Episode Transcript
[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] Today on Short Term Rental Management, we are going to talk about landlords that get a bad rap.
[00:00:28] All right, let's dig in. Let's dig in. It's. It's a. It's an interesting subject, and I think really, honestly, nobody really cares, but there is this perception out there that the landlord, you know, in some cases can be like this evil rich person that's taking everybody's money.
[00:00:53] I don't know where this comes from. I assume it comes from bad landlords getting a bad rap, getting a bad rep for not treating their tenants with respect. And I'm using landlord tenant right now. I am actually in a motion to make things easier. I would like to get rid of the term tenant and guest and just change everybody, change it to renter.
[00:01:22] And why is there a difference between a host and a landlord? They're the same thing.
[00:01:27] Now, a host could assume property manager. So we got. First of all, we got to get all these terms right.
[00:01:33] You see what I'm saying?
[00:01:36] For the purpose of today's podcast, and I really do think moving forward, we should refer to everyone that is renting as a renter as opposed to a guest or a tenant, because we are, it seems to me like we're getting to the point now where we don't really. Who cares? Who cares if they have a lease or if they're staying for three days? They're renters and we love them. Because I know I for what I get, I get caught up in.
[00:02:03] I say the word tenant when I should say guest, and I say the word guest when I should say tenant. And I would like to just make a motion here to get rid of both of those terms and use the term renter.
[00:02:17] So as of today, release of this podcast, Short Term Rental Management, with Luke Carl, the greatest landlord of all time, we will no longer use the word tenant or guest.
[00:02:28] We use the word renter.
[00:02:34] All right?
[00:02:35] And the same thing with landlord. I think we're all just landlords. A host, I think technically should be a property manager. Doesn't. A host doesn't have to own the home, right?
[00:02:50] So I'm not crazy about that word either. So we've got landlords, we got renters, and we've got property managers.
[00:02:59] The word host makes it sound sexier, but really what you're doing is managing a property, right? So property manager.
[00:03:10] Too many syllables, I'll give you that. But anyway, I love my Renters. I do. I love them.
[00:03:18] I don't feel the love back sometimes, and I just. I don't like that. How do we. How do we fix that? I want to. I'm fixing. I'm making my best effort today to talk about it. I feel like the best way to fix our problems is, as a people, is to bring them out in the open. Let's be honest and. To my dear renters, I love you and I am doing everything in my power to supply you with a beautiful, nice place to rent while you're on vacation or traveling through or whatever it may be. And I will give you the fact that most of my competition is not doing as well as I am in the nice house department.
[00:04:02] Just rented a house in Disney market. You know, we went to Universal and rented a house, and man, I gotta tell you, there were some real clunkers and most of them were very few reviews, if any, which means they were probably a new host. Really probably means they were property managed, professionally property managed.
[00:04:28] But if you're in that market, if you're in the Disney Orlando Kissimmee market, wow, man, your competition is not cutting the mustard. It's got to be. Got to be easy to crush it down there. I don't have one there. We do operate there. If you'd like to buy a house in the Disney market, please call us.
[00:04:44] Please Visit us at theshortermshop.com we'd love to help you.
[00:04:51] I don't own one there, but I know a lot about it. I mean, I go there all the time. I've got kids, I live in Florida, so I get it. There's a lot of landlords out there that are maybe not pulling their weight, providing a proper property for folks to sleep in.
[00:05:08] And that's kind of sad. And I, I understand why, why we get the bad rap, but there are good landlords out there, and there's also great renters. And I want to discuss that. The renters also get a bad rap. Okay?
[00:05:28] There's this perception, and I think this is why the landlord renter relationship is where it is. There's a perception that there's bad landlords and there's a perception that there's bad renters. And I think that the perception is with renters, specifically for people with a lease, is that they can't afford to buy their own home, so they're renting. And this is not true.
[00:05:54] We got to stop that nonsense.
[00:05:58] There are lots and lots of people and that number is growing all the time that don't want to buy a house.
[00:06:06] They move a lot. I don't know how long I'm going to be in this town. Why the hell would I want to buy a house? I don't want to deal with the roof and the toilets and the shower. Let's let the landlord deal with that. It's a wonderful thing.
[00:06:17] The landlord's happy to deal with it. This landlord's happy to deal with it. I would love it if you tell me that the shower is leaking. That way I can get it fixed so it doesn't cause more damage. I'm happy to get it fixed. I'm a good landlord and therefore I am looking for good renters and I expect a little more for my renters because I am such a good landlord. Providing a nice home with granite countertops and stainless steel appliances for a nice, you know, most of my long term houses are like 14, 1500 bucks a month and my apartments also have granite and stainless, you know, so property managers, I'm talking to you right now. We've got to knock it off with this they can't afford to buy a house thing. That's not true. There's this, this perception out there that people only rent because they have to.
[00:07:10] Not true.
[00:07:13] Knock that off.
[00:07:14] If we ever, if we ever are going to begin to get some respect as landlords, we've got to knock that off and just give them the respect they deserve. Because I tell you, I'll tell you right now, I rented.
[00:07:29] You know, I would. I think that renting is a fantastic idea. You don't know how long you're going to live in the town. Rent.
[00:07:36] In a lot of cases, renting is easier and better because let's be honest, even if you buy the house, let's get big picture here, you're still renting it. I don't care if you build a house from the ground up and live in it for 30 years, you're just borrowing it.
[00:07:50] At some point somebody else is gonna live in that thing.
[00:07:54] Time flies.
[00:07:56] We're lucky to have this time on this earth and this time on this earth needs to be spent being nice to each other and respecting each other and knowing that people don't necessarily rent because they have no other choice.
[00:08:11] The real estate market is always changing.
[00:08:14] Covid is long gone, Prices are down and properties are sitting on the market.
[00:08:20] The short term shop sells houses in all of the best vacation markets. And we'd love to help you purchase your next vacation home.
[00:08:29] Join us at theshorttermshop.com theshortermshop.com Lets find you a deal.
[00:08:39] Now you short term folks, which is of course what we talk about here, short term rental management, different story.
[00:08:45] Not a whole ton of people that are going to buy a house in an area to go vacation there, a second home, you know, it's a smaller number of folks. You need to be super wealthy or you need to be savvy enough to be able to rent it out yourself and make a couple of bucks with it when you're not there. Which is of course exactly what the short term shop does. We sell them and teach you how to manage them. The ShortTermshop.com But I think the perception is a little bit more in the right direction here in the short term world. Obviously these folks can afford to go on vacation. There's no you know, struggle of like the social environment and where we live in life and I don't know, trying to get into, you know, rich people versus poor people or anything like that. But usually if you're on vacation, you probably, you know, the question is whether you can afford to buy the house or not doesn't really exist.
[00:09:46] You're just on vacation.
[00:09:53] But of course there are some, some vacationers that are better than others.
[00:09:59] Are you a good person that's just looking to relax and enjoy your life on the beach or are you looking to rage?
[00:10:06] And you could be a good person in rage. You can, you can be a good person rage. I know I did. I wasn't as good a person back then as I am now, but I certainly never got arrested or started any fights or anything like that back in my rage days. And we all have them in our late 20s.
[00:10:29] Maybe, maybe early 20s for some folks, but I certainly went in all the way into my 30s.
[00:10:38] But you know, it's interesting because I went into a, a commercial building yesterday.
[00:10:48] And I thought to myself, you know, the people that walk through this building, I was taking my son to piano lessons and I, and I said to myself, the people that walk through this building to go to this pian. It was a rather large building, had probably, I don't know, it was two floors, an elevator, had multiple units on each floor, et cetera.
[00:11:05] They're not sitting here thinking, oh man, this whoever owns this building's a jerk.
[00:11:10] How dare they provide this environment where my son can go to piano, you know. But somehow in the single family residential real estate, or even apartment real estate, all residential real estate, there is that vibe that the landlord is evil.
[00:11:25] Now I'm not saying that the tenants in that unit. Like, maybe the piano teacher doesn't like the landlord, but the people that are walking into the commercial establishment to do business, they don't think about it. They just go about their business. And if anything, they say, oh, what a nice little building that was. We had a great experience there.
[00:11:46] But when somebody sets foot in a residential situation where they live or go on vacation, it's the human hair. It's this, that and the other. The landlord is horrible. I want money back.
[00:11:59] Why?
[00:12:02] I. I ask you why? Why does that happen?
[00:12:06] And again, I will give my guest credit. I love my guests. Even when they're not good guests, I still love them. I love you. I love you. I love you. I can't do it without you. You're the greatest. And I do have great guests most often. But sometimes, especially around this time of year when I'm recording, this is spring break time, you get some folks that are clunkers, whether they're asking for money back or they're getting too drunk or, you know, whatever the case may be.
[00:12:37] I just. I don't know if we need a way to make this more of a public situation where the general public can see how much work goes into this, how hard it is, how many coats of paint we have to put on these things, how much money we have to spend.
[00:12:55] Every time something breaks, you know, the perception is, oh, the evil landlord's rich. He can pay for it. Well, I mean, to a certain extent, you probably do need to be quote, unquote, rich to buy extra real estate, right? But I'm running a business here.
[00:13:21] And in everybody's defense, I don't know what it's like to run a different kind of business. I've been doing this a long time. I did run a bar, and I will say that my bar, which was in New York City, I was in my 20s. I owned a little piece of A little dumpy rock and roll bar in the Lower east side.
[00:13:37] Nobody came in there and said, this bar owner is horrible. I mean, it would happen occasionally when somebody got super drunk and their girlfriend found out their girlfriend was cheating on them or whatever, but for the most part, they like this because we were giving them what they wanted, which was booze, right?
[00:13:52] And with the house, we're giving you what you want. With the apartment, we're giving you what you want.
[00:13:58] A place to live and raise your family. It's not my fault that your life isn't what you want it to be.
[00:14:03] You know, so we're getting into some psychology here. I'm not here to be a therapist, but I do think the general public's perception of what goes on to get a house ready for rent, you have no idea.
[00:14:22] It's so hard. It is so hard.
[00:14:26] And I enjoy it. I'm not looking for anybody to kiss my rear end here, you know, but I just can't imagine.
[00:14:34] Here's how, here's how it happens sometimes. And I know you feel my pain. If you're a host, otherwise known as a landlord, I know you'll feel my pain here. You, you put your blood, sweat and tears into this thing. You get it ready, you work your rear end off. You listen to all Luke's podcast. You listen to the podcast, you read the books, you go to classes and you work hard. You're doing more than anybody ever did in this business to get your house up and running. And you get, you picked the right sheets, you did research on what towels to get, you know, which coffee machine should I get. You get all this stuff in there, it's perfect. It's ready to rock. And you get crapped on by your second or third guest.
[00:15:18] And to a certain extent, it's your fault, Mr. Or Mrs. Landlord, because your expectations were too high. Nobody cares. Back to my original thought, nobody cares.
[00:15:30] People are selfish. People on vacation are very selfish. They only care about themselves.
[00:15:38] I, I coach T ball. It's been my last year coaching T ball and I love my team. This is actually the best team I've had. I've coached T ball for four years.
[00:15:45] This is the best team I've had.
[00:15:47] The kids are great, the parents are wonderful. But I'm here to tell you, the parents do not care about any other kid other than their own kid.
[00:15:57] And that's. And who could blame them? Who could blame them?
[00:16:02] But people are selfish.
[00:16:05] If it doesn't affect me, you're a waste of my time.
[00:16:09] Right.
[00:16:10] And the same thing with the house they're renting. If I'm not getting drunk and having adult relations with, with the lady that I brought with me, then screw you. This is a waste of my time, you know, So I do think it's kind of an equilibrium there between.
[00:16:28] The landlord needs to get over it. We got to get over it. It's just the nature of the beast. If you're in any sort of client facing business, you are going to get crapped on.
[00:16:39] Whether you're a mechanic, cashier, car salesman, real estate agent, you know, probably even doctors have to deal with this on a regular basis. Anytime you're dealing with a client you're gonna get crapped on.
[00:17:05] Client facing equals people are unhappy with you, right? And that's what we're doing. We're dealing with clients here in the world around real estate. The renter is a client, right?
[00:17:20] And all in the grand scheme of things, that's pretty much what it is. It's a human that we're dealing with, right? And there's a very good chance they're not going to be happy with you. But I'm here to tell you that I'm still, I'm always, I'm doing my part to make sure that my houses rock.
[00:17:37] At least in my opinion. You know, I don't have slides in the kitchens.
[00:17:41] See that all the time. I was looking at these houses in Orlando. They all, a lot of them have slides in them, which is cool, but it's not for me.
[00:17:52] So anyway, I feel, I think it's equal parts. We got to be thick skinned in this business.
[00:17:58] Nobody cares. Nobody's gonna give you an award for having the cleanest house.
[00:18:05] But also, I do, I do wish there was some way we could kind of change the general perspective, the general public's perspective of the landlord, the landowner, the homeowner, the rent, the, the real estate investor, whatever you want to call us, because there are many of us that really care.
[00:18:27] I, I do care. And I see this on the social media too.
[00:18:32] I see it on the social media all the time. I follow some other landlords and they're posting about their houses and posting videos and things.
[00:18:41] And I see it in the comments where they say, oh, you're just a rich ass. You know, you're a rich jerk.
[00:18:50] You're just taking the poor man's money.
[00:18:55] I mean, rich man, poor man, mega man, thief. We all need a place to live.
[00:19:08] We all need a place to go on vacation.
[00:19:11] And I get it. I do realize to a certain extent that these type of folks that are complaining on the Internet are just Internet complainers. And why are you even looking at that stuff? But I like to follow my, these, these, my peers that are putting in the effort, you know, and there's a lot of us and I think that we need more of that. If you own a house, rent the house and you just did a turn on a unit, put it on Instagram, man, let's, let's change the perception. There are great landlords out there and there are great renters out there and we need to be brought together.
[00:19:49] Great man once said that, man was David Lee Roth.
[00:19:56] They could keep on raining and I'll be the parade.
[00:20:01] So I want in an effort to make the landlord's the perception the general public has of the landlord. I wanted to say something today. It's as simple as that. I just wanted to say that I work hard, my houses are clean and rocking and I'm proud of it.
[00:20:24] And if you're looking for a place to live or rent that is nice and clean and rocking, you come, come rent one of mine. Because there are good people out there that are renting good houses.
[00:20:37] And I'm sorry you had a bad experience. If you had a bad experience with a tenant with a, with a landlord, get out of there, go find a good landlord.
[00:20:44] And if you had a bad experience with a renter, get them out of there and get a good renter. Because they exist. They do.
[00:20:51] I get sick and tired of my property managers thinking that anybody with a, whatever credit score is going to be, you know, oh, and then they just tore it up. Well, maybe you should have some more requirements, you know, be a little more diligent in your, in your qualification process. Of course all fair housing is intact all the time. But if we have the same requirements for every tenant, you know, For instance, I've got a, I've got a property manager that their minimum credit score was like 535. And I'm like, what are we doing? No, I don't want that. My houses are better than these other houses that you're renting for 535.
[00:21:36] And I want, you know, maybe whatever the number is, nothing crazy, 575 is good five, maybe even 565.
[00:21:46] Because to be honest with you, it's not that hard to get your credit to that point.
[00:21:52] And I get it. Credit in the grand scheme of things is a sucker bet. You know, it's not, it's just a way for the government to keep an eye on you. It's the same damn concept as a 401k. Really, I get that. But a good renter that gives a crap and is working on their stuff is gonna have, you know, a better, a little better credit score in most cases. So why are we renting to five hundreds now? I get it. The five hundreds need somewhere to live that's not what they're not going to live in a 1500 dollar three bedroom in most cases, you know. So now we're getting into the way too in the weeds here, into the thick of things.
[00:22:33] All fair housing intact. I love my renters, I love my tenants. My requirements are a little more strict than the other guys what I'm getting at.
[00:22:44] Why? Because my houses are a little nicer than the other guy.
[00:22:50] So I expect more out of you. I'm giving you a better product and I want something better in return, which is a better renter that pays a damn rent on time. That's it.
[00:22:59] That's another thing. You, you overnight folks. You don't have to deal with people paying rate rent late.
[00:23:05] You're so spoiled.
[00:23:08] So here's the deal, guys. I want to, I want to make an effort. Let's make an effort to change this slumlord mentality. This, this, this overall mentality that landlords are evil and they're just out to get money out of us.
[00:23:24] Please. I've got properties that have never made a dollar since day one. Obviously I've got some that do make money, but it's also very hard work and I take it seriously. All right, so landlords get a bad rap.
[00:23:40] We need to put an end to that.
[00:23:44] Provide a beautiful, awesome house for people to rent, whether it's long or short, and this world will be a better place. Thank you, Short Term Rental Management. Don't overthink it, Sam.
