Episode Transcript
[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.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: Short Term Rental Management. Here we are. Got my Merry Christmas sign which I don't really know when this is going to come out and I don't care, man. I'm here to celebrate Christmas and the holidays and just love this time of year. So if this is coming out in the new year, I do apologize. But here we are on Short Term Rental Management. Today we're going to talk about the county, the people, taxes and the fact that you matter and you are important to the community.
On Short Term Rental Management, Short Term.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: Shop plus has live and recorded sessions on the following topics.
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[00:01:51] Speaker B: So I'm very passionate about this topic. It is very important to me. I live in one of the towns where I quote unquote invest.
I live in a vacation town, very small town. Really. At the end of the day it is. It's a small community. Where I live only has like 1520000 people actually living here, but millions of people coming on vacation every year. Now again, there are a hundred different ways to do short term rental, overnight rental. You can do it in a metro market. Hell, you could do it in apartment units if you want to. If it's legal. The way I do it is in vacation towns. It is a quote unquote hotel alternative. It is a situation where a couple of families are getting together and they want to have a kitchen and maybe a garage, maybe a swimming pool of their own. And you can do that in a single family, in some cases in some markets. But I've been spending some time watching some YouTube videos about tax dollars and beach restorations and erosion, et cetera. And that is what has brought me to this topic. Okay, so I do want to mention, as always, the guest is number one. Before we get super deep into this, I'm writing this down, taking notes. The guest is number one.
The guest is always number one. Okay? It does not get talked about enough in rental real Estate. And the same holds true for long term rental real estate. Any kind of rental real estate. The guest is number one. The tenant is number one. The retail space is number one.
Without them, we cannot function. They also determine the market. What they are willing to spend determines what our rents are worth. So do not underestimate these folks. They are very important and we love them. Okay? But we're going to talk specifically about our local communities and the effect we have on them. And this should be important to you. The whole reason I'm doing this show today is because I do feel that sometimes people get too wrapped up in this dollars and cents and the spreadsheets and how much is it going to make and how much is it going to change my life when in reality I do believe Long Hair Luke Carl Cash Flow Carl, World's greatest Landlord. I do believe that if you put the guests first in the community first, you will succeed.
Truly believe that the universe is listening. Which I will give you a book suggestion on that topic. The Universe has your Back by Gabrielle Bernstein. I really did enjoy that book. When did this book come out? 2016.
Similar book on that topic that you probably have heard of, maybe even read is called the Secret. So I truly believe that the universe is listening. All right, now here's the deal. You gotta understand that there is an economic impact when it comes to your home being rented in a vacation town.
In most cases, we just need to do what the county says and do it on time and do it right. Without them, we cannot be in business. It's no different than opening a clothing store or whatever it is you are in business in their area and they deserve their cut. The tale as old as time. I will say that a lot of municipalities, counties, cities are behind the times on this subject. They got caught a bit off guard by the phenomenon of the early 2000 and tens known as Airbnb. Until this happened, we were just chugging along, renting houses. Nobody really noticed or cared. Hopefully we were paying our taxes in the county. Didn't really have it on their radar as much as they do now or city. So in the early 2010s, things changed. Airbnb became very popular. It became what is known as generic ization.
Very difficult word to pronounce. Don't ask me to do it again. All right, Genericization, which is Kleenex, Bandaid, Popsicle, Post it. Plexiglass, Velcro. Velcro is the actual brand name. Much like Kleenex, Airbnb came along and people started using it synonymously. When the proprietary name became the standard. So we band aided it, we Kleenexed it. Your grandma knows what an Airbnb is. She may not know what a VRBO is. I'm going to stay in an Airbnb. So this did change things a little bit. The county didn't really know how to react, and it became a bigger deal, and all of a sudden it was a thing. And let's face it, governments take very long times to do anything. It takes a long time for government to do anything. But if you're in an area where you're playing ball and you're paying your taxes, you should be having a good relationship with the county and things should be going well. If things are not going well, you're going to find out and they're going to start being weird about taxes and weird about beach replenishments, etc. So my whole point is that you've got to put the county first. The community matters. We see too many people coming in from out of state, buying properties in vacation towns that have never been there and have no intention of ever going there and don't care. Now, am I saying that you are a criminal for doing such a thing? Absolutely not. But you do need to care about the community. There have been thousands, thousands of podcasts on this subject. Investing, remotely, managing from a distance, finding a town where you can make a buck in real estate, and buying in that town and going for it. And hey, there's nothing wrong with that, all right? I have done several of those podcasts myself, because the truth is, if you live in an area where you can't make money in rental real estate, and you like rental real estate, you're going to have to go somewhere else. All right? But I'm just here to tell you, in the case, especially with a vacation town, you have to care a little bit. Go there, get to know the community. If for no other reason, then you're going to need to know this stuff so you can have a conversation with your guests about it, get involved, spend your money. We in vacation towns see time and time again people coming in from other areas, getting drunk and puking in our town and going home. And to be honest with you, sometimes we can get a little sick of it. For the most part, you get thick skin, you get used to it, no big deal, you move on. You know what you're getting yourself into. It is not a good idea. On the other hand, of that other side of that coin, to be the person that moves to one of these towns and complains constantly that everybody in the house next door is from somewhere else and goes away. You need to know what you're getting into when you move to a town like this. Those people drive me nuts. Those get off my lawn people. It's like you knew you were moving to a town full of people on vacation. You probably found this town because you went there on vacation, decided you wanted to have a permanent vacation. As Aerosmith would say, you move there and now you're mad that people are on vacation and puking. That doesn't make any sense. We gotta stop. Don't. None of this get off my lawn crap. All right, listen, we're not gonna do that. But you know, you do need to know a little something about the community, care about the community. It's a big deal. All right. I just wanted to have one podcast about caring about your community, being plugged into your community. Amongst the 10,000 podcasts about buying in a town you've never heard of, never been to, and never will go to.
[00:09:23] Speaker A: Are you having trouble trying to decide which market to buy in? No problem. That's just one of the many live sessions we offer in Short Term Shop plus, everything you need to know about buying and managing short term rentals from anywhere in the world right at your fingertips.
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[00:10:07] Speaker B: So let's talk about tourism dollars. I read a statistic that the average. And again, this was in a small beach town that I happened to live near and invest in. Average family that books a vacation rental in this particular town. I can't say that this is a global number, but they will spend an additional $5,000 in the community while they are on vacation and then that trickles down. They go to the restaurant, they spend money, they tip the waitress, she goes and spends that money again elsewhere and it just gets spread throughout the community. So if you have two families in one house, $5,000 each family, that's $10,000 per house. Money spent on top of the room and board, the taxes, the fees, et cetera. Pretty cool. Because I gotta be honest, there's not a lot of other resources in these areas where I live. There's doctors, there's real estate agents, and there's people that work in the vacation industry, the tourism industry. That's all there is it's all tourism. It's all tourism. And we're grateful for these folks coming in and spending that money. We couldn't have this beautiful area without that. There's not enough jobs in the local community to facilitate a safe, beautiful way of life. There's just not. You gotta have the money coming in from elsewhere. And that's one thing I'd like the county to remember, because a lot of times the county gets a little too wrapped up with those hotel folks because the hotel folks have a lot of money and money talks, and I get that. But in certain areas, there are less hotels and more single families. Like where I live. There are no hotels in the area where I live. There aren't any. They're not. As far as I know. They're not even allowed. There's also no fast food allowed in the town that I live in. Mom and pops only, which is pretty cool.
[00:11:54] Speaker A: I like that.
[00:11:56] Speaker B: It's cool, man. So $10,000 a household coming into the area. We like that, right? Yeah, we do. We do. We like that. Let's keep that going. Keep that going. You know, I mean, I got a story for you. I got a. It was a. Not my story, but a friend of mine had a guest that A weird situation.
Won't get into too many details, but basically his guest got a dui. He was made aware of it for various random reasons. It turns out that guest was a police officer. So we had a police officer from another town coming to this town, which will remain nameless, which is a vacation town, got drunk, got a dui, and, you know, in this circumstance, I know that the community was not happy about it. The.
I was told that the police officers were not very happy that they had to pull over another police officer that was running amok in their vacation town. And I totally understand that. I would not be happy either. I think that's a bunch of bs. Can't be doing that. There's such a thing called Uber. Now, Uber can be hard to find in a small town. I get that. But you can't be doing that. Don't do that. That is the exact definition of what not to do in life. All right? So running amok and somebody else's town, don't do that. All right? So, you know, put the community first and you will succeed. Simple as that. Long story short, I've had a thousand technical difficulties today, and it's throwing me off a little bit, if you want to know the truth. But I'm doing the best I can, folks, and I love My communities, I do, I want to give back to them as much as possible, appreciate them and, and let you know that I respect you. But at the end of the day, you also do need to know that I'm doing my part by bringing in the tourism dollars with these rental homes. See, that's where it gets weird. You get a hotel that has 150 units and you got all these families going to staying in that hotel. That hotel has a lot of pull with the county. If you've got one house, county doesn't really care that much. And you might even be annoying to them in some way because you know the hotel guy doesn't like the single family or whatever it is. But the truth is, is if you're in a vacation down you town, you've got thousands of these single families that can be bigger than the hotels, a bigger financial situation than the hotels, which we love hotels. I'm not crapping on hotels. I don't even want to begin to think anybody to think that I stay in hotels all the time. Certain towns, in certain areas, in certain circumstances, hotels are better. In certain towns, certain areas and circumstances, Certain circumstances, a single family home with a washer and dryer and a garage and a driveway is better. They're different, they're used for different purposes. Different amounts of people traveling together would arrive to the conclusion as to whether to get a hotel room or a house. All right, Respect your community, get involved. Try and pay attention to what's going on in the local areas. Do a little Google search every now and then. Search your town, hit the news button, see if anything pops up. Maybe you can volunteer, maybe you can help out, you know, I mean if you got a national park in your vacation area. There you go, man. National parks, get involved with the national park. It's a wonderful thing. Maybe you donate, that park's given back to you. Maybe you should get back to it. My brother's a park ranger in national parks. That's my donation. I'm kidding. But it never gets talked about enough. Same thing in long term rental. But that's not what we're here to talk about. On short term rental management. The community needs to come first, needs to be important to you.
To a certain extent you are partnering with the community and it is your job to help. At least try and make a difference. These areas need our tourism dollars, but they need you to play ball and be nice.
Understand that the lack of vendors in a small vacation town is real. If you're used to great example, if you're used to hiring an H VAC guy in Cleveland, and now you're trying to hire an H Vac guy in Miramar Beach, Florida. It's gonna be a whole different ball game. You're gonna have two or three guys to pick from, and they're gonna be busy, and you're gonna feel like they are blowing you off and they don't care. It's a different vibe in a vacation town. Many people move to these towns because they like the vacation vibe all the time. They just straight up don't want to work that hard, you know, or there's only two or three of these guys working in this town and they're backed up, they're busy. And a lot of that goes back to the fact that not a lot of people live here, but a lot of people come. Here they come, they drop their dollars off, they go back home to Alabama or wherever they're going, and the cycle continues. All right? The people on your city council, the people at your county, they do want the community to thrive. They do. They live in the community. They work in the community. They're raising their kids in the community. So treat them with respect. Be nice to them. Yes, they need you, but you need more. You need them more than they need you in most cases. All right, Community comes first. Guest is right there on par with that too. Keep the guest and the community at the forefront. You will succeed. Short term rental management with Luke. Don't overthink it.
