SPEAKER_01 0:00

So I did I you know I put it up on Airbnb like in July of 2017 for you know getting ready for August and um our first booking was four thousand dollars so uh yeah for a four night four nights four nights for the so I mean talk about hooked by the money right I was like oh we're in this like we were sold immediately Welcome to Live Let Thrive a podcast about the Airbnb life the share economy and everything in between here are your hosts Micah and Steve Hello Hello Hello and welcome back to another exciting episode of Live Let Thrive What we uh we see we're already screwing up this is uh Let's Let Thrive uh your favorite Airbnb, VRBO, Turo, Homo Way, all that stuff, podcast, and share economy and innovation and everything in between. And we are back with episode 90. 90, man, we've been running two years strong. Hey, we started from the bottom.

SPEAKER_03 1:09

Yeah, so today we actually have someone from my home state of Oregon joining us by the name of Veronica. Yes, Veronica.

unknown 1:20

Yay.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Alright, Veronica, say something interesting.

SPEAKER_04 1:24

Oh my gosh. There's seriously, I heard a lot of you guys' um podcasts talking about regulations, and we are just like a hotbed of regulations going on around here right now.

SPEAKER_03 1:36

Really?

SPEAKER_04 1:36

So it's yeah, like we just had new regulations um lifted, like we had regulations and they got lifted last week. So it's like uh it's such an exciting time for us here.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

What regulations were lifted last week?

SPEAKER_04 1:52

Well, so I live in a suburb. Um, everybody, probably in any major city, has one of those suburbs where it's like the Hoiti Hoiti suburb, like everyone's like super fancy, you know, and I bought a house in that suburb. And so two years ago they outlawed Airbnbs. But it just so happened that I lived two blocks outside of the like incorporated area, so I only had to follow county rules, so I was able to do Airbnb the whole time. But the city, two blocks from me, um, just 100% outlawed it. And last week they lifted it like as good as you could expect. Like it has to be a primary resident that rents, but you can do it for as many nights a year as you want, you can rent out the whole house, like there's no r there's basically no restrictions as long as it's your primary residence.

SPEAKER_03 2:45

Wow. That's awesome. Where where are you located?

SPEAKER_04 2:48

So I'm in Lake Oswico, Oregon, which is just south of Portland. It's about it's like the next city down from Portland, Oregon.

SPEAKER_03 2:56

Wow, they lifted all the bands on it.

SPEAKER_04 2:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

But it still has to be your primary residence still, though.

SPEAKER_04 3:03

Yes, but unlike that, I I think a lot of people who are who are Airbnb hosts saw that story from that couple in Denver, um, where the couple was with the primary residence um, like trying to like blackmail some politician or something like that. Um, in any case, the the wording on what is going on here is actually much looser. It doesn't actually say you have to live there some specific number of nights. It just says that that's what has to be on your driver's license. So, you know, it's new, but like it's it's not as like like you must live there for X number of nights.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

I I could see Micah getting like five or six different driver's licenses over there.

SPEAKER_04 3:48

Well, it would it would allow him to be able to do one and his wife to be able to do one at the very least, and then any, you know, maybe adult children or it just gives you more flexibility, I think, without it being, you know, the city of Portland requires that you be in the house every night except for 95 nights per year. So you can rent your whole house for 95 nights per year, but the rest of the night you have to be on premises. So that's a very specific rule that wouldn't really give a lot of wiggle room for lots of you know homes.

SPEAKER_03 4:26

Question about Portland, because I was just up there and they did something kind of weird. Like me and my me and my wife were kind of we're not uncomfortable with it, but it was weird. Like they at the very end of our stay, they asked for our drivers no, no, no, they asked for our license plate on our car, which I didn't really care. I gave it to them only because it was a rental anyway. But if it was my personal, I don't know if I would have gave them that. Is that like a rule up there or what?

SPEAKER_04 4:48

Yeah. So they have to do these logbooks um to keep records for the city that can be audited at any time. So they do have some additional regulations. Because they are very concerned about uh, you know, the housing crisis. They they feel, you know, I I don't necessarily feel this way, but they feel that that houses are just being scooped up and and you know, thousands of people are Airbnb and taking away the affordable housing. So that's kind of why they're being so vigilant about that.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Well, here's the thing with that. I mean, y'all got like a a crap load of land out there, right? The trees and stuff, and the hipsters love tiny homes and they love tree houses, so I'm just throw those everywhere, you know? Problem solved.

SPEAKER_04 5:34

It's expensive to start up. I mean, like, I heard you guys talking about some some of the ways that you um use your investments to leverage into to multiple properties. I mean, out here, our like they did a recent study on how long it takes the average person to save up 20% down, and it's 20 years. If they were to save up like the traditional 20% down, it's like forever. The age of first home purchase is like 36 years old. I mean, it's like it's silliness, like the cost-benefit analysis of buying a house right now, at least up here.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

And and so what what pro and like I said, if you'll have so much land, I mean they couldn't they just start building more houses? And is that am I just looking at it too simplistically?

SPEAKER_04 6:20

Um well actually there's with our homeless crisis, there's actually enough places to to house them if all the vacant properties were turned into something to I I don't know, I think it's just greed. Honestly, like yes, there's enough places to put our homeless people. They just choose not to. They'd rather just leave it vacant and dilapidated than like make an option.

SPEAKER_03 6:44

So I haven't even noticed Portland had homeless issues before I even left. So just like Austin. Do they? Yeah, just like Austin. Austin's very similar to it.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

All right, go ahead, Mike.

SPEAKER_03 6:58

I was gonna ask you. So how long have you been doing Airbnb?

SPEAKER_04 7:02

So I have been doing Airbnb since August of 2017. So almost two years now.

SPEAKER_03 7:08

Okay. And so kind of okay, I'll let's solve it, because I I I have questions about how you do your your setup. Kind of tell them what how you I think pretty much what you told me about how you set up your Airbnbs and how you do it.

SPEAKER_04 7:20

Yeah, so so I bought this house. Um, I bought a short sale and I bought it in a fancy suburb, sort of hoping to get that equity. And really, my dream initially when I bought my house in 2013 was to pay it off and move on to the next house. So I didn't want to be house for, I just wanted to slowly accumulate real estate. Um, and the Airbnb thing wasn't on my radar even a little bit. I was thinking long term once the house was paid off. But I don't know if you guys were part of the whole like craziness two years ago where that solar eclipse passed through a lot of the country in August 2017. So we were outside with my neighbor, and she was like making fun of the fact that people were were renting out like tent space in their backyard apparently, and they were just like talking about how they were gonna Airbnb their house. And I was kind of like, hmm. It was just like one of those casual conversations where you don't nobody really thinks anyone's gonna act on it. But I I went inside and I was like, Oh, I'm gonna rent, I'm gonna rent out my house. I'm gonna do that. So I did. I you know, I put it up on Airbnb like in July of 2017 for you know, getting ready for August. And um our first booking was four thousand dollars. So uh yeah, for a four night. Four nights. Four nights. So I mean, talk about hooked by the money, right? I was like, oh, we're in this. Like we were sold immediately. So, you know, I was thinking of it as a very short term, like maybe a one-time thing. Um, and then we were just like, well, we can't turn down this money. So we turned it into sort of like this nomadic thing where like we rent out our whole house, and like right now, the bedroom that I'm in, this is at my mother-in-law's house, which she lives in Portland also, and she live lives in like a really gigantic house, but so we just come and stay here, like when our house is rented, so we save money. Like it's the last week of my kids' school. Other times we would be gone, right? So, like, the the only reason we're here right now is because it's the last week of my kids' school. But like, we're gonna go to Seattle this weekend while we have renters. We go, we go wherever. We've gone to Japan, we've gone to Spain, we've gone to England, and we have our house rented while we go do these trips, and it basically helps us fund our travel. So that's what we've basically used our money for is we rent out our whole house and we hightail it out and take our kids on vacation.

SPEAKER_03 9:50

That's smart. That is genius. I love it.

unknown 9:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

And you other homeschooling your kids?

SPEAKER_04 9:55

No, so they go to a private school, they go to a Japanese immersion school, so we're able to like fund that because of our Airbnb and fund our travels, and yeah, it's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 10:07

That's pretty crazy. So you you started during the eclipse thing, right?

SPEAKER_04 10:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:10

That's pretty funny because that uh so okay, so you mahogany still has family up there. And uh her uncle heard about Airbnb during the eclipse. Did he? Yeah. Yeah, that's how he he started doing it. He he only did it for the eclipse because he's only ran it out of room, but he called her because he had her set it up or whatever, and he called like, uh, not getting any bookings. And we went and looked at his red his listing, and he literally he put a bed up there with you know, sheets, bed pillow. He had McDonald's cups all over his nice thing. I'm like, man, you gotta wait. But yeah, that's how a lot of it he he started doing it that way too, and I forgot he made a lot of money off of private rooms. I was like, $4,000, that's crazy. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Jeez, that's crazy. And um, so you only rent the whole house out. You don't rent you don't ever stay there and rent out rooms?

SPEAKER_04 11:01

Correct. We don't we've never done a a home sharing situation.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

Okay. Are you opposed to that or just weird with the family there?

SPEAKER_04 11:08

Um, yeah, I mean, we have small girls. Our our girls are five and seven, and I'm just not super cool with it. Like, and in our house just isn't you know, I can see how certain houses would that would maybe be okay, but our house isn't really shaped in a way that that would make sense. So we just it's not it's not like we started it for the money. Like we're we're fine. It's just like this is just the icing on the cake. This is just like play money, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

Right, right. And and uh and now with the you said they lifted the ban of the of the county next to y'all or the the area next to y'all. Yeah. Does that mean you're gonna get you think it's gonna affect you negatively? Get less bookings?

SPEAKER_04 11:50

You know, I'm kind of one of those things that it's like a rising tide, you know, lifts all ships. So I just think you know, our house is unique in the fact that it will sleep as many as the county deems acceptable. So that's 15. So even though the city next to us now has lifted their ban, they still have to abide by the county, the bigger jurisdiction's laws. And the laws there say 15 people. So our house accommodates 15. And before like, I don't know, it's just even if a house could accommodate 15, I think a lot of people are not willing to do that. So the fact that we're one of the you know, handful of places that's willing to rent to the maximum, I think we're we're pretty set. We're okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Nice, nice.

SPEAKER_03 12:34

So you said so pretty much you rent out your house, and when you rent out your house, you go to your mother-in-law's or somewhere else, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:42

So, okay, because we have a hot my wife thinking about doing that, but like are you skeptical like about people p staying in your place while you're gone, or are you are you you also are you like a minimalist? Like, we can just pack up a few things and we can just go and it's easy, or how how does that work?

SPEAKER_04 12:57

Yeah, so I actually became a minimalist just one month prior to that eclipse, because like around that time is when that documentary went on Netflix called The Minimalist.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Minimalist.

SPEAKER_04 13:09

And yeah, Netflix was like, We recommend that you watch this. And I said, Okay, I love documentaries. So I watched that. So I started down that path of becoming a minimalist, and then I had the the Airbnb conversation with my neighbor. I put my thing on Airbnb, and then the week after that, I actually met Joshua, who is one of the two minimalists at an airport. And when I met him at the airport, I was like, it's a sign, like this, it's telling me to do this. So I just I kept down the minimalist path, and yeah, now I would say we're like basically, yeah, we're minimalists, and we can just like hightail it out of there. We kind of have a go bag ready. Um, and our house is pretty non-personalized, you know, item-wise. I mean, we have toy boxes for our kids and stuff, but we don't have a lot of things that normal people have. That's good.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

So, what'd you tell Josh from the minimalist? Wait a minute, you got two bags. What are you doing with two bags?

SPEAKER_04 14:08

It's over queue. I I told him how much he inspired me and that you know he had inspired my Airbnb, but at that time I didn't have any good news to tell him, like, hey, I just got a $4,000 booking. I had just put the listing up like two days prior. And so then the week after when I got that huge booking, I just felt like everything was just clicking, and I said, you know, sometimes life is just showing you that this is the path, and I just felt like it was the path. So that is going and and like I said, this is fun money for us. So I actually wasn't even I wasn't like counting my cash at the end of that year until somebody was like, Hey, you've been doing that Airbnb thing for a while. You know, how's that going? And I was like, Well, I don't really know. I just spend it all, right? So then I looked, and my first year I made $41,331. And I so yeah, I'm just I'm still going. So I started in part of the reason that Micah and I were talking is I started an e-course teaching other homeowners how to do this with their primary homes. So people don't understand this concept. They're like, where do you go? What do you do with your stuff? Those are the questions I get all the time. So I created a whole e-course called the Homeowner Hustle that teaches people how to turn their homes into this income stream to make it so that you can do what you want. Pay for retirement or pay off your house or travel or whatever. I just travel. How do I access this course? Homeownerhustle.com.

SPEAKER_03 15:38

Homeownerhustle.com.

SPEAKER_04 15:40

Yeah, homeowner hustle.com.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

And use the keyword LLT and you get a discount, right?

SPEAKER_04 15:46

Oh, you want me to set up a coupon code? Hey, I've I haven't done that. I just do my affiliates, but yeah, I could totally set up a code for you guys.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

Awesome.

SPEAKER_04 15:56

Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

We'll we'll advertise you on our um show notes.

SPEAKER_04 16:00

Ooh, cool. Yeah. I just I love the sharing economy. I mean, you guys are so you're pitching all sorts of sharing economies. I think it's just fantastic. The whole thing. I mean, as I've been, you know, blogging about this experience, I've run into so many other things like neighbor.com, where you can like rent out your attic space. There's probably other ones, but hold on, what's it called? It was it was called neighbor.com. Neighbor, like instead of you know, renting out a storage unit, you rent out like someone's extra attic or whatever. So there's like your storage stuff. Yeah, there's so many different ways to like leverage your space and the items you already have. You know, you guys talk about Turo and different ways to rent out, you know, items.

SPEAKER_03 16:45

Ooh, you gotta look at this. I'm on neighbor.com. That's actually pretty smart.

SPEAKER_04 16:50

There you go. There's a tip. You gotta minimize that so that you have the space to let people put their crap.

SPEAKER_03 16:57

Yeah, that's cool. Everybody's got an attic, man. Put whatever you want up there. I don't care as long as the AC is still kicking.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

So so the the homeowner hustle. I guess you started it because you were getting bombarded with all kinds of um questions about Airbnb, I I reckon. Is that true? Okay, so you said I'm gonna just make me a website, make me a little course, make me a little money. Um could you give out some maybe some some free tips to our some of our listeners that are contemplating doing Airbnb? Either um, I don't know if you give out home share tips, but do you um is it mostly just renting out a prime uh the whole house or the whole thing?

SPEAKER_04 17:36

Yeah, I mean, I do touch on home sharing also, like for empty nesters, because some of my target audiences are gonna be like empty nesters, but a lot of who I'm catering to is people like me, people with young families who just are I mean, I don't want to say like they're house poor, but they are they're a little house poor. You know, they don't have that that disposable cash to do the fun stuff with their kids that they would maybe want to, and if they just tweak their lifestyle a little bit. One of the first things that I created for before I had the course was I created this guide called the 11 Essentials Guide, which is on my website, and basically it just is all the junk you need to buy that so that you don't have to buy it and return it to Amazon like I had to. Like you buy a comforter and it's too thick, and you buy pillowcases and they're too scratchy, and you buy all this junk, and you're just like, oh my gosh, I just want some stuff to put on the beds, right? So I bought all this stuff and I ended up returning and doing a whole back and forth. So I just put the junk that I actually stuck with in a guide called the 11 Essentials guide, and that's sort of my freebie on my website. Um, so that way they don't have to like waste money and time on the wrong stuff.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

Oh, that's cool.

SPEAKER_04 18:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

Go check it out, y'all. The 11 essentials. Get your Airbnb up and running today.

SPEAKER_04 18:57

Totally. I and I kind of say it takes only it only takes 30 days to do the kind of Airbnb that I like to do. It really only takes 30 days to pull all your junk out of the closets, have a massive garage sale to kind of minimize, because that's what a lot of minimalists do to like get on that road, is like you feel attached to your items, you want to make something, like some make some money from those items. Yeah. So you take everything out, you throw a massive garage sale, you kind of make it so that your space isn't as cluttered, and that's just good for Airbnb guests. They're not wanting to walk into a bunch of stuff they could break, or like it's just awkward if it's too personalized, right? So people and it now that it's summer, this is the perfect time for people to start doing that. Like, pull your stuff out, do your garage sale. One week later, you can be taking some photos of your place, popping it up on Airbnb, and like you can still get summer rentals for your place.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Sweet. Um so you you you're a minimalist doing this, uh, a a newfound minimalist or as of a couple years ago, correct? Yeah, okay, cool. Anyways, um, so you have this house that you use on Airbnb. And you when you're when people are staying there, you're staying somewhere else. But you know, it it's it's I guess that the easy part would be to have the garage to get rid of a bunch of junk. But how do you stop, what do they call it, um, um stuff creep, or how do you stop from just because it's so easy just uh it's on our it's on our phones. You mentioned Amazon, you just push a button and you got whatever you want. And um, how do you stop that from coming back into your house to cluttering it up again?

SPEAKER_04 20:35

Yeah, I mean it's hard, but I think my girls, now that they're a little bit older, they just like they we chant experience is not things, experience is not things. And so if we're in Target and they want to get some junky plastic toy, I'll just point to them and be like, What are we? What are we? And they're like, minimalist mom, we're minimalist. So now I've got my little crew of people who are like helping me like stay accountable to not buy the huge consumer-driven products. I mean, we don't need that. And my kids love going on trips. So when I'm able to take them to Japan and I'm able to take, we just got back from Italy and Switzerland and France, and they love that, and they would rather go to Disneyland Paris than you know, get a junkie tar Target toy. So I think they're on board with the concept because they understand the money is being diverted to something like that.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

That is cool, yeah. Because Josh and um is it Josh and Ryan? Josh and who's the other guy? Josh and uh Ryan, Ryan Ecademis. Um I love those guys, those are the cool guys. I listen to their podcast. Um do you? Yeah, they're awesome. Yeah, they're awesome. Um, but I they they give a lot of great advice. Great advice, great advice, great advice. And um, but neither of them has kids. One of them has a a stepdaughter and you know they're teaching her things. But um yeah, a lot of it uh like to me, I'm like 'cause I got kids and I'm like, man, it's it sounds great, and uh and I try for me, but I got a wife and kids. And so it's um it's a little difficult. But like you said, like uh get that chance started, you know. Or when they're when they're not not in their room, just throw away all their stuff without them looking, right?

SPEAKER_04 22:25

Absolutely, and you know, we we really tried to position it like we're doing good. So, you know, we had them donate things, and my best friend, she works at a low-income school, and so when we donated things, she would text us back and be like, you know, here's who got those things. Like we just donated some clothes last week, some summer clothes, and she said, I just gave them to a little girl who's never had girl clothes. You know, they've only had their bo their older brothers hand-me-downs, and and those kinds of things I am trying to teach my kids just because we have stuff, doesn't mean we need to be greedy. So I think there's so many lessons in minimalism, like teaching your kids those things and and letting them understand the value of money and not wasting and how good it is for the environment to not have junky plastic toys that we throw away constantly.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

That's great, that's great. And and one more question on MM. It's hard to say. Uh one more question about that, and then we'll jump off to the other stuff because probably our fans are like, okay, get to the get to the media.

SPEAKER_02 23:33

Money, let's talk about mummies.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Anyways, um, so you you're minimalist, but do you you see yourself accumulating more houses to to do this, to expand your business, and do you see that as a contradiction to you staying minimalist?

SPEAKER_04 23:52

No, I think I think the the idea of minimalism is is not to have only a hundred items or the number of items that can fit in a backpack. I think the idea of minimalism is to create a life where you enjoy experiences over possessions. And so a house, yes, it's a possession, but it's a means to an end. Like we have to have money to survive, and we have to have money to feed our kids and have the experiences. And so some uh you know, a group of guys like the minimalists, they make their money on pitching minimalism. But real people who I'm not pitching, you know, I love minimalism, but I'm not making any money from pitching minimalism necessarily. I'm I'm making money from teaching people how to Airbnb, and minimalism is a vehicle to get to that.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

I like that. I like that. I like that too. Alright, Micah, bombard her with questions. Get to the meat and the bone.

SPEAKER_03 24:44

Oh, one question I did have for you was uh because you you were asked, you were talking earlier and you said something about your neighbors are sometimes a problem. How did how have you handled that? What kind of problems have they presented?

SPEAKER_04 24:55

Oh, yeah. So my neighbors, the the neighbor that initially started the whole idea of when I became an Airbnb host, she has been the biggest problem. She hates the fact that I Airbnb. Like she she poses like she's like, love everybody, and she's got the, you know, that that American flag thing in her yard that's like, you know, talking about how she loves everybody. You know the one I'm talking about, the famous sign where it's like we we love diversity and we love all she does not she does not love any of those things. Because she uh she's honestly, like it turns out she hates young people, she hates any minority, because those are the that those are when I get the complaints. And I'll check the camera, and like they're doing nothing, they're just existing, just like how I exist in my home. Like I enter the home, I go inside, I cook. Those are the things that people are doing, and she hates it. So she has instead of speaking to them, this is what irritates me the most, instead of speaking to them, if they're if they're bothering her in whatever way just by existing, she instead is more comfortable filming them. She pulls out her cell phone and she films them, and then she texts me about it. And I'm like, D did you speak to the other human being? Because they're like five feet away from you. Like you went out into the middle of the street to film another human being, and you didn't use words? Like, we're adults, and she was like, It's your house, you need to control them. And I said, It's 2 p.m., ma'am. There's nothing I need to control about anybody, everybody is fine. So I I I think that there's busybody neighbors, and there's just really nothing I can do. Like, people on host groups are always saying, like, oh, you should try to get her on your team, and it's like, this lady is not on my team, she's not like she is horrible, she's a nasty person, and I don't think we can avoid that. You know, people have their opinions about Airbnb, and and I do believe in property rights, and not in the way a p politician believes in property rights. Like, it's my property. I should be able to do what I want as long as it's not illegal. And making Airbnb illegal is just ridiculous, so that's just unfair, but it's it's just I don't know. I think neighbors are just I think they're mad they didn't think of it.

unknown 27:25

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

Teach her how to do it herself, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:28

I've always come to the conclusion like every neighbor that I've seen has a problem with that they are in that older crowd, you know. I don't know. I don't know. I guess they're just retired, bored, have nothing to do.

SPEAKER_04 27:39

So they have nothing better to do. Yeah, yeah. And I mean this is just sort of a a digression, but I do want to mention one of the things that became a huge problem for me be as a result of this woman is she used my Airbnb listing photos and she then turned them into um the tax office of our county, and my taxes got raised by $1,000 last year. And when I called the tax office to say, why did my taxes get raised? They said that you are required to report to the tax office upgrades that you do, even if they don't require a permit. And I said, I know a lot of humans that own homes, and nobody has ever told me that. And they said, Well, that tile is obviously not original from the home, and that toilet is obviously new and modern, and that vanity is obvious. And I said, But ma'am, none of those things require permits. And she said, It doesn't matter. As a homeowner, you're required to tell the tax office, and you did not. And I said, I I I wasn't trying to be malicious, but this woman maliciously used those photos to show the tax office. Shh. Just for homeowners out there, if they have nasty neighbors, I don't know, protect yourself in some way by wow, not letting them know.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

That's insane. That's insane. Have you ever got um bad reviews from guests because of her?

SPEAKER_04 29:10

I mean, in the private note section, people will sometimes be like, you know, your neighbor cursed me out or whatever. But in general, I generally say to my guests things like, you know, I left out uh popcorn for your kids to have a movie night, or I left out wine for you ladies for your, you know, weekend away. And just so you know, my across the street neighbor is pretty crazy, so I do apologize for that in advance. So I I kind of alert my guests to that ahead of time so that they're not just like blindsided if they get cursed out. Um, so that's kind of my way to to avoid the bad reviews, and and I haven't actually gotten technically marked down for that.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

What um what kind of guests do you attract over there? What kind of guests does your house attract?

SPEAKER_04 30:00

Fantastic guests. I attract the best guests ever. Seriously. I I have been so lucky. I attract families. So because we house 15, um, you know, I attract a lot of like uh this this week, it's my my sister's family's from Montana, we're from Houston, and we're meeting here in Portland to hang out. So, you know, it's like two four-person families meeting and they don't want hotel rooms. Obviously, they want a house. Um, I I attract things like soccer teams, church groups, work retreats, things like that. But all just amazing, awesome guests. One time I had somebody who's a rapper and he was doing a performance, and I looked him up afterwards, and I was like, oh my gosh, he's like a real rapper who gets like people to buy tickets. That was kind of fun.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

What was his name?

SPEAKER_04 30:54

His name was Saba S-A-B-A. He's out of Chicago.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

Huh. Saba.

SPEAKER_04 31:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:02

I look him up.

SPEAKER_04 31:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:04

No, I'm a question. Because you you you list that 15. Have you had troubles with parties or no, not really?

SPEAKER_04 31:11

I mean, not to the best of my knowledge. I I feel pretty confident that my neighbor would alert me if there was a party.

SPEAKER_02 31:17

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:18

And I mean, there's there's been like, you know, a group of firefighters who are there for a bachelor party, but you know, I walk in and it's cleaner than when I'm using it as my own house. So like as a as a host, I'm not tripping about that. I don't care if you had a bachelor party, as long as you're not breaking anything or whatever. I mean, I have people over to my own home and it's not illegal.

SPEAKER_03 31:40

So see, that's that's the thing. That's how I like because that I hear about that in so many of the groups. They sit there and just monitor their cameras, sit there and watch the guests. Like, what's the point? You know.

SPEAKER_04 31:50

I say go get a hobby. You are you have a new you have a new income stream, go get a hobby. I have literally only checked my camera two times. Two times in two years. Yeah. Because get a hobby. Like, it actually makes me uncomfortable looking at the camera. It's there for backup peace of mind if there's an actual problem, like someone steals your television, but not for you to like watch them walk in and out like ew. How weird.

SPEAKER_03 32:19

That really is.

unknown 32:20

It's funny.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

That is weird. Alright, so you're you're up in um in Portlandia.

SPEAKER_04 32:25

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

So what about um, are you 420 friendly?

SPEAKER_04 32:31

I mean, like, my house is um, like not in I prefer if they don't smoke inside just because of my kids. I mean, I know I'm not one of those weird hosts who like freaks out because I know that cigarette smoke actually sticks way worse than marijuana smoke. You can just open the doors for marijuana and it's gone in like an hour. It's not a it's not a huge deal. Um, but I do prefer if they smoke outside. But yeah, I mean, you kind of have to be 420 friendly when you know it's legal. Like, what am I gonna do?

SPEAKER_03 32:59

Yeah, recreationally legal. That is a good question. I forgot about that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

So me and Micah gotta go um do a little tour of Portland. So we might need a need a place to stay.

SPEAKER_02 33:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

I was asking for a friend though.

SPEAKER_04 33:16

Well, that's actually how I found out that guy was a rapper because my brother works at a pot shop and he was like, Hey, yeah, this rapper came in the other day, blah blah blah, and he was doing a performance, and I was like, Oh, I think I had a musician staying at my house who was doing a performance, and he he knew the guy's name because it wasn't him who booked it, it was like his roadie or whatever. And so we made that connection because of marijuana. So apparently he went to my brother's shop and bought a bunch of weed and then came back to my house.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

So your brother's a hustler too.

SPEAKER_04 33:49

Yeah.

unknown 33:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 33:50

Hold on, hold on. He owns a dispensary?

SPEAKER_04 33:52

No, he he was the manager of a dispensary.

SPEAKER_03 33:55

Really?

SPEAKER_04 33:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 33:56

That's something that we want to invest in too. Is it?

SPEAKER_04 34:00

Hey, it's a good business.

SPEAKER_03 34:02

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:03

I mean, that's one of those things that in any economy that'll be going up.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

So everybody's saying gummy bears are all the rage now.

SPEAKER_04 34:11

Gummy bears like edibles?

SPEAKER_01 34:13

Edibles, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:14

Mmm, yeah. Edibles will take you there, man.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

They won't let you down easy either. From what I hear. So you so you love Airbnb. Are you on um on Home Away? I'm sorry, VRBO, whatever it's called now. You need any of those?

SPEAKER_04 34:29

Yeah, I mean, I do have a listing on booking.com and VRBO, um, and I think what is it? Flip key, all of those. But honestly, every time I get uh a booking request on those, it just seems like scams. Like, I don't know. I mean, I obviously I see that other people are booking using those, but every one that I get seems to be that conversation where it's like, I want to prepay for a thousand dollars over your rate, and I'm like, why how does this even happen? So, I mean, I I guess my decline rate on those is like 100% because I've never actually completed a booking through any of them. I just maybe do one message back and forth, and then I realize, nope, can't do this.

SPEAKER_03 35:15

Do you have uh do you have instant book on?

SPEAKER_04 35:18

On on Airbnb?

SPEAKER_03 35:19

On both Airbnb and Homeway.

SPEAKER_04 35:22

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 35:22

Yeah, because what I found out on Home Away, when you have on Instant Book, you usually get the legit guess then.

SPEAKER_04 35:27

Oh yeah, I mean I have it on Instant Book, but my I don't monitor those ones as much as I monitor Airbnb in terms of um like I use I heard one of you guys is using um one of the pricing things. I use Beyond Pricing. Um, but I I think I heard on one of your podcasts that you don't like beyond pricing. Somebody said some you should use something else.

SPEAKER_03 35:48

Uh yeah, yeah, yeah. I was telling people to use price labs. I still use I still use beyond pricing for some of my listings, but the rest of them it's all uh price labs.

SPEAKER_04 35:57

Yeah. I I like using beyond pricing and and I don't monitor the pricing on those other ones, so I'm sure my rate on on the other platforms is looking a little high.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

No pun intended. She booked so uh about how how big is your house and how many bedrooms and bathrooms?

SPEAKER_04 36:18

So I only have a three-bedroom, two-bath house, which sounds like a common size house that you guys do. What I did that was unique is that we did built-in queen size bunk beds. So, like one bedroom actually has a queen over queen, so there's four queen beds in two built-in bunk beds directly into the wall.

SPEAKER_01 36:42

That is cool.

SPEAKER_04 36:44

And then another room has a queen over queen built-in bunk bed, and then we have our master. So basically, my two girls' rooms have these massive sleeping quarters. So, you know, it actually sleeps more than 15. Like if people look at how many beds are in the house, and it's like, hmm, look, she has a pull-out couch, and she has queen, queen, queen, queen, queen, queen, crib, and like everything. It but I'm only allowed to put that I can sleep 15.

SPEAKER_01 37:12

Oh god. That is awesome. I I heard, you know, I listened to uh a podcast that just came back. You know, they were they went on hiatus for a little bit called Shampoo and Booze. I don't know if you heard of them.

SPEAKER_02 37:22

Uh-uh.

SPEAKER_01 37:23

Okay, they're another Airbnb podcast. Shout out to them. They were on our show one time. Anyways, um, she mentioned it's she was it's her and her sister now, and she was talking about on her show that that they have bunk beds, but they're adult bunk beds. They're made them out of this really nice oak and they built them into the wall. And this I was like, adult bunk beds? Is that a thing now? I didn't I mean the only bunk beds I knew was kids' bunk beds, and then you know, traveling Europe in hostels, and I stayed in some crappy bunk beds over there. But wow, that's that that's an awesome idea.

SPEAKER_03 37:54

Yeah, because you said you had them built. Like, did you buy them or you just had them built? Because that's been my problem with bunk beds. I'm like, I can't have no bugs.

SPEAKER_04 38:00

No, you you have a contractor build them. If you my my um Airbnb listing can be found at just rentme.vip. I did a custom URL for it, so it's rentme.vip. And so yeah, it's just it's literally um like they're I don't know what it's called. It's called it's got like stacklet stackle on it. Like it's literally built in, it's like a wall, and it's just cut out. It's pretty cool. I like that.

SPEAKER_03 38:25

Like your house.

SPEAKER_01 38:25

Oh, he's looking at your yeah. Rentme.v uh. VIP.

SPEAKER_04 38:31

Yeah, rent me.vip.

SPEAKER_03 38:32

Oh man, this is so b so home right here. I can look at all these trees right now.

SPEAKER_04 38:37

Well, here's here's one of the things. If you're if you're looking at my listing, here's one of the things that I I want to instill in anyone thinking about doing Airbnb.

SPEAKER_02 38:45

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 38:45

Is your home does not have to be perfect. A lot of the people who were coming to me when I decided to do the e-course, is they would say things like, Well, my home's not like your home. And I'm like, uh I have, you know, chips in my wall, I have missing molding, I have it's a regular home. I'm not like a Hilton. It, you know, there's elements of my home that are very nice, but there's there's a lot of it that's pretty regular. You see the dead grass in my photos, you know, I say like the outdoor space is like not really safe because we've been doing construction on and off for two years. Like, it's not like I live in some mansion, you know, it's a regular ranch style house. So when people are thinking, oh, I can't do it because my house isn't ready yet, it's ready. Like it can be ready by this weekend if you just you know, it's not like it has to cost ten thousand dollars to get it ready. Just go buy some sheets, throw them on your beds, and you're good.

SPEAKER_03 39:43

So I I love your kitchen. That is a nice kitchen. Like, I like that modern look you have to it, and then like you don't have cabinets. I like that. Like, there's no cabinets you said. That's oh man, I'm considering doing that myself. I like that kitchen. Yeah, we'll definitely have to share your listing in the show notes. That is a really nice kitchen.

SPEAKER_01 40:02

So where do you where did you get your uh furniture from? Veronica?

SPEAKER_04 40:09

Um, yeah, I mean a variety of places. Like my bedroom furniture is from Dania, which Dania is super like eco-friendly and you know, into sort of like the minimalist type of style. Um and then like my couch is a Stanton couch, which you can get anywhere, but it's custom, and they have like if you're researching pullout beds, that's like the nicest pullout bed on a couch, is Stanton. Um, and my kitchen that you're loving on. I didn't put that in, the previous owners did, but I know for a fact it's IKEA. So there you go. It looks all fancy, but it's IKEA. Um, and then yeah, I mean I'm just a regular person, so like my dining room table is like my grandma's dining room table, and I just throw a tablecloth over it because it's like really crappy. So it doesn't have to be perfect or brand new. Like it's just I don't know, the the couch in my fa my um one of my kids' rooms is kind of like a playroom slash bedroom. Um was like a hand-me-down for my my sister-in-law, you know. Like I'm just a regular person, it's not all new.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

You make it work, you make it work. Totally. I'd rather have like like real furniture than um if they do try to go a certain cheap, I don't know, modern too modern where it's not even comfortable, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_04 41:25

Right. So um and Ross, dude. If you're trying to outfit an Airbnb, I am a hundred percent on the Ross train. Like every single picture up in my house is from Ross. I leave the price tags on the back so that if like because I advertise like someday I want Ross to like, you know, like make me an influencer because I'm like, I love this!

SPEAKER_02 41:47

Ross is so awesome.

SPEAKER_03 41:50

Yeah, we we did one of our places downtown Dallas straight up off Ross.

SPEAKER_04 41:55

I mean the prices are so incredible.

SPEAKER_01 41:57

Yeah, mahogany's works of magic out of Ross like you mentioned influencer, and that's a big thing now. Um I do you have a I'm sure you have an Instagram, right?

SPEAKER_04 42:07

I do have an Instagram. The problem is, you know, I don't know how to run a business like this. This is so random. So my Instagram is just our travel photos. I mean, I don't I don't really integrate I mean I maybe mention in the comments that we're on this vacation because of Airbnb and that kind of thing. But basically it's just my kids and like Paris and crap.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

Just Paris and crap, you know. No big deal. NBD. So, um you watch Portlandia?

SPEAKER_04 42:40

I don't. I mean, I did it the first season, but then not so much. I don't watch people.

SPEAKER_01 42:48

Portlandia is a show. It's a c com uh comedy, a little comedy on um Comedy Central. Is it Comedy Central? Yeah, I believe it's Comedy Central, one of those. And it's the guy um that he's an ex Saturday Night Live dude and this girl, and they just do sketch comedy. It's hilarious, and they make fun of you know the hipster type environment in um in Portland. And um one episode mentioned uh the this guy that sold pullout um sofas and he was the pullout king. And then but it gets funny because the other guy's like, no, wait, I'm the pullout king, and and uh I thought I thought you might have seen that episode.

SPEAKER_02 43:24

That was funny.

SPEAKER_01 43:25

So look up Portlandia pullout king and and just laugh your ass off.

SPEAKER_02 43:29

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:31

And um so um that's that's really cool. I mean, you have a you have an awesome place and two 283 per night. That's wow. That's that's good money right there.

SPEAKER_04 43:44

Yeah. I mean that's without you plugging in dates. So it just sort of Yeah. I took here's one of the ways that I um I because of my method, I will ask my friends nearby like what they thought. Are you going on a trip? What dates are you going on a trip? And I will go in and I'll edit my calendar so that on all the dates where I know I can stay at my best friend's house, I just make the rate super low. Because like I don't know what our travel schedule is gonna be like, but I do know that I can stay there for free and I can make like whatever and it's just free money on my house. So I edit my prices accordingly.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

You need to you need to talk to my wife because I'm like I I have the same idea because we just moved into this house. You know, we got a two-story house with a pool and stuff, really, really cool. And I was like, well, we should rent it out when we go out of town. Totally. It's our house and this and that. I'm like, oh man, it's a money-making machine, is what it is.

SPEAKER_04 44:45

Totally. It is. I mean, the main thing is just get different sheets. I mean, we have different sheets and different duvets, so it's not like and we have different towels. We have our regular personal towels and the renters have their own towels. But come on, we all stay at hotels. I mean, we share sheets after they've been washed all the time.

SPEAKER_01 45:05

Like I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 45:07

So nice.

SPEAKER_01 45:08

No, go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 45:09

I was looking at your cleaning fee. You charged $300 to clean. Like, how has that deterred anybody or are they cool with it?

SPEAKER_04 45:16

Yeah, you know, I don't know. I just answered a question on Quora, Cora, I think it's called the other day, about the cleaning fee. Um, because people feel like it's you know, people who charge high cleaning fees, they think it's some sort of scam, like we're just like rolling in the dough. But the reality is, is that to have a 2,000 square foot house cleaned in Portland costs $150, right? Like that's just the hourly fees piled up, it's $150. And then when you have as many beds as I have, because I have four, five, six, seven, eight, nine beds plus towels, which you know, we could go through 30 towels in a week, um, there's no way that my personal washer and dryer could turn that over i in five hours, right? My renters check out at 11 a.m. and my next ones check in at 4 p.m. Like on Friday, we're gonna be doing this exact process because we have a checkout and a check-in same day. So a regular washer and dryer can't handle that. And the fee to have someone come and pick up like 50 pounds of of towels and crap and take them to a commercial launder, laundry place and do that and drop them back off is $150. So $150 plus $150, we're looking at $300 and I just made it $297 to make it look fancy. Like that's really the only logic there. But it that's how much it costs if you want a house clean, you know, if you want the oven cleaned and the microwave wiped out and the refrigerator cleaned before you arrive. That's just reality.

SPEAKER_03 46:54

I need to raise my cleaning feature.

SPEAKER_01 46:56

Two words two or two words for you, Veronica. Fuze Fu breeze.

SPEAKER_04 47:05

Oh my gosh. I'm just messing with it. Like just lice all that stuff. Just lice all that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 47:12

How about tell your guests? I'll give you a hundred dollars off if you clean the house for me.

SPEAKER_04 47:16

Oh my gosh. I mean, it's it's just crazy how much can get dirty in a house. Versus, you know, hotel rooms are are created to be sort of mass production cleaned easily. But I mean, they're like the little I just went and took the trash out at my at my house because I'm like ten minutes away from my house. So I went and took the trash out yesterday night, and my kids were in the car because I'd picked them up from school, and she said that the little boy was like licking the window as I'm like, I mean, you can't there's just so much to clean. Little kids are licking windows, and there's you know, there's mirrors everywhere, and we have stainless steel. I mean I don't know. There's so much to clean. I do not fault like my cleaning lady, I just can't imagine. I've tried to do those bunk beds by myself. It is a freaking nightmare. I mean, I'm not like a skinny girl, but climbing into a clean size bunk bed eight times in a row, like to clean to to turn over sheets, not easy. Not easy.

SPEAKER_03 48:19

I never thought about that. Yeah, no part of climbing in them and cleaning, yeah, and getting oh man. Totally.

SPEAKER_01 48:24

So have you had guests hit um when they when they reach out to you, do they say, hey, can I get it like a break or something on the cleaning fee? Or do they ask for like discounts?

SPEAKER_04 48:33

Um, if a if a guest asks for a discount, you know what I say? No.

SPEAKER_03 48:40

There you go. No.

SPEAKER_04 48:41

Because no is a complete sentence. And y you know as well as I do, you've read enough stories, or you've probably experienced this with as many listens as you have. The people who are looking for the breaks are the worst guests. Yep. They are just so demanding and needy. Even the people who book my place when it is on a lower rate, I can tell they they do rate me down for like location or whatever. And I'm like, I live in a suburb. Like, whatever, I don't care. But my overall is still like a five. But those people, you can tell they're just like, well, where's this? Or I don't know. I those people frustrate me. I'd rather rent fewer nights for higher price and have clients who are not weird.

SPEAKER_03 49:25

Now location's one of those things is kind of stupid to me because you book the place. I mean, you know where it is. I mean, I I don't know. I don't I don't know. I've been real stickler about location, but unless you like I I do have Airbnbs that are corners of not so good neighborhoods. They're in the back of 'em, so it's not like you're, you know, but yeah, I understand that part, but yeah. It's my two cents on location.

SPEAKER_04 49:49

Yeah, that's a stupid thing to rate on, I agree.

SPEAKER_01 49:51

So now, so now going back real quickly to the um to the discount asking people, in defense of my discount asking peeps, and then it's I've you know, I'm because I've you know I've Airbnb, obviously, and um recently it's had to stop because they they banned it in my city, but anyways, um anyways that you do do you listen to other podcasts? Because there's one called Tim Tim Ferris, it's pretty popular. You ever listen to him? Anyways. You're like, who are these cussin' mofos on this? I got kids. Um anyway. I heard like a really smart business guy go on there and he said, you know, always ask for a discount. He goes, no matter where you go, he said go to go to um Home Depot, go to Starbucks, go wherever. He just always asked, can I get 10% off? And it's it it the point is it's just getting you uh to be a better negotiator in business, in life, whatever. And it's not even about the discount. He goes, the worst thing they can say is no. And so I even before I heard that, I always I always kinda I always kind of lived like that. I said, Well, the worst thing they could say is no. If I found I started looking, okay, I'm gonna go to Miami. I'll look up like um 10 different listings that I like, maybe narrow it down to like five, and then I'd send them messages. Hey, you know, we're coming in on this date, we love your place, you know, compliment the heck out of them. And said, um, is there any way, you know, for those dates you we could get like a little bit, a little discount, blah, blah, blah. And a lot of them would say, No, we can't do that. Every now and then someone would say, Oh, you know, I'll waive the cleaning fee. How's that? I said, Cool. And like, yeah, it goes, uh you don't I I wasn't and I'm I was not a terrible guest. I I left their place spotless. But I know there's probably people that are, and uh, I'm just saying that it just goes to show you never you never know until you ask, right? So in defense of um my um my discount askers.

SPEAKER_04 51:49

I think the reason that I'm pretty against that is because when I was in college I worked at a furniture store, and there was there would always be articles about how you know you should always ask for a discount on the furniture, you know, especially since it's such a variable secret price that they like you know add up the fabric and whatever. There's there is wiggle room. And there's wiggle room in everything, right? Everything from the plumbers that come to your house to to the physical items that you buy. But one thing that I've noticed about America specifically is how little we value people's work. Like people in this country, I just feel in general don't get paid enough for the value that they provide. And so I would never want to like belittle somebody on the the money that they deserve to make. I believe that they deserve to make it. And so even at some place like Home Depot, those employees aren't getting paid crap, so when they give the 10% discount, it just you know jacks up the structure. And I don't know, I just feel like more people should be thriving and they're just not. And so I I try to do math sometimes when I'm out and about, and I'll be like, how much, how much should it cost to do this service? And I'll be like, I don't understand how they're doing it for this cheap. Like me, I overestimate how much people like deserve to be making for these things. So I guess I that's just my mentality. I just feel like everyone deserves to be paid more, and this country is just not providing as much as it should for the people who work their asses off.

SPEAKER_01 53:22

That is cool. That is cool. One quick one quick thing about Home Depot. I don't know why I brought it up, and then you brought it up. And but but I I worked there, I worked there for like uh just about a month. I was just trying to uh I was working like two jobs try to I was I was um trying to make a little bit more money for this for something, I don't remember. Weed probably. But just kidding. But anyways, um so but I would they put us through this cool little training course and stuff, and um oh oddly enough, they showed us this video cassette. This is how long ago it was, they put a video cassette in of the Pike Place guys, you know, the Seattle, the ones that throw the fish and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_04 53:59

I've read that book.

SPEAKER_01 54:00

Yeah, and they and well they make they make this corporate video that all the Home Depots, but back then they would a lot of companies would buy this video, and it just showed how their business was, you know, how they related to the people and the people became part of the business, and it would just they just became, you know, it was about their brand, about you know, just being awesome. And um, and so anyways, they they showed us this video and stuff. And um, oh by the way, that video uh there the lady with the lady was training us that it cost like, I don't know, two thousand dollars for this cassette. I don't know, it it was weird, isn't you know? But anyways, um I could bootleg them for like ten. But I'm getting off, I'm getting off course, but I'm bringing it back. I'm bringing it back, Veronica. Okay, so the Home Depot thing, she told us, you know, many people don't know this, but we give all of our employees the um the power to to give 10% discount if someone at the st someone asks them at the store. And so anything above 10%, let's say they they're trying to buy this thing and it has like a ding on it, you know, of course it's gonna be cheaper, and but a manager would have to approve, okay, we'll give you 15 or 20% off. But anyways, every every Home Depot employee has the ability, or did back then, to give a 10% discount to a customer asking for one. So there you go.

SPEAKER_04 55:15

Yeah. But who's making the money in the Home Depot?

SPEAKER_03 55:19

Well, why you only work there for a month ever since you have 10% off?

SPEAKER_01 55:23

No, I worked there for a month.

SPEAKER_04 55:25

They're giving the em that employee makes like twelve dollars an hour and they are giving them all this this power. But it I mean, I don't know. America's system's just weird. I mean, you got people who work in a store, they work so hard. I don't know. It's just a different way to look at it.

SPEAKER_01 55:43

Yeah, there's a different way to look at it. My way's the correct way, and I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_04 55:48

Hey, you're getting you're getting a good deal. You're getting a good deal. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 55:51

Now if it's a mom and pop joint and yeah, it's their money, their their overhead, yeah, okay. But Home Depot's a massive corporation, whatever. But but anyways, so back on track. So uh I like I like what you said about the different stuff for renters. Is there like a closet or something you keep at your house that's just totally locked off where they can't get to or what?

SPEAKER_04 56:10

The only place I keep in my house that's locked off is my little attic space. Like with the pull-down ladder from the ceiling.

SPEAKER_01 56:16

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04 56:17

Yeah. I've I've minimized basically everything else.

SPEAKER_03 56:21

Wow. Dang. That's cool. That's pretty cool. I didn't need to look into this minimalism like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:27

It's it's different. But you know what's crazy is once one person does it, the people around you do it. Like it's it's kind of um it's like a little disease. Like you spread it around.

SPEAKER_01 56:41

Oh, Airbnb is greater now than I know.

SPEAKER_04 56:44

Do your friends do Airbnb now that you do Airbnb?

SPEAKER_03 56:47

Um, not well, I kind of just met a bunch of people that were interested in it. Yeah, people meetups.

SPEAKER_04 56:54

That's why I created the courses, because people will be like, I want to do that. And so then like people around me, it just started spreading, like, I want to do it in Airbnb and I don't want to do it in Airbnb.

SPEAKER_03 57:02

Yeah, my parents are looking to do it because they they manage one of mine that are that's out of state in Arkansas.

SPEAKER_02 57:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:08

And so I mean they they want to do it now, they're looking for a house to do it. So yeah, it's people that it's they try they start to hop on, especially like how they see they kind of see how the one that they're managing works. They're like, dang, you can really make money doing this, so yeah, they they start coming on it, too.

SPEAKER_01 57:22

Well, I I started because Micah told me about it.

unknown 57:25

Yeah?

SPEAKER_04 57:25

Were you guys friends? You guys were friends beforehand?

SPEAKER_01 57:27

Well, we met through Bigger Pockets. You've heard of Bigger Pockets, it's like a real estate um website plus podcast and all that stuff. Check into it, it's really good. Um so, anyways, we met through that, like um, they have like a little um, I don't know, Facebook page, but it's like kind of their just their thing. And um, I was doing I I still do a stock investing club, and he said, Oh, he wanted to come sit in on that, and he's talking about all these weed stocks. And uh well, he mentioned he did Airbnb and he was making the kill, and I was like, Oh shnap, you know. And so we just started talking about it, and I I can turned my house into an Airbnb and and I and I moved to another house, and and that's that was like my first I just jumped into it. I mean he convinced me the money was good, and I was like, well, we're putting you know, worst comes to worst, I just rent it out long term. But um, so I said, Well, let's do a podcast. I used to have a rock and roll podcast. I said, let's talk Airbnb. There wasn't there weren't very many Airbnb podcasts out there, and so I was like, or I don't think there is very many.

SPEAKER_02 58:23

No, there was not.

SPEAKER_01 58:24

Yeah, so we started yeah, we started a podcast, and then I started my Airbnb. I was like, well, if I'm gonna talk about Airbnb, I might as well do it, you know what I'm saying? Totally. So um, so yeah, it was it was uh it was a little bit bittersweet when I had to switch it back to long term because they you know they banned it in my city.

SPEAKER_04 58:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:40

But I'm looking for the next one.

SPEAKER_04 58:49

Or in your case, you know, you already had it and you moved on, I don't understand how these regulations come up and creep up, and then people aren't grandfathered in. Like I was trying to think of other examples of that. Like, let's say, let's say a dispensary like like builds a building in a place where it's legal, and then like the next day there's a rule, there's a new legislation that they can't do it. Like, I can't believe that there's no recourse for people who have made a massive investment into something and then they can just flip a switch. It's so frustrating.

SPEAKER_03 59:26

Yeah, and and that that that is like and I've been telling people if you're gonna do it, like if you're gonna buy and do Airbnb, I would literally suggest you not look at laws and regulations because those can change. I literally only go places where I know Airbnb pays the occupancy taxes because I know for a fact the the city more than likely isn't gonna overturn anything. Because that's been a problem. Like in the city of Arlington where I live, that was the problem. They were like, Oh yeah, you can pay taxes to the city, which we we were, you pay taxes to the city, and then they overturn everything. It's like what? You know, and it gets it gets real frustrating. So I I always I send people this site. Matter of fact, let me just kind of I'll share my screen and show you the site I look at. This is like the guaranteed way of like how to pretty much avoid any of the regulation crap. I'll just use this. You guys can probably see my screen, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:20

Yeah, and explain to the fans what we're looking at here.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:24

Yeah, so pretty much what you're looking at is the like you go to this Airbnb. This is where Airbnb remits taxes in the state of Oregon, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:33

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:33

So this is what I use for anywhere I'm gonna invest. There goes Portland, Lincoln City, you know, I just use this and this is where I go. Like I was like, I'll go to this website, and bang, that's what I do. Yeah. So yeah, and I, you know, and that's I'm getting sick of it as well, you know. It's kind of you know, the making of random rules and the the reasons for it are outlandish and sometimes they're not.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:55

Outlandish. Well, okay, so here's another thing that was rolling around in my brain as as they were doing this. So even though the city lifted the rules and and now that city, right, you know, two blocks to me can can do Airbnb, now the county is exploring, like, should we put more restrictions or whatever? So it's like you've got multiple jurisdictions. And then I was saying to myself, listen, if I was just independently wealthy and I could just afford to pay a house sitter to come to my house every week while I go on these vacations, nobody would bat an eyelash that the stranger was in my house because I was paying her. But apparently the stranger danger of somebody paying me is too much to bear. It just doesn't make any any freaking sense on any level. Like, you don't know me just because I bought the house next door. I'm still a stranger. Just as much so as the renters that come in. So, yeah, all of it is just infuriating, right? It's oh this is needle.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:00

It's it's easy, it's easy for politicians to find something popular and just blame all the all the problems on that one thing, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:07

Mm-hmm. Traffic. They say that traffic is caused by our Airbnbs. I'm like, I leave and somebody comes. Like, that's not causing any extra traffic.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:20

Why traffic?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:22

Yeah. Yeah, well, so in our in our city, I actually did this because they said that at a meeting. They said, Oh, your your Airbnbs are causing traffic. So I went down our row of businesses and I asked every hourly employee at Subway and Safeway and Supercuts and all of those places, like, where do you live? And every single one of them said that they lived in the town of Gresham. There was like two that lived in Wilsonville, which obviously you're not necessarily it's 40 minutes away.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:51

So every employee basically, except for the two that live south, every employee lived super far east, 40 minutes away. The fact that people can't afford to live where they work is what's causing traffic. If they could afford to live near where they worked at their crappy job, we would not have nearly the traffic. So I don't know. I'm not a politician, but y'all are blaming the wrong thing, and it's just the cost of living in Portland is insane. Totally.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:21

I I left there like what 10, 11 years ago? I was like, oh heck no. Like it is like the the house I live in would probably be a million dollar house just being the same. Oh yeah. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:33

I mean, you when we watch your like Atlanta or you know, Houston House Hunters episodes and we see the demands that people have and the price tags that they have, we're like, wait, you expect to have a roof for that price?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:47

Yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:50

We can't believe the house prices in comparison. It's like I bought a house that was so shitty. It was like, I mean, it was a short sale, it was like, I mean, barely habitable, but habitable for how poor we were at the time. And it was like I mean, it was $262,000. And it it was is horrible. I mean, the floors were ripping, and there was dead trees all over the place, an in-ground swimming pool that wasn't permitted. I mean, there was just catastrophe after catastrophe, and and it was a lot of money in comparison to what I know. You can get other places.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:36

And a lot of it, you mean you've heard um not in my backyard, you know, that that whole argument. Of course, you're you live right next to a lady that says that crap. But anyways, um we go into the city council meetings, we saw like how many old people go to those things. Old retired people have a lot of power in your city because they go to those council meetings and they're barking at these council people, and they're voting them in, and it's like us youngsters, well, we got jobs, we got families, we got whatever, school, and it's like we're not really participating in the local government level like the old blue hairs are, you know what I'm saying? So they have a lot of pool and what goes on in our cities, so totally.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:14

And I don't know if you guys watch, I mean, you guys are plugged into the industry, but I've been watching the Honolulu City Council meetings because my husband applied for a job in Honolulu and we were kind of just tracking the situation over there. And Honolulu has got a very contentious fight happening for Airbnbs right now.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:33

Yeah, they've had they've had that for a while. Um yeah, because I have some rental places I rent out over there and Oh, do you? It's yeah, Hawaii, like out of the United States, the toughest places I've seen are like Hawaii, New Orleans. And it's funny, my wife is going to Airbnb in New Orleans tomorrow, so it works. But yeah, Hawaii, New Orleans, and then I heard just recently heard Detroit's coming down on Airbnb folks. City ain't got nothing up in it. Let some Airbnb up in there.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:04

Let somebody make some freaking money. Well, I mean, and the people who were testifying at the Honolulu one, they all worked for the big um Hilton and Marriott, the big um those places. And they would say things like, I was homeless for two years because of Airbnb. And I've been working for Marriott for 37 years or whatever. And I'm like, wait a minute. You've had a job for 37 years and you were homeless for two of that. That is not Airbnb's fault. That's the fact that your employer doesn't pay you a living wage. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:39

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:42

We're just the little guy. We're just the little guy. We just want to make a buck. Come on.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:46

Exactly. Well, Veronica, this has been a great interview. And we we appreciate you coming on and and enlighten us, uh light enlightening us about renting your own house out, your own primary house, while you, you know, step out somewhere else. That's that's the cool I mean that's exactly what I want to do. And I I know a lot of people want to do that. And and I've had um friends try the whole rent out of their own house thing. They, you know. That's the thing. You were talking about it it spreads like you know wildfire, or you said like a disease, how yeah, you put it. But but the thing is then you get like hit hammered with all kinds of questions all day long, right? Wait from your friends. What do I do with this? What do I do? Look, look, I got a booking. What do I do?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:27

Well freaking answer them.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:28

I don't know. It's like a double-edged sword.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:32

I charge a consulting fee now. I'm $199 an hour, and then I'll answer all your questions. You get me for one hour.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:38

Hold on. You charge $200 for an hour?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:42

No, a dollar and what? No.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:44

$199 an hour.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:45

Oh, oh, it's gonna change my pricing rate. They pay that.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:49

That's my consulting rate. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:51

And they pay that.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:52

Yeah. Because Portland's regulations are so complicated, people feel overwhelmed. And so I just basically explain it to them in dummy terms and like show them what they can do, and I can do that for $199.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:07

That's not a bad deal if you're gonna start up your own Airbnb.

unknown 1:08:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:11

I'm changing my rates right now, hold on.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:14

Hey, time is money. I know I saw your rate, and I was like, oh, that's low for the expert knowledge. I mean, what they're gonna do with that knowledge is make money. So like it's got a lot of value there.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:27

Be an Airbnb coach, Micah. Oh what? Be an Airbnb life coach. You can do it, come on.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:36

That's that's too much. That's what the money is. Oh man, that's funny.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:44

Okay, give us your okay, give us your sites again so people can hit you up.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:48

My my overall brand is vacvisionary.com. So if you go to V-A-C-A-Y, V-I-S-I-O-N-A-R-Y.com, that houses, you can see my rentme.vip, my actual Airbnb listing, you can see my homeowner hustle e-course, you can see my freebies on there, it links to my Instagram. Everything's basically VK Visionaries, like the head brand of everything I do.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:13

Nice. Did you want to leave like a phone number too for your hotline, or you just all leave it, leave it there?

SPEAKER_04 1:09:19

No.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:21

Ain't nobody calling me. Ain't nobody calling me. You can email me, and then if you're not creepy, I'll go ahead and give you a call. Do people call you? To find creepy.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:34

I don't I don't do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:35

Well, we used to have a number. We used to have a number back in the day. Uh we still have one, but I changed it to Google Voice.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:41

It's a different number, but I changed it to Google Voice so people have just hidden up. Steve puts his personal app there.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:49

I do. And um and I've I've got a couple calls and text messages. Not too much. You know, it's it's weird. You know, I have my personal phone number on there. But now that I'm announcing it, maybe maybe someone will call me.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:03

Let's hang up with you.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:11

Um the Airbnb group groupies out there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:15

Yeah, I just changed my rate to $200 an hour.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:18

Get it.

unknown 1:10:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:19

There you go.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:21

This is awesome. Well, thank you so much for hopping on, and we will uh yeah, we'll promote the heck out of you for coming on. And um any any closing, you got like well, I always ask like um the like people that come on the show, like if they have this one tip that like that you haven't heard anywhere else, you know, one of your like a uh a hot Veronica tip, you know, just something that like Veronica that something you've discovered, like if I do this, I you know, it's really cool. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:48

Okay, so I think with all of my businesses, my main like quote that I say to myself is your mind is meant to be changed, your heart is meant to be followed. So stop getting in your own way, follow your freaking heart, and just do some shit that's gonna like make your life good.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:09

That's not a good thing. I heard a quote that's kind of like that. Is it? What is it? Anthony Joshua, he said this, he said, uh, don't let success get to your head and don't let failure get to your heart. Yeah, totally. I like that quote you just said too.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:28

Especially in America, our brain is like poisoned with all these negative thoughts of how things are supposed to be. And I can tell you guys are just like, you're visionaries like me. We're like, there's a better way. We're gonna make it. We care about our families and we care about living our life to the fullest, and that's what these businesses and this whole sharing economy is all about is making a life worth living and not like living for the weekend. Do do a weird setup where you're making money in all these different streams so that you can see your kids, so that you can like really live instead of being chained to a job.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:04

Would you say live, let, and thrive?

SPEAKER_04 1:12:07

Yes, live, let, and thrive, exactly like the tagline.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:13

Exactly. Well, thank you so much, Veronica, and um and we hope, yeah, we'll hope touch we'll touch base with you again in the future and see how you're kicking more ass. And um, Micah, got any closing thoughts?

SPEAKER_03 1:12:27

No, catch us at uh livelethrive.com. You can also catch me at sharebnb.com, check out our Facebook, Instagram, YouTube. We're about to really get the YouTube popped off with this new Zoom we got going on. So yeah, that's about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:40

Oh, by the way, on Anthony Joshua, you mentioned him. Looks like my cousin from the works at the at the car shop knocked his ass out. Sorry. That's a boxing thing, Veronica. Check it out.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:57

All right. Thank you, Veronica Hansen. Live Let Thrive. Peace out.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:01

Bye, folks. 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.