Cleaning Out The Computer

[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. Welcome to Short Term Rental Management. It is Clean out the Computer day. We're gonna have a great time. I got my buddy Chuck in the house who just returned, I think last night to back to the beach here in Walton County. Is that right? [00:00:30] Speaker B: That's right. Yeah. I left cold in Maryland, and the snow behind it was 12 degrees when I got to the airport there. [00:00:36] Speaker A: Fantastic. So it's the end of the year. I don't know when you're listening to this or when it's coming out, but we. I have lists after list after list of things, and we don't always get to all of them. So right now we're gonna. We're gonna get to all of them and clean out the computer and. And talk about some ideas, the first of which is actually a really good idea or a concept. I. So I suppose, if you will. And it's. Again, it's about setting expectations. But I had a thought that when it comes to guests, which we love our guests, absolutely love our guests. They're the greatest, and we can't do it without them. But occasionally you get this guest that almost sounds. That seems like a heckler, you know, like, your house stinks. Three stars, you know, that kind of thing. And I had the. I had the idea, like, you know, you had the choice to come here. You didn't. Nobody made you come here. You got to pick this house out of thousands of other houses. Hundreds, if not. In other words, you went to the Kiss concert and you said, kiss stinks. You could have just gone to the Bon Jovi concert. Do you have any thoughts there, Chuck? [00:01:41] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. I mean, they're showing up with the wrong expectations for some reason. You know, Is it. Is it the listing? Is it the pictures? Is it. They just grabbed the first one that was available because they waited too long, you know, who knows? But it just reminds us that, you know, setting expectations doesn't stop when they read our. Our listings. You know, we've gotta. We gotta do that between there and the stay and hope that we can cut the number of those people in half at least. [00:02:08] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, and it's another. Here's another one for you. Another clean out the computer. But it's a similar concept, actually. I. Eric and I were recently talking about. It goes along the lines of like, people are people automatically don't. Like unknowns. If it's a. If it's a car, they Rent a car that they've never driven before. There's going to be things about it that they don't like. And it's mostly probably just. They're just not used to it. [00:02:38] Speaker B: It's different. [00:02:40] Speaker A: But human nature is to instinctively say, this is something I don't like, you know, so we do need to prevent that on the front end. And again, it goes back to the purple apple, as always. And it's like, hey, just so you're aware, you just bought tickets to the Kiss show. Okay. It's always our fault, right, Chuck? I mean, we're. It's always our fault. We got to hold ourselves accountable. [00:03:03] Speaker B: Right? We're not mind readers, although we're expected to be. [00:03:07] Speaker A: There is a ton of mind reading in this business. I can't tell you how many times I've caught. And again, I'm a little bit removed from the guest messaging these days. You know, I've got a larger organization, medium sized organization and that. But in the past when I was heavy in the guest communications, there were many times where I would say, you know, I don't think you actually want to rent this house. This is probably not working. This is not going to work for you. And you got to kind of. Then you got to kind of persuade them that that's true and that this whole, you know, maybe a house that had these items would be more what you're looking for. Because I read their mind. [00:03:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, you inferred from their communications, which sometimes is not hard. Other times, you know, everything sounds great. Until as we talked earlier, suddenly that two or three star review shows up. You, you thought they went away thinking they had the best vacation ever. [00:04:07] Speaker A: Absolutely. I have two more along the same lines. As we clean out the computer, I have another one in my computer that says, gonna stick with the guests. Okay. And I love you guests. I love you. Can't do it without you. Guests that go through the whole house when they first get there, in other words, you know, we noticed that there was some dust and a gum wrapper under your couch. I don't understand this, Chuck. I'm not that guy. I don't have the time to get on my hands and knees when I go to a rental or go to a hotel or wherever. I'm going to get on my hands and knees and see that there's a dust bunny and a Juicy Fruit wrapper under this couch. I can't understand that type of person, to be honest with you. I don't relate to that type of person. But these folks do Exist. [00:05:02] Speaker B: Well, I think that comes back to us hosts. Us host. We host all. Anyway, host. Not to end the platforms. I mean, for years we told people, and still do to an extent that when you come, let us know within two hours event or, or something like that if anything's wrong, go through the house and check things to make sure they're okay. I'm pretty sure. And I haven't looked at my renter agreement in a couple months, but I'm pretty sure it's in the first paragraph. So I think that's a beast we've created ourselves and we need to tame it a little bit. [00:05:32] Speaker A: Interesting. You know, you're right. And I didn't think of it that way because when I am sending that same message, which we all do at some. Usually it's usually not. It's not as obnoxious in front. Front of mind as it used to be. [00:05:46] Speaker B: Right. [00:05:46] Speaker A: But it is somewhere my brain just says, you know, I'm thinking like, if the TV's busted or won't turn on, you know, let us know. I didn't think that we were going to go looking for Juicy Fruit under the, the fridge. But. But you're right. You're right. That's probably our fault. I did have one the other day that was somewhere along those lines. And she was, I thought for sure she was going to give us a, you know, two or three star. And she was brutal. You know, little things that shat the bathtub, did this, blah, blah, blah. And it came down to. Eventually she kind of got to the point where she was worried that we were going to charge her for something. [00:06:26] Speaker B: Oh. [00:06:27] Speaker A: So eventually I just told her straight up. I was like, listen, I don't remember her name. Listen, Tamara, we're not gonna, we're not gonna charge you. Don't. You can enjoy your vacation. We're not gonna be charging you for things. So you're. You're good. And, and then the next thing I know, she's like, by the way we washed all the towels and folded them on the way out. And I was like, wow, I thought you hated us. [00:06:49] Speaker B: Yeah, it's funny how that is, I don't know, paranoia maybe. They've had one bad experience and it's scarred them for life or, or they read too much social media. I mean, no one goes on social media and goes, yeah, we had a great vacation. Bye. You know, it's, it's, you know, all the people talking about the, you know, 35 item long chore list or, you know, or the refrigerator door that falls off. You know that. I was going to say 2%, but honestly, in this industry, I don't even think it's 2%. I think it's probably less than 0.2%. So those kind of places can't survive. [00:07:32] Speaker A: So. [00:07:34] Speaker B: That'S got to be it. I have no other reasonable. [00:07:38] Speaker A: I agree. I didn't, I didn't even put two and two together there. But yeah, those guests, they go through the whole house when they get there. As always with everything we do, we've determined that it's our fault. Okay. Yeah. I have another interesting concept. Biting your tongue. Let the guests be right even when they're wrong. This is, I'm glad we're cleaning this out of the computer because it does need to come, it needs to be talked about, but it's not a whole show worth of material here. So you got to put your pride aside. The prob. I think the problem here is that we're so proud of our houses because we work hard on them. And this is not just a long term rental where you're turning it into a, a box of four walls and they're, they're to there to make it their own space for the duration of their living in it, which is going to be a minimum of a year in most cases. This is a different thing where we have curated this space and we put time and effort and design and emotions and everything in the book into this, into this home. And I think that's where it can get us in trouble. And again, it goes back to that kiss thing we were talking about to a certain extent, because you're sitting there like. All this, my heart and all of my being to write you these songs and you're coming to my show and telling me they stink. So somewhat related to that topic, but biting your tongue is definitely some, something that we need to be very conscious of when it comes to messaging guests. Is that true? [00:09:24] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. You know, and this isn't new. You know, this phrase has been around for probably 100 years and that is the customer's always right. I've always considered that to be not 100% accurate. The customer is not always right, but you need to make them feel like they are. And you know, I think you hit the nail on the head. The difference between a long term rental, short term rental is you're giving somebody pretty much a blank palette when they move in. They're going to bring their own furniture, their own decor, all that kind of stuff. But on short term rentals, we're putting ourselves in there. You know, we're picking the colors, we're doing the shot skis and choosing the. The furniture and the appliances, and we take it personally when someone has an issue with any of those things. We can't. It's just stuff. [00:10:10] Speaker A: Yeah. And I can't tell you how many times biting my tongue has helped for multiple issues with guests. For instance, here's a perfect example. Perfect example. Which was inadvertent. I didn't do it on purpose. I. I had a guest message me about a service animal, and I've changed my system there quite a bit over the years. I used to get so offended when they were trying to do this, because I'm like, do you not understand that this house has rules? We do things a certain way around here. And, you know, I don't care anymore, to be honest with you. I just don't care. And now all I do, really, my system there, which everything's a standard operating procedure, of course, but my system there is simply, sure, we love support animals, and here's Airbnb's rules on that subject. And if, you know, that's it, we just send them the link to the Airbnb section where it has the rules for the service animals, and that's it. Now, this particular one, I was running and gunning, and it was a. My office manager was off that day, and so I was in charge, and I shot her. We have a canned message. So it's not AI. I don't do it AI. I have a can message. You just click the little thought bubble on the bottom on my Manage My Management software, and it pulls up all of our canned messages, which are different than auto messages. And we've got the one that says service animal. So I click that and I hit send. Well, it didn't send. And I found out later it didn't send because we used a tiny URL in there, and Airbnb blocked it, even though I was literally directing them to an Airbnb website, you know, but it blocked a tiny URL. And so the response never happened, which was, again, inadvertently biting the tongue. And she never responded. She just moved on, moved on and booked another house. So I didn't even have to deal with the service animal. But that's a perfect example on that one, because I think a lot of times with a service animal or something like that, people get mad, like I used to, back when I was a young pup. And that kind of stuff bothered me, which I don't know why it did, but it did. And looking Back on it, I'm like, man, I should have just not responded to these people. They would have moved on and found somewhere else, you know, so. Perfect example where that comes in handy. [00:12:38] Speaker B: Yeah, but if it's an inquiry, you know, that doesn't help you either on Airbnb. Right, Right. [00:12:43] Speaker A: But she did get the auto message that said, you know, we'll get back to you as soon as possible. [00:12:48] Speaker B: There you go. [00:12:49] Speaker A: Whatever the hell it says, you know, we just never got back to her. [00:12:53] Speaker B: Right. [00:12:54] Speaker A: Because by the time I noticed that that message hadn't sent my canned service animal message, she'd moved on and booked something else. So I could. I could have sent it again at that time, but I was like, why. Why am I bothering with this? Just leave it be, you know? [00:13:10] Speaker B: Yeah, excellent example. [00:13:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:14] Speaker B: And I mean, nowadays, you know, you and I, you know, we tell people, if you can't get rid of the emotion, you know, use one of the AI tools just to hash it out. And that takes a lot of the emotion out of it, too. [00:13:25] Speaker A: But. [00:13:28] Speaker B: Yeah, you. You. You can't. We can't do that. And because you never know that person on the other end who they're connected to, what influence they might have, things come back to haunt you. And now, you know, we know that the channels, or at least some of them, are also monitoring messages very heavily. We don't want them to start drawing some type of incorrect profile about us either. So, yeah, you're right. [00:13:56] Speaker A: Love it. Okay, I have another note here, two notes, actually, that are very similar. The broken hot tub flowchart. [00:14:10] Speaker B: No pun intended. [00:14:12] Speaker A: Yeah. So I guess, let me ask you, what's your. What's your broken hot tub, you know, procedure? [00:14:19] Speaker B: Well, if a guest contact. If I can actually have interactive communication with the guest, and that's not always possible, but, you know, I ask them to check a couple of simple things, you know, and I'll tell them I just need to check these before I send someone out and my next process, you know, if none of those work, you know, which is simple, what is it? Show me a picture of the control panel. Is it getting power? You know, is it. Is it bubbling but just not hot, or is it hot and not bubbling? Whatever the case might be, then I'll send out. I'll call my hot tub guy. If he's available right away, that's it. You know, he'll go out, take care of it. If he's not, I'll get a handyman out there. To who? You know, most handymen in the markets that have hot tubs. They've got a list of things that they know to check, too, that are beyond what you want the guests doing, but at least that makes the guest feel like something's happening. You know, we're paying attention to them, we're on it, we're doing our best. And then the hot tub guy. I'm to a point now where I pay attention to what channel the person has booked on. And, you know, we know that the different channels operate under different guidelines, and I'll automatically send them a small refund and maybe something to try to make them happy, whether it's, you know, a cheese and cracker plate and cookies or something, just to get their mind off it, you know, let them know that we're sorry, but it was out of our control. [00:15:51] Speaker A: Okay, hold on. I'm making the flowchart as we speak. As. As a matter of fact, I'm gonna. I'm gonna provide the flowchart with this podcast. [00:15:58] Speaker B: Oh, I would have gone slower then. [00:15:59] Speaker A: No, I. I need your help because I do have a couple of mine. Mine is somewhat different than yours. I have a video in my guidebook. That's where I lead folks to. Do you have that? [00:16:09] Speaker B: Yep. [00:16:10] Speaker A: Okay. And you just stole this from the Internet, I would assume from maybe your hot tub manufacturer or something? [00:16:17] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I made. I make sure that all my hot tubs have Balboa controls, so they all operate pretty much the same. You know, the. The only differences might be some of the accessories that are added on. So one video does it correct. I'm sorry. [00:16:32] Speaker A: We call that a top side. I believe that's the top side. Okay, so make sure all top sides. All hot tub top sides are the same brand. [00:16:41] Speaker B: Yep. [00:16:42] Speaker A: Which I agree that Balboa seems to be the. The best one going. [00:16:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:48] Speaker A: Okay, so guess as the. We're making a chart flowchart right now, baby. Guess A. It's not working. Then we maybe a side note here, parentheses kind of thing. We're going to say, make sure that they all have the same brand top side. And then we send them the. I would send them the link to the section of my guidebook that has that video. Is that what you would do? [00:17:09] Speaker B: Yep. Goes directly to that page. [00:17:12] Speaker A: Send link from guidebook with Balboa video. And be honest with you, most of the time, that's the end of it for me. Usually they are like, oh, whoops, I pushed too many buttons. And then they. Usually they're smart. Have to figure it out. Figure it out. [00:17:28] Speaker B: Y. Yeah. And stuff. I said Picks up. It kind of picks up after that. Or if they're describing something I know that's not covered in a video, you know, like they're telling me it's, it's, you know, not hot or only one side of the hot tub is, is, you know, bubbling. Those things I know are not in the video. So. [00:17:48] Speaker A: Ladies and gentlemen, Smarter Short Term Rentals is now available. The new book from Avery Carle, Smarter Short Term Rentals. Build a dynamic real estate business and outpost the competition. If you want to take your short term rental to the next level, pick up the new book, Smarter Short Short Term Rentals. Wherever books are sold. And you do need two hot tub repair guys at least. Yeah, handyman, like you said. Maybe if the. If the one or two guys, I'm gonna. Usually I'm gonna go straight to the hot tub guy and I got two. And if neither one of them answers, then I'll see whoever the hell will answer. This is unfortunately, one that you want to try and remedy in a timely manner. They've really got their hopes up about these hot tubs. And if it's not functional, they're. They're disappointed big time, you know, so we don't. We don't want to disappoint folks, so. Okay. [00:19:00] Speaker B: That's like not having hot water in their cabin. [00:19:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Call repairman one. He doesn't answer. We call Repairman two. That's the flow. All right. [00:19:08] Speaker B: Yep. And like I said, sometimes I'll try to, if. If no one's available, if those hot tub guys say they can't get there till tomorrow, you know, and I've even gone on to number three. I'll try to get somebody out there anyway just to make the guests feel better that something is happening. Something is really happening. So. [00:19:27] Speaker A: And I'll put at the top. I'm actually going to put it at the top here. Cleaner says cleaner. Cleaner is to make sure the tub is clean and settings are correct. [00:19:34] Speaker B: Yes. [00:19:35] Speaker A: Do you have a temperature you prefer your cleaner to leave your hot tub at? [00:19:40] Speaker B: It depends. If. If it's the same day turnover, then it's got to be 104. It's got to be ready for that. You know, it's close to being ready for that next guest. But if I've got a day or two or more. Well, I'd say probably more than two days. I haven't. Go ahead and put it on bypass, which gets it up to 88. And then I'll have an inspector go out the same day that someone arrives and they'll go ahead and push it up to 104. [00:20:06] Speaker A: Don't you think it costs you more to get the inspector to go out there than it would be to just leave it at 104? [00:20:12] Speaker B: No. After a couple of days, I want the inspector out there anyway. [00:20:15] Speaker A: I see. Yeah. [00:20:16] Speaker B: So. Or it might be my regular inspector and I just delay them a day or two. [00:20:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Or I just use my cleaner. If. If we have a. We have a more than three day system. If it's more than three days, we do go back out and. And, you know, usually want to run a vacuum around the baseboards and things like that. [00:20:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:31] Speaker A: Okay. All right. The hot tub, the broken hot tub flowchart has been created. We're going to put that together right now and we'll put it in the show notes or a link to it or a picture or something. [00:20:42] Speaker B: Well, you know, you can also take that flowchart and just do a global search and replace hot tub with refrigerator. Refrigerator with grill. Grill. I mean, the process we talked about is pretty much the same for almost any appliance. [00:20:56] Speaker A: Fairly similar refrigerator. I'm going to trash it. If it's not. If it's actually not working, I'm getting a new one. But as you know, 90% of the time it's not broken. It's just that you put three warm cases of beer in there 10 minutes ago. [00:21:10] Speaker B: Yep. [00:21:10] Speaker A: And it's going to take half a day for those to get cold, you know? [00:21:14] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And it's going to. Instead of them getting cold, it's going to bring the refrigerator down, so. [00:21:20] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. [00:21:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:22] Speaker A: The rest of this stuff's going to get warm, too. All right. Cleaning out the computer. We've got another topic, which is the new host boost. Oh, boy. So that's not my point, you know, because some folks are trying to say that the new host boost is a myth, or maybe it used to be a thing and it's not anymore, but we can talk about that. But I think my original point when I put this in the computer is the disappointment when it's over. That's the point. You know, we see that all the time. Okay. You know, oh, man, I'm not getting any bookings. I'm not getting any bookings. You're not getting any bookings because you already got all your bookings. We see that all the time with new hosts. You go live, you're excited, you're changing prices every day, which is great. We want you to be doing that. I'm still doing that after 10 years, but two months in, especially if you go live in the wintertime and you're coming into spring, you find yourself March 1st, no more bookings are coming in. You're not getting the ding on your phone anymore. The, the endorphin push from the ding, you know, and then all of a sudden you're disappointed and you're like, oh, man, nobody likes my property anymore. This isn't going well. Well, did you. You. I mean, hello, you're not. You have nothing to book anymore. [00:22:48] Speaker B: Right? [00:22:49] Speaker A: So what are your thoughts exactly? [00:22:52] Speaker B: That. And they have changed. You know, Airbnb makes no secret about it. You don't get a boost anymore with their. That 20% off. And it's only for three bookings. Vrbo changed theirs recently. The 20% off is now time based. It's not like the first three bookings. It's 20% off for a certain amount of time. And now the, The. The thing is though, if you're using those and they work, you're free to create your own 20 discount. And that means it's not. It shouldn't make a difference. You know, at some point you, you know, you, you got to take the. What do they call it? The. The training wheels off, you know, put your big boy pants on and figure out how to do your own pricing and your own discounts. So. [00:23:40] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yep. So if you're new and you're sitting there saying, oh, I'm not getting any bookings anymore, it's because you don't have anything to book. And, and the, The. The new listing boost may or may not be a myth. We. We. We never knew if it was real or not. Let's be, you know, be honest. We. We never knew if it was real. It seemed to be something that was happening, but it's hard to say. So. [00:24:06] Speaker B: Well, years ago, Airbnb used to say that you would get a boost in the. In the search results. I mean, they. They were pretty straightforward. But then it kind, you know, another one of those quiet changes they make. So I'm not sure Verbo ever said it, but just having the 20% discount alone was enough to, to help. [00:24:28] Speaker A: Yep, absolutely. All right, new topic from cleaning out the computer. We love your house, but. Be prepared for the butt is the note that I wrote down. I love that one. Isn't that fun? It happens almost every day too. You know, we just got here. We just checked in. We love your house. But. And that. But really takes the wind out of your sails, you know, it does. It's just brutal and almost to the point where when I see that coming, of course I get. Again, I have. My office handles a lot of that stuff for me, which is great. But I do peek in. I. I'm very attentive to what's going on, and sometimes I don't even look, or I'll wait till later to look. That kind of thing. You know, let somebody else handle it, and then I'll go, what did this pro. What was their problem? Oh, the freaking. The. The big red wrapper under the fridge. Here we go. You know, so how do you handle the butt? How do you handle the butt, Chuck? [00:25:27] Speaker B: This isn't that different than our. It's not that different from our first topic. You know, you know, the people that find things wrong. You know, we don't take it personally. And in some cases, it's actually really good feedback. It's something you didn't expect, like, but, you know, we found a mouse behind the refrigerator. Okay, Those things are good to know. We'll take care of it. And you. You address it like you take care of anything else. Yeah, I hate it when I get that when people are leaving, you know, we had a good time. [00:26:00] Speaker A: But. [00:26:03] Speaker B: That point, you know, you do your best to try to save the good review and fix it before the next one. If it's something that really needs fixing. [00:26:10] Speaker A: I think we got to take it as a positive. It is very easy to take it as a negative and get kind of down on yourself. Oh, man, there's the. But. But just if you're new, just be aware the butt's coming. All right? Yep, the butt's coming. It's coming. It's coming more often than not, probably. Or you get a guest that just doesn't communicate at all, you know, so we love your house. But. [00:26:33] Speaker B: But. Or the guest you never hear anything from. They don't respond to anything at all except the request for review. And it's a. It's not a five star. And they don't even write anything. [00:26:49] Speaker A: Those. [00:26:49] Speaker B: Those are great. [00:26:51] Speaker A: But. [00:26:52] Speaker B: And. And really, it's. It's the same thing. It's. We loved it, but it's just. They're not saying it. [00:26:57] Speaker A: Absolutely. Absolutely. Man, I got. I got some good ones here. Well, I think they're good. How about. Is it worth looking twice for an extra $15 a night? And here's what I mean by that. When you're pricing your property. [00:27:18] Speaker B: Are. [00:27:19] Speaker A: Don't may or may not price it in mind with. With coming back to change the price again in mind. In other words, today I'M going to drop it $15 and then tomorrow I'll come back and drop it another $15. Well, why can't we just drop it to drop it $30 and not waste tomorrow's time? [00:27:39] Speaker B: That's the, that's the financial side of our brain saying, well, we might be able to book it for only 15 off instead of 30 off. [00:27:45] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I say skip the $15. Drop it to whatever you're going to drop it to to get it over with and move on with your life most of the time. [00:27:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, and you know, it probably depends on the time of year, too. I mean, this time of year, winter, most markets, we're looking at probably two, three day stays. I'm not talking about the holidays. I'm about January, February, early March, you know, at 15 bucks is going to turn into 30, but 30 is only going to be 60. So do it. You're right. Do it. On the other hand, summer, when we're looking at longer stays in most markets, I could see wanting to step down. [00:28:23] Speaker A: So 100%. [00:28:26] Speaker B: That's the band aid off quick or slow. [00:28:29] Speaker A: Right, Right. Ramp it. [00:28:32] Speaker B: Yeah, Tear off there. You don't need those hairs. [00:28:37] Speaker A: I got another funny one here that says, do you actually want to rent this place? And this topic comes up all the time, actually. You know, I see with the noobs and the nervous nellies in there, worried about instant book. Oh, my goodness. This instant book. I have to communicate with every guest before they come in my house and oh my goodness. And they're sitting there watching their cameras and oh, this guest stained my sheets. How dare they? How dare you stain my sheets. You see this type all the time. And to that I say, do you even really want to rent this damn house? Or is it your second home that you need to be pristine all the time? Because maybe you don't want to rent this house. [00:29:21] Speaker B: Right? [00:29:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:23] Speaker B: You're inviting strangers in to use your place, so get over it. Yeah, I think that's an issue of letting go. I mean, we're, you know, we're parents. We, we understand how hard it was to let, let go of our kids hand when we dropped them off at school or someone else's house for a party. It, in many cases for the newbies, it's, you know, their house is like their kid. They're, they're, they're, they're having trouble letting that go of the hand. [00:29:49] Speaker A: That's true. I, you got me there. I, I take a picture with my kids every morning. I take the kids to School. And every morning I make them take a picture with me and someday they're probably going to say they're not going to do that anymore, but I do, and I give them a big hug and. And Nash, my son, he always runs back out and hugs me a second time and it's. It's. Yeah, that is good. [00:30:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Your house didn't go do that, though. [00:30:13] Speaker A: No. Get over it. Let the house get some dings and dents. Who cares? [00:30:17] Speaker B: Yeah. It's character. [00:30:19] Speaker A: Yeah. What are you going to do? Not let your kid ride their bike, you know, because you're worried you're going to break their leg? No, let it break its leg. [00:30:25] Speaker B: Right. [00:30:26] Speaker A: I'm kidding. Not the kid. Let the house break its leg. [00:30:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. You just fix it. Even if you were living in it, that would happen, probably. [00:30:35] Speaker A: Absolutely. All right, new topic. As we clean out the machine here, it's easier to find, or it may be easier to find cleaners if you purchase in the off season. I think so. Cleaners are, you know, especially on the beach, I think in the. You know, I actually saw a big post the other day that was the cleaners talking in the cleaner group. What. What do you do in the off season that most of them said? Instacart. [00:31:06] Speaker B: Yep. [00:31:08] Speaker A: So if you purchase, you know, I think this has. Goes along the lines with a lot of folks are like worried or nervous to purchase in the off season or whatever, but there's some per. There's a lot of perks. [00:31:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:18] Speaker A: Getting it ready, having time to go live, you know, if you go live in April, you already missed, you know, you should have had April booked in February or at least getting some momentum, you know, but. But yeah, I think that is true. I think that if you purchase in the off season or. Or if you're looking for a new cleaner, if you're looking for a new cleaner, it's easier to do that in January. [00:31:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:44] Speaker A: So maybe if you're having a problem with the cleaner, maybe you don't. Maybe you hold on until after Christmas. [00:31:50] Speaker B: It's also easier to test out new cleaners during a slower season when you're not back to. Back to back. You know, if. If you pick someone up, you thought they were going to be great in the very first time, they disappointed you. You know, you got a little bit of time, you're not frantic. So I think it's a really good point. [00:32:08] Speaker A: Love that one. Yep, that's a good point. So I'm not saying don't buy a house in summertime, but you know there are some advantages. And again, if you're looking to get rid of your cleaner or make a change, you might want to wait until after the holidays. [00:32:25] Speaker B: Yep. [00:32:26] Speaker A: All right. All right. I like it. I got another one here. This one's really good. Did you notice because your bank account was empty, this is being reactive rather than proactive? We see this a lot. I see. I see a lot of people complaining on Facebook, such things like this, that the economy stinks, they can't get any bookings. Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba. And it's because their mortgage hit and they didn't have enough money to cover it, and they got an overdraft notification or something like that. So be careful with. Obviously you don't want to do that. That's not something we're looking to do. And it can happen. It can happen. You did a rehab or whatever the case. [00:33:14] Speaker B: Sure. [00:33:14] Speaker A: You know, rented a golf cart for the year and it cost you nine grand or something like that and you forgot to replenish or whatever. But in general, the lesson here is to be proactive. [00:33:28] Speaker B: Yep. [00:33:30] Speaker A: Fix the issue before it happens. It is. [00:33:32] Speaker B: And you should always know what's. Generally what's going on in your bank account. It. You know, it kind of helps to create like a little spreadsheet that of a cash flow calendar. What day of the month different things are going to hit. You know, mortgage. I'm going to simplify this. Mortgage on the first electric on the 10th, you know, depending on your situation, maybe the insurance bill on the 20th. And just glance at that every so often to check your account and make sure it looks like that the money's going to be there. Don't wait until you get a notice. [00:34:08] Speaker A: So. Yeah, absolutely. All right, one more. This is back to the noobs again. Cleaning out the. Cleaning out the machine. I have a. I have a sticky note on my desktop that says home warranties are worthless. I have had exactly one home warranty in my life, and it was worthless. I hated the whole thing. I don't know why I bothered. I didn't bother. Some real estate agent involved or whatever threw it into the deal because they got a kickback. I don't know how it worked, but my water heater died. I called the. The. This was again, I was new. Right. I was young. I was young pup. At least 10 years ago. And the. The company said, blah, blah, blah. I don't remember. They ended up cutting me a check rather than like fixing it or whatever. You know, they were like. It was almost like a A deductible type of a situation where they basically, like, they were like, here's how much we'll give you for this. And then you're done with the end of the home warranty. Basically, yeah. I want to say the check was like 600 bucks. So they contributed 600 towards the water heater, and that was the end of the warranty. And it just. The process wasn't worth it. It really wasn't worth it. It was a hundred hoops to jump through and waiting for this check and making 19 phone calls, and it's just not my thing. I can understand why it might work for somebody. It's not for me. You ever done one? Do you like them? [00:35:48] Speaker B: I haven't done one for years. And it came with a house I bought. First time I used it, I think it was on the H vac. And it was a terrible experience. Terrible. You know, it took like a month to get it repaired and then they only covered a portion of it. They depreciated it. The guys that were part of the warranty system, you know, weren't your best, weren't the best quality people and had to make six or seven visits. It. It was a horrible, horrible experience. And I've talked to trades people, you know, and the good companies that are busy, that have good staffs, they don't need to tie in with those warranty companies. And they don't because they also only get paid, you know, a percentage on the dollar, and it's just not worth it to them either. So you're not getting the best trades people either. [00:36:35] Speaker A: Yeah, it's not my thing. Yeah, they're going to try and send their own people out there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not my thing. I'm rather. I'd rather run and gun. Let's get this problem solved and then let's get this going. It's just. To me, it's kids. It's, it's. It's house, husband crap, housewife garbage. It's not my thing. But anyway, on that note, had a great time cleaning out the machine today. We should do this more often. [00:36:57] Speaker B: We should. [00:36:58] Speaker A: Got any words of wisdom? [00:37:01] Speaker B: Hang tight. We're sitting here. This will probably go live right around the end of the year. Winter's coming. It's here. Get ready for spring. Be ready. [00:37:10] Speaker A: That's right, baby. We can find Chuck on sesplus.com. he's a coach and he'd be happy to help you with all of your overnight rental needs and work you through your dilemmas of your own, but all right. We love you, Short term rental management. Don't overthink it. [00:37:29] Speaker B: Yep. Thanks for stopping in.