[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 Shorts from Rental Management. Luke Carl, great to be here. I love you in the cash cave today in this glorious year of 2025, life is good. My rents are up year over year from last year and that's not including a new property, which I added recently. Very exciting stuff. Gotta love the world of vacation houses. If you want to buy a house to use on your vacations with your family, if you're going to a specific area often buy the house, do it, do it, and rent it when you're not there. It's a very simple concept.
[00:00:54] The beauty of it is, is there's no lease. You don't have to evict somebody or non renew somebody in order to go to your own house because people are coming and going every three days and it's a wonderful thing.
[00:01:07] All right, today what I want to talk about is hitting it big.
[00:01:13] Hitting it big, buying two houses and quitting your job, which is something that I have always, since day one, preached against to me. This is not realistic. It's kind of ridiculous, to be honest with you.
[00:01:30] I don't understand it.
[00:01:33] And now post Covid, in this world of tariffs and high interest rates and whatever the hell's going on out there, we seem to have some folks that are butt hurt. You know, I like to use that term, but it runs rampant.
[00:01:49] And what I want to tell you today is that your house is not a slot machine. I see it all the time.
[00:01:57] I see it all the time. People buy a house because they think they're going to hit the big time, quit their job.
[00:02:06] Doesn't work like that.
[00:02:08] Real estate is for wealthy folks. I hate to tell you. And did I do this myself?
[00:02:15] Some might think that I did.
[00:02:17] And my story is incredible. It's an incredible story. It is coming from very little. Grew up in a tiny little house in a tiny little town in the middle of Nebraska, moved to New York City at the age of 21, became something of myself and started business after business and every one of them was successful.
[00:02:46] I did well, I've done well.
[00:02:49] And it comes from hard work. There were no slot machines involved.
[00:02:59] I see it too often where people almost act like they're one of these casino influencers. Like Vegas, Matt. Like Vegas, Matt. I love Vegas, Matt. He's awesome. I don't gamble at all.
[00:03:17] Maybe in my younger years. I haven't gambled in years and I probably never will. I'm over it. I'm a grown adult with children, and it's ridiculous, but I do. I like his content. He's funny, and he's led me to these other guys, Bretzky, these. These casino influencers.
[00:03:35] There were certain casinos that allowed them to start filming in the casino, and they were bringing camera crews and they were filming it. And I wouldn't be surprised if they're playing with fake money because they're getting clicks. Vegas Matt's got over a million followers. So maybe the casino's giving him funny money just to get him on this Internet. And they use the name of the casino, and maybe the whole thing's fake, I don't know.
[00:03:55] I do know he's selling merch, and I think that he uses his losses as marketing dollars, which I actually read an interview, saw an interview with him one time, and he said that he's not legally allowed to use casino gambling losses as marketing dollars for his apparel. But really is exactly what it is.
[00:04:16] So these guys go to the casino, they sit down, they put 20 grand down, and they either win or they lose. Either way, it's like, oh, my God, they just lost 20 grand. Oh, my gosh, they just lo. They just won 20 grand. This is so huge. And then they get followers.
[00:04:32] Now it is catching on to the point where there's too many of these guys and it's not cool anymore.
[00:04:40] But that is not what a house is.
[00:04:46] And I've said it before, buying real estate is for wealthy people, is for people that have some dough and they're looking for tax advantages and they're looking for a stock market alternative. I see too many people that are coming to real estate with nothing.
[00:04:58] And that can be done. It can be done. But you're gonna have to hustle and you're gonna have to side hustle and side hustle and side hustle and work your rear end off and side hustles in real estate. I hate to tell you, sometimes it can be a little slimy.
[00:05:10] Do you remember the wholesale movement of 2017 where every single person and their sister was a wholesaler?
[00:05:22] Where's that? I don't. That doesn't seem to be a thing anymore. I mean, either that or maybe I've just realized that there's never any deals on there. I bought something like 300 properties, and two of them were wholesale deals. And both of them were horrible. I hated it.
[00:05:36] Hated it. Wasn't for me.
[00:05:40] And then there was the short term rental boom of COVID and the multi family syndication boom, where it seemed like every Time you turn around, you're meeting somebody that's syndicating multifamily.
[00:05:57] These are the type of folks that are trying to hit it big on a slot machine.
[00:06:03] You're not thinking about real estate for what it really is, which is slow, slow, slow, boring. It's boring and slow.
[00:06:11] Vacation rentals are definitely way less boring, much more sexy. And you can have fun in them and use them. You can get drunk in it, you can make babies in it, you can take your current babies to it.
[00:06:26] They're fun.
[00:06:29] Doesn't mean that you're going to get rich any faster.
[00:06:33] If you're approaching this like Vegas Matt sitting down at the blackjack table or the he likes to play baccarat.
[00:06:41] If you're sitting down at the bakarat table and if you're a Vegas Matt fan, you know he always plays the banker and you're sitting there putting money on banker and you're trying to win a hand for $30,000, there's a pretty good chance you're going to lose.
[00:07:03] If you're looking at rental real estate like it's a gamble, there's a very good chance you're gonna lose.
[00:07:12] Hate to tell you.
[00:07:15] And there's no such thing as a sure thing, man. There's not. It's always going to be a little bit of a risk or a gamble.
[00:07:21] I have somebody working on something in this property right now because you're always constantly working on real estate. That's another thing. It's always going to need work. You might hear, you might hear him in the background is why I bring that up. There's some, some pl. A planer going on anyway.
[00:07:38] If you don't get the work done, you're not going to hit it big.
[00:07:41] And getting the work done costs a lot of money.
[00:07:45] It does costs money.
[00:07:49] You're sitting at the back baccarat table, you put $20,000 down, you lose. It's just like that.
[00:07:58] And for whatever reason, I think there's a lot of people, they don't realize it. If you're one of these people, you don't realize this is you, by the way.
[00:08:06] So take a long hard look.
[00:08:10] 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.
[00:08:23] The mission remains constant. To provide amazing homes so that our guests can create awesome memories with their families.
[00:08:32] If you need help to set up your systems and processes, how to communicate with guests, how to improve your 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 sdsplus.com but there is a decent amount of folks that heard some random podcast where they thought they could hit it, strike gold like the California gold rush. They're gonna run out there to the California and dig a hole in the ground and hit it big.
[00:09:29] Well, let me put it this way, it didn't happen like that for me. I worked my rear end off, started multiple companies, hired, fired, hired again.
[00:09:41] Worked, worked, worked. I wake up every day at 3:45 in the morning.
[00:09:50] Part of that is because I'm in my 40s. You are going to make most of your money between 40 and 50. I read it in a book. I don't know, I don't know where it came from, but let's just say it came from Luke from now on, okay? Because I say it all the time.
[00:10:01] You're going to make the bulk of your money, your wealth.
[00:10:05] If you're lucky enough to ever get to the point where you're making actual wealth money between 40 and 50. And that's where I'm at right now. And if I got to sacrifice sleep until I'm 50, so be it.
[00:10:18] Massive, massive action.
[00:10:22] It's the only way to do it.
[00:10:25] If your property is suffering, wake up earlier and work on is not a slot machine. Got so many people that bought in 2021 because it was the hot thing to do. Motorhomes, real estate, Rolexes and firearms were on Fire in 2021. You could not stop people from buying them. You couldn't.
[00:10:54] Low interest rates.
[00:10:57] Money was falling out of the sky. They printed $14 trillion and they spread it around and everybody spent it.
[00:11:07] And a lot of folks were trying to hit the big time with their house, with their apartment, with their hotel. It was not just short term rentals, it was all real estate.
[00:11:22] So the lesson to be learned from all this is to knock it off. It's not blackjack, it's not a casino. We need to be adults about this.
[00:11:37] Be a big kid, save up your penny, work hard, buy a house, keep it, forget about it.
[00:11:48] If you're one of those people that bought in 21 and it's losing money, get rid of it, take the loss. I did had three apartment buildings I bought in 21 that I could not make function. I had some issues with neighbors and everything else and just did not work out. And I took a huge loss and got rid of them. I had no choice.
[00:12:09] I mean, I could have kept them and floated them until, you know, debt pay down and things eventually came back around, but I chose to dump them and focus on other things that were actually working.
[00:12:22] Like my vacation houses. They're working. They've always worked and I'm very grateful for that. And yes, I got lucky in a lot of ways. But I bought during COVID I bought a. I bought a couple of vacation houses during COVID and I bought one recently and they're all functioning.
[00:12:37] They just need to function.
[00:12:40] They don't need to hit the big time. They need to function. They need to make enough money to cover their bills and that's about it.
[00:12:48] Especially if you're buying some $2 million house on the beach, which is great, do it, do it. But don't expect it to replace your freaking day job.
[00:13:00] There is no substitute for hard work.
[00:13:07] That's another thing in Covid. People got lazy all of a sudden. Nobody wants to work anymore.
[00:13:12] I will say I am finally starting to see folks go back to work and it's very refreshing.
[00:13:17] So refreshing. People are going back to the office, they're taking new jobs.
[00:13:22] They tried to side hustle their way post Covid and then they realized it's easier just to go get a job.
[00:13:30] And I like it.
[00:13:32] We need to be going to work.
[00:13:34] Make the economy function, make your household function.
[00:13:44] And don't even get me started on these guys that you can pay $15,000 to tell you what house to buy. And what is that?
[00:13:53] The these guys came out of nowhere in Covid. There's only a few of them out there and I'm not picking on them. But it doesn't make any sense. You're going to pay $10,000 or $15,000 for some guy to tell you what house to buy. What happens if it still doesn't go well?
[00:14:06] How is that a good idea?
[00:14:10] There's no guarantee.
[00:14:14] You're paying somebody $10,000 to say, here, dig a hole here. There might be gold down there, but there's no guarantee it's down there.
[00:14:25] And you could have put that $10,000 towards equity, towards down payment, towards rehab, towards making the house better.
[00:14:38] This is not a get rich quick scheme.
[00:14:43] We are not putting $100,000 on black when we buy real estate.
[00:14:53] The whole point of real estate is that it's low and slow.
[00:14:59] Wealthy people love real estate because it's low risk.
[00:15:07] So take a long, hard look inside of yourself.
[00:15:10] If you got into this because you wanted to get rich, where did you get that idea? It sure as hell wasn't from Lip. From me.
[00:15:24] All right? You're getting me fired up over here. I'm getting all passionate. Real estate's not a slot machine. That's my point of the. Of the session today. I love you. I do. I love you. But set your expectations. Do more research. Buy a house that's going to do as well as you need it to do. There's nothing wrong with a house losing money if it's something that is functioning. You know, I have two houses. I don't even rent second homes.
[00:15:49] I'm not allowed to rent them, but I love going to them and I use them all the time.
[00:15:54] That's wealth.
[00:16:01] If you don't have the kind of money that I'm talking about to go buy extra houses, you got to go find some real job, a money making plan to take that money and then build the wealth.
[00:16:16] Real estate can be part of that plan. You can syndicate, you can sell real estate. Hell, we're hiring right now. Come sell houses with the short term shop.
[00:16:26] The short term shop.com careers. We would love to hire you. If you want to get into real estate full time, you got to find a way to make money so that you can then go buy the houses.
[00:16:37] And eventually, over a long period of time, you have enough wealth that things just roll.
[00:16:43] But that happens after 10, 15 years and killing yourself and working hard and busting your hump.
[00:16:53] Real estate is, was and never will be. Get rich quick. It is not a slot machine.
[00:16:58] I've never preached that garbage and I'm proud to say that I've worked my hump off to get where I am. I'm gonna leave you with a quote today on short term rental management. I love you. Please hit the subscribe button. Please give me a review. Please. I'm creeping up on 300 reviews. I know this podcast is extremely niche down. It's not for everybody, but I enjoy it and I hope you do too.
[00:17:21] And please leave me a quick little five star review.
[00:17:27] So the quote today is you've got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to walk away, know when to run.
[00:17:44] You never count your money when you're sitting at the table.
[00:17:48] There'll be time enough for counting when the dealing's done.
[00:17:54] The great, great Kenny Rogers.
[00:17:58] I'm Cash flow Carl from the Cash Cave on short term rental management. Don't overthink it.
