[00:00:00] If that tree is showing signs of death, it's not coming back.
[00:00:05] Get rid of it. They're dangerous. Dead trees are dangerous on multiple levels. And they can cause so much expensive damage. Inspect the trees.
[00:00:20] All right, here we go. Let's. Let's talk hurricanes.
[00:00:24] Hurricanes. First of all, I'd like to say that they're terrible. They're horrible.
[00:00:28] Seriously, feel for anybody who was affected by this storm in any capacity, terrible situation, you feel. You feel defenseless.
[00:00:41] There's no control.
[00:00:43] You can't do anything about it.
[00:00:45] And it's a horrible feeling.
[00:00:48] So we did just have a direct hit. Cat 3 here, where I live on 38 Florida Destin area, Fort Walton Beach. And it's for, you know, it's not something we want to be known for, you know, much rather be on the news for our beautiful white sand beaches and our peace and quiet and relaxing vacations, because we need you to come here and spend your money. This is a tiny little vacation town, and without tourists, we've got nothing.
[00:01:19] So the first thing I want to say is that we're back in business. Everything's open.
[00:01:25] The beaches are, you know, in. In most areas looking okay. There's some areas that the dunes are gone and things. We will. They will get that fixed.
[00:01:34] And please, again.
[00:01:39] Well, I'll get to that. But please, come on down, spend your money. We need you. All right.
[00:01:44] I mean, another story as far as, like, having guests while this is happening and not giving their money back. We will talk about that as well. That's not what I'm talking about here. We have all the sympathy in the world, but what I am saying is that things look pretty good right now. There's obviously some damage here and there.
[00:02:00] Most structures are intact. I noticed the donut shop down the street was missing part of their roof.
[00:02:07] It's a trailer. You know, I don't know if that matters or not, but in other words, you know, maybe not that big a deal to get it fixed.
[00:02:17] I didn't see the extent of the damage. It was dark when I ran by, but, you know, it's. Again, it's horrible.
[00:02:29] Comes up all the time. Oh, my God. Florida. Florida. Florida hurricanes.
[00:02:35] People ask us that every single day. How could you buy something in Florida? There's hurricanes.
[00:02:42] Well, you know, my thing. There is. There's natural disasters everywhere. I'm from the Midwest. And there are tornadoes. Those things are horrible.
[00:02:53] And snow. Snow is terrible for a house.
[00:02:58] Sits on the roof until it melts, is nothing. You know, it's just frozen moisture and moisture is hell on a house. So snow, I will argue, could be just as bad as hurricanes. You know, depending on how bad the hurricane is. Obviously, we don't want. You know, there's different levels, obviously, Michael, Katrina, the big. The big one, Sandy, you know, these are just absolutely devastating for a lot of people.
[00:03:25] And I'm certainly no meteorologist. I'm no Mike's weather page, so keep that in mind. I'm not an expert on these things at all, but matter of fact, I come from the Midwest originally where tornadoes were very normal.
[00:03:42] And I remember on a regular basis, particularly in the springtime, the tornado siren would go off in the little tiny town that I grew up in in Nebraska, go big red, and we would go to the basement and pull the couch out from the window, and that's what we would do.
[00:04:02] We had basements.
[00:04:04] We're gonna have basements in Florida. That's another thing.
[00:04:10] So, you know, you don't really have tornadoes down here. There's definitely no snow. You just gotta choose your natural disaster. It's all you can do.
[00:04:19] You know, and everybody talks about the insurance. Oh, my God, the insurance. You can't afford it. There's hurricanes. The insurance is so expensive. Well, I mean, you need to buckle up because it's. First of all, a beach house in Florida is just expensive with very few exceptions.
[00:04:33] So you don't get into this thinking, oh, I'm looking for cheap.
[00:04:39] You know, that's not really what you're doing.
[00:04:43] So, yes, the insurance is expensive.
[00:04:46] Sorry.
[00:04:48] Wildfires in California. Horrible, horrible. Scary as hell. I don't know much about that, to be honest. I know my brother's lived out there off and on for, you know, many, many parts of his life. He's dealt with those, but that's the extent of it for me.
[00:05:06] So, you know, to be honest with you, when I hear people say, oh, why, you know, why should I buy in Florida? There's hurricanes. This is. What are you doing?
[00:05:16] You're probably not qualified to be buying in Florida. Do you want a beach house or not?
[00:05:22] Because a beach house is going to come with hurricanes, you know, at least where I live.
[00:05:28] And you keep an eye on Zoom Earth. That's the website I use. The app I use for this is Zoom Earth. And it's okay, this thing's getting a little closer. Let's bail and get out of town, you know, so this one that just happened, obviously, horrible. And again, I can't speak for other areas, but right here in my immediate area, tons and tons and tons of trees. Down, which is the first thing I want to talk about trees.
[00:05:51] So I'll tell you a little story actually. I have a little rental house down the way and the I come home and from, you know, being evacuated, we do, I like to evacuate. Being a mid midwesterner, I don't like to stick around for these things. They scare the crap out of me.
[00:06:08] Massive pile of trees in our front yard.
[00:06:11] I'm talking six, seven, eight feet tall.
[00:06:15] And I figured it was the power company.
[00:06:19] And one of the neighbors said that this guy over here, this other guy over here, you know, paid a tree guy to move the, the trees fell down on his property, paid somebody to get him off his property and they decided to stack him here.
[00:06:31] And that guy was like, the county's not going to take these, they're too big. You know, it was a big pile.
[00:06:38] So I talked to the guy whose house they came from and you know, here's the reality. My house right next door to his, I had $15,000 worth of tree work done when I bought it because there's too many trees near the roof. Like if there's a tree that could possibly fall on the roof, I want it gone.
[00:06:58] So I did 15 grand worth of tree work. And I can guarantee you that's the only reason that house is still there. It's a little one story. So mean, meaning the trees had further to fall on it. You know, if it's a big three story house, you got a better chance you. Because the tree might only go like this, right? But if it's a, if it's a one little one story, then the tree is definitely going to come down with more force. See what I'm saying?
[00:07:20] You got three story house, which is very common around here. There's a good chance that tree might even just rest on the side and fall down.
[00:07:27] Because the trees, you know, they're not huge here. They're palm trees in most cases. And a lot of times the trees aren't even as tall as the houses, which is what happened in his case.
[00:07:37] They didn't touch his house. They all just fell because he's got a big tall house anyway, right? So anyway, I saw, I told him, I said, man, I did 15 grand worth of tree work when I bought this thing and that's why it's still here. This guy, he didn't want to pay to have these trees hauled off. He wanted the county to be responsible or something like that. And I get that, you know, I'm not here to get into neighbor disputes, but what I am here to tell you is that trees die every day, okay? And Kumbaya. I love you. Tree hug. I like. I love it. I do. I love nature. I'm all about it.
[00:08:09] But people die every day and so do trees. And if you don't get rid of a dead tree, you've got a problem on lots of levels.
[00:08:19] That tree could fall on a car, you know, in the middle of zero wind, if dead trees will fall over, okay? And they are living creatures and they die every day.
[00:08:33] So really, what you got here now when I'm driving around is a bunch of trees that were probably already dead that nobody did anything about, and they fell over in the storm because they were dead. A healthy tree in the storm we just had is most likely gonna be okay.
[00:08:49] That's my opinion. Again, I'm no expert here, so I do need you. I think if you take something away from this show. And thank you for being here, by the way. I love you listening to this dorky show that, you know, God bless you. Hit me with five stars on Spotify. Please do. I want you to understand that as a property manager, you need to be inspecting trees.
[00:09:09] If that tree is showing signs of death, it's not coming back.
[00:09:14] Get rid of it. They're dangerous.
[00:09:18] Dead trees are dangerous on multiple levels, and they can cause so much expensive damage.
[00:09:27] Inspect the trees.
[00:09:30] There's actually a good app for that that I use regularly. It will tell you, and it's much better than AI because I've tried to do it on chat, GPT, etc, and it doesn't do as good a job.
[00:09:41] Picture this.
[00:09:43] You know, when AI came out ChatGPT, Claude, etc, I started trying to use that, and it doesn't do as good a job. I like this. Picture this app. I think it's like five bucks a year or something like that.
[00:09:52] And I also have a, for lack of a better way to put it, a pine tree farm in Alabama, which is, you know, we use for recreational purposes, four wheelers, wildlife, etc.
[00:10:08] So I use that app quite a bit. And you, you know, if you're walking a property and you see a tree that looks funky or has a. I mean, honestly, if there's a branch that's missing leaves, the tree's probably not that healthy.
[00:10:22] So use that p. I like that. Picture this app. You know, I'm trying to give light. I don't. I don't want the liability. So use an app to tell you if the tree's healthy or not. It'll say, yeah, this tree's sick.
[00:10:32] And I'm no expert, but most of the time that tree is not coming back, you know, so. And these trees will fall down in terrible storms, tornadoes, high winds of any kind, hurricanes.
[00:10:45] So if there's anything to learn from all this hurricane stuff is that you need. What are you doing?
[00:10:51] Yes, it's expensive to take down trees. And I know most people seem to be broke, broken, lazy, or whatever's going on out there, but you got to get rid of these dead trees or they're going to get rid of your roof.
[00:11:05] All right?
[00:11:06] It's an important lesson to learn as a property manager and a landlord. If you're buying a house that's surrounded by trees, you just cost yourself 20 grand. I mean, it's going to cost 20 grand to get. You know, I don't know. I haven't seen your. I haven't seen this house, but I paid that much before to get rid of a bunch of trees because they are terrible when they get sick and die, especially if they're massive, you know, and they're dropping crap on your roof all the time. Pine trees, especially. They're filling your gutters, you know, so know what you're. That's my kids. You hear that jingle jangle? That's my kids medals. I hang them on my mic stand.
[00:11:46] I'll be moving into my new office soon, so they'll get a better spot on the wall. But my kids work hard at their sports. I love it. Tennis especially, but they love the soccer. But anyway, inspect your trees, and if they're sick, get rid of them. Do not wait for the storm to come and get rid of your tree. It will cause all sorts of damage.
[00:12:09] It's not smart.
[00:12:11] Don't pile your dead trees up on your neighbor's front yard, even if the county is coming to get them. Don't do that.
[00:12:19] So if there's anything to learn from all this is that you need to know what's up with your trees, man, for real.
[00:12:26] They're expensive as hell to get rid of, but they die every day.
[00:12:31] People take it for granted.
[00:12:34] They do.
[00:12:37] Be smart. Be a good property manager. Inspect for your owners.
[00:12:42] Look around that house. Hey. Say, hey, Mr. Property man, Mr. Homeowner, you got a dead tree over here. Do you want us to get rid of it?
[00:12:49] And you know, if they say no, at least you did your job.
[00:12:55] Always got to have a good tree guy or two.
[00:12:58] Two or three.
[00:13:01] Be careful, though, because when they get good and the phone starts ringing, they get expensive, man. They'll go from expensive Expensive pretty quick, you know what I mean? So I always like to have a backup kind of a deal.
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[00:13:29] We're going to talk about learning how to use AI, best pricing practices, travel trends, cost seg and taxes. And we will have many industry experts on the Panel. This is stsplus.com2027.
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[email protected] 2027 Anyway, onto a new subject. I do want to talk about what happens when the storm comes. We want to cancel and refund. That's just the way I'm going to do it. I think it's, you know, the right thing to do. And I saw a bunch of Facebook posts and again, I hate this Facebook. I don't know how I ended up on there, but a bunch of people bitching and complaining and moaning that the property managers wouldn't give them their money back. And this, that and the other. I'm not doing that.
[00:14:18] Full refunds across the board. It's the only way to go.
[00:14:21] It's the only way to go.
[00:14:24] We lost probably 12 grand or so in that, you know, four, five, six day period. We had really nice bookings, great bookings for October.
[00:14:33] The weather was to be beautiful and then all of a sudden the storm comes in. Came quick too. It was gone quick.
[00:14:40] And we offered full refunds, you know, and in hindsight, that probably could have been okay, but it's not worth the risk. Also, we didn't have power for like four days.
[00:14:57] Front door of the house I live in still won't shut. Right. Because it's all swollen up from the air conditioner being off and it got, you know, moisture from the storm.
[00:15:08] So do you want to be on vacation in a fancy beach, nice, not real nice beach house with big, big rooms and big beds. Nice. Next to the beach and not have electricity. No, you don't.
[00:15:22] I did find it interesting that half these people didn't. They wouldn't take no for an answer.
[00:15:28] Oh, we're coming. We're driving nine hours into a hurricane to come stay at your house. Why would you do that?
[00:15:35] And then when you said you probably shouldn't come, there's no power, take this full refund, they're like, no, we don't want that. We're coming.
[00:15:43] Let us know when the power's back on. I'm like, well, there's no way to tell. We don't have any idea. It could be Two weeks.
[00:15:50] You know, I was in New York City for Hurricane Sandy. That was like, what, two and a half weeks with no power.
[00:15:59] I remember driving through the city on my motorcycle. Nobody had any gasoline, no power of any kind for week, like two, almost three weeks.
[00:16:07] And I had a motorcycle.
[00:16:10] I didn't need much gas. You get, you know, 40, 50 miles at a gallon on a motorcycle. So I was running around. I think I even went to work at one point to pick some stuff up. It was, you know, couldn't. There's no power. But I remember tooling around lower Manhattan on my motorcycle. And the headlight on my bike was the only light in the entire city.
[00:16:35] And there were no people and there were no cars because nobody had any gas.
[00:16:38] You know, it was crazy. It was scary. It was like. It was like Mad Max end of the world.
[00:16:48] I remember waiting in line to get gas with a can, you know, a five, whatever, two and a half, five gallon can for my bike because the car lines were too long. I wasn't gonna sit there and wait in that car line on my motorcycle. Crappy weather.
[00:17:05] So I waited in the stand at the standing line for the cans. And I got second to the front. And they shut it down. They said, we're out of gas. See you later.
[00:17:16] You know, that's scary stuff. So when this all went down, we offered everybody full refund. You should probably not come. And then a couple guys, a couple people were like, oh, we're coming. And then you got to talk them into it and be like, listen, I'd love to take your three grand, but this is not a good idea, you know. So anyway, that's our policy. You're. You're allowed to do whatever you want there. You, you landlord the way you want landlord, you, property manage the way you want property manager. I'm giving free full refunds. And I'm encouraged. You know, I'm. I'm gonna get to the point where I'm gonna say, hey, you probably shouldn't come in a situation like that, you know? And honestly, if they're dumb enough to think that they're gonna have a good time coming to into a situation where they have no power and the beach is destroyed, you know, they're not gonna have. They're not gonna. They're gonna show up and they're gonna be like, well, there's no power.
[00:18:03] Yeah, dude, we told you six times, that's what's gonna happen. That's reality. If they're dumb enough. Because they're dumb is what it is. They're if they're dumb enough to still come, they're going to show up, open the door, go inside and realize they can't turn the TV on because they tried to turn it on and it wouldn't turn on. And then they're going to get mad.
[00:18:21] Well, we can't even charge our phones. Well, yeah. What did you think was going to happen when we told you there was no power and you said, I'm coming anyway.
[00:18:31] So it's painful because it's costing you money, you know, to, to, to deal with these idiots.
[00:18:44] I hate to say it. I love you. I love you. But guys, people just aren't that smart, you know, they just, they just are not that smart.
[00:18:56] So not only do I gotta lose money, but you're also mad about it, you know, so the instinct would be to just say, screw it, let them come, take the three grand.
[00:19:06] But then when they get there, they're going to be even more mad. You got to deal with that. Three stars. They didn't have any power. Dude, we told you four times there was no power and there's no way to tell. And you said you're coming anyway. You know what I mean? That's reality.
[00:19:23] What a horrible situation. You know, we hope we don't have any more. That's, I believe the first hit, direct hit Destin's ever really had. Hurricane Opal, 1995 was the closest, which I believe that one was way worse from my knowledge. I mean, I was a kid at the time living in Nebraska.
[00:19:42] Clearly no hurricanes in Nebraska, but they've got, hell, they've got hail, hail, hail and snow and all sorts of horrible things hitting those roofs, you know, so everybody's got, everywhere's got their problems. You don't want natural disasters. Your only option is Arizona, to my knowledge, you know, no earthquakes, it's just hot as all hell all the time.
[00:20:16] 270,000 active short term rental listings in the state of Florida as of last month, according to air DNA, by the way. Way, 270,000.
[00:20:30] So be honest with you. I don't want to hear it. Well, why would I buy in Florida if they have hurricanes and I have to pay for this insurance? If you're asking that question, you probably don't really need to be buying a beach house.
[00:20:47] Sorry, am I being too hard on you? Tough love? Am I trying to say that you're one of those dumb people I was talking about a minute ago? Maybe.
[00:21:00] But it is what it is. And when we first moved here, I've been here. What Seven years now. My son was born here.
[00:21:06] I was scared to death with these things. And it doesn't get it still. It still hurts. They're painful. But I just leave, deal with it later. There's nothing you can do. I have no control over it.
[00:21:18] And, you know, in a weird way, you get. You do. You get a little more tied into the area when it happens. You feel like you're in this together, you know, There is a vibe like that. Like, I came back and for instance, the bridge, the closest pedestrian bridge to my house, where I am the Strava local legend. I've run over that bridge. I think I posted about it on Instagram at Luke Cash Flow. Carl, please follow me. I'm hitting. I'm close to 30, 000 on there now.
[00:21:49] The bridge closest to my house was completely wiped out. The pedestrian, pedestrian bridge, the car bridge is fine.
[00:21:57] And it's sad. I've run over that bridge every morning for seven years, you know, six days a week, and it's gone.
[00:22:06] But they'll put in a new one and I'll be the local legend on that one and that one. I can say I've run over it every single day since the day it was built, you know, so when this kind of thing happens, I don't know, it's kind of. In a weird way, I feel like I'm a little bit more ingrained in the community now. It's almost like a family kind of a weird, weird thing to think about, you know, but they happen. You know, you do your best, you get out of town. I'm. This is not a. This is not a podcast on what to do when there's a hurricane, per se.
[00:22:43] You know, some people are going to board up the windows.
[00:22:47] I'm not. I'm not doing it. I'm just leaving. You know, I'll pro. I'll try and pull in the patio furniture, put it in the house, you know, and I got too many of them. I got. How many beach. Seven beach houses or something. So, bye. I'm out of here.
[00:23:07] All you can do is pray.
[00:23:11] And that's real.
[00:23:14] You know, it's hard, but it's reality.
[00:23:21] So if we're talking about what to do when the hurricane comes, shut it down. Give everybody full refunds. Bye, bye.
[00:23:31] Simple as that.
[00:23:35] I don't. I'm not sure. Again, I haven't been through one. That was horrible. Like, horrible horrible. But I don't understand. I don't really quite understand the boarding up the windows thing, because when you pull that Plywood off, then you got a bunch of holes in your house, right? Like, is that how that works? I guess I'm asking you. I'm not. I'm no expert, but it seems to me I'd rather just the window get blown out. But, you know, then it's. It's a matter of suction and vacuum. I think that's the thing, is that, like, if it's absolutely horrible, catastrophic, the one window breaks, and then it creates a. Some sort of a suction, and it can shoot the roof off the house.
[00:24:09] Almost like, you know, I'm no. I'm no engineer here, but, like, when you roll down one window in your car and you get that vibration in your ear and you got to roll another window down to get that to go away, Something like that, you know. So I think that's why we're doing it. Not to protect, necessarily the windows themselves, I don't know. But I will also say the strong will survive.
[00:24:35] You know, I think over time, the storms have wiped out the vulnerable. Vulnerable properties. You know, I hate to say that, but I feel like if it wasn't built that well, it'd probably be gone by now. You know, to a certain extent, you know, the roofs are being.
[00:24:55] The roofs are. Are done a little tougher.
[00:24:58] I don't know that the materials are any higher quality. I think in some cases the materials are even less. Less quality, but they seem to secure them in a better fashion these days, and you see less of them blowing off, I suppose, You know, so anyway, hurricanes are horrible. They really are. But, you know, I don't want to hear this. Why would I buy in Florida? There's hurricanes thing. I mean, that's. It's just a ridiculous comment. I get it. I get it. But if you're asking that question, you don't. You really don't have any business buying in Florida. Why are you even asking? What are we doing?
[00:25:43] Go buy somewhere that doesn't have hurricanes. It's as simple as that.
[00:25:48] But if you want a beach house, you learn. You stop asking that question and deal with it every October. It seems to be October. At least where I'm at.
[00:26:00] You got a really good chance.
[00:26:02] We've had two really bad ones since I've lived here for seven years. One was four or five years ago, Sally.
[00:26:09] That one actually did a little more damage because it was further away, but it stayed around forever. It was going two miles an hour, you know, and then you just start to learn this stuff, oh, my God, it's going too fast. It's going too slow is bad.
[00:26:22] You want it to be going fast. This last one was going really fast.
[00:26:25] Like in other words, moving. Not. I'm not talking about the wind speed, I'm talking about the how fast it was traveling.
[00:26:34] This, this, this one we just had was traveling something like 19 miles an hour. And Sally, the one we had five years ago, that was going two miles an hour. So we got way more flooding on that one.
[00:26:46] My house flooded on that one. My house didn't flood on this one.
[00:26:50] Not flood. It wasn't bad. I hate to say flood it was. I. Luckily I stayed for that one. Matter of fact, wifey, you know, she was. That we, she was pregnant. We're having a baby like anytime, so she didn't want to leave. And I, you know, it's up to her. I was like, hey, you're pregnant. We need to get the hell out of here. She's like, no, I'm staying.
[00:27:16] And the house leaked on that one. But I was there and I cleaned it up. No big deal. It really wasn't a big deal.
[00:27:20] Had two leaks, actually. I. The back, the back leak was a problem with the door. You know, hey, if nothing else, you learn about your house in these situations and what needs to be fixed.
[00:27:33] Man, we lost six trees in that hurricane. Well, you had six dead trees. You should have taken care of that before.
[00:27:40] You know, you don't want to be going into a hurricane with dead trees.
[00:27:46] So anyway, I hope you had, I hope you made out okay. I know it's been terrible for some folks, especially further, a little bit further west from where I am. I haven't seen any of it, you know, so I can't speak to anything outside of my little area. Here's what I'm talking about today. If you had a catastrophic situation, this, you know, I, my heart goes out to you. I have nothing to do with that. Today on the show. I didn't see any of that. I just know what happened right here in my immediate area.
[00:28:11] And it's not good.
[00:28:12] It's definitely not good.
[00:28:14] The beaches, you know, they got wiped out. It's sad. Beautiful, most gorgeous, beautiful beach you've ever seen.
[00:28:24] But they'll get them fixed, you know. So anyway, hopefully you fared well in the, the hurricane and make sure you check those trees.
[00:28:36] That's the moral of the story. So long haired Luke, Carl, the long hair, debonair, saying, please don't overthink it.
