Episode Transcript
[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. Here we go, short term rental management. Today we've got a fantastic guest named Alison. She has her own property management company in a tiny little beach town in Maine that only has guests for two months a year.
Talk about seasonal two months only.
It's like a school teacher, but backwards.
So it's gonna be a lovely conversation with her. She's a very bright young lady and we look forward to having her on today's episode of short term rental management.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: Did you know that we're officially back in a buyer's market? That's right. Even though interest rates continue to rise, they are causing prices to fall. So there's finally room for you to do regular real estate investor things that we couldn't do for so long, like gas. Negotiate, make lower offers. Ask for sellers to cover some of your closing costs. So it's a really great time to buy in terms of being able to get a lower purchase price and being able to negotiate. So if you're looking for your first or next short term rental, it's a perfect time to reach out to us at the short term shop. Let our team of agents in any of our true vacation market destinations help you find the perfect investment. Jump on over to the short shorttermshop.com and click get connected to get started. We are brokered by Exp Realty. See y'all over there.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: All right. The party has begun. It is party time on short term rental management. It's a good time and a good day to be alive and in the world of vacation rentals. And we've got Allison here today. Allison has a property management company of her own and she is in Maine. I'm going to turn it over to you. Tell me a little bit about your story. I know you got started with your mom and that whole thing. Tell us about yourself, Allison.
[00:02:05] Speaker C: Awesome. Yeah. Thanks so much. Super excited to be here. So, yeah, I started the company with my mother back in 2018 at the ripe and mature age of 21. So obviously everything came very simplistic. And by simplistic, I mean I was clawing tooth and nail. I do continue to claw tooth and nail, which is, I think, good to have. But, yeah, we're small company. We're very focused on the guest aspect. We are, of course, very focused on our owners as well. But it's something that we're really striving towards this year. It's one of our primary focuses. We're a really small team. So there's a team of three of us in office total and then we have one virtual assistant, so about four. We do operate, though, in the summer with a larger team because we are extremely seasonal. So we're unique in the way of how short our season really is. It's kind of no joke. We don't really get started until that 3rd, 3rd week of June and then it drops right back off in that third week in August. And that's really because here in southern Maine the snow days really pile up. So sometimes kids aren't really getting out of school until the end of June and then they have their sports and everything else. So our seasonality matches that entirely. So you blink, your season's here, you blink again and then your season's over. So everything doubles up for us. So we do operate with about, you know, 30 to 40 housekeepers in the summer, another five to seven part time that will come in and then we have another five to seven inspectors that will come in. And those are all just the seasonal work. Maine is very much used to that, so. But my family lives, I live in the town that I grew up in and my family collectively owns about nine businesses in the area. So we have a great benefit of having a trusted name already. So it was a great building block to kind of start off of. And I'm just continuing that as it goes on because I know my grandmother would be pretty happy about that. So she loves to hear about it. She's actually, she's my go to as well.
[00:04:09] Speaker A: So how, what is the name of this town?
[00:04:13] Speaker C: We're in Scarborough. So we're about 20 to. About 20 minutes from Portland. So the southern main area, like anything, there's a couple of towns about half hour outside of Portland. And after that it's a lot of trees and a lot of willy wags.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: What's a willy wag?
[00:04:30] Speaker C: A willy wag is like the way out back, like in the boondocks. Like the willy wags you are up there, you got Acadia and you got Bar harbor. But other than that, you're out in the willywags and it's really, it's really just the trees.
[00:04:42] Speaker A: Never heard that one before. Okay, cool.
[00:04:45] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:04:45] Speaker A: All right. All right. So what you're managing, these properties are in the little town or they're closer to the big. To Portland or are there?
[00:04:54] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. So we're actually, we're unique for multiple ways. And I think it's maybe just because I grew up here too, but all of our properties were centrally located, so our office is within five to ten minutes of each one of our houses. So there's a seven mile stretch of beach, and our houses are going to run between that seven mile stretch. But it's the seven mile stretches in multiple towns because it's kind of condensed on top of each other. And so we're in about three or four towns, but like I said, it only takes about ten to 15 minutes. But what's interesting is Portland is only 20 minutes away, which means that's going to be urban market. So about 20 minutes away, you have a city market, which the city is also on the water. Um, and then here it's just strictly beach. So it's very unique in that way of having something very close. And then mountains are, you know, about hour to hour and a half. So we kind of got it all.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: So in the summertime, I'm coming here to sit on the beach.
[00:05:42] Speaker C: That's absolutely correct, yes. Um, especially here in this area, it's. For us, it's strictly beach where we are. Um, we don't really have any, like, shoulder seasons, like any leaf peepers, as much as you would think. And that's just because everyone does go back to school, and people who've been coming here really are multi generation. So we do see people come back year after year. It's starting to diminish a little bit more as, you know, vacation rentals become what they are, where they are right now. But for the most part, people are coming in, parking, sitting down at the beach, and then we do have a lot of guests that are within driving distance. So that means we really do thrive on the last minute in the summer as well, because everyone's checking the count, seeing what's going on, checking the weather, and then kind of popping up for Massachusetts, New York, Vermont and Canada.
[00:06:29] Speaker A: And you're saying your season is like two months.
[00:06:32] Speaker C: That's it. That's it delivered.
[00:06:34] Speaker A: What do I do with the house the rest of the year?
[00:06:36] Speaker C: So what we do is a lot of owners will transition into a winter tenant. So that will be someone that comes in from September until May, and then obviously the rental value at that is going to be a half of what your summer value would be. Right. Or a quarter of what your summer value would be, because really it's just you want. It's for owners that want to keep someone in the property to have an extra set of eyes to prevent, you know, so there's no pipe burst. So that way there's someone there. But we call it ghost town. It really does turn into ghost town. All the businesses shut down. There's a couple of local restaurants and bars that will stay open, like in our inner town, but for the most part, it is the beachside. So you have the people that would transition into winter, and then you've got other owners that will just come up periodically for holidays or come in between. And then we do have a handful of them that will still keep it open for the. If someone wants to come in for a shorter stay for the holiday. But you can actually see just by checking on key data that there is nearly. It's almost a 0% occupancy for December, January and February. Like, it's not happening in the area. No way, no how.
When you say holiday commerce. And I have actually really, it's a big talk in our community about, like, how we can get people to come more because there's still, there are still things to do. But again, in that unique way, which is in the wintertime, you know, there's no, no one's going to sit on the beach in the winter. So at that point in time, if you're going to go travel in the winter, you're going to the mountains or you're going over to the city.
[00:08:03] Speaker A: How, how, how are there other property managers in this area? How many? Do you have competition?
[00:08:08] Speaker C: Yes, there are other property managers in the area.
[00:08:11] Speaker A: The reason I asked that is because I'm interested in how many houses there are. You know, are we talking how big. How big of a geographical. I said, it's four, five, 6 miles. So, I mean, are we talking like 500 houses?
[00:08:24] Speaker C: Yeah, I would say right about that. I would say right about that. Between. Because there are some managers that also do not use online travel agencies. There are some managers that just have business based off of word of mouth that they've been doing for, you know, 30 plus years. But, yeah, it's, it's about that. And we're just, we're. I'm sure as everyone's experienced, we're just really oversaturated right now. We were great.
My revenue managers are my, are just my ride or die, so they really rung it in home for me. We finished out August at 97% occupied in July 93. So it's like you're selling the whole thing for those eight. Eight weeks. You're back to back to back to back to back.
[00:09:07] Speaker A: Robert, how much money can I make in two months?
[00:09:10] Speaker C: Well, it depends on the size of the house. It depends on the size of house and your location. So it's really interesting. So I. What I tell my owners is essentially, like, I tear it out by. By a map, right? So when you're looking at the map, you have your ocean side. So your oceanside, kind of think of it like when you're searching for a restaurant online, and there's a certain amount of money signs that can be applied to the geographic here as well. So your direct oceanfront, that's. That's your five money sign. When you jump right across the street, you're looking at four to three, because people don't want to take their kids across the street. They're very particular about it. They want to be looking at the ocean. They're spending the money on a beach vacation. It's oceanfront. Then you got everything else in between that kind of funnels right back. So that's going to be four, three, and two. And then, honestly, probably not even a quarter of mile up, you're looking at one, because of how condensed it is. Like, most of these houses are going to be within a walking distance to the beach, even if they're not there. So if you take. How much can you make? You've got a five bedroom, ocean front house, five bath. You're grossing about 120 to 130 in ten weeks.
[00:10:15] Speaker A: Okay, let's do that math real, real quick here. 120 grand in two and eight weeks, right. So that's, uh, 60 days. It's a five bedroom.
[00:10:24] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:10:24] Speaker A: Divided by, uh. What did I say? 60 days. $2,000 a night. $2,000 a night.
[00:10:31] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:10:32] Speaker A: How much does this house cost?
[00:10:33] Speaker C: Uh, probably right now, real estate is my business partner's forte. I'm going to go with my gut feeling without, because I'm not a real estate person. So my gut is going to be well over 2 million.
[00:10:48] Speaker A: $2 million?
[00:10:49] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, I'm going to say well over 2 million.
[00:10:51] Speaker A: Right.
[00:10:52] Speaker C: But real estate, which is great, because we do have a sister company, so that's our perfect marriage. When things like that come up, I get to phone my business partner in, and she's able to pull that up.
[00:11:00] Speaker A: Where do the people that own these things live?
[00:11:02] Speaker C: Massachusetts, primarily. Primarily is Massachusetts. We are getting a lot more New York after COVID Post. COVID. We got a couple of them that are out on the west coast, but for the most part, it's going to be Massachusetts.
[00:11:19] Speaker A: How far is that from you?
[00:11:20] Speaker C: About an hour and a half, 2 hours.
[00:11:22] Speaker A: And these are just wealthy folks that don't. They don't live there. They're just using it occasionally for kicks.
[00:11:28] Speaker C: Yeah. I would say a lot of people are looking to use it as the income to balance owning the house. I wouldn't say it's, you know, you do get some people that are there with the disposable income, but I would say it's more likely people who have been coming to me a lot do like to enjoy it for themselves time to time, but really rely on the income to be able to maintain the house.
[00:11:52] Speaker A: And when are they coming to visit?
[00:11:54] Speaker C: They're coming to visit in a perfect world, only at the beginning of June and the end of September. But it pertains to what they're. What their own.
[00:12:02] Speaker A: They don't come in the wintertime.
[00:12:03] Speaker C: Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Because it's, it's. Again, it's hard. There's not much to do. Like, everyone's in hibernation, it's dark by 04:00 p.m. It's just. And also, too, because you're running so hot and heavy in the summer. Cold.
[00:12:16] Speaker A: Is it cold, obviously in the winter, yeah.
[00:12:19] Speaker C: And by the time, you know, by the time October rolls around, you're kind of just like, what just happened? I can barely breathe right now. And then you get. You, you get your grounding a little bit. You're like, great. It's the holiday season now with my family, so now I can't breathe again. And then January comes. We're like, okay, here we go.
[00:12:33] Speaker A: It's a lot of snow, I would assume.
[00:12:36] Speaker C: Yes, there is mild winter this mild winter this year, but yeah, it's mostly, uh. And in the wintertime, it's not like what you would think over in the mountains, like in Colorado, where it's beautiful, you get the sunshine, you get the snow. It's like here, overcast all the time. Super cold and just hitting with it.
[00:12:52] Speaker A: What does the beach look like?
[00:12:53] Speaker C: The beach is beautiful. And I don't know, again, if I'm biased in that aspect of it, but it is essentially the 7 miles of just pure sand. You get down one end to the other, you are going to have a little bit more of a rocky coastline. But primarily it is going to be sand beach, which is also unique for Maine because most of Maine's coastline is going to be rocky coastline. You know, Maine has the longest coastline in the country.
[00:13:19] Speaker A: A lot of fishing going on here, I would assume.
[00:13:21] Speaker C: Yes, yes. Lobstering. So my grandfather was a lobsterman. He actually had his own boat when he was about twelve. So it's kind of. It's all in our fishing. Fishing is a huge part of the community, especially have your own boat when you're twelve.
[00:13:34] Speaker A: Where does. How does that. You know what I mean?
[00:13:36] Speaker C: Like, you know, I guess what they say was is a different time then. You know, it's a different time then. But my grandmother tells me stories where, you know, she lived in Pine Point. He lived over in Higgins. So the thing about it is, is when you get out on the water, you can physically see Higgins. So it's. It's further out, but obviously you've got the water in between to get there. You know, it's about 20 to 25 minutes via car. My grandmother tells me that my grandfather used to, before he had his lobster boat, but he used to row his boat over from Higgins down into pine point so he could go see my grandmother.
[00:14:07] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:14:07] Speaker C: The boat right across.
[00:14:09] Speaker A: If you like what you're hearing, if you're picking up what I'm putting down, you can join me on a live weekly call to talk about your next short term rental or ask questions about the one you already have. I am live once per week on Zoom. I would love to have you come and say hello. It's strquestions.com.
That's strquestions.com. Come and join us.
Okay, very interesting. So, and long story short here you grew up in this town.
[00:14:42] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:14:43] Speaker A: There's only so many industries to be in.
[00:14:46] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:14:47] Speaker A: And you gravitated to a lot of it, I would imagine was right place, right time to vacation rentals. And you are of an age where that industry was completely revolutionized. Matter of fact, when you started your business, 2018 is when all the softwares came out and were able to get integrated.
[00:15:04] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:15:05] Speaker A: So you were and probably, I would imagine, still, are you the new kid on the block that is only. The only person doing it? The modern way of doing things. I guess I'm just making that up.
[00:15:17] Speaker C: But I would like to say that. Yeah, I would like to say that, you know, there is, um, some corporate companies that are in the area that I think are doing it. I am biased, I think, in that sense. Again with, we're very proud of the work that we do, and we know what we do is completely unique to the area, and it's something that a lot of other professional property managers here don't do. Like a lot of managers will not include linens in our area. Linens are linens that you bring your own linens.
[00:15:44] Speaker A: $2,000 a night. I got to bring my own sheets.
[00:15:47] Speaker C: Not that. Not us.
[00:15:49] Speaker A: Right.
[00:15:49] Speaker C: Not us. And that's where. That's where we really leverage it with owners is because we do consider ourselves a more high end agency. And so when we have more things, you know, we're. We're full service, top to bottom. So, you know, when you're staying with us, you're getting your linens, you're getting your sheets, you're getting your towels, you're getting your shampoos, your conditioners, your body washes, your. Your razors, your toothbrush, your toothpaste, your salt, your peppers, your oils, toilet paper, paper towel, the whole thing. You know, and a lot of other managers in the area, you show up and the house is empty.
[00:16:19] Speaker A: You're a sales. You're a saleswoman. You've given this speech before. This is how you get clients, I would assume, right?
[00:16:24] Speaker C: Something along those.
[00:16:26] Speaker A: You're silky smooth. I love it.
[00:16:28] Speaker C: It's something along those lines.
[00:16:30] Speaker A: Okay, well, I would. Yeah, you're hired. If I had a house in this town and I needed a manager, you'd be my girl for sure.
[00:16:36] Speaker C: That sounds great. So that means before you've seen anything, I might be able to, you know, add just a little extra commission right on there.
[00:16:42] Speaker A: Okay, cool. So when you first start the company, you go to mom and you say, hey, I want to manage houses, vacation houses. Let's do this. Or how did that go down? Like, how did the whole thing start?
[00:16:52] Speaker C: Yeah. Brainchild is. Brainchild is mom. Mom's been a real estate agent for over 30 years. Well, over 30 years. I grew up with. I grew up participate in business, around business. My mom. I started taking, you know, showing appointments for my mom when I was 1213. I used to be the front desk at her office, and I'd book her showings and make sure that her files were all organized. And then when I turned 18, I moved to Mexico and I left, and I said, I'm going to go off and do my own thing. And I was nomadic in that way. And I'm actually a dive master. So I did a scuba diving program and then worked as a divemaster and did guided tours in California and was kind of just bounced all around and all over. And my mom had called me and said, hey, you know, I have this idea. You know, I keep getting a lot of calls. You know, we do real estate, but I keep getting calls for rentals. You know, they're doing a conference. Would you like to go? Would you like to go and see what it's about? And so at the time, I was living in Texas, and I went. And when I went to the conference, there were still discussions about people meeting their guests, taking their payments when they arrived via check, and then meeting them with the keys. And I was just completely flabbergasted because I had an iPad in 8th grade, so I was like, wow, people are still taking payments, like, directly.
So brainchild really came from mom. She has a lot of resources. A lot of our really, in the first few rounds, that's where we got all of our homes from, was from the sale. You know, it was the perfect marriage, which is why we kind of started this thing, you know, in general. That way if any one of our homeowners in network or want to sell, you know, they've got the perfect realtor for it and vice versa. So it really came. It really came from her. And then I've been able to kind of morph it into where we are now and kind of what we're doing now.
[00:18:36] Speaker A: Interesting. Okay, cool. So when you first started, she was selling houses but never managed anything?
[00:18:41] Speaker C: That's correct. Yep, that's correct. And so I actually, we actually hired Justin Ford as a consultant when we first started. And Justin was there on my first day, and he actually just came in last week to do a safety training course and always shares kind words. So it was, it was a nice full circle for that. And I did a lot of it with how to start a business for dummies is how I kind of got the primary and then utilized my mother as a resource. I utilize my grandmother as a resource because my grandparents own a campground, and then I utilize my revenue managers as resources as well.
[00:19:17] Speaker A: They still have the campground.
[00:19:19] Speaker C: They do, yeah, they do. And that's a great.
[00:19:21] Speaker A: Only campground in town.
[00:19:23] Speaker C: No, there's actually, because it's vacation land here. That's our, that's our slogans. Vacation land. They are one of the primary in Scarborough. So it is over a couple hundred acres in a more residential town. And then the town's over. There are multiple campgrounds. So it's really here. Like it's strictly vacation town here. So it's rentals, hotels, campgrounds, and then you do have some of your residential. But my grandparents started the campground with, I think, probably less than 20 sites. They bought an excavator. My grandfather got the idea. They bought an excavator. He came in. Before he came in, he made sure to take off the sign at the Dairy Queen in Saco because he'd never had an excavator before. So he ripped that off on the way in and then dug out some campground sites. And now they have close to well over 900 close to a thousand. And they've now they've got tents, trailers. You know, you can bring your big rig in cabins, golf carts, restaurants, two restaurants, stores. So they've really done it all.
[00:20:21] Speaker A: So would you say you only work two months a year?
[00:20:24] Speaker C: Yeah. So we're always working.
[00:20:26] Speaker A: Right.
[00:20:27] Speaker C: Because the thing about it, our season is you can try and fix things like the middle of the season, but you don't really have enough time. Like, it's not, by the time you realize something is wrong, it's already too wrong. So your list starts going of, okay, this is what we need to change this winter. So, like, this year, we did do a techno, typically we do a technology switch in the off season, which brings us here. And then right now, my general manager is about to have a baby coming up here. So we're overly advanced, and we're pretty much ready to go. Like, our products are good, backrooms good, our processes are good. We've got a couple more properties to upload. We're doing some safety work. And then other than that, we're going to go ahead and hit the ground running. So it's like a lot of preparation. Like, it really does take a minimum, in my opinion, a minimum of four to five months of deep preparation to get you into summer because we're doing over 600 reservations, you know, and hosting 3500 people.
[00:21:25] Speaker A: Okay, so you've mentioned a lot of employees, and you've only got 80. How many houses?
[00:21:31] Speaker C: Yeah, so we're 81.
[00:21:32] Speaker A: There's a lot of folks going on here. General managers, revenue managers. So you have people doing the pricing for you?
[00:21:37] Speaker C: That's correct. Yes, they do.
[00:21:39] Speaker A: Oh, wow. Well, I guess you can afford that at $2,000 a night.
[00:21:43] Speaker C: Well, you think that, but, you know, after all those, after all those fees and everything else that gets associated with it, we're not looking at it. You know, we're not looking at it as much. But the reason that we make those investments, the revenue managers would never go back on because they say, hire out for the things you're not good at. And at 21 years old, when I'm in charge of a p and l, because I did all the bookkeeping, so I also learned from an in house bookkeeper. So I also am proficient in Quickbooks. So when you learn at an in house bookkeeper, it was one of those things where I was like, okay, I'm going to be doing this. We're going to spend this money to make other people more money, to make us more money. And a lot of people in the area are not doing dynamic pricing either.
[00:22:24] Speaker A: So how much of your business comes from the platforms?
[00:22:26] Speaker C: We're 50 50 right now. 50% verbal.
[00:22:29] Speaker A: Your own? Oh, no. But I mean, uh, versus your own website?
[00:22:32] Speaker C: Yep. So 50% of the bookings come in on our website. 50% of them come in a verbo. So we're like, we're even split right now. We just updated our website, so we've seen a great transition for that already. We expect a tipping point probably next year for us to kind of hit over that hump.
[00:22:48] Speaker A: And mostly verbo. Not. Not Airbnb.
[00:22:50] Speaker C: Don't use Airbnb.
[00:22:51] Speaker A: No. You don't use it at all?
[00:22:53] Speaker C: No, we've tried it. It's there in our back pocket if we want it to. But we just feel the type of guests that we're looking for and the service that we provide is at a higher value. On Verbo, we really ran into a lot of people, to be quite frank with you, complaining a lot more on Airbnb than we did on verbose. And a lot of people that just had more respect about it because we're willing to do anything that we can do to make someone more comfortable, make them feel heard, if they're upset. But we always found that we were losing more money because of policies that they have set in place in terms of unsatisfied guests, and it wasn't bringing us that much revenue.
[00:23:37] Speaker A: How long did you have it up and running?
[00:23:39] Speaker C: We were on Airbnb for three years straight.
[00:23:42] Speaker A: Oh, three years?
[00:23:43] Speaker C: Yep. Then we pulled off. We went on, if we're lagging behind or if we want to fill some gaps, we'll go, sure, we'll turn it on.
[00:23:49] Speaker A: And if I. If I want to pimp my own website, how do I do that? Now, obviously, you've got a lot of, you know, an average Joe listening to the show is operating their own house, so they're not going to have 80 something units. But do you have any tips on how I can make my website get more traffic?
[00:24:06] Speaker C: Yeah, for website. For more traffic. I think really, like the most simplistic one. I'm not a marketing person, but that's something that we really like are. Is on our list. The most simplistic to me is. Is really the engagement piece. Like, take a look at what's happening for other people, look at other websites and see the classic don't reinvent the wheel, but also making sure that your message is construed across, like, whatever you, whatever you highlight as what your goals are with being a property owner. Or being a property manager. Make that known right there. The less clicks the better.
[00:24:41] Speaker A: But how do I find your website? I mean, you got to have good SEO or you just not have any competition. In other words. I'm googling. What's the name of the town again?
[00:24:48] Speaker C: Scarborough.
[00:24:49] Speaker A: I'm googling Scarborough vacation rental. You guys must come up pretty high, right?
[00:24:55] Speaker C: Yeah, we do come up high. I know that we get a lot of search already because our company name is Bailey Vacation rentals and other family members in the area. Their businesses are Bailey's campground, Bailey's ice cream. So there's a lot of SEO already with the last name. And what's crazy is we do minimal marketing. So we do not have any marketing dollars in our SEO or adwords. We've actually just rebuilt our website with WordPress so that way we can start really heavily integrating these things and keeping that on the front burner.
[00:25:27] Speaker A: You're like the partons of your area. That's great.
You see her name everywhere in East Tennessee. Okay, great. I love it.
[00:25:36] Speaker C: Yeah. So it's a fun time. It's crazy, but it's fun.
[00:25:41] Speaker A: You enjoy the job, the gig?
[00:25:43] Speaker C: I do. I do. It's hard. It is hard. You know what I mean? And it's hard being, are you dealing with the guests?
[00:25:50] Speaker A: Are you doing messaging?
[00:25:51] Speaker C: No, I've, I've stepped away from that more. So I am a higher level. So we do have someone that helps with the owner communication and then I will have a VA that's stepping in for the guest relationship. But because we're a unified team, we use hostfully. We use hostfully's openapi for Monday.com dot. So what that means is anytime someone's inquiring on our website wants a quote or essentially bands the cart messages on VRBo, any other OTA, it comes into our Monday.com. And I have worked with someone to auto set all of our to do so. We have our first follow up scheduled, our second follow up scheduled, our third follow up scheduled. You know, like my reservation agent last summer was able to rebook 58 people based upon follow up from May to September, which is huge for us.
[00:26:44] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:26:45] Speaker C: Yeah. Which is huge for us. So because we're really leveraging the technology with it, we have a lot more benefit and it makes it easier. Now, before I had Monday and before I was transitioning, I was with hostly. I had a couple other property management programs. It was difficult. I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off and I was like, what did I sign myself up for, what did I get myself into? And now that we've really established our baseline and our technology and our standard operating procedures, everything, I'm like, okay, I'm ready to go.
[00:27:20] Speaker A: Jeff, you're shot out of a cannon. You're reading books all the time. Where's the future for alison here? Are you happy in this little tiny town or.
[00:27:28] Speaker C: Yeah, I am. It's home. It's home. It's hard when I live, you know, to be quite honest with you, when you. When I lived the life that I did, which is completely off the grid, scuba diving 24/7 working as a bartender, living out with my friends in San Diego, it was a very hard adjustment to come back. You know, when I came back here, I had all pink hair and I had to dye my hair back, and I had, you know, dial it kind of back in because I'm more of a loud and kind of out person. Where I see it, for me is retirement by 40. I'm out 40. I want out. I want everyone to feel confident in what they're doing. I want to be available if someone needs it. But I'd rather step into more of a consulting position. I would love to be able to do that long term, for me as well, is to start buying homes that we can work with in the program to increase that bottom line revenue so that way I can take that money and start making my own investments into other areas.
[00:28:23] Speaker A: You want to buy houses?
[00:28:25] Speaker C: I would love to.
[00:28:26] Speaker A: Right?
[00:28:27] Speaker C: I would love to. Yep.
[00:28:29] Speaker A: Wonderful, wonderful.
[00:28:30] Speaker C: Tough market right now, especially me as a business owner. You know, I didn't take a paycheck for the first four years, so.
[00:28:36] Speaker A: Right, right. Well, yeah, you know, the loans get a little weird when that's going on, but. But you'll figure it out. No worries. Young.
That's great. I love it. I love it. Any advice for a young person that wants to be a property manager?
[00:28:49] Speaker C: Take it day by day. You know, take it day by day. In my opinion, it's really hard to get yourself worked up on the what needs to be or what should have happened or the changing, and just take it on a day by day and know, always know. Never forget. Always remember, your checklist will never get finished. And the second that you can swallow, that makes life a little bit easier, because when your checklist doesn't get done and you keep adding to it, you really think to yourself, wow, I must really suck because I started today with only ten things, and now I've got 35 things. But the more that you can say, well, it's not me. It's everything else, and it never stops.
[00:29:30] Speaker A: Would you like a bigger market share? Are you looking for more houses?
[00:29:34] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:29:35] Speaker A: Okay, cool.
[00:29:36] Speaker C: Yeah, we are.
[00:29:36] Speaker A: To me, like, you're pretty easy for you to just completely dominate if you're not already.
[00:29:40] Speaker C: I would love to. Yes. And we've. We've. We've grown nice and slow this way. You know, it hasn't been. We did have one year where I was basically shitting bricks because we uploaded, we increased very largely. We went from 18 to 44 in about two months, which was. And it was just. It was me and one other person at the time, so it was way too difficult. So I took that, took a step back. And now we grow intentionally. You know, we're not taking anything that comes our way. We're very selective. We want to work with owners that want to work with us. It's a partnership. We want people that are willing to reinvest back into their investment, just like we're doing by carrying all these technologies and fees and services to better the entire brand on behalf of the owner and ourselves. You know, they win, we win, we lose, they lose. It's. It goes hand in hand.
[00:30:32] Speaker A: Well, you're a very bright young lady.
This is a wonderful conversation. You have a book you're reading right now that you like.
[00:30:40] Speaker C: I am not a huge reader.
[00:30:43] Speaker A: Really? Well, where are you getting all this information from?
[00:30:46] Speaker C: So my mom. I'm a big Google person.
[00:30:49] Speaker A: Oh, Google.
[00:30:50] Speaker C: I'm a big Google. So I get, you know, that does count as reading, right?
[00:30:53] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:30:54] Speaker C: I also am very fond of utilizing resources. So I have a lot of property manager friends that I'm giving calls to. My revenue managers are huge for me at Rev and research.
They're really a crucial part to what we do, and it's a lot. Honestly, in my own stupid way, it seems like I do often burn my hand on the plate before I actually just wait a turn. You know, I function. It's kind of funny, you know, I do function that way, because to me, I've always been that learner where it's almost like, not necessarily. I don't believe it until it happens to me, but then afterwards, I'm like, ah, yeah, that thing that someone said.
[00:31:32] Speaker A: Yeah, here it is. Yeah, I do the same thing. I burn my hand and figure it out and then move on and burn my hand again. And eventually you burn your hand a little less and less. I kind of like burning my hand, though. I like it.
[00:31:45] Speaker C: You kind of got to keep aquaphor in your back. Pocket and you're like, up, did it again.
[00:31:49] Speaker A: Right? Yeah.
[00:31:50] Speaker C: That's kind of all you can do.
[00:31:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Love it.
[00:31:53] Speaker C: I love to be wrong. I think that's an important thing.
[00:31:57] Speaker A: Interesting. I'm definitely not afraid to be wrong. Well, listen, you're a wonderful, bright young lady. I appreciate it. So if I come to Scarborough, Maine.
[00:32:05] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:32:06] Speaker A: I look up Bailey's vacation rentals and I come party with you.
[00:32:09] Speaker C: Yeah, that's absolutely right. And conveniently enough for all of my owners, and unlucky for me, I'm just about a quarter mile from all the properties.
[00:32:18] Speaker A: All right, wonderful. Listen, I appreciate you. Thanks for coming on the show. Thanks for having me this pleasure. My pleasure. Come see us again sometime. And as usual, for short term rental management, don't overthink it.
