Summer Stunner

[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 to short term rental management. It is the 2024 short term rental summer special. We're going to be talking about all things necessary in the summer of 2024 to get rocking, to keep your occupancy high, to keep your rates high, to make sure your guests stay happy. That's number one all the time. And we have a star studded cast today. We've got Avery Carl, we've got Chuck Kramer. We've got Tim Grillio. We've got Paige Hayes, who's an interior designer. So lots of rock stars coming to hang with us today so that we can get your property in tip top shape for the summer, moving into the fall and even the holiday season. On today's program on short term rental management with long haired Carl, cash flow Carl, it is short term rental management. The summer stunner. [00:01:10] Speaker B: Hey, guys, if you're enjoying the content of our podcast but you have additional short term rental questions, we host a weekly live question session that you guys can join for free. It's at 01:00 p.m. Eastern on Thursdays and if you head over to strquestions.com, you can sign up. So not only am I the host of this show, but I also own and manage my own properties. And I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have about short term rental investing. So please join us anytime for a free weekly live Q and A on Zoom sign [email protected]. [00:01:44] Speaker A: Dot we did it. We are here. We made it. Summer stutter short term rental management. We've got an all star cast. It's going to be a fantastic time. Good times. Party time. As we are rapidly approaching the summer. It's coming. Before you know it, the kids only have a couple more weeks of school. And yeah, that means that it is officially vacation season. We have to talk about what we need to do to thrive and do our best as far as bookings and revenue this summer, and most importantly, having fantastic vacations. That's what it's all about. It gets overlooked, the fact that we are giving these people a place to spend time with their family. Not giving, but providing. And it's a wonderful thing that always has to be number one. Okay, so the fantastic vacation, the memory making, always, always number one. But I'm gonna, I'm gonna rip through and introduce our awesome cast today. We do have Avery, who is, let's face it, the top dog. In the history of all vacation rentals, Avery. [00:02:47] Speaker B: I don't know about that. [00:02:49] Speaker A: She is. She invented it. Vrbo called her when she was three years old and said, how do I do this? And now every time we go on vacation, I have to worry about Avery trying to figure out a way so that the family can move to that destination. [00:03:06] Speaker B: No, you just got that. [00:03:07] Speaker A: Awesome. I did. I stole it from a real that. [00:03:09] Speaker B: I actually saw before you sent it to me, and I chose not to send it to you. [00:03:14] Speaker A: I saw it on instagram and sent it to her inbox. [00:03:17] Speaker B: I don't want to move everywhere we go on vacation. I want to buy a short term rental everywhere we go on vacation. [00:03:22] Speaker A: Yes. Which gives you the possibility to move there if necessary. Yeah. Okay. [00:03:28] Speaker B: Texas Hill country. [00:03:29] Speaker A: There you go. All right, so Avery's here. She's the boss, the shorttermshop.com. And then Tim is here. Tim's an agent in the Smoky Mountains and has a lot of real estate and also a multiple repeat offender here on short term rental management. And then Chuck is here. He's head of rules and regulations at the short term shop and does a lot of social content for us. And he's just an old friend and we just love having him around. He's also been in the business and in the smokies once again, in the smokies for many, many years. He's also in the Destin market. We both live in the same town, actually. And Paige is here. Paige has not been on short term rental management before, but she has been on Avery's wonderful podcast, which I'll plug now, the short term show. And she is an interior designer and we love having her around. So pre meeting, we were talking about Chuck. I'm just going to jump into the change that just came out on verbo. There's two of them, actually. I'm going to have you start with that, even though it is not really related to summer functionality and things, but it is timely and topical. So if you don't mind covering the first change, as far as the cancellation policy with VrBO and also now this new. Well, I'll leave the second one to you because it is a very, very brand new thing. So bit of a gray area. But Chuck, if you don't mind. [00:04:48] Speaker C: I don't mind at all. Let's start with cancellation policy. Vrbo started coming down on this, I'd say it was around August of last year when they followed Airbnb's lead about putting a financial penalty in place for what they refer to as unnecessary host cancellations of guest stays. And this has been a problem in the industry. Now, how big a problem? I don't have those numbers and I'm not sure anyone really does, but it was big enough that these two big otas decided they needed to address it. And what that penalty was is that you could be charged up to a certain amount of money, up to the full cost of the booking, after some changes have been made to relocate that guest somewhere else. VRBOs is a little bit different in that it doesn't necessarily tie it to the cost of putting that guests somewhere else. It's just a financial penalty. And these are unnecessary things like double bookings or you didn't plan properly for a renovation, anything that could have been avoided. Two days ago, Vrbo came out with an additional piece of that, and that is if the host cancels a guest stay for an avoidable reason, then not only would they get the financial penalty, but that particular listing will be suspended for seven to ten days. Now, they were very clear, they said a listing level suspension. So if you've got 15 accounts, 15 different listings on your account, it's not going to affect the other 14. Just that one. [00:06:32] Speaker A: Yeah. I have no problem with this, this new policy. I think it's fine not to cut you off there, but this is pretty par for the course. The only thing that is a little annoying is that they keep this, just so many changes happening all the time. And then also, does their billing department even get notified that there was a change made? And, you know, we got to worry about. That's the main thing with this, with this shift here with the VRBO, which is no big deal, but just make sure that you know how it works so that if and when you need to call and handle it, that can be done. Now, what's this other new verbo thing? [00:07:01] Speaker C: You know, it's funny, when you pay attention to this industry, you tend to follow the blogs and the posts from the companies as well as the, the industry leaders, the VRMA and all that. Most people forget to follow the financials and what's being told to the analyst. Recently it came out that Expedia, parent company of VRBo, has explored and essentially approved the idea of offering paid placement. So this would be when you do your simple Google search, the first five, six results, or maybe the first four or five pages, depending what you're looking for, are all paid placements. People pay to show up in those results and it'll be tagged like a sponsored result or something like that. Expedia has been doing this in their hotel section and their airline section for a while. They're going to expand that to Vrbo. No firm timetable yet, but this means that for individual hosts like us in big markets, smokies, Destin, Emerald coast area, Orlando, that we're going to be competing with paid placements from the large property management companies, the Vikas, the avant stays, the itrips and v trips of the world, who a couple grand a month to get their places on the first page is worth it in the long run. Individual hosts that have a few properties, unless you have some of those super properties in the Orlando area, the 30 bedroom ones, you're probably not going to be able to afford to participate in that. And that just means that we're going to need to work harder on our making our listings attractive to get attention. [00:08:44] Speaker A: Yeah, too early yet to tell if and when that's going to even affect us. I mean, I'll tell you right now, if I'm searching for something on Google, I go right to the first one that wasn't sponsored usually, you know, so. But yeah, I guess I never really, when I first heard about this, I never thought about the fact that it's going to be the large companies that are chipping in on that, but we'll see where that goes. Not too worried about it, but definitely wanted to bring it up as we want to keep everybody up to date on all of the ins and outs of how to rent their home. Let's talk about some occupancy and pricing as the spring season comes to an end and we move into summertime. The first thing I want to mention and Tim, I'll bring you in on this one here in a second. April and may have been weird this year. It's almost a flip flop from what we've seen in most recent years. And a lot of that has to do with. Of course, Easter came three weeks earlier than normal. It was in March, which is really weird. So I'm personally noticing that my may and I'll have chuck comment on this as well. My may is filling in a little better than usual. A couple of my properties are a little too filled in, and that might be because, you know, I was maybe overcompensating at an early time. And may April's did suffer a little bit. They were not as good as certainly as last year. Tim, what did you see there and what do you think that. Why did that happen? [00:10:15] Speaker D: Yeah, I think I've seen similar for sure. I actually, going back one month further, March was different March. My march ended up being up and overcrossed. The board across all property is up 7% year over year. Um, but it was very, very last minute. I've been kind of saying this a lot lately. [00:10:32] Speaker A: We. [00:10:32] Speaker D: I've been seeing a lot more bookings coming in, a lot more last minute. Um, April was a little bumpy. Uh, not gonna lie. It is, uh, down. I haven't ran the numbers yet. Today's. It's actually May 1 today, so I haven't done my month end yet, but it felt down, I'll put it that way. And then kind of the same. I'm really. My may is down currently year over year, but it's May 1 right now, so. But it's. It's. They're rolling in, like, right now. I might have been a little bit on the opposite end of the spectrum as you. You know, I know we all supposed to follow the circle seasonality. So you were probably ahead of the ballgame a little bit, and I was a little behind on my may. Uh, so I've got some gaps, but, uh, it's coming in slow. But it does feel different than last year, for sure. [00:11:11] Speaker A: Chuck, what are you noticing there? [00:11:13] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm noticing the same things, too. Last minute bookings. It was really slow for us. Uh, actually, the difference, big difference between the big properties and the small properties. You know, our two, three bedrooms actually booked better this year than last year, not only in terms of bookings, but dollar revenue, whereas our larger properties just didn't. And I don't just mean not booked. I mean, even the views and the search results were down. I just think it was simply that for whatever reason, I don't want to blame any one thing, that big groups weren't traveling as much now, as my theory has always been around springtime, that you've got a certain number of people that are going to travel for spring break, and then you have a certain number of people that love that shoulder season in between spring break and summer and travel during that point in time. And this year, because Easter was so early, that same number of people are spread out over a bigger piece of the calendar, making it look emptier. That's overly simplistic. [00:12:19] Speaker A: Well, to your point, there also may be the possibility that those same people you're talking about, which are fewer than summer travelers, had a bigger calendar to choose from this year. So they were just spread out because of that. [00:12:31] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. [00:12:33] Speaker A: I never thought of it that way. [00:12:34] Speaker C: And last minute, I think that has as much to do with people's planning as it is that we're back to sort of a pre COVID thing where people are reducing their rates last minute. And folks know that during those COVID boost years, not only do we not reduce rates, in a lot of cases, you raised your rates as empty dates came up, and now we're back to the more traditional method or traditional practice of lowering your rates. And people, there's a lot to choose from out there. There's no need for people to rush out and book for April, May, that period, you know, this slower period here. I think we'll probably see the same in September, I think, too. [00:13:14] Speaker D: In addition to that, the OTAs are doing a lot more marketing and stuff that they never did before and that all, you know, that all came and we were coming out of a shotgun shot of COVID you know, and it's becoming a lot more normal to be able to do that for people to book these things before, you know, pre Airbnb and pre vurbo being as hot as it is today, people had their whole way that they were taught to do this was more ahead of time. And with the advent of technology coming along and people just getting more used to it, I think some new normal is the fact that people don't have to plan ahead as much, and they're not. And I've gotten a shocking amount of last minute bookings on my bigger properties, which, you know, two years ago was like unheard of. You know, I mean, it's like two week property or a big property was like, you know, six weeks out, at least six to eight, you know, and now I'm literally getting stuff two days away and kind of shockingly frequently. And it's just, I think people have kind of gotten used to, hey, we don't really need to book a place. We're taking a trip and we'll book the place, you know, as it comes up. And it's been fine. You know, it's been a little getting used to on my end, but they have been coming in still. [00:14:16] Speaker E: So, yeah, we've been having that same kind of experience, especially, like, with our regional drivable guests particularly. So we're a secondary market to a ski area, and we were getting people booking out for ski trips, and they drive 40 minutes over to the ski area. But now, yeah, we're finding that people are booking like a few days ahead of time for the weekend based on kind of like snow forecasts, stuff like that. The ski area extended the season this year because they got a lot of extra snow. So we actually did better than expected in March and, like, the very beginning of April. But our late April was also really slow. So it is. It's interesting. But then, yeah, we're getting booked out. People coming for weddings from out of state and stuff like that. [00:15:09] Speaker A: I noticed that I was going to my bottom dollar number more than I would like to have in April that, you know, I got to. You got to have a, you know, bottom dollar can come up with a better term for that that maybe would catch on. But, you know, I'm not going to go lower than this number. And I noticed I was getting to that a little more often than I'd like. And that number also translates to there's a pretty good chance I'm not going to get this booked, you know, and. [00:15:32] Speaker B: Then I want to interject one thing that I read, and I should have found where I read it before I came on so I could cite it properly. But I did read, and maybe it has something to do with Easter being a little earlier this year, that last year and up. Well, really, up until this year, most of the college and high school spring breaks are a mix of March and April. But this year, something like 90% of all spring breaks were in March, which has translated into a slower April. So that might have had some effect on bookings also. [00:16:05] Speaker A: Yes. And I will say I personally am looking better in May than usual. Usually. Normally, May is kind of a crapshoot. And we're sitting around like, oh, man, we had a great spring, and now we got this month that we forgot. And I wasn't tweaking my prices enough. And I think it was a combination of. I did get ahead of it as much as I needed to this year. And also, spring break was so early that I think people are kind of anticipating or, you know, they're getting. They're getting antsy. They want to get out, they want to go do stuff. 90% of people are 90% happier when they have a vacation schedule on the books. I read that recently. Again, I don't know where I got it from, much like Avery, but my. [00:16:43] Speaker B: Man, to point out, we don't have a vacation scheduled. [00:16:46] Speaker A: Oh, boy, here we go. [00:16:48] Speaker D: Avery's not happy. [00:16:49] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. Well, that's not good, then nobody's happy. Anyway, my maze looking pretty decent on. I have a couple of houses, actually, my smallest house, and here's. I would tell you exactly what happened. My smallest house is my weakest link in May, which it is now May. And that is extremely weird. And it's because I had it priced too high. Now, that being said, the easy, the smaller little house like that one is easier to play catch up than it is on a five or six bedroom. If you missed the mark on a five bedroom and now all of a sudden your next three weeks are empty, then, you know, you're looking at trying to get lucky and you might end up not getting any kind of revenue coming in. Now I missed the mark. I just did pricing this morning, like, for a pretty extensive pricing session, you know. And my baby cat, my little, little severe county tiny zero bedroom cabin is only got. It's only got two bookings in the next. In the foreseeable future, which is really weird. And then I realized I had my base rate on it, like sky high, way high. And so I just adjusted and it'll catch up and it won't be a problem at all. I'm much. I'm much happier to have that happen, which is a screw up on my. My part, really. I'm much happier to have that happen on a tiny house than on a five or six bedroom house. But, Chuck, what are you seeing as far as May and your pricing and. [00:18:08] Speaker C: Availability again, the small ones are doing well. Actually doing better this year than the last two years. Not only are we, we have more bookings, but the revenue is higher. The big ones are still dragging my big place in the smokies, which, you know, we've been running for seven years, and we've been consistently one of the better performers, has had a lot of empty time. And the May bookings, it actually looked better than the last two months, but still down year over year and year over two years. So I don't know what that means in the long run. My data sources from inside the area have not been very forthcoming. And every time I bring up, hey, how are tax revenues? I don't get a very good response. I think they just don't want to talk about it. It's creating problems for, like, in the smokies, you know, it's creating some problems up there for the cities and the county because tax revenues are down, in some cases, quite a bit. So that's what I see for May. Now, on the other hand, summer starting in June. We're on a typical pattern even with the big places. So it's the shoulder season here that has been discouraging, but they still. May, still book. Last night, I got a booking in my six bedroom for arrival on Sunday. So is that three days, four days? That's kind of unusual. You know, like you said earlier, when you have a place to sleep. 1620 people, whatever. It's hard to throw a group like that together at the last minute. I will say one other thing. It's been kind of weird though, is our big places, even, even the eight bedroom and smokies, we're getting booked by smaller groups. I got, I got folks coming in tomorrow to one of my place to six bedroom here, and it's only nine people, so it's, it's different. [00:19:58] Speaker A: Yeah, my June and July are looking great. I have no problem there. Do you have any, does anybody have any recommendations as far as mid to late summer? In other words, we get this question all the time. You know, do I need to have any August going right now? My answer to that is absolutely not. But if, if anybody that does pricing on the regular has a speech for me there to me, you don't need to even be worried about August. Now, September, we maybe need to start turning that up a little bit right now. Maybe do like, I would do like a black line the whole month of September, 10% decrease kind of thing. I don't know that we're quite ready for that. We might be a little early in the middle of May here when podcast is being released, but that's, that's one week I would be conscious of is that's, you know, may is always difficult. Now, unless Chuck tells me otherwise. Is there some sort of weird Easter shift in the fall this year that nobody's going to see coming? [00:20:55] Speaker C: No, no. The fall break still looks to be on track for those first two weeks of October. So, you know, that'll, that our fall quote, spring break. [00:21:05] Speaker A: Okay. All right. So September needs to be on the schedule. So are you already, is anybody on the call that does pricing doing anything with September this early? I personally am not, but I'm getting sort of ready to put it on my radar. [00:21:19] Speaker D: Second week of June for me, I start on second week of June. I do end August and September. [00:21:27] Speaker A: How's that for an answer? This is exactly the policy. [00:21:32] Speaker C: Yeah. The only thing I've done is I've looked at special events in my markets and just going to make sure that my rates for those particular dates are not too terribly high, but higher than normal. [00:21:44] Speaker A: And how do you do that? Are you using a manual override? Are you doing, how are you handling. [00:21:50] Speaker C: I'm doing a manual override percentage based. [00:21:52] Speaker A: Or dollar figure percent. [00:21:55] Speaker C: So I'm adding 20% to those dates. So we've got like a couple of big concerts in the Panama city beach area. And I know Destin is half hour, 45 minutes away. But the last two years we've had people stay with us that have attended those concerts. So I don't want to miss out on those and miss out revenue. Up in the smokies. Late August, that weekend before Labor Day, we got the big jeep invasion on price labs. I don't feel comfortable that it's priced in well enough. So in that one case, I added another 20%. [00:22:29] Speaker A: Yeah. I was going to ask you, if you don't do anything, do you feel pricelabs is giving those dates what they're worth? Because I personally, I don't look at stuff like that. I'll do the major holidays, your Labor Day, Memorial Day, obviously, 4 July, and the winter holidays, the Thanksgiving, Christmas, etcetera. I'm not going to sit around and google the jeep invasions and stuff like that. So are you saying that I'm leaving money on the table by not paying enough attention? [00:22:55] Speaker C: I think it could be. It depends on where you're at. It's amazing how many of the jeep invasion people are just small groups. A couple or maybe two couples. So the small places rent really well during jeep invasion. And it starts on Thursday and it goes till Sunday. So it takes a, what might normally be a two or three day weekend and turns it into a four as well. So if you market towards it, price. [00:23:20] Speaker D: Labs has really started getting better and better about. Actually, you can see what the event is on price laps. [00:23:28] Speaker C: Yeah. If it's not there, you can add it. [00:23:30] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:23:31] Speaker D: And it's like a lot like a, like I'll. If you go out and look at your calendar in a month, like a couple months ahead, and there's a lot of, you know, dark blue that show on demand and you can hover over it and it'll actually tell you what's going on. Usually it'll say hangout fest or it'll say jeep invasion on price lapse. You can actually kind of use that to put an additional adder on there. Like what Chuck's been doing. I've been playing with that more this year than I ever have because I wasn't great about just googling it and looking it up. But when I end my pricing and I see it out there, I pay more attention to it. [00:23:58] Speaker A: Where is that coming from? Is this like, is this like ways where it's coming from? Drivers on the road saying, hey, this is what's going on. [00:24:04] Speaker D: I really don't know, but it's fairly new that I know of. I don't know how new, but probably within the last year for sure. [00:24:10] Speaker C: I thought I remember them saying something on one of the podcast, some podcasts that they were on, that they actually have people whose job it is, is to collect event data, you know, from chambers of commerce, probably several folks. [00:24:24] Speaker A: There's a lot of markets involved here. [00:24:25] Speaker C: Yeah. Something that's easily farmed out, you know, to a less expensive staff. I mean, it's just data collection, so. [00:24:32] Speaker A: Okay. All right. [00:24:33] Speaker D: I'm looking at mine right now. I'm just hovering over some dates out in September at the beach, and it says shrimp festival, you know? [00:24:38] Speaker A: Shrimp festival. [00:24:40] Speaker D: Yeah, I'm all in on the shrimp fest, man. [00:24:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Let's go. All right, well, what do we do to stay? I mean, honestly, I'm raising prices on June and July right now. To me, I've got too many bookings, especially in June, and making sure my 4 July is still sky high right now. Any other without. Let's. We'll do a whole nother section on 4 July here in a second. But what else do I need to do if I'm just, you know, average Joe looking to price my June and July properly? That is the bulk of our income in a lot of markets. What do I do there, Chuck or Tim or Avery or whoever? [00:25:14] Speaker D: To me, I think by seeing where you're at, you know, I mean, if you got nothing right now, I'd be. I'd be doing something. If you're sitting 80% booked, I'd be doing something drastically different. So the starting point is looking at your June July and seeing where you're at right now. To me, for me, and this is just for me, you know, I'm, you know, really anything below 40% on June, I'm not freaking out right now, you know, because it's too soon. It'll come. So if I'm below 40%, then I'm going to be doing something about it. And that, that's just me for where we are right now today. So two weeks from now, it'll be different. [00:25:47] Speaker A: And to clarify what he means by doing something about it, we're just going to take a look at those dates that are not yet booked. If it's under 30 to, you know, 40, 30%, something like that, maybe we take a look and figure out a way to basically lower the rates of what's left. And I'm going to maybe go a little lower on a weekday Tuesday than I am on a weekend. I may be not going to touch the weekends at all in June right now. Maybe give it another week or two. That kind of thing, but, and to. [00:26:11] Speaker D: The same, the same note on that. It varies by property size too, for me because, you know, you mentioned your, your baby cabins. I've got a couple of those too. And those are, for me, are rarely booked more than two or three weeks out. So, like, if those are sitting empty right now, I'm not even freaking about it for June. Um, but, uh, you know, my bigger ones, a little different story. [00:26:31] Speaker A: We also got to consider that the one night holes on a little, little property are going to probably fill in. Absolutely. As opposed to on a big property. So that's another thing. I was actually looking at Avery's mom's calendar just before this call because I helped her out with her property and. [00:26:47] Speaker B: She has better reviews than us. [00:26:49] Speaker A: She does, and I thoroughly enjoy helping her. But she had, she's got a three, basically three and a half bedroom and she had like four one nighters in June. There's really nothing she can do about, I mean, personally, I'm probably not going to take a one nighter on a three bedroom, you know, so. But it's just one thing to consider. If you got a lot of one nighters and small property, those are fine, no big deal. They'll get booked. And if it's just how the cards fall, I, to me personally, I'm not going to sit there and like find ways to avoid those one nighters. I just don't do that. As far as far as minimum night stays and all these rules have to check in on a Saturday or whatever. It's not my style. I let the cards fall where they may. And if I have end up with three one nighters on a four bedroom, so be it. Chuck, any comments on that? [00:27:36] Speaker C: Yeah, you can, you can play with the minimum night rules a bit. And, you know, we've, we've talked about pricing for the summer, but let's not forget that, you know, if you're looking at your calendar now and it's kind of empty, check your minimum nights and you may need to dial them back. Remember, our general advice to people was, you know, several months ago was to have a five or, or even a seven night minimum on the, for your summer peak months. Well, now it's time to start dialing that back. But don't drop your rates. So that's. We're checking too. [00:28:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm changing maybe a 4 July from a six night men to a five night men, that kind of thing. You can do that before you even bother dropping your rates, especially with now let's, we'll just dive into 4 July. To me, the sweet spot on the 4 July. Again, this depends on the size of the house, but just an over general over overview of a rule. I'm looking for about six weeks. I think that six weeks on the 4 July, in other words, if you can get it booked six weeks out, you priced it pretty perfectly. Now you could get 4 July booked twelve weeks in advance for the same price as the six weeks in advance. And it just kind of happened that way. All right. As long as you're getting that six week number, I don't care if it happens a little earlier. And then to me, and I've mentioned this before, it starts to fall off as far as like quality of guests and overall awesome vacation. When they get to like booking 4 July only a week out or two weeks out, then you're dealing with somebody who may not have chosen your property had other properties been available, but you've kept your rates so high. That is a strategy that a lot of people do where they'll keep their rates so high that they're for last minute, which you can make some big dough doing that. But then you're dealing with somebody who probably didn't even look at your house and is annoyed. So six weeks to me is where I'm looking to get my 4 July booked. The most important thing to take away from the statement I just made is that we don't need to worry about 4 July just yet. I don't think there's any reason to drop rates on the, on the major, major holiday. I do still want to get six nights out of it if I can. Maybe not on a small property, but on a four or five. Six bedroom. Six nights right now would be ideal on a tiny little property. Maybe something like. I think four is probably my. As low as I'm willing to go. It's like going to the car dealership. Hey man, I don't really need this car right now, but I'll take it if you'll give me four nights. You know, like if you're going to give me the four nights, I'll go ahead and sell it to you. That kind of thing. I'm the dealer, right. You know. So keeping in mind that the vacation is always number one, it's good, the show and these folks a good time. Any other comments on the 4 July there from anybody? [00:30:13] Speaker C: No, I think you nailed it. [00:30:14] Speaker A: Okay, cool. All right, well, let's talk further in advance here as far as preparing for. Well, we already mentioned September a little bit. I think we you know, Tim says we're not ready yet, but I think I'm getting pretty close to being paying a little attention to September. And also I will say another thing. I just opened up my holidays so I don't know where you guys are at on that. Has anybody on the call open their holidays? Where, where's your overall calendar availability for a twelve month period is what I'm getting at. I just opened mine today until the end of February, last day of February. So I'm available through the holiday season and then the two crappy months that nobody cares about, January and February as of today, which still gives me less than twelve months on my calendar. I mean, real realistically I should probably go another month or two. But just curious where everybody else is at on future availability. [00:31:07] Speaker B: This episode of the short term show is brought to you by the short term shop. 30 year fixed mortgages, tax benefits and long distance management training made easy are just a few of the perks of owning a short term rental. The short term shop can help you buy and learn how to manage your property from anywhere in the world. Just go to theshorttermshop.com and click get connected again. That's theshorttermshop.com and we are brokered by Exp. See you all over there. [00:31:35] Speaker D: Open twelve months. [00:31:38] Speaker A: Twelve months. [00:31:39] Speaker D: Twelve months open. [00:31:40] Speaker C: Yeah, same here. [00:31:41] Speaker E: Yep, us too. [00:31:42] Speaker A: Twelve months from today. [00:31:44] Speaker C: Well months from today, 365 days. [00:31:46] Speaker A: Now do you do that all the time? [00:31:48] Speaker D: Yes. [00:31:49] Speaker A: You do? Okay. [00:31:50] Speaker D: Yep. And I, this is not perfect and I'm still working on my system here, but I have major holidays set up as seasons with adders on them and stuff. And it doesn't work out perfect because things shift around a little bit, you know, that we talk about. But like Christmas I have as a season, I think I have it as a ten day season. Not like, not like you have to book ten days, but I have like a ten day window in there and as it gets close to the holiday I pay attention to it and I adjust or lift that off and get more manual. Just kind of protects those dates. So like the day, you know, when, you know, because every day it adds a day to my availability so that somebody can sneak in there if you're not careful. So I kind of put that on as a little bit of protection for myself. And like I said, as it gets closer then all of a sudden it's like, oh hey, I need go look at Christmas. And it's out there, it's protected as a season, as bumped up and I'll tweak it as necessary. [00:32:42] Speaker C: Yeah, we do that too. And you know, we're open 365 days ahead, but I'm working on my seasons and setups two years ahead because I don't want to get caught, you know, at the wrong time either. You know, we want to make sure we've got the right dates blocked for arrival or departure. You know, we don't want people coming in on Christmas Day or leaving using that as an example. So I'm making sure all that set right. [00:33:05] Speaker D: Everything I do, Chuck does better. That's the moral of story. [00:33:08] Speaker A: No, 100%. Yeah, yeah. He's definitely way more tuned in that he's doing jeep invasion and shit. I'm just like, dude, I'm the guy with the podcast and you're making me look bad over here. But, but yeah, no, I actually do. I block off certain dates of the year, you know, or certain periods of time. I have a twelve month overall on my Airbnb and my verbo. Right, overall availability. But I, like I said until this morning, I was blocked the Monday before Thanksgiving and definitely moving forward from there just because I wasn't really interested in having to deal with those holidays yet. Now, I used to do that, I'd go a lot closer, like sometimes there's been years where I didn't even open Thanksgiving until like July. And now I'm definitely doing it further in advance just for the overall algorithm health. You know, the algorithms want availability and I just gave myself four months more availability and it's really not anything skin off my back, right. It's just an open calendar. Now, like Tim said, you do have to keep an eye if you're going to be available for the major holidays. Right now, the winter holidays, those do need to be pretty high. There's no reason to book those this far in advance, but I think it's time to go ahead and have them available. Twelve month availability is generally the general consensus as where you want your calendar for algorithm health, etcetera. Like I said, I was only available for like the next seven months until this morning. So now maybe I'll get a little boost because I've got some, some more algorithm Paige, talk to me about designing of the home. What do I need to do as far as, do I need to have summer stuff in my house or winter stuff in my house? And what do I need to do as far as seasons are concerned? [00:34:49] Speaker E: Yeah, so there are two separate but kind of like equally important things that I want to talk about here. When it comes to making seasonal changes and the first is updating your property, so that's like the actual furniture and the decor and the amenities. And then the second is updating your listing and your photos so that your potential guests, like, actually know about these amenities. So STR design, I don't know. A lot of people think of like, oh, it's a designer, or like, she's a designer, so she's just putting like a wreath on the door or like some pillows in there. But STR design actually goes like, way beyond the items that we just put into the properties. And it also includes the things like thinking about how everything is going to come across to people before they ever see the property in real life and then also making sure that it's going to align with the actual guest experience and staying there. So updating your decor and your amenities seasonally can be a really good way to connect with those target guests and to even differentiate yourself. But you actually have to, like, show them what you have, too. So you can have, like the best design and the best amenities, but if your pictures and your listing don't show it, then it's like essentially worthless to you. So obviously, I guess, like everything design related and everything that we do in general in short term rentals these days, like what you're going to do to update your property and your listing for summer and fall is going to be dependent on your market and it's going to be dependent on your target guests. Summer is the big one. That's pretty much like a universal, you have to do something. So we'll start there, I guess. And also that's what's coming up. So if you're in a market where summer is your peak season and kind of like what we've been talking about, then honestly, like, I'm hoping your calendar may already be starting to fill up. But if not like, or if you're just launching, then this is a really good time to check out your comps or do the enemy method, I think is what you guys say around here and make sure that you have everything the rest of the properties around you have and then see what you can also do to elevate above that. Which doesn't mean that you have to spend like 50k on a putt putt course, unless that's what all your comps have, unless that's what your guests are expecting. But there are a lot of other ways that you can just like elevate your property in little ways. And it just might like involve being more creative with the details. So obviously, outdoor amenities are going to be where you want to put your energy in the summertime. Like outdoor lounge spaces, like hangout spaces, dining areas are great pretty much no matter where you are. And giving people a space space to just like be outside during the summer months is, is huge. On top of that, things like hammocks and hanging chairs, fire pits, all of those are like fairly easy ads that are going to allow guests to have that outdoor experience. If you have a yard, then outdoor games, things like cornhole, giant Connect, four horseshoes, giant Jenga, like anything like that. Those are like quick, easy, inexpensive, photograph well and guests love it. It adds to the experience and it's great for like pretty much all ages. So that's kind of like, I don't know, quick, easy. Tips for yards outdoor if you have a pool, like make it an oasis, a dream, a magical, a magical place. It's not that hard. It comes down to just small details like interesting colors and patterns and the things that you're going to be like putting in no matter what, just make them interesting things. Adding smaller details like floaties, which obviously check with your insurance first. That's not like okay for everybody. But if it is okay, those photograph well. And sweet lighting. So I love using like solar string lights and different colored spotlights because they're really expensive on Amazon, you don't have to run cords. They turn themselves on and off. Um, and they're easy to install and move as needed. And they photograph great. If you do twilight picks with some of those lighting features, like, it just looks really awesome. Let's see if you don't have a yard or pool or anything other than like a patio. Focus on what you do have, I guess, and how you can transition it into summer. Like even just updating your listing photos to show green leaves or like a summer view out the window goes a long way. If your hero image shows anything other than summertime when you're trying to target summertime guests, you should probably change it if you have a photographer. That kind of leads me into like the photo part. If you have a photographer that you trust and you can have them, like, photograph your updates, absolutely do it. But like, you don't have to be bringing in a professional photographer for like every little update that you make, if you are able to do it yourself, if you're like in person, there are a lot of resources available. Like if you want to just take pictures on your phone, you can do that. I would suggest learning about it first, but it's totally possible. Or you could bring in somebody to do just a seasonal photo update for you. And then also definitely updating your b roll picks too. So like showing the area and showing people like enjoying the area during the summer, showing your proximity to like summertime activities. All that stuff is going to be like what helps pull it all together and connect you with your target guest. If anybody wants to like, jump in here, feel free to steamrolling this. [00:40:42] Speaker A: That's great. Go for it. I have a question. Is it okay to commingle photos? In other words, I've got photos from this photographer and that photographer and my iPhone and they all look like they were done by different cameras. I get personally annoyed with that. But maybe that's okay. [00:40:59] Speaker E: No, I agree with you. I would suggest, like, if you're going to be taking pictures and you already have pro photos, like, first of all, don't leave a bunch of repetitive stuff on the listing. Like don't add a picture of this space during the summer when you also have a picture of this space, not during the summer. So just like cycle stuff through. But then also make sure the vibe is the same throughout your pictures. So I think it's okay, like if it is like a wider angle like that your professional photographer took, like, if you're just highlighting details and stuff of your updates in the ones that you add, but just try to make sure that the way that you edit it. And again, like, take a little bit of time to learn this. It's not, it's not a huge thing to learn. It's really easy. But just make sure, like, the vibe is the same, that you kind of like get the same feel to keep it cohesive throughout your pictures because. Yeah, I agree. It looks kind of schlock when you don't do that. [00:42:00] Speaker A: Tim, you're a photographer. Do you have any photograph advice? Also, do you have any strategies you use throughout the seasons? [00:42:07] Speaker D: What was that word she just used? [00:42:09] Speaker A: Yeah, what was that word again? [00:42:10] Speaker E: Schlock. It just popped into my head. [00:42:13] Speaker D: I can't talk until I hear that one more time. [00:42:15] Speaker A: So I'm going to google that. [00:42:17] Speaker D: Sloppy or something. But anyway, no, I agree with the general consensus there that the pictures should have a similar vibe. I am a fan of seasonal pictures. Doesn't have to go way overboard. But, you know, fall pictures I like, I mean, fall is a huge thing in the smokies. It's not so much at the beach. So it, you know, it depends on the property and the market and all that. But I love putting up some leaf pictures in the fall here and in the summer, you know, like she said, you know, you don't want, you don't want those up during the, during the summer, necessarily. So I agree with all that. I do agree with the general vibe of the photos. You know, I don't like going through and, like, seeing all these beautiful pictures, and all of a sudden, there's, like, ones that just clearly don't match. So, you know, that kind of thing. And that's just really kind of a general feel of different photographers. And quite frankly, what presets they use when they're editing that, that goes a long way in the vibe of the picture. And if, you know, if you're taking some of your own, if you want to get savvy, you know, and buy lightroom and stuff, you can kind of, like, try and emulate what they're doing to try and kind of match it up a little bit with some presets, but it takes a little bit of time to practice that. But so, anyway, now, I mean, just really kind of mirroring what she said, just kind of, you know, having good photos. Another thing, and I think she said this, too, is having, you know, she said b roll. But also, you know, things like the, the yard connect four type things. If you have stuff like that, you want to have badass pictures of it. And it's like, I talk, you know, people ask me, like, all this all the time. Like, how do people actually use that? And my answer is, I don't really know. And I don't, I don't want to say I don't care. But the big thing is they need to imagine themselves using it. You want them to imagine themselves in your space using your amenities that they're paying for, whether they uncover the pool table, I really don't care. You know, I want them to enjoy their vacation, but, you know, when they're booking it, it's all about them picturing themselves in your space. So you want to make it inviting and stuff from that manner. And that goes all the way down to the, you know, the staging. To me, having a good stager is as good, as important as a photographer. You know, making sure the beds look right and the pillows look right. And that is not me. That is, I have a, my partner in crime helps with all that. [00:44:24] Speaker B: So I think it's also important to remember that photographers make mistakes, too, or they get busy or just because what I've seen recently with people who are like, hey, what's wrong with my listing? Like, man, your pictures are really dark. And they're like, well, they're pro. But you know, sometimes if a photographer is really busy and they get in there a little bit late in the day and it's a little too dark and there's not a lot of natural light and they've got all the light fixtures on it, it just looks, just because a photographer does it doesn't mean that they necessarily did their best. And it's okay if it looks kind of weird or maybe not. What you want to ask them to redo it. And I don't want all the photographers to come like, you know, at me right now, but, you know, sometimes, like a moody lighting isn't probably going to get you a lot of clicks. It's kind of artsy for a photographer to do, but you kind of want the light bright thing, so make sure you're getting that even if it's a pro. [00:45:21] Speaker A: Yeah. And along those lines, ask yourself what kind of brain you have. You know, because I was talking to this guy the other day and he had a decent property. It was actually a really cool property, but he was struggling a little bit. He said, luke, can you take a look at it? Which we're happy to do that. We do have a Facebook group for that as well. Short term rental listing advice strlistingadvice.com dot and anyway, so I took a look at his listing and his pictures were horrible. And we had this long conversation about, you know. Cause he was, he, I think he was actually even considering maybe selling this home. He'd had it for a number of years. And, and I said, well, you know, let's talk about why you're bringing that up. Do you, do you not like the dealing with the guests? Do you not like the keeping the track of the finance, finances, the pricing? What is it? Or have you just moved on? You want to get rid of it? He said, actually, I really love managing, I love the management side of things. I'm really good at the integrations and the softwares, and I'm really good at the nuts and bolts and the numbers. I took a look at his listing and I was like, okay, boom, there it is. He's got that number engineer brain, and he has no creative brain. He has, I mean, his photos were just horrible and they were professionally done. You know, he, he made the effort, but I think that he just hired the pro and forgot about it and just didn't cross his mind that these could possibly be bad because they were professionally done. Now. They looked like they were probably bottom of the barrel professionally done, but just everything wrong. Like a lot of ceiling in the photos. Like, the angle of the photo was, like, 45% ceiling, you know, and they had living room was dark, everything. The dark floor, dark furniture, dark drapes, dark window coverings, everything. [00:47:05] Speaker E: There's a big difference, too, though, between short term rental photography and, like, real estate photography. And there's a difference between short term rental photography and interior photography or architectural photography. Like, it's its own, I don't know, like, it's like, in every aspect, it's just like its own special little category. I feel like, and that's. I feel, and that's why it can be hard, like you guys said, to find that person who understands it and is going to highlight the amenities and not make it look like real estate pictures, where it's like you're trying to make it look appealing to everybody in the world, because that's not. We can't make it appealing to everybody in the world. We want it to be appealing to the people we want to be staying with us. [00:47:52] Speaker A: And if you have that engine, because there's two types of brains that come to this space, they really creative type people that like that whole, like, you know, let's make this place hip and cool, and then you've got the engineer type people that want to spreadsheet the crap out of everything. Neither one of them are wrong, but they are different brains. So if you've got that engineer brain, you probably want to run your pictures and all the, you know, the furniture, etcetera, past somebody that could be your wife, whoever, husband, anybody that you know that has a bit of a creative brain, say, hey, can you take a look at these pictures? Let us know? And this one blew my mind, because I know this guy. He's had this thing for a few years now, and he had to have shown it to him. Maybe he didn't have anybody that had enough guts to tell him his pictures stunk, but it seemed very obvious to me. By the way, schlock, it's a yiddish word, which I kind of figured, and it means cheap or inferior goods or materials. In other words, trash, according to the dictionary. Also was a film, by the way, every seems like this might be up your alley from 1973 about a prehistoric ape in California called the Banana Killer. A movie called Schlock 1973. Okay, cool. [00:49:01] Speaker D: Now they're astartopus. [00:49:04] Speaker E: Oh, I was going to talk about fall, too. [00:49:07] Speaker A: Yes. [00:49:09] Speaker E: Moving on to fall. I think, like, fall, not everybody has to focus on fall, really. Like, it's, that's, that's super market dependent. I think, honestly, like, if you're a remote host, if your property is in Texas or Florida, like somewhere like that, you probably want to focus more on again, like you guys were talking about earlier, like fall pricing strategies and, like, moving into off season, then you would be focusing on fall design updates. But if you happen to be somewhere that fall is a huge opportunity to host additional guests, then that's when you would really want to think about how to target them through your design and, like, how to make it come across in the listing and when to make those changes, too. So, like, if you're somewhere where the leaves are amazing, you really want to start targeting those guests to get them to book ahead of time, because a lot of times people will plan that one out. Updating your listing photos to show your property in the fall and, like, views from the property itself or views out the window, views from the deck, like fire pit in the fall. Or if you don't have those things, then again, you can go with the b roll, but set the stage for the people who are going to be looking to book once your summer calendar fills up, start to make that transition over, and then personally. So we have a property in an area that's big for hunting. And so one of our biggest seasons is late fall, and that's something that we try to plan for in advance. So we'll do, like, some light fall decorating inside. But what we really focus on again is, like, updating our listing to show what the house is like during that time, what our driveway looks like, because we get a lot of trailers and, like, just the kind of things that we have that are going to benefit guests staying with us during that time. Fall decorations, like art. [00:51:04] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, okay. Like, I'm a three year old dude, and I like dinosaurs. All right, talk to me like that, right? Like my son, like, three year old dude. Yeah. What do I put in my hat? Like, do I get a fall, y'all, sign? I don't have any idea what to put in my house. [00:51:21] Speaker E: Exactly. Well, so fall decorations, those are easy. Those are honestly exactly like you said, like, that's pretty straightforward. And you can do it no matter where you are. So a wreath on your front door, like, a fall wreath is good. [00:51:36] Speaker A: I like the wreath. I can I do a wreath. I feel like Avery would yell at me for the reef. The wreath. [00:51:40] Speaker E: I don't know. [00:51:42] Speaker B: Let me just. [00:51:43] Speaker A: I feel like Avery would be like, what is this? [00:51:46] Speaker D: Did you see her just. She just exit, stays left in that. [00:51:50] Speaker E: Yeah. [00:51:50] Speaker B: So Luke does not do design stuff. Goes to hobby lobby and buys 175 things. [00:51:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:51:58] Speaker B: And puts them all on top of each other. And it looks like somebody's weird grandma's house. It's horrible. [00:52:04] Speaker E: Okay, no, don't do that. That's not what you want to do. [00:52:06] Speaker A: Where do I go? I live in a tiny town. [00:52:08] Speaker E: Hobby lobby is all right. I would avoid the fall, y'all. Okay. That's a simple avoidance in my book. But, like, okay, target does a good job. [00:52:19] Speaker A: Target, it's right next to my hobby. [00:52:21] Speaker E: Almost always relax, reliable. Go to target. It's reliable. And so get a wreath, like, update, like, faux stems. If you have, like, fake plants, fake stems like that throughout anywhere in the house. Like, replace those with the fall version from target. Update some of your throw pillows into, like, fall colors, a little bit cozier. Throw blankets. That's it. Like, that's all you have to do. And that's going to, like, switch your vibe. [00:52:52] Speaker D: Yeah, my wife's got a crazy throw pillow system down here. [00:52:55] Speaker A: Oh, she's a system. [00:52:56] Speaker D: Oh, she's got, like, their covers, you know, and she's got them, like, staged and stacked up, like, per property, per season. She goes and it's the same pillow, and she just changes out the covers all the time. And I. I can't even begin to follow what's going on, but she just tells me, leave alone and take a picture, and that's what I do. So where it seems to work out perfect. [00:53:15] Speaker A: I like. [00:53:16] Speaker C: Yeah, I like the idea of using covers because it takes up a lot less storage space. [00:53:22] Speaker A: Paige, do you like the fake plants? We see those a lot. And if you're going to purchase a home in a vacation town, a lot of these homes are coming with these grandma plants that are covered in 20 years of dust that we like these things. Or, I mean, we get new ones or just. [00:53:36] Speaker B: I don't think we like the grandma ones. [00:53:37] Speaker E: Yeah, not that. Not the dusty grandma ones, but, yeah, it is. It is. It does help. It helps, like, bringing nature in, obviously. I mean, I'm a plant. I'm a plant killer no matter where I am, even in my own house. So I can't have live plants anywhere. But especially str. Obviously, like, keeping them alive, maintaining them is an absolute challenge. So we don't rely on that. But it does. There are really nice looking fake ones, and updating those, like, seasonally, is a really easy way to get that seasonal vibe. And it also just, like I said, kind of brings the outdoors in. It's a nice way. You don't want to go overboard. You don't want to have them, like, hanging from the ceiling everywhere, but, like, tall stems in a vase, like, on the dining table, little ones, tiny ones. Again, target great. Amazon's great. But you can stick it on the bathroom counter just, like, here and there. It adds. It adds a lot to. [00:54:42] Speaker A: Because I do want to get better at this. You're saying target, and I'm like, I don't even know where to go in a target, because if I go to target, I'm going to the toothbrush section. They're not going to have fake plants in the toothbrush section. [00:54:52] Speaker E: No, they don't. No, no. I don't even know the home section. Take a little detour. [00:54:57] Speaker A: Where's that, by the towels? I don't have any idea. [00:55:00] Speaker E: Yeah. [00:55:01] Speaker A: Okay, see, this is. This is where I got to get somebody else involved. Like the online. [00:55:05] Speaker E: Go online and type it in on target. Or Wayfair has a bunch. These. They're, like, really inexpensive ads that do definitely make a difference. But, yeah, I need to ask every. [00:55:18] Speaker A: The problem is, is my Avery, my designer is the busiest person on the planet and doesn't. [00:55:23] Speaker E: I'm not. [00:55:24] Speaker B: I am not a designer, but I. And I. I just don't want you to do it. [00:55:28] Speaker A: Right? No, I don't want to do it. I want the dinosaurs I'm good with. [00:55:32] Speaker E: And the thing is, too, though, like, the fall decor updates are. They're fun and they're nice to look at, but they're not critical. Like, when it comes to Christmas, especially, like, in the smokies in Colorado, wherever you are, that is, like, people are coming for the holidays. Like, they want those. That holiday stuff. Like, they want a Christmas tree. They might not book your property if it doesn't have a Christmas tree. Fall isn't like that. Like, it's just for fun. [00:55:59] Speaker A: What about a poinsettia? Should I consider some fake points? I like the point setup. [00:56:03] Speaker E: Every single plant. [00:56:05] Speaker A: Is it two gram? [00:56:06] Speaker E: Well, I mean, you got to put it in, obviously, closer to Christmas time. [00:56:10] Speaker A: What if I get a fake one? Can I get a fake one at Christmas time? [00:56:13] Speaker E: Yeah. [00:56:14] Speaker A: Okay, I'm in. I like that. I'm gonna. I'm gonna write it down. Put it on my. [00:56:17] Speaker D: Don't get Luke going on Christmas. I've been in a Christmas store with Luke. [00:56:22] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:56:22] Speaker B: So many of his design choices and, like, decor choices start with, oh, my grandma had this. I want it. [00:56:30] Speaker A: No, no, no. I just. Listen, I love Christmas. That has nothing to do with. Don't worry about my grandma. But, you know, I took the seventies. I took Tim to the Christmas. There's only one left there in pigeon Forge. And he looked at me like, what in the world? [00:56:45] Speaker B: And he lives everywhere we go. [00:56:48] Speaker A: He had no idea that this was a thing. I'm like, dude, it was every town in America. [00:56:52] Speaker D: It was March. And we're walking around a Christmas store. [00:56:55] Speaker B: Yeah, that's my Christmas hotel in Pigeon Forge. [00:56:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's my thing. There's. This is the thing. There are people. I'm not the only one. There are. [00:57:04] Speaker E: There are other driving businesses. [00:57:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I bought the kids some, some fake snow and we had a great time. And of course, an ornament, but, you know. And I got some. I got twelve. [00:57:16] Speaker D: We decorate for Christmas. I mean, that's like a mandatory in the smokies here. And we have had guests bring their own decorations, and we had one in particular that asked to bring their own stuff. We're like, yeah, we don't care. Do whatever you want. And, uh, they, they brought like, a trailer full of stuff and completely, like, the most gaudy. And then they took pictures of it with a flip phone and sent them to us and thought we'd want them for our listing to put these pictures. We're like, oh, that's awesome. [00:57:44] Speaker A: How long were they in there? [00:57:45] Speaker B: That's a lot. [00:57:46] Speaker D: You know, like four days. And they had the first, first two days decorating. I mean, it was, it was all. It was substantial. I mean, like, every inch of the house was covered with Christmas. It was. It was not insignificant. [00:57:58] Speaker B: Well, good for them. [00:57:59] Speaker A: I'm not taking it that far. I'm not going on a four day trip. I do Christmas today after Halloween. All right, Avery, what am I. What's, what's my house buying situation looking like? As says, the summer and the fall roll on. And do you have any tips or advice for us is if, let's say I'm shopping around, I'm ready to buy a house. What's, what's the market look like out there? [00:58:19] Speaker B: Well, typically on an annual basis, more properties hit the market in the spring. And we're seeing, because this is a weird year where in, where we're in what I consider to be the very, very, very bottom of the real estate market. There's not a lot of inventory coming on. I've talked about this a number of times, so I'm sorry if you guys feel like I am talking about it again. Broken record, but interest rates suck right now. We all know this, and because of that, there's not a lot of buyers. But also because of that, a lot of people don't want to sell their houses because they don't want to take a hit on the value of it. Because people need to offer lower to get the payment where they need it to be to accommodate these higher interest rates. So not as many houses are being listed. So here's my thing. Nobody knows when on in hell's half acre these interest rates are going to go down. They will at some point. And how do I know they will? Because the housing market has completely stopped, not just for investment properties, but primary homes. People cannot afford to buy houses. They can't even afford to downsize. So at some point they are going to go down. Now, is that going to be next month or ten years from now? That we don't know. Nobody can know that. But my opinion and what Luke and I are doing right now, we are shopping for short term rentals, is get what you can find something that's a good deal that makes sense at the price and the interest rate and the monthly payment, you're able to get it for now and go ahead and buy, own the asset. And then when the interest rates go down, which, again, I'm not telling you to go buy something that doesn't make sense and hope the interest rates go down. Buy something that does make sense. And when they eventually do go down, then you're not competing with a thousand other people like we were in 2021 when the interest rates were low. Soon as those things go down, everybody's rushing the market again. So you're going to already own your place and you could just go in and refinance instead of running around competing with everybody, having to drive, pay a higher price, probably because of all this competition. So my advice is shop now while there's not a lot of competition, again, there's not a lot of inventory. You do have to be patient and persistent. I don't want to hear people calling me saying, oh, that market doesn't work. It only doesn't work because you didn't look long enough, because you quit. The way to win is just to keep going. So there's not going to be a lot of, like, great deals laying around. You're going to have to be patient and persistent and kind of dig, maybe look in multiple markets, but eventually you will be able to find something that makes sense. But my advice is to buy now while there's not a lot of competition, if you can find something that makes. [01:00:47] Speaker A: Sense, I mean, I've never had an easy time finding a deal, you know, I mean, people act like at some point there was this period of time where all you had to do was log on to zillow and find a freaking house that would make money. It's never been like that. Chuck, have you ever had an easy time finding a house to buy that was going to make money? [01:01:05] Speaker C: No. In fact, to be honest, I've never had an easy time finding a house to even live in. No. It's a very careful balance. And when you've done this a few times, and I've done this a few times, you know, there's so much information that's not in that listing. So, no, it's not that easy. And I'm not an agent, but let me get that across quickly. But my general advice is look at properties that need a little help. I'm not talking about necessarily fixer uppers where you're going to gut it, but something where there may be some deferred maintenance, you got a better opportunity of getting it at a reasonable price. You got to make sure you've got the cash to do the work, and then you can turn it into a really nice property and that changes your number situation all around. [01:01:54] Speaker A: There might be an element there where in the past ten years, let's say, this whole vacation rental thing became. Became normal. And there is a bit of an element there, I think, where people were buying these things and, like, making them primo, Colin Page making it look badass. And now all of a sudden, there's some of these coming on the market and they're like, whoa, you know, this is. This thing is sick. And it's ready to rent and it's got all the bells and whistles. But guess what? That some bitch is expensive, you know? So if you're brand new to this whole thing, and by the way, we sell houses. I don't, Chuck doesn't. Tim and Avery do. And we would love to earn your business. That's the whole point. I'm not going to sugarcoat any of it. We want to. We want to sell you a house and help you change your life, man. We're ready. So come to the short term shop. But my point is, is if you're brand new to this whole thing, to buying a vacation house or somewhere to spend some time with your family and rent when you're not there, whatever you're looking for, and you get that, wow, that warm fuzzy from one of these houses that page has made look amazing, or an interior designer's got their fingers on, or, you know, like, has all the top notch west elm furniture. You might want to change your mind a little bit on that. You know? I mean, that. That does serve a purpose for the right candidate. Absolutely. But if you're sitting around saying, I can't find a deal, I can't find a deal, I can't find a deal. Well, maybe you shouldn't be looking at the house that the previous owner spent 100 grand on fixing it up, you know? So, anyway, Avery, anything. Anything further to add on? Anything? [01:03:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, just. You're probably not going to run out tomorrow after listening to this and find a grand slam deal. Base hits are okay. Base hits still, you know, runners still get batted home on that. So don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Find something that works. Get in there. Maybe you have to do a little work. But I want to add to what Luke said. Buying the house that somebody just did a ton of work on is probably not the place that you're going to be able to find that discount or that value add. So keep that in mind when you're looking. A lot of people are like, oh, yeah, I love that one. Let's. Let's offer 300 under asking, and you might get it. You might get. You might find the right seller. But I'd focus more on properties that need a little work, properties that have a high amount of days on market, and properties that have bad listing photos. [01:04:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Let's also not forget that that primo property that's been, like, totally gone through and looks gorgeous, they probably really know how to operate that thing also, so they're probably not really in too much of a hurry to sell it in some cases. Or, you know, maybe they're ready to move on to their next project. Maybe it was a flip. Who knows? But in a lot of cases, those primos are like, you know, they're making money for the owner, and they might just hold on to it for a little while, but. [01:04:32] Speaker C: Well, the other side of it is they could be selling it because they over improved it. [01:04:36] Speaker A: That's true. [01:04:37] Speaker C: And the rates they have to charge, you know, with what we're seeing, they're not getting. [01:04:41] Speaker A: Take everything I said back. Chuck's right. If you might find somebody that's in over their head, and now they can't afford this thing, so now they're looking to unload. So you just. You got to look at every piece of product on the market. Yeah. [01:04:53] Speaker C: And there's a lesson in there about not over improving your property, too. [01:04:57] Speaker A: So I agree. [01:04:58] Speaker C: You got to know what. What the market will bear. In terms of pricing, I just bought a few zebras. [01:05:02] Speaker A: I'm going to send them back. Apparently, I don't need those anymore. But anything we missed here today, anything we can cover with the dinosaurs and the schlocks? [01:05:12] Speaker C: I thought zebras were out and emus were in. [01:05:14] Speaker A: Oh, emus are in this year? Yeah, this is summer. Summer stunner. You're going to need an emu. Yep. Yeah. Cool. All right, well, if that's everything, then a page. How do we find you? [01:05:24] Speaker E: I'm at hazen co.com or Instagram. Haze and company. [01:05:29] Speaker A: All right, Avery, how do we find you? [01:05:31] Speaker B: I am at the short term shop on all social media. [01:05:34] Speaker A: Right. Okay, Tim, how do I find you? [01:05:37] Speaker D: Find Avery. Yeah, Timothy. Short term shop. [01:05:41] Speaker A: Timothysortermshop.com. If you want to buy a house with the. With the long haired gentleman in the east Tennessee Hills. Okay. And Chuck, same with you. Facebook groups, etcetera. Plug the Facebook groups, if you don't mind. [01:05:54] Speaker C: Oh, absolutely. Short term rental, long term wealth, name of a number one selling book, so you can't go wrong. And if you're a short term shop client, we have our client club. [01:06:03] Speaker A: Right. Wonderful. And of course, you can find me every Tuesday on short term rental management. And we love you. Thank you. Have an awesome season, a wonderful summer, and as always, on behalf of the short term shop and short term rental management, don't overthink it.