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_01 0:21

What is up, Micah Man? I am chilling, Stevie Stacks. How you doing? Uh, pretty good. We are at episode 128, are we not? Yes, sir. And we have a special guest. And the special guest wrote me a little lead-in to read in, a lead-in to reading like that. Okay, and it goes like this. Our special guest is Travers Zanthos, a seven-figure Airbnb entrepreneur and mentor that has a portfolio of 30 short-term rental properties. He has a background in finance and sales and has found a way to not only survive the pandemic, but actually thrive. I love to thrive during these times. We are excited to host him. I like how you wrote that last part, Travers. How did you know we were going to be excited? I kind of don't know. I kind of that way, so I'm not like that. We do. I do like it actually. Can I ask the first question, Micah? Go ahead, go ahead. Okay, Travers Xanthos. Are you uh an intergalactic uh smuggler or bounty hunter, by the way, by chance?

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Well, yeah, that was before the Airbnb thing. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, I mean a name like Trevor Xanthos, man. That's what I made the name up for.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

That's an epic name, man. Thank you. So it's Greek, eh? Yep. Cool. Yeah, thanks. Well, we're happy to have you on the show, man, and we know you're gonna bring it today.

30 Nashville rentals, all in the city

SPEAKER_01 1:46

I'm glad to be here. Thank you guys. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:49

Yeah, thank you for coming on. So let's yep get straight to it. What do you uh what do you what do you operate your 30 their 30 rentals out of? Are you multiple?

SPEAKER_02 1:56

They're all in Nashville right now.

SPEAKER_03 1:58

Really? Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:59

Yeah, did a lot of planning. I was planning on you know expanding to other cities, uh, but 2020 uh has kind of changed changed that path for now. So right now they're all in Nashville.

SPEAKER_03 2:10

Okay, so you do in the city of Nashville or the Smoky Mountains? Are you just dead in the city?

SPEAKER_02 2:15

All in the city, yep.

SPEAKER_03 2:16

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

All urban rentals.

SPEAKER_03 2:19

Okay, and you have 30 of them out there. Gee. So has is the market saturated what you have in 30, or because it sounds like you might be competing with yourself.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

Well, it's a huge tourist destination spot. I mean, if you look at Air DNA, uh Nashville usually comes in in the top five, sometimes top three, uh, for short-term rental destinations in the US. Um, and it's continuing to grow. So there's definitely room for all the the short-term rentals that are here. Um, but it's starting to get a little bit saturated and um prices are you know starting to go down a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 2:55

Okay. And what size units do you have? One bed, two, three?

SPEAKER_02 2:58

I have anything from one bedroom to three bedrooms. So majority of them are one bedrooms, um, but I have a couple more trickled in.

SPEAKER_03 3:06

Okay. And are you buy them? Do you buy all yours or you arbitrage?

SPEAKER_02 3:10

I arbitrage most of them. So I have two that I own and I'm building two more. Uh then the rest of them are all runner arbitrage. So I'm a big fan.

SPEAKER_03 3:20

So what's your uh I guess what would be your um oh man, I'm getting an Amber alert. Uh, what would be what's your strategy for buying? Like are you you just using the money from your uh from your from your arbitrage and then just throwing them into

Construction loan for two more houses with zero money down

SPEAKER_03 3:33

a buy-in? Or is that how it works?

SPEAKER_02 3:34

Yeah, I mean I'm I'm slowly trying to increase the percentage of properties that I own inside my portfolio. Uh I actually, you know, fell into a pretty awesome deal with uh the two that I'm building. So uh the regulations in Nashville are pretty pretty tough to get through. Uh basically the properties have to be zoned as multifamily. Uh last spring I bought a single family house that's on a multifamily lot. So they're really hard to come by. I I scooped it up, I got really lucky in that deal. Um, but as things went on, I started to learn more and more about real estate. And uh I learned that I was actually able to get a construction loan uh to build two more houses, so the two more houses will be able to be zoned in a way to get a short-term rental permit. Um, I got the properties appraised, so the existing house and then the two more additional houses, and the appraisal was so high versus the loan amount that I was actually able to get it done without putting any money into it. So I'm able to build these two houses really for free uh and just have a loan that I'm paying long term on them. So it's it's gonna be a pretty great deal.

SPEAKER_03 4:39

Man, that's a good one. That's a good one.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Yeah, I'm excited about it. That's a beautiful thing. So so it has to be zoned for multifamily in Nashville to do Airbnb?

SPEAKER_02 4:49

That's right. Yeah, so it has to be zoned multifamily or commercial. So uh there's two types of permits. There's owner occupied, uh, which you've probably seen this model in other cities. Owner occupied means that you live there and you rent it out on the weekends or or you know occasionally. Non-owner occupied means that you don't live there and it's just an investment property. So Nashville did they wanted to try to get rid of uh short-term rentals in regular residential neighborhoods. Um, so now non-owner occupied properties or investment properties are not typically allowed to be in uh residential neighborhoods. So that's one way to keep keep the Airbnbs and short-term rentals out of the neighborhoods and more in kind of like the the commercial areas.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Okay. So so multifamily would be two two or more units in the in the same house, right?

SPEAKER_02 5:39

Uh usually here in Nashville, it's a little bit more than that. So, like a duplex, for example, is usually not zoned multifamily. Um that's usually just zoned residential. Um so yeah, usually it's four or more, but it just it really depends on the zoning. I mean, just like I said, I found a single family house that was built on a multifamily lot. Um, so there are some gyms out there like that. Um, but yeah, it just varies. So are you are do you house hack? Uh well when I first started, the first house that I bought, you know, I rented out to I had two roommates that were paying about a thousand dollars a month all in. And uh my mortgage is $2,300.

House hacking the owner-occupied permit

SPEAKER_02 6:20

So I was basically living for pretty cheap. So I did that for a couple years, and now uh the house that I live in that I'm in right now is an owner-occupied permit. So I live here most of the time, and then I'll rent it out maybe two weekends out of the month, and that covers the mortgage. I'll take a nice trip somewhere and have it paid for.

SPEAKER_03 6:40

Well, I'm gonna ask Steve's next question. Are you a minimalist?

SPEAKER_02 6:45

Not quite. I'm always buying more junk. So uh minimalists?

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Well, I'm definitely not. I study it, not study it. I I listen to the minimalist uh uh podcast, one of my favorite ones. But um I guess we had a guest on the show that she also she likes to, she has a nice house, big house over there in Seattle, and she likes to travel with her family around the world all year long. You know, she does the homeschooling thing, and so she rents out her house, this big ass giant house and bunk beds everywhere, and makes enough profit to not only pay the mortgage, to travel all around, live this lifestyle they want to live. And her main thing was to be able to do something like that, to leave at the drop of a hat. She has to enforce instill minimalism in her family so they won't have a bunch of junk they have to go put into a storage or put into a garage or put into whatever. And I'm I'm in that situation right now. I just listed my my home today that um because I'm going to South Padre Island next on Tuesday. So I was like, well shit, I might as well Airbnb it while I'm gone, you know what I'm saying? Why not? We got so much stuff here. This was this house wasn't really meant to be an Airbnb. And so I know I'm gonna be putting a lot of stuff in in the garage or something like that, and just keep it off limits and um and having to do it that way. But that's why I guess Michael was I think Michael was asking if you're a minimalist, if you can just, oh, you know, I can this is a prime weekend coming up, I'm just gonna leave and rent it out, you know, and and you don't have you don't have to do too much.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

Yeah, I mean you definitely have to set the house up if you want to use this this sort of house hacking. Uh locks on the closets. So my my the master bedroom uh has a lock on the closet. Basically, uh you know, everything that I have out in this house um is set up for a short-term rental. Um, all my other stuff is locked up. I guess I I could fall into the minimalist category in that in that sense. Um basically uh after I started this business, uh maybe within a year, I left my my corporate sales job and moved to

Left corporate sales after hitting 10 units, moved to Bali

SPEAKER_02 8:48

Bali. So when I did that, it kind of refreshed everything. I and I was living out of just a you know a backpack for for a while. So when I came back, I didn't really need as much stuff in my house as I would have beforehand.

SPEAKER_03 9:01

How's the how's the Airbnb or short-term rental market in Bali?

SPEAKER_02 9:04

Uh well, I you know it's actually really good. And I went over there with some plans to get some places over there, but uh it's just a little bit risky. There's things don't work the same over there. Um basically you'd be breaking the law uh by having a short-term rental. Uh, a lot of people still do it, but uh the risk was was pretty high, so I wasn't willing to really take that risk.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

So so when you left your corporate job, did you already have like rentals in place to support you?

SPEAKER_02 9:33

Yeah, I did. So I think I I found two rental arbitrage apartments. Uh that's how I started out. Uh and within a couple months, I had found like a couple more. I I think I had two and maybe two in the pipeline. And and I kind of decided that I was just running numbers and realized that, hey, once these things are all fully running, this is gonna cover my regular living expenses. Um and so then I was like, look, I'm gonna keep on growing this business and then leave my corporate job because I really saw it as way out. Um, so yeah, when I had two, I had two in the pipeline, is when I decided that I was gonna leave, and then I grew it up to maybe I probably had about 10 by when I when I actually put them on two weeks notice.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

That's awesome, man. So you so you reached the point. Did you reach the point where you matched the salary you were making at your job?

SPEAKER_02 10:23

Uh it was getting pretty close, yeah. Um, I didn't mean for it to be that way because I can live on much less, especially if I'm living in Bali or if I'm living here and renting out my house, so I'm like mortgage or rent-free.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Um so yeah. Isn't that the coolest freaking feeling? Because like I had that feeling for just a brief couple months when I was making like like $4,000 a month at one of my my Airbnbs, a house I, you know, a previous house I lived in that turned into an Airbnb. And so they banned it. I was like, man, I'm making like almost as much as I'm I'm clearing at my job, you know, after taxes, after insurance, after all that, you know, 401k. I'm like, this is I mean, this is like right right there. I can see the light, you know, and then they banned Airbnb and you know, you had to adjust.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

We gotta find find one somewhere else or figure figure out a loophole. Um, there might be some loopholes. I don't know. I'd have to dig into the bills that were passed.

SPEAKER_03 11:17

I would I would say your Steve's loophole is to build a tough shed in a backyard and turn it into and convert it, and then you can rent that out, and then you already have a pool in your backyard. Man, you could kill it if you were to rent that out. That's what I would do. Why not?

SPEAKER_01 11:33

Yeah, no, no, that's a good idea.

SPEAKER_03 11:35

It maybe like two blocks, not not too far from you that does that in Hearst.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Out of a tough shed? She turned it into an air beam.

SPEAKER_03 11:43

Nice ass. I'm talking, it was nice, man.

SPEAKER_02 11:46

Wait, so those are allowed, but regular short-term owners aren't allowed? How does that work? Well, he would be living, he'd be living there. He'd be living in the primary. Exactly role. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Well, here's the I guess here's the issue with that. With Arlington, it's banned totally completely. So you can't even do owner-occupied in Arlington.

SPEAKER_03 12:05

Well, what you would do in Arlington is you would rent it out to corporate travelers, and then if they're paying, I mean, if you build a shed that's pretty nice, you can rent it out for like $1,600 a month.

unknown 12:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

That's your mortgage right there. It's it's good. It's good. But um uh yeah, there's a lot of ways to skin a cat. So how uh real quick, so how did you um how did you come across your first um Airbnb rental arbitrage and how and what and then how have you like improved your systems since since

First rental arbitrage deal in 2017 from a beer with a friend

SPEAKER_01 12:35

then to bag more of them?

SPEAKER_02 12:37

Yeah, uh they've they've definitely improved, I'll say that much. Um when I was doing my my corporate sales job, I had a good year and wanted to buy a second house. Um, and I wanted to do an Airbnb with it. I had no clue really much about Airbnb. I just what year was this? This was 2017. Oh, that's the recent shit. Yep. And um, so I had a friend that did Airbnb, that's really all that I knew, and I asked him if I could buy him a beer to pick his brain. Uh, and when I went there, he was like, Look, Travis, I don't buy houses anymore. And he explained to me what he did. He's like, I go and find apartment complexes, he told me the permitting rules and the loopholes for that here in Nashville. Uh, just gave me the whole lowdown, how to run the business, um, how to reach out to landlords and what to say to them, and all that stuff. Uh, so the next day, you know, I was pretty hung over. And um, man, that stuff that Ricky's doing is really cool, but I mean, I don't think I'm ever gonna do that. Uh, then I just started looking on Craigslist and started, you know, putting together a list on Excel of like just a call list like you do in sales, and uh started calling them and got some maybes. And after that, I was like, all right, I'm gonna do this. And uh, you know, I probably made 30 or 40 calls the first day and got a couple maybes. And um, you know, that was enough to keep me going. But now I've been able to improve basically my talk track. I know who I'm supposed to be calling, what I need to say, uh, what properties are gonna be the most profitable. So now it's more like 50% or even more of the of the landlords that I call say yes because of these things. So it's definitely gets a lot easier the more you do it. Consistency. Yes, sir. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

Now, now could you give us an example? Like um let's say you're cold calling me. Uh, you know, I do I would like am I like the head uh own manager of an apartment complex or how how how does it work?

SPEAKER_02 14:32

It depends. I mean, so the easiest ones to get into are individual landlords. So here where it has to be multifamily, uh kind of like a gold mine would be um a single apartment complex with like eight units that's owned by like an old lady or something like that that uh maybe doesn't live in town or just has some places that are available because all you have to do is convince them to rent to you just like a regular long-term tenant. Um it's harder to call like big apartment complexes uh that have like leasing agents because they're just taught to say no. They're they're like the gatekeeper, um, right? So they're they're there to tell you no that you can't do that. You have to go higher up, go to their boss, which is the property manager, or even higher than that, which would be like usually a regional director, um, and get in that way. So uh yeah, and it depends on who you're talking to, what you want to say, but definitely never say Airbnb. You want to talk about things as being corporate rentals, business travel, things like that. Uh, because it's all it's all really the way that you phrase it. And eventually they're gonna know everything that you're doing, they're gonna know what's going on, but you can't just jump in there right away and say, hey, I want to rent your place and do an Airbnb with it. Uh, because they're gonna say no. You have to kind of eat open them up to the idea slowly.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

So, what like what like percentage do you um do you tell them that you're gonna make 20% off the rent? Or how does it work? How do you how do you do it with it?

SPEAKER_02 16:02

Uh so you know there's these big mass release companies out there, um uh Stay Alfred, um, Saunder,

Pay regular rent, not 20% over like the mass lease companies

SPEAKER_02 16:10

uh, I don't know if you've heard of those. Uh they they usually do these big mass releases, they'll do like a whole floor of an apartment complex while it's being developed. Uh a lot of the times they'll pay like 20% over regular rental rate. So if the apartment rents for $1,000, they're gonna do a 10-year contract that says uh they're they'll pay $1,200. Um I I usually just pay the regular rent. Uh so there's enough benefits to the landlord for renting to me that I can just tell them, like, look, I'll pay you just like a regular long-term tenant, but I'm gonna maintain your property. Uh, I'm gonna do all these different things. Um, so usually I don't pay more than a regular tenant would. So if it's listed on Craigslist for $1,200 a month, then I'll pay $1,200 a month.

SPEAKER_03 16:58

I like it.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

You tell them also like you won't mess with you won't um bother them with like um calls for a leaky toilet or stuff, you know, small maintenance thing, you tell them that you can handle those problems.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

Yeah, exactly. And that's that's what we'll do. We basically turn into like the property manager for them. So we can get things fixed and invoice them back. Uh, we can get their approval to get things fixed and invoice them back. If it's low dollar items, we can fix it ourselves so they don't have to be bothered. Um, all sorts of things. But you know, the real home run is when you can get into a big apartment complex that has a 24-7 maintenance person. So uh they're able to handle all those problems for you.

SPEAKER_03 17:37

So with 30 units, I get into my nerd questions. Are you fully automated?

SPEAKER_02 17:43

Uh well, yes. Uh, but I I kind of have it the old-fashioned way of automation where I just have an employee that that I pay that handles things for me. So that, but then also there's automation involved that makes her job easier um as well.

SPEAKER_03 17:59

So so and that's something I are is your employee a virtual assistant, or do you they're someone in the state?

SPEAKER_02 18:05

She's not, she's Nashville, born and raised. Um, I think that it's way better to have you know either yourself managing it locally or someone that lives there rather than a virtual assistant. Um, if you look at a lot of hosts that do have virtual assistants, if you look at their reviews, they can be pretty low. Um, because uh a guest is really looking to be working with someone or asking for help from someone that that is very familiar with the property, that's familiar with the area, they can answer all the questions uh quickly and actually know what they're talking about instead of just reading off of a piece of paper with instructions, you know. So they don't want something that's cold feeling. Um they want to feel like they're staying in a local's uh apartment or house and and they're being treated like they're a guest of that local.

SPEAKER_03 18:54

Gotcha. Cool. And so, because I've been thinking about getting someone local. I've I'm on the virtual assistant route. My thing with how how much are you deciding? Like, hey, how much are you how do you gauge how much to pay someone local? Because you're gonna have to pay a little bit more. How are you gauging that?

SPEAKER_02 19:10

Uh, I put a lot of thought into how I was gonna structure my my pay. Uh when I first started out, um I was told to uh pay my employee about 15% of bookings. Uh once I started to grow and scale up, um, you know, I did over a million dollars in revenue last year. So paying someone fifteen hundred dollars uh or $150,000 a year is a lot to manage 20 places. Um so basically I've scaled that back a good bit. Right now I have a combination of uh a small base salary, uh including benefits, uh, and then a uh like a 4% uh commissions, you know, of 4% of payouts or revenue. So she she's incentivized to to do a great job. We have our our you know goals are aligned. She wants to maximize my revenue the same way I want her to. We want to get a high occupancy rate, we want to get good reviews, all that stuff, uh, because we have the same goal in mind, which is money.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

Now, question did did this happen after you actually cut her the $150,000 paycheck and then you're like, hey, uh, you know, this ain't gonna happen again, right?

SPEAKER_02 20:26

Uh yeah, kind of. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 20:30

Because I guess our question is your prior hiring process. How did you find this person and how what was your hiring process?

SPEAKER_02 20:36

This was uh my my first cleaner. So she was the first cleaner that I hired, the first person that I've ever hired. Um, and she's worked her way up and now she runs my whole business.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

I was gonna say 150G is the highest paid cleaner in the history of the world.

SPEAKER_04 20:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Trebbers don't play. Yep. So good.

SPEAKER_03 21:00

Is she in control of like all the other automations like messaging, um, cleaning, messaging, all that? She controls all of it?

SPEAKER_02 21:06

She she handles everything.

Property manager started as first cleaner, made $150,000 one year

SPEAKER_02 21:08

Um, you know, everything's changed a little bit since COVID-19 happened. I've basically stepped in and I'm a full-time employee myself. Um before that, uh, I basically had it, you know, where she was running everything. Um, I would find the places. So I mean, if I want to grow, which the good thing about being, you know, funded by myself is that I don't have to grow unless I want to. If I don't, if I don't have a good feeling about the next six months or unless I, you know, find a property that I really like and that I think it's gonna be really profitable, I don't have to grow. When I do want to grow, then uh it's up to me to find the places. Um, and it really got to the point where she I would find a place and tell her when we're gonna move in, and then uh she would handle the rest from there.

SPEAKER_03 21:55

So with with you uh hosting in Nashville, because Nashville is a pretty popular place, like you. Just saying, how did COVID have a huge effect on your business?

SPEAKER_02 22:03

Oh, yeah, it was it was big time. I mean, you know, look you look at a lot of the leisure markets, so everything stopped for a little while uh in

Occupancy dropped from 90% to under 8% in four days

SPEAKER_02 22:13

in April. So no matter where you were, no one was really getting normal tourist bookings. Uh the things that started to pick up first were the leisure market, so stuff like beaches and mountains. Uh and you can imagine if you're looking to take a trip last month or this month, most people are looking to just isolate, they just want to go somewhere with their family. So they'll go to the mountains or the beach. No one really wants to come to Nashville where the main thing is going on on Broadway in a crowded bar during a pandemic. So uh so yeah, it's been pretty tough. I think I watched my revenue go from or my my occupancy per se go from about 90% to less than 8% within about four days.

SPEAKER_03 22:55

So when that happened, how did you what did you do to get that occupancy back up?

SPEAKER_02 23:02

Uh well when it happened, my my heart dropped. Um you know what what I kind of got a wind of of what might be happening a few days before a lot of other people did. So um my first strategy was to say, because I usually have my my my pricing pretty high over the next couple months. Well, everyone was still booking trips. This was like mid-March. Everyone was still booking trips, so I went and lowered all my pricing basically down to like really low pricing. Like it was like just a couple days before, um, is how low I had it. And I got like tons of bookings uh for the next couple months. So basically enough to cover my rent and expenses. So I was in my head, I was like, look, I'm all good. Even if everyone cancels, I still have enough money to cover uh what I have to pay every month. And then I went down to Costa Rica and I was supposed to go to Argentina for a month. And um, right when I landed in Costa Rica, I I found out that Airbnb was giving full refunds, and that's when my heart dropped, and that's when I said, Man, I gotta get on the next flight back, and I don't know what I'm gonna do, but I have to do something to try to save this business because the way that I saw it was that I was probably gonna go bankrupt trying to keep my business alive and end up with no money and no business, and uh back at square one, like I just graduated college or something. So um luckily I was able to do a bunch of things that that have saved me, and I actually haven't lost any money at all. I'm actually growing and have picked up some some really, really high quality properties that I normally wouldn't have been able to get uh because some of my competitors have gone out of business. So it's been pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_03 24:39

Use it as a business opportunity. I love it. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

Yeah, that goes back to what uh Micah mentioned about saturation. That kind of COVID kind of shook out the the pretenders, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_02 24:50

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the thing is like the bigger mass release companies, like I was talking about, they aren't able to adapt as easily. Like, you know, you with three places, you know, if you had three Airbnbs or three short-term rentals, I guess you rented them out as long-term renter rentals before COVID, but it would have been a lot easier for you to adapt than it would have been for me with 30 or so properties. Um, but it's even harder for someone with 2,000, 3,000 properties across the the world. Um, so a lot of those guys got hit really hard and some of them went, you know, filed for bankruptcy. So um, so yeah, it's it was tough for everyone, but it's but it's just kind of in the way that you have your things set up, uh, whether you can handle it or not.

SPEAKER_03 25:34

Yeah, because it seems like a lot of these places like the Stay Alfred's lyrics and things like that, it seems like they kind of I think they kind of got their money off, they just raised a bunch of money and started getting places, you know. And I don't know if they just didn't do due diligence and it's crazy, you know. A lot of small friends like this, you know.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

Yeah, I think they were just growing too fast. And really my biggest fear over the past couple years was like, because I just kept investing my money right back in the business. My biggest fear was like, hey, what if I just grow, grow, grow for like years and I get huge, and then something happens like

Clause in every lease: out in 30 days if short-term rental permit is lost

SPEAKER_02 26:05

this, and it all gets cut up from underneath me, so I'm left with with nothing. Uh so thankfully last summer I started slowing down. I stopped growing for you know, starting last summer and uh growing my cash reserves a little bit, which you know, I thankfully I didn't need them during the COVID-19 thing, but uh, but I had them just in case.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

So, how does like an event like this help you think about um maybe restructuring your business in a way that you won't like one event like this would just bankrupt you, you know? How did how does and what what changes have you uh put in place to to prevent something like that from happening?

SPEAKER_02 26:44

To be honest, it it kind of instilled my confidence a little bit more. Uh the way that I see it now is is if if we can make it through this last pandemic, which for uh a master lease or a rental arbitrage company, this is about as as tough as it gets. Um you know, your revenue just stops coming in and you're stuck still having to pay the bills um for months on end with no end in sight. You know, you we really had no no idea how long this was gonna last. But um I'd say really for me now it's it's about finding more quality properties that are more profitable. Uh so keeping my number of properties low and just making sure that they're highly profitable instead of a like a large number of barely profitable properties, I'd prefer to have like better properties or better listings now. So that's one thing that I'm taking out of it.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

So, what about like um I don't know, do you put each property into its own LLC kind of thing?

SPEAKER_02 27:42

No, I don't do that. I know a lot of people that that buy real estate do that. Um, I do have an LLC, but I have I have one LLC that's just for my rental arbitrage properties. I have another LLC that's for the properties that I own, uh, then another LLC that's for you know um my my mentoring and coaching uh Airbnb business and things like that. So I definitely try to keep them separate, but if I were to have 30 separate LLCs, that would be pretty expensive and time consuming.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

Yeah. I'm just trying to think of ways to to like avoid the whole bankruptcy thing or just to bankrupt the little bitty companies, you know, instead of the whole thing, whole shebang and lose everything. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 28:23

Yeah, just yeah. No, that's I mean, it's definitely smart to to think in that way. Um, you know, there's also ways that you can mitigate risk. Uh one of the things that that I do, and I hope none of my landlords listen to this, but um I put a clause in all of my leases that says that if anything were to happen with the local regulations towards short-term rentals, uh, if if anything happens that uh causes me to lose my permit or other, uh I can't remember other related actions that cause me to lose my short-term rental permit that's you know provided by the the city of Nashville, uh, then I'm able to get out of the lease with a 30 days notice. So I'm able to put that in all my leases. Uh the thing that I know that they don't know is that um if you get three phone calls to the complaint hotline for short-term rentals, then you lose your permit. So if push comes to shove and I really, really want to get out of a lease, I at least have the option to call the hotline on myself three times. So I think we've never had to do that, and I hope that I never have to, but you know, it's it's a way to get out of the lease. So um so yeah, that's one way to mitigate the risk.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

Travers Xanthos with a diabolical plan. That's it. Is that the code red? Code red.

SPEAKER_02 29:42

Code red, hit the button and uh and you know, get all my friends to call the hotline on me.

SPEAKER_03 29:48

I actually think now that this has happened, and when you saying you putting certain clauses in there, because I do clauses as well when I do arbitrages, I think like pandemic clauses might be like the new thing, you know?

SPEAKER_02 29:59

Oh yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 30:00

I mean, look, we didn't know that because I mean me and Steve, we talk a lot about like, hey, what could be the doom of like what could actually make bring Airbnb down, and then a few months later COVID hits and like, oh, this is it. So but I mean, we all use it as a learning lesson, you know.

SPEAKER_02 30:13

So yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 30:15

Definitely. It was definitely a learning lesson.

SPEAKER_02 30:17

Yeah, I never thought it would come this fast. I mean, anytime that people would ask me if I was worried about the future, I'd say, look, you know, the good thing about rental arbitrage is that every single year you get the option to renew or not renew. And if you're tracking your revenue and profitability closely, uh, you can make a game time decision each year of whether you want to stay in the property or get out of it. I didn't think that we would have five days' notice, but

Two-bedrooms are the growth target now

SPEAKER_02 30:43

we made it.

SPEAKER_01 30:44

So, so um in your opinion, and your you know, knowledge and stuff, what has been what is what are the most profitable units you have? One bedroom, two bedrooms, or three bedrooms?

SPEAKER_02 30:56

Uh yeah, and that's all depends on the market. I mean, the one bedroom places have really high occupancy with lower uh average daily rates, um, whereas the the larger places have lower occupancy but higher uh rates. So um I found that my most profitable properties are larger size houses that you own because the mortgage is lower than if you're renting. So those those are what do best. I'm trying to grow my properties right now uh with two bedrooms, two baths, and because most of my properties are one bedrooms, I'm trying to grow apartment style you know units that are two bedrooms, two baths, because they turn they uh tend to do really well here in Nashville.

SPEAKER_03 31:41

Yeah. I go two twos and up, uh that's the best way to go. It's really profitable.

SPEAKER_02 31:48

One sort of hack is if if you're in a city that doesn't have uh short-term rental regulations, so uh I've experienced this in another city where I was able to take uh one house and basically put a door up and separate it. So it turned in from a three-bedroom, two-bath house to uh a two-bedroom, one bath, and uh one bedroom, one bath, uh, two apartments. So I was able to do two Airbnbs and one property with you know the same amount with only one rent amount. So uh that's just a way to to increase the revenue and keeping the the fixed expenses the same.

SPEAKER_03 32:26

Yeah, man. Cause that that tough shed I was talking about, she has a tough shed in her backyard, and then but she split her garage in half, and she has two one-ones in the garage, and then she has a tough shed in the back. So she lives there for free.

SPEAKER_02 32:39

Oh, yeah, for sure. That's that's great.

SPEAKER_03 32:42

Yeah, smart, man. There's so many ways to skin a cat, like Steve always says, man. So many ways.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

So, what is like your corporate sales job taught you about um, you know, this entrepreneur journey with Airbnb?

SPEAKER_02 32:54

Uh, tons. I mean, you know, I sold copiers, that was my first job, and it was it was really tough just cold calling office buildings and you know, walking into random offices and trying to get a meeting with the CEO of the company uh all day, every day. Before that, I really was you know kind of shy growing up. So just the cold calling experience in general has helped me tremendously. Um, you know, with just getting out there and you know taking chances, not being embarrassed or scared to get a no back. So that's definitely where it's helped me the most.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

How often was the Rob Schneider skit brought up at your job? Making making copies, the copy meth.

SPEAKER_04 33:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:38

We definitely heard that one a good bit.

SPEAKER_01 33:41

No, that's that's cool because I mean that's what everybody is terrified is with the cold, you know, the cold calls or the door knocking, stuff like that. It's just that's why most people don't do it, man.

SPEAKER_02 33:51

Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, my advice to to anyone that's younger, that's you know, maybe about to graduate college, uh, is to just take a job, uh, a sales job, an entry-level sales job that's tough like that, sell copiers, sell payroll, uh, because it's gonna serve you the rest of your career knowing how to do that.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

That is cool. So, how did you go about uh what did you tell your boss when you were leaving?

SPEAKER_02 34:15

So I was on to another job. I was doing healthcare like software sales, and um, you know, he he knew that I had the business. He didn't know how well it was doing, but he was very understanding. Um, I just explained to him that I wanted to continue growing that business, and uh, you know, we're still in touch to this day. That was a couple years ago, and I know that I have a home if I if I need to go back there, and uh, you know, everything ended very cordially.

SPEAKER_01 34:43

Now here's the thing, like if we can go back to this real quick about the whole um your your assistant was gonna was gonna pull in 150 Gs, and you and and you had mentioned, you know, that's that's a lot of money for for just running 20 units. But uh it reminded me of this. I had a professor one time, you know, and and they and he said that a lot of um a lot of bosses or owners of a company or something like that will all of a sudden get this like uh rock star salesperson, and they'll and they'll and they'll make more money and commissions than the actual owner or the or the boss or whoever, and then their salary will pass surpass that person, you know what I'm saying? Right, because then a lot of bosses will get you know they don't they'll get like offended by it and then they'll like try to cap them and because that's that's a terrible thing to do. And I'm not saying that, you know, uh I'm sure your yours is a different, I mean she's maybe she's not adding units to your mix. Maybe if she was adding more units and she learned the game and she was over here, I got us five more units, I got us 10 more units. Yeah, then you wouldn't want to put a cap on her or try to like bring her salary down.

SPEAKER_02 35:45

Yeah, it's it's it's a lot different when you're talking about a salesperson and someone that's managing operations of a business, you know.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

Now, did you think about teaching her the sales part of it or trying to go get units, stuff like that?

SPEAKER_02 35:56

So if I was really trying to grow like crazy, um, then that might be something that I would look into. And I I did put a some thought into that. Uh I put a plan together to really expand. Um, but I just realized that's not what I want to do. Like, I don't I could go out and find investor money um and then grow, grow, grow. But I I would rather have this business passive, under control, focused on other modes of generating income, um, and grow

$2.50 PDF prints from Etsy and $2 Walmart frames

SPEAKER_02 36:24

it with my own money. So I've decided to steer clear of that route.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

Okay. And and could you throw at us some uh maybe some Traverse um STR hacks, you know, how to set up a badass STR. I kind of like to differentiate you from the pack without you know going, you know, spending a shit ton of money.

SPEAKER_02 36:43

Yeah, I mean, so basically what I what I did is I I picked one of those big mass release companies. Uh I reached out on LinkedIn to all of their ex-employees and current designer employees, and actually found one that still works there. Uh, asked her if she did any freelance work, took her out to coffee, and basically just got the rundown of how they do their onboarding and where they buy all their furniture from. Uh, so then, you know, if you go look at my properties, most of the newer ones look very, very professional. They look like I paid a decorator. Um, so I would say just find something that you like and just mimic that style. Uh, you can order everything online, um, have it shipped to you so that you can, you know, basically collect everything beforehand before you're supposed to move in, and then you have it all with you so you can move in and have the place ready in 24 or 48 hours. Um, but you know, just copying the same accent walls that they do, the same throw blankets and throw pillows, um, similar type of rugs, things like that. There's all sorts of hacks to get things for you know for less in price. Uh one of the things that I've done a ton is go on um Etsy and bought the PDF, like the the you can buy the the PDF uh version of prints. So I'll go there, pay $2.50 for this PDF of this print, and then I'll go to the UPS store and get uh 50 copies of it printed out, and then uh you know on 12 by 18 paper, go to Walmart and get a $2 frame. And this is like you know, a $50 piece of wall art that I have for for you know less than less than $4 a piece. So uh using those PDF prints is is really useful. Uh one thing that I do a lot is is adding throw pillows, adding color to the room really helps because what you're really trying to do is get the best photos that you can. So if you can add color, make things stand out. Uh throw pillows can be expensive if you go to a store like Target or or whatever, uh if you go in person. But if you go on Amazon, you can order a bunch of just uh the throw pillow cases, pick all these different colors matching off of whatever uh decorator you're you're mimicking, and order the cases, then order the inserts. So you're getting maybe ten dollars per throw pillow, throw a couple of those on the bed or a couple on the couch, and you know that really does a lot for the the profile picture for the listing, you know.

SPEAKER_03 39:19

It does. It does.

SPEAKER_01 39:21

It looks pretty, but they're not really very functional, are they? They don't do much, but they they do get bookings. You've seen a long cane poly. Um real quickly, you kind of glossed over something, and it's cool, and you and you're using your skills and and your abilities. Um, you kind of reached out to the to the girl that was doing as help setting up the master leases, you know, dropped into the DMs or whatever, invited her out for some coffee. I think that's pretty clever, man. I mean, some people won't even think of that, you know.

SPEAKER_02 39:51

Yeah, it was definitely solved a business problem for me. I was I was really struggling to figure out how to improve my onboarding process. Um, and that worked well. I also did the same thing on LinkedIn to figure out how to structure my property manager, how to structure my management portion of my business. So I found an ex-employee of one of these companies that basically gave me the full rundown on how the pay structure worked, how like the operations uh procedures worked, things like that. So it really helped me kind of lock in how I wanted to run my business.

SPEAKER_01 40:24

Now, was this ex-employee a girl also?

SPEAKER_02 40:27

It was a guy.

SPEAKER_01 40:28

Oh, okay. Well, you know.

SPEAKER_02 40:31

Um so yeah, I mean, it was definitely definitely helpful. It's it's kind of hard out here, you know, if you don't know many people that do the same thing as you, um, and it's kind of just you and your thoughts and your ideas. So uh being able to connect with someone that's working for a huge you know international company and get their way of doing things that they don't broadcast, you know, over the internet, uh is really helpful.

SPEAKER_01 40:58

That's cool because people love talking about themselves and their business, right? Right, yep.

SPEAKER_03 41:03

And one thing I'm happy you touched on, and I want to I want I want to expand on it is when you when you went to LinkedIn. I'm gonna tell you something. I I you LinkedIn is like useful, man. Like I uh I needed to create a job posting for an interior decorator. And uh I went to LinkedIn and I just grabbed an interior decorator job posting and I threw it on Facebook and I put my letter my uh letterhead on it on my business. I started getting just hits left and right. Hey, I do that, I do that. Man, LinkedIn is valuable. You ain't on LinkedIn, man. You can you can definitely get some valuable stuff.

SPEAKER_02 41:33

Oh, yeah, for sure. It's a huge part for prospecting and sales. I used to use it all the time.

SPEAKER_03 41:38

Yes, sir. Yeah, I get salespeed me up on LinkedIn in my inbox all the time. So yeah, LinkedIn's.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

Yeah, I mean, you can see who's at the business, you know, you can find out just through Google what uh basically how the company sets up their email. So if you can find the person's name and their position, you can just, you know, you know their email and you can reach out to them directly that way.

SPEAKER_03 41:59

Yep. Love LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_01 42:01

So so what so what's your big goals, uh Travers? Is is you trying to be a millionaire or you just trying to just you just want to find you're happy with financial freedom?

SPEAKER_02 42:10

Um, I'm definitely happy with financial freedom. Uh I want to continue making money and growing my income sources. Um, so definitely a millionaire in the path, but uh, I'm not trying to be a billionaire. Um I I don't believe in push, push, push. A lot of the guys out there, David Goggins and you know, that type of mindset. Um I think that uh you know one of the biggest things for me is when I left my job, now I'm able to spend all my time thinking and strategizing for what's best for me uh in my business. So I'll continue growing that, growing other streams of income, and uh and continue relaxing and traveling and paragliding and doing the stuff I love to do as well.

SPEAKER_03 42:54

Can't beat that, man.

SPEAKER_01 42:55

So this COVID thing hit you pretty hard with the no traveling stuff, huh?

SPEAKER_02 42:59

Yeah, it's been pretty rough. I'm trying to my house is written out for like two weeks at the end of July, and I'm trying to figure out where I can go, but it might have to be domestic.

SPEAKER_03 43:09

Yeah, I'm thinking about taking a little trip down to Miami or something just to get out, man. I'm not used to this, not traveling crap, man.

SPEAKER_02 43:15

Right. Where do you like to go?

SPEAKER_03 43:17

Man, I usually like to hit cruises. I like to cruise down to Mexico, cruise down to uh the Bahamas. I was trying to hit a Jamaican cruise, so man, it's just it's man, messing me up. I was supposed to hit New York this year.

SPEAKER_02 43:30

Oh man. Well, hopefully you're you can save some money and and do it again soon.

SPEAKER_03 43:36

Yeah, yeah. Everything things are starting to open back up. My boy's down on South Beach right now. He just posted so it's stuff's opening up, you know.

SPEAKER_02 43:44

Oh, yeah. Starting to get the get that time of the year, too. I guess it's always that time down there.

SPEAKER_01 43:49

Yeah. Yeah, get some great deals in New York right now, man. Go. Yeah, New York.

SPEAKER_03 43:58

Yeah, I don't think New York's the spot. But yeah, uh Miami though, that's definitely looking real tempting.

SPEAKER_01 44:03

Yeah, international travels are pretty rough right now. I like we I like Barcelona a lot. I like Europe. Um I of course my wife's from Mexico, so we go there a lot, but you know we're holding off on that. So we're just waiting for everything to clear. But we are going to South, like I said, South Padre next week. So I had to I had to book something, man. I had to do something.

SPEAKER_03 44:26

I feel you, man.

SPEAKER_02 44:28

Yeah, uh yeah. The stuff seems to be opening up slowly. Um I'm probably gonna be going to Europe or something, hopefully this summer if they'll let Americans in there. So I know one of the countries will.

SPEAKER_03 44:41

Well, yeah, one somebody will uh geez. But yeah, how uh so with everything, has everything bounced back for you? And like have you decided to look at like direct bookings or anything like that?

SPEAKER_02 44:52

Yeah, I mean, uh no, it hasn't completely bounced back. Basically, what I first did is um I mean most of my places are filled with month-to-month renters that are basically just breaking even for me. Um, so I I think I only have eight properties there's that are being run as Airbnbs or short-term rentals right now. Um, but I've seen a huge uptick in bookings. I think I had eight bookings before noon this morning. So uh it's definitely putting a smile on my face. I got four new properties um yesterday, four new two bedrooms that, like I said, I wouldn't have been able to get normally. And I just have to look at it. I might take a little bit of a loss this year, but when things are back to normal, these places crush it. And um, you know, I would be able to live easily off of just these four places myself. So I'm excited about those. Um, I listed them on Airbnb yesterday, and uh, and I've already gotten, you know, I guess I got $3,000 worth of bookings for one of them um today uh in July. And the rent is about $2,100. So I'm covering rent already for July. And uh so yeah, it's pretty pretty good to hear uh for me. Um I'm feeling good about that. I have done gone to direct booking, which I never did before uh until today. I actually, right before we started this, I was making a uh a social media post on Canva for 20% off for my friends uh on my

StayFi captures every guest email through the Wi-Fi login

SPEAKER_02 46:19

direct booking site. So hopefully I can get some some booking through there.

SPEAKER_03 46:23

Question, how are you how are you driving people directly? How are you driving your traffic to get to you directly to directly book with you?

SPEAKER_02 46:30

Yeah, so I mean I haven't exactly figured that out yet, but some of the strategies that I'm using, um I'm using Owner Res, which is a really great management platform tool or multi-channel uh platform. Um, one of the things that I'm doing is I'm sending out a lease or like a renter's agreement to all my my all my guests. So whenever they check in, they have to sign this lease agreement or this renter's agreement. But what it's actually doing is capturing their email addresses. So whenever they send their email address, so now I can send emails to them afterwards, and I have 4,000 stays a year normally. So that's 4,000 email addresses where I'm able to send them like, hey, what's happening in Nashville next month? Here's a code, pass this along to your friends and get them 50 15% off of their booking, which you know, 15% is the same as getting a booking for from Airbnb for me. So um that's one of the ways. Another way is just gonna be marketing it through social media and that sort of thing. So we'll see what comes of it. Um I know a lot of people have had some success, and hopefully I can do the same.

SPEAKER_03 47:33

Dude, I'm I'm I'm still learning it, man. I uh I'm doing email marketing, text message marketing. I'm uh I'm still learning it. So I'm yeah, yeah. I'm doing slick text and I'm using uh it's a email marketing, uh text message marketing campaign. So you can uh what I did was I had my VA go through and just scrub all every single guest that's ever stayed with me, scrub their uh phone numbers, and I just threw it in slick text and so. Oh nice, yeah. I'd rather do that.

SPEAKER_02 47:59

Yeah, it's it's pretty it's pretty useful. Uh I haven't remembered when you stay with me three years ago in Nashville.

SPEAKER_03 48:04

Yeah, and most people remember, you know, they're like, hey, this is such and such, you stayed with me, and uh and I include my direct booking link. Um I'm using um what is it called? I'm using your reporter.

SPEAKER_02 48:16

Okay, I've heard of that.

SPEAKER_03 48:17

I I definitely got it set up that way you're capturing emails. I like that.

SPEAKER_02 48:20

That capturing emails another thing that I learned too is uh some people are doing you know, when you're like in a hotel and you want to use the Wi-Fi and they make you put in your email address to get logged on. Well, you can do that in your short-term rental. So basically, you're not just getting the person that booked the place, but you're getting like all the people that signed on to the Wi-Fi, you're getting their email addresses.

SPEAKER_03 48:42

Oh, yo, I see that's that's a hell of a one right there, yo. I like that. I like that. That's like anybody who stays in.

SPEAKER_02 48:50

I can't remember what it's called, but um Yeah, we gotta put that in the show notes.

SPEAKER_03 48:54

We gotta give those that's that one. That one's that's next level. That's what I want right there. Yeah, that is yeah, that's what we need. I was like, because I'm I've been like sitting over here struggling. I'm like, man, I gotta find a way to get people like uh our last guest, uh Adam Johnson, he's killing it. Like he showed his calendar. It's like 80% direct booking.

SPEAKER_02 49:13

How is he doing it?

SPEAKER_03 49:14

He's doing it through, he literally just sends them a text when they check out. Hey, here's the link to come to my website the next time you're in town.

SPEAKER_02 49:22

Easy. Easy. He's not even doing a discount code or anything.

SPEAKER_03 49:26

Yeah, he's just I'm like, dang, man, I gotta do something, you know.

SPEAKER_02 49:28

And I'm more not automated, right?

SPEAKER_03 49:31

Yeah, see, I'm I'm a very I'm like, how do I automate it? How do I automate it? Because I'm like, I can't send no text message to everyone, you know. So yeah, now that's a good idea, especially if you can grab it from the Wi-Fi and it shoots to like a database.

SPEAKER_02 49:43

Well, then you use like MailChimp or something like that to see, and I'm using them as well. Yep. You are okay. What was that thing that you you hit slick text?

SPEAKER_03 49:51

Yeah, slick text.

SPEAKER_02 49:53

I'm gonna do that too.

SPEAKER_03 49:55

Yeah, yeah. And you just create a you can create a little text word and they opt in, or you can just go scrub every single past guest and shoot them an email.

SPEAKER_02 50:04

You got a VA to do that?

SPEAKER_03 50:05

Yeah, a VA to just scrub all that. I was like, hey, they'll scrub every uh he logged into the your porter app and he just scrubbed all their phone numbers. There was like 1800 phone numbers that we were able to grab. Only like 10 emails. There was only a few emails, but all the phone numbers.

SPEAKER_02 50:20

The emails usually don't come in.

SPEAKER_03 50:22

Yeah. It only grabs your reporter, only grabs the emails if they post their email in the uh yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 50:27

Yeah, yeah. Unless you have like that renters agreement thing that I see how and how does that work? Yeah, that's it's through owner res. Maybe um your porter has the same thing, but just set up where they they have to like I don't really push for it. It says in the email, like you have to sign this before your stay. Um, but that's really it. If they don't sign it, I'm not gonna like tell them they can't stay, or I won't even bring it up again. It's just an automatic thing to see like whoever signs it now. I have their email address.

SPEAKER_03 50:59

Ooh, you know what I'm gonna do? I have a little idea. I think I'm gonna on my first check-in, when they check in, hey, if you send us your email something, I'll start doing something like that. I'll come up with something.

SPEAKER_02 51:12

You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:13

I just don't like one thing I don't don't like doing, I don't like advertising it directly through Airbnb. So I have to come up with like a no, you can't do that, man.

SPEAKER_02 51:20

You'll get I mean if they catch you, they'll kick you off and you're in trouble. See, and that's why I was trying to like play around with that.

SPEAKER_03 51:26

Yeah, me and either. See, and that's what I've been doing it through like emails, texts. Uh I've been trying to figure out the way to like maybe get them to send me their email through the Airbnb app, but make it look like it's for something else, you know, and just get it captured.

SPEAKER_02 51:39

So right, yep. Yeah, I would just be careful, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:45

See, and I haven't done it yet because that's what

Hotels look the same everywhere, Airbnbs should feel like a local's place

SPEAKER_03 51:47

I've been because they were like, man, just do it through. I'm like, ah, I want to take that risk, you know.

SPEAKER_02 51:51

Yep. I hear that.

SPEAKER_03 51:54

But I like that that Wi-Fi one, I like that.

SPEAKER_01 51:57

Going back quickly to um to what differentiates your places like from like a people, some people that come to stay at hotels in Nashville. What makes your place you do you do guest books, you do coupons, I don't know, do you do different things?

SPEAKER_02 52:11

Uh I mean, really the way that I look at sh sh Airbnbs or short-term rentals compared to hotels is that hotels, I mean, you could stay at uh Hilton Garden Inn in Dallas, Texas, and then fly to Madrid the next day and stay in Hilton Garden Inn and wake up the next morning and have no clue w which city you're in, right? Uh they all look the same. While that's good sometimes, if you're a business traveler, you're gonna be there for one night, you just want to get in and out. You know there's gonna be cookies at the front, and you know, you know, how the layout is gonna be. But for the normal traveler, you want to really get the experience of the place that you're going. So my favorite Airbnb that I've ever stayed in was in Berlin. I was in a really cool neighborhood that was like a locals neighborhood where there's all these cool local restaurants, and uh it was just a little studio above a restaurant. I walked in there and it was basically like the hosts just walked out. You know, they they threw some like sheets over their clothes and just walked out. All their food was in the fridge, everything was just like, you know, they were still there. Uh, and it was just a really cool experience because I felt like I was living like a local. I was like living like a Berliner above this restaurant, and I got to stay there for five days, which is a totally different experience than staying in a Hilton that's down in the hotel district. So I like to kind of give that same experience with my places here in Nashville. They all have unique touches, they all have a guitar on the wall, um, you know, just things that are inherently Nashville uh that they want to experience. So if they're coming from Seattle, uh they can kind of feel like they're getting a little bit of that culture in the place where they're staying.

SPEAKER_01 53:52

I take that, man. That's really cool. That is really cool. I'm gonna put you in touch with Adam Johnson, by the way. Our a guy that was on our show, and he's a he lives over in Tennessee also.

SPEAKER_02 54:03

What did you say, Clarksville? Clarksville, okay. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 54:07

Yeah, he's the one crushing it on the on the what's the direct bookings.

SPEAKER_02 54:11

Yeah. Oh, you know what? I saw something of like maybe a Facebook post or something, maybe in like a short-term mental group I'm in, he was posting. Because I remember him posting a picture of his direct bookings and was like, these this color is all direct bookings.

SPEAKER_03 54:27

Yeah. REI simplified. That's him.

SPEAKER_02 54:30

It must yeah, okay. Yep. Yeah, well, I need to listen to that episode.

SPEAKER_03 54:34

Oh, yeah. He was like, just uh he he just does it with a text message. I was like, dang, man.

SPEAKER_02 54:39

Does that then I think he said doesn't he? I mean, Clarksville is smaller than Nashville. He like is from there and like you know, reaches like just basically word of mouth type stuff.

SPEAKER_03 54:49

And see, and I have a place that's very similar to his because Clarksville, I think, is right next to an Air Force base, and I have a couple of listings right next to an Air Force base too. Oh, nice. And one thing I do get, like, I get a lot of Air Force families. Like one lady just told me, hey, the next Air Force family that comes in, I'll let them know about your place. You know, so I kind of get the benefit of that.

SPEAKER_02 55:08

Oh, nice, yeah, that's perfect.

SPEAKER_03 55:09

So, yeah, I'm trying to go as direct as possible. So that's my goal.

SPEAKER_01 55:14

Yeah, even the next pandemic for sure. Yeah, and Adam Johnson is the subject to king. So he knows how to get properties under subject to, you know what I'm saying? Instead of having to go through banks to buy them. Yeah. Yeah, he he's the subject to king. So you definitely you definitely need to get with him on that.

SPEAKER_02 55:31

Yeah, that'd be awesome. I'd love to connect with him.

SPEAKER_03 55:33

Yeah, man. That's some that's some good stuff I just learned. Yeah, because I'm about to go nerd out and figure out how to uh get that Wi-Fi stuff going. I was like, yo.

SPEAKER_02 55:43

Um I'll I'll find it for you and send it to you.

SPEAKER_03 55:47

Yeah, send that to me because I'll uh let everybody on the all the listeners know about that one. That's a nice that's a smart idea. Matter of fact, if any of the listeners listen who's listening know about it, send us a message. I want to know what that is.

SPEAKER_02 56:01

I got it. It's called Stayfi. S T A Y F I.com.

SPEAKER_03 56:08

Stay Fi.com. Yep. Oh, I need to figure out how to make this work. Wow, it's called Join the Book Direct Revolution.

SPEAKER_02 56:21

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_03 56:23

Oh man, I like this, man. Collect emails from every guest. Dang, I like that.

SPEAKER_02 56:28

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 56:29

Shoes. If your neighbors hopping on your Wi-Fi, you figure it out, you know.

SPEAKER_02 56:33

Yeah, I mean, but do you guys when you go domestically, do you get on the Wi-Fi? Because I usually don't. I mean, my phone is unlimited data, so no, I don't.

SPEAKER_01 56:45

I hop on for like my laptop or my iPad and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03 56:49

See, but the thing is though, I have I haven't had the question in a long time that hey, what's the Wi-Fi? But it's the same, because I send it automatically. But I know people are using it. Think about it. The biggest the biggest way I would see the benefit is if you put it on the TV. So when people got to watch Netflix, they gotta log in, or you just tell your hook your cleaner every time disconnect the TV. I'd be so pissed. You what?

SPEAKER_02 57:12

I know you'd be pissed, but there was like a little scrolling to pick an A, scroll to pick the S. Yeah, that's that is a it has a downfall to it. Every time you turn on the TV, it resets, and another email has to come in.

SPEAKER_03 57:27

Yeah, yeah, that's crazy. But I'm like, man, but if you that is a thing to think about how many people actually connect. But there are a lot of people I think that use the uh phones, tablets. I think that's where most of your people are. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:41

Tablets and laptops, I think that's most things.

SPEAKER_03 57:43

Phones, tablets, laptops, yeah. Especially if you're like for the business class. The business class is what you want anyway.

Park at extended-stay hotels and cold-call the corporate numbers on work trucks

SPEAKER_03 57:50

They're gonna be on their laptop.

SPEAKER_02 57:52

Yeah, yeah. I mean, so I've thought about how to, I mean, because like a lot of times I'm only booked during the weekends. So I've thought about how do I get like some actual corporate travel clients and thought about how I could find those. And one of the things was I wanted to go to the airport uh to like enterprise rent a car and see if I can get someone to tell me like what company sends people to Nashville a lot. You know, if I can find a company and reach out to their HR and be like, look, I'll I'll give you guys work out a deal, we can set a contract. Um, you know, that could be a way to do it. Because people that don't want to stay in a hotel, they want to have their their kitchens and and laundry and things like that. I don't know. Just one way I thought of getting in there.

SPEAKER_03 58:35

One thing you could do, like if you want to find like the businesses that are coming to your area, man, go to a uh there's a little trick that this is a trick that my friend told me. He's really big in STRs. Go park your car at the uh the local uh what's it called? What are those places called? Uh the um like the longer term stays, the hotels for the long-term stays.

SPEAKER_02 59:00

Um whatever they're called. Just go park up there and then be like, hey, for the same price, I got you, man.

SPEAKER_03 59:06

Oh no, no, no. Follow me. Follow me. He grabs the the corporate number off of all their trucks, the construction workers, cleaning companies. He grabs it, puts it in a database, and he just calls their corporate office and tells them about the place and gets on their housing list. Say that again. He gets the numbers from what? He gets it like like their trucks, whatever it is they're coming in to like the phone numbers if they have them. He just grabs it, puts it in a database, and he just calls their corporate office and be like, hey, I have houses in the area. Uh we have a little bit few more amenities than where your guests, where your uh employees are currently staying, and they'll just call them up directly every time they have somebody come.

SPEAKER_02 59:42

That's great. Yeah, I gotta try that. Yeah, I I have a bunch of construction workers that are paying weekly, and that's like really saved saved me during this whole thing.

SPEAKER_03 59:51

Man, construction workers save me too, man. Yeah, yeah, they saved me too.

SPEAKER_02 59:56

Well, because I think they're they're normally staying in the places you're talking about. And now, I mean, I had these guys like this one super nice three-bedroom property that I was getting out of, it was really it cost me like $34.50 a month in rent, and it wasn't doing well. And I basically found someone to replace me, but I had to kill two months, and so and it was not getting any bookings during the COVID thing. So I put some construction workers in there, they were paying like $500 a week, and they had this like really, really nice house. They're getting spoiled big time with it, but at least I was making some income from it.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:32

Heck yeah, as long as you didn't go under, man, that's what you gotta be thankful for, you know. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:37

Hey, you a Nashville Predators fan?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:40

Uh yeah, I am. I don't make it so much their uh games, but definitely a fan. They're they're a lot of fun to watch, and Nashville's love 'em.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:49

So they um COVID kind of cooled them down. They were going, they were on like a hot streak at the end there.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:53

Yeah, I know. Uh COVID's definitely put a uh den on lots of sports teams.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:00

It's all coming back, but there will be no fans, so that kind of sucks, but you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:04

So are they gonna do like college and NFL football? I hope so. I hope so too. I haven't missed it. You're in Nashville, so that's where is that where the Vols play? No, they're out of Knoxville.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:16

Knoxville, I'm sorry. Yeah, they're in Knoxville. Okay. I hope so. I don't know. Like the the SEC said they're moving forward regardless. I was like, dang, I don't care.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:27

They're about that life.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:29

Yeah, so I don't know. It'll it'll be interesting to see. I know basketball comes back at the end of next month, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:35

Yeah, Disneyland. No drug tests. They all gonna be Disney. They're all gonna be oh, Disney World. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:41

That's where they're holding it.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:42

Mm-hmm. Somewhere over there. That's it. Somewhere over there. The campus is over there. Anyways, there's gonna be no drug testing I hear, so it's gonna be a lot of stoned stoned players playing.

unknown 1:01:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:53

Oh, that's the NFL class. Yeah, that's oh man.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:59

Well, thank you so much, Travers Xanthos, for hopping on. Yeah, it's been a great show. Um, anything else you'd like to add? Anything you'd like to inspire some guests out there or some hose um fans out there uh to get started or try it out or you know, anything like that?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:13

Yeah, I'd say, I mean, just give it a shot. There's there's tons of opportunities to take

Pick up competitor properties now, break even until spring, then crush it

SPEAKER_02 1:02:17

advantage of right now. Um, some other companies that that went out of business and couldn't make it through. So you can pick up their properties. A lot of uh landlords are having trouble finding tenants right now, so it's a good time to get in there and at least solidify yourself, even if you're gonna break even until next spring. Uh, but you can get these properties now and set yourself up for later. And uh I actually have uh a guide that I put together for people that teaches them how to take advantage of the opportunities from the pandemic. So it's a free guide. They just go to the strmethod.com. The str so that's the short term rental method.com, strmethod.com, and download the free guide, and uh that's enough to get you started and get you going. So but yeah, everyone keep your head up. You know, we're gonna get through this soon and uh and keep chugging along.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:04

And where else can folks find you?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:06

Uh yeah, so that website or at Traversanthus on Instagram, Instagram, so at Traversanthus. You'll probably have to put that in the show notes, but it starts with an X last name.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:18

Hold on, let me get your Instagram right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:22

At Travers Xanthos. Cool, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:26

Yeah. And I enjoyed the conversation with you guys. It was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:30

Yeah, it's cool. It's cool. We learned a lot. We appreciate it, yeah. So hopefully, yeah, we'll we'll hop on. You can hop on again and tell and tell us about your progress and what you're doing in the future.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:40

I think I got some some other real estate plans I can come talk about in a year.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:44

So sweet sir, man. That was a good interview, man. You definitely dropped some good gems, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:49

Well, thanks, guys. I appreciate you having me on here. It was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:52

Definitely.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:53

All right, man. Anything to add, Micah?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:56

Oh, yeah. LLT, thank you for being listeners. Catch us on IG, Facebook, Instagram. We're gonna start doing some TikToking in a few. Uh, but yeah, catch us there, and uh remember to like, follow, and leave us leave us a review. We are out.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:11

Later.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:14

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