[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 everyone to the Disney pod. Oh man, this has been a long time coming. Been so excited to get this thing rocking and rolling and a bunch of Disney fans on the program today. So I'll go ahead and introduce everybody. First we got the boss, which is Avery.
Avery Carl, the brains and the beauty behind the short Term shop and Disney mom extraordinaire.
We got Brooklyn. I'm gonna go just in my screen here. Brooklyn on the top left who just came back from Disney, been to Disney many times. She's a multiple short term rental owner and coach for Short Term Shop plus and many other awesome things here at the shop. Got Jason, who lives in the area and is a coach for the shop. Does some loan, mortgage on the side and does all sorts of things real estate and owns a ton of his own rental properties as well. And I got Mike who sells properties in the Kissimmee area and total rock star. And I've got Natalie who sells properties in the Smokies but owns in Kissimmee and just came back from there yesterday. And I got Wade who used to be the biggest, baddest, most awesome real estate agent in the Kissimmee Disney market. Moved a couple years ago to the Smoky market but still owns in the Kissimmee area. I got Coach Jim who's from short term shop plus who is a 20 year Disney vacation Club owner and a Disney fan extraordinaire. Owns properties in both Florida and East Tennessee and owns and operates his own overnight rentals. And we got Chuck Kramer, last but not least, certainly not least, the greatest of all time, the ninja of numbers and been in the Disney business a very long time. His wife worked for Disney for 18 years and Disney Vacation Club member is still to this day. Lived in Orlando for many, many years. Currently lives in Destin but owns properties all over Hell's Half Acre. So there you go everybody. That's today's podcast guest page panel including myself with Luke here, the long hair billionaire if you will. But anyway, not now. Maybe I should take that B off of the front of that. But let's get started. Talk about Disney. So gonna go to Brooklyn first. She just came back. Brooklyn. What were you seeing while you were down there with the children?
[00:02:42] Speaker B: Yeah, lots of people when we were down there. We went to a Mickey's not so scary. There were several of those that week that we were there and they were all sold out.
So lots of people down there.
[00:02:55] Speaker A: All right, Natalie, you just came back. What was your experience?
[00:02:58] Speaker B: Super packed.
I will say that it was as. So we.
[00:03:05] Speaker A: Do.
[00:03:05] Speaker B: We do the part.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: Yes, please, please do. Give us a little bit of your resume, if you will.
[00:03:10] Speaker B: Yeah, okay. Okay. So we. My kids are currently grown. Ish.
And we do Disney a little different, obviously, these days than when they were.
We pop in the parks. We have annual passes, and we pop in the parks for a few hours in the evening just to get out and about.
But I will tell you that one of the evenings that we were at Magic Kingdom, so we have been going five to 10 times a year since 2011, and it was the. It was so packed for fireworks that I think the last time I saw it, that packed for fireworks was the one time, many, many years ago that we were there for, like, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day.
It was insane. I wasn't actually sure what was going on. It was so insane.
[00:04:03] Speaker A: I'm close friends with your husband, and I get the impression you guys actually enjoy it when it's busy.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: We do. Yeah. So we're not.
We're not trying to ride rides or whatever. We're just there for the atmosphere. And obviously, don't get me wrong, we love it when no one's there.
But when it's packed, you get the full. Like, it's like you can just feel the excitement from everybody, you know, And I'm not trying to ride a ride or. Or any of that, so I don't care about wait times. But.
But yeah, we do. We enjoy it just as much because we love. Well, first of all, we love seeing the tourism because as people who run vacation rentals, that feels like money, right? That feels like money to us.
Yeah. Same thing with living in the Smokies. When things are packed, I'm. I'm happy where most locals are not happy. So, yeah, love to see it packed.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: Did you stay in your own property? Do you stay in your property sometimes or do you stay on property sometimes? How does that work?
[00:05:02] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:05:02] Speaker C: So.
[00:05:03] Speaker B: So we are.
We do. We've only owned since last year or early this year, late last year.
We do stay in our property. We enjoy it.
We actually did not think that we would because we enjoy staying on property so much. We are yacht club people.
That's our property of choice. Also enjoy Coronado Springs, but we do stay in our property because we have come to enjoy it. And the guys, Wade and Mike, they'll be able to tell you more about all the different resorts. But our resort is amazing. It is very it is as well manicured as a Disney property.
[00:05:45] Speaker A: Which is what, by the way? Which is. Where are we?
[00:05:48] Speaker B: Windsor Hills.
[00:05:49] Speaker A: Got it. All right. And this time you stayed in your own property.
[00:05:52] Speaker B: We stayed, we did both. We stayed in our own property and then we stayed a couple of days on property because we haven't done that in a while. And just to get the full, full experience.
[00:06:04] Speaker A: We got it. And if my math is correct, you're saying you have and not living in Florida, by the way, you have been to Disney somewhere around 75 times a gajillion.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: Yeah. So we raised our kids in Savannah, so it's only four hours from there. So we actually, we raised them taking them very, very frequently because we stayed at Fort Wilderness, the campground. So it was, it's very affordable to do it that way. And we did it the budget friendly way when the kids were little. And then as they got bigger, I actually did a stint working for Disney when the kids were like late middle school, early high school.
And that is when we started really getting into staying at some of the other properties. That's when we fell in love with Yacht Club. And that's where we stay since somewhere around 2018.
[00:06:54] Speaker A: Wonderful. All right, I'm going to go to Avery, also a yacht club lady, although Boardwalk has been the go to most recently, which of course is right next door. And we are going to about that quite a bit. As far as the resorts and getting to know them, we think that that is extremely important if you're going to rent in this town to get to know the resorts. But Avery, what kind of lady are you there at Disney? And we are going and I, I think it's 36 days, give or take. So anything you're looking forward to on this trip?
[00:07:25] Speaker D: Yeah, so I am strictly here for the kids lady at Disney World. I just like to see the kids excited and have a good time. So I like to stay in that beach Club, Yacht Club, Boardwalk area because having two little kids, it's really difficult to keep lunch and dinner and food reservations. And if you're not careful at Disney World, if you miss a reservation, you could end up not being able to eat, which we've learned from the hard way on our first trip. So I like to stay right there because you can just walk into Epcot basically anytime in the back door of Epcot and be able to feed the kids from, from the, the food pavilions instead of having to make a full on reservation. So I like that one. And plus Epcot for us, for our family at, at this point is not a full day thing. So we'll go do a full day at Magic Kingdom or a full day at Hollywood and then just go into Epcot, maybe do one. There's only two rides that we really, really. Well, no, it's not true. We've, we've graduated a lot. But the, we really like the kids, really like Frozen and Ratatouille and now just in the past two or three months, Guardians of the Galaxy. So we'll go like ride one ride in there.
But we found lately kind of a natural evolution of needing an actual vacation rental instead of staying on Disney property. We're bringing my mom with us this next trip. So when you move from four people to five people, there's significantly less options on property at Disney World. You know, a lot of people say, well, why would you stay in a vacation rental? Why would anybody want to stay in a vacation rental when they could stay on Disney property? Well, it starts to get extremely expensive and if you just walk around Disney World for a while and look at all the people in there, you think, how does every, how did this many people afford to do this? Because this was extremely expensive. So you start to realize that there is a really big need and probably always will be for those properties that can, can accommodate, you know, five people. Plus as soon as a family has three kids instead of two, starts to get a little tighter in the on property situation 100%.
[00:09:40] Speaker A: And I've actually checked almost every day to see if we could upgrade. We're at Boardwalk this upcoming trip in a studio on the, so on the left hand side of Boardwalk, if you're familiar, been trying to upgrade to a one or a two bedroom and there has been literally zero rooms available for our trip. Our period of time, anything bigger than what we already have on property. But, and I'll take, I'll kick that to Jim and Chuck, actually if you guys, if you guys could take a few minutes here and explain to us, you know, there's the resorts, there's the off, off property, you know, vacation rentals, the STRs, the Airbnbs, if you will. But there is something somewhat in the middle which called Disney Vacation Club. So Jim, if you could kind of explain to us what that is and, and Chuck, if you could add to that.
[00:10:28] Speaker E: Sure. DBC is a timeshare that you purchase directly through Disney or you can buy third party as a resale and within the DVC resorts. I think we're up to, and correct me if I'm wrong, I think we're up to 13 total. Yeah. So there's.
[00:10:44] Speaker A: Yeah, we'll go with 13.
[00:10:45] Speaker E: Yeah, there, there is 13 and they vary by, by a lot of them or a lot of them. Some of them are very big and spread out like a rear resort and other ones are hotels that, like the Yacht and Beach Club where you get into Saratoga Springs, Old Key west. Those are very, very sprawling. They're big, they're more resort style stuff.
[00:11:04] Speaker A: And can you kind of break down, there's like a point system that, I'll be honest with you, it's always been kind of confusing to me. Can you kind of break that down a little bit?
[00:11:11] Speaker E: Sure, yeah. The point system runs on.
They basically have dynamic pricing for seasons and then from there it's going to be a resort or I'm sorry, a studio. Deluxe studio, one bed, two bed and a grand villa. So as obviously as the room gets bigger, the points go up and as you get into the more popular seasons, especially around the holidays, the points go up considerable.
[00:11:38] Speaker A: And Chuck, you have this as well. Do you have anything to add to that?
[00:11:42] Speaker F: Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, we, we've been, we've owned a Disney Vacation Club since the like 1997 or so. So we've been at it a long time.
Disney, you know, in this timeshare thing with the Vacation club and the way they work, the point system, you buy points and it gets you to stop thinking about it in terms of cash. And every room has an annual allotment of points and they will vary the cost of the points, room during the year, how many points it costs.
That's generally how that works. But they found a way to basically get customers to pay for the construction of their buildings and, and their, and their properties. That's, I mean it's genius when you get down to it. You know, you get, you, you got places like the Boardwalk where half of it was built as a Disney Vacation Club resort, the other half was built as typical hotel lodgings. But Disney, since they hold back points for themselves, they can rent you a room in either.
And then there's also a healthy third party system that's popped up there. Probably the biggest is David's Vacation Rentals where people like us, and it was my introduction to short term rentals, actually I ran out my points.
You know, when we lived in Orlando I rarely needed to, I rarely needed to use my points, you know, because I, I live three miles from Disney World and instead we were renting them out and it turned into an, and continues to be a nice little profit stream for Us.
[00:13:15] Speaker A: So, okay, so does Disney call this timeshare?
[00:13:19] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:13:20] Speaker F: Yeah.
[00:13:20] Speaker E: Do they?
[00:13:21] Speaker B: They call it dvc, but they admit that it's a timeshare. Yes.
[00:13:24] Speaker A: Okay, so it's basically just straight up timeshare.
[00:13:28] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:13:29] Speaker F: I remember they, they're, these exist outside of Disney World too. They have them at Disneyland. They have one Vero beach, they have one in Hilton Head.
[00:13:37] Speaker A: And, and it seems like it's maybe a little easier to get out of than a timeshare or not.
[00:13:44] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: You can sell them.
[00:13:45] Speaker A: You can sell them.
[00:13:46] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:13:46] Speaker A: Okay, interesting.
[00:13:48] Speaker B: I worked at Hilton Head. DVC is actually where I worked.
[00:13:51] Speaker A: Okay, okay. All right, now let's talk about the off property, the owner, operated owner or well, at least individually owned properties and where to buy. And I'll start with Wade. Wade, where are yours? And can you kind of give us an idea of where to look for when buying, you know, an off property property?
[00:14:14] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:14:14] Speaker H: So the biggest thing that I found people should target is going to be in those resort style communities like what Natalie was referring to earlier.
When people come here, they're, they're coming for the Disney experience, not only inside the home but, you know, coming and enjoying the parks and everything like that.
And we have neighborhoods here that are full on resorts just like Disney, maybe not to that size and caliber, but they have water parks inside them, they have restaurants inside them and, and they, they cater to a lot of the guests who are trying to continue with that magical experience of having this place to go and spend. And sometimes you don't have to spend as much money to go use these on site theme parks for the neighborhoods as you would be going to like Disney and such. So names that I can drop would be like Solara, Windsor Hills, Windsor. At Westside, there's Story, Lake Windsor Island, Champions Gate, there's are a few Paradise Palms, Windsor Palms. I can keep going.
There are quite a few.
But I usually say targeting those communities that have those resorts are going to kind of put you a step above as well as you know, the closer the community, the better.
Within about 25 minutes is always kind of like the, the, the standard for an Airbnb to any of your major attractions. But for me, the closest neighborhood that you can get, story Lake Windsor Hills, tend to be a little bit more expensive, but their drives are much nicer to get into these major parks because we're in a metropolitan market down in Orlando. So when you stack on that traffic, the closer that you can be traditionally, the better.
[00:16:00] Speaker A: I want to talk some numbers briefly, Chuck. I know You're a numbers guy, feel free to interject. And Disney, it gets a lot of tourism. It's a lot of tourism going on. And things are pretty hot right now at the recording of this podcast, matter of fact, quarter, second quarter of 2025, $130 billion. I'm sorry, 130 billion per year for the state of Florida. But second quarter, we were at 34.4 million visitors. That's the number I was looking for, which is the biggest second quarter we've ever had. And I also read that we're looking, we haven't gotten all the data back for third quarter yet because there's no data right now with the government shutdown. But obviously state of Florida, you know, whatever.
They are also projecting third quarter could be the biggest third quarter in history. Now we did hear some rumors, this has been talked about, that September was the lowest September that Disney has seen since COVID since 2021. So that was a little weird. We were there in I believe late July. It was, you know, average busy.
But since then it seems to be on fire. And everybody on this podcast is agreeing with that, especially the folks that have been in the last 30 days. It's, it's really going crazy. So long story short, Florida numbers in general are, are very good.
I think that it's possible that there, we may be in a situation right now where people are looking to spend a little less money, which is maybe why off plat, off property is a little more appealing. These properties can be rented for quite a bit less money than on property. And if not, you can get more bang for your buck. A bigger property, that kind of a thing. I do personally think that this, this Disney, you know, short term rental situation. And I'll, I'll have Avery comment on this as well, if she doesn't mind. Is, is perfect for folks that are looking to spend a little less money and stay off off property. And also like super people that are super obsessed with Disney have kids right now. It's just such a great opportunity to spend more time there, get really into it and offset some of your costs. And again, doesn't cost you $1,000 a night like, like it does at yacht club. Avery, a lot, a lot of benefits for not being on property, I think.
[00:18:29] Speaker D: Yeah, I mean cost is one of them. And if you go do a Google search right now of like first time Disney World or I'm going to Disney World for the first time or how to do Disney World, most of, I would say the whole first page of Google ends In on a budget. How to do Disney World on a budget. So there really is. I don't want people to be turned off by the fact that this is a more budget option than staying on property. But it does cost for just our family and one, one room, I mean 500 a night and not everybody wants to do that. So there's also. I love that a lot of them have their own private pools in the back and you can get those pretty affordably. You can get a three bedroom townhome in Windsor Hills with a private pool for under 400.
And there's a. I find that to be really attractive because if I'm coming home during the day from the parks, it's because I'm overstimulated and I don't want to be around people and I certainly don't want to go to one of the big resort pools and then also be around people. And then now I'm having to watch my kids, you know, far over there instead of, you know, maybe fighting with other kids. My 5 year old son got in a fight with another kid last time we were there.
And you know, there's something to be said for being able to come back to your own private pool, letting the kids hang out, keep playing, wear themselves out and not having to be just still in a big huge crowd of people and just having your own space, your own being able to eat, honestly being able to cook at home, make your own breakfast. Breakfast actually always does end up being kind of a situation for us when we're going because we're like, oh, we don't have time. Are we going to eat breakfast when we get there? Oh, this place doesn't, this hotel doesn't have a good grab and go. What are we going to feed the kids? What are we going to feed Luke because he's non dairy and all they have is yogurt. So there really is, there's a lot of benefits of having your own actual space with your own kitchen, your own pool and transportation.
[00:20:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Because a big part of it at Disney World is making sure people don't get grumpy.
You know, it's very easy to do and a lot of times it's because there was a lack of food or lack of food preparation because you don't, you know, you might be in a situation where you can't get something to eat for an hour.
But very good points. Jason, you own and manage in the area.
What, what, what draws me to a property like yours versus staying on property in one of the resorts? You know, Riviera, etc. Do you, do you ever feel like you're competing with the resorts or do you feel like those people are never really interested in those resorts anyway?
[00:21:18] Speaker C: Great question. I mean, you know, so when you visit Disney and like a lot of you have said, we have Google searches that say on a budget or where should I stay? A lot of Facebook groups out there asking, you know, where should I stay if I want this or that. And it's really appealing to do two different sets of kind of travel, you know, companions.
Once you get to a certain size, you party, you really becomes more affordable if you go off site.
But then you also have like, you know, Wade and Avery have said you have these other amenities where, you know, the resorts have kind of everything that you would have. The resorts, the neighborhood resorts off Disney property kind of have everything that a resort would have on property. You have the pool, a lot of them have private pools, but also nice water slide, family friendly pools with resort restaurants in a lot of them, like Wade said, are really close.
I live currently in a resort community and I can make it from my house to the safari in animal kingdom in 20 minutes.
I guarantee you that's faster than, you know, somebody staying at a budget friendly, you know, all star resort, all star movies, wanting to make it, using the bus system, trying to get to Animal Kingdom. Like, they just, it's just not as conceivable to make it in that amount of time. So when you have a larger group that wants a kitchen, it wants maybe a couple separate rooms, even if they're small, just three, three bedrooms or there's Windsor Hills, even has some condos that have, you know, smaller properties too. So you don't need to buy or rent, you know, these eight, nine, ten bedroom properties. You could just want smaller properties that have separate spaces with kitchens and still be within 15 minutes of Disney. And so I think that when you're looking to save a little bit and then have those extra kind of amenities and options to make your own food or to kind of peel back from all of the intensity that is, you know, Disney and the people and you need to just kind of be a little bit antisocial after the hours, you know, then you're gonna, you know, want to maybe stay off property.
[00:23:34] Speaker A: Natalie, do, do, do I.
What am I missing by staying in your townhome versus staying at Yacht Club or even Swan and Dolphin?
And do you feel that that's a difficult sell? Are your guests like comparing you to off on property and am I missing.
[00:23:55] Speaker B: Anything so That's a super question. And you know my husband well enough to know that when we very first bought this house, he was adamant that he was never going to stay in it.
[00:24:06] Speaker A: Your husband is a Disney fan.
[00:24:09] Speaker B: So the dynamic for us with Disney is it was such a huge part of our kids childhood and it was where so much joy and fun was connected.
Our kids are our life and now that they're grown, ish.
It just is a place where the four of us kind of go back and we get to, we get to go back to a different moment in time and every. We get to, you know, so many great memories. And like we, we just went fishing there the other day and we used to take the kids fishing when they were five and they would catch their cute little fish and then now they're 20 and catching the big fish and anyway, tons of great memories. But so my husband was absolutely adamant that he was not going to stay off property.
And I will tell you. So back to your point. Your question that you just asked Avery a second ago. So for people who are considering buying in Orlando and you know, your question was kind of like for people who want to be able to enjoy it as an asset and like be able to go there and if you enjoy going to Disney kind of thing.
So when I bought this, to be completely transparent, I bought it because it was the end of the year and I panicked and needed a bonus depreciation. And I was like, yeah, this is cool, we'll do it. But my biggest motivation was actually, this is going to sound wild, but I bought this for my future grandkids.
So we took our kids so many times. We did it very affordably, but we took them so many times that we set very unrealistic expectations for kids taking your children to Disney. And I know that when they have kids, unless they, you know, they, they're not going to live as close as we did.
So I bought that place to remodel it to make it into something that my kids could take their kids for free. So I bought it for my grandkids that don't exist yet.
[00:26:04] Speaker A: Can I ask you a follow up to that? Can, can you. Are you doing Disney?
Forget about your townhome.
[00:26:10] Speaker F: Yeah.
[00:26:10] Speaker A: Just mean the trip in general. You're in East Tennessee when you go to Disney World.
Disney World today, by the way, I should make that clear.
Are you spending less money than say you did in years past? And you. Have you gotten better at it and spending less money or are you spending about the same?
[00:26:27] Speaker B: Yeah. So I would say It's.
I might spend a little more than in years past, but we go less frequently when we.
[00:26:36] Speaker A: What are we spending it on, if you don't mind?
[00:26:38] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So when we used to go, we were at the campground, we had annual passes, so we weren't buying tickets. And we were at. Because we were at the campground. Now, this is going to be a really good point. We did the campground so that we had a home. We took our mobile home, and we had a living room. We had a kitchen. We had all these things that are the reason why today someone would rent an Airbnb. Right. So we took our home so that we could pack lunches. You know, we were. We. We took. We made sandwiches and took them in, and we weren't eating out every meal. We did Disney on a budget, for real, when the kids were little.
[00:27:15] Speaker A: And you have gone so far as to stay there the entire summer in the motorhome?
[00:27:19] Speaker B: Not the entire summer, but a huge chunk of the summer because it's like $130 a night. It's. You know what I mean? So the reference. I was a schoolteacher, so that's the reason why Charlie would go to work and the kids and I would stay in the camper. And anyway, but so we. So I bought the townhouse. I bought the townhouse as a lifestyle asset. I did not buy it with the intention to use it now, but I bought it with the intention to use it when my boys start having kids.
[00:27:50] Speaker A: Well, and also, you're very good at overnight rental, and you knew that you could go.
[00:27:53] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. But it was also a bit of a experiment because you hear a lot of people saying that they can't make. Make money at Disney. And to that, you know, everybody wants to talk about saturation. Everybody wants to talk about whatever, but to those people, I say do better.
I don't. You know, I don't. I don't know how to say that in the answer, but we don't have a. We have a townhouse, and we don't have a luxury townhouse, but we did remodel it, and it's a. We give people a very, very clean, very, very comfortable, very nice vacation.
And it stays booked not at top dollar. So. So if you're considering buying in Orlando, you got to know that a three bed in Orlando versus a three bed. You know, I'm used to the Smokies, right? And so I'm not pulling as much per night, but I also didn't pay, you know, paid like 400,000 for it, so My mortgage is not that big.
[00:28:49] Speaker A: With a private pool.
[00:28:50] Speaker B: Right. And so I've got three bedrooms, a living room, three ensuite bedrooms. By the way, they each have their own full baths, private baths, which is.
[00:28:58] Speaker A: By the way, if you don't, if you're not familiar, that is so good for a rental. That's.
[00:29:02] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:29:03] Speaker A: That's what you're looking for.
[00:29:04] Speaker B: Yeah. And so the typical layout in this neighborhood is one bedroom with a king, one bedroom with a queen, and then one bedroom outfitted for children.
So I actually upped mine and I give people two king suites and in the other one, in the kids room, it's a queen and a twin versus just like some bunk beds like people do. So I can sleep three full sets of grownups in three full separate bedrooms if they want to do it affordably. And, and we've done that.
So.
So we have transitioned into.
When your original question was, what am I missing if I stay off site?
We were afraid that we were going to miss the transportation. We were afraid we were going to miss the vibe, the atmosphere, the smells. If you've been to a Disney resort, you know what I'm talking about. It just the smell, the whole atmosphere, the pixie dust. The pixie dust. It's amazing. Yeah.
So what we did is we worked very hard to create that for whoever staying in our home. And then now because of that, my husband who said I will never, I heard him tell you I will never stay here when I leave here from remodel. I will never stay here.
This trip we stayed the first half at our house and the second half on property. And he said, I never thought I would say this, but I am sad to leave and I don't want to leave this house.
And we were leaving to go stay on property and do, do the thing.
[00:30:30] Speaker A: You know, So I don't, you know, I, I hate to tell you but men in their mid to late 40s are a little hard to talk into things. So, you know, he finally came around.
[00:30:43] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:30:43] Speaker A: But we have live one on one coaching sessions available with our wonderful top notch coaches at Short Term Shop plus. And we would love to help you in your vacation rental journey.
The mission remains constant, to provide amazing homes so that our guests can create awesome memories with their families.
If you need help to set up your systems and processes, how to communicate with guests, how to improve your system systems, how to find and hire housekeepers and all of the above, you are looking for Short Term Shop plus you can find
[email protected] and the best part is the price is right, reasonably priced, and if you are a short term shop client, please use the code client at checkout for an even better deal on SDS plus.com okay, let's talk about the saturation. This, this market, it basically invented the word saturation. Ever since I've been in this business now, I don't know, 14, 15 years, this market has always used that word since day one, since I met my first, I think his name was John. The first guy I ever met that owned a property at Disney and he was a great guy. Just met him on the Internet randomly and he was like, you don't want to come down here, it's too saturated. And I was like, this guy's trying to keep me away from here or whatever, you know. So this market literally invented the word. Now of course we've, we've decided, we've declared as of Avery made a declaration at BPCON 2025 that all markets are now saturated. So we're over this word. We're done with this word.
But it is true, there are a lot of rentals in this area and there are a lot of Disney Room, you know, rooms for rent in the area. And there's a lot of talk about competition and theming and all of the above. So Jason, where do we, where do we go when it comes to theming?
Where are we at right now? Do I have to go way over the top with the Star wars spaceships or can I scale down and still be okay? What are your thoughts?
[00:33:02] Speaker C: Yeah, well, speaking from experience, when we bought here a few years ago remotely, now we live here, but we came down to theme it because we thought we had to. And at the price point in which we did and when we probably did need to theme here, we, we call it tier one two and three theming. Tier one being kind of, you know, you throw a fat hat on the wall and tier three being this immersive, I'm sleeping in a spaceship type of setup.
[00:33:27] Speaker E: Right.
[00:33:28] Speaker C: And when we bought our house, it was completely unthemed. And we knew to be competitive in the market we were going to need to do some theming. And we kind of scaled it up until we met kind of the numbers that we felt like were good for us. Could we go more? Yes. But we just wanted to find our happy medium.
What I think you'll see now in the market in general is just that there's a wide range of themes. So you have still some completely unthemed property. They're nice, they can be Upgraded, and then you have 10 bedroom houses and eight of them are these tier three themes. And, you know, in everybody sleeping in race cars and spaceships, there's nothing wrong, apparently, with any of those. It's about what, you know. You're going to use the property yourself for where it is and you know who you're trying to attract and then ultimately how much revenue you want to generate. Do you have to go over the top? No, because you can live with, you know, if you, if you have a closer place, if you are attracting different types of guests. One thing we haven't mentioned here is that there's a lot of overseas guests that come here, a lot of travelers from Europe that come stay for a month or two months at a time. I've had, in each of my properties, I've had a family from England that has stayed for six weeks for the last three years I've had them. And so we, we get a lot of those travelers and they're not as excited about the theme. So you, you can still attract, you know, guests in, you know, throughout. What I would say, though, now we're at a point when we're recording this, you know, that you can probably get away with a little bit less theming. But what I love about this market and the theming is that it allows you, once you're in it, to decide how scalable you want to be in terms of competition. So you could buy a property today and say, I want my, you know, it is what it is. It's a tier one themed house. And in three years from now, if you decide, I want to make more money, I want to be more competitive, you can, you don't have to change properties. You could change themes, you could increase your theme. And so it, it really allows you then that flexibility to kind of scale up or down, depending on what, who you want to attract and how much money you want to make.
[00:35:48] Speaker A: I think I agree. You know, and again, I, I'm still a bit of a yacht club, boardwalk guy, all right. But I think I do agree. I think people went a little over the top. You know, these people that got into STR and they're following all these influencers, I do think they went a little crazy with the theming, because with theming, cost money means price per night's gonna have to go up for this thing to make sense.
And I don't know, it's just never really been my style. I've always been more of a kind of keep it simple guy. And, and, and my, my, my Secret weapon is price per night because I never went crazy with a lot of amenities.
And, and Mike, what are you seeing out there with, you know, you've got clients shopping right now. Are, are they more prone to buy the themed property or are they kind of staying away from them? What's going on in the current market?
[00:36:33] Speaker G: Well, a couple of neat things are happening. One, I want to harp on something Jason just said. He said a lot of European people coming. We're talking almost 7 million people a year coming over from out of not in the country.
So out of 70/4 million people, 7 of those are not from here. So we have a lot of different people coming in.
My favorite thing to say about these houses is there's a shoe for every foot. Every single size property, there's someone there. If you got a two bedroom condo or if you've got a 14 bedroom huge house, we've got people for it.
[00:37:11] Speaker A: I agree with that. And if you're not getting them, you're priced wrong. I mean that's always been my thing since day one. But I really do think that's where we are, especially in the Disney market right now. Now, when you say 70 million, that's to the park every year. Is that what that number is to.
[00:37:24] Speaker G: Orlando area is over 70 million. The almost I think 6.6 million are coming from overseas coming to the Orlando area.
[00:37:35] Speaker A: Okay, that's good info. And yeah, like I said earlier, but I screwed up my back. I reversed my numbers.
1130 billion tourists to the state of Florida every year. So that makes sense. What's the math on that, Chuck? What's 70 over 130?
[00:37:53] Speaker F: What percentage are going 130 billion in dollars. So a dollars.
[00:37:58] Speaker A: Yeah, you're right. Okay, sorry. $130 billion people.
[00:38:00] Speaker F: That'd be an awful lot of people.
[00:38:02] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Good catch.
Okay, so yeah, I mean there's a lot to be said about the theming. I think the most important thing in 2020 for late 2025, the recording of this.
Please understand the differences between going crazy with theming and not going crazy. And you, you know, you don't necessarily just need to jump right into spending huge money. How much is a huge a theme property way to how much does that cost me to tier one?
[00:38:31] Speaker H: It depends on who you use.
I usually give the quote to people. Murals are going to be minimum three to five grand just for murals. And that is not a Tier 3 home.
If you want something crazy, you can very easily spend 10 to 30 grand. Very easily.
I am actually theming up finally one of my Disney homes this January. And it's probably going to cost me around $13,000.
[00:39:01] Speaker A: Okay, 13 grand. That's reasonable. I mean, that's like.
[00:39:06] Speaker H: It's gonna be great.
[00:39:07] Speaker A: Oh, with a slide. Okay.
[00:39:10] Speaker B: He's only doing one room with that.
[00:39:12] Speaker A: Oh, one room.
[00:39:13] Speaker H: One room. That is one room.
[00:39:15] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:39:15] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:39:16] Speaker E: All right.
[00:39:16] Speaker A: Maybe that's a little much for me.
[00:39:17] Speaker G: But it's expensive.
[00:39:19] Speaker H: But when you think about it, this is someone who's doing muraling alone is usually one of the most expensive things because someone is going in there and they're hand painting very intricate details on the wall for weeks. This, this is a multi week job. This is not. Someone comes in, replaces the vanity and they're out within a day or two. Or a bathroom remodel that's done in three days. This is like a two to four week project where someone is in your house for four weeks plus for one room. If you're doing a whole house, it can very easily get to several months.
Because it's a very extensive job to do this kind of work.
[00:39:56] Speaker G: It's very important to get the right person do it too. Isn't it, Wade?
[00:40:00] Speaker H: Yes, I. I have been through many.
I shouldn't say many, but there, there are some vendors just like in every single market. You know, you get the plumber that will blow you off. You get the handyman that doesn't do the right job.
Same thing here happens in Disney. If you get the wrong themer. It's very crucial to make sure you're working with someone who's not only licensed to do some of the certain work that they're doing, but they're also able to follow through. That's something that you can struggle with in every market.
[00:40:28] Speaker B: And Luke, your point is always price rules the day.
[00:40:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:32] Speaker B: And I have found in Orlando, everyone, and I'm not knocking theming whatsoever.
But we aren't.
And I can tell you that the theory of price rules the day is. I mean, that that's how we stay booked.
[00:40:49] Speaker H: Like Natalie's killing me actually. By the way, guys.
[00:40:52] Speaker A: Oh, really? Similar property. Are you in the same neighborhood?
[00:40:54] Speaker B: Same. Same property.
[00:40:55] Speaker H: Yeah, we're like next door neighbors almost.
[00:40:58] Speaker A: Yeah. But you know, I mean, there's definitely, you know, you're proving the point here. You guys are both very well versed in what we're doing here.
But there's levels of like, how hard do I really want to work? You know, and maybe, Wade, maybe you've moved on to, you know, I know you got a lot of properties and Natalie's fresh down there and like really going after it. And there's, you know, it really is. It's like, how hard do I want to work?
[00:41:19] Speaker G: Don't let either one of them fool you because they're both have beautiful properties. They're amazing.
[00:41:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, go ahead, Jason.
[00:41:32] Speaker C: I want to jump in where you said, how hard do I want to work, Luke? Because this is a market I think that you, unlike other markets, I manage in other markets too, like the Smokies and that and that become Smokies is great. I love it.
But it's one of those where you can get away with kind of setting and forgetting more so than when you fill your house with amenities that you have to actively manage. Right. Like when I put an air hockey table because I themed a garage pucks break, you know, things happen, things go missing. I put a foosball table, people lose the balls. You know, I have a virtual scavenger hunt in one of my properties, which is fantastic. People love it. But kids rip the QR codes off the walls and I get messages like, hey, I'm almost there, but I'm missing a code or I'm missing a clue.
I make more money per night because I have some of these things, but I have to answer more questions that can't be done with automation.
No one can tell somebody, you know, where that missing code was supposed to be in the scavenger hunt and what clue they need next. And so I do like that. You can theme a property and make more money from a mathematical perspective, but from a, you know, from a management perspective, there's times that I think, you know, I want to scale it back on my next property. I won't do that thing because, you know, it's just a little bit more work.
[00:43:02] Speaker A: And I think a big problem that people facing this market when they're new or, or they're not functioning well with their property is that they're not paying enough attention to the Disney price per night. And the Disney website is available to everybody. You got to have a username and password, you know, or I do anyway. And I go on there all the time, like, let's see how much these nights cost, see what the availability is. And you know, I think it's safe to say that a property like Natalie's, where you got a three bedroom with a private pool, you know, you may or may not be directly competing with something like, I don't know, Brooklyn, what's the place you just stayed?
[00:43:39] Speaker B: We. So our kids are little 8 and 4. And so we typically will stay at Art of Animation or Pop Century. Pop Century, Yeah.
[00:43:48] Speaker A: Or maybe even like a Port Orleans. You know what I mean? Is it safe to say in Italy, like, and I'm gonna keep going with this, but you have a much bigger property with more stuff, but you're off property. And therefore maybe I'm directly competing with like a Port Orleans room, even though it's very much, very small and not a lot to it, no kitchen, that kind of a thing. So I think it's very important to be paying attention. How much is Port Orleans for these dates and how much am I charging for these dates? I think people are overlooking that big time. Any thoughts there for the folks that own.
[00:44:22] Speaker B: Yeah, you can't, you can't be close to Disney's prices, meaning much lower. You got to be lower.
Yeah, well, even like Art of Animation and Pop Century, I've never seen it at All Stars, but you know, those are all budget friendly resorts and they're still expensive to stay at. Price per night.
[00:44:39] Speaker A: Yeah, they can be. They can be. So Natalie, you're saying that you would price your three bedroom with a pool, private pool, lower than even an All Star resort?
[00:44:49] Speaker B: Yeah, sometimes.
Sometimes it's on par, but sometimes it's lower. The thing about it is, is like if you just look at the nightly rate for any Disney hotel, whether it's value moderate or deluxe, any, any of the three. If you just look at the nightly rate and you're just.
So most people who are going are going to do a package where the room might be a little bit cheaper because they're buying tickets.
And then if you're not buying tickets, it's because you're an annual passholder. And if you're an annual passholder, you get a discount.
So almost no one is paying the room rate. Almost no one. Because it's very rare that you're going to go and stay at any of their hotels just because you're staying at that hotel. It's not like going to a Hilton or whatever. You're not going to just rent the room because you need a hotel room because you're in Orlando, typically.
So if you just look at the raw nightly rate for even the value resorts, which is Pop Art and the All Stars, if you look at just the, the raw nightly rate for that. Yes.
So, you know, for a three bed private pool, all of those. When you start saying things that make me bigger or cooler, people don't care. So, so if you just look at like you got to look at just hotels in general. So a majority of like, so I've even heard upwards of 90 million per year for the Orlando area.
Most people who come to Orlando, believe it or not, aren't going to Disney.
There are a lot of reasons why people go to Orlando. I mean, that area is the Gulf capital. I think of the country, Jupiter and you know, like all the different. There's a, a zillion reasons why people are coming. There's conventions there that bring hordes of doctors or, you know, whatever. And so it's less so Disney's obviously a huge draw, but Disney isn't the only thing bringing people to Orlando. So Disney hotels are not necessarily now where I am. I'm under four miles from animal. I'm literally five or Wade, what are we five or eight miles from Epcot and Hollywood? I think eight.
[00:47:07] Speaker H: We are less than we are exactly 4.1 miles to.
Not Epcot.
[00:47:13] Speaker B: Animal.
[00:47:14] Speaker H: Animal. Thank you.
[00:47:15] Speaker B: Yeah, but yeah, so Animal is a blink away. Hollywood and Epcot, which is where our little grown up group spends most of their time.
10 minutes and then it's to ticket and transportation. I still think it's only like nine miles or something crazy like that. So where we are, we are closest to Disney. We're a little bit further to Universal, but we are Kissimmee. We are super central for like any reason that anyone is coming. So basically what I do is I just take like average hotel rates, Disney hotel rates aside, just average hotel rates. And I want to always be just under them because what I have found is if you aren't just under like an average hotel rate, they're going to just book a hotel. Because yes, we bring the dynamic of being able to sleep more than four people where the average hotel room only sleeps four people.
There are just. When you, when you get to the point where you're looking at vacation homes now, there are so many options for people. Again, I don't love the saturation word, but there's so many options for people that price rules the day.
It does not matter.
It's just how people are shopping right now. And to be honest, probably most of the time, because unless you're coming for an experience like your kid's first trip to Disney, if it's your kid's second trip to Disney, you're probably not willing to pay more per night to get them the bunk bed that looks like Mater or whatever, you know what I mean? Like at the end of the day, you're, you're. The place where you sleep is just Accomplishing sleeping for these.
[00:48:53] Speaker A: So good.
[00:48:53] Speaker B: Coming frequently.
[00:48:54] Speaker A: That was so good. You know, like, the second time I come, I just want somewhere to sleep. Yeah. And I agree because I'm here to go to the damn park.
[00:49:03] Speaker H: Brilliant.
[00:49:03] Speaker A: Love it. And, Jason, you made an excellent point in the chat that nobody can see. Is it like, you know, there's a lot of people coming to play golf and they don't want to sleep in an emo room, you know?
[00:49:11] Speaker B: Totally.
The Europeans don't want to sleep in the themed things I get. You know, there are a lot of people coming that aren't coming to the parks. And so what I did is I made a subtly themed. And when I say subtle. If you're a dis nerd, like, we're Star wars people and we're Marvel people, and if you walk into our home, you will know. You can ask Mike or Wade, you will understand that you are. You are somewhere on a planet that exist in Star Wars. Star Wars. Like, we have very unique 3D tiles on the walls and metal everywhere. And you feel like, okay, I get this. And there's little hints to Star wars and stuff. And the dis nerds will feel like they're in a cool place, but everyone who isn't there for Disney doesn't feel. They feel like they're in a clean, classy place to stay, and then they're in a really nice resort that's well manicured.
My thing at Disney, the thing that is a core memory for me, especially with staying at the campground, is the sound of leaf blowers. Is what would wake us up every morning at the campground. And it's not just the campground. It's at the resorts, too. They are going to blow leaves at 6am every day. They're going to blow leaves. And at our resort, it's the same way they are always doing something to be beautiful.
Always at our resort.
[00:50:39] Speaker A: All right, I'm going to throw a word out there, and I want to get a reaction from as many of you that would like to chime in. And that word is universal. Where do we stand on that? I just want to throw that out there. Anybody a fan? Anybody getting guests that are going there, I would assume. But universal, does that spark any conversation?
[00:50:56] Speaker F: Well, universal, I mean, the numbers down there are, you know, that they just picked up a huge piece of market share this year after opening Epic Universe.
Prior to that, you know, they were estimated to have about 40% of the visitors, the theme park visitors. Let me be clear about that. About 40% of theme park visitors Also went to Universal and now it's estimated to be 50%.
So that, that's a big pickup. And at the same time, pardon me, we saw Orange county just a little while ago and Orlando together. Just post record lodging tax numbers.
Now keep in mind that short term rentals almost don't exist at all. Almost in Orange county, especially Orlando.
You know, there's, the numbers are extremely small and grandfathered from a long time ago. So this is all hotels but that's still significant. It tells you where people, people are staying near where they want to go.
Universal's numbers are up.
Orlando, the city doesn't actually have a huge draw other than, you know, soccer and frankly the MLS team there has been a bit of a disappointment. So college football certainly, you know, game day kind of stuff, that's still a big deal there.
But yeah, Universal, the driver.
[00:52:16] Speaker A: We went to Universal recently for the first time. It was cool. We ended up going to the two older parks and didn't go to Epic because there was all these rumors that a lot of the rides are not working and you know, things like that. And it's very big, busy and you know, combination of busy and the rides, Some of the rides not working was something we weren't that interested in. We had, we had fun. I would say we're definitely Disney folks at the end of the day. But anybody else have thoughts on, on.
[00:52:40] Speaker G: That it's a different.
[00:52:42] Speaker B: For sure.
[00:52:44] Speaker G: Absolutely. Don't forget about Claremont. Claremont's not that far away and that has a huge draw. A lot of bicyclists go to Claremont. A lot of people training for Olympic events. You have the hills of Claremont. I mean the Citrus Tire. You can't see much citrus anymore, but still it's a great place to go.
[00:53:00] Speaker F: Yep.
And you know, if you want, if you have small kids, you know, you still got Legoland and Peppa Pig World down there, which it's a little far.
It is, but you know, 40 minute drive and a heck a lot easier if you're, you know, staying off property because sometimes getting off property is going to take you almost as long, you know. So you know, when you're staying in Windsor Hills or Champions Gate, you've already covered some of the distance.
[00:53:27] Speaker A: All right, let's talk about these off platform or off property locations a little bit because the way I see it is, and again, I don't own there and, but I go there all the time.
I, I, I'm a big fan of these Disney planners, especially these Instagram influencer style business Disney planners. I Like to follow these, these folks and get their advice on, you know, what to eat and all that kind of stuff. And they're all, most of them are Disney planners, where they will plan your trip for you and they get it paid. It's actually, I think it's a fairly small amount of money they get. As far as compensation, I don't know how it works. But these people are out there and I like them.
So my thing is, as hosts, do we need to incorporate that into our vibe?
I'm so good at Disney that I can be your eyes and ears.
And I think that that boils down to having a rocking guidebook, for one thing, and then also listing in your messages to the guests for me, if I own there, which I don't, I would be extremely interested in details as far as where to park on what days at what parks, et cetera. And I think that's a great way to set yourself apart from your competition because a lot of your competition probably doesn't even know this stuff. Anybody have any comments?
[00:54:46] Speaker G: Yeah, you definitely need to know if you need to park in lime or you need to park in orange or where is the parking spot. You need to know that. You need to know which trolleys take you, which parks. It's very important to know because otherwise you're completely lost. So you. There's definitely a market for that.
[00:55:03] Speaker B: I have found that none of my guests are inexperienced. Okay. Like, people are coming and staying with me and doing Disney.
They like. I don't, I don't do guidebooks. I've been running short term rentals for like six years now.
[00:55:17] Speaker A: No guidebook at all.
[00:55:18] Speaker B: No. And no one gives a. No one cares. No one asked me where my guidebook is at. In. In any market.
In any market of any sort. It doesn't matter. Smokey's. It doesn't matter where.
But they don't.
They don't ask me anything. They know what they're doing. They know they got that Disney app and they, they're like, me and you. Like, they know. They're like, all right, gotta be there eight, gotta get there. This. So, like, knowing where. If someone's coming to Disney for the first time, they are probably not staying at my place. And if they are staying at my place, they don't know to ask. They don't know anything to ask me. And anything I tell them will sound like Hebrew. Like if, if I say, like, make sure you get the ticket and transportation exactly one hour so you can catch the monorail and you're gonna Go the monorail to the Magic Kingdom, not the monorail that goes to the resort. Like, I can speak Hebrew. Ease to them because I am like, Disney with my eyes closed. But people. Guests aren't looking for that. That might be unpopular opinion, but, like, guests aren't asking me for, like, recommendations of, you know, restaurants at Epcot or.
They're not looking for that.
[00:56:33] Speaker A: Really?
Is it because they're assuming you have no idea?
[00:56:37] Speaker B: Because I don't think so. I think it's just because there's so many. Like, you said, like, there's so many Instagram accounts that have all of that. And at the end of the day, like, who? Like, I don't. I don't know. But they're not looking to me for any of that. They're. They're. And if they're working with a Disney vacation planner, which I also have been. I feel like I've been everything on the planet at one point in my life. I did that for about a year.
And they get paid by commission, by the way. It doesn't cost the guests. It costs the. The companies pay them commission. So.
So, yeah, I. I don't. Like, they're either getting it from social media or whatever, but they're not. They're not looking for that from me. They're not asking for, like, hey, we're going to Epcot today. What's your favorite food at the Food and Wine Festival? Like, they're not looking for that. I give them random tidbits and messages. So, like, on my checkout message, I'll say in my message where I'm like, get the hell out by 10. I hug them first and I'm like, hey, get the hell out by 10. But make sure if you haven't eaten at such and such that you go there on the way out to eat breakfast. They serve breakfast till 10:30.
[00:57:55] Speaker A: Like, Jason, I see you shaking your head. Do you agree?
[00:57:59] Speaker C: I agree with just about everything Natalie said, except the no guidebook. That's just a. You know. Yeah, I get it about any market. But I will say here, I have a guidebook very, very comprehensive, like other markets, but I don't have anything that's Disney specific. And the reason for us for that is that although I think that Disney is fantastic and they obviously are kings of hospitality, I don't want to be responsible for things that happen outside of my property. So if I tell them to take the monorail and they take the wrong monorail, I don't want to be responsible for that. So I get questions occasionally. And I'll know if they're first time visitors if they ask me if there's a shuttle from our resort to Disney property. And there's no shuttles. I mean, it's not a.
For, no, no residential resorts. There's, there's no shuttles. Right. So it's not a thing around here. But that's really the only way that I know if they're, if they're newer to visiting Disney. Other than that, I don't get a ton of questions and I try not to be proactive about saying it because I can't control that, that outcome.
[00:59:11] Speaker B: And I'll tell you this, most people who are staying at Vacation Rentals in the. And, and they're doing Disney like everything else. With people who frequently do Disney, they know what they're doing and they.
Before we bought, I actually read reviews in the neighborhood and I read a lot of reviews that said, love staying here. We stay here. And it was specifically talking about like the fact that they were off property and they said one of the, one of the things that we love more than, than anything is an Uber to get to Epcot is cheaper than paying for parking for the day at Epcot because it's so close.
So anyway, they know like, they like Disney. Doing Disney while staying off property is, is its own little thing that people master in the same way that you and Avery are working towards like mastering on site Disney.
[01:00:14] Speaker A: Okay, interesting. Yeah, I guess. Maybe because our children are little.
[01:00:17] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
[01:00:19] Speaker A: Well, they're not as little as they used to be, but it's funny how that happens.
[01:00:24] Speaker F: Not if they're getting in fights at Disney World.
[01:00:26] Speaker A: Well, she was exaggerating a little bit. He did get picked on by a kid that was about nine years old and he handled it well. But let's talk locations. Brett or Wade, you mentioned several locations that were, you know, just kind of thrown at us. So it's a lot to digest. Are there areas we want to, you know, I mean, we, Are we looking in all of these areas simultaneously, I guess is my first question.
[01:00:55] Speaker H: So I tell people you kind of have to go where the deal takes you, because all these neighborhoods are, they are built for this. They're. They're not residential homes that are then also Airbnbs.
No, these are full on resorts built to cater towards owners who own Airbnbs.
And some of them have been around since 2000, since before Airbnb was even a thing. So Windsor Hills, for example, was a resort neighborhood built back in 2005.
And that was when like Vrbo was just doing its own thing and I think there were some other platforms back then too that I, I have no.
[01:01:35] Speaker A: Trip Advisor and these type of things. Yeah.
[01:01:38] Speaker H: So I tell people you got to go where the deal takes you, but over anything, prioritize distance to Disney. If you can purchase in a neighborhood that might be more expensive closer to the parks, that's always going to be my priority.
Location times three, if anyone's familiar.
But beyond that, I, I mean, from these homes, you're. You're essentially catering towards pool properties that are north of three bedrooms. It's not really so much of a rocket science after that. If you want a smaller or a bigger house or if you can only afford this or that, they all kind of have their own groove here. So, yeah, you are looking in all of these for the most part at once. But if you have the option to buy closer for a more expensive home, I would encourage it.
[01:02:28] Speaker A: Okay. Anybody else thoughts on locations?
[01:02:31] Speaker G: Yeah, I think it's really important for the, the client to visit properties. You don't have to go to the house, but feel the properties go to. Do you like this lazy river or do you like that water slide? Which one do you like? Which one do you feel good in? Is solar better? Is Windsor west side better? Is, you know, they all have a different feel. So I think it's important to get here, feel the property and then find your house.
[01:02:57] Speaker A: I agree with that. In every market, I think there was too much of a Covid boom where folks were buying stuff without looking at it. And it's just, I mean, maybe with it, with a three, two, you know, $150,000 house that you're going to rent long term, maybe if you know the area. But man, for me, if you're going to be thinking about taking your kids there and stuff, you need to go, you need to go touch and feel not just the house, but the entire area. 100%. Yeah.
[01:03:21] Speaker B: Yeah. If it's going to be any version of a lifestyle asset for you, absolutely. If it's not going to be just a rental, just a money maker. Absolutely.
[01:03:29] Speaker F: And you got to remember all times of day too, you know, not just be there in the daylight. Like can you see the fireworks from where you're at?
[01:03:37] Speaker A: Excellent point. Is there a world where I would buy something that's not in one of these overnight rental type resorts?
[01:03:43] Speaker B: Not for this girl.
[01:03:44] Speaker H: Yes, there are exceptions to the rule, but you have to prioritize location even more. One of my best owners who's killing it, they're Actually wanting to buy an additional home here now in the Smokies, but they own an area called Acadia States, which is a regular neighborhood that's like a true regular neighborhood.
And they have like a four bed with a garage that happens to be really killer and that they just steamed up slightly and they're doing like 135k on this four bed.
They're killing it. So I love them.
I wanted to touch on. I did mention neighborhoods, by the way. I do want to say if you are buying a smaller home, you will also have to prioritize location a little bit more. If you have a four bedroom house way, way, way out there.
So one of the far neighborhoods out here is called like Watergate or something. I've never even sold in the community.
But you can buy three and four beds out there.
It's too far. Once you get so far out on the small homes, there's so many of them that you can pick in much easier, closer place and you kind of just get drowned out larger homes. It's not quite the scenario, but the small homes, you do have to prioritize location a little bit more.
[01:05:05] Speaker A: Mike, same question.
[01:05:07] Speaker G: Exactly what Wade said. He is, he is a plethora of knowledge. He is really great about this.
I feel the same way. The only thing that might be a little bit different, if you want to go to an area like Claremont or Winter park and you have something where you're not doing Disney thing, but you want like a couple's retreat, those are some great areas where, you know, you go to downtown Winter park, that's got some great stores and shops and stuff. So maybe something like that. But otherwise, if you want the Disney thing, location, location, location, just like that.
[01:05:41] Speaker A: I'm gonna get weighed a hat that says location times three. I like that. That's brilliant. I'm giving you credit for that and I may use it again, but. All right, let's ask one more. I'm gonna have one more big ticket question here is deals. It's late 25, we're going into early 24.
Sorry, 26. I went the wrong way. Before we get into that, I want to mention the cost seg thing that comes up all the time. Natalie mentioned that. And for those of you that aren't aware of it's, you know, it's a complicated process. None of us on this call are qualified to talk about it. Really. We're no experts, I'm no cpa. But basically, if you're, you know, a good earner, usually better for good earners or higher level earners and you wanted to buy a piece of real estate for rental purposes, you can do a cost segregation study and do bonus depreciation on the property which as of this past summer has been bumped back up to 100% indefinitely due to the big beautiful. Well, it's a law now. It's no longer a bill. The big beautiful law.
And what that means in a nutshell is if you were to buy a million dollar property, do a cost seg study on it and depending on the dirt versus property, you know, dirt versus stick of the property, you may be somewhere around the 20% mark for money that you can take off of your taxable income. In other words, million dollar home, do a cost seg study bonus depreciated, possibly somewhere around $200,000 that you could take off of your taxable income. It's a wonderful tool. Those numbers are just way, you know, out in left field, but that's kind of a decent little rule of thumb. So if you're not in, if you don't know anything about that, you should definitely look into that. We have plenty of resources for you here at Short Term shop. On our YouTube channel, we have a whole playlist on, on tax advice, etc. Of which none of, none of it comes from us. We are not tax professionals, but we are friends with many folks that are. So anyway, with that being said, what, what does it take, what does it look like to get a deal in the Disney market in the Kissimmee Orlando area in early 2026?
As far as, you know, days on market, Are the sellers selling? Are buyers buying?
What does it take for me today to get a deal?
[01:08:07] Speaker G: I think what's really important is having the right price. If you are overpriced, you're going to sit on the market. That's true anywhere. If you're priced right, you're going to be moving the property.
[01:08:19] Speaker A: As far as sellers.
[01:08:20] Speaker G: Yeah, yeah. And if you're a buyer, well, and the numbers don't work, we'll figure out a number that does work and write that offer.
If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. But you might be able to find something that will work. It might be somebody that's they've got a 1031 exchange, they gotta go.
[01:08:39] Speaker A: Are you, are you seeing a lot of sellers sitting there with up too high of a price right now?
[01:08:46] Speaker G: I am not seeing a lot of sellers, but the properties have been on market for a long time. They are overpriced.
[01:08:53] Speaker A: All right, Natalie, you Purchased. I mean, it's been a while now, but what was your experience like as far as making offers, et cetera?
[01:09:01] Speaker B: Well.
[01:09:04] Speaker D: There were.
[01:09:05] Speaker B: So I knew exactly where I wanted to be once I figured, like, exactly where I wanted to be. There were probably five at the time when we were shopping.
So I came to town, took a look at all five. I knew this was going to be a remodel project for us because just looking at just pictures alone of all of them, plus the ones that had already been some version of remodeled were like, help me out here, way, like 75,000 to 100,000 more for the exact same house.
[01:09:40] Speaker H: They were dumb, overpriced. I don't understand it.
[01:09:44] Speaker B: But they were still. They were still cheap, though. Like, they were still affordable and cheaper than what these townhouses used to sell for. So either way would have been good. Either way would have been okay.
And what we did may not be for everybody. We bought something knowing that it needed to be taken down to the Sheetrock, which is what we did.
So. And that's just kind of how we. We do our rentals too. Like, I'm.
I don't own a ton of them, and I'm not here to buy a ton of them. I'm here to do them exceptionally. You know that term, well managed. I want to be exceptionally managed with no guidebook.
No guidebook.
No guidebook whatsoever. And nobody gives a shit. Like, nobody asked me anything.
[01:10:27] Speaker A: I'm getting you a hat that says guidebook Free.
[01:10:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
What is it on Facebook marked safe from guidebooks.
[01:10:37] Speaker A: Safe from guidebooks. I got it. Okay.
[01:10:40] Speaker B: Yeah. Anyway, I. So we. We just started making offers because I was like, okay, three or four of these are going to all go down to the Sheetrock for me.
I don't like, like, they're. They're all worth the same amount of money to me because I'm going to put the same amount of money in any of them.
I'm going to let Wade and Mike speak to this after I'm. I'm done. But the direction in Florida that your house is facing is really important because we all have pools.
I bought a wrong facing house.
There's not.
Anyway, it's. It's a thing. So I just have to run my pool heater a little bit more than everyone else.
But in the summer, it's nice because I get more shade than people who are in the direct sun. So give and take on that. But anyway, we just started making deals and I knew exactly what I wanted to spend and found a seller that was Willing.
[01:11:34] Speaker A: That's, that's, that's 20, 25 in a nutshell right there. You just got to throw it at the wall and see what sticks. And I think that the biggest problem is that people still think the market's insane. I think there's a great deal of humans in this country that still think the real estate market is putting money in their pocket every day just by owning a home.
And it's, it's not, it's slow. It's pretty slow, you know, and it's okay. That's okay. It's more normal. Now.21 was not normal. 2.5 interest is not normal. How did we not see this coming, you know? But, but yeah, you gotta go out there and, and tap them on the shoulder and say, hey, do you want to sell this house? And if they turn around and punch you in the face, you just go to the next guy, you know.
[01:12:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:12:22] Speaker H: That was actually what Natalie did is I, I forget the exact details of your deal, but she was offering like 10, 15 under list price on, on like multi. Because it was a situation where, you know, if there's seven homes for sale in a neighborhood at the same model home, they're all going to have little quirks that are different from one another. One might need more work here, one might need more work there. But I mean, if you're offering on seven different homes, you're going to get seven different responses from different sellers. And you know, one of them or two or three might be willing to work with you. So throwing stuff at the wall to see if it sticks does work. It really works.
[01:13:01] Speaker A: Yeah, it's kind of your only option in today's market.
Anything else that we need to cover on the way out the door?
[01:13:08] Speaker G: Yeah, Jason just made a comment. I want to make sure we let you know about that. You have HOA fees on these nice communities.
You want them because they have these resort type amenities. So don't forget about them, but make sure you incorporate them in. You want to be somewhere that, where you are protected.
[01:13:30] Speaker A: Excellent point. Now, some people get scared of the term HOA because they're worried maybe they can't rent the home or something. These HOAs were set up purposely for rentals. Jason, is that true?
[01:13:42] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, across the country of this negative, especially in the short term rental market, you have this negative connotation for HOAs. But in this area, these HOAs, I mean, half these HOAs kind of have bylaws that say only so many houses can be lived in or long term rented. They are very short term rental friendly.
And on top of that, the things that they provide, the valet trash, the cable and Internet, the landscaping, that happens continuously. We're talking like, you know, like Natalie said earlier, you know, leaf blowers every day. We're talking valley trash every day. And so, you know, sometimes you see these high fees for HOA and you get turned off. Or just in general, you see HOA and you get turned off. I want to make sure people are aware that they're providing a lot of value. And a lot of times if you add up the costs, you're getting pretty good, you know, return in chat security. Yeah, a lot of these are gated communities that have 24, seven security roaming patrols, you know, after hours calls for, you know, high or noise complaints or whatnot that you don't have to deal with as much as a host, you know, so you, you get a lot of value out of these HOAs. And I wouldn't want anybody to be turned off by them.
[01:15:01] Speaker A: All right.
[01:15:01] Speaker B: If you want Disney people to be, if people, people who are like the Charlie's of the world, who are used to Disney.
[01:15:08] Speaker A: Your husband.
[01:15:09] Speaker B: Yes. Sorry. And what brings, what has brought us back over the years, even now that our kids are grown, is, you know, the Disney resorts are a very clean, very, like, I know what I get when I'm going to go there.
I know that. I know what my service is going to be. I know what the sheets are going to feel like. I know exactly what I will get every time I go there. And I don't have to reinvent the wheel if I just want, you know, to relax or, you know, whatever. I don't, I don't have to get creative. I just, I know where I can go. If you want. The, the people who are very mentally used to that feel that they get when they're at Disney, just like Jason said, you got to be willing to pay the hoas for these neighborhoods that take care of their property to a Disney standard. And I would describe some of these neighborhoods as being taken care of to Disney standards.
I mean, the way that everything is taken care of to Disney standards.
So it's, I would say that it's very worth it because people seamlessly transition and come home to, to our home and the amenities that go with our home.
And they're, they are, they're getting that same exact level of everything feel that they would get if they were going to a Disney resort.
[01:16:31] Speaker F: You know, unlike some markets that used to be ruled by property managers and then everyone, we all in this industry had to spend years unteaching, you know, cleaners and handyman and landscapers and all that. The shortcut habits that they were taught by, you know, the, the previous king of the, of the area in Orlando.
Majority of the service people at one point in time were exposed to Disney. They either work there or they know someone that was worked there or their boss worked there.
And so that, that Disney culture is, you know, it's pervasive throughout the year.
[01:17:04] Speaker B: That's a great point, Chuck. I honestly had not even thought about that. But that is such a. The cleaners have probably worked at one of the Disney hotels at some point before starting their own company.
[01:17:13] Speaker G: My dad helped build test track. You know, everybody's got.
[01:17:17] Speaker A: Oh, that's cool.
[01:17:18] Speaker G: Yeah, yeah, it's very cool.
[01:17:20] Speaker A: That's really cool. Yeah. Disney employees on any given Sunday or Tuesday or whatever, 80,000 people.
So this is a big, big thing. And Natalie, did you not have a.
[01:17:31] Speaker B: Hard time finding a cleaner thanks to Wade? No, of course I didn't have a hard time.
[01:17:36] Speaker A: You know, people.
[01:17:37] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, and she is amazing.
Like I've never in any market I've ever owned in, I've never experienced someone like her.
[01:17:46] Speaker A: Yes, and I told her that. And for those of you that are listening, Natalie's cleaner is not for hire.
[01:17:51] Speaker B: Not for hire.
[01:17:54] Speaker A: Okay, wonderful. Anything else?
If not, we will. I'm actually going to introduce everybody again on the way out just to remind people who we are. We got Brooklyn, Jason and Chuck and Jim who was here, and myself. We're all from Short Term Shop Plus. You can find
[email protected] we do offer, all of us offer the ones I just mentioned, one on one coaching sessions. You can get those at STS Plus.
And we've got Mike, Natalie and Wade, all three of which sell homes. Mike is the only one on this call that sells them in the Disney market. We do have two other folks here at the short term shop that sell homes in the Disney market and we would love to help you. If you're looking to purchase a home in the Disney area, you're in the right place. So come to
[email protected] and I think I can safely say on behalf of everybody here, we are massive Disney fans.
Thank you Disney World for the good vibes and the magic and that's going to do it for the Disney Pod 2025.
Thank you. Don't overthink.
[01:19:10] Speaker C: Sam.
