[00:00:02] Speaker A: This is short term rental management, the show that is all about short term rental property management with your host, yours truly, Luke Carl.
Short term show, short term rental management with long hair Luke and today I've got my budy Tim coming in to hang out. We are going to talk about the upcoming season, which is here. It's basically here momentarily getting ready to start.
And we're going to give you some tips and tricks on how to get more bookings, especially this early spring season, and also how to not lose your head and freak out about not having enough bookings and keeping the guest number one at all times on the 2024 preseason sizzle right after these words.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: Did you know that we're officially back in a buyer's market? That's right. Even though interest rates continue to rise, they are causing prices to fall. So there's finally room for you to do regular real estate investor things that we couldn't do for so long, like gas. Negotiate, make lower offers. Ask for sellers to cover some of your closing costs. So it's a really great time to buy in terms of being able to get a lower purchase price and being able to negotiate. So if you're looking for your first or next short term rental, it's the perfect time to reach out to us at the short term shop. Let our team of agents in any of our true vacation market destinations help you find the perfect investment. Jump on over to the shorttermshop.com and click get connected to get started. We are brokered by Exp Realty. See you all over there.
[00:01:46] Speaker A: Here we go. Short term rental Management the preseason sizzle 2024. We're going to talk about a glorious season that is about to start. I hate to tell you there will be no negativity on today's podcast. The world is full of negativity and everybody wants to hear the bad side of crap. And that's not going to happen here. We're going to be positive, as positive as possible. We'll tell you. We'll tell you how it is, though. We'll keep it real, if you will. And I'm joined today by my lovely co host with the most, Tim, who is an agent in the Smoky mountains. If you want to buy a cabin in the east Tennessee mountains, he can facilitate that process. He is with the short term shop, Tim. How you doing, budy?
[00:02:30] Speaker C: I'm doing good this morning, Luke. Thanks for inviting me on here again. Good to see your face.
[00:02:36] Speaker A: Well, you know, it's funny because we were on the phone earlier and we were talking and I said, you know, I'm getting ready to cut a podcast. Why don't we just go record exactly what we're talking about? And so here we are.
[00:02:46] Speaker C: We should do a podcast. Tim and Luke's phone calls.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
Tim and Luke 1800. Give us a call show.
You should have people call us, right.
[00:02:59] Speaker C: There you go.
[00:03:01] Speaker A: That could be fun. Strangers calling in with their problems or whatnot.
[00:03:04] Speaker C: Longtime listener, first time caller, right?
[00:03:06] Speaker A: And a couple of knucklehead motorcycle guys talking about the world in general. But here's the deal. It's a time of year. Everybody's freaking out. We are end of February here, early March, and everybody's freaking out. I'm never going to get another booking this that, I got to tell you, I've been doing this long enough, and I don't want to sit here and say, well, if you're freaking out, you're a new. Because it happens to me and we'll get into that. But the thing is, wait a couple more weeks. If we can sum up this entire podcast in one sentence, it's just wait a couple more weeks. And the second sentence would be, don't stop lowering your damn prices because you're making my life more difficult because it is a race to the bottom right now with everybody freaking out a little bit. And this happens every year. And yeah, the economy is a mess post pandemic and the whole thing.
[00:04:09] Speaker C: But I panic a little bit every year. Yeah, I think if you don't panic a little, you're probably not doing your job to some degree, but you got to keep in check.
That's part of being doing this gig is staying on top of your stuff. And if you're panicking, that means you're looking, which is a good thing.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: Well, let's talk about that. So you look, actually, I'm going to pull up some of my price labs right now, not on screen, but off screen, and just kind of give my impressions of what's going on. And I know you were doing that this morning. So what were you seeing?
[00:04:43] Speaker C: I'm seeing that my march is filling in nicely. Now. A week ago, it was like, bare, and I have had my finger, admittedly, off the pulse a little bit. I've had some stuff going on in our personal life that we've been dealing with, and I just jumped back on it the last few days really hard. And the bookings have been rolling in. And I'll be honest right now, I mean, what's the date, February or something? It's February 20 today. And I'm looking at may real hard, too. And so I'm fiddling around with May, and I'm fiddling around with March, and my march is getting there. And I remember last March, I was kind of thinking the same thing. Like March 1 rolled around. I'm like, where? All my march bookings and I had some, but they really started coming in like the first week of March. And so again, I fall into the same trap of I get a little weird. You go all January and February with nothing, and you can't wait to start making money again, and march rolls around. You're like, I better have some bookings here. So anyway, my march is starting to roll in hard. I got a bunch in the last couple of days.
I'm in the smokies and gulf shores markets, and I'll be honest, my gulf shores was, like, empty from March. And the last couple of days, it's like I've gotten a couple huge ones that are just like, you get a couple of seven days and all of a sudden your month's full.
Or half full if you get two.
[00:06:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Did we mention there's not going to be a lot of negativity? Because there's so much negativity in the world. I'm sorry, if you're looking for, oh, my God, the sky is falling. You're in the wrong place. We're not going to do that here at short term show and short term rental management. But I will say my bookings are pretty light right now, and I don't really care.
I'm pulling up a couple of my properties, a little two bedroom here in the smokies, and it's pretty okay for March, I would say. It's, I'm guessing, half booked. I have all my weekends available except for the first weekend, and I'm happy with that. My weekdays, I've got two five night bookings during weekdays, which is great.
[00:06:45] Speaker C: Oh, that's awesome.
[00:06:47] Speaker A: Sunday through Thursday in two different weeks in March. My weekends are very nicely priced. I'm in the 240 range right now on my weekends in March on this little one and a half bedroom in the smokies, which when I first started, and we do need to talk about perspective here. When I first started this home, the pinnacle of pricing on this house was $199 a night was what I was hoping to get at Christmas.
And again, you got to keep that in mind. I've been around for a little while. I've been on airbnb in the smokies longer than anybody. The statistic I like to brag about which is really in the grand scheme of things. Not that long, but I do, because of that, have a different perspective when it comes to pricing my property. To me, $200 a night on this house that I'm talking about right now, which is a little 1400 square foot, one and a half bed is like, wow, holy crap, $200. And of course, I'm luckily grateful that I never refinanced or anything. I'm still rolling on the original loan on this thing, so I don't have new prices to pay every month to the man, obligations towards my debt service, et cetera, which is a wonderful feeling. Not that I'm saying you should do it that way. If you got enough equity, sometimes you need to use it and move it on to the next thing. But anyway, I'm looking at, I'm priced at $240 a night on the weekends in March on this house. They're not booked yet. It. I can also tell you that this house has never, since day one, 2015 going on nine years now, never been empty on a weekend. So will I get the 240?
Maybe? Because like I said, it's not going to go empty. It will not go empty. But that said, maybe I'll drop these weekends here to a 199, give or take.
I also want to give one more disclaimer and then I'll turn it over to you. We're not here to give data numbers here, my friends. It's not what we do. I'm not a data junkie nerd kind of guy. I look at my calendar, I figure out what I need to change to get it booked, and the last thing I'll say on that right now, I do not think it is a race to the bottom situation. If you are lowering your rates, you're doing yourself and your neighbors a disservice. Go ahead, Tim.
[00:09:18] Speaker C: Oh, I was just going to say I just pulled up my two two as well. I always like to compare when you start throwing some numbers out there. This is good luke data.
My only weekend booked in March is booked at 252 a night in March for my two two. And my other weekends are priced at 230 a night and they're not booked yet. So right in line with you there.
[00:09:40] Speaker A: Can you describe this property? Is it two real bedrooms?
[00:09:43] Speaker C: It is two real bedrooms. Sleep six. It's two bedrooms with a sleeper sofa, but not about the same square footage. 1300? Something like that.
[00:09:53] Speaker A: Yeah. Mine, I would say mine is maybe slightly less per night than yours in general because I don't have a real bedroom upstairs, which I think that's fine.
Personally, if I'm going to book a house in this market, I kind of like the open loft vibe. I'm not going to sleep up there, but the kids can sleep up there, that kind of thing.
And also I only allow five in this home. So you are edging me out there a little bit on capacity and also real bedroom versus not.
But yeah, it sounds like we're, I mean, rentability wise, they're probably the same damn house, right? And so we're neck and neck. What is your base rate on that thing right now? Now we're getting way into it.
[00:10:36] Speaker C: 218.
[00:10:37] Speaker A: Okay. I'm at 199 right at this second with naked men, naked Max on this one and a half bed. Probably what I'll do here is I can't get my hair right. I don't know what maybe that means. I need to go ride my motorcycle and just put a hat.
[00:10:51] Speaker C: That's actually what that means.
[00:10:53] Speaker A: Yeah. So what I'm looking at here is maybe I'll do some black line overrides on my weekends to get it to 199, that kind of thing. I don't think I want to, again, without sharing screen, I don't want to lower my base rate on this thing right now. I think 199 is probably right where I would like it to be and that's going to get me a real nice overall gross annual income on this house, which is like I said, my average base rate that I have set right now on price lapse is what I was hoping to get at Christmas time nine years ago. So that's another thing you got to consider. Rents always go up over time. Rents always go up over time.
I'm not here to talk about the economy. I don't know enough about it to be fluent in a conversation there. As far as the politics and the economy, stocks seem to be doing okay and that kind of stuff. But insurance and taxes are through the roof and that applies to us in more than one capacity because we are having to raise rates, nightly rates to keep up with that. And also our guests are dealing with that in their own personal homes. That's just a fact of life right now. Insurance, it started in Florida a couple of years ago. Everybody was talking about the insurance in Florida and then it just spread and spread and spread and now it's everywhere and the taxes are not great either. So again, I'm not here to talk about the economy because I just am not qualified. I don't feel comfortable with that conversation. But I guess if I had a point, the bookings are coming I don't know if I had a point, but the bookings are coming. I'm telling you, it is not time yet. Okay? Today release of this podcast is 27 Feb 27, 2024. And this is preseason right now, here's another thing you got to consider, okay? It's been extremely cold nationwide right now. I think that that is a factor.
I was right last year when the passport office opened back up and everybody was getting a new passport to go overseas. I was right about that. Our bookings died in July and August last year because everybody was going overseas. And I'm also right about the fact that the cold weather seems to be kind of hanging on a little longer this year. Again, I live in Florida, and it was 30 something degrees this morning, which is unheard of.
And to have that temperature holding on this late in February is also unheard of. And that is a factor.
When the weather changes and the sun is shining, the birds start chirping, then all of a sudden, it's like a switch flips in their brain and they're like, maybe I need to start thinking about getting out of town. And we haven't really had that yet, so that's something to consider. Anything else to add there, Tim?
[00:13:47] Speaker C: Yeah, we got a multitude. I agree. We're coming up on tax return season for w two folks, so that's always a bump as well. I think just traditionally, looking at booking windows over the last several years, we've seen a trend of, or I've seen a trend of my booking windows getting shorter and shorter. So my cabins are booking on a shorter and shorter lead time all the time. And I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing, just something I've had to mentally adjust to a little bit.
That obviously varies a lot with the size of your property.
My little cabins, I'm like, I get a ton that are same day a lot, like an alarming amount of same day bookings.
But even I got my biggest one, sleep 16, and I get stuff within three days of when people are checking in frequently. Anyway, that's changed. That used to not really be the case.
If you've been in this game a long time, something like that, you'd be out a couple of months a lot of times.
And I am starting to get some of those, too. I'm getting some summer bookings and stuff for that bigger property.
Anyway, now, I agree, though.
I'm not freaking out. I say I'm not freaking out. I always freak out a little bit, but then I'm not really freaking out. It freaks me out enough to pay attention and do the things I normally do.
I call it wake up, tickle, whatever. My listings coming off, especially my beach stuff. My beach stuff. I do snowbirds and longer bookings. So again, this is all theory. I don't really know, but I feel like I put a snowbird in there for two months. So that listing is getting no action for two months over the winter. So come like right now, I don't.
[00:15:32] Speaker A: Know about you, but when I don't get any action for two months, I get a little grumpy.
[00:15:36] Speaker C: Yeah, no action is bad, bad deal.
I think we're shifting this podcast around with. Let's go.
[00:15:44] Speaker A: We went there. Okay. Anyway, bring it back.
[00:15:46] Speaker C: But anyway, I jump in and start fiddling with stuff kind of right now, and I did that start about a week ago and all of a sudden they started rolling in. And again, it's either just massive coincidence that I started fiddling with things and all of a sudden I start getting lots of bookings or it's just time. But again, I feel like it sits with no action and it just kind of goes stagnant and get no action. You get stagnant.
[00:16:12] Speaker A: Yeah, you get a little rusty, you forget how to do it right.
[00:16:15] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:16:16] Speaker A: I'm here to tell you, it's like riding a bike. I don't know when these sexual innuendos just keep coming out of everywhere, but it's like riding a bike. I'm telling you, you get one booking, two bookings. So anyway, if you want to go down that freak out rabbit hole, which I can't fault anybody for, that, I think what you're going to do, preseason sizzle 2024, is maybe just kind of wake your listing up a little bit. If you want to drop rates, please do me a favor as your ultimate. I'm the ultimate enemy, right?
I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about the listener. Anybody out there in rental land, please don't lower all your rates. Don't do that. If you want to lower some upcoming dates or weekends, that's actually what I'm doing right now when Tim's talking, I'm over here blacklining my weekends in March.
[00:17:04] Speaker C: Let's talk about the black line. I'm a black liner.
[00:17:06] Speaker A: But hold on, let me finish my point and then I'll turn it over to you for the black line.
So if you're going to freak out lower rates, do me a favor, do yourself a favor, do your future, do your July self a favor and just kind of strategically blackline a little bit of the upcoming calendar within the next two to three weeks, maybe with a price that's low enough to get you some action.
And again, back to the dating innuendo. If you start getting some action. It's kind of funny how that phone starts ring, man. It's like all of a sudden you're a hot commodity. So we don't need to lower our overall rates for our entire calendar here. We just need to kind of wake you back up. Two, three, four bookings is really all you need. If you get two bookings again, we're Feb. 27 right now, 1 March. Basically, if you get two bookings in the next week for one house, and these bookings can be anytime from now until the indefinite future.
I think that's really kind of enough to get jump started and give you a little bit of confidence, because right now, what we're dealing with is a lack of confidence. We've gone two months again. Tim and I both live in vacation towns, so that's something to note and understand that Tim and I, we live in these areas, and most folks that are doing this do not. And it is a different way of living your know, for instance, here's just one random one that I just went through on my way to this podcast was a golf cart, right?
We live on the beach in Florida outside of Destin, and everybody's got a golf cart. And you go to the golf cart store, it's nothing but electric golf carts. And why?
Because they're for renters. And the gas golf carts, really, the biggest problem there is that if they run out of gas, it's kind of a pain in the ass. If it's electric, you could take the charger with you and you plug it in basically anywhere. It's one reason. Also, the gas ones are faster.
And so I'm just like, dude, I can't deal with this electric anymore. I'm not a tourist. I don't need the drunk person on vacation. That's a terrible way to say that, because nobody's going to drink and drive around here. All right? But I want a golf cart that's going to get me to where I need to go. Damn it. And the golf cart, they didn't even have a gas golf cart. Because everything that is sold in the area where I live and where Tim lives is sold to and for tourists. Okay, so I went off on a Tangent there. Bring it back to the black line thing.
You can take it wherever you want.
[00:19:42] Speaker C: You cannot drive around with that Harley T shirt on. And that hair and those tattoos. Electric golf cart. You got to fix that.
[00:19:48] Speaker A: I'm ready, dude. I'm on my second electric golf cart. I'm sick of this.
[00:19:54] Speaker C: We need bright orange and flames on this golf cart. I mean, let's do it anyway. Black lines. Black lines are how I tweak my prices. There is not a right or a wrong way to do it. It's what works for you. Some people use the seasons. There's all kinds of stuff in price labs to do this. There's not one way to skin the cat, as they say. Black lines are the way I love to do it. And what I do is I look at an area that I am feeling concerned about, or just maybe not even concerned is the right word. Just want to get some action. And you pick a range of dates. And when you pick the range of dates in price labs, you can do all kinds of customization to that range of dates. And when you apply it to the calendar, it gives it a black line. So that's why when Luke and I talk about black lines, that's what that is. So I'll look out on my march, and I'm looking at one right now, and the one I'm looking at, the fifth through the 9th is open. So I would go in and select just click on the fifth. And then you ended on the 9th. And if I wanted to rattle that around a little bit, you can go into the pricing, and I'm just going to pull it up here on my screen so I can see what I'm talking about. But anyway, it gives you the option to do a few things. And the way I do it is on the price settings, you can choose either price change on recommended price or an actual price you can put in there. I like the percentage based because it gives me some flexibility. It doesn't make them all the same price. If you put a fixed price in there and you set it to $110, it makes every night $110. I don't like that. It just messes with my brain. So I use the percentage and I'll just do a negative five or negative ten or whatever. And I tend to do kind of a method that where I get in a little cycle and I'll do a negative, let's just say a negative five. And these numbers change all the time, so don't take it as gospel, but I'll do like a negative five one day, and two days later I might take it negative ten, and then I might go down as far as negative 15. And then the next day I'll actually do a raise, and I'll raise it. Whatever my total drop is, I'll raise that back up. So if I went a total of 15 down, I'll go up on the fourth day, and I'll raise it 15%. And I've gotten just as many bookings on the raise day as I do on the drop days. So I just kind of fiddle with it to rattle it around, tickle it, whatever you want to call it.
And I do that just for those little pockets. Sometimes a pocket, the biggest pocket I'll really do is an entire month, and that's not even very often I do an entire month. Usually. It's kind of holes I'm filling in, and it tends to work great. There you go. There you go. Right? Stop it. You're filling my brain with words.
[00:22:27] Speaker A: That's what she said. All right. I can't help it. I can't help it. All right.
[00:22:31] Speaker C: The holes you got to fill.
[00:22:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
Lord, I hope Avery doesn't listen to this one.
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We talk about changing prices constantly, and it almost gets to the point where you're sitting there like, well, these guys, all they ever do is change your prices, and you'll get bookings.
But here's the truth. The truth is that your calendar is ever changing, right? And so if you get a booking, your calendar has now changed, and your price needs to be changed. I'm not saying that every single time you get a booking, you got to change your rates, but the calendar has changed, and you got to start to think about that. Once you get three, four, five bookings rolling in. I'm sure somebody could do some data nerd crap on that. How many bookings do I get versus how often should I change my rates? That's a real thing.
[00:23:45] Speaker C: Well, let's talk about other levers, because we've been talking about price labs, this whole thing. There's other levers. What's your title?
Are you doing a March special? And in my opinion, once you're half booked, you need to change that march special to, like, may or something. And what are your pictures looking like? Do you still have your Christmas and Thanksgiving pictures up? If so, it's time to ditch those and get spring going. And there's other things you need to be doing other than just pricing. We've been 100%. There are other levers you need to be pulling in this time of year for sure. And if you haven't done that yet, you need to get on it.
[00:24:21] Speaker A: Yeah, you got to have the bright, shiny springtime summertime happy pictures going right now. I always compare it to hobby lobby. You go to hobby lobby right now and please, they're already done with freaking St. Patrick's day. They're over it. We're moving on to 4 July.
[00:24:33] Speaker C: Right.
[00:24:33] Speaker A: So you got to think forward when it comes to your booking. And I agree with the march special, spring special spring sizzle, something like that with your headline.
And then once March is booked up.
Let me take that one step further. Is it even worth having an April headline right now? Probably not, because 90% of all bookings are within the next 30 days, according to Airbnb. Right. Which is a pretty big authority.
So April is probably not really looking to get a whole lot of action right now. So I think, as Tim said, you're probably better off skipping right over April as far as your headlines and your advertising is concerned and going to May because May is difficult and April's not. So, you know, this is probably. Honestly, if you're focused on your march and your April right now, in my opinion, you're probably doing yourself a disservice. Let's get that may rocking and rolling because you got to scoop up as many people as you can as far in advance as you can for that damn may. Now, I will also say, as far as the black lines, I usually do dollar figures for my overrides. It's very rare that I'll do a percentage based manual override on my price labs. Again, if you don't use price labs, none of this stuff's going to make any sense, really. But most people use it. But yeah, I usually do like a dollar figure manual override.
Also, something you need to consider. Like, I'm taking a look at one of my beach houses right now. It's in the forgotten coast of Florida. I bought it using the short term shop, which is why we're here. I don't want that to be a secret. We're here to sell houses, baby. I do not sell houses. I'm not an agent. But we do have a wonderful team of agents that can help you get involved with this base, and we would love to help you. And. And I can teach you how to manage it, too. I teach a private class each and every Monday that all of our clients are welcome to. Come anytime. Please come on, buy a house with the short term shop. We love you. Anyway, this house was purchased with the short term shop in the forgotten coast, Cape sandblast, which is a tiny little area. I love it down there. It's just a very sleepy, quiet little beach town.
And I just pulled it up and my base rate was like 580. Ok. And so you got to keep that in mind too, because if I drop that base rate on this particular, on beach properties, beach season is only like seven or eight months. So if I drop that base rate right now, June and July, my peak booking season is going to be too low. So honestly, on this property, I'm better off picking a black line number for the next two to three weeks of March that I'm not willing to go below. Is it one strategy I'll use where. Okay, this is the lowest I'll go on this house, let's say my next three weeks, which they're not, but I got one week book, one week empty on this house. So I would maybe blackline that first week and third week to my lowest number that I'm willing to rent it for, but maybe not tweak my base rate because then my June and July are going to drop. So if you're tweaking base rate right now, especially on a property that's only like a six or seven month season, you got to really start paying attention to the June July areas where in most markets going to be super heavy booking, because I'm going to tell you, it's probably going to drop it lower than you want to go.
[00:27:53] Speaker C: That's exactly the reason I'm a fan of the black line, because if you're not careful with your base rates, you can damage other parts of the year.
[00:28:03] Speaker A: It's funny because I just said I don't use percentage based overrides and I've just looked at my may on this property and it's got a 10% right.
But may is an exception. May is a weird month and you do everything you can to try and get it rocking.
Now I'm just over here changing my prices.
What's my June July look like on this thing? Well, first of all, I've already got two bookings, two big bookings, five night and a seven night in June at high dollar, anywhere from $750 to $1,100 per night.
[00:28:33] Speaker C: You want to talk about some positivity?
I leave my calendar open a year and I've got some far out pricing stuff set up to where it jacks my prices up pretty high out past. It's either six months, I think, six or nine months something. Anyway, I've been getting some massive bookings later this year, showing up on some properties that is a little shocking, to be honest.
[00:28:53] Speaker A: What did you get and how did you do it?
[00:28:56] Speaker C: What did I get? Well, I got one for our sleep, 16 for. It's like the week after Thanksgiving. It's like December 27 to December 1, I think. And it's like twelve or popped in.
[00:29:09] Speaker A: How big is this house?
[00:29:11] Speaker C: Six bedroom, 3200.
[00:29:17] Speaker A: Built yourself? You redid it yourself?
[00:29:18] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:29:19] Speaker A: Beautiful.
[00:29:20] Speaker C: But normally that's like peak numbers for.
[00:29:26] Speaker A: That property, which to me those are fairly throwaway dates.
[00:29:29] Speaker C: Right? Yeah, no, I agree.
[00:29:31] Speaker A: That's a major score. You just chalk that up to luck. Or do you have.
[00:29:34] Speaker C: Yeah, I guess.
[00:29:35] Speaker A: How do I get that booking?
[00:29:37] Speaker C: I don't know. And that same thing. I've been getting quite a few. I've gotten like, I went and raised my stuff even more because I was getting some June and July stuff that was high.
But I don't know, I was shocked at how much was coming in, so I raised up a little bit.
There's some stuff, again, I think, again, we're just coming into the season is just getting rolling here.
[00:30:00] Speaker A: The last thing you want to do is drop prices right now. Now give it another seven to ten days and let's set a goal. All right. Seven to ten days. If we can get two bookings, don't lower your rates. All right? Can we do that, please everybody? You're going to make me look bad by having higher rates than you and I don't want that. So let's go March 7. If we can get two to three bookings in the next week, a week and a half, I think we should be pretty confident that things are.
You got to understand, it's like this every year. I will say there's been less freak out this year. We've been doing this a long time now and I feel like we've got also very large Facebook groups. I may have already mentioned this, but we do have very large public, open to the public Facebook group with 60 something thousand people. And I'll say the overall vibe this year is pretty good compared to years past. There's been a few years, especially when we first started the Facebook groups where it was like, man, I literally felt like I was everybody's therapist and tried talking them off the ledge every 10 seconds. And luckily I think that culture has kind of changed. A little bit. And again, if you want positivity, you're in the right place. If you want, oh my God, we're never going to get another booking again. Then you're just in the wrong place. And it's that positivity. I think that's what's getting Tim, that ridiculous November booking.
[00:31:25] Speaker C: I'll tell you too, like living here, I'm going way backwards in the beginning of this. You're talking about the economy and we both live in these things. I live in the smokies and I judge a lot of things, like how hard is it for me to get to Lowe's if I have to go after like 09:00 a.m. And I can tell you it's been pretty trafficky. There's been a lot of traffic.
That's great.
Again with that. There's a lot of out of town license plates and that's always a good thing. We were out yesterday and we were just looking stop at a stoplight and when 80% of the license plates are not from here, that's a good sign.
[00:32:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I was just there. I was just in the smokies and we partied and partied for a couple of old silver dudes, but partied with our Diet Cokes, right? Yeah, no, I won't even do that. But a little club soda and a steak and. 07:00 p.m. That's about the party these days.
I went for a run. I run every day.
One day I went out on the parkway and I got stuck at a stoplight trying to cross the road. And I just stood there and just soaked it in with these license plates. And it was all Louisiana and Alabama. And I don't know if there's any significance to that story other than the fact that you do have to realize these places are different. Animal. I will also say where I'm at here out in Miramar beach area, Destin area, we don't have the traffic yet. It's also 30 something degrees this morning, which is unheard of. I mean, I had to get out the damn north face with the fuzzy stuff around the hood.
My Omaha jacket, that's where I'm a Nebraska boy originally, and it gets cold as hell there. So I've got a jacket that I only use when I go home.
[00:33:12] Speaker C: You better not tell your Omaha buddies that you're wearing a north face when it's 32 out.
They're rocking the shorts at 32.
[00:33:19] Speaker A: Yeah, they're wearing a short sleeve flannel shirt. But man, I've been gone too long.
So it is still cold here and it hasn't picked up yet.
And again, you got to understand, most of the folks that are coming here are within a four, five, seven hour drive. Four, five, six, 7 hours. You know, something like that.
And it's still cold in those areas. We get a lot of people coming down from Tennessee. We get a lot of people coming from a ton of people from Georgia, Atlanta, Georgia, Louisiana. And right now, honestly, the mountains are probably a little more appealing than the beach because there's more stuff to do in the mountains when it's cold outside. There's really not a whole lot to do. Down where I live, nothing's even open.
Um, I don't know about Dollywood schedule. Maybe we need to google that. But I think they stay open all year, at least in some capacity.
So that's something to consider as there's not a lot to do. So why would anybody even want to come here? One more thing I want to throw out there is that mortgages have not been really covered for the past two or three months. And that is stressful. I definitely feel your pain there, especially if you're new and you didn't account for the fact that you were going to go two or three months with no rental revenue, and then next thing you know, your mortgage money is gone or maybe you're even dipping into your own pocket. That can be stressful. And I think that's where a little of that freak out comes from. So, only thing you can do there is just plan better for next year. I do profit first, obviously, with all my properties, I set aside exactly how much I'm going to need in opex account for all my bills throughout the year. And a lot of the capex goes to another account. I have the same amount in my capex account all the time. When it gets used up, it gets replenished. And then if you're not escrowed, then you might have a separate account for. If you're doing a commercial mortgage, you'd maybe have a separate account for an insurance account and a taxes account. Of course, if you're escrowed, then that makes all that a lot easier, which most folks are in the single family space. But that's where a lot of that freak out comes from, especially with noobs, is that they didn't really budget the way they probably should have, or maybe didn't even realize they were supposed to budget. And then next thing you know, they've just paid two full mortgages with the profits from the previous months and didn't really plan ahead. Or maybe they over rehabbed. A lot of folks over rehab their first low season because there's nothing else to do.
Let me throw one more thing at you. Boredom.
If you're bored and you don't have another down payment yet, it's very dangerous because you could go out and spend a bunch of money that you probably didn't really need to spend.
Oh, you know what? I had one the other day. This guy sent me a beautiful, beautiful house, and he's like. And it was like the 10 February, and he sends me this gorgeous house, which I want you to do that, please. I do want people to send me messages. I don't want this story to deter anybody from contacting me, but especially if you're a short term shop client, I'm always available and happy to help if you want to listen to my loud mouth talk about nothing for an hour. But what was my point? We were talking about? Oh, boredom.
You're sitting there 10 February, and there's no bookings coming in, and you got a couple of bucks left in your opex account, and you don't have enough money for another down payment yet. It's a very common scenario. And then all of a sudden, you're like, man, maybe this wall needs an accent wall. This room needs an accent wall. Maybe I need a new coffee situation. Maybe I need a $10,000. Whatever.
And that's a pretty good way to let those accounts get sucked dry. So anyway, this particular gentleman that messaged me, I wrote him back, and I go, dude, this house is beautiful.
You're bored, no bookings are coming in, and you probably know, if I had to guess, you're not in a situation yet to be focusing that energy on the next house because there's no down payment. But if you catch yourself doing what I just mentioned, the boredom thing, we need a name for that, Tim. Boredom.
[00:37:28] Speaker C: I do the opposite.
I get not quite enough to start buying another house, and I go start doing it anyway, and I don't get all my rehab stuff done.
[00:37:36] Speaker A: That's exactly what I was going to say.
If you're in that boredom phase where you're sitting there like, I don't have enough money to shop around. Shop anyway. Shop anyway. I'm telling you, since day one, Avery and I, when we first started, we were always struggling for down payments, man. It's never easy.
[00:37:56] Speaker C: I drive my wife crazy with that.
[00:37:58] Speaker A: Because buying real estate is freaking hard. Okay? You got to have a lot of cash to buy real estate. But here's one thing I'm going to say, and I'll turn it back over to that wife story because I want to hear that. But even if you don't have the money to go out and get the next one yet, doesn't matter. Be patient, be proud, and shop around anyway, man. The more you shop around and make it realistic and make it real, the sooner it's going to happen, even if you don't have the dough. Anyway, tell me that wife's being annoyed.
[00:38:28] Speaker C: Well, on the tail of what you just said, I totally believe, and I don't encourage buying if you're not ready. But if you stay relevant with the market, don't lose that touch that you have. There's a touch that you get when you're being obsessive and looking at properties and knowing where things are and running numbers. I mean, I never stop doing that, but anyway, no, I was just saying we'll get something.
I don't know if I say I'm a typical dude, but I tend to get things like 80% done and then move on to the next thing.
So we'll start on a project and I'll get like, close to done, and we got a little money sitting around and I am constantly shopping. So I find a property, and next thing you know, here we go. And we're not done with the last one yet. And my wife, it just drives her nuts because it's been that forever since we started doing this. We'll literally catch our breath from our last purchaserehab. Whatever. And we're under contract again. It drives her crazy.
[00:39:23] Speaker A: Well, because you never know when the deal is going to come, right? Deals are not always there. That's another thing that drives me nuts about folks that are brand new. I can't find a house that works for me. Well, do you think they're just going to fall out of the sky? You got to be hyper focused and obsessed and take a lot of time to find the right one that's going to work for you and your family.
And I agree with you because there are times where I will stop looking.
Right now, I'm mostly buying long term single families and I am shopping for a short term. I have been for a while, but it's slow going there for the market I'm looking in. But anyway, if I go a month or so, which is rare, but if I go two, three, four weeks without being super hyper focused on every property that comes on the market, I use realtor.com. So every single little red dot I'm completely out of practice after two weeks.
And then it's like, oh, my gosh, you got to have all those houses memorized. You need to know, oh, that yellow one over there with the split entry, this is why I don't want that one. Oh, that red brick one over here in this neighborhood? I don't want that one because of this. And if you start to slip and aren't memorizing all those deals and all those properties and staying tuned into your market, then bad things, you're going to miss a deal. You're going to miss a deal. So always be shopping, abs.
Always be shopping.
[00:40:58] Speaker C: I feel like we just did another podcast.
[00:41:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
Two for one special here today on the 2024 preseason sizzle. All right, so again, what else do we need to know? I think we've covered a lot here. It's been a very wonderful experience. Always a pleasure yaking at you. But my thing is, again, to recap, don't freak out.
Feb. 27 right now. I think that in a matter of days, you're going to get. That's my goal once again, I think we're setting a goal right now. Two bookings in the next seven days, seven to ten days.
[00:41:33] Speaker C: I do think it's drastically important to watch your fundamentals do what works for you over and over.
Don't let your stuff slip, but don't overthink and go way over the other way either. Understand? The things that worked for you are going to continue working for you've got to stay on it. You guys keep tweaking things, obviously, but don't let go of that stuff.
[00:41:53] Speaker A: I'm going to call you out right now. I'm going to call you out. Not you, but the listener. I'm going to call your ass out. Did you go two months without looking at your listing and then open your calendar and realize you didn't have any bookings?
Because that's your fault.
You got to pay attention. It's just like those red dots on realtor.com. If you're not paying attention to the empty nights on your vacation rental calendar, they won't get booked. So doesn't mean it's too late. Matter of fact, right now is probably the perfect time, and I hope you enjoyed your offseason. That's another thing, man. We work hard in the season. The season is starting. These folks are coming in. They're going to be needy, and we need to accommodate them and show them a good time on their vacation, man. It's about having a good time.
These are hardworking folks, and they deserve to come in and be paid attention to and have a nice place with clean sheets, that smells good and looks good, and a nice place to cook breakfast for their family. That needs to be the focus right now. That needs to be the focus.
Is my house ready to provide a great vacation?
And we're coming into this.
You blink your eye, it's September, so here we are, man. And it's never too late to get ready, so let's get it going.
All right, well, if Tim doesn't have anything else, we wish you all a very awesome 2024 booking season. Make sure that the guest stays number one. If you always have the guest first in mind, you will prevail. All right? Because without them, even when they're mean and not doing cool stuff or they leave a four star, whatever the case may be, they're still number one. And if you keep the guest number one in your mind, in your heart, you're going to do better than the next guy. And welcome back to paying attention to your vacation rental for 2024. And we'll catch you next Tuesday. And the shorttermshop.com. We love you. Wait a minute. I think I do have a quote. I've got a quote. And it's perfect for today's episode. There it is. Okay.
Decision paralysis is not likely to occur until the number of options moves past six.
Think about that. Oh, Keith brothers, a book I'm just finishing right now called decisive.
Very good book, in which he mentioned several times one of my very favorite books of all time, which is paradox of choice. But it's two brothers, the Heath brothers. Decision paralysis is not likely to occur until the number of options moves past six.
Food for thought. Long hair. Luke, on behalf of Tim, the madman of the mountains, sasquatch on short term rental management, asking you to please don't overthink it.
You close.
