[00:00:02] This is short term rental management, the show that is all about short term rental property management with your host, yours truly, Luke Carl.
[00:00:16] Shorts from rental management. Grateful to be here in my new office, and life is good today we're going to talk about post Covid, the economy, financial situations that we are in right now, now, and how the hell we got here.
[00:00:35] I'm calling it the false level up of the COVID era. And I'm grateful that you are here today on short term rental management.
[00:00:49] This episode of the short term management show is brought to you by short term rental long term wealth. This is the book in the STR space written by my lovely wife, Avery Carle. It has hundreds of reviews on Amazon, and it will teach you literally everything you need to know about STR, short term rental, long term wealth, the book wherever books are sold.
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[00:01:59] Today we're going to talk about the economy.
[00:02:03] Main street is hurting, okay? And I'm not going to get into this, like, CNN style or Fox News style. See, even just saying those names, I get uncomfortable because there's some sort of preconceived political affiliation with certain news channels. And I just don't want to get into, into the whole thing. But what I want to talk about is March of 2020. We're going to talk about March of 2020.
[00:02:32] What a weird time it was, man. You know, we were, we were new parents.
[00:02:42] We were getting groceries delivered to the home and wiping the bag, the grocery bags down with Lysol wipes.
[00:02:54] Uh, we were terrified of everything, especially as brand new parents.
[00:02:59] And I believe every may have even been pregnant at the time. So it was a stressful time. Everybody seems to forget about the COVID times when Trump was on the tv every single morning. Remember that? He was on the tv every morning talking to the american people. And we couldn't leave our homes. And luckily, I was already working virtually at the time, all the time. And it was not a big transition for me. I'm sitting there like, well, nothing work wise is even changing for us, but this is a really weird time. In some capacity, we may have even had a little bit of fun with it. We got to get more familiar with being with our loved ones for long periods of time.
[00:03:47] We were playing card games and board games and never leaving the house, you know? And it was really. I hate to say there were some fond memories there of the COVID days, but it was extremely scary. I remember thinking to myself, I remember where I was and what I was doing. Oh, my goodness, this is the end of it. Not the end of life in general, but life as we knew it. I was like, man, people. Maybe people aren't even going to buy real estate anymore, or, you know, maybe people won't need rental real estate. What am I going to do when my tenants move out or what? You know, all those crazy thoughts that go through your head because it was such a life changing experience and it was happening so fast, and we didn't know what to make of it. It was tough. It was.
[00:04:38] And everybody forgets about the tough times. All the restaurants in the little area that I lived in, in the middle of Tennessee with, uh, out in the country, nothing was open.
[00:04:51] You and I know you remember this. No toilet paper. It was a huge deal. No toilet paper anywhere. You couldn't get it. It was like, if you could get it, it was extremely expensive, and you had to wear a mask going down the toilet paper aisle. And, man, it was just a weird time. Man, it was nuts.
[00:05:12] And everybody forgets. Everybody forgets so easily how stressed out we were. I had friends that were completely losing it, and it was just a very stressful time. And how did they handle it? They gave us a bunch of money.
[00:05:31] They did. They printed money and they handed it out. And again, I am not here to talk about politics. I'm not talking about statistics, but it's somewhere in the $13 trillion range. $15 trillion. I don't know.
[00:05:48] A lot of money. I know that it was a lot of money, okay?
[00:05:53] And most of it was going to the not wealthy people.
[00:05:59] And there were also options to not pay your mortgage for a year. Remember that? You could call and talk to your mortgage company, and people were doing it, and you had to wait on hold for four days and you could get a forbearance. Remember this word? It was a huge word in the COVID era. Forbearance on your mortgage. Covid relief program and you could call and they signed the CaRES act and you could ask your lender for a payment pause of up to, in most cases, twelve months.
[00:06:34] Of course, you had to pay that back. You know, I'm grateful that we're not really hearing a whole lot of recourse from that, from folks that didn't maybe or not have paid their mortgage, quote unquote, for twelve months. And just, you had the option of adding on.
[00:06:53] I think that was probably the most practical choice would, would have been to add on another year to your mortgage. If you did it that way. There could have been some really bad things happening because of that.
[00:07:05] We could be seeing some bad aftermath because of that right now. And we're not, not that I hear about it, you know, foreclosures, etcetera, seem to be fairly level.
[00:07:18] But they were giving us money and they also gave us, they, I don't know who the hell they are. They gave us the opportunity to possibly not pay our mortgage. So not only were they handing out checks, especially to the not uber wealthy, they were giving you the opportunity to not pay your mortgage.
[00:07:36] So there was some money floating around. And these type of folks, which I come from, this type of a folk, lower middle class, let's say they are not used to being handed a lot of money.
[00:07:54] Again, I'm one of these people. I grew up one. Anyway, I may have changed. I'm a changed person.
[00:08:01] Grew into this horrible thing that's now, you know, evil thing that called wealthy.
[00:08:09] And it ain't so evil, man. So come over to this side if you want to. All you gotta do is go out. Go out there and get some, get some dough. But anyway, you know, it's almost like winning the lottery in some cases. It's like, oh, man, I just got a scratch off for $2,000 in the mail. They just mailed it to me and I don't have to pay my mortgage this month. Let's go on vacation. And everybody was spending money, and of course, most of that money ended up going to the wealthy people because these people spent it. And then, you know, whoever the wealthy people are, have all these businesses or whatever, and that's where the money trickled to or what, you know. But these are, these folks, they were handed a bunch of dough. And when you hand, let me put it this way. Let me get to the point. When you hand somebody that doesn't have a bunch of dough, some free money, what are they going to do with it? It's human nature. They're going to blow it. They're going to blow their money, man.
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[00:10:08] I had a part time job in college, and every two weeks when that paycheck came around, I went straight to the gas station and bought cigarettes and went straight to the liquor store and bought booze. And then I went straight to Popeyes chicken and bought fried chicken.
[00:10:25] I was, you know, 20 years old and didn't know any better.
[00:10:29] But anyway, when, when you give somebody who doesn't have any money a bunch of free money, they're gonna go out and they're gonna buy that, the best fishing pole they've ever bought in their life. Oh my goodness. Can you imagine? I don't have to. I don't have to put gas in my truck because I don't have to go to work. I'm working from home. I may or may not have to pay my mortgage. I can just worry about that later. And I got a check in the mail for some free money. Well, let's go get a damn fishing pole, man. I got the best fishing reel I've ever had in my life.
[00:11:02] They leveled up. The american people leveled up.
[00:11:08] They leveled up.
[00:11:11] The Cambridge dictionary has a me a definition of leveling up to improve or increase or to make something improve or increase so that it is as good as something else. People level up in life.
[00:11:29] You get a better job, you level up. Your car gets nicer.
[00:11:33] It's just human nature. You don't have to level up. Most people do.
[00:11:39] I still drive a Chevy, but there might be a GMC pickup truck right next to it. You know what I mean? So human nature, people level up. Everybody got some free dough. They leveled up. Years go by, life goes back to seemingly somewhat more normal. We're going to work, we're going to our offices again, etc.
[00:12:05] And the free money is gone. All right, so average Joe is having a rough time right now. You know, they were so many vacations being gone, gone on.
[00:12:20] And now due to the interest rates and the overall economy.
[00:12:24] The honeymoon is over.
[00:12:26] The honeymoon is over. You know, so you got to be.
[00:12:31] It's understandable what's happening in the world right now. We gave a bunch of people who never really would have ever had free money, some free money, and they blew it all. You know, I mean, is that what happened here? I think it is. And now you got all these people that are, like, going back to the cheap fishing reel. They're still going on vacation, they're still going fishing, but they may not be spending as much money.
[00:12:58] And I'm hopeful that we're going to see some return to normal. I think what's going on right now is the adverse effect of what happened when this crazy pandemic happened. I mean, nobody knew what to do. And they handled it the way that they handled it. And for better or for worse, that's what we got.
[00:13:23] And then I think right now, I think right now is the bottom where people are hurting. They're buying the cheap fishing reel. They want to take their kids to the mountains, but they have to get a smaller property.
[00:13:38] You know, that maybe they're getting a two bedroom instead of a three bedroom. This year on vacation. They're still going on vacation.
[00:13:46] Matter of fact, $1.3 trillion are projected to be spent on american travel this year by the end of 2024. 1.3 trillion, which is exactly twice how much was spent in 2009. 600 and something billion.
[00:14:07] 2009. Why is that significant? Because that's the last time we had a major economic crisis in this country, in the world. 2009 was the crappy times, remember? Oh, to. When are we going to have the next 2008? When next 2008? Well, we're here. This is it.
[00:14:25] Joe blow with the fishing pole is buying a cheaper fishing pole. Okay, so we went way up here with the free money and the mortgage forbearance, which was a little over four. It was four and a half years ago, believe it or not. Can you imagine? That was four and a half years ago. It seems like yesterday.
[00:14:46] Seems like yesterday. Trump was on the tv every single morning.
[00:14:51] Four and a half years. Now we are down and buying the Johnson country mile reel versus the Shimano reel. Fish and reel. Not that Shimano doesn't have cheap reels, but you get the point.
[00:15:06] And I think we're finally at the bottom of that. That's where I'm, that's what I'm predicting. And I think we are finally again, we have an election coming, so that's going to be a little wacky. And I'm not here to talk about politics as I fix my hair.
[00:15:28] I think we're going to see some normal. I think we're going to see people finally starting to get a little bit more comfortable and, you know, a little bit of anxiety, kind of relieved from the world as we can finally grasp at some sort of normalcy as we move forward with what is going to be a new president, whoever it may be, and possibly a healthy, happy economy. Average Joe going to go on a regular vacation.
[00:16:09] Average, you know, upper middle class. Gonna buy a couple extra, maybe a. Maybe a buy rental property.
[00:16:17] You know, real estate sales have been in the gutter, in the gutter for two years.
[00:16:26] This is a great time to be buying. It is. I hate to say it, you know, the short term shop sells houses, so.
[00:16:35] But it is. I'm shopping. I'm always shopping. Abs, baby, always be shopping.
[00:16:42] But I just feel like we finally have maybe made it to the other end of the mountain. And I'm grateful and let's hope that good things are to come. And here's to you. Here's to the future. And here's to a happy America, you know? Cause here's the deal. The dude that bought the fancy fishing reel and leveled up is having a hard time with things right now. He's confused. He's upset. I. He had a nice fishing reel, went, bought a brand new beautiful truck. Remember when you couldn't get a truck?
[00:17:15] You remember when the trucks, the car lots were empty and the dealers, the car salesmen were laughing at us. Oh, I'm sorry. You wanted to buy a car. Oh, you can't do that. Sorry, we don't have one. Isn't that cute? You wanted to spend a hundred thousand dollars. Oh, I'm sorry.
[00:17:38] They were laughing at us.
[00:17:40] Same thing with houses. They were flying off the shelf.
[00:17:45] 40 people offered on the same damn house.
[00:17:48] This is not just vacation markets. This is everything that you wanted to buy a house to move your family in because you wanted a nice roof over your head to protect your family. During COVID good luck.
[00:18:00] You had 30 other families fighting over that same house.
[00:18:04] The american people leveled up with $13 trillion in their pocket.
[00:18:12] Now that 13 trillion is just out there. I went to Walmart a couple days ago and I had one cart. Now granted, this cart was so full, it was Tetris dollar 700 I spent on one cart at Walmart. I was like, what?
[00:18:30] Pre Covid that same cart would have been what? I don't know, maybe 300, maybe.
[00:18:38] Times have changed. Not only did the american people level up with all that free money.
[00:18:48] But now they don't have the free money and everything is way more expensive.
[00:18:54] So we're butthurt.
[00:18:57] The lower middle class is butthurt and doesn't even know it.
[00:19:02] They were balling. They had fancy trucks. Now they're hurting to pay their payments. And it's a horrible thing. You can't expect them to know any better than to spend that money that you're giving them. Of course they're going to spend it.
[00:19:18] And most of them needed it, you know, but. But you see, the problem is they don't even know it. They don't even know it, man. They don't know it. And it's making things worse. They don't know that their butt hurt. They don't know that they leveled up. They don't know that they bought a new fishing reel and now they can't afford it. They thought they deserved it, and they probably did in some capacity. But people are. Were spending more money than they were used to spending because it wasn't their money.
[00:19:54] They got it for free.
[00:19:57] And now they don't know that they're not. They don't even know that they're not getting free money anymore. But they're acting like they are.
[00:20:07] People are spending beyond their means and they don't even know it. They got used to it. That's what leveling up is. You get used to having that fancy car and now the payments coming in and it's hurting them and they don't know why. People are not that smart.
[00:20:29] This was done to them by people that are running this country, not getting into politics.
[00:20:39] But that's the problem. They don't know that that's what's going on. People don't realize that, oh, man, I really actually can't afford this hundred and $20,000 truck when I only make 90 grand a year.
[00:20:57] And now 90 grand a year ain't what it used to be, you know?
[00:21:03] So it was a problem. It's a problem.
[00:21:07] But I think we're getting closer to normal.
[00:21:11] The honeymoon is over. The level up is over. And I think we are finally getting to the point where we can hope that that will even out and we can just go back to normal. Can I just live a normal life for a couple years without having to worry about all this stress and the economy and inflation?
[00:21:34] I just want to live, man.
[00:21:37] Is that too much to ask? I think that's where we're headed. And I'm grateful that we're going to have just let me live. Just let me be, baby. I'm going to leave you with a quote. This is what lifestyle is all about. The good life is not an amount. It is an attitude, an act, an idea, a discovery, a search which comes from Jim Rohn, the most quotable human in history.
[00:22:06] That's from a book called the Art of Exceptional Living from Jim Rohn. I love you. Short term rental management.
[00:22:15] Happy renting.
[00:22:17] Don't overthink it.
[00:22:25] You.
