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_03 0:11

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

SPEAKER_02 0:21

What is up, Micah Man?

SPEAKER_03 0:22

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

SPEAKER_02 0:24

Oh, doing great, doing great. Ready to get after it. Um, this is episode 181 of your favorite Airbnb VRBO, home away, lift, Uber, all that share, economy, stuff, podcast in the world. And we have a special guest today. We got Steve, Miss Cynthia Tant, PhD, Doctor. Cynthia Tant, PhD, our first doctor on the show, right? Yes. Pretty cool. Who's Cynthia? You asked well, I got a little write-up for you. Uh, Dr. Cynthia Tant is broker owner of Gulf Coast Home Experts, Gulf Coast B B Rentals, Golf Coast Real Estate Management 2014, WCR Realtor of the Year. She served as the 2016 president of WCR for Pensacola Bay Chapter as a seasoned real estate broker owner. Doc started in STR four years ago, now owns eight properties and manages and manages two. Loves the STR business, but integrates it with her

From biomechanics PhD to real estate broker

SPEAKER_02 1:27

two other companies: one stop shop to buy, sell, rent, lease, manage. Plus, she is located in the beautiful Emerald Coast of Florida. Welcome to the show, Cynthia.

SPEAKER_05 1:39

Well, thank you very much, guys. I appreciate you uh inviting me and bringing me on board the show.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

Yeah, our pleasure. So, um, what are you a doctor in, first of all?

SPEAKER_05 1:50

Biomechanics. Wow, has nothing to do with real estate.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

That is crazy. So, you were you in that for field for a long time?

SPEAKER_05 2:00

Uh 20 years, yeah. I'm a little bit older than you guys, so this is my second career as a uh real estate professional.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

So, so how did you how did you go from biomechanics to real estate?

SPEAKER_05 2:13

Uh, I started investing in the real estate market back in the early 90s, and as I was investing, I started realizing that it was uh pretty lucrative, but I was also teaching people how to invest in real estate, but I wasn't getting paid for it. So I said, Well, why don't we just uh become a realtor and start that process? And that's how I ended up where I'm at now.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

Nice. Now, did you start your real estate career there at the Emerald Coast?

SPEAKER_05 2:40

I did. Yes, I did in 2000. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:43

Oh, that's a good year to start. Been around a while. Yeah, so what what um and so why did you start there? Is that where you just always lived, or you just you vacationed there and loved it and wanted to invest?

SPEAKER_05 2:55

Well it I'm a native Floridian. Um, I left the state for 10 years while I was uh teaching or while I was getting my PhD and when I was teaching at Iowa State University. Well, I'm a native Floridian, so you could tell that I was not real keen on the sub-zero temperatures in Iowa. So I I had a chance to come back and teach here at the university where I graduated from. And I ended up here and uh my brother and I started investing in real estate and got involved in it and just made the decision to switch over um and go from there. Has its ups and downs, but just love the short-term rental market right now. And uh especially that the picture behind me is our beach. Um that is something that um we are very a lot of people don't know that this is our beach. Uh kind of a still a little secret. And um, so I just stayed here, but I was uh I I I came to college here in the late 70s, came back as a professor in the 80s, and then I just came back and stayed around.

SPEAKER_02 4:03

Nice, nice. And what beach is that, by the way?

SPEAKER_05 4:05

This is Pensacola Beach.

unknown 4:07

Right.

SPEAKER_05 4:08

So it's on the Gulf Coast. We're right next to the Alabama Florida line in the panhandle.

SPEAKER_02 4:15

This is the Gulf of Mexico, Country Band Alabama, Florida line or something.

SPEAKER_05 4:20

The Floribama Lounge, if you've heard about Floribama, if you ever heard about that bar. Well, half the bars in Florida, half the bars in Alabama. And in April, we have this very southern ritual of throwing dead fish across the border to see who can throw the fish the farthest. And 65,000 people show up to do it, so it's a real festive activity. Yes. Mullet toss.

SPEAKER_03 4:49

Never heard of that one.

SPEAKER_05 4:51

Uh you look it up, it's a big one.

SPEAKER_02 4:54

So what what kind of property did you invest

$62,000 for seven doors in 1994

SPEAKER_02 4:57

in first?

SPEAKER_05 4:58

Well, originally my brother and I uh got into multifamily uh historical homes. Uh Pensacola is took over the notoriety, I guess, of being the first settlement in Florida uh or in the United States away from St. Augustine. So we found some archaeological digs and took that over. So we have a very large historical area here of historical homes. And my brother and I, we bought a couple of those which were turned into long-term rentals. And then we uh bought a beach house and uh very fortunate to sell it two months before Hurricane Ivan wiped it off the beach. That was back in 2004, and just have stayed in the market of um buying and selling and and primarily holding and now finding investors, um, houses that would they would like to turn into short-term rentals, which uh in historical homes, uh, we can put four to six units in one and people just love them.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

So nice, nice. Any questions, Micah? Yeah, how many so how many units are you operating on the show?

SPEAKER_05 6:04

Right now, I personally own eight and operate, and then I manage two of the beach homes, beach condos, but I personally have eight that I have invested in do myself, yes.

SPEAKER_03 6:14

Oh wow, so a total of 10. Now, what and are all of them on the beach or just two.

SPEAKER_05 6:19

The two that I manage are on the beach, all the rest of mine are in town, and we just secured a uh another historical home down the street from my office for another investor for short-term rental, and he'll have four, he'll have five units in there once we close in a month.

SPEAKER_03 6:35

Now, how are how are those historical homes doing? Because I I'm actually looking to invest in a historical area, but the issue I kept running into, there's only there's you're limited on what you can do on the rehab, right? So how how are those historical homes doing?

SPEAKER_05 6:49

I think it's where you may be located. Yes, externally, they're going to be rules and regulations based on the historical uh appearance. Uh, you can't paint, you know, things like that. You do have to get permits to do things on the outside. Inside, you can just pretty much renovate, do whatever you want to. My house that I'm in right now, that you don't see because of the mess in the background, but it's 120 years old. Uh, I use my one of my suites I use for my business. My upstairs suite is a long-term rental, and my two units in the back are short-term rentals. Um, people love the historical homes here. Now they are. You you gotta make sure that there's gonna be work to them because they're wood. Um, they're all wood. So you are gonna have to replace unless the people before you have replaced the cast iron pipes, you know, the wiring. Uh, but most of our homes right now have been renovated over the years. So when we have hurricanes, these houses are still standing. They're not getting wiped off the planet, wiped out of the beach or anything like that. They're all still standing. Um, mine's been here, yeah, 120 years. So I love the historical market because we're uh we're located at we can walk straight downtown. Um, takes us 15 minutes, all the restaurants, everything, the activity. Plus, we have a lot of historical, obviously, monuments and things like that to to visit.

SPEAKER_02 8:24

Nice.

Pensacola vs spring break markets

SPEAKER_05 8:25

Very interesting, very interesting market.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

Now, is Pensacola a big spring break town?

SPEAKER_05 8:32

No, um, we're not. We're a little bit further north. We do have a spring break market, but our biggest market is during the summer. And um, majority of the people that visit would be we like to call them the Southeast Conference because it's where you can get to us within five to six hours. Yep. And visit and hang out for a week around the weekends. We are at the home of the Blue Angels, um Navy team for the the pilots for the uh aircraft. So we have two major shows each there each year here. Um we have let's see, we have a ton of activities that go on here. I mean, COVID shut us down only for two months last year was April and May, and then Florida opened back up in June. And we've been open ever since. So we just had a fire hydrant of everybody coming here, and I've been 95, 98 occupancy in all the units the whole time.

SPEAKER_02 9:37

So nice, yeah. We we see on the news how the the media pokes funny at you guys for opening up and saying, Ah, we don't care about covet, but it but hey, say Texas is the same way, and yeah, I'm with it. That's true, that's true. Get into politics, but we're open too, so it's all good.

SPEAKER_05 9:56

Yeah, actually, I go back and forth to Dallas quite a bit, so oh cool.

SPEAKER_02 10:00

Oh, really? Okay, what brings you to Dallas?

SPEAKER_05 10:03

Uh, I've got a group of realtor friends that I work with out there. We share, in fact, two of them have bought properties here for short-term rentals. The one of the historical home is coming, and then the other one bought out of the beach back in October. So they're looking for investment properties to um ultra invest in, obviously. And our market's very different. Uh, what part of Texas are you guys in? Are you in? Oh gosh. Okay, so you know how expensive your homes are there, right?

SPEAKER_04 10:31

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 10:32

Yeah, it's nuts there. Um, like, well, the historical home that um we just got under contract was for 500,000. And it it has five units in it, and it'll pull between 10 to 11,000 a month in BB rentals income. Yeah, I know. And our average, our average sale price since I'm a realtor and that's how I integrate my three companies together, is that uh our average sale price is 295, not including the beaches. Now the beaches are a little bit higher, but in town, 295 is our average um house price.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

That's not too bad.

SPEAKER_05 11:12

So yeah, so people can actually get into the market, uh, even if they're doing long-term rentals without you know going like Dallas, where you're spending $100,000 over list price and kind of crazy stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03 11:26

Literally, yeah. Literally. No, not my question. No, do your historical homes on a year-round basis, do they do just as good as the beach homes, or which one is they do better.

SPEAKER_05 11:37

They do better because they're not cyclic for the people just going to the beach. Uh the beach condos just going to the beach to vacation during the summer and maybe special events, weddings, things like that. In town, we have a big uh military community, so we have people coming in and out all the time visiting. Uh, a lot of people like to stay in the downtown or the historical area because they are coming to sightsee. You know, they're not coming here for just the beach. Most of the time on the beach, you go out to the beach for a week, you're gonna be out at the beach. So we do have uh a pretty good year round. Um, because I've been doing this now. This is my fourth year going into what we call the off season, which is from October, well, yeah, October till about March, because it gets chillier here than it does in South Florida. Um, and we'll get snowbirds that come like from January, February, March. So sometimes we'll rent the beach condos um much less uh than we would on a regular B B short-term rental price during those three months.

SPEAKER_03 12:49

Okay, so during your guys' snowbird season, how exactly does that work? Are you guys leasing them out like for like weeks at a time, or is it just occupancy goes low?

SPEAKER_05 13:00

No, we'll rent them out for like a month at a time. Okay, we have a lot of like traveling nurses and physical therapists and things like that that'll come in and they actually will pay primed out dollar. Um, and then some of my other rentals, um, I have I allow pets because I have fenced in backyards, they're always full. Um so but yeah, that's

Running three real estate companies without micromanaging

SPEAKER_05 13:24

big time.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

So I excuse me. My question to you would be all right, it's hard enough for someone to have one successful business. First of all, how did you get get that that one business to run smoothly and then everything go good where you're not like having to micromanage everything? And then how did you how did you go and do like three making it a three successful businesses?

SPEAKER_05 13:45

Yeah, that's what most people ask me. Um, I have a very good group of support, a support group. I have a broker associate for the sales business who helps out with the um agents and anything that may, if I'm I like to travel a lot, so I'm I'm kind of on the tail end of my career. So retirement is in the future, real shortly. So I have a broker associate uh that handles the sales part of it. The long-term rental management company, I have a property manager, he's also my maintenance guy. We handle we we're not big, we only handle 65 doors, but that's long-term management. I enjoy doing the short-term rental management. Um, but I also have a uh transaction coordinator that assists me with that. And I'm bringing on a new person because we're gonna grow a little bit. So she's coming on to do all of the check-ins, checkouts, you know, that sort of thing that I don't do anymore. So um, yeah, it knows it's been a learning experience, and not everything has gone smoothly through the years. And but the one thing I found is uh, you know, in any real estate market, you have your ups and downs, and what has stayed steady is the long-term rental market. Everything's full. We don't have any vacancies at all. Uh, so if we're not making money or producing income in the sales avenue, then now we have the long-term rental management that carries us through. And then I added the short-term rental management, which has been more successful than I ever thought. And the side note of that is, and I didn't even think of this when I started it, is the people who attend to visit guests that come are looking to buy houses. And so I've sold 15 houses in the past two years to guests that have come in to just buy a single-family home. Not necessarily that they were looking for a rental uh to rent or anything or to use for Airbnbs, because our military community goes back and forth. Um, they'll come in and I show them houses, or one of my agents does, and we'll get them a nice house.

SPEAKER_03 15:57

See, I love that. That's like one of those things, like how Steve was asking about the businesses. You've used one business to multiply the other one. See, and I thought about that too, because I get people all the time who will book in Dallas saying, hey, I'm uh looking for a house and we just need to stay a month. You know, I'm like, geez, if I was a realtor, I could make some money off that. But that's a great, great thing you've done there.

SPEAKER_05 16:18

And and actually, my group in Dallas has helped me put this together. It's a mastermind group, and they've helped me put this whole thing together where it was really scattered two years ago because things are all over the place where I've been able to put it together to make it more of a circle where everything's feeding into it. So if someone does want to become an investor, uh then I can actually help them for the long term because if they don't want to do short-term rentals, I can manage their property long term or I can manage their property short term. And if I do find an investor group uh that is interested in investing in the market here, then I'm just looking for properties for them. And then I'll manage it short-term or long term, you know. So it actually feeds into like a little hub. The way we look at it is it's feeding all into the middle of the hub, but it's using all three. And then I do have um a rehab company on the side. I don't do any of that, it's just when we get ready to do it. Um, I've got all the maintenance people, but I've been in the market here for 20 years, so I have all my maintenance people, I have my cleaners um that just started, but I do have a good group um that have been cleaning houses for me in the past, you know, cleanouts, um, maintenance HVAC, roofers, plumbers. That team is really very important in this market in short-term rentals. And I've been fortunate enough to have a very good group with me for a substantially long period of time.

SPEAKER_03 17:53

Okay, now what area you said you guys are growing this year? Are there are you guys growing in the same area or are you expanding into other markets?

Historical homes outperform beach condos year-round

SPEAKER_05 18:01

Actually, staying close to home right now. Um, I'm even when I was buying more with my brother in the early years, we stayed really close to home because we knew the market. But if you don't know the panhandle of Florida, from Alabama all the way over to Panama City, is very beautiful beaches, vacation rentals. We we're short-term rental communities, so we don't get the hassles in the cities that are trying to enforce, you know, no short-term rentals and things like that. Um, so we can move over four different counties and be able to do more of that, and that's kind of what I'm doing. But um, I've had people ask me to be out of state. I'm actually going to Knoxville next week. A friend of mine um wants me to come and talk with her about it. Another wants me to talk with her about it in in Austin. Um, and so yeah, but I don't yeah, I don't know the markets, but they're both realtors, so they're kind of looking at it from the same standpoint that I am or that I have already created as to how they can create that and and do it in their in their own community.

SPEAKER_03 19:14

Knoxville's great, Austin's strict. Go ahead, Steve. Really? Oh, yeah, Austin's super strict.

SPEAKER_05 19:22

Is it true that in Texas, even in a short-term rental, you have to have a broker's real estate license? No, I heard that, I didn't think so because I've stayed in Airbnbs in Dallas, and I know those people didn't have a real estate license.

SPEAKER_03 19:37

Yeah, no, that's not not at all.

SPEAKER_05 19:39

Yeah, somebody told me that. I said, No, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_02 19:42

Now, now to do property just like regular long-term property management in Texas, you have to have a real that's my Gulf Coast real estate management company.

SPEAKER_05 19:50

That's long-term regular property management, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:52

Right, right. Which is funny, right? Because like I I just, you know, if you step back and look at it, doing short-term rental management is way more intensive than doing long-term rental management because long-term, you get the people in there, they're there for a year, you know, something you know, sink or toilet, you know, you send somebody to go fix it. Airbnb or short-term rental every single day, something crazy could happen. So it's like it's way more intensive and way more in. And you don't need a you don't need anything to do that, you don't need a license or nothing.

SPEAKER_05 20:20

No, well, you're you're you're correct, but I think because I have that already uh support group from my long-term rental management, I've got well, for example, I've got an HVAC guy that I had to turn my one house, I had to turn it, I had four hours to turn it, and my HVAC went out. And I called him up and he went to my house and he put a brand new HVAC system in in that four hours. Whoa. Now, where do you get that to happen? You know, and uh, and then he says, Hey, you owe me 1800 bucks. I said, What? I know the eyeballs are there, and he's but see, I give him so much business of referrals that whenever I call him, he's he's at my door.

SPEAKER_02 21:06

So it's a relationship.

SPEAKER_05 21:08

The relationship business is very, very, you know, what you need. It's all the relationships, even short-term, long-term, whatever it is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:15

See now, now Steve, you brought up the short-term and the long-term thing. So, you as being a property manager, I know it's gonna be more work on the long on the short-term side, but like after that guest has moved out, the person's moved out after the whole year. Is it more work to have to go in there after a year? This person's been in there messing stuff up than on the short-term side, everything's being turned over.

SPEAKER_02 21:37

It depends on the person.

SPEAKER_05 21:38

Well, it depends on yeah, it depends on the person. Now, we do a pretty good job of screening people on the way in. Things do happen, people have issues, um, but we do a pretty good job of screening on the way in, and we also do a pretty good job job of staying up on mechanical issues, you know, and letting them. Know to contact us, you know. We also do something that a lot of long-term property managers may not do, but and sometimes not all of our owners do it, but we offer quarterly pest control because we have stinking bugs in Florida, big bugs, you know. And so we do a quarterly pest control so that my pest team goes out and checks the places to see what they look like, more or less. And so not only are we stopping the pest from being around, but we're also like going and spraying under a counter and there's a bowl under the counter because they haven't told us they have a leaking faucet, then we can get it fixed and stopped and do a lot of things like that. It's it's again in the um communication with our tenants and um just making sure they understand us and we understand them. And we have very few evictions. Even during COVID, we had uh, I think one out of the 65 that we had to worry about that didn't pay their rent. Um, but again, our rents are relatively low too. I mean, we can have from 450 bucks, you know, down a month all the way up to about you know 2500's about the max that you're gonna find here.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

So now you've been in the in the real estate game for a while and you've seen some booms and busts. And do you see any like any red flags or alarms

Red flags for a crash: the craziest market I've ever seen

SPEAKER_02 23:23

like in our current, you know, crazy real estate, everything's shooting up, you know, every single day. Idiot, do you see anything red flags that oh crap, you know, a crash might happen?

SPEAKER_05 23:32

This is the craziest market I've ever seen in my life, and we all admit it that there's never been anything like it. Um, now going back to 2005 and six, with the thing back then was everybody was getting a mortgage at a hundred percent that couldn't afford it. Now, people they're not the mortgages are a lot tighter. Uh, a lot of people have equity in their houses. We're all we don't think there's gonna be a bust. And everybody keeps saying, what about foreclosures and short sales and stuff like that? It may be coming in 2022, but nothing like back in what we saw in 2007, six and or seven and eight, when everything was going up like 40 percent, and then it went down just as fast as it can up. Because if you look back then, the prices were the houses were so overvalued. Um, the people should not have been buying those houses, and that's why they lost them. Um, and I think even though money's cheap right now, to be able to get a mortgage, you basically have to have good credit, you have to have a good job. You're not you have to put some kind of money down unless it's VA. Um, but I don't see any red flags where it's gonna be anything like that. We just need some houses to sell. We have no inventory. Um, we have plenty of buyers, but we have no inventory.

SPEAKER_02 24:57

So, how did how did 2008 affect your business?

SPEAKER_05 25:01

Oh gosh, I was dead. Dead. Yeah, it it I went a whole year without doing much,

The 2008 collapse and BP oil spill opening

SPEAKER_05 25:09

but 2005-2006 was just amazing. So I was able to get through it, and that's why I'm still here. Whereas a lot of agents are not, a lot of realtors are not, and then I I started my own company 10 years ago, 11 years ago, right when the oil spill, BP oil spill came in right on that beautiful white beach, put oil all out there, and so I couldn't believe it. I opened it up like a month before the oil spill. Um, but got through that. Uh BP gave us each, I think, I think they gave us $50,000 as realtors. Um, we just yeah, we had to just apply for it and they gave it to us. Um, so that got us through a little bit through that period.

SPEAKER_03 25:52

So so 0506, you said you did really good and that held you over. Yeah, were you getting like cash flowing properties? How did that what were you doing in that?

SPEAKER_05 26:00

Yeah, my properties. I had all my properties too back then. Yeah, well, actually, no, that's when we sold. Uh, I bought all the properties in 94.95, sold in 2005. So the ones I bought for you guys are gonna, this is gonna kill you. Okay, so I bought two duplexes and a triplex for 62,000 total in 1994. 1994. Okay, so that's seven doors and great area. I had to go in and do some, you know, renovation and stuff like that, but then sold them off. I still have one duplex, which I actually is an Airbnb, and um, but uh sold them off and stupid prices in 2005 and six. You know, one we one duplex we sold for 140. The triplex I think was 200. Yeah. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

In other words, double what those double the price.

SPEAKER_05 27:03

Oh yeah, yeah. And then oh absolutely, and then um had a couple of uh historical homes that bought for $85,000 each. Uh put money into them, but they were completely paid off because they were long-term tenants, and one we sold for $425, and one was $415. So we did pretty good. And that's my brother, my brother and I did pretty good.

SPEAKER_03 27:24

So this is the go ahead, Steve. Oh, this is the what power of real estate. That's why I love it, man. It never stops. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 27:32

I I guess you know it's it's cool. You got some some valuable lessons for for people that are a lot of a lot of our listeners are just getting into it, right? Getting into short-term rentals, and they're excited about it. I mean, right now, kind of you if you do a decent job, if you get a nice place in a decent spot, put some good furniture in it, you're gonna profit from day one. I mean, it's just it's that simple, but um I guess my fear is a lot of them is all this is easy, gonna get a bunch, gonna get going, and they're gonna put all their eggs in one basket. I see how you got yours spread out to different things. So, what kind of advice do you have to people out there that say, Oh, this short term rentals, that's that's the way to go. They're gonna dive straight in and do 100 that and just just just only that. And uh, what what do you what advice would you give those people?

SPEAKER_05 28:17

Well, the first thing, um, the two that I do is for other people, I've actually sold those to them. So I don't go out and seek other properties right now at the present time that um I don't actually know the owner from some way or something, like going out and asking another owner who may have a long-term rental to convert. So I don't do what is it, arbitrage or something like that. I I don't go into that. Um now I I know other people very successful at that. I just haven't done that. Um, as far as how you want to get started in the short-term rental market, if you are able to own one or own a house yourself. Now, I don't know about you guys, but I've rented out rooms from other people when I've been traveling. You know, I've done it that way. I personally don't rent out just a room, I rent out complete um houses and stuff. But um, that's a way to get started to see if you even like it. You know, uh start small unless you have ungodly amount of money that you can go out there and you know buy it and stuff like that. But you're right, it does take when I have started all mine. I've had to do the whole furniture, I mean, from scratch, from nothing. Um, now again, I have other resources coming in, so it's but then you can turn that depending on your area. Now, I'm in a vacation resort town, you know. Uh it's a very good area to do short-term rentals. Uh, depending on where you're I always tell people, especially an investor, or even buying your own house, you make your money when you buy your house. You buy in the best area uh or the area where you're you may have the ugliest house on the block, but then you're gonna have the best return and the best investment once you do that. Um, a lot of people, I've got right now, so many buyers are so anxious to buy a house, they're looking in places that no, we're not gonna do that. You know, because they're first-time home buyers and they're they're paying outrageous amount for it. And they go, but why? I go, well, let's talk about it, you know. Um, so I'm more cautious with people buying. I don't want to sell somebody something that um it's gonna hurt them in the long run. We just sold a house today or just closed on a house today. Young military man, he bought it 18 months ago. He made $78,000 in in 18 months. He's a happy camper.

SPEAKER_03 30:52

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 30:53

Um, yeah. So yeah. So and his house was in a great neighborhood. Single guy had a pool, tiki bar out back, and that he was set, you know, a pilot, of course. Um, but the way I look at people is uh I want to make sure that because I am I don't I'm a teacher by heart, so I educate people. Um, I'm not a coach or anything. I get coaching and stuff, but I'm not a coach or anything that I offer my services for free just because I love it. Um and uh I help, I like I did a podcast with um Jasper.

Find a realtor who invests in short-term rentals

SPEAKER_05 31:33

Um oh man, what paid for your paid for your paddle? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But Jasper. And um, so and I uh three investors have come from that podcast because of just the education of what I do and how to make that happen, you know. Um, and again, I think it works out. You give back to the community, and again, if I can find something that'll benefit you, it's all good.

SPEAKER_02 32:03

So yeah, that's where I heard. That's where I heard you. That's where I reached out to you from. Get paid for your pad. Yeah, that was a great episode.

SPEAKER_05 32:11

Yeah, yeah. So um you've had good questions too. You've had real good questions about uh the going back to getting started. Um, yeah, I wouldn't try anything crazy to start with. Uh look at your numbers. Uh oh, if you are gonna buy, find yourself a real estate agent who is an investor who also works in short-term rentals, just like I am, because they know just don't go out and get a realtor who's gonna sell you a house because they're not gonna give you the numbers and they're not gonna know what's going on. Do your research, find out, you know, who's in the community. There's plenty of us. Um, and you'll you do much better. That's that's how I got started in my investing. Uh, I had a fantastic realtor who what she couldn't buy, she told my brother and I, you look, you gotta buy this, and we did. We just took her advice.

SPEAKER_03 33:06

So I'm so happy you brought that up because I I've told I think in the last three or four years, me and Steve have been like telling people, especially in the DFW market, if you don't know short-term rentals in your realtor, it can be a very big success for you if you learned it, and then you'd have a bigger pool of buyers and people that you can educate. And I'm happy you're doing that. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_05 33:27

Yep. I'll be back, I'll be in Dallas uh December, I think. I'll have to come meet you guys. We'll we'll have to get together and go have a cocktail or something.

SPEAKER_02 33:37

Sure. That'd be great. So you get um I love I've been to Destin. I love Dustin. Do you you don't service that far that that area?

SPEAKER_05 33:45

Yeah, I do. Yeah. Now I don't um it's not my primary sales market, uh, but one of my stories I like to tell people is this has been about 10 years ago. I got an um an email lead way back then before social media was really going or anything, just an email lead, and a guy said that he wanted to go find a condo in Destin, but he only wanted to pay 250,000 on the water. I go, Well, that's not gonna happen, even back 10 years ago, right? Yeah, so I showed him quote the 250,000 condos, and he goes, Oh no, this isn't gonna work. So by the time three hours was over with, we were up to 500,000, uh, 400,000 for the condo and a thousand thousand for the boat slip on the Dustin Bay there, Dustin Harbor, and he paid 500 cash for it. So that was a really good story of not knowing much about the over there in three hours, and then the next week he brought the cash and we closed on it. So wow, yeah, but you know, Panama City going over to Panama City, Panama City is a much more uh spring break area. Uh it used to be pretty wild and crazy. They've kind of toned that down a little bit. Uh much more condos, a lot more condos over there. Uh to our west, Perdito Key, and going into Gulf Shores, Alabama, and uh more condos uh on the beach. Uh Pensacola Beach has a lot of houses, a lot of beach houses. We have condos, but a lot of beach houses.

SPEAKER_02 35:21

You know, it's oh it's it's funny. Uh well, not funny. It's it's before COVID, people almost everybody knew was they were going on their summer trips or their whatever spring trips. They were going to let's go to Mexico, we go to Cancun, we'll go to you know, Puerto Boat, uh, we'll go to you know, they wanted to go to the beaches in Mexico, you know, they got the all the all the inclusives and all that stuff, and then COVID hit, and they're like, But people still wanted to go to the beach, they still want to get their beach time in. I bet that drove the I know in in South Padre, which which I go a lot to, it drove it up like crazy. I know it it must have been like um insane, like double the business in Florida.

SPEAKER_05 35:56

Well, uh it I had just picked up the beach ones, so I don't have much to compare to before that, but I was in town, was still fine. Um, it's just people could drive to us, you know, they didn't have to get on a plane. Um, and all of my units were separate units. They didn't want to be in a hotel because our hotel industry was still open, they but they didn't want to be around a lot of people, so but they were here, even though the beaches

COVID turned drive-to beach markets into a fire hydrant

SPEAKER_05 36:25

are open, you can spread yourself around, you know. Um, so yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, when they they opened the state up June 1st, it was just like wham. Um, everything we had was just booked solid out, and it's been like that up until now. I mean, it's still going strong.

SPEAKER_02 36:43

So yeah, I think it it did have a profound effect on travel because, like, hey, they got they don't want to stay at a hotel full of you know a thousand different people with a thousand different coughs and sneezes. We'll stay with our family, we'll get a nice unit just for us on the beach, and then you know, we'll all pitch in. And I think that's the that's the future of travel.

SPEAKER_05 37:02

I I do too. I think it's changed the way a lot of people do think of travel, you know. And if your units are clean, you know, they expect it because we go above and beyond with all we still do the COVID precautions, we do extra cleaning and disinfecting, you know, they get a cleaner place, yeah. And they may not get daily towel service, but they don't expect it because that's not we what we tell them. Um, but yeah, it'll be interesting to see. We haven't seen a slowdown at all.

SPEAKER_03 37:33

So so with COVID in place and a lot of people doing like the remote homeworking thing, did that kind of yeah, did that help out your snowbird season?

SPEAKER_05 37:44

Yes, we a lot of digital nomads. Yeah, I had several of my places booked uh for a month, you know, that they were just finding a place to hang out for the month while they're working from home from their from their room or from whatever they're they rented out. Uh the traveling nurses and the traveling physical therapists and stuff, all of them are doing the same thing. You know, if they're in one place for three months, they'd rather be in a nice place on the beach than um you know, staying in a motel, you know, they'd rather have their own condo or their own house. Yeah. But yeah, we've got I've got most of the places set up to have uh high-speed Wi-Fi, of course, and um desks and things like that.

SPEAKER_03 38:26

No, uh, in the panhandle, where do you where have you seen the most success on the short-term rental side? Like what beach city or which city in the panhandle?

SPEAKER_05 38:35

I don't, we're all about the same. We we have very different personalities um as far as destination and 30A is more, I guess you would say, the socialite group, the higher end. I mean, so and it tells them the prices, you know, you're on the same beach, it's that same blue water right behind me. It's the same white sands, it's the same blue water, but destined per night maybe 150 to 200 more per night than what we have on Pensacola Beach. Um, and it's just because it's a uh it's not that I don't know what the word is, it's just not, it's just a beat. I mean, it's a cool beach. It's what a beach should be like, what I think of as a beach, you know.

SPEAKER_03 39:21

I think Dustin has that kind of that travel stigma behind it, I think as well. That may be it. I don't know not sure if that's what you're looking for.

SPEAKER_05 39:28

Yeah, and we have a closer airport to Pensacola. We have a Pensacola airport, Dustin does not, you know, so you still have to fly into Fort Walton, and then they just well, we opened up one over in Panama City there now, too. But um we got a beach, you come right to you, you know, get right on and walk down one little lane and you're out the front door and you're off to the beach. So uh yeah, not a very big airport, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:54

We need to get into Pensacola for sure. Because I was always thinking about it.

SPEAKER_05 39:57

Yeah, you guys absolutely, absolutely, you guys know me now. Just send me in for the uh come here and I'll get you set up, hang out at the beach or in town. We'll do it.

SPEAKER_02 40:06

The SEC connection, Micah. See, Micah's a bird.

SPEAKER_05 40:10

I know, I know, not LLC. I'm I'm a Florida gator, but you know. Well, look, let me let me tell you, Texas and Oklahoma, Oklahoma. No, wait, who's joining the SEC? Yeah, Texas and Oklahoma. Oklahoma. I don't know, crazy.

SPEAKER_03 40:25

I don't think I don't know. I think Texas is backing out as bad as Arkansas beat them.

SPEAKER_05 40:34

Well, well, when AM and Missouri joined us, I'm going, why do you want to go to AM? I mean, it's like you're everything else is on this side of the country, and now we're going over to AM, you know. So it'll be interesting because whoa.

SPEAKER_02 40:48

Anyways. Yeah, how do you think your Saints are gonna do this year?

SPEAKER_05 40:53

Well, man, I can't believe the first game against the Bucks. I said, What the heck? Or Green Bay, I said, what the heck just happened? You know, and um then the well this week we did okay. I don't know about Jamison Winston. I'm not a big fan. I mean, I'm a breeze fan all the way.

SPEAKER_03 41:09

He's pretty good when he has his contacts in.

SPEAKER_05 41:16

But uh yeah, we'll we'll have to see on that one. But I do have tickets for the uh Saints Bucks game on Halloween, so I'm excited.

SPEAKER_03 41:24

Awesome!

SPEAKER_05 41:26

Yeah, Halloween in New Orleans. Come on, and you got the Saints playing, the Bucks, come on, we hit up Bourbon Street, yeah. Oh yeah, oh yeah, got our motel room. We're set. We're gonna get in early Sunday morning and just cruise and hang out Sunday night and come back to work on Monday. So it's a three, it's a three three and a half hour drive over to New Orleans, so we're close. Really? From where? Yeah, from Penskola. That's three and a half hours, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:55

My mind might be that yeah, that ain't bad at all.

SPEAKER_05 41:58

It's not far at all. We're five-hour drive up to Atlanta, we're pretty close in. That's why we have this little bubble or half bubble of people that can drive to us within five or six hours. This is an easy day drive to come.

SPEAKER_03 42:11

See, now that has me wondering because I'm I'm I'm mainly trying to invest in markets that are more driven to.

SPEAKER_05 42:17

Yeah, that's 10 hours from it's 10 hours from Dallas, so it is a 10-hour drive. But I mean, people just came in from Dallas that they just checked out and went back. They were here just for four days on the beach, and they came in from Dallas. In fact, one of my owners on the beach is from Dallas, so yeah. Now, Southwest says cheap flight, so you could just do southwest down, and then they're pretty cheap from Dallas.

SPEAKER_02 42:43

So, yeah, I work for an airline, so I can hop on a plane and get over there. There you go. There you go.

SPEAKER_05 42:49

Well,

Dallas Cowboys Stadium arbitrage and branching out

SPEAKER_05 42:50

how many? I mean, you guys also have units, right? You've invested in in doing it, and yeah, how long you both involved and well, we oh go ahead, Steve.

SPEAKER_02 43:00

Oh, yeah. I've well, I've been um I started my first I did my first short-term rental out of a house out of one of my rental houses, so it was about four or five years ago. And then um, yeah, and then and I had a couple of and there were houses they were doing good. One was by the Dallas Cowboys Stadium, so it was kicking it was kicking major businesses.

SPEAKER_05 43:17

Wait, the old one? I'm trying to remember.

SPEAKER_02 43:19

The new stadium, yeah, the ATT stadium, yeah, over in Arlington. And then um, and then the billionaires started bringing in their hotels to Arlington as they shut us all down, you know. So just a big coincidence, but anyways, so I turned that into just back to a long-term rental, and then yeah, uh I took a little break for a little bit and then I started getting into the rental arbitrages, and so um so yeah, we started picking up a bunch of rental arbitrages in in um Dallas, Fort Worth area, and one in Houston. So so we're staying mostly in Texas, but I'd like to branch out and I'd like to start, you know, getting some I've always wanted to get a I've always wanted to get a beach property just for me and my family to enjoy, you know.

SPEAKER_05 43:55

That's what Ian did. He wanted to to come. Actually, he's gonna be in here next week. week because kids are got their I guess their fall break or something and they come out here once or twice uh a year but the rest of the time is for the rental part of it. Yeah that's why they got it. That was a dream for theirs. And uh they got a pretty good I got a pretty good good good price. And uh but do you have anything in Richardson? Do you do you have a a place in Richardson?

SPEAKER_03 44:22

I have I have something in far north Dallas. Um it's it's probably 10 minutes away from Richardson.

SPEAKER_05 44:29

10 minutes yeah because and in December we're the group has been trying to find a place to rent how big is it?

SPEAKER_03 44:34

Well these are these are only two bedroom apartments.

SPEAKER_05 44:37

Oh okay yeah we're looking for a I have a house out there in Plano I'm sorry I do have a house in Plano you have one in Plano yeah we'll have to talk to you we'll have a talk because it's a bunch of realtors and uh instead of staying all staying in different motel rooms we're just kind of kind of hang out in a in a house. So I'll tell you the dates and stuff. That'd be cool.

SPEAKER_03 44:55

Yeah one and see if you got anything available. Yeah yeah right there in Plano that's and that's mainly where I'm trying to actually expand out in Plano Mansfield and Grand Prairie I'm starting to look in those areas so well I mean I that's I got my uh PhD up at Texas Women's University in Denton.

SPEAKER_05 45:12

So I know the area and I and I taught at UTA for one semester down in Arlington. I lived there for a couple of years really so I I know the DFW area pretty well.

SPEAKER_03 45:23

I live in Arlington that's awesome.

SPEAKER_05 45:25

Okay yeah I I did my one year of public school teaching out of my 20 years of teaching I just was either a college coach or I was coaching on or teaching on the college level but I taught one year at public school at young junior high in Arlington and I will never ever do public school again especially not in a junior high school let's just say that that stopped me right then. When I went to get my PhD I said I'm done with this okay that is awesome I was I was there when the old stadium the old Dallas stadium was you know the with uh then yeah yeah when Irving yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah they still haven't really done nothing with that area it's it's prime it's prime real estate so let's see what they're gonna build over there that that was when you the blue laws you couldn't drink alcohol around the stadium which was kind of crazy I don't know if they still have that or not but no those most mostly those are gone and uh you still can't buy alcohol like hard liquor on on Sundays yeah yeah you still can't do that but everything they had it here yeah they had it here for a while and on the beach they're going are you crazy so we got rid of that you know see I've never I've never been to the old I've never even seen the old stadium or been over there so I I've really yeah I've never never seen it yeah when I was yeah I was gonna say when I was there a friend of mine was helicopter pilot so she she took me up all around the city of Dallas and we went right up above the stadium to look down in it it was it was pretty cool because we got to look in the and then she was a contractor so she went to show me one of the houses she was building and we just hovered down in the backyard and went I said oh my god this is easy so that's should have done real estate back then but I was a college professor so I didn't uh didn't go that route way back then so did they have music in the helicopter remember the opening scene to Dallas out yeah I know yeah yeah that was um yeah they just built that one in the middle of a mix uh like a traffic mix master it was weird it wasn't really nothing around it you know they are doing a good job at the new stadium yeah because I I've seen pictures of it like the old pictures it just looked like it was in the middle of the woods well wasn't the woods but it was in the middle yeah well I mean and then the Rangers you know they have their new stadium and you know um when my when I did my dissertation this was back in oh my god I'm dating myself again but in the 80s I did the uh I used the Dallas sidekicks a soccer the guys as my subjects so I did a I did a motion analysis study of the soccer instep kick so back then you guys are gonna die I mean I don't know if we're gonna record this and keep this on or whatever but I used an Apple IIe floppy disc five and a quarter inch floppy disc to collect my data which took forever to do versus now you can take your phone and do everything I I did that took me six months to process on your phone in about 10 minutes.

SPEAKER_02 48:37

So wow that's how technology's changed I I just it's funny you said that I just got this um Apple this from 2012 Apple MacBook Pro from a friend you know pretty much just gave it to me and I was just messing with the I don't know what I did wrong I did I wiped out the I messed up the hard drive somehow but but I was able to go in there and YouTube it and then and did some gooey stuff to the hard drive and then I was able to put on the um the the operating system again so I was like oh cool I did some old school programming this is nice there you go really old school but some Micah does for a living right you the computer engine oh you do okay network engine oh I hated I hated coding oh I hated it but it was way back in oh god I can't even remember now basic uh cobalt assembly language what else we have to learn C plus plus not stuff that you have now C plus yeah but I think I stopped at that I said I don't want to do this I'm in the I'm in the same boat now I want to do real estate full time that's I'm I'm I'm I'm going hard to do real estate full time well the opportunities are definitely out there if as long as you're educated and you've got uh a a really good foundation in the in the numbers you know now obviously you don't have a crystal ball and I tell everybody I said I don't have a crystal ball I don't know what's gonna happen who knew the pandemic was going to hit you know with COVID um but uh if you can you know not put

Don't quit your job until you have backup income

SPEAKER_02 50:03

your whole life savings into one thing and uh don't quit your job you know if you don't have a backup uh because I didn't my brother and I both had our jobs or we started vesting and so we both had our jobs and kept our jobs we never quit until I got into 10 years ago until I started the companies or one company at a time not all of them you know uh so the first one was 10 years ago real estate management was seven years ago and Airbnb was four years ago so you're doing great you're doing good I love how the the synergy works with all your you know all three of your businesses work together as as one giant you know awesome business and so well thank you for hopping on Cynthia where could I find you well I am in Pensacola and so what do you want an email do you want websites what do you want yeah everything yeah website email that'd be good okay uh well golfcoasthomexperts dot com is my main um sales brokerage website um gosh what is my long-term rental management I don't even deal with that anymore that's sad um everything's on Facebook right now because my golf coast bmdrentals.com website is not as nice as I like it to be uh but you can catch me uh cindy c i n d y at move m o v e the number two and then fla like florida fla.com oh nice and phone number wise they do you give phone numbers too or not i mean i'm a realtor so my phone number is always on yeah yeah go ahead um 850 393 5134 that's one thing i i uh i'm getting ready to actually be in dallas the end of this month for just a night and then i'm headed down to cancun mexico because a trip that we were supposed to go last year uh just got rescheduled and so i asked today we had a sales meeting i said okay who's gonna have my phone for 12 days because i don't take it with me so one of the agents one of the agents you know my broker associate she goes i don't want it this time you know because uh two years ago i'm a big golf fanatic rider cup i was glued to it this past three days but i go to the Solheim Cup for the ladies and I was in Scotland two years ago so I was gone for three weeks and I left the phone and she goes I don't want your phone I said so so I got another agent who also is short has short-term rentals and she goes I'll take it for the 10 days I said okay that's when you have a good team that's when you have a good team when you can leave your phone go away for 10 to 12 days and come back and everything's still functioning yeah they just give it to a a VA in the Philippines to answer the phone calls for you yeah I haven't really done that I've heard about it but I haven't really done that I'm still pretty old school with people in in the office and stuff I'll pay him a good wage and go with it that way there you go well all right Cynthia thank you so much for hopping on the seeing you here in Dallas having some cocktails i'll I'll stay in touch with you for sure we'll get together all right thank you all right bye take care bye all right that was Cynthia Tant great interview great lady I love how she does you know got one business really you know going really strong and then brought in the next one and a few years later brought in the next one you know there's no rush in this game right yeah be freaking success at one thing and then expand to the next thing and then get them all to work together I mean it's it's yeah patience my patience grasshopper for real man but I'm losing patience so I gotta I'm about to slow down I don't know I'm ready to hop out of there man and be all full time so yeah man so hit her up she'll she'll get you a nice place over there in the in the Emerald Coast I love it over there it's beautiful white sand beaches and um you know just dodge the sharks while you're in the water you'd be all right sharks that bad over there like they they do have uh every year they have a few a couple of shark bites but nothing crazy right you might lose a leg or something good yeah but it's at least it's clear water so you can see them coming right is it's is it is it really clear it is crystal blue crystal clear water you never been out to the to the Florida kind of panhandle part see I haven't been to the panhandle I uh I've been to I've been to South Florida I've been to like the Miami beach you know the tour yeah yeah yeah yeah no right there on the coast like you said destin down to Pensacola it's all white sand and crystal clear blue water smell it's beautiful it's beautiful they call it they call it the redneck riviera that's what they call it they call it I got it but I'm gonna go I'm gonna go check it out if it's that beautiful down there I'm gonna go ahead and check it out no it is really nice you'll probably want to buy a place there I've always wanted to get a place in Destin you know of course prices have been always been pretty high over there and we love Padre too but the beach is yeah I'm sorry Padre don't got nothing on Destin or or Pensacola for that matter see but that was the what about the pricing difference is it a huge price difference between like Padre's cheap though right it was Padre was cheap all the all the beach you know areas have gone up big time because of COVID. Even Padre even Padre man it's like the prices have almost doubled in the last few years because everybody you know everybody was clamoring to get something close to home so the drivable you know so Texans were all well shit you know we can't go to you know because of COVID we can't go to Mexico anymore we can't go to South America no more it's just so let's get something close by and then they just started looking in their own backyard. Oh yeah Padre Padre's nice and all of a sudden the prices just shut shot up like crazy but I think I think that'll come back down to earth you know I think that'll it I think um and I wanted to ask Cynthia but I forgot it like how um beach communities are kind of cyclical you know all of a sudden though everybody wants to buy one all of a sudden everybody wants to sell them. You know it's just but we'll see it we'll see how that plays out you know because in the post COVID world I think um I think even though the media wants to keep it going as long as they can it's I think it's cooling down.

SPEAKER_03 56:21

See and and when you're one reason I was asked about the snowbird season and how travel has changed because of your friend that you had on this podcast that you work with and he talked big about that snowbird season. And that's why I was like eh I don't really want vacation rules because it ain't consistent but I guess it could be consistent now if you have those traveled workers the nomad community really got highlighted during COVID.

SPEAKER_02 56:42

So oh yeah it's all how you market your place right yeah you know so that's interesting. Yeah that's a good show man watch the cowboys kick some butt.

SPEAKER_03 56:51

Yeah we'll see well I don't know Jalen Hurt's been ball so we'll see yeah yeah thank y'all for continuing to listen to us follow us live let thrive on Instagram each send us the email livelet thrive at gmail.com and hit us up follow us send us your questions and uh thank y'all for continuing to listen to us and we are 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.

SPEAKER_00 57:20

Bye bye