scary shit, but yeah, I'm I'm I'm built, I'm better now.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

I'm glad, man. I'm glad I'm recovering from like an upper respiratory thing, too. So, you know, two sick guys gonna do a a sick show, right? There you go. That's episode 182 of Live Let Thrive, your favorite Airbnb VRBO, home away, Lyft Uber, all that share economy stuff, podcast in the world. And we're coming at you from Arlington and Fort Worth, Texas. And yeah, man, I've been doing good too. Um, uh closing on a house that we're gonna, it's gonna be a long-term

New Dallas arbitrage booked instantly during UT-Oklahoma game

SPEAKER_01 1:44

rental, you know. It's not in the in the short-term rental area or the you know, place to do good short-term rental. And um, it's funny. Also, I just we just um I just finished setting up uh Airbnb arbitrage in in in Dallas, right? Close to downtown. And it was it was on a Friday, you know. Uh and and it I um I told Federico, I was like, Man, I'll be I'll be I'll be done by four. I'll be done by four o'clock. Um, and I forgot the UT uh Oklahoma game was was happening, right? I said all of our places were booked. I said, Man, someone people have been asking if we had any spots. I was like, just post this, you know, I'll set up the the listing and just put up a logo of Texas versus UT. Just put that logo on there. And while I'm setting up the listing, you know, I while I'm getting it all ready to take pictures and did that. I think I might have added one picture and boom, I got booked right away. So we got and it's been booked every night since, man, because someone grabbed it right after that, and it looks real nice, it's right close to downtown. So, yeah, man, it's uh ready fire aim, you know what I'm saying? And so, yeah, so we're the air Airbnb's going good, long-term uh real estate's going good, and we're gonna hop into one of the episode 182 with a special guest. What we got George Salas is joining us. What's up, George?

SPEAKER_02 2:59

What's up, fellas? Oh man, I'm loving this already. Loving it.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Let me let me read you in, man. Let me read you in. Uh, you did a little write-up, a lot of a big write-up. Let me see. George is a man of massive action. His leap of faith from a 10 plus year branding and marketing journey into a competitive Houston real estate uh market space took place in early 2018 with such a relatively short period. Uh, George and his team successfully executed 50 plus real estate transactions that included fix and flips, wholesale deals, owner finance, and subject to wraps. So simultaneously, he used his hybrid investment strategy to acquire, design, and launch what is now a 50 plus uh unit short-term rental property portfolio that generates $175,000 plus per month in rental income. He understands how quickly to re create cash flow in real estate. His mission is to build an entire empire through empowering real estate investors and Airbnb hosts to create even more cash flow through his many diversified real estate short-term rentals and business strategies. How he now teaches these unique strategies in a step-by-step blueprint exclusively to those who choose to jumpstart their transition to the next level. Welcome, George. That's it, man. We're done with the show. We'll see all later.

SPEAKER_02 4:26

Good night.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

So what's up, George? Tell us your story yourself, man. How'd you get started?

From Peru to Houston nightlife promoter to losing everything

SPEAKER_02 4:31

Man, uh, I'm doing fantastic right now, fellas. I just got back from traveling and uh I've been at you know, VRMA. I don't know if you guys were there. I heard about it. Yeah, VRMA was was pretty good. Uh there's maybe a thousand people or so, but uh yeah, you've just been at several several events over the last last month or so. Uh but yeah, just to break it down a little bit for you, fellas. Um, I should be looking forward to hanging out with y'all for a while. So thanks for having me. I appreciate that. Um, so I'll break it down in two minutes. My story started when I was six, bro. I was born in Peru, small little town. And um, I I am from this little town called Tarapoto, right? And uh I actually uh I lived in Lima, the capital. Boom, my parents were getting a divorce all of a sudden, and I have to move back to where I was born, right? I moved here to Houston, you know, uh that's where I'm at right now in uh in 2000, in 2000, right? And um, and then I, you know, from there till um uh about 2015-ish, you know, obviously I went through the transition and um you know at that time um I started in the nightlife, right? Now actually not 2015, 2007, I'm sorry. Uh started in the nightlife. So I was actually an event marketer for quite a bit, right? Now I promoted nightclubs. Um, I opened up a nightclub myself in which is right around 2015, which is was 10 years into my journey, you know, in the uh in the hospitality industry. So I've been in the hospitality for quite a bit, you know, uh just take care of people, meeting people and all over the last uh, I guess 20 years, you know, 15 years or so. But when I opened my nightclub in 2017, um I was looking just like all of us, right? I was looking for that that that success of owning my own business, right? And I finally did, but I did it without knowing the the the proper business strategies and truly taking care of myself and protecting myself. So I went into a deal with with a different partner, didn't know much about them, uh, and didn't really protect myself like I should have. So I lost everything. Everything two years later. Um, and I'm I'm literally sitting in my apartment at the time. I have nothing. Like I'm crying, I don't know what to do, like our doors got shut down. You know, I can't feel I can't feel my freaking eyes, they're so puffy, I can't hear anything. It's just I don't know what to do with myself. And right there, I get a phone call from my friend Brent, right? And H Town real estate investor, you know. Um he says, George, come to my flip and I want you to check it out. So I go to his flip. He actually texted me earlier today, and and I sit there for three hours, right? And he literally just puts this story in my head that I had a story that I couldn't become better, right? I had a story that I wasn't good enough. I had a story that you know I was always always gonna be a promoter and a marketer, and then I was just gonna stay there. And boom, he I walked out of there with a new mind, right? And then I it was a breakthrough for me. And it there was a bunch of a little breakthroughs, and that's when I decided to do real estate, right? And without knowing and having any experience in real estate, I made the decision to transition. And about four months after, you know, and and I would say

$46,000 first flip and discovering wholesaling

SPEAKER_02 8:03

fast forward to about uh February of 2018 is when I closed my first flip. So I had a I did a flip and I made $46,000. Then a few months later, I figured out what wholesaling was, and um, I picked up a few wholesale deals. I was still doing four or five flips. I borrowed the down payment, I borrowed all the money, you know, uh private money to do my flips, and then I figured out what wholesaling was. So I was doing wholesale deals, and then I ran into short-term rentals that summer, three years ago, and and this is April, so three years ago, April of 2018, so three years and a few months ago, and I was like, wait, you can rent a property, rent, so I didn't know anything about the purchase yet, right? And actually sublease it and make a thousand bucks, 1500 bucks. And I was like, Okay, cool. Well, I have to do this. So I went and I bought a course, right? And I went to watch YouTube videos, and then I went to work, right? I got eight leases in in a matter of maybe two weeks, and we didn't launch it for like a month, but eight leases from one single landlord. Then I got two more leases, and I took my you know the income from my wholesale deals and I borrowed some extra money, right? And then I essentially executed 10 freaking leases in a matter of 30 days. That's how I got started into short travellers, and then from there, you know, I went from 10 till the end of that year. I actually brought in four months, 119,000, which is pretty cool for my first four months in short travel, right? Not bad, six months, six figures to six months, or six months to six figures, right? And then uh by the middle of next summer, you know, I had about 27 all apartments, and that's when I launched my first house, right? And um at that time, I was like, okay, well, you can do three, four thousand in a house when I was doing 2,000 to 2,500 in these apartments, right? One little bedroom, you know, uh very small studios uh here downtown, downtown areas of Houston, right? And so I realized, you know, cool, I like the departments. This is awesome. You know, I'm making cash flow, and this is what I needed, right? Well, we're getting started. We realized that we need cash flow and that short-term rentals and Airbnb can bring us cash

COVID hit with 40 properties: 18-hour days to survive

SPEAKER_02 10:11

flow. So I went all in, but then COVID hit a year and a few months ago, April, March. So I'm like, wait, 35 apartments at the time in like four or five houses. So I'm sitting here with 40 properties, right? And most of the apartments. And boom, business goes down, and I'm like, oh shoot, now I gotta get to work again. So I was doing 18 hours a day, 18 hour days to be able to keep keep up with the with the low demand and be able to pack these places. You know, I I think I broke even a couple months. I lost quite a few, quite a little bit of money in that one month of April, right? And and then I transitioned over the last year and a half. Everything in I dropped almost every single apartment. So I've got rid of 29 apartments, and I went all in for houses, fellas. All in. So right now we're almost at 40 again, right? A little bit over 40 actually, but most of them are over our houses. They're median single family residential houses, and that's how we got from doing 60,000, 50,000 a year uh a month in it during the pan, or right before the pandemic, and during all of that summer of the pandemic to now tripling that in a year. So that's my story.

SPEAKER_04 11:25

I love it.

SPEAKER_03 11:26

Dude knows this shit. I could tell that whole story. He knows his shit. Like he transitioned from the apartments, went to the houses because I'm gonna tell y'all right now. Apartments are too competitive because it's hard to provide value if you have all these other hosts that have the same value as you. But if you have a house, man, it it opens you up to so many doors. And I just installed my first Tesla charger this weekend just to have that extra value add. So, yeah, it's so many things.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

Yeah, nice, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:57

So it's so many.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

There's no competition, right? I I think houses are just the way to go, and that's the main reason. You can add whatever you want to these houses, backyards, add amenities in the back, you can add pools, you can just dress them up, game rooms. You there's no comparison, and it's way too many apartments. And the price per square foot, you get a 900 square foot apartment or a uh 9,1100, two, three bedroom, and you're paying 2000. But when you can get a house for that same price and pay rent on you know for 2000 and and then even your mortgage, right? Because we also we also turn turn our properties and we we don't only do arbitrage, we buy and do the same. And when you buy, it's even less, right? Your PITI is going to be a lot less.

SPEAKER_03 12:47

Now, a question for you on your houses do you because you're doing both arbitraging and buying. Now, how do you look at a house to say, okay, this is an arbitrage or this is a buy?

SPEAKER_02 12:57

Um, I mean, well, if if if it's I'm looking strictly for arbitrage, then I'm looking for arbitrage, right? If I'm looking to purchase, then it's going to be through a wholesaler, right? And because we've I've got the connection so for those wholesalers and and also partnering with you know with students and that whatnot. So we do

Buying through wholesalers, subject-to deals with 10-15% equity

SPEAKER_02 13:17

both. Like if I'm looking for arbitrage, I go straight for arbitrage. Now, I'm not saying that if this is an arbitrage deal, I could get a lease option and negotiate that purchase, right? So it just tells me what you know, depending on on, I would say the long term, sometimes I want to test it and you know, and then get a lease option, uh, or just do a lease straight. Um, but I think I mean I want to buy everything, bro. I want to buy everything, you know. So you just do it one house at a time.

SPEAKER_03 13:50

Now on your buys, you're saying you're going straight to wholesalers. So I'm like, I'm assuming you're burning these houses.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

Um, yeah, I'm I'm buying them and turn turning around the whole thing, right? Rehabbing it and I mean I'm not doing a whole lot of rehabs, I'm also grabbing sub twos, right? I've got a few sub twos, which is awesome if you can catch them for without having to rehab them with a little bit of equity, maybe 10-15%. You can just turn them around and put them on the market and and then put them on the Airbnb platform in 30 days or less. Right? So I'm doing both. I love it. I love it.

SPEAKER_03 14:29

I know Steve's on Steve's going to be all over that sub too. He's big.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Yeah, I'm trying to learn that myself. And it's funny because we're trying to transition out of um out of apartments as well to get into houses. You know, I told my partner that's what we want, that's the direction we want to go as well. And um, and and and Micah had brought it up before on previous shows. A lot of it's like it's the logistical nightmare. You know, you you're at the you're at the wheel of the apartment complex, you know, the gate don't work, they don't care, they'll fix it next week. The the doors, something broken in there, they'll fix it when they can get to it, you know. It's and and um yeah, it or they'll start you know get a new management company and change all the rules, you know. It it it is um you're at the mercy of the complex, and um, so that's that's cool how you're doing that. I was just um I guess the only the only fear as as far as changing the whole Airbnb uh uh business into you know primarily houses is what we we see, especially over here, what

HOA research: four terms to check, working with Supreme Court attorney

SPEAKER_01 15:28

we've seen a lot in this area down Fort Worth, is that's the first place they go to start banning Airbnb, is the neighborhoods. They said they want it out of the neighborhoods, they want it no, you know, residential neighborhoods, no Airbnb, no short, you know, short-term rentals there. And so that's the that's the only fear. What do you do to protect against that?

SPEAKER_02 15:47

So the first thing is uh every time we we're looking at a house, whether it's for myself or student or whatever, right? Well, we're gonna research the HOA and we look for four things inside the bylaws. Okay, 30 days, 90 days, those those two terms, Airbnb, BRBO, or short-term rentals, right? My assistant does that. Okay. If there's none of that stuff there, then we go look and actually go move forward with sending this to our attorney. And we work with uh with the attorney that actually dealt with the Austin case, right? With the Supreme Court case that went to, you know, like the the big one that I forgot the name of it, to be honest with you. But we work with that attorney, but the Houston guy of that attorney, you know, I forgot his freaking name, the the the main guy, right? So, and I have him take a look at it and just give me a final, you know, hey, yes or no. Um, and almost as long as all those four things are not on on the HOA bylaws, we go look for rental restrictions or any addendums that they have, right? And then we've been on that bad side too, because I did this in 2019. I got my first house, and that same house that I got in 2019, you know, we got in trouble with HOA because when COVID hit, there was a lot of parties because we weren't prepared. That's when we had to create this awesome screening process, the whole process of being able to screen your guests, you know, your cameras in the front end. We weren't sophisticated like we are now, right? So now we've got that entire you know process figured out, which helps you a lot more. But you know, when it comes to the regulations of that neighborhood, you know, um, there are not a whole lot of problems in Houston. I know Dallas has a lot more uh regulations, uh, but Houston-wise, you know, we just have to worry about the HOAs, right? So and then we've got a we've got a nice little process that you know we figured out, you know, and then the attorneys tell us to go, it's always that 50-50, Stephen. Like, hey, you know, you might this might say no, you know, but he himself, the man himself told me that you know, when you actually look at the regulations and if they if they change them in Texas, you cannot be retroactive. I don't know if you guys have ever heard of that, you know, but you can't go back and ban XYZ from the restrictions and apply it to any homeowners that or you know, tenants or or whatever, you know, homeowners that were that had these types of regulations, you can only move forward.

unknown 18:38

Right?

SPEAKER_02 18:39

I don't know if you guys ever heard of that.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Well, yeah, I've heard of something similar to that, but uh here's the thing like we we have uh properties in Arlington, right? And they and so they went hard on the on uh banning Airbnb to like probably like 98% of the city, you know. Only one little spot around the stadiums could have it now. I was just outside of that zone, and I was making you know great money on that in my rental house there in Airbnb. And they came with the banned Airbnb, and it didn't matter, you know, because I own that house too. A lot of people own the houses they're they were doing it. There was some arbitrage, but I mean they went at people hard with thousands of dollars of fines like right away. They were they weren't messing around. So you could say, I mean, it's I mean, yeah, I'm sure it's a lot of it is not um constitutional, you know what I'm saying? But but they came at us hard, and as the kangaroo court, you know, they know the judges, they know everybody, so it's we had no chance, you know what I'm saying? So I'm just saying, uh yeah, that's that's my thing. But as far as doing arbitrages, do you put something in your lease saying, hey, if for whatever reason the city does ban this, you you can have like 30 days or 60 days to get out of these leases?

SPEAKER_02 19:46

Absolutely, 60 days. We have my addendum has like nine clauses, okay, right? So, yeah, we just to protect ourselves, right? So it's like if this happens, you can get out. If there is another pandemic, I can get out, you know. If the HOA, if the city bans trs, you can get out. So, yes, and it helps. I mean, they already know, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:10

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 20:10

Landlords know.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

Okay, and what is the landlord's incentive? Like, how do you what's your sales pitch to them? What are the what was what are they like? Well, I'm gonna rent it for $2,000 a month. I'd just rather have a long-term tenant in there that's not gonna make no trouble, or I can rent it to you guys. Uh, what is your sales pitch and how do you get them to how do you get to the yes?

SPEAKER_02 20:28

I've gotten to the yes many, many, many more times by just building the relationship and giving them my branding, right? Hey, you know, Mr. Landlord, I'm gonna rate I've rent your house for three years minimum. Let's figure out a you know a rental increase of XYZ that's stayable for both of us. Let me throw you a little bit more. Obviously, if I know that this house is gonna make good money, like I did this deal, and this house brings in, you know, between 10 on to 12 on the on the bad months. And right now it's bringing this, it's very it's slow right now, so it's bringing in you know, 10, 9. And then in the summer, we were between 18 and 20, 22, we hit 24, right? Two, three months straight. And then that was this past summer, right? So if I know we're gonna kill it, which you know, I think you guys, and then all of us have an intuition already, right? Like we know if you know your market, you're gonna know that if you have houses around the area and you go look and you do your market research and you analyze the houses that are making XYZ, and you go into that market, you don't know, you you're like, hey, is this house gonna make money or not? You know, you know, and then I've got that gut feeling, right? So I made the move, I offered a little bit more, not a whole lot, and and then I put those clauses on there. But the building the relationship, building the report, throwing a little bit more rent and giving them a longer lease with a rental increase, that gets me to yeses.

SPEAKER_01 21:55

I like that rental increase

Exit strategies: buying with equity, delaying HOA enforcement

SPEAKER_01 21:57

part. That was the first time I heard that one. I like it a lot.

unknown 21:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:00

That's a good one. Now, another thing, like let's say you're buying, right? And you're buying in a city where regulations may hit. What is your exit strategy for something like that?

SPEAKER_02 22:10

If regulations may hit, we're always making sure these properties are going to work long term, right? And I I would say, you know, I mean, with this market, we're buying with maybe at the end of the refinance, we have 10, 15% equity, right? Because you buy at 75 and or maybe 78, right? That's that's a good number for an investor to buy nowadays. And then you rehab this whole thing, you're gonna be at 85, depending how much your you know private money costs. So if you're if you're 10% equity, you're good. But city regulations, I'm not too worried about because we're in Houston, and I'm sure you guys are, because obviously you're in an indifferent or Arlington and Dallas. I mean, that they're hard a little bit harder there. I am definitely more conscious about hoa. What happens with hoa is that we know what to look for from the beginning. So if let's just say they do change their bylaws or they do catch and they do want to take us to court, because anyone can take anyone to court, these HOAs want to take us to court, they can always do that, even if it says you can do XYZ. You, you know, most of them are gonna say no business, you know, no commercial, residential purposes only. They can take you to, you know, because they consider SDR as a business or as commercial, right? So it could be whatever, either way, but then we have enough time to squeeze a year and a half, two years out if the house hits it, right? So, and that's why exit strategy number one, make sure rent's long term, and you know, prevention number two, or prevention number one, buy with a little bit of equity at the end of you know, end of the day, yeah, right as a flipper. Prevention number two, make sure that house is badass, it's gonna make you a lot of money. Prevention number three, prolong and delay that HOA from getting you out of there as long as you can, right? So if you're making five thousand dollars in your pocket a month, that's 60 grand a year. I mean, you made your money back, plus some.

SPEAKER_03 24:18

Nice, yeah. Thanks. I I love how you said that about Houston, where you don't have to worry about like, hey, stuff shut down. But that brings me to another thing that I've I have about Houston. Do you think it's oversaturated? Because like you go to one corner in Houston, man, and it's like 70 units in like one little small area, you go to the next one, it's another 70. Or how are you are you saying that, or like were you having to come down on your price, or how are you fighting that?

SPEAKER_02 24:46

So I think it's super oversaturated when it comes to the apartments, like crazy, bro. Because it's we have to come down to 40, 35. It's like holy bananas, I swear to god, I would look at apartments like $35. It was crazy, it's insane. But when it comes to houses, it's okay. Now, if you go niche, which is exactly what I do now. Like when we started, I got these nice houses, but they didn't have the amenities they have now, brother. They didn't. I went niche. At first, I went regular with my houses, then I started going more niche, then I started adding fully loaded kitchens, then I started adding swings, then I start adding X, Y, Z. And now we're niche, right? We're family-oriented, and we have all this stuff. It's just we have our avatar nail down for almost every single property, right? And we create this unique selling propositions. I'm a big believer and teacher of the unique selling proposition. No matter if you just have a regular house in a regular neighborhood, you gotta make you gotta paint the stairs red or the wall red or put LED so people can take pictures and and put them on IG or something, right? You gotta make this house different than every everything else in the neighborhood, and that's what's worked for me. You know, I'm not telling you that almost all my houses are like that, but those houses make more money, and they're you

Unique selling propositions: red stairs, LED walls, Instagram moments

SPEAKER_02 26:16

know, the ADR is way higher just because of USP.

SPEAKER_01 26:21

I like that, I like that. Yeah, we we're actually looking for um muralists in Dallas right now to start making our our places pop, you know, get a just put a uh let them tag up a wall, make it look really cool, like for the IG crowd or the whatever TikTokers, you know, and and um and scooters, and we're trying to add some scooters too. I think that would be a good touch, so yeah, yeah. I guess I guess here's the thing, you know, and you've probably seen it too. You know, they they say try to figure out who your avatar is, who the people you want to serve at what particular house, you know, one house might be different from another house, right? But we're in a more gritty part of town. We don't want you know old old Fuddy Duddies going and renting it because they're gonna give us bad reviews. Oh, it's you know, sketchy area, whatever. Youngsters that are cool, you know, that that want to be close to downtown and they don't mind all you know the the area. We want those people to be renting it, you know. And so that's why we want to kind of design spots to to attract them to the to the places, you know. It's just it just depends on the on the on the crowd you're trying to attract. What can you what can you say? What can you say on that?

SPEAKER_02 27:23

So I think that you gotta find the crowd that pays the most money, right? So what I do when I do my market research, I'm going for that top 10%, right? I didn't do that at first, and most hosts don't understand that just because they're getting started. I was the same way when I got started, right? So to answer, you know, your your question comment is finding your avatar, you should find it based on the area that you're in and the most profitable type of property. And and then I call it the perfect property avatar and the the guest avatar. You match those two, and the perfect ideal scenario is the most profitable property, right? With the least, with the the the the the lowest lease and the best type of client. So if you mix those three, and you know, and when I when I do this for our properties, I just have to figure out, you know, like I gotta make sure make sure that we're putting the right property for the right area, right? And then putting the right people in there. And then with a mixture of those three, we've nailed it more than we've not nailed it, you know. Um, I I think it's just making sure that we find the people that pay the most money, you know.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

That's that's yeah, that's interesting, yeah. Especially with a house, right? Yeah, you want to you want to maximize that. Um, that being said, are you just throwing wayfair furniture in there or are you going higher end to attract a higher-end client?

SPEAKER_02 29:00

We're going higher end with the appliances, we're going higher end with the linens, all like bed linens, more pillows, color, vibrancy of the mixture of the colors, so it attracts people. And when you get there, it's like this is really nice, right? More expensive pillows compared to when I had these apartments that I put five thousand dollars. Now a house is twenty-five thousand dollars all in, right? 25 grand all in for my arbitrage. That includes, uh, I mean, I'm just giving you a number that includes like our rent. So we are going high-end, we're doing metal bets, right? And we're going higher end on just on the kitchen appliances, fully load the kitchen because you know, people love all that really cool stuff in the kitchen, and sometimes they just bring their families there. So that particular type of staging and setup has worked better for me uh as a host than it's worked on the regular houses, right? Going higher end and putting a ton of beds in each in each house, more bets than you would ever think of that they

Fully-loaded kitchens: the differentiator hotels can't match

SPEAKER_02 30:13

could fit in that house.

SPEAKER_03 30:14

One thing I want to oh my god, go ahead. No, go ahead, go use it. Oh, I was gonna vouch for them on the kitchen thing. That's what I was gonna talk about. I've I've literally let a place sit vacant two weeks until all the stainless steel came in. Once that that stainless steel pops, and people people will book off stainless steel. Just go, but man, if you can cater to families, bigger families coming in, man, it's it's it's a hit. But go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 30:37

That's what I was gonna say, too. That's like that was cool how you mentioned the kitchen because not and what is one thing hotels they don't have, they don't have kitchens. So not only are you providing a kitchen, but you're really hitting it hard with so many different amenities, like you said, in the kitchen. So, like, not only hey, we got a kitchen here, but a badass kitchen, you know, and that attracts, and then you know, they say the the the wife or the the woman. I was like, that's what they notice kitchens and bathrooms, right? And in real estate, and so they see that, honey. This is where we're booking, and the dude's like, All right, here's my wallet, whatever. But but but that's a great point, man. I didn't, yeah, you really, really tackle the kitchen. You get all the uh you get what you get curigs in there, you get you get some cool stuff.

SPEAKER_02 31:17

This I mean, electric freaking can opener, uh a super badass coffee station, rice cooker, the hero nine set, you know. Sean talked got me into that, you know. And then yeah, I just thought he's the first. I talked to him. I'm like, oh, this is really cool. And now, like Mona does all of our staging now, my girlfriend, business partner, you know, and she's bougie, right? So before I'm cheap, I'm like, I need to save money, you know. She's bougie. She's like, no, babe, we're gonna put this, this, this, and then she will go all out with colors and the art and meet matching the freaking sofa and then the table and the rugs all over the place. So that's how we end up spending more, but it works. It freaking works. We load up these houses and it with just comparison. We have a house in the same street, and one I launched it, you know, in 2019, and the other one on the same street, same floor plan. The other one I launched, you know, like a few months, two months ago. We make on average a thousand to two thousand dollars more because we have nicer stuff here, right? We have more stuff in the kitchen, more appliances, you know, just newer, better, more comfort. People love that comfort. And when it comes to being comfortable and being niche, that those types of houses are not saturated. Apartments, they're all over the place.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

Yeah, that is cool, man. That is cool.

SPEAKER_03 32:49

I'll go ahead and see.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

No, go ahead. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 32:51

One more question on the on the kitchen. I had I don't I don't know if you're trying this because I was talking to a group about trying. Have you put air fryers in there?

SPEAKER_02 33:00

Air fryers. Um, I don't think so, brother, but I'll have to ask her, you know. I know we put baking sheets and pots and pots and pans, but no, I don't think air fryers, but I want to test that.

SPEAKER_03 33:16

I want to test it because it's like the hot thing right now, air fryer. Is it really? Yeah, man. Like you can cook anything, you just throw it in the air fryer and it'll just cook in like 10 minutes. Yeah, oh yeah, that's a whole air fryer's a whole life. That's a good idea, man. Yeah, I haven't tried it yet. I might try it, I might have to start sending them out there.

SPEAKER_02 33:36

It's all about the picture, right? If you put a picture and your kitchen is loaded, mom is gonna be like, let's go here. I went, I was in an Airbnb that was super nice last week at the VRMA. Me and my business partners, you know, on the boot camp site, we we um um we essentially got this freaking badass Airbnb, two grand for three nights. So I went and it was so nice, beautiful. It had LED and colors were perfect, the design was perfect. But when I went to the kitchen, it was very basic, except for the coffee station. I'm talking about the appliances, right? And um, and I was like, Cool, this is really nice. It didn't affect me, I was just noticing, right? I was actually did a full walkthrough of the house, so I was like, Cool, this is really cool, but they were missing a few things for the kitchen. So if a family was to book that house for like two weeks, they would be missing some stuff. But that house was so nice, it was perfect, it had a pool, it was had a little uh you know, pergola outside, chairs, and then I mean it was just the perfect house for people that are gonna stay for three, four nights and pay high dollar. If that's your clientele, cool, right? So sometimes we want to cater to two, three different types, but mainly to one, you know, because if you're gonna have the traveling worker or the people that come in and pay high dollar for the weekend, right? That's different than if you have families. But if you equip all your entire house with family amenities, and then you add a couple of desks for people to work with, right? And then you do you know, add a couple of things. You have a main avatar and a main client, but then sometimes you can deviate a little bit, right? So we do that on some properties and it works. I would say, I would recommend everybody listening to go for a niche more than anything else, right? Don't try to do it, don't try to cater to everybody. The more specific you are, the better it's gonna be because there are more people that are gonna pay top dollar because it's very different and unique for these properties, right? That's how we've got our thousand dollar night houses, you know, that are really 25 to 2700 square feet.

SPEAKER_01 35:53

Man, I love that. I love that. So you mentioned earlier on the show uh your your ironclad or your screening process that that really keeps away, keeps out parties. So can you describe your clean uh screening process and um all your everything you do to keep parties from happening?

SPEAKER_02 36:09

Absolutely, brother. So the first thing we do is we ask them like three, four

Ironclad screening: questions, ID, house rules agreement, 99% party prevention

SPEAKER_02 36:14

really solid questions, right? And then my team goes and sees what's really their purpose there, right? We're gonna see if you know these guys are coming in from out of town or if they're local. Obviously, you know what we do with locals, right? We want to ask them questions like, hey, what's the purpose of your visit? You know, we'll love to host you, you know, where are you guys coming from? You know, um, you know, how many people you're gonna have, even though they put sometimes on, you know, they put two, three guests or five guests, and they'll have 15 show up, right? We want to really understand the purpose. And then once we figure that out, then they go to the second phase, right? The second phase is gonna be okay, cool, no problem. We'll love to host you. Now they've passed, they've passed uh step one. And then now we figured out that they are our right guests, and now we want to know you know how many people are uh there, we want their ID. We want them to know that some of our house rules are XYZ. You can't have this, you can't have that parties, right? So we are a little bit strict and it has turned some people off, but it has worked 99.9, okay, 99% uh of our reservations don't have parties anymore compared to before. Now we're asking these questions, and I would say a couple people might get uncomfortable, but we have to ask them in a nicer way so that they, you know, we we understand if we're getting the right people in there. And now what happens when you ask all these questions and you give them these rules and then they approve? We send them this agreement, and then the agreement is our house rules agreement. So they Airbnb is not gonna acknowledge your agreement, right? You know that. So we send them to agreement, so Airbnb is never gonna acknowledge it. We send them to agreement so that it's psychologically placed in their head, a a game more of hey, you know the rules, Mr. You know, tenant, Mr. Guest, so make sure you obey these rules, or this is gonna happen, right? And now that they have this agreement in their head and they know that these are the rules, now we've set rules in place. And most people, if they don't have rules, like I've had, you know, I sometimes we've launched properties in the past where there was no rules, right? Or there was just a couple house rules, and then we had to add more as we grew and as we matured, and now we see the difference. People aren't having these events, or they're really being more cautious because when you tell somebody that you can't do something, then they're gonna most more like more like more than likely respect your wishes because you're the property owner or the host. But if you don't tell them, they're gonna assume and then ask for forgiveness later, yeah, right? So we get it in their head first that they these are our rules and this is the way we we run our business. So they see a professional image, a professional face, and they're you know, not a hundred percent, it's not a hundred percent proof, but it's 90, 98, 99.

SPEAKER_01 39:13

And you keep cameras around the perimeter, yeah, brother.

SPEAKER_02 39:17

There's cameras in the front. There's a in the back, even though there is a pool, right?

Ring flood cams, Minute for noise, adding StayFi and upsell iPads

SPEAKER_02 39:26

In the front, um, we'll do like a flood cam, the one that has the ring flood cam, the one that has two lights and just one camera in the middle, uh, and then a ring doorbell. Um, then we'll do a uh minute alarm inside, right? That tells us the decibel levels, and then now they add it, you know, the device count so we don't have to do the party squash anymore, right? Because they combine minute. Um, and then we're actually adding Stafy. Okay. We haven't added that yet, but that's it's for obviously capture the emails, and we just need to add so many properties. That's what we had a made of, right? And then we're adding this platform. I forgot the name of it, but the little um the little uh have you heard of this? Uh have you guys heard of the the iPad thing that you just put in a little thing, and then and and essentially people can pay for an early checkout, late check-in, any any extra. Yeah, it's a little iPad, and they never steal it. I meant the owners of ERMA because well, they said they did 300 out of 10,000 orders or something, but they don't steal it because it's simply a box, and they can't just use that of an iPad, right? They can't go and play with it, so it's a box, and you can only pay for things, so it's not an actual iPad, it's just a device that looks like one.

SPEAKER_03 40:42

Oh wow, yeah. I know I don't know the name of it, I know exactly what you're talking about. I was I'm thinking about getting those two.

SPEAKER_02 40:48

I need about yeah, I can send you guys the card, you know. Um, the name of it, I can't remember the, but I got all their stuff in a bag.

SPEAKER_01 40:56

That is cool, man. Yeah, it's just like it's just it reminds me of uh what's it the Red Robin's burger place the other day, and on the on the table now, or I think Chili's has it too. That's like it's that thing, you can put your things on it. Oh, you can pay your bill on it, you can order another drink on it. I mean, it's like they're trying to get away from you bothering the the wait staff, I guess. You know, it's the same thing with that concept. Get you know, instead of them calling us, hey, can we have a late? Can we eight late or early or whatever the heck, they just boom, they just touch it there and and they're set. I like that.

SPEAKER_02 41:27

Yeah, I think it's pretty cool. We you know, I heard of it before, but then when I went there, I really was able to test it. And I'm like, you can make extra money, you can reduce your you know, the movement that happens, you know, with your front desk. Um, I think you can even generate other ways to revenue, like you can order something, you know, like you can add additional things without having to bother the guest.

SPEAKER_01 41:51

Let me ask you one thing, also. Yeah, it sounds pretty cool. Um, and and this is something that a lot of people don't bring up, but it is an issue, is the is the trash accumulation at houses. How and how do you handle that if there's only like one one trash pickup a week or maybe two, you know what I'm saying? And but people are starting coming and going at odd days. How do you handle like uh like a bunch of trash accumulation?

SPEAKER_02 42:15

So we have someone in our field operations that is in charge of driving to the properties and just pulling out the cans, right? And they'll just go and they'll hit an area one day and they'll hit an area, another area, another day. And then when the checkout is on the trash day, um, then the cleaners will take it out. But when that happens, there are still some logistical issues because the cleaners might get there a little bit later, right? And let's just say it's their second stop. So um, I have looked for a freaking trash ballet service. So whoever is listening here, if you live in Houston, you start trash ballet service, you're gonna be rich. I'll talk to you after the show.

SPEAKER_01 43:00

I'll talk to you after the show. We got something in beta, as they say, as a smart people.

SPEAKER_02 43:05

Okay, bro. I'm telling you, it is a big need in the industry in a lot of cities, you know. Something is because these houses is like, oh my goodness, there's people will be especially if you have bigger houses with big groups, three, four, five bags just over five, three, four days, right? Bottles, cans, trash, food. I mean, it could really accumulate fast.

SPEAKER_01 43:30

And they go shopping while they're in town, yeah, big time.

SPEAKER_03 43:32

And um, that's one of the tell the guests to take it out. We do, but they I mean they literally we have it.

SPEAKER_02 43:43

Uh uh, no, they're not doing it. We have a sign. Yeah, I'm not I don't count on the guests to do anything, right?

SPEAKER_01 43:49

So uh I guess the an issue here, an issue here uh they'll take some of it out, some of it. Because because some places just give you like one trash bin and they're and they're like You said you there's five, six, seven bags of trash, it's gonna it's gonna overflow if they try to work. They're just gonna put up the curb, get the city on your ass, get tickets, get the neighbors pissed off. You know, it's it's I just saw this problem at when we were started going to the city hall, you know, for the for when they're banning short-term rentals here in Arlington. All the people bringing in pictures of look at my neighbor, this is the trash that piles every weekend or every every sun, you know, it's just piling and it sits there all week until the trash man comes. This is just you know, that's what you and you don't want to attract attention from your neighbors in the in the city, right? So that's that's a big issue. So I just thought I'd run that, see how you're doing it since you're doing mostly houses.

SPEAKER_02 44:37

Yeah, so we've looked for trash valet services, and they could get pretty pricey, right? So, what I started doing is I started charging my own LOC a trash fee for our team to be able to like because it is costly. You pay somebody, you we hire somebody, it literally they have to drive to the houses, and it's costly, right? So, in um, yeah, it just having that, you know, obviously it's a couple thousand bucks a month, and if my management company is taking care of nine LOCs and one has five leases, one owns one property, the other one owns three, because I haven't diversified like that, then then then Interloop, which is my main company, is getting fees for that. So now it can support you know the fee outside of the management fee.

SPEAKER_01 45:34

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 45:35

So I did um in my in my agreements, I added a trash fee addendum. Yeah, it's a lot of work.

SPEAKER_01 45:46

Um, yeah, it is a lot of work, man. This this whole thing's a lot of work, and it shows it was cool about your story, man. Several times you've hit adverse adversity and it's pushed you into like uh a different direction, or you figure out a way to solve it, man. So that's um that's what I like about about hearing that most people would quit or give up, you know what I'm saying? But it's like uh, and I was gonna always like to ask

Partnership lessons: proper expectations, joint ventures, limited partnership agreements

SPEAKER_01 46:07

people what's your favorite uh failure, failure mistake. But I mean, you got a few that that you can. I mean, that first one, you know, you lost you didn't set everything up right and and you and you lost everything. So, but if that didn't happen, you wouldn't have been where you are right now, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 46:22

Yeah, yeah, that was an expensive but the greatest mistake I've ever made.

SPEAKER_01 46:27

Yeah, so uh we'll talk on that a little bit. Uh partnerships. How do you how do you set it? How does a great way to set up partnerships where you don't lose everything?

SPEAKER_02 46:36

Well, um the best way to to set them up is knowing and and setting up the best and most proper expectations. The difference between me back then and me now, when setting up a partnership, when it comes to setting up one, is that now I know what I'm talking about. Now I know the structure, now I know the legalities, and I give my partners the proper expectations. I can't do this, I can do that. Hey, that is what it's all about, right? Because I remember back then, you know, when I would set up a partnership at the nightclub, this is now short-term medals, right? I mean, I didn't know what the freaking, you know, what a limited partnership agreement was or how to set up a joint venture or how to negotiate a joint venture, right? And then I guess that comes with you know knowledge and experience, right? So now I set them up. There's many ways that I set them up, right? I will set them up in in a cash flow partnership, and either like I've got some partners that own the real estate, and we we we partner on the cash flow through a joint venture. Um, I would set them up through where like I have some students that come in and you know we we partner on the real estate and they operate it or we operate it. Doesn't really matter, right? We have a we have some type of separate partnership agreement in addition to our operating agreement at the LLC. Right? I'm setting up a venture right now with with these students who actually we went to high school together and they're like, George, we've been in my program for a year, and they barely got their first deal because this guy travels everywhere. He's like, I got 500 grand. I'm like, what you been waiting for, bruh? So you know, we're finally, finally. So the other guy, it's two of them. The other guy has had his Airbnb for a long time, but now we're like, okay, cool. So we're setting up an LLC together between the two of us, and then the other guy is going to come in as um as as properly managing the property. I'm like, the company isn't gonna be managing this one, right? So I'm bringing in the acquisition side, so we're setting it up so that they know exactly what their expectations are, and I know what mine are. Mine are gonna be XYZ, they're gonna be, you know, ABC, and another guy's gonna be EFG, right? So it's all about expectations.

SPEAKER_01 48:55

Nice, man. Nice. I like that covering all the bases. Well, cool, man. What um, so what's what's in your future, man? Because you went from from apartments to you know to houses now. Uh what's the what's is there another step coming up or what's going on?

SPEAKER_02 49:11

Oh man, we are just insanely busy with some amazing things happening, brother. Uh, we just launched uh about two months ago a three and a half day boot camp. Okay, and that is a separate business with a guy out of Arizona, a great guy, you know, uh my partner Jerry, and he had a boot, he had an event company prior, and then he got shut down. And now when we partnered up, we're doing events in person and then virtual, right? So we just added virtual for this one. Then I I love I love the impact part. So I've been really focusing on my coaching, right? Um, I I like that. Um, and then with these two ventures here, we're acquiring partners on the real estate side. Okay, and when we acquire, um let me explain to you a little bit better. My flow is to partner to bring in clients to the boot camp, right? And info products in the front end, which become coaching clients. And when they become coaching clients, a portion of them become partners, and we partner exactly like I told you. They put up the cash, we do a joint venture, we help them find the property, right? And then so now I only have to look for clients that are my perfect client and perfect avatar rather than going out there and looking for management clients per se, right? So we go from clients in the bootcamp, three-day event, they become coaching clients, and then automatically they become client partners in the back end. And some of them want us to manage their properties as a partner, right? So I don't have to worry so much. I think we've got a really good flow happening, right? And um I I I'm in love with I am in love with with just building, right? I fall in love with building, and as an entrepreneur, you guys know it's it's fun. You have to make anything you build fun and fall in love with the journey. Really find the why of what you what you're doing, what you're doing, right? Because I get away from things I don't like, right? And we all have to. If you it's not your craft, if you don't like it, get away from it, right? I fell in love with this journey. I love marketing, right? I love relationship building. I love capital. Uh, it's called relational capital, huge relational capital. We have JV partners, and now we've got this ecosystem that we've just been building in the last six to nine months, 100 plus students already, right? And we're making an impact, but also we're building our portfolio in the back end. You guys have a coaching program, right?

SPEAKER_01 51:58

No, no, no education, no, not yet.

SPEAKER_02 52:03

You should. It's it's amazing to make an impact to you know, in the back end, fellas. It's I love it, you know. So now I'm having my own students build our back end, which is the real estate, right? And it obviously, you know, it's great profits, it's it adding just to the back, the front end is coaching and boot camps, and the back end is management, which is the properties, and then the real estate side, right?

Expert Secrets vision: building the ecosystem three years ago

SPEAKER_02 52:29

And that's my strategy from beginning to end. Very simple, right?

SPEAKER_01 52:33

So about the synergy, everything works together. I love that.

SPEAKER_02 52:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I had a dream about this. Can I share with you?

SPEAKER_01 52:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:43

I envisioned this when I first read the book Expert Secrets. Okay, this is expert secrets. You've gotta read it. Expert secrets and and look for Russell Brunson's all of his books. But expert secrets gives you that that like vision of how you can spread your voice and message, and how you can build a tribe and a community of people that love you, right? And they'll work with you, they'll partner with you, they'll give you properties, you become their client, they become your clients, and and just it all synergizes with each other. And as I was dreaming this, it was right when I started in real estate, right? I broke up with my ex-girlfriend at the time, and I had to move, and you know, like and I got I actually moved into one of my Airbnbs at the time, and I was reading this book, and the the image and vision and dream that it gave me is like I'm gonna do this one day, and I'm just going to build all these steps out. And brother, I am fellas. I am, I kid you not, took me a couple of years, but you have to start with this first step of the vision. The first step was to get a bunch of properties and really learn the business like the back of your hand, right? So I learned it like the back of my hand with 35 apartments. Then I transitioned to become more profitable, right? And then now I have a lot of experience because I spent way over 10,000 hours and I perfected my craft. And that's when I said I'm ready to do this, right? And I fast-forwarded by having a vision of where I was going to be three years ago today, right? And and that book gave me that vision, right? So um, you know, I uh I would love to see you guys freaking nail it because this industry needs good people like y'all, you know, teaching and making an impact.

SPEAKER_01 54:37

Thanks, man. That's that's yeah yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:39

I definitely wrote that book down. Thank you for that.

SPEAKER_01 54:42

So this is this this is your this is your ever this is your job. I mean, this is your career, this is everything. You don't have a day job or anything like that.

SPEAKER_02 54:50

Oh no, no, no, brother. I don't have any this is everything I do, right? All day, every day.

SPEAKER_01 54:56

When's the last time you you had a job?

SPEAKER_02 54:57

Job uh 2003.

SPEAKER_01 55:02

Oh wow, wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:04

So you actually 2007 is when I got out of uh of having a uh I was a waiter, um, and that's before I got into you know being um not an entrepreneur at the time yet. I was just a more self-employed, right? And I would work for these bars and they would pay me to promote their their bars and bring people. And and I got fired from this sushi restaurant here in Houston, right? That was the last time, yes, 2007. So I haven't had a job since 2007.

SPEAKER_01 55:31

You got fired from a sushi restaurant?

SPEAKER_02 55:33

I was a waiter and a bartender. I got fired, and I said, I'm gonna go promote these clubs, and I'm gonna go meet these people, and I went and got it, and that's how I built a freaking we did over four million dollars um just with no freaking experience in a matter of like you know, seven, eight years in my in my promotion company.

SPEAKER_01 55:52

That is so cool, man. Well, that was a club. Another adversity, another adversity that led you to to more money. That's insane. So I mean, okay, okay, how can you okay, you're promoter, getting people into clubs, uh millions, whatever. Uh, how do you how do you uh how did that help you kick ass in this in this real estate part?

SPEAKER_02 56:14

I love that question, man. Thank you uh for asking. I think you know, when you're out there with people,

10,000 contacts, relational capital, fire from adversity

SPEAKER_02 56:20

you understand them, right? You understand people just by being with them for 10 years out there. I'm at I have 10,000 contacts in my phone, right? And just with knowing people and seeing them every day, four or five nights a week, it helped me develop a way more relational personality, right? I'm able to relay with anyone. I don't, it doesn't matter if I haven't seen them in 10 years or five years or whatever. I'm able to build rapport, right? I'm super genuine, you know, like I'm real, right? So now I've seen people and I've seen all kinds of people, and I was able to really see which ones were unattractive to other people. So I would recognize this group is not, you know, is not the way I really like I really am, right? So I would get away from that type of group. And then I was able to find myself through looking at the world, you know, from that from the inner perspective of people. Okay. And and I've built tons of relationships, which now I go back and they're my students, they're my partners, right? These relationships that I had years ago, right? And I think that being in that type of world, you learn what it is to hustle, right? So now, no matter what, I have gone through the worst adversities, right? I lost everything. The day we opened the nightclub in 2016. You know, I think it was 15th, uh maybe at the end of 15, right? I didn't have money to buy water burger. That's how broke I was, right? I had invested everything I had, and it's 410 grand, and I lost every penny I had. So I learned what it is to not have any money, you know, and then come back and rise from the dead, you know. So that's what this ups and downs give you. And now my resilience, my drive is like level 10, right? And nothing beats nothing beats resilience and drive, right? And and it's the fire inside me, right? And and if you don't go through those things, you sometimes the fire doesn't accumulate inside. So for uh for one to be successful, the only thing that can get you far, that fast freaking far, it's that fire inside you. Have you guys ever heard of that? You gotta have the fire, you know.

SPEAKER_01 58:39

Yeah, yeah, you can see it, man. It's brimming from you, it's just like you radiate that stuff, yeah. Man, you're live on the screen, George. I have I have a club in Houston. No one's coming, man. What do I do? Is there five quick steps to get get it full? I want this, I need this club full. What do I do?

SPEAKER_02 58:55

You do have a club in Houston. No, I'm just saying if I did. Oh, okay. Oh man, I never built frameworks for that, which is just funny because you know I go back and I'm like, man, that was the best in my industry. Uh I I couldn't even tell you because I never built the frameworks for it right now. Hey, go promote on social media. I left three and a half years ago, so there are way different ways to market, you know, events. It's hard, it's it's a dead industry.

SPEAKER_01 59:22

Oh, wow, really?

SPEAKER_02 59:23

Yeah, it's I mean, people go there, but in a year, you could be gone. They come and go. It's a fickle, fickle industry.

SPEAKER_01 59:33

Yeah, interesting, man. That's cool. But now you're you're into something a little more stable. You got the real estate going on, and you got all the different ways of doing it. I love it, and you're and you're all using it together in a synergistic manner. Um, man, you this is a great show, Micah. You got any more questions for George?

SPEAKER_03 59:49

No, man, you killed it, bro. Man, thank you for coming on. I know it took us a while to get in touch, but yeah, thank you for coming on, man. It's always a pleasure talking to you.

SPEAKER_01 59:57

Yeah, we're gonna folks find working folks find you, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:00

Yeah. Um, thank you for having me. It's uh it's an honor. And brother, I know we uh we haven't met in person, but definitely look forward to meeting both of you, you know, maybe at the next PRMA, right? Facts. So yeah, I mean, I I saw everybody we were in Clubhouse with, they were there. They were all there. I was like, yo, what's up, Sean? Eric Mueller and just uh Will Slickers and a bunch of people were there. It was pretty awesome, bro. I I got to hang out with some awesome people, Robert. So so that was pretty cool. Um, yeah, I mean, I've got um I've got my personal website, which is you know my my main source where people can connect with me. It's uh george sallas360.com. G-R-G-E-S-A-L-E-S 360.com. And then my other website is uh 5h2f.com. 5h2f.com. The number five stands for uh that stands for five houses to freedom.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:02

Ah, I like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:05

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:06

That is cool, man. Well, we look forward to connecting and going down to Houston. We uh yeah, we do uh Micah has rentals in Houston. I got one and we're working on a couple more, and so um, yeah, definitely go have some um Turkey Leg Hut. Go hit it up.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:20

Hey, let's go. I actually have a Airbnb two minutes from Turkey Leg HUD.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:25

Really? Yeah, so do you do you promote that big time?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:29

Uh I mean, yeah, I mean we put it on. There's a picture of it, you know, and and you know, it's pretty cool. Like, we you guys let me know when you come in town, we'll we'll hop onto Turkey Leg HUD and we can link up, do lunch or something, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:41

Thanks, man. I'm always down there. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I travel to Houston quite often, so yeah, thanks. I'll hit you up.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:48

Awesome, fellas.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:49

Well, thank you for having me. Thank you so much, man.

unknown 1:01:51

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:52

All right, George. Thanks. Take care. You too.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:55

And that was another great episode of Live Live Drive. What was that? Episode 182.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:01

182.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:02

Man, that was a good episode, man. He dropped some good gems.

Apartments versus houses, vending machines, DoorDash for missing items

SPEAKER_03 1:02:05

I loved it because it was good, kind of like reaffirming what I was thinking about like apartments in the short-term rental space. I'm like, I think it's going towards houses, man. That the apartments are too finicky, man. They don't fix shit. And then it's like management changes, it's cutthroat.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:24

It's it's a it's a rough lick, man. It could be a rare, unless you own the whole apartment complex and you're doing it that way.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:29

There you go, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:30

And what one thing I was gonna mention too, um, on our end, that there is there is uh a few in Dallas that are pretty much all 100 you know Airbnbs at the place. There no one lives in it, it's just Airbnbs, which is cool. I'm like, man, I should I should see about putting some vending machines in this. If it's 100 Airbnb, right? No one. I mean, I don't know if who'd who'd buy snacks if you live there. I mean, people do groceries and stuff like that. But if you're just visiting for the weekend, you don't want to go, you know, you get the munchies at uh 3 a.m. You don't want to go drive to the store, just go hit up the vending machine.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:04

I'm happy you brought that up because that's been on my mind too. Doing vending machines, uh, vending machines, Tesla chargers, anything like that. Man, I think it's all a bonus, man. Venom machine's been on my mind. I'm like, if I had a vending machine out in the garage, I wonder if somebody use it. You know, just you know, if you had a bunch of snacks, somebody might use, especially if, like, for example, I have somebody in town for a work trip, but his wife and kids are there. I'm pretty sure the kids will go get a vendor, you know, get something off the machine.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:31

Oh, yeah, yeah. You just gotta figure out the logistics and restocking and all that stuff, you know. That's the only thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:37

Uh the restocking's easy. You can use like a little app, like Fiverr. Somebody get somebody off Fiverr to just go restock it. By the way, y'all definitely man, we gotta definitely start taking advantage of DoorDash. DoorDash is powerful stuff. We've had we've been using DoorDash for like small stuff that comes up. Man, you can get somebody to DoorDash something over or something, like, hey, there's some shampoo missing, or something. But you can get DoorDash too. Yeah, you can get DoorDash to go DoorDash, it's pretty cheap, too. I mean, let's say spend 10 bucks, but I mean, hey, you get yourself a decent review, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:10

Nice, nice. Yeah, well, cool, man. This is so many, so many ways to skin a cat in this industry. George Salas, he kicks the butts a day, man. Go look him up. Uh, his energy is infectious. It gas has me, yeah, especially. Yeah, I mean, you've been talking about just going straight to houses, and and that's the that's that's the direction I'd like to go. Uh, I do worry a little bit about the regulations because they you know that's the first place they want Airbnbs out of is the neighborhoods, you know. But but if you if you're able to um, like you said, switch it to a long-term rental somehow or put travel nurses in there or do something like that, you'd be all right. You'll be all right.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:47

This is the real play though when you go to houses. This is why people gotta understand landlording. See, this is what I'm personally doing. I'm buying houses right now, and I'll give y'all a little gem for my mentor, basically what he said to do. And this is how you get your freedom. I'm buying four more houses. Matter of fact, I have it right in front of me. I'm buying four more houses. What I'm gonna do with those four, so I'll be then be up to seven houses. I'm gonna then let's just say I'm gonna Airbnb them if I much as I can, but if they can't Airbnb, they work as long-term rentals. I'm running the numbers only as long-term rentals. I'm not even running Airbnb numbers. I'm gonna pay those seven off. I'm gonna pay them off rapidly once they're paid off. Then no matter what happens, they'll always cash for me a certain amount that I want per month as a long-term rental. Now I'm free, I can do whatever I want, and then the more rentals I pick up, I can kind of leverage it out. I have more to leverage with. So that's been my goal, too. But yeah, my goal is hey, I'm just trying to accumulate the amount I need for my freedom, then pay them all off.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:49

Yeah, the freedom number.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:50

Yeah, you know, exactly. You know, so because that was my biggest thing, too. And I was like, Oh shit, what a regulation. And I was like, forget it. If they don't work this long term, I just don't touch them. I don't even run Airbnb numbers, short-term real numbers on them anymore.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:03

Oh, that's good. Yeah, that's what I heard when I first started getting into real estate. The freedom number is just say if you had 10 houses paid off, you're making a thousand bucks on each one. That's ten thousand a month. Can you live off ten thousand a month? Most people can. Yeah, that's your freedom number, you know, just figure out what it is, and then that's your goal. Everything after that is gravy.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:20

Yeah, and you never touch those houses ever again, just let them sit. And then why don't you pick you just pick up more after that? I was like, Oh, damn. So he busted it down to me. And he was like, So you only need four more houses. I was like, Damn, yeah. So I'm I'm yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:34

Great episode, man. It's always it's always great. Connected. I'm glad you're doing better.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:39

Man, yeah, that was tough. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:41

Yeah, so it's um live let thrive. That's who we are, that's what we're trying to bring to the community. And people are people are coming around to us, man. I mean, they they they really like our show, and I and we appreciate that so much. Yeah, we'll keep we'll keep doing it.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:57

Yeah, once again, we are humbled by everybody and everything that y'all are doing. Thank y'all for continuing to listen to us. And I gotta give a big shout out to the short-term rental community in general who've listened to our podcast. Shout out to Robert Doendorf. Like, as soon as he found out where I was at, like, I didn't tell too many people I was in the hospital, but when he found out, like he sent dinner to my house. So, shout out to Rob. I'm gonna get this dude on the podcast because he's a straight killer anyway.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:20

So Rob, yeah, he's a great dude.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:22

Shout out to him, and uh yeah, shout out to the whole community for reaching out to me and uh yeah, it means a lot to my family. So, thank y'all for continuing listening.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:30

Cool, man. Live let thrive.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:33

We are out. Peace later. 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.