[00:00:02] 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] Short Term Rental Management, it is time to talk about fall.
[00:00:20] Last week as of the recording of this podcast, anyway, we had follow y' all Short Term Shop and it was Wonderful. Had over 200 folks come to a live event.
[00:00:33] It was recorded and it is up and available on STS plus.com for short term Shop plus members. Love to have you, but I wanted to do a recap and talk about fall in general here on the program because it is here. It's here.
[00:00:50] And the leaves are changing, the hurricanes are spinning.
[00:00:57] We are just weeks away from Halloween.
[00:01:03] I know you don't want to hear that, and I know beachgoers don't want to hear that because beachgoers want to think that it's hot and sunny and summertime all the time. And I totally get that. But I live on the beach, so, you know, I've had a great beach season. We went to the beach a lot more than we've ever gone.
[00:01:19] Of course, the children are getting older and it's a little easier to go. And Tom, it was wonderful, but it is now fall whether you like it or not.
[00:01:30] Okay, so a couple things we need to think about right now. You do want to have your September more than 50% full as of right now.
[00:01:39] Your October should also be about 50% full.
[00:01:43] If it is not, you are at fault. All right? September is difficult. You got to get ahead of it. You guys have heard me say it a thousand times.
[00:01:52] And you need to go pull up your property management software right now, run a custom for September 1st through September, whatever it is, and see where your occupancy is. And if you're not 50 occupied, shame on you.
[00:02:09] I mean, we're right in the thick of this thing here.
[00:02:12] We're already past Labor Day. The rest of September as of right now is garbage, Tom. It's garbage.
[00:02:21] October. You can hold out just a tiny bit. I think you're, you're over under for the easy money. And the hard money is October 8th.
[00:02:32] I'm sorry, September 8th for October.
[00:02:35] And what I mean by that is you can hold on trying to get the decent rates until about September 8th, and then it's time to drop October and get it full.
[00:02:45] Because while October is certainly much more desirable in some cases than September, and in some cases, especially in the mountains, it's even more desirable than August most years.
[00:02:59] It's also not a guarantee.
[00:03:04] October is not a guarantee. So you have until September 8th.
[00:03:11] Pull up a calendar here.
[00:03:15] Next week early. You have until early next week to grab on to whatever you can for October at good rates. We call that the easy money, Right?
[00:03:27] Then it's time to switch, go into survival mode, finish blowing out the rest of October for the E, for the hard money.
[00:03:35] So you're over under for October is September 8, with many, many, many exceptions to that rule. But you got to be looking, got to be paying attention. And I'll give you this. Parts of August were extremely difficult last week.
[00:03:54] Pre Thursday was very difficult.
[00:03:59] And the week before that, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.
[00:04:06] What was it? 25, 26, 27. It was almost impossible to get that booked.
[00:04:11] No, sorry. 18, 19, 20. August.
[00:04:15] That week was rough.
[00:04:18] Raise your hand if you did not get 18, 19, 20 August booked.
[00:04:26] I think I got it booked at two properties.
[00:04:31] Travel's down right now, and a lot of it is obviously back to school. But in general, the economy's wacky. People don't trust it, and they're not really looking to spend extra money right now. We do think that's gonna change. Interest rates have gone down. We're seeing them in the 6, 5 range right now, which is great. That's really great.
[00:04:53] Powell at the Wyoming party in Jackson Hole has announced that the rates are likely to go down. And of course, all of the headline, everything said Powell says rates are going to go down, but it's not because Trump said they should.
[00:05:10] Irregardless, which is not a real word, by the way. But it's fun to say rates are going down and things are looking good. Things are looking up.
[00:05:21] Okay, So I do think the travel's coming back.
[00:05:26] I think we're gonna have a fruitful October, if done correctly. And I think we're gonna have a pretty fruitful holiday season. I think folks are gonna be ready to spend some money this holiday season.
[00:05:35] I was at an Apple store recently. That son of a gun was packed to the point where I was, like, shocked. I was very refreshed. I said, oh, my goodness. I even talked to the manager. The manager happened to be the guy who helped me because the place was so busy. He was the only person available. And I was like, you running this place, aren't you? And he said, yes. And I said, let me tell you something. I think his name was Edwin Ed. I saw it on his shirt. Edwin, let me tell you something. Business is good here at the Apple store in New Orleans, Louisiana. You guys are rocking. It happened to be New Orleans at the time, one of my favorite places.
[00:06:13] So I think we're getting there.
[00:06:16] I also think that your competition is getting more slender.
[00:06:23] I want to talk about that for just a second. Let me get off on a tangent here. Saturation. It's a saturation update here on short term rental management. We are now going to consider as of this moment that every market nationwide is saturated.
[00:06:40] This is my solution for never having to hear this word again. Okay? Stop using this word like a bunch of idiots. You sound like a. You sound like a dumbass when you use that word. I heard that Toledo is saturated.
[00:06:51] Oh, really? Is that what you heard? What else did you hear?
[00:06:57] Did you hear that you're an idiot?
[00:07:00] Because if you didn't, I just told you. All right, we're done with this word. I'm done with it. I don't want to hear it again. I don't want to hear it. I don't know where it came from. I think it's stupid because the Smoky Mountains have always been saturated.
[00:07:14] Destin has always been saturated. I think most people's definition of saturated is that every house on the block is on Airbnb.
[00:07:22] Hello.
[00:07:24] That's what makes it a good overnight rental market.
[00:07:28] So as of the recording of this podcast, Short Term Rental Management with Luke Carl. Peace and love. Peace and love. Every market in America is now officially saturated, which means we don't have to use that word anymore.
[00:07:45] And the reason I bring that up is because I do think it's getting a little more slender. I think it's getting slimmed down. I think that the competition, especially that Covid competition, when. When real estate was hot, hot, hot, it was hotter.
[00:08:01] It was the 98 degrees in the shade. Hot.
[00:08:07] So hot.
[00:08:08] Red hot real estate, baby. You could not stop people from buying real estate in 2021 and 2022. You couldn't do it. They were going to buy it.
[00:08:19] Interest rates were low.
[00:08:23] People had extra dough.
[00:08:26] Let's buy a house.
[00:08:29] Let's move.
[00:08:31] I'm not talking about rentals. I'm talking about just real estate in general. It was hot, hot, hot.
[00:08:39] And those folks are starting to move on. They're moving on. They're over it.
[00:08:44] People in general only own real estate for about two years, except for the house they live in. That is seven years.
[00:08:53] We are past the two year mark on 2001 purchases. Sorry, 2021 purchases. And competition is getting to be less abundant now.
[00:09:09] I don't even care because it still isn't any good. It never was any good. I'm still the best of all time. I'm the greatest of all time. I look good, I smell good and I am good.
[00:09:19] And that's the attitude you have to have if you want to make it in real estate. This is a big industry, almost $4 trillion industry here and if you don't have what it takes to make it in a 4 trillion dollar industry then I'm sorry, you should go back to work.
[00:09:39] Which there's nothing wrong with that.
[00:09:43] I work all day every day. Just so happens that I do it in real estate and I'm a natural born entrepreneur that's never had a real job, whatever the hell a real job is. Anyway, can we get back on on track here please? Can we get back on track and talk about this is what I don't have a this is what happens when I don't have a guest.
[00:10:02] If you want to be a guest
[email protected] that's guest strm show.com looking to buy a beach house for your family this summer?
[00:10:18] We can help.
[00:10:19] The Shorttermshop.com we are a family owned business and we have the best team of real estate agents in the nation.
[00:10:30] We would love to earn your trust on your next beach or mountain vacation home. Purchase the shorttermshop.com with the short term shop. Not only do you get the best agents there are, but you get education and training to have success in the world of overnight rentals as well.
[00:10:50] Please join us at theshortermshop.com September 8th is your over under for getting rid of October. I also want to mention that the first two and a half weeks of November are complete garbage. Let's look at those now and get them dropped rock bottom to your oh crap number.
[00:11:13] Okay, Halloween is on a Friday so if you want you can keep that Saturday and Sunday 1 and 2 November a little bit on the higher side. But 3 through 24 give or take.
[00:11:29] November are pretty much garbage and you're going to make up for that by renting 25 through 30, otherwise known as Thanksgiving at a higher rate. I would recommend for right now we have somewhere around maybe a five night minimum for 25 through 30 November.
[00:11:49] Obviously a lot of variables there mostly dependent on the size of your home.
[00:11:54] December is almost identical to November. We want to just blow out December 1 through 21.
[00:12:05] We actually do based on the placement of Christmas this year have more valuable dates in December and January than we usually do because Christmas is on a Thursday. So you got Christmas Eve on a Wednesday. That means that entire weekend after Christmas nobody's working.
[00:12:25] You Know, a lot of times, depending on where Christmas falls, people might go back to work on the 27th, even the 26th.
[00:12:33] Probably not going to happen this year.
[00:12:36] People are probably not going to work the 26th, and if they do, it's going to be very lackadaisical and they're going home early.
[00:12:44] So we got a little bit of a gift. You should have a heavy Christmas season this year. You should have more nights per booking. I want five to six night minimum on those bookings for Christmas through New Year's because New Year's is also on a Thursday.
[00:12:59] Nobody's going to work on the day after New Year's.
[00:13:02] So they got all the way until the 5th of January before anybody's going back to work. Let's be realistic. Nobody's working from December 24th through January 5th this year.
[00:13:15] It's not going to happen because of that Thursday, major holiday.
[00:13:19] You're welcome.
[00:13:21] It's a gift. People that are traveling for Christmas are going to stay through Wednesday. From Wednesday through Sunday. It's pretty much a given.
[00:13:31] That's what you're looking for. We need to have at least a Five Night Men right now on 24th through 28 and 29 through 4.
[00:13:42] That's 29th January, 29th December through 4. Jan.
[00:13:46] Okay, makes more sense because I'm staring at a calendar right now and I'm. I should have shared screen on the calendar so you could follow along with me. But most likely you're listening on a podcast anyway. So now I'm just wasting your time.
[00:14:02] And it is of course not too early to be looking at January and February. Those are throwaway months. They're garbage as of right now. We do want to keep March 1st through the rest of the year 2026 fairly high. It's very easy money at this point, meaning if you get something booked at that on those dates, March 1st through the end of the year, 26th.
[00:14:22] It was an easy booking and it should have been booked at a high price.
[00:14:27] You didn't have to fight for it.
[00:14:29] All right. We probably do need to be decorating a little bit. You got to decide whether you're going to do a little bit of Thanksgiving stuff. I have already got my, my Halloween doormats out. I won't do much more than that for Halloween, but I will do a couple of trinkets for Thanksgiving. But mostly we're doing Thanksgiving and Christmas together. I decorate and you're not gonna like this.
[00:14:52] I decorate for Christmas for Christmas, the day after Halloween.
[00:14:56] I don't necessarily do that in my rentals, but I'm prepared to do it in the rentals. Depends on the day of the week. Depends on my cleaner's availability. Depends on if my cleaner wants the job or not. She usually does.
[00:15:10] Again, this is mountain only. My beach properties, they're pretty much going to be empty. If you're on the beach right now, you need to be budgeting for, for slow season. You need to be budgeting for living in the desert for the next three months, four months, not the next, but for a period of three to four months starting November 1st. Okay. There's many exceptions to that rule. You could put your property. Here's, here's something you should consider. Put your property on Zillow for rent.
[00:15:39] If you've got a beach house, there's no reason you can't put it on Zillow with a two month period of time availability for January and February or maybe three months for rent.
[00:15:51] Maybe somebody will bite. Maybe you Posted in a local for rent by owner Facebook group. Hey, I'm available. January, February. Anybody want this thing? It's, it's affectionately sometimes known as a snowbird.
[00:16:02] You should probably have that lined up by now, but it's not too late.
[00:16:06] You can poke around and find somebody. Maybe it's not easy to find that.
[00:16:11] You will find that if you post it on Zillow for Rent. Most people are going to say they want it for 12 to 18 months.
[00:16:17] And then you have to say, well, I'm sorry, it's only available for two. Be honest with you. It's not even worth replying to somebody who wants it for 18 months because it's not the product that I'm selling here.
[00:16:26] The product I'm selling is only available for two months. Okay, it's time to start decorating. Get your Christmas affairs in order.
[00:16:37] Make sure the tree's ready to go. If you have the tree in a crawl space, you might have your cleaner take a peek at it because it's probably nasty and you may consider getting another one. That's why I always get a hundred dollar Christmas tree every year. Because it's easier to throw them out or donate them than it is to put them in the crawl space. And then you got a nasty bent up, dirty snake eaten Christmas tree next season.
[00:17:01] See what I'm saying?
[00:17:05] If you want me to summarize in a nutshell, yes, you got to pay attention. This is a great time of year to be paying attention. Now we are shifting away from giving all the attention to the guests. I'm needy Needy, needy, needy, needy to the property and your calendar because now they are going to become needy. The bathroom update that's been needed. The leak on the. The valve on the cold in the master bathroom has been dripping and you didn't get around to it. Maybe you didn't even know about it. Okay, it's time to go through with a fine tooth comb. It's also a great time for a deep clean.
[00:17:37] September is a great time for a deep clean. Get those windows open. Clean out the mold from around the window sills and all the filth and disgusting and nasty.
[00:17:50] When's the last time you looked at your ceiling fans?
[00:17:55] They're probably pretty gross.
[00:18:00] So great time for a deep clean. Great time to be paying a lot of attention to your calendar and your property and your headline and your description and your photos. This is the. You do need to be working in those holiday photos right now. If you're the type of folks that have, you know, four or five holiday style, you know, themed photos, maybe if you have a picture of the Christmas tree from last year, it's go ahead, let's go ahead and start working that in.
[00:18:24] It's not too early. Maybe it's two weeks too early, but it's not.
[00:18:30] It's not.
[00:18:31] People crap all over me about that in my personal life because I do. I do holidays early. I like to do holidays early because I want, by the time the holiday's over, I want it to be beat to death. I want to be like, so over it, you know, that I don't get sad that it's gone. That's kind of how I roll.
[00:18:49] So we're Halloweening over here. I got skulls on my porch. I got rugs with pumpkins on them. And my kids are doing, you know, witches, which witch. Artwork and painting, etc.
[00:19:06] It's happening whether you like it or not. Maybe you're living in the past.
[00:19:11] I get it. I do go. You know, some folks get annoyed. Oh, man, summer's not even over yet. It's August. You see all this stuff on Instagram reels and things like that. But.
[00:19:19] All right, to recap, once again, we knew we need to go ahead and schedule a deep clean. You gotta get, get September just. It's garbage. Get rid of it.
[00:19:27] October, you gotten. You got until next week basically to try and get a few bookings there. And then it's time to start dropping that.
[00:19:34] We talked about the dates in November and December and you also do need to go ahead and pick at your Jan. Feb, March 1. Moving forward, needs to be super high as of right now. No reason to to worry about that.
[00:19:46] Post it on Zillow. Try and get yourself somebody in there for two months. If you're on the beach, three months. Whatever you want.
[00:19:54] All right.
[00:19:56] I love you.
[00:19:58] Bob's your uncle.
[00:20:01] Cash flow Carl from the Cash Cave on the fall 2025 update, I need to come up with a clever name for it. How about the Fall Fun Festival? Fall Festival of Fun 2025. Have a wonderful fall season.
[00:20:23] We'll see you next Tuesday. Don't overthink.
