[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 Karl.
[00:00:16] Here we go. Cash Flow Carl, Short Term Rental Management. Today we are going to talk about the fact that you might be a property manager.
[00:00:25] I did want to mention that I have been voted world's greatest landlord 16 times by my mother. I'm just kidding.
[00:00:33] I've been through it all. I've got apartments, I've got duplexes, single family, long terms, and of course the short term, which are my bread and butter.
[00:00:43] Vacation rentals, vacation homes.
[00:00:48] But I see it time and time again where people get into this business and don't even realize that they're probably a property manager. And almost to the point where like they feel like they're, they're too good for it. Like they would never cross their mind to manage somebody else's properties.
[00:01:04] Now I own a property management company.
[00:01:08] I'm not too good for it.
[00:01:11] But let's do a little checklist. Let's do a checklist.
[00:01:14] Number one, you hate your job.
[00:01:17] You like real estate.
[00:01:20] Do you not have enough money to buy more real estate? Check.
[00:01:25] Do you want to quit your job? Check.
[00:01:30] Would you like to be full time in real estate? Check.
[00:01:34] Do you want to find ways to make money in real estate other than just rents and cash flow? Check. Well, you might be a property manager.
[00:01:47] Really? As simple as that.
[00:01:51] Fear not, saturation.
[00:01:53] When you are the cream of the crop, you will rise to the top.
[00:01:59] Come learn from me. The best in the business. Voted 19 time World's Greatest Landlord, Luke Cash Flow Carl@sts/com where you will learn to be the best in your field and the world's greatest landlord.
[00:02:19] We are teaching all the best practices in the world of vacation rentals and we would love for you to join today@sts/.com if you're listening to Short Term Rental Management with Luke Carl, third person, you might be a property manager.
[00:02:42] I don't know why I have to hit people over the head with this so hard.
[00:02:47] Let me tell you something. There is a massive lack of great property management in the United States of America. There are no good property managers.
[00:02:59] And I feel I, I have several property managers right now and I feel very confident saying that all property managers suck because I know that my property managers are not listening to podcasts because if they did, they'd probably be better at their jobs. Oh, did I just go there? I did. I just went there.
[00:03:19] Sorry.
[00:03:21] But property managers, they get to a certain point where they just get they just don't care. They got as many properties as they need. They're only making, you know, a small amount of money, really, on each property. And they just do what they can to chug along.
[00:03:36] And I love my property managers, even when I hate them.
[00:03:40] Sometimes I have as many. I've had as many as six or seven property managers at one time across my portfolio.
[00:03:47] Now, of course, I have my own property management company, which is probably why I'm such a bad client, because I do this for a living, so that when I hire somebody else that does what I do for a living, they're never going to be as good as I want them to be. Okay? And I do realize that. And to my property managers, if you do happen to be listening to this, I love you and I'm sorry that I'm hard on you, but you could try a little harder.
[00:04:16] So all that to be said, there is a void in property management and quality property management. Every market in the USA needs a good property manager.
[00:04:28] We also have the problem that when people get into property management, they get sick of it pretty quick.
[00:04:34] It is a gig. It's a job like anything else. If you're getting into real estate because you're looking for the secret to life, to never have to work again, that does not exist.
[00:04:47] But if you're getting into real estate because you like it better than your day job and you're trying to find a way to make a buck other than cash flow, because we know that cash flow is low and slow, then property management is probably for you. Hello? Why has it taken you this long to realize that you're probably a property manager? You're listening to a podcast right now on property management.
[00:05:11] Maybe you should consider managing other people's properties.
[00:05:19] It blows my mind how many people are coming through my life every day that I'm like, you'd be a great property manager and they don't want anything to do with it.
[00:05:30] And I'm offended by that because that's what I do for a living. You're coming to me, you're joining Short term Shop plus, you're calling me, you're scheduling one on one coaching calls with me, hypothetical to learn how to be a property manager, but yet you tell me you don't want anything to do with managing properties unless you own them.
[00:06:00] Okay, now I will give you this. Most people, I agree with you. You probably don't want to manage other people's properties. I don't. I know I don't. So I'm practicing what I Preach.
[00:06:10] To a certain extent, I don't want to manage other people's properties. I am, I'm lucky enough to have worked my ass off over the past however many a lot of gray haired years that I have enough properties that I don't need to manage other people's properties for money. It's a, it's a gift. I've earned that right by working my rear end off. And I'm very grateful for the situation that I am in in life.
[00:06:38] But if you want to be where I'm at in life, you better slow the hell down first of all and figure out how to make enough money to get to where I'm at.
[00:06:48] And if you don't like your day job and you like my podcast and you like managing your properties, maybe you should look into managing other people's properties. People get into this and they automatically assume that they need to jump into a new property with a, with a partner.
[00:07:05] Let's talk about that. Well, I'm out of cat. Really what that translates to. I'm out of cash and I don't want to admit it, but I'm looking for partners. I'm looking for partners, which means I'm out of cash, but I don't want to admit it, but really, probably what you're not looking for as a partner, what you're looking for is somebody's property to manage and get paid a cut. Why would I give you equity? Let's say I'm the partner with the money. Why would I give you equity to manage my property when you could just be my property manager for 25 or 20 or 15? If you're trying to get your feet wet and get a name for yourself, people all the time. Luke, I'm trying to figure out how to do a partnership. Why? Well, I don't have any money. They don't want to admit it, but, well, I don't have any money. Well, if you don't have any money and you want to manage properties and get paid to do it, you're a damn property manager.
[00:08:03] Hello.
[00:08:06] It's not mind blowing stuff here. It's just reality.
[00:08:11] Why would I give you 40% equity to be my property manager? It makes no sense.
[00:08:17] And I'll tell you why. It's because short term rental is not as established as long term rental. Nobody in long term rental is going to give you 40%, 50% equity to be your property manager. Now there's other ways to do it. If you're finding the deal, if you're rehabbing the deal, you're going in 50, 50, and the goal is to sell it later. Okay. That kind of stuff. It does exist. Partnerships can be formed and executed in a thousand different ways. I've done them myself.
[00:08:45] But what I'm trying to do here is give you a little bit of a scenario to make you understand that you might be a property manager.
[00:08:57] But I don't understand why you think that's a bad thing.
[00:09:01] Why is that a bad thing? It's a great gig. It's hard. You're dealing with customer service. It's client facing, but it's a good gig.
[00:09:11] I think a lot of people think they're too good for it, which is bs. I ain't too good for it. I do it all day, every day.
[00:09:19] No matter how much property I have, no matter how big my. My net worth is or my property values, which they can always be bigger.
[00:09:30] I'm not too good to make sure that a guest is having a good time and enjoying their stay on their vacation, or a tenant is having a good experience and a great place to be able to raise their family. And I apologize for this massive stack of mail. My office is so cluttered. But guess what, guys? I'm too busy crushing it to deal with the minutia. So I'm gonna let the minutia pile up a little bit. All right? Is that all right with you? Okay. Because he's stupid male and all that. It doesn't matter. But I got to get to it just in case some random Insurance company needs 40 bucks from me or whatever. But anyway, so here's what I want.
[00:10:11] I want for there to be in five years, a massive amount of new short term rental property managers. And I want you to say that I started by listening to Luke's podcast.
[00:10:27] How's that for narcissism?
[00:10:30] And I want you to. I want you to be proud of that. I don't want you to be shy. I want you to say, man, I got this idea because I listened to Luke's podcast back when there were no short term rental property managers. Because there's really not.
[00:10:41] They're very uncommon there. There are plenty in short term rental markets and vacation markets, but they're old school.
[00:10:50] What's up with that?
[00:10:55] Why are there no new, hip, cool Instagram property managers in Blue Ridge, in Myrtle Beach? It's all these old school companies that we've all talked crap about for so long that are trying to draw attention to their website. Which, by the way, if you get into third party property management, you're Going to do that too. I hate to tell you the beauty of being a third party property manager is scaling to the point where you have enough clientele that you can bring them in through your own marketing.
[00:11:33] It's a natural evolution. I'm not trying to promote off platform bookings right now at all, but if you've got 300 properties that you're managing in a portfolio, there's not. You obviously don't own them. Your rental portfolio, there's a very good chance you're still going to try and draw a lot of that attention to your website. Just makes things a lot easier, you know. So if you do get to that point, you, you know where you're bringing in a lot of properties and a lot of properties, you will probably start to look and smell like a lot of these old school proper managers. But there's still ways to do it more, you know, modern and hip and friendly and cool with social media and a brand name. Again, you gonna need at least a hundred properties, in my opinion, before you're fooling around with Instagrams and websites and you know, maybe 50 properties minimum before you get to that point.
[00:12:31] Now again, and I've said this a million times, the cool thing about having a property management company is that at some point you can sell your property management company, usually to another property management company for a percentage of ebitda.
[00:12:44] So your company that is a property manager has value and if you decide you don't want to do it anymore, you can get out. Just like being an entrepreneur, you could start a property management company, build it to 250 units and sell it, move on to something else.
[00:13:00] You got an out. It's a, it's got value. The percentage of EBITDA is pretty small. It's not going to be the same as a freaking software or tech space or whatever, but it is sellable, so you're not stuck with it forever.
[00:13:17] Now that being said, don't let your clients know that you're trying to sell because then they're not going to sign on with you and you're going to lose some people when you do sell, which is again why, you know, it's one of the reasons why the percentage of EBITDA is so small.
[00:13:33] Are you worried about your market being saturated?
[00:13:37] Too much competition?
[00:13:40] Well, join us at short term Shop plus and we can teach you to be the best in your area.
[00:13:47] Stsplus.com to sign up for on demand online courses, one on one live coaching, weekly group calls, everything you need to know about being the Best and your field. In the world of vacation rental and short term rental, we say saturation, smaturation sts plus.com but there are so many old school property managers just waiting to be taken down.
[00:14:30] They've been doing it for 30 years. They've been doing it the same way for 30 years. They're lazy, they're comfortable, they're complacent and they're waiting for somebody like you to come in there and just take them out. They're not waiting for that, but the universe is waiting for that.
[00:14:48] There is always, always, always space for a great property manager. You want to talk about saturation?
[00:14:57] Oh, this space is so saturated I can't make any money. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Property management space is not saturated. Yeah, there's tons of property managers out there, but they all stink for whatever reason. It has become a business of it could be done better.
[00:15:17] It has become a business of there's a lot of room for improvement.
[00:15:26] We get a lot of people that this is exactly what you should be doing, but you don't realize it or you think you're too good for it.
[00:15:39] But if you hate your job, go back to my checklist. I should have wrote that checklist down, but it's not, not my style. You hate your job. You don't have enough money for the next deal.
[00:15:50] Those are the two main requirements. I'll narrow it down to two and I had six earlier. Let's narrow it down to two. You hate your job. You three, you hate your job. You love real estate. You don't have enough money for your next deal.
[00:16:03] You might be a property manager. Hello, are you listening to my show every week and soaking up all the nuggets on how to streamline stuff and put systems in place and standard operating procedures. If this stuff is of interest to you, you might be a property manager in five years. I want you to walk up to me at a conference and say, luke, I'm a property manager. I'm a third party property manager. I've got 87 units. And I did it because I listened to your show.
[00:16:37] I see it all the time. And I felt that it was my duty to call it to your attention because it seems to me that you didn't realize that that's what's going on now again in my universe at the short term shop and short term shop plus, most people don't want a property manager. They're, they want to do it themselves.
[00:17:02] But in the grand scheme of real estate, that is a very small number of people.
[00:17:09] Most People, let me hit you with this. All right? You want to hear the cold hard truth? Most people that can afford rental real estate, especially vacation rental real estate, don't want to deal with guests and toilets.
[00:17:22] If I'm the type of individual that can afford a 1.5 million dollar extra house, I probably don't want to deal with drunk, entitled jerks on vacation. And I hate to say it like that because we do love our guests. That is the underlying theme of all short term shop and short term rental management is that we love our guests. We love our guests. We love our guests, but at the end of the day, they're on vacation and they're a little grumpy sometimes. Okay? We love them. We love you. We can't do this without you. We are here to give you an amazing vacation.
[00:18:02] But the guy that can afford the 1.5 million dollar extra house is probably busy working in an emergency room somewhere and doesn't really have the time to deal with grumpy guests.
[00:18:12] Now maybe his wife does. Now maybe her husband does.
[00:18:17] Maybe their daughter is old enough to do it and wants to do it and get involved with a little extra money in college. Because guess what guys, it's not that big of a deal. It's not that hard of a job.
[00:18:30] We didn't reinvent the wheel here. We're just managing rental real estate. Yes, you're doing it, and on an overnight basis, but so what?
[00:18:40] I've said it a thousand times, you are not walking on the moon, you're managing a house.
[00:18:48] Can't believe I gotta get so fired up about this crap.
[00:18:54] So if you love rental real estate, if you hate your job, if you like dealing with guests and managing properties and you don't have enough money to buy more real estate, you might be a property manager.
[00:19:10] You start a company, you got to get most states. I'm not going to get into all that nonsense on today's program. You're going to look into this yourself on how to do it. If that's something you're interested in. You're going to probably most states, you're going to need a real estate license, you're going to need insurance and all that kind of stuff. Every state's different. I'm not here to teach you how to do that right now.
[00:19:34] But then you're going to need a name and a website and you're going to need, you know, logos and everything else and you're starting a damn company. Maybe that's why you don't want to do it, because you don't have the balls.
[00:19:46] It's much easier to just run an Airbnb than it is to start a property management company and run a legitimate company and bring in other people's properties and clients and deal with multiple personalities.
[00:20:02] Now, that I will give you. Because now you're not only dealing with just the guests, but you're dealing with owners, too. And that part, that's a little rough sometimes, but if you don't have enough money to get into the next gig, you might be a property manager.
[00:20:16] All right, so I look forward to meeting you in 2029 at a conference and you walking up to me and saying, hey, cash Flow Carl. So I'm in a short term. I want to thank you because if it wasn't for you, I never would have started my property management company. And Today I've got 232 units.
[00:20:38] I love you, Strm. I do. By the way, I'm looking for guests. You want to be a guest?
[00:20:43] Shoot us an email. Guest strmshow.com Love to have you.
[00:20:52] Okay, you can find
[email protected] short term, shop plus and on Instagram at Luke Cash Flow Carl.
[00:21:05] Don't overthink it.
