Live Let Thrive Podcast
Airbnb, PadSplit, Corporate Rentals, Arbitrage, and Live Let Thrive cover all the creative ways to rent out your properties to maximize profits. We also cover creative ways to buy properties. Come along for the ride and have some fun along the way!
Live Let Thrive Podcast
The $5,000 Setup Fee She Only Charges After You Profit - Kami Myles
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Kami Myles runs 14 short-term rental listings across four states and guarantees first-month earnings cover her $5,000 setup fee—she's never had a property make less than $6,000 in month one. She charges investors nothing upfront, taking payment only after the property starts generating revenue, and her management model has helped her weather multiple city STR bans and her husband's repeated corporate layoffs.
The episode covers Kami's transition from destroyed long-term rental to $10,000/month Airbnb operation, her furniture sourcing shortcuts using Rooms To Go 0% financing, the hidden costs of trying to manage guest communication yourself, navigating city bans through legal challenges and strategic property positioning, and why she abandoned the sprinter van rental idea after a week-long field test nearly ended her marriage. Myka and Steve also discuss lockbox mishaps, the nightmare of Airbnb customer service, and whether VRBO is silently imploding.
Work with us. Interested in professional management or consulting?
Myka — Sharebnb: www.sharebnb.com
Steve — Argest Rentals: www.ArgestRentals.com
Sign up for PadSplit with Steve's link and get a free 1-on-1 PadSplit strategy call with Stevie Stacks: padsplit.com/hosts
Myka's other podcast, Entrepremarriage — building wealth without losing the marriage: youtube.com/@Entrepremarriage
All our links: linktr.ee/liveletthrive
#airbnb #airbnbhost #shorttermrentals #midtermrentals #padsplit #rentbytheroom #coliving #corporatehousing #BRRRR #realestate #realestateinvesting #VRBO #shareeconomy #airbnbsuperhost #airbnbpodcast #sharebnb #liveletthrive #liveletthrivepodcast #biggerpockets #directbookings #bookdirect #dfwrealestate
Cold open
SPEAKER_00Welcome to Live Let Thrive, a podcast about the Airbnb life, the share economy, and everything in between. Here are your hosts, Micah and Steve.
SPEAKER_07Hello, hello, hello. And welcome back to another exciting episode of Live Let Thrive.
SPEAKER_04What is up, Micah Man?
SPEAKER_07What is up, Stevie Stacks? I'm chilling, man. We are now on episode what number?
SPEAKER_04115, I believe.
SPEAKER_07115!
SPEAKER_04Yeah, cuz because um Jay Matthews is 114, right?
SPEAKER_07Yes, sir. That was a interview. But we are coming back with another great interview.
SPEAKER_04We have this a local rock star in the Airbnb
Kami Myles introduction: 14 listings in four states
SPEAKER_04real estate game. Yes, Cammy Miles. I've been trying to get her on for a while. Give it up for Cammy.
SPEAKER_01Hey y'all. Glad to be here today.
SPEAKER_04Are you making a cameo?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Cameo.
SPEAKER_07So Cammy, let me well, I guess I'll must start off with Steve's question because he knows more about you than me. Who is Cammy?
SPEAKER_02Okay, um, let's see. I am an Airbnb specialist. So uh yep, that's what I do. I used to be a professional photographer, and then I turned my studio into Airbnbs, and uh absolutely love it.
SPEAKER_07So okay, and so uh how many units are you
The St. Louis property making $6,000-$7,000 a month
SPEAKER_07up to?
SPEAKER_02Uh right now we have 14 uh listings under management. So that's in four different states. So we're in um Texas, Arizona, Missouri, and also Florida.
SPEAKER_07Geez, you're in every state I'm in. That's good. Okay, where um Missouri are you in Branson or are you like St. Louis? St. Louis, how is it's crazy. I was in St. Louis, I think, last a little bit last year, and I was looking at my aunt's house and I was telling Steve about it, and I was like, man, St. Louis is a good place to house hack because of the there everything's almost three levels with the basement. So how is that market treating you?
SPEAKER_02Uh St. Louis is hot. It just depends on what your location is, but uh yeah, it's hot, hot, hot.
SPEAKER_07Really?
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_07So are you arbitraging, buying? What what are you doing?
SPEAKER_02Uh I manage for the that particular owner. So um I actually took his property on. I didn't set it up physically, I set it up virtually. So uh they did the work and then I actually critiqued it and set up their listing, and we were able to make superhost in the first 90 days, and uh we averaged six to seven thousand dollars in our first month. Yeah in St.
SPEAKER_07Louis? And how many do you have out there?
SPEAKER_02Uh just that one.
SPEAKER_07Just that one. Wow. And how how big is the unit?
SPEAKER_02It's about 1,700.
SPEAKER_071,700 square feet?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but it's really nice. It has like a media room and a pool table. Yeah, it's a nice place.
SPEAKER_07How many beds and baths?
SPEAKER_02Uh three bed, two baths.
SPEAKER_06Oh wow. Nothing. You can't beat six to seven thousand on that a month.
SPEAKER_07Okay. So what what got you started in the Airbnb world?
SPEAKER_02Well, I got started because we had a renter um in our house that absolutely destroyed our house. Um we tried to get her evicted, hired a lawyer, uh, we actually lost twice. So um the reason we decided Airbnb was because
From destroyed rental to Airbnb: the origin story
SPEAKER_02we just didn't want to trust anybody with our property ever again like that. We were like, no way, we need more control. So that's when we decided to start doing Airbnb, uh, which is pretty funny because I had no experience at all. And you should see my first Airbnb was pretty rough.
SPEAKER_07Okay. So like you have 14 units, so is your your business fully automated?
SPEAKER_02Um well, I not fully automated. I mean, I have a lot of systems in place. I've learned a lot of lessons, and I definitely have automations, but it still takes the human factor. I mean, you just it's it's very, very hands-on business.
SPEAKER_07Like what part of your business takes that human factor?
SPEAKER_02Uh, just the communication with every single guest. Um, unfortunately, it's not the same every single time, and some people need some hand holding, and other people just need their feelings to be acknowledged. It's customer service. I know. It's just crazy, right?
SPEAKER_07I like that feelings to be acknowledged.
SPEAKER_02They do. They just want to sometimes they just wanna, you know, vant on you.
SPEAKER_04All right, I got some questions. Um, so let's take it back to the first um your first Airbnb. Because you said you uh you did the long-term thing, had a terrible experience, you know, finally got that lady out of your house that ruined your house. So then you went to the Airbnb route. And you and I don't know if you want to tell what city or what locate you know where you're where the Airbnb is at, but you kind of described it to me it's as like uh kind of two houses in one, or how how is the setup?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, uh this particular property is in the DFW area, and uh it's in a bit of a hot pocket right now. There's a lawsuit going on as far as the banning of Airbnb.
The $45 air mattress booking that launched a business
SPEAKER_02So we uh basically what it is is it's a one-acre lot. It has a three, actually a four-bedroom, two-bath house on the front side of the acreage, and then in the back, it's a four-car garage. And I used it for my photography studio. And so what we did is we split it up on two sides, and it's kind of a funny story how this happened because I had my first Airbnb guest, which is some of the comments, she said that couch was like as hard as concrete. She said she sat down on it and had to go to a chiropractor afterwards. Yeah. Anyways, so uh the lady she said uh she said she needed to stay longer. They were adopting a baby, and uh, so I didn't have a place for her because somebody had already booked up behind her, and so I was like, Well, all I have is my photography studio, and I've got an air mattress I could throw out there if you want to stay. And she was like, Yeah, that's awesome. So I put it on there for her, and then she didn't actually end up needing it for the extra days, but before I knew it, someone actually booked it, that air mattress on the floor for $45 a night. And I was like, dang, this is awesome, until the air mattress got a leak. And then the guy called me. He's like, Hey, you think I can get another air mattress? So yeah, that's it's kind of funny how I got my start. We've come a long way since then.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, literally Airbnb, like how the exactly I didn't know that was unusual.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04That is cool. And so you turned the four uh four-car garage into like a fully functioning unit.
SPEAKER_02Well, we actually had it as a mother-in-law unit. Um, we'd built it for our parents years ago, um, so they would come and visit Texas, but they hardly ever did. But um, anyway, so I used it for um at one point my cousin was staying there, and it's just a great little living space. It has a bathroom on each side, so it's basically it's studios with a like miniature kitchen on each side and a bathroom on each side.
SPEAKER_04Nice. And so, and so that you obviously uh you told me your numbers before you're kicking pretty much kicking some ass over there, and um and how did and how did that propel you to your next phase of your business? How like the money how can you tell how much you were making on those two units?
SPEAKER_02Sure. Um, on those three units, we average 10,000 a month. So um about 120 a year.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, and see that is why you get into this business, man. Yeah, exactly. You get into this business. Wow, that's crazy. So, because like you were one thing, because I'm I'm a huge, I'm a systems guy, I'm a huge automation guy. So, with you still having that human aspect, have you have you been thinking about possibly um offsetting that to like a virtual assistant or anything?
SPEAKER_02Um, I'm actually thinking about a virtual assistant. I've tried a couple of different services like guestie, and uh honestly, yeah, I don't really don't like guestie. I don't know if that's not good to say, but yeah. Uh we have automation set in place right now, and it's good, and sometimes you get a little too comfortable and somebody's asking you a question and you don't actually check it, and then they're finally like, Are you really gonna answer my question? And I'm like, Whoa, wait a second, sorry. So sometimes the systems get a little bit you kind of sit back on your laurels.
SPEAKER_04Hmm. Okay, yeah, and um and as asking earlier, like, so you from that 10,000 and uh 10,000 a month experience, you decided to to grow your business. And what was the next step in growing your business?
SPEAKER_02Well, it was a natural progression because uh we're part of some investor groups, and so when people started seeing the success that we were having, they started asking questions, and some of them asked if I could help them. And so we ended up doing our first one out in Arizona, and so we flew out there, set the entire thing up in like five days. We um had a budget in place, got it all set up, um, and literally we had our first booking by the time I I got on the airplane. So that was uh we've never done anything less than six thousand dollars in the very first month, no matter what property we've touched.
SPEAKER_04Wow. Yeah. I'm giving you all my properties right now.
The $5,000 setup fee model: you pay only after profit
SPEAKER_02So I mean, we we started with that one, we had a lot of success, and then um we're actually national speakers. We speak at REI BlackBook out in Missouri, and so uh we have another um investor that's hired us for the Florida properties, and we started that three months ago, and I think we're up to 42,000 we've raised on two properties in the last three months.
SPEAKER_04Jeez.
SPEAKER_02So we're gonna do, I think we're getting to 16,000 just this month off of just their properties in Florida.
SPEAKER_07Wow. So what what's your uh what do you charge? What's your fee for better?
SPEAKER_02Um for setup for three, two, so three-bedroom, two-bath, we charge five thousand dollars for the setup. Uh we ask that the investor, they're gonna pay between five and seven thousand for the furnishings and everything that goes inside of an Airbnb. Um basically what that includes is we come in, I mean, the investor doesn't lift their finger at all. They just write the check. So we show up, we order everything, my team gets in there, we put do all the decorating, do the photography, get your listing set up, and we're in business in less than seven days.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_07And that's all you charge? You don't you don't you hand it to them after maintenance?
SPEAKER_02Well, after that, I do a maintenance or basically a management fee, and that fees 20% of all the bookings. And that includes taking care of your hospitality team, hiring your team, making sure you have handymen, um, making sure all the inventory is done, and uh basically it's just turnkey.
SPEAKER_07What tools do you use to find like handymen?
SPEAKER_02Um, I use a lot of Facebook Marketplace um this way, and I get recommendations from local moms groups because you know those moms are pretty picky.
SPEAKER_07Oh yeah. My wife used to be in those moms groups, all types of stuff goes down in there.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah. Good and bad.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Wow. So that so you okay, you're automated and you help them set up. So it's pretty much turnkey for the investor.
SPEAKER_02It is turnkey.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_04Now that now the 20% of the booking, so that okay, let's say, okay. So that's so you're gonna get paid first before all the stuff all the um fees and stuff are all. Yeah, I forgot to mention that everything.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so basically what happens is we don't like our investors to have to come out of pocket for a lot of money up front because they're already taking care of the property, you know, the house payment or the rent, plus they're gonna have to buy all the furnishings. So the $5,000 that we charge, we do not charge that up front. If we don't get, if you don't make money, we don't make money. So basically that just comes out of that first month's earnings. And we don't sign up for any properties that we don't know for the most part. I mean, it's an investment, there's risk involved, but we pretty much know how our property is going to do before we pick it up. Um what what tools are you measuring, using to measure how much a property is going to make, R your DNA or self- Um, I
Dead zones and the Wheelhouse pricing tool trick
SPEAKER_02actually I'll look at all different factors, but we have a way of comping the properties, and it's a little more time-intensive, but we basically go through the property, the address, we look at the comparables, and um look at reviews and whether or not the address is hot or whether it's in a dead zone.
SPEAKER_07So what would you classify as a dead zone?
SPEAKER_02Uh dead zone is it's somewhere where people are not frequenting. So you have to be next to somewhere where there's corporate training or an airport or a convention center. Um, for instance, we have a property out in Justin, Texas. I don't know if you'll know where Justin is, but it's in between Denton and the racetrack. And uh it's a it's not a dead zone, it's still cash flows, but it's not it's not a very popular area. And there's a pricing tool that we use called Wheelhouse, and so if you put an address in wheelhouse and they don't service it, it's a most likely it's a dead zone.
SPEAKER_07Wow.
SPEAKER_02That's a little trick I use.
SPEAKER_07Nice. Well, I'm about to write that one down.
SPEAKER_04Real quick, do you know uh if DeSoto is a dead zone?
SPEAKER_02I don't know. I'd actually have to look it up. So you'd be surprised. I mean, honestly, when I first started this, my investor group, I'm part of a mentor group, and I told them what I was thinking about doing, and I about got shouted out of the room. They're like, forget it, it's gonna be too much work, it's never gonna work. This was like four years ago, and I'm like, I don't listen very well. I don't like being told what to do. So I was like, I'm gonna give this a shot. And so uh, I mean, what have I got to lose? My house is gonna be in great condition. I mean, I have cleaners in there every three or four days. I fix everything as soon as it gets broken. It's awesome.
SPEAKER_04Oh, that's sweet. So you so you mostly just set up or you've been setting up for investors. You haven't really like um started cold calling and started, you know, hitting up people that are renting just regular houses anywhere and trying to get them to do it.
SPEAKER_02Uh I really what I do is I think the investors are a little easier. It's like uh low-hanging fruit, because they don't want to have to deal with a renter that is, you know, they've got bad credit, they got kids, they've got dogs. I mean, they're basically in your house all the time. So we just talk to investors, they see what kind of success we're having, and they want a piece of it.
SPEAKER_04Nice. So where do you find your investors?
SPEAKER_02Well, like I said, we're national
Finding investors through national speaking gigs
SPEAKER_02speakers. So uh after our events um at RAI Blackbook, we've been approached by several um investors and uh we're looking to expand in the DFW area. So we're gonna start um going to some of the RIAs and uh advertising.
SPEAKER_04Cool. That's awesome. And um so so what what piqued my interest earlier, you said something about you um you did like a virtual setup and a virtual critique. Uh how how does that work?
SPEAKER_02Well, it's not my favorite thing to do because basically what happens is somebody else does the setup, and then I have to go in and tell them basically critique them and let them know what they need to do differently in order to have success. And part of myself and my team managing a property is we have to know that this host, that that property is up to the quality that we're willing to manage. And so um, for instance, with this investor, he set the whole place up, he got a photographer, and it was very, it was a very difficult conversation because I basically had to tell him all the things that he didn't do correctly, and uh I wasn't sure how he was gonna receive it, but uh basically we kind of tore apart what he did, and I hired a different photographer, and uh when he saw the difference, he was like, he was shocked. He was like, wow, that is because there's just so much that I've learned over the four years, and I just know what works and what doesn't work at this point after hosting for over 10,000 people.
SPEAKER_04So what kind of things did he what glaring issues did he have when he tried to set it up?
SPEAKER_02Uh well he's a bachelor kind of like he set it up like a bachelor pad, and so I mean that would work for some guys, but that's not gonna work for families or you know, traveling women. They they didn't, you know, it was just a bachelor pad. And so basically we had to put like a feminine touch, a little more stylish, put in some fashion, fashionable furnishings, stuff like that. I mean, the pool table is great, but we need a little bit all around it. So he was kind of building his house around the pool table and some posters.
SPEAKER_04Man cave.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04That's cool. And um so um one thing I was gonna ask you, because I I've had conversations with you before, and yeah, you're growing like crazy, and and that's awesome. But you you do have some like um very stressful moments, and how do you cope with that? And what what brings that on?
SPEAKER_02Uh okay. Well, I think experience actually. Experience, I mean when I first started, I would freak out over the smallest thing. You know, if a guest wasn't happy, it would definitely like I just I'm a pleaser. I like to make people happy. And so um I've learned to automate my systems. I've also learned that I'm absolutely not gonna please everybody. That was a hard one to swallow because people some people you just can't make them happy, and then other times I make a mistake, and I have to humble myself and just be like, look, I messed up, you know. Can I get you a pizza? Can I send over a bottle of wine? You know, do I need to compensate you a free night? I do whatever it takes to make my guests happy even when I make a mistake. But regardless, sometimes you just are not gonna win. And then you need to know when to not fight those battles.
SPEAKER_07I'm writing that one down.
Outsourcing cleaning after the concrete couch review
SPEAKER_04And uh, you used to do all your cleanings yourself, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I used to until I realized that um it's a lot of work. It's backbreaking, and I'm not very good at it. So I mean, I'm I thought I was good, but then I hired the professionals, and that's all they do all day long, and uh they're actually a little better at all the details than I am.
SPEAKER_04And how much stress was lifted off your back after you started outsourcing that?
SPEAKER_02Oh man, a lot of stress goes away, and just know I don't even and we have our system set up now that I don't even worry about if they're not gonna show up or anything like that, because we have our teams in place and everybody, we have meetings and schedules, and I don't do any of that. It's all automated.
SPEAKER_04Nice, nice. And so you just got done, uh, you're sending me pictures earlier, you just got done setting up a unit in Dallas.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_04And so how did that go?
SPEAKER_02Um, well, it was actually our personal property. So we started it back in uh November, and we expected to be done in the first month because we were told by a contractor that it'd be done in about a month, which was uh our first lesson. Apparently, rehabs take three to four months, and so we just finished, it cost double what we thought it was gonna cost. Yeah, that was a little hard to swallow. Um, but we got this all this furniture and all these decorations, uh, we bought them all at one time. So word kind of got out that I buy furniture because that's uh yeah, I don't do it this way anymore, just so you know. I used to run around on Facebook and get all these deals, and I realized how much time I was wasting. But this particular property, we literally went in and bought this lady's furniture everything. We got a 24-foot U-Haul and a flatbed trailer, and we emptied out our entire house for one price. And so we put it into this house. So it made it really easy to decorate.
SPEAKER_04Oh, that's cool. And so, how how do you usually get um how do you get your furniture now besides something like that?
Rooms To Go furniture and the 0% interest strategy
SPEAKER_02So the way we're doing it now, because we realized that we were wasting a lot of time um and also buying products that weren't necessarily that fantastic. So now we're doing um rooms to go or furniture settings like that, where you just walk in, order it, it's done, it gets delivered to the house, gets assembled, and we can really, you know, we can speed up the process, which is money. Every single day that goes by, I'm losing $100 to $200 a day.
SPEAKER_04I love how you look at it like that. You when you told me about that, you you're you're losing money every day it's not set up. And so it's more about speed than about going out there and being choosy about and trying to find the best deal and save $50, right?
SPEAKER_02Oh man, I wasted so much time and so much money. I would end up buying stuff that was broken, and yeah, I'm not doing that anymore.
SPEAKER_04And so the rooms to go thing, that was pretty cool too. How you tell how yeah, explain that to me.
SPEAKER_02So, rooms to go are great because it really takes a lot of the thinking out of the process. You know, even I mean, a guy can do this who has absolutely no sense of you know design, just walk in and be like, Yeah, I want that room. And uh basically they put it all together, and you can also get they usually have these great deals. I think it's between five and seven years of 0% interest. So if you think about it, you can get into your property much lower if you have the appropriate credit, and you also have to know. That you're going to be able to pay for that within the time period they give you. The biggest mistake people make on those 0% interest things is that they don't pay it. And what happens is all the interest is retroactive and it hits you at the end. So you got to make sure you actually can pay it. I usually schedule it to be paid six months ahead of time.
SPEAKER_04Oh, before it expires.
SPEAKER_02Just in case.
SPEAKER_04Oh nice. Because I glanced at it and I think I don't know if it if they do that now, but it was saying something like you had to like break it up into equal payments until it's paid off.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you definitely have to make payments. It's not like you could just go six years without, but or seven years or whatever they're offering. But it basically gives you 0% interest until their time period is up. So you're paying payments, you're just not paying for interest.
SPEAKER_04So so listen to this. I want our I want our fans to hear this because it sounds pretty cool. You could, I mean, you could theoretically hit up Cammy, you know, and then um say, hey, I wanna I want to set up this air my house as an Airbnb. And she can come in there, she'll do all the work, and she'll, you know, she charges her fee. Of course, you got to get paid. It's not none's free in life. So five grand, you you know, she she'll do your whole house. Of course, you gotta pay for the the furniture and stuff. And so you could put all that furniture on um five to seven year um uh no interest uh what's that a rooms to go thing, and um and so you don't have to pay that either. So you can get set up, and then plus the five thousand that that you're paying Cammy, you're you get to spread that out and over the oh and you and you pay her as you profit, so that you can get set up like immediately going, and then she does every she can even run it for you. That's pretty I mean that freaking blows my mind, like almost starting off paying zero. That's that's insane.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I mean you gotta remember the that you you're using your investment vehicle to make money, there's always risk. But the cool thing about my fees is that I'm pretty much taking all the risk. So I get paid in that first month and uh or two months at the very latest, that's it's never gone that long. But you start, you know, you start profiting probably in the third or fourth month, even if you were to pay everything off. So it's I mean, it's it's depending on what your um insurance is and your overhead for your property, if you own it, rent it, stuff like that.
SPEAKER_04And you're so confident in your skills
The client losing money who should've made $2,000
SPEAKER_04that like you you had mentioned um you had a client that wanted to run it himself and he was his numbers and he showed you his numbers and you said you could make like three times that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, actually it's kind of funny because uh he came to me about six months ago and he wanted to uh see what we offered, and uh he thought we were kind of expensive. And so I was like, okay, that's cool, just give me a call if you need some help. And so he didn't call me, I think, because he was he, I guess he just didn't feel it was right not to hire me, but still call me and ask for questions. But he got himself in a little bit of an emergency, and uh one of the guests were very unhappy, and so he called me to kind of see if he could help him out of this jam. And uh so we started discussing, you know, what to do in that situation, and I said, Hey, how you how's your numbers? And he's like, Oh, you know, we we lost money in November. I'm like, You lost money? And he's like, Yeah, like just 500. And he goes, uh, but we we broke even in December, January, we actually made 500. I'm like, thousand or five hundred dollars, and he's like, Yeah, five hundred dollars. I'm like, no way, Jordan. And so, anyways, we uh we looked at his property and I I've he should be making about two thousand at the least, and especially in December, he should have made like five thousand. So uh that those properties are gonna go under management with us soon. People just don't realize how much money they'd be leaving on the table by not having the expertise.
SPEAKER_07Yep. Smart, smart. So how so okay, you charge five thousand for setup for a typical three, two. What's your what's your going furnishing costs?
SPEAKER_02Between five and seven thousand. That's everything. That's sheets, towels, silverware.
SPEAKER_07No matter what market, right?
SPEAKER_02Uh well, I mean Alaska it's gonna cost a lot more, but I mean Well, the markets you're in. Yeah. So we basically buy everything on Amazon or Costco.
unknownOh god.
SPEAKER_02So we kind of have a a sheet of our orders. Basically, I just give it to my uh to my team. I'm like, hey, order me this setup for a 3-2.
SPEAKER_07That is a system that I love that.
SPEAKER_04So see, on that note, I want to ask Micah, because you've always been trying to 100% automate everything. Wouldn't that be a way for you to 100% just give it to Cammy and let her do all the work? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01No kidding. That sounds a good deal.
SPEAKER_07That is true.
unknownThat is true.
SPEAKER_04So um I wanted to ask, because you have uh you have something cool. You have uh you have an actual real life assistant.
Hiring an assistant and setting family-employment ground rules
SPEAKER_04How did that happen?
SPEAKER_02Uh an assistant? Oh, uh Israel? Oh man, I couldn't do it all by myself. First of all, I'm a creative, so I am all over the place. I will get to the end, but it's gonna be like a long, squirrely road. Um, so Israel, he came in about four months ago, and uh he has just he's really tried to keep me on the straight and narrow, which is hard. So his job is very difficult. But uh he basically, I'm the visionary. He is uh he implements everything, so he's like, okay, I'll tell him like five or six ideas, and he's like, he's like, okay, one of those are good. And I'm like, no, no, no, they're all good. He's like, okay, no, we're gonna do one. And so yeah, so we brought him on board and he's helping us expand.
SPEAKER_04How'd you meet your assistant?
SPEAKER_02Well, he kind of dates my daughter. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Oh now you say dates, like they're just dating, they're not getting married or nothing. So what happens if that if they broke up, you'd still be your assistant?
SPEAKER_02Actually, we talked about that. Um, so in our employee um contract or independent contractor, we actually talked about all the things that could happen. And I mean, it is really risky working with somebody that's involved with your family, but we we work through all of those situations ahead of time just to kind of, you know, worst case scenario. But so far, we've really enjoyed working together.
SPEAKER_07That's really smart. I never think a lot about that. Like, hey, we got a compensation plan just in case things get a little rocky. I like that. Smart idea.
SPEAKER_04So um you consider yourself more like a a hands-on, like I would say, hands-on manager or something like that. Do you have to like stop yourself from how do you stop yourself from micromanaging?
SPEAKER_02Um, well, I'm not a micromanager. Once I hire my people and I realize that they're they're trained and they're expert in what they do, I actually back off. Um I I don't have time to be micromanaging. I have my systems, I hire the people that fit in my systems. And if it turns out that somebody that I've hired doesn't work with my system, then my motto is we hire slow and we fire fast. So we don't screw around if you're not gonna work in our systems.
SPEAKER_07I don't know. Straight to the point.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And so uh what what uh where do you get your cleaners?
SPEAKER_02Um we actually got our cleaners locally here from um Facebook Marketplace.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_02So uh I think we kind of got lucky because the first person that I contacted, um, and there is some funny stories about that because um at first our cleaning team, they were very frustrated with me. And uh Israel gets frustrated with me also because oftentimes I'll change my mind how I want things done. And so that's the beauty of Israel. He's coming in, he's making manuals for our hospitality team, and uh he reminds me that that's not how I said to do it. And so we actually have a book, but our hospitality team that I first hired, um they got to the point that they were ready to quit. And it was kind of interesting because I was getting so frustrated that I was like, okay, I'm I walked in, I was gonna fire my my cleaner, her name is Vanessa, she's the head of hospitality here in Dallas. And uh she I told her, I said, look, I don't think this is working. Um, I think it's best if we just part ways. And she said, Yeah, that's exactly what I was gonna say. And uh we both just looked at each other and we just started laughing hysterically, because it was like, Are you serious? Like we both almost the same words came out of our mouth. We were firing each other, and then we just started laughing, and we're like, Okay, what's really the problem here? And so she told me what her needs were, and I told her what mine were. And we worked together, we've been together now for four years, and um somebody texted me and said that you know there's something dirty. No way. I know it's not dirty, I know that there is a guest. One, there might have been a mistake, but most of the time it's because somebody's making something up. Um they want a free stay or they want something. Because uh my team is I mean, they make mistakes here and there, but they're never gonna leave something dirty.
SPEAKER_07See, I I liked how you use that. That's like the power of communication right there. You almost fired someone who was really good. Yeah, you guys sat there, talked about it, and you realized it wasn't worth it. That's I've had some some of those moments, so yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you really gotta trust your people. And uh I didn't really know that in the beginning because I was I was make micromanaging, but I think I cured myself of micromanaging by getting too busy. I don't have time for it.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, this is how I am. I have a really good VA and I do not micromanage them. Like once I send them all the training videos, I can just I don't even have to look and see if stuff's done anymore. It's just like what you said with your cleaners, you know it's done. So yeah, it's it's good having a if you have a good team, that's like the best thing you can ask for.
SPEAKER_02Hey, does that VA need more work?
SPEAKER_07Does that what?
SPEAKER_02Does your VA need more work? Like, I'm definitely looking for somebody to take over the human aspect of this.
SPEAKER_07Does he need more work?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Um, well, he's in the Philippines. So if you this this okay, this has been my issue with having people who are in the Philippines take on the communication side when like okay, when guests usually hit you up about a problem in the Philippines, they're usually asleep. So that's been my problem.
SPEAKER_02Oh, well, what do you mean? Give me an example.
SPEAKER_07Okay, so because of the time difference, most of my places, the only place he could probably really manage for me is my place is over in Fiji. So if they have a problem over there, he's on that side, he can manage it. So something like, okay, I have a place in Arkansas. If they send him something, let's say right at check-in, like they check in at four o'clock, four hours ago. I think the time difference, he's probably in bed. You know, so that's been a problem. So what I'm trying to do is he's he's actually working to get more people hired under him so where he can have a call center of his own, and I just contract stay straight with him, and then he just assigns it to people under. So if you do go over there for like that type of where you want people to handle the communication, definitely see if you can get someone with a team behind them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's um that's definitely what we would be looking at. And you also need to look at your time zones and see if you can get people to manage the times when you're sleeping. So yeah, I think Italy, I'm not sure. No, not Italy, it was Israel is a good time zone.
SPEAKER_07That's exactly where Gesty is too.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_07In that butt, they're they that 1%, I wasn't
Why Guestie didn't work and SmartBNB did
SPEAKER_07feeling it. I was like, eh.
SPEAKER_021%. They charge way more than that. They charge a lot.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, they were charging me one percent, but I've I gave them a bulk of listings. But yeah, they how much do they charge now?
SPEAKER_02Um I don't want to quote it because the last time I looked at it, all I know is I was like, no way, I'm not doing it.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, it it it was it it's they have good service, kind of, but they promise you all they promise you stuff and never deliver on it.
SPEAKER_02And it's like well, and just the setup, I mean, it's like flying an airplane. You gotta go in and learn their system, and it's like I cr I tried twice and then I quit. And I'm just like, it it was a lot of work.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, because Jesse, if you're listening right now, we're not dogging you, we're just saying if you want to give us money, that's fine.
SPEAKER_02Hey, if they want to make their systems easier that work for the average Joe, I'm all for it. But right now it's not there.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, because I was able to, like on their messaging side, I was literally able to take all my listings, put them over on Smart BNB, and within a day, done.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm on Spark, I'm on Smart BNB right now.
SPEAKER_07See, and that's what I mean. It should be that easy, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, honestly, Smart BNB is not easy either. You have to know your systems, you gotta have your messaging. I mean, when you have 14 listings and I have them on Airbnb and VRBO, that's a lot of work. That's a lot of work on the front end, and that's actually something that we're looking into selling our templates so that even if somebody doesn't want us to manage or set up that we'll go in and we will sell our template. So basically, you just take what we do, put your address, put a little bit of whatever, you know, your special sauce on it, and we've done all the work for you.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, that's smart. That's smart. Because yeah, the th the one thing that I've made me fall in love with Smart BNB is once they got integrated with Home Away, I knew for a fact that was a game changer. So yeah, if you guys want a messaging system, definitely look at Smart BNB and their uh auto IQ responses. I love those as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I got a referral code I can uh recommend. You know, Smart BNB is really cool because they actually give whoever refers 25% of what is um of a person's lead. They don't do any other advertising besides uh inside referrals.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_07We got to get Adrian on. I mean, is his name Adrian? Pierre. Pierre Camille. I think we gotta get him on.
SPEAKER_04Now I asked um earlier um, well, how do you find your cleaners? But have you heard of Turnover B?
SPEAKER_02I have heard of Turnover B. I I looked into it and uh I didn't really like the way I don't like the fees that they charge. And I also don't like the fact that you have to use their cleaners. I like their system, but you have to use their network of cleaners. And when I went to go pay them, they were charging a pretty high fee. I use Zell to pay all my um team members. This way, there's no charges for to do that. And uh I think they were charging like four percent just to pay your cleaners.
SPEAKER_07Oh, they've changed it now. You can use your own cleaners, but they charge a flat fee, like hey, you pay like $72 for the year. So if you break it up.
SPEAKER_02Oh, really? I gotta circle back and look at that.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, because so my clean oh, my my cleaners out in Arkansas. I uh onboard all of them on there, and then I have them go from there. So yeah, definitely check it out.
SPEAKER_04Because it's it's awesome because it links them to your Airbnb calendar. So they don't even need you to call them or send them a message or whatever you do and say, hey, you need to turn, you know, or even sit there and try to match it all up on there, whatever they use. It just totally sends them a message, it says when the the checkout happened, and they they go in there, do their thing. And I mean, you don't have to do anything. It's it's that's why I like it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, we do that with Smart BNB. We set them up with their own account, with their own calendar, they get a text message, they get an email, and they get a reminder, like I think it's like two hours before, and be like, hey, don't forget to show up.
SPEAKER_04That's awesome too. Yeah, I we just I just had a lot of luck with um with that uh turnover BNB. We even interviewed the CEO and uh he lives out there in Hawaii, but it was it was a it was a pretty cool interview. What what I what I like you said, it charges them a fee, right? Like four percent of what they of their cleaners.
SPEAKER_02I I I don't know. I don't remember.
SPEAKER_07I'm bad with numbers when it's like yeah, it's like three percent of you use their cleaners and pay them through the app. I that was one thing that was pushing me away, and then I realized, oh, I can just pay a flat fee for the year and just onboard
TurnoverBnB versus the Zell payment method
SPEAKER_07a cleaner. I was I was more then I was more lenient with it. I was like, okay, I'll do that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'll definitely take a look. But that's different cleaners all the time, right? It's you can lock one in.
SPEAKER_04You can lock one in. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so yeah.
SPEAKER_04So that's what happened with me. I found a cleaner that I really liked. I mean, she did an awesome job, and so um it it it goes it if you give her like a five-star like review right away, because that's what's cool about it too, because they're reviewed and you can see if you know who's good or who's bad. And you give them a five-star review right away, they automatically have first dibs at all your cleanings that you post. And so I I told her, you know, I said, you know, are they taking money from your take a little bit? I was like, well, I could pay you, I could sell you the money, or I could do whatever and pay you know outside the system if you want. She goes, No, you know what? Let's just leave it in the system because I like how their calendar works. It lets me know when everything's going on and it keeps keeps everything balanced from me. Because she has she does other cleanings too. So she just she turned down like extra money she could have got just to stay in their system and get so it'd be more organized. I thought that was pretty cool.
SPEAKER_02That is cool. So one of the things we do with our hospitality team is we have um laminated checklists at every one of our listings, and because it's so easy to forget things, especially when you have like three bathrooms or you know, you basically they have to go get that checklist and they have to go through each one of them and make sure they check it off before they leave. And that's really helped us cut back on any sort of human error.
SPEAKER_04One more cool thing that you mentioned checklists. You set up your checklist on on turnover BNB. So any cleaner that grabs a job, it gets emailed your checklist, and she can, you know.
SPEAKER_01And you can steal other people's checklists.
SPEAKER_04Exactly.
SPEAKER_01That's awesome.
SPEAKER_04I'm sorry, it sounds like yeah, it sounds like a commercial for turnover, but that's you know, I'm not I'm not a big hu I'm not a you know rock star Airbnb or like you. I think you laughed at my numbers one time, but I never did.
SPEAKER_02No, I just I knew I could help you, that's all.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, because how did you hit me up?
SPEAKER_02How did we uh you I think you saw me on one of the forums or something, and then uh you called me and like talked to me for hours on end. And I kept telling you how busy I was. I'm like, dude, I gotta go.
SPEAKER_04No, no, I think that was reverse. Um I think you found a listing I had on I swear, I swear it's in my mind like this. My my Hearst House, I swear I I put a listing and I put it on Craigslist and I critiqued it.
SPEAKER_03You remember? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04And you said, yeah, you you critiqued it, you know. You throw away grandma's furniture already. Okay and uh I made good money. I thought I made good money.
SPEAKER_02Did you make did you paint those paintings on the wall?
SPEAKER_04Uh no, a buddy of mine did.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_04It's arthouse hearst, man. That was that was the shit.
SPEAKER_07But um so let me get this. Let me get it. Steve asked you a bunch of questions, you answered them, but Steve didn't implement it.
SPEAKER_02No, but he still made money.
SPEAKER_04I I made money.
SPEAKER_02But he left a lot on the table.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I did. I left a lot on the table. I was juggling, you know, a new baby and you know, new marriage, and yeah, whatever. I'm just yeah, yeah, just think if you would have hired me back then. But I I I I saw the error in my way, I thought about it, and I said, Hey, do you still want to, you know, you know, I moved on to another thing now, and you you were like on like another like 500 new projects, and you so you kind of said, Yeah, I really don't want to run your um crappy house. It's not like that, you didn't say it like that.
SPEAKER_05But I just said you didn't have time.
SPEAKER_04You told me you didn't, you politely said you didn't have time to to run it for me. And um, anyways, the next you know few months later, Hearst bans it anyway, so whatever. And um Hearst banned it, my other one in Arlington, Barlington banned Airbnb, and and it's just been a domino effect, man. And so yeah, you know all about that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we just got um we just lost a pretty big property, the $10,000 a month property we just got shut down.
The city ban and the $10,000 property shutdown
SPEAKER_02So uh we're kind of waiting to see what happens with a neighboring city that's in the middle of the litigation right now. So um, yeah, it's it's devastating when that happens. It hurts. Okay. But what's up?
SPEAKER_07Okay. Um was this in Texas, the state of Texas?
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_07Not far from where you are. Oh, was that I wasn't gonna mention this yet, but there is a new thing called str shield.com. Someone brought them to me, and they're like, if you want to be protected by your uh, you know, by local laws or whatever, they'll help you put properties under LLCs so it's protected against city fines. I haven't done it yet, but I it was just sent to me. So I want everyone to check that out. Um, people in the Texas in Texas, um, I really think the only way to get around those bands is we're gonna have to write letters to wherever your Airbnb is. You're gonna have to write a letter to whoever's sitting in the Senate seat for that area. Because since this because the state already says it's legal, so it's that's the pretty much the only way I would see, because you're gonna have to get them to do what they did to Austin.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, so um actually when we um we're having a little trouble with this property that we're gonna lose quite a bit of money on, so we actually consult. With our attorney, and it's the same attorney that's actually fighting the grapevine lawsuit. And so they basically said that the laws that these cities are making are unconstitutional. And not only are they unconstitutional, but they're also discriminatory. They discriminate between a 30-day rental versus a you know anything under 30 days. You're basically doing the same exact thing. It's just a different time period, which is discriminating. So we are considering whether or not we're going to move forward and uh test the law and actually bring forth a lawsuit.
SPEAKER_07How what what what headway is the one in uh Grapevine? What is he making? Is he making headway?
SPEAKER_02Right now they're uh they're I think it's the second court of appeals in Fort Worth. I'm not sure on that, but um I don't even know if there's a court date set. But the cool thing is the owners that brought the lawsuit, they're in an injunction, so they're able to operate right now legally. And that's what we're kind of hoping we could jump on.
SPEAKER_07Arlington got just straight denied, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they didn't ban it though. The difference is Arlington the way they did it is they actually offered up an option to the people within a certain range. So I think that's the difference between Grapevine and Arlington and Austin.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, because Arlington, well, they Arlington shut down, I think what, probably 80% of the city?
SPEAKER_04Probably 90%. Huh? Only one mile of the city can do Airbnb.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, so about 80% of the city got shut, and then well, they're still complaining.
SPEAKER_02I did you see the sh the news just about two days ago? They did a story on Arlington Airbnbs, the ones that are actually legal. And it was a very negative story. They didn't get they had one person say, Well, I don't care what they do with their property, they should be able to do what they don't want to, but yeah, that was just running on CBS News like three nights ago.
SPEAKER_06I couldn't believe it. Wow.
SPEAKER_04Rich people paying a lot of money to give Airbnb a bad name.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, unfortunately, there are those hosts out there. You gotta admit, it would not be fun to live next to a house where there's a host who is out of state or they just let people party there, you know. That's not cool.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, because that that's how Arlington got banned, one bad apple party house. But that's what kind of made me mad. I'm like, well, hold on, we're you're gonna shut down 300 plus Airbnbs because of one person, but I don't I ain't gonna lie, I probably wouldn't want to live next to an Airbnb, so I understood those people's complaints, but it gets one bad apple.
SPEAKER_02So now why wouldn't you want to live next to an Airbnb?
SPEAKER_03Um a poorly ran Airbnb, probably you mean probably or one at all.
SPEAKER_07Not me, I probably wouldn't want to.
SPEAKER_01Why?
SPEAKER_07Just in general, traffic in and out, I wouldn't want to, uh but that's just me.
SPEAKER_02So well let's uh let's talk about that just a little bit because um we're we're actually proposing something right now in what our city. Um we're trying to turn our uh our property out in Argyll into a wedding venue, and so one of the opposition that we get is the stranger danger, and that we're bringing strangers into the neighborhood. Well, okay, what happens if your neighbor has some guests over? You don't know them, okay? Or what about across the street? We have a business complex, they're bringing in strangers, so I mean, uh people need to get over the idea of different people coming into your neighborhood. It's not like you know what your neighbor's doing. I mean, you got the unobomber sometimes next door, you don't even know. So true.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, my current neighbors are good weed smoking Americans, though. But uh you know, I mean, but I mean, I don't know. Uh but I don't know. It's just mine's not really the stranger danger, it's just more of the traffic. It might be just because of where I'm at.
SPEAKER_02See, like traffic, that's weird for me. Most of my people use Uber. Like I don't even see their car. Yeah, we rarely even have cars in the driveway.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, mine's always has cars. Yeah, mine always has cars.
SPEAKER_04Well, they need to clean their garage out so people can park in the garage.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's smart. If you can get those cars hidden, it's best. Then the you know, the neighbor next door who doesn't have thing anything to do isn't, you know, got her binocks out.
SPEAKER_07It's weird. Like most hosts that I talk to, they don't like their guests using the garage. I'm like, I offer the garage all the time if it's available.
SPEAKER_02I don't know what well my garage, it used to be full of all the Facebook crap that I bought, the marketplace. But now that Israel's on board, he didn't let me stockpile like I used to. So now I actually have a garage people to use.
SPEAKER_04Oh nice. Nice, nice. Man, I was gonna ask a really good question, and it just fell out of my head. Um so so okay, okay. Oh, oh, yeah, you know, it's funny we talk about who we want to live next to and all that stuff, which um, you know, you're buying you're buying a house, you're not buying the whole neighborhood, right? So I mean what who you who are you gonna say who can live who can live next to you, stuff like that. But anyways, on that note, um a friend from one of the one of the Airbnb groups posted something. You know, she always posting stuff about our our you know liberties being violated by them shutting down Airbnb, stuff like that, and that's cool. She posted something um something the other day though, saying that that she pointed out some law in California where in certain certain cities that were they're not letting you work on your own car in your garage anymore.
SPEAKER_02Oh man.
SPEAKER_04And I agree in the most part, but um, they said you could do just basic kind of things on your car, you can't just you can't switch engines out or whatever. But anyways, I was like, you know, on on I I agree with uh our our liberties shouldn't be violated, stuff like that. But on that note, I also see the other side a little bit because I lived I lived in a spot one time where the neighbors directly in front of me, it was just uh a bunch of dudes that had old cars that they were always out there with the with the metal music or the hardcore rap and just drinking all freaking day, garage open, with working on these PO piece of crap cars, and I didn't like that either. But really, what can you there's nothing they could do about it. They can work on their cars in their on their driveway or in their garage.
SPEAKER_02It just it just you know You can live in an HOA if you want that kind of restriction, live in an HOA. Personally, I live on seven acres. I don't want anybody telling me what to do. I don't want to see people's crap, I don't want to smell their smoke, I don't want to listen to their dogs bark. But that's basically what I choose. But uh if you want to control how other people live, then you gotta pick a property that's farther away from people.
SPEAKER_07That I do agree with if you want that. See me, I don't mind the I guess I could live next to an Airbnb. I mean, my where do you live? Uh south side of Arlington.
SPEAKER_02Almost Oh man, I already have a place right next to you. Just kidding.
SPEAKER_07Oh, I was like, no, not these people.
SPEAKER_02These my neighbors, they're uh Yeah, you don't know, you don't know what's going on.
SPEAKER_07I would know, I I would know I'm the only Airbnb on the block because uh when I used the Airbnb over here, my neighbors actually, if they had family coming to town, they'd come knock on my door and be like, hey, is your upstairs available? And I'll be like, Yeah, you know so. And I hook them up with my Airbnb listing. Uh but yeah, I mean I'm I wanted to oh sorry, go ahead. I was I I guess I probably wouldn't mind it, you know. They might bring in some fun. But what were you saying?
SPEAKER_02Oh, I was gonna mention something that you had talked about, the LLC and the fines. Um, when we consulted with the attorney, one thing that we did find out is that when you have a fine against an LLC, you need to have a lawyer or an attorney present with you in court. You cannot represent an LLC. So that's one of the reasons why we took one of our properties out of the LLC and put it in my personal name so that when I go in there, I can defend myself for the most of the part. I can go all the way through my appeals process without an attorney. But if you have an LLC, it could get very expensive because you cannot represent yourself, you have to have an attorney for an LLC.
SPEAKER_07That's a good way to think the way think about it.
SPEAKER_04Start thinking now.
SPEAKER_07But if they racked up all the fines, could you not pay the fines?
SPEAKER_02Well, I mean, most of the time at LLC, unless you're hiding in Wyoming or something like that, uh, which some people do, eventually they're gonna find you and you're gonna be liable for those fees or fines. Unless you're really, really sneaky, but I don't know. I'd rather just you know be accountable for whatever.
SPEAKER_04If you're you know, there's I I I guess I see it like this. There's there's so much money to be made on the up and up. Why why risk doing all that stuff, right? Getting fined and everything.
SPEAKER_02It's not a good feeling to be uh to be operating underground. It's I've been doing it for quite a while, and uh it's yeah, it's not really it's just you wake up every day and you think, okay, is this my last day? And uh it's not a good feeling.
SPEAKER_04Do you want to do you wanna tell the story how you were discovered?
SPEAKER_02Well, okay, yeah, I will tell the story. Okay, so basically what happened was I had this awesome
The $30,000 insurance guest who turned Kami in
SPEAKER_02deal with an insurance company. Uh a realtor had contacted me through Airbnb and said that she had a client and uh they needed a place to live for three months. And so um I worked with the realtor outside of Airbnb, and it turns out that it's a company called ALE. ALE is a third-party housing, they find housing for their insured. So when I talked to the ALE, the basically the middleman between the insured and the insurance company, I was able to negotiate a killer contract. So on this one three-bedroom, two-bedroom, three-bed, two-bath house, I got $10,000 a month. Yeah, it was sweet. It was one of my best. So whose internet's unstable? Mine, it's sorry, I got a little message saying it was unstable. So, anyways, $10,000 a month for uh three months, guaranteed. And on top of that, okay, this is a real kicker. I'm very good at negotiating. I asked him for all the money up front, and so I got it. I got this giant check, like day one, and uh, I actually posted it on one of the Facebook groups for um for Airbnb, and they suspended my account because they thought I was lying. And they I was like, okay, I was just trying to help people and show them like what I did, and so I got I got taken off the professional Airbnb host for I don't know, a little while. They let me back on, but um, people were so mad because I did a Facebook Live and I was showing them the check, and people were just like, you're full of it. Is it bogus? This done happened, and I'm like, uh, okay, I'm gonna cash the check now. So, anyways, so this guy he gets into my house, and I should have known better because anytime I have somebody who stays more than about a week, they begin to get on my nerves. Does do you guys have that experience? Yeah, they they kind of get picky, start asking they notice the little squeak in the floor or the cabinet squeak, they start asking you to fix stuff, and if someone's just staying for two or three days, they don't care. They're like whatever. So this person, he ends up being an absolute nightmare. Like, I am a puppet on his string. He's making me, he's just awful. And the thing is, is like he knows a very important person in the city that I'm in. And so he held that over my head. So basically, I had to do every single thing he told me to do, and then he still turned me in. Yeah, he posted my address and my name on Facebook in front of 1.5 million of my neighbors.
SPEAKER_05Ouch.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and his accusations were just ridiculous. So, anyways, but he flashed. Yeah, he yeah, he did. He there was a lot of stuff, but we won't we won't get into too many details. He's gonna get his, you know? Just the way it is.
SPEAKER_07But you made 30,000, right?
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah, but think how much it cost me. 120 a year.
SPEAKER_05Oh.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, I honestly, if I had it to do go to do over again, I would have played a lot nicer. Um, because I got to the point where I got tired of being told what to do, and so I pushed back a little bit, and I think that was a very costly mistake.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. I push back all the time.
SPEAKER_02Well, I gotta stop though. Yeah, well, I mean, there's like with Airbnb guests and stuff, like sometimes I've made some critical mistakes. Like, for instance, we had some guests who uh overstayed, and my hospitality team was driving around for an hour waiting for them to leave. So I got a little hot under the collar because I don't like it when my people are affected by other people's mistakes. And so I I let them know they need to leave, and they still didn't leave. So I went over to the house, knocked on the door, I was very, very polite. We have ring cameras, and uh, I was very intentional
One-star review damage control and listing duplication
SPEAKER_02how I spoke to this guest. Uh, but they got all upset, accused me of discrimination, and all kinds of stuff, and uh they ended up paying double the nightly fee because that's what Airbnb does when you overstay. Um, but they left me a one-star review, all caps, worst host ever, and basically took one of our listings from being a five-star down to like a four-three. And so it's taken me uh well, that happened like four months ago. So it seems like one one-star review, it takes like 50 five-star reviews to ever climb your bait way back out of the hole. So oftentimes what I'll do if the listing's fairly new and that one star is affecting me, I'll literally start another listing up, exact same listing, and uh, I'll end up deleting the old one.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, that's what I do too. Duplicate it and move on.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because uh a little trick though, I do I bring my reviews with me. Do you know how to do that?
SPEAKER_07How do you do that?
SPEAKER_02I take screenshots of the reviews and I put them in my pictures.
SPEAKER_07Okay, good idea. So that's a good idea. So y'all learning some stuff.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04That's sweet. Um so what are your future plans with um Airbnb short-term rentals, corporate rentals, whatever? What do you got? What do you got in the books and the work?
SPEAKER_02Uh well, Dallas is uh right now is Airbnb friendly. So we are looking at investing more in Dallas. We just bought one, finished it up, getting ready to open it. I think this weekend, so one of the things that we always do with our listings that I think a lot of um hosts kind of take the shortcut, and it's a it's a big mistake. You should always stay in your listing a couple days before you actually give it out to guests because there's just things that you're gonna notice when you get in there that you're like, oh man, I didn't realize that you know this was loose, or waited, where where are your where's the paper towels? You know, all these different things that when you actually live in it, you can really test it out and see what's missing. So our family's gonna go spend the night in it and we're gonna actually cook a meal and make sure all the dishes are there and all that. So we should be opening on Monday. So that's what's hot.
SPEAKER_07I was gonna say that is a huge tip that I must miss over all the time. So yeah, definitely stay in your Airbnb.
SPEAKER_02Well, and if you can't do it, then what we do is we usually have a couple of our friends do it, and
The $35 early check-in upgrade fee
SPEAKER_02we book we have them booked through Airbnb so that we can get the review. And uh, but here's the thing like you gotta make sure that person's a friend. Because some people just aren't smart, and they oh well, I'll give you a three-star. I mean, I thought it was pretty good. I'm like, you did what? I'm like, uh, okay. Well, they were like, well, that's pretty good, right? No. No, we're not good. Oh gosh, yeah, you gotta educate your friends, and we educate our guests, we let them know I hit them up for five-star review five times. When they inquire, we're here to give you a five-star experience when they book. Oh, we're so excited to give you that five-star experience. Next the next day, hey, I really hope you're enjoying your experience. Our goal is to give you a five-star experience. I mean, we're like some people have commented that we kind of like shove it down their throat, but we have 500 five-star reviews, and our reviews we get like an 80% review. Most people get like 40.
SPEAKER_07So I have a check-out message for their five-star review every time.
SPEAKER_02Well, we also explained to them what a five-star um review is in the house because some people don't understand, and this is the one that makes me so mad. They give me a one-star review for location. Dude, you picked it. How could that be my fault?
SPEAKER_07Yeah, it's a couple of location, and the other one is um value. Yes.
SPEAKER_02You picked the price.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, it's those are the two ones that Airbnb should kind of I don't know what they should do with them, but it's kind of I don't well, location. I do have one that's kind of in a it's not in a bad neighborhood, but it's around the corner. So you have to go through the bad neighborhood to get to the good neighborhood. So I always get like a little risky on the location.
SPEAKER_02That's gonna happen to me. Uh my place is down in uh right next to Love Field, and if they come in off a northwest highway, it's gonna be rough. So I'm gonna actually send them a map and tell them the preferred way to get in, and I'll be like, don't listen to Google Maps. Because uh I'm gonna send them in the right way. But I mean, our home is next to million dollar houses, but two blocks over, it's rough.
SPEAKER_04Now, if they want to pick up some um some drink and some substances, they should listen to Google Maps because that's where that's where you want to get it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there's a lot of salty places over there on that road.
SPEAKER_04I'll tell you, I'll tell you funny, we're talking about one-star reviews. And um, and I told you, I told you my thing, you know, how City of Arlington found me, and then they find me and this and that, and pretty much told me, shut down, or we're gonna keep finding you. And so I I shut down and I moved all my guests to my primary residence. And I, you know, I talked to Airbnb, they helped me set it up. They told me just make it like a dummy listing kind of thing, and move them over, and then just shut that one down, and and you know, and they'll both be off the books, so the even like the current city I live in, they they won't see it either, whatever. And so everybody, I called everybody, you know, one by one, told them the whole situation. I'm getting shut down. I could either, you know, you could you're free to cancel, or I could put you up in my home here. It's only a few more minutes away from the stadiums or whatever. And so every single one of them agreed to it. And you know, I guess I you know, a little gratitude would be good, but whatever. I was I was moving from my own home to guess to to help these people out, right? And so although I'm and your pocketbook too, though. Well, I I got paid exactly the same money though. Oh yeah, yeah. I they just transferred all their listings here, and you know, they didn't have you know, they've already paid for them and stuff. So they just they were able to stay at my house. And it's a bigger house, two-story, five-bedroom, uh, it's got a pool. Not you know, it's winter time, they couldn't use it. But anyways, so they got a to me what I thought was a better deal. And and so all of them left me five star reviews except for one late one girl, one one woman, and she and she oh man, she complained about some stupid stuff, but and and she left me a one-star review, and I was like, and and she left me like you know, a bad review on there, explained this and that, and I was like, and I I I kind of went off on her a little bit. I was like, listen, oh no, no, I know, whatever. I was like, well, I'm done Airbnb, whatever, I don't care anyways. So she's gonna people are gonna see her thing. I don't know how that works, but but so I left her thinking, I I got out of my own home so y'all could have a spot. She only rented it for one day because she wanted to do like Christmas with her family. She was one of those.
SPEAKER_02Oh man, are you serious?
SPEAKER_04I let her say I said it's I said I let her check in early, I let her let her let her leave. You know, you know, it was just available. I just wanted to help my, I just want, you know, I bent over backwards to to give a great experience, and I got a one-star review from it. And it's just some people you can't please no matter what. I could have just let her, okay, fend for yourself, go find another spot last minute for Christmas, see what happens.
SPEAKER_02So we've learned something. No good deed goes unpunished. So uh instead of saying uh instead of giving people things, like for instance, if they say, uh, you know, could we get an early check in? You know, we're we really want to get in early. And I'll be like, absolutely, yes. We have a $35 upgrade fee. If would you like to take it? Oh, yeah, we don't really want to get in early. Or same thing with late checkout. I'm like, I don't say no anymore. I just say how much? So it's like, yeah, you want it? This is what you and you know, once in a while we get somebody who pays the um the upgrade, but once in a while I get review said 35 bucks for two hours is ridiculous. I'm like, oh, okay.
SPEAKER_04But they want it in early, so yeah, any other any other business out there is gonna charge you, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly. And if you go to Hilton or something and you want to get an early check-in, they're not gonna guarantee it. Matter of fact, even if they give you a late check-in, you're not gonna get anything for it. And the way it is with Airbnb is you get crucified if you're not ready by the I that's uh that's the first time you and I talked. You said you got a bad review because the cleaners weren't finished. Remember? It was in my first talk like four years ago.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, well, because because someone left late. There was a late checkout. And so, and that's another thing. I mean, that's that's kind of a that's kind of a hard one because you want to tell the people, I'm gonna charge you 50 bucks for a late checkout, you know, they even though they're but you know you're gonna get a bad review for telling them that. You know, how does how do you do that?
SPEAKER_02You know, uh we just we spin it like it's an upgrade, and it's it's not like a punishment, it's like they choose. It's like, oh, absolutely, yes, you can definitely sign up for that upgrade if it's available. Let me check with my team and see. So we make it.
SPEAKER_04What about people? No, I'm talking about people that just taking their sweet ass time to leave, and they're not they're not out of there in the on the time they're supposed to be out of there.
SPEAKER_02We've only had that happen once.
SPEAKER_04Okay, and what did you how did you handle it?
SPEAKER_02Not well. Not well at all. Yeah, I uh I I it just didn't go well, and I got screwed on my review, man. It was bad because they pissed me off, and I actually went right to after being nice for so long, I was like, all right, I'm done. So I had Airbnb on the phone, I just handed him the phone and I said, Okay, you guys are gonna get charged an overstay fee. So it was like an extra 300 bucks.
SPEAKER_07See, that's what I was gonna tell you. You put a put a fee in there if they stay over, put that fee in there.
SPEAKER_02That's what you're oh I mean that's in the Airbnb terms of services. It's in there. How much is it? Is it like a percentage of the no, it's just double the night nightly booking rating. Double.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_02Well, I'm just I mean, you have to go to the mat and you gotta fight for it, but I'm I'm pretty good at fighting.
SPEAKER_07How how late do they have to check out? Is there a certain time frame?
SPEAKER_02I mean, it I don't I don't really screw around with somebody who's like that hour or something like that, but these girls were like two hours, and when I went to go talk to them, they gave me attitude, which in turn kind of turned my attitude around. But I gotta learn to be better at that.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, I I I definitely outsourced all my customer service because I'm not good at that. But like I know what you mean. I feel like I would charge a fee, especially if it affects the next guest coming in. I think you should definitely have a fee.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, because I mean I gotta buy them dinner. Like that's that's happened before. And I had this one guy, and I'm like, look, I'm really sorry, you know, somebody got out late, but um, how about I send you and your family out for dinner? And uh actually it was a lady, she was by herself, and this lady, she went, I sent her to a nice restaurant in our town. She bought herself two pieces of pie, she had a bottle of wine. I mean, by the time she got done, it was more money that I spent for her dinner than she paid for the booking.
SPEAKER_04Oh boy, no good deed goes unpunished.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so next time, okay, so this is what
The guest who ordered two slices of pie and a to-go cheesecake
SPEAKER_02I did. I said, go out and buy yourself dinner. Now, what I'm gonna say is here's 40 bucks to go enjoy dinner. You know, I'm not gonna give them. She came, she sent me a bill for $80 for one person. She said, Yeah, and it says on the receipt, she had a cheesecake and then she had one to go. Oh totally took advantage, right?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, take that to your boss, he'd be like, nah, I ain't paying for the second cheesecake.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, but you know what? It was my fault because the only time we've ever missed a cleaning is when I was in charge of it. I was supposed to clean it. I forgot. So yeah, we don't we just don't have we don't leave me in charge of that kind of stuff anymore. It's dangerous.
SPEAKER_07See, guys, that is the power of not only outsourcing, but knowing your strengths and weaknesses, and then you do a better job overall. Outsourcing what you're not good at, understanding that, and then your your business keeps thriving.
SPEAKER_04Well one cool, yeah, exactly. And one cool thing that you you told me, Cammy, is that is that by renting by renting that house, the one that's 10,000 a month, and um it helps y'all get through like a tough time. It actually it helps support y'all through a tough time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, actually, my husband, I don't know what the deal is, but he's been getting laid off in the last couple years. I think it's the gray ceiling. You know, you anytime you're get after 50, 55, it seems like the corporate kind of kicks you to the curb, which really, really stinks. It doesn't make any sense because that's when people are usually hitting their stride and they're very experienced and very polished. But corporate America kind of has been spitting my husband out, which is frustrating. That's really why we started I started my business with Airbnbs because I wanted more control over my destiny, although these cities and all this regulation makes it a little bit, you know, iffy. But I have another idea that I'm working on actually, because uh like I'm always just a little bit out in front of other people's ideas. And one thing that I wanted to do was the uh sprinter van. So I want to do Airbnb on wheels. So basically, when a city runs me out, I just move to the next. So and not only that, like when it's a great time to rent up in the northwest, it's a summer, okay? When summer's done, I head down to Florida. So I have a year-round busy season.
SPEAKER_07So uhwest, where what do you mean?
SPEAKER_02Washington State, California, Oregon.
SPEAKER_07You you rent in Washington State and Oregon?
SPEAKER_02Um, yeah. Well, actually, what we were going to do, we were gonna buy a fleet of uh of vans, and we were the people were doing this. We actually rented one, we rented two. We rented one for a week up in Seattle. It cost us twelve hundred dollars for the week. And my husband and I, we were just testing the market to kind of see if this is something we wanted to do. And uh it's it's outdoorsy.
The sprinter van rental experiment that nearly ended a marriage
SPEAKER_02I don't know if you've heard of that or not, but they it's a platform where you can rent your RV. And so I wanted to do sprinter vans because they're basically tiny homes on wheels. And so what we learned was 32 years of marriage is not enough to spend that much time together in a little tiny van where you eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, shower. It's uh no, it's not cool. So, but we learned so much because it's a completely different business model. Like Airbnb guests, they're usually hardly in your house. But if you're gonna be renting a Springer van, they're always in that house. They're always in there. So the wear and tear on that property, uh, and plus how do you know how they're gonna drive? And so we learned a lot. We decided we're not going that direction.
SPEAKER_07So, and you said this is popular in Washington and Oregon, because this is where that's where I'm from. So I'm like, hold on, that's popular up there.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah, it's very popular, but um they're very expensive to get into. And uh the wear and tear and the insurance and outdoorsy takes 25%. Like it's it's a lot.
SPEAKER_07So you need a bunch of them.
SPEAKER_02Well, I think there needs to be a better platform. 25% is really gouging the owners.
SPEAKER_07I think it's because uh and it's on wheels, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they're sprinter vans. Have you seen them?
SPEAKER_07Mm-mm.
SPEAKER_02Oh man, they are it's it's one of my dreams. I actually because I like to travel a lot, but I like to have all the things like that I like. Yeah, go to outdoorsy.com or put in, I'll share it with you later. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_07I've seen it. Okay. A 2020 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter.
SPEAKER_01Yep, exactly.
SPEAKER_07Whoa, these things are huge.
SPEAKER_04They make them nice.
SPEAKER_02They're expensive. Stand up in them. They cost like the really nice ones, they're about 180,000, 190,000. They're they're expensive.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, this dude has a custom one for 200k.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So we also went to we went to Santa Cruz and we stayed in the Santa Cruz Mountains in a tiny home. And uh, that's all the rage, actually. Tiny homes are where it's at. These millennials, they love tiny homes. So if you can get a tiny home with the composting toilet and uh you can put it somewhere where people frequent and the city, you know, it's it has to be a little bit outside of cities.
SPEAKER_07This was my thing with tiny homes. This is what I was gonna do. I was just gonna buy a plot of land and put a bunch of tiny homes on. But this is my thing. Does tiny homes include land? Does it is it considered land improvement?
SPEAKER_02Not if it's it can move. It's it's similar to a manufactured home or a mobile home. So if you can put a foundation down and you can anchor it to it, that's different. So basically, like we have a manufactured home that we that's the place in Justin, and uh we put about 20,000 into it. The funny thing is when people pull up, because I mean we show all the pictures for Airbnb, but all sometimes I'll get a text message and be like, I don't think we're at the right place. I'm like, why is that? And they're like, uh, we didn't rent a mobile home, and I'm like, oh, oh yeah, you did. So they walk in and they're like, oh, it's really nice inside, you know. So, but yeah, we we tried to get refinancing on it, and we have to actually anchor it down to the foundation uh for it to actually be, you know, like included in the value of the land.
SPEAKER_07Okay, so if you were to get like 20 tiny homes, you anchor it down, then it would improve land. Okay.
SPEAKER_02But but the beauty of a tiny home is if the city changes the regulation, you just move somewhere else.
SPEAKER_07So how hard is it? Can you you can unanchor them though, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Oh man. See, you're helping me out now. See, I was that was my holy thing about uh tiny homes. I'm like, if that don't include and if it doesn't include land improvement, I was kind of scared, but there's wheels.
SPEAKER_02You just pull up and go on to the next town. Not only that, you could move on the seasons. So if you have a lot down in Florida and you want to pull that thing down there, you know, that's what we were gonna do. We were gonna move our entire fleet from the northwest down to Florida, like on a cycle.
SPEAKER_06That's smart. That's smart.
SPEAKER_02But we we actually learned it wasn't that smart because vehicles break down, the insurance, um just how much time people spend in there, it's a lot of wear and tear, and uh, I think maybe a few marriages might get ruined. I don't know. My husband, I was like, oh man, we've never had a real argument like in all these years. But he I thought we're gonna have to go to a hotel and just eat the thousand bucks. But after about eight hours, he calmed down.
SPEAKER_07See, and I think I think that's the thing with why these companies like uh okay, like if you get a sprinter van, I think that's why they charge that 25%, is because of all the extra insurance. Because you know, Turo charges that too.
SPEAKER_02Well, they charge it on top of that. So we so the platform, we need to start a new platform. That's where the money's at. Like, why not just use everyone else's assets and just have a software piece?
unknownThat's true.
SPEAKER_02Now we're talking.
SPEAKER_04He does it, yeah.
SPEAKER_07I'm down for that because I think uh hey, I I think it's time for Airbnb to have a legit competitor.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean too. Hey, did you all hear about uh VRBO? I heard some chatter the other day that VRBO is not paying people and they're not giving refunds to their guests. I don't know if that was just like a random. It was on Facebook, uh, one of those uh Airbnb professional host thing.
SPEAKER_07Let me check my payouts because someone just stayed with me on VRBO. Hold on, that's good.
SPEAKER_02I don't know. It would take you 30 days to get it. VRBO takes forever.
SPEAKER_07Hold up, VRBO. We might have a problem. But yeah, I I do notice that was my only thing with them. I know they pay they pay a little bit weirder than Airbnb, but I've been noticing Airbnb's payouts have been slowing down. Like, you know how to-they're using our float. Dude. It's like if you have like I used to if I have like 10 reservations in a day, 10 check-ins, usually that next day I get the bulk of the payouts. Sometimes the payouts come in the day after, like the day after.
SPEAKER_02I mean, they say they're sending it the next day, but usually three to seven days. But you know, they're smart, they're using our money.
SPEAKER_04Even though Airbnb got paid a long time ago.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I know, and sometimes the guests get mad because they're like, we already paid, or even with VRBO, they're like, Well, you already have my money, and it's like, no, they don't understand. I don't have your money.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I just send them the number, call these guys, talk to them, you know.
SPEAKER_07Hold up. I think you're right. I don't think home aways paid me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, people are uh people are worried that they're gonna they're going out of business because they're people are trying to get refunds, and guests hosts are trying to get paid. So I don't know. I'm actually thinking I'm gonna pull my listings all off of there because I don't want to get stuck with someone's stand for you know a week and then I'm out a couple thousand dollars.
SPEAKER_04You know, you know, um, because I did Airbnb out of that Hearst House and I had them on you know Airbnb, VRBO, and um uh what's the other one? The freaking internet booking.com. Booking.com, yeah. They suck, screw them. I don't know. Oh yeah, they do. And so um when I did the when I did the Arlington one, the last art my last Airbnb, I just said I'm just gonna do straight Airbnb. I ain't even gonna mess with the other ones, they're just a headache, they're not even worth it. And and man, I was um I was booked up. I mean, I was I made more money than ever before just by focusing on one on just Airbnb. That's all you needed.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I've only had like three bookings on um VRBO. One, I don't understand it. It's confusing to me. Like it's much harder than Airbnb. It's not very intuitive.
SPEAKER_03Right, right, right.
SPEAKER_07And see, and that's where Airbnb crushes everybody is their their software development. It crushes them. Um that's where they're gonna beat everyone, is their technology is so easy, user-friendly.
SPEAKER_02It's too bad they don't have uh I don't know if you've noticed this, the customer service in the last year has gone, uh pretty much just disappeared.
SPEAKER_07I'm happy you brought that up because I mean Airbnb's customer service is absolutely terrible. Like if you like, even if you message them back and forth, they'll take 24 hours to get back to you. But if you do that to a guest, I guarantee you Airbnb is gonna have a problem.
SPEAKER_02Oh, no, okay, listen to this. The other day, I had an Airbnb uh case manager threaten me. Yeah, I'm like, okay, I was driving from Dallas to Argyle. It takes 40 minutes, and I'm I'm not gonna look at my phone when I'm driving. And so a case manager texts me at like five o'clock. I get home at 5 40. She texts me, she goes, if I don't hear from you in the next 30 minutes, I'm gonna cancel your reservation and give you penalties.
SPEAKER_07And I'm like, They did the same thing to me. They they've been doing the same thing. I think they're trying to get people, but if you message them, like I get messages back from them every hour. Every hour, or it takes two to three days. I'm like, but you guys want us to immediately respond to you?
SPEAKER_02You gotta hear this. So I had a what I thought was a party going on in my house down in college station. It's a four-bedroom, four-bath, and uh, I these guys show up. It's 14 people filing into my house. Next thing you know, the t-shirts are going over my cameras, and I'm like, oh, uh-uh. You know, I don't want to call the police because I don't want attention to my property. And so uh I call him up, and the guy's like, oh, hey, you know, we got a seven-on-seven football team. They're only registered for two guests, and he's like, Oh, their parents are gonna come pick them up later. And I'm like, No way, man, really. And so, anyways, they all stay there, and uh, so I call Airbnb and I said, I want to cancel this reservation, I want them out. This is not what I signed up for. And so they said they were escalating it to the I don't know, safety department or something, whatever they have, this new department. So I never get a phone call back, I never get a message, I work it out with the guest, and then on Sunday, when they checked out, I get a message from Airbnb that the reservation's been canceled and the guest was given a full refund. And I was like, Are you kidding me? So they got a full refund in my house. I didn't get paid, but the cool thing is my August lock, it locked them out and they didn't show up for their stuff. So I kind of was like, pay me, you get your stuff.
SPEAKER_07Distortion.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, you do what you gotta do. So he's there was 14 kids standing outside of my house, and the guy's like, let me in, let me in. I said, sure enough, get out your credit card. I got my square ready to collect right now.
unknownDid you get it?
SPEAKER_02I got it.
August lock failures and the Yale keypad solution
SPEAKER_05I'm gonna screw around.
SPEAKER_04So buy August lock, everybody. August lock.
SPEAKER_07Weren't those the locks that my guy Aaron in Portland used? And I was like, man, these are some good locks. So yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we we actually use the Yale lock now. They sell them at Costco, and so it integrates with August, but August, August can be a little bit dicey.
SPEAKER_07What's your issue with August? Because I want to know before I switch to it.
SPEAKER_02Oh man, August is tough because uh, first of all, you need to have a keypad for those people who are not tech savvy. And uh one thing we have two Chinese families that are stuck in our Airbnbs right now, they can't get back to China. I know it freaks me out a little bit. Do I need to send a hazmat in?
SPEAKER_04A coronavirus, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So they are stuck in ours, so they can't use their phone because a Chinese iPhone will not run the August lock. There's some kind of a known bug. But if it's an Android phone, it will. So basically, you need a backup, so you need some kind of a keypad. The Yale has the keypad, so you can program uh code in there instead of doing the phone, because I just find people do not want to mess around with the August lock.
SPEAKER_07The app and sometimes it's dicey and yeah, and that was one thing when I was using it because I stayed at an Airbnb up in Portland and he had it, and I was like, Man, I like them, but that was the only thing I was concerned about. I was like, I'm pretty tech savvy, but if someone else, yeah, that could be a problem. I'm happy you told me that.
SPEAKER_02So I I I like the um Yale because it has the option for both, and I can control the lock, which I like.
SPEAKER_04Oh, you like control?
SPEAKER_02I do. So how much is it?
SPEAKER_04How much is the Yale lock?
SPEAKER_02Uh $236 is what they cost at um at Costco.
SPEAKER_07I've been I've been sticking with the remote lock five eyes, and they've been doing pretty well. The only reason I'm I don't hard to switch is because I have all of them under one portal, and I can just someone just logs in and everything's done automatically. They send the code automatically, guest gets it, so someone instantly.
SPEAKER_02I'm gonna have to look into that because that's how August is supposed to be. But what happens is people will book like a month ahead of time, and then August sends out the integrated email right away, and then a month later they're like, hey, where's my code? And I'm like, uh, check your email from a month ago.
SPEAKER_07So remote lock fixed that problem. So they were emailing it, but they integrated with Airbnb. So well, they'll send it directly through the app.
SPEAKER_02And it's just called Remote Lock?
SPEAKER_07Remote Lock5i. You can go to remote lock.com and I've I've been loving them.
SPEAKER_02I'm gonna switch because I these August locks they give me headaches and I do get bad reviews.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, because that that that that that freaking email thing was messing me up too, because people like, oh, I don't have a code. I'm like, take your email, but now it's like okay, it goes directly through the app, I'm done.
SPEAKER_02Ah, that's good. Well, the other thing too, you gotta have a backup. We're all about redundancy, and I learned these lessons the hard way. Like one time I went to bed early, like nine o'clock, and my guys they they came back drunk, and they were so drunk that they put the code in so many times to my electronic lock, they ran the battery out. And so these guys, I have I watched them on the camera, they were ridiculous, they couldn't barely stand up. And so, anyways, I was already in bed, so I didn't have all these systems in place. So they ended up going and staying on their buddy.
The lady who locked every lock including the garage
SPEAKER_02Floor at their hotel room. And so I woke up at like three in the morning, check my phone. I'm like, oh my God, they're locked out. And so like I went to Walmart. I at three in the morning. I bought like a six-course meal and I cooked them this amazing breakfast. I text them and they were pretty hungover, but they had to go home to their wives. So I had them come home, they showered, got ready to leave, and then ate dinner, but our uh breakfast. Um, and that's when I found out you can't buy champagne at Walmart at three in the morning, apparently. So, anyways, uh yeah, they gave me a good review too. If that was a woman, oh man, I would have not survived that.
SPEAKER_07Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02They were like the seven doors walking in. They're like, hi, my new show. And I'm like, that was they were so cool. I would have been so mad.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, those locks. I'm happy you said that about a backup plan because I just I just had to charge somebody $130 for being an idiot with locks. So somehow this lady locks herself out of our house. She, okay, we have the redundant lock, the the remote lock. But this property is in Arkansas. They have a my parents, they they it's their house, and I just manage it for them. They have an extra lock on the bottom lock. I didn't know they had it.
SPEAKER_02Oh no, someone locked it.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, but this is the bad part. My my backup plan is to let them into the garage because I can remotely open the garage from wherever I am in the world. They locked the door to go into the garage. They locked the door. I'm like, how is this even possible?
unknownI'm like, what the?
SPEAKER_07So we ended up having, and then the funny thing is, my dad was here at my house and he had the key. So we had to hire a locksmith, go change the lock. I charged them 130 bucks. I'm like, there's no way you locked all these locks in the house. And then we looked at the cameras. What they did was they locked the lock to the garage, closed the garage, pushed the button on the garage, and ran under the garage. I'm like, you had to be retarded to do that. But I was like, all right, whatever. So yeah, I charge them 130 for that.
SPEAKER_02So we have three lockboxes on a property. So we have uh we have a hospitality team. It's like the master box, and no guest ever gets that code. And it has all the keys for every unit on our property in that box. And so then we have a backup to the for the guest, and that's kind of what got me in trouble on the uh the listing when the city came. They notice that little box, they're like, uh, we notice you have a lockbox. I'm like, yeah, so because my handyman comes in a lot, you know, or my house cleaning comes in a lot. And they're like, Yeah, that's what we thought. And why do you have all these cameras around your house? Well, because we like security. Well, why do you have a little sign saying, Welcome, Sam? Oh.
SPEAKER_05Welcome Sam.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we have like a little sign and it's like a smile and it says, Hey, welcome, whatever their name is. We change their name and yeah, that kind of goes.
SPEAKER_04That's your maintenance guy.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Welcome our team every day. Yeah. Anyways, there's we we ended up taking the signs down, and uh, so we're still trying to figure out if we're gonna test that because we haven't been cited yet.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, it's it's getting tough out here.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it is, but um, I like the challenge. But like I said, Dallas is uh Airbnb friendly right now. They just set up their website so that you can register your Airbnb, which I'm really scared. It's like, do I want to register so that they can shut me down later? Or I mean they want their hot tax. I'm fine with paying the tax, but it's like big brother, they know exactly where I'm at.
SPEAKER_07This is my thing with cities that want you to pay the tax, but they don't want the tax to come from Airbnb. That's always where I get when I start getting skeptical because Arlington did that. Yeah, they pay the tax, but we're not gonna, we don't take it through Airbnb. Unlike Plano, Plano's like, we'll take the tax straight from Airbnb. That's when I get skeptical because I'm like, why don't you just take it from Airbnb? And but instead they want to get it looks, it seems like they want to get addresses, start kind of pinpointing people, and I'm like, eh, I don't know.
SPEAKER_02That's because, well, I mean, I'm just gonna give them your address, and then later I'll message the guest and be like, oh whoops, I made a mistake. It's actually the house three doors down.
SPEAKER_07I like the way she does business.
SPEAKER_04She's a rock star. She's a rock star.
SPEAKER_02She's gotta be one step ahead, but hey, it's almost past my bedtime, guys.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah, we've been at it for a while.
SPEAKER_07We have been going at it. This is a good combo.
SPEAKER_04All right, leave us with one one um cami tip for all the all the wannabe Airbnbers out there. One cami, one just like one like hardcore cami tip.
SPEAKER_02All right, here's the thing: do not try to recreate the wheel. If you have somebody like myself who's willing to come in and set you up and get you successful day one, honestly, that's the best money you could ever spend. So that's the tip I would leave you with is don't try to be an expert at everything. Find somebody who is the expert, pay a little bit up front, and then have more success a lot quicker. I mean, those hosts that have been doing this for a while, they can tell you that they've cut their teeth and they've earned their stripes. Airbnb is not for the weak at heart, for sure. So that's my tip. And if you if you guys want to talk to me more about this, you can go to our website. Our website is execustays.com. That's E-XE C U S T A Y S dot com. Execustays.com. And we'll be happy to have a uh consult with anybody who's interested in getting into um Airbnb or helping us or letting us help you manage your property.
SPEAKER_04So anywhere in the world you can you can manage their property or anywhere in the United States.
SPEAKER_02We're in the US right now. I'm not sure about around the world. Like, um, yeah, I don't know if I'm qualified for that.
SPEAKER_04Okay, yeah. So anywhere in the United States, hit up Cammy. If you don't want to, if you want an expert to do this for you and for like a small fee, I mean, yeah, hit her up. I'm thinking about doing it too with uh with my future Airbnbs. So there you go. Thank you so much, Cammy.
SPEAKER_07Thanks, guys. Yeah, coming on. It's good having you.
SPEAKER_04Let's do a part two because we got a lot more stuff to talk about.
SPEAKER_01So awesome. Thanks.
SPEAKER_04All right. Well, thanks. Good night.
SPEAKER_01Bye.
SPEAKER_04Bye. And so that was Kami Miles.
SPEAKER_07That was actually a really good episode. And Steve, anything else? Closing thoughts on your end?
SPEAKER_04On my end, uh man, I I I did uh I checked out a couple houses today, and um and yeah, I'm I'm going full full speed ahead, dude. That's what's up, man. That's what's up. So I just um I might be hitting up Cami to run them for me. So that's how that's what we're looking for.
SPEAKER_01We're ready.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, she's still there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04I'll be sending you the info, Cammy.
SPEAKER_02All right, let's do some business. Let's make some money together. Let's do it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you can you know you won't laugh at my numbers anymore. They'll be your numbers.
SPEAKER_05That's right. Thanks.
SPEAKER_04Thanks for checking it. Thanks for listening to uh to Live Let Thrive. It means a lot that our fans are still like, you know, still all about the Live Let Thrive life. And um, yeah, man, the support is awesome.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, we're still pushing it, still growing. So uh yeah, keep us in there. Remember, leave us a review on iTunes, subscribe on YouTube, follow us on Instagram, Instagram. We're always doing something on there. Um, so ladies, no, ladies and gentlemen, if you're ready to get your health and fitness game together, be sure to follow Mahogany Artists on IG. And be sure to follow us on IG, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts. We appreciate the love and thanks for being listeners. LLT is out. Later.
SPEAKER_00Peace. Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of Live Let Thrive. Be sure to tune in next week for all the latest in the world of Airbnb and all that entails. Bye-bye.
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