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!
Episodes
347 episodes
Buy a Quad, Live in One, Repeat — 20 Doors in 5 Years
Myka's advice to anyone starting today: buy a two-bed one-bath quad, live in one unit for a year, then go buy the next one. Four units still falls under single-family financing. Do that five years straight and you're sitting on 20 doors before ...
PadSplit Changed the Rules Overnight — 22 Days of Empty Rent
PadSplit changed its booking window to 30 days without warning hosts - Myka discovered a guest booked 22 days out, leaving a room empty with zero revenue. He and Steve break down what that means for cash flow when you're counting on six rents f...
Airbnb Held His Payment — Then the Guests Vanished ($2,600 Gone)
Airbnb held Steve's $2,600 payment on a 48-day booking, then cancelled the reservation after the seven-day hold window ended. When he arrived at the house, the guests had vanished—no cars, AC turned off, and 96 degrees inside. He suspects they ...
DFW Is Getting Ugly: We’re Done With 1–2 Bedroom Arbitrage
Myka and Steve announce they're done with 1-2 bedroom arbitrage in DFW after years of profitable operations. With the market shifting - houses sitting for months, price cuts everywhere, and midterm bookings drying up for small units - they're p...
%20(16).png)
The Claude Dashboard That Runs My Entire Rental Business
Myka walks through the custom Claude AI dashboard that manages his entire rental operation - from pulling live Price Labs data and calculating optimal Airbnb/Vrbo discounts based on local market conditions, to connecting with QuickBooks for P&L...
PadSplit’s New Superhost Rules and a $15,000 Fire Alarm
Steve discovers his poolman was in two car accidents, leaving three pools turning green with guests already checked in. At 100+ degrees on a Sunday, he grabs his scrub brushes and shocks all four pools himself - three rentals plus his own - spe...
The FIFA World Cup Flop — and Rents Down 30% (with Mikey B)
The FIFA World Cup turned out to be a massive booking flop for DFW short-term rental hosts. Properties that were pricing at $3,000 per night in March dropped to barely 2x normal summer rates by game week, with hotels dumping room blocks and new...
A $44,000 Insurance Claim and Two Creative Deals That Died
Myka's $44,000 insurance claim from a water leak rewrote the rules on what property damage coverage can actually do - one call to USAA turned new flooring, fresh paint, and tile upgrades into a deductible of just two thousand dollars. The claim...
5 of 6 Rooms Full in a Week: My $25K PadSplit Build
Steve furnishes a six-bedroom PadSplit for $3,000 using recycled Airbnb furniture, builds out two extra bedrooms and a loft for $12,000, and fills five of six rooms within a week of going live. Tenants include a computer engineer and working pr...
A Burst Pipe, a Denied Claim, and a Spare Key in the Cloud
Steve faces a burst pipe at his Grand Prairie arbitrage that could cost thousands - and his tenant's Proper Insurance denies the claim because it's plumbing-related, the number one maintenance issue in rentals. Meanwhile, a Pad Split guest gets...
Vending Machines on a 9–5: “No Card Reader, You Lose 70%”
Matthew Thompson runs 42 vending machines across Dallas-Fort Worth and shares the hard numbers behind the business. Without a card reader, you lose 70% of potential sales - cash-only machines are leaving money on the table. He breaks down the r...
Health Insurance Is the Only Reason I Haven’t Quit My Job
$600 a month through the job. About $1,600 a month buying it himself. That $1,000 difference is the entire reason Steve is still clocking in three days a week — and in this episode he does the math out loud on whether it is worth staying....
I Fired My $200 PMS and Run Everything on $40 of AI
Myka replaced his $200-a-month property management software with $40 in AI subscriptions - Claude and ChatGPT - that now handle pricing, calendar syncing, and operations, pulling $5,000 in new bookings in the first week and a half. He feeds Cla...
"Dalaska" Cold, Pungent PadSplits, & the Austin Real Estate Crash
Myka details evicting a tenant who left behind a 'pungent' body-odour smell requiring Lysol, Febreze plugins, and an ozone machine to clear. The room turnover cost him a mattress protector and hours of cleaning, but he collected five other rent...
Vending Machines in Your PadSplit - and the $550K Crash Pad Near DFW
Steve returns from a two-week Mexico trip with a business idea sparked by a third-world barbershop upselling drinks, chips, and extensions - and asks if vending machines could work in his PadSplits. Stevie points to his friend doing six figures...
Pivoting for 2026: Why I’m Stepping Back From STRs and Refocusing on Long-Term Wealth
Myka announces a major pivot away from short-term and midterm rentals for 2026, driven by slow holiday bookings, rising overhead costs, and burnout from the operational demands of managing STRs in a rural Arkansas market. She's shifting to long...
Stevie Stacks 2025 Recap: From Airbnb Arbitrage to PadSplit Pro
Stevie Stacks bought three houses in 2025 - one with a DSCR loan requiring 20% down, and two seller-financed deals with just 6% and 10% down. He converted two properties into six-bedroom PadSplits, pulling cash out first but learning the hard w...
The $80,000 STR Tax Hack & The Michael Jordan Gamble
Steve shares his 1996 story of flying standby to Utah on a whim, scoring a $50 ticket to Michael Jordan's final shot as a Bull in Game 6, and partying with Bulls players afterward - all while everyone said it couldn't be done. The story ties in...
World Cup Hype vs. Reality - What a First PadSplit Actually Taught Us
Steve's friend David unexpectedly showed up during a corporate housing tour - the adjuster's clients arrived for a self-tour while David was grabbing items from the garage. Instead of disaster, David's people skills saved the day: he charmed th...
Crazy PadSplit Tenant Stories & Why We’re Ditching Short-Term Rentals
Myka makes $30,000 per month from a single halfway house in California - eight rooms with bunk beds - and explains why he's considering leaving short-term rentals entirely for long-term cash flow. The transition would simplify operations and el...
PadSplit Tenant Nightmare: What They Don’t Tell You
Steve recounts evicting a violent PadSplit tenant who kicked through cabinets, slashed another resident's tire, shattered a front-door window, and pounded on a roommate's door hard enough to pop it open - all within weeks of move-in. The 24-yea...
Pad Splits, Airbnb Fee Hikes, and Tax Savings Explained
Steve's C-class Arlington house is pulling $4,350/month as a six-bedroom PadSplit - over $2,800 clear above the mortgage. He walks through the math on trash removal, utility absorption, and why cheap cleaners cost him a shut-down listing when o...
House Hacking 2.0, PadSplit Profits & AI Agents Making $$$
Steve announces he's converting his primary residence back into a house hack after the AC broke, planning to rent two bedrooms upstairs via Airbnb or Pad Split at $1,100+ per room while the family consolidates into the master. He's also turning...
First PadSplit Property - $700 Per Room, Three Tenants in Two Weeks
Steve launches his first Pad Split property in Arlington and shares early wins and challenges: three rooms rented at $700/month in two weeks, a hot water heater repair, and one tenant who called the police on maintenance. He's sourcing addition...
AI Hacks, Airbnb Warnings & Duplex Wins: Why It’s Time to Buy Smarter
Myka reports closing on a three-bed, two-bath duplex for under budget after Amazon Prime Day slashed their furnishing costs by 40%. The episode covers why she walked away from arbitrage in favor of ownership, how deep-search AI can pull comps i...
