BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 229: Early Retirement Through Short-Term Rental Properties with Zeona McIntyre

Episode Date: June 1, 2017

Not everyone wants to work a “real job”—but luckily, real estate investing can offer financial freedom for those willing to put in the work. Today’s guest on The BiggerPockets Podcast exemplifies this perfectly! Our guest today, Zeona McIntyre, is a master at short-term (aka “vacation”) rental properties and has achieved early retirement with just a small handful of these units. On this fun episode, you’ll discover how Zeona began her rental journey before buying a single property, how short-term rentals can provide significantly more cash flow than traditional rentals, and numerous tips and tricks for getting the biggest bang for your buck. We also chat on private lending, finding deals, and the amazing number of countries (and continents) Zeona has traveled to. Whether you plan to buy short-term rentals in your future or not, this show packs a powerful punch that everyone needs to hear! In This Episode We Cover: How Zeona got into the real estate game Why she started out by subleasing her apartment as an Airbnb rental Why you should see private money lenders as opportunities Why reading the fine print is important before signing anything How she found her next deal site unseen What’s unique about her market How she uses systems to manage her units What early retirement means to her Tips for managing vacation rentals at a distance Discriminations and legalities on these properties Airbnb hacks and tips And SO much more! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Files Parks and Recreation (TV Show) Couchsurfing Airbnb Afford Anything (Blog) BiggerPockets Podcast 035: Quitting Your Job, Lifestyle Design, and Being a Traveling Landlord with Paula Pant BiggerPockets Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Real Estate Investing Casa Mia Pizza Homeaway Booking.com Expedia BiggerPockets Podcast 125: The Key to Business Success with Bestselling Author of The E-Myth Michael Gerber BiggerPockets Bookstore Books Mentioned in this Show Set for Life by Scott Trench Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss The Big Leap by PhD Hendricks Gay Tweetable Topics: “You just take what you have and you leverage that.” (Tweet This!) “You don’t fully understand until you’re in it, until you’re doing it.” (Tweet This!) “You don’t have to be super studied. You just have to start doing it.” (Tweet This!) Connect with Zeona Zeona’s BiggerPockets Profile Zeona’s Personal Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast show 229. But like there's so much more to real estate. And I want just people to feel like it's accessible. You know, like I don't have all the flashy terms. And I get confused with like gross and net. And like, you know, like there's just things. You don't have to be the guy who's like super studied. Yep.

You just have to start doing it. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio. Simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing without all the hype, you're in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. What's going on, everyone? This is Brandon host today of the Bigger Pockets podcast here with my guest co-host, Mindy, the man of the hour, Jensen.

The woman of the hour. You don't like the nickname? How you doing, Mindy? What's up? Hi, Brandon. How you doing? I haven't seen you in a while. You've been all in Hawaii. Yeah. Surfing. You know, doing stuff, trying to live it up, trying to have a little bit of a little taste of early retirement, which is the topic of today's show. Yes. Today we have Ziana McIntyre who has an awesome story. She's like 12 years old and retired already. 12. Yes, 12. Well, 12, maybe 13. Okay. I think she's actually my age, right? She's like, what, 30?

something 30? I think she's 30. 30. You're way older. I'm way older. I'm 31. Yeah. But she, I love her like methodology of investing her theories, her ideas, her plans, her entire business model. I think it's fantastic. You guys are going to love today's show. But before we get to today's show, I had a question for you, Mindy Jensen. Yes, sir. Do you walk or do you stand on an escalator? I walk when there's nobody in front of me because I went to get where I'm going. I have to stand when somebody's got their big suitcase in front of me or they're standing six people wide. I was just at the airport. Nobody walks up the escalator when they've got

their bags. I just push people down. That's easier. Walk over them. You're bigger. Yeah. It helps when you're six foot five. All right. So that wasn't actually where I was going to go. Next, I want to actually go to today's quick, quick tip, which Mindy, I believe you have a little quick tip thing written out already. So go ahead and tell us what the quick tip is. I do. I want to talk today about the file place. This is a page on the Bigger Pockets website that you may not know about. But we have a place for you to share your documents or access documents that other members have shared. Are you looking for a home inspection checklist? Yes. You can download the very one that Brandon Turner uses. Really? You can. You can't. You already have it. Oh, okay. Do you need a primer on estimating ARV? that's after repair value.

Jay Scott uploaded a very helpful document that you can use. Just go to biggerpockets.com slash files. That was really good. That was like a commercial. I am not a voiceover actor on TV. That's okay. It was like a commercial, but it's for a free product.

So it's cool. Actually, I think what it is, I think like free members get like five downloads and then pro members get unlimited like per month or week. I don't know. I don't know the rules. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it.

People can go check it out. Bigger pockets like on such files. With that, we're moving on. Here's the thing about traveling. If you buy food at the airport, a burrito, salad, bag of peanuts, you start wondering if you should have opened a savings account for snacks. So wouldn't it be great if you could actually earn money while you're traveling? Well, you can.

Airbnb has something called the co-host network. While you're away, you can hire a vetted local co-host with hosting experience to help take care of things. Communicating with guests, preparing your space, managing reservations, everything runs smoothly while you're off making memories. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host. Here's the thing about traveling.

If you buy food at the airport, a burrito, salad, bag of peanuts, you start wondering if you should have opened a savings account for snacks. So wouldn't it be great if you could actually earn money while you're traveling? Well, you can. Airbnb has something called the co-host network. While you're away, you can hire a vetted local co-host with hosting experience to help take care of things, communicating with guests, preparing your space, managing reservations, everything runs smoothly while you're off. making memories. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host. Managing properties can feel like a full-on circus. You're juggling vendors,

tracking payments, chasing approvals across multiple properties, and maybe a few HOAs, all while trying to keep tenants happy and owners confident. One delay can throw everything off, and suddenly your day is all clean up, no progress. That's why hundreds of property managers rely on Bill to streamline their finances. Bill for property management lets you add all your properties, assign permissions, pay bills, and receive payments quickly and efficiently, without the usual bottlenecks. It syncs with platforms like QuickBooks, Zero, NetSuite, and Sage intact, so your accounting stays aligned. You can automate bulk payments across properties and HOAs, choose flexible payment methods like same-day ACH, international wires, card, or check, and set custom roles in approval policies. There's even a

dedicated bill inbox for each property to keep everything organized. Ready to simplify your workflow, book your free demo at bill.com slash bigger pockets, and get a $100.com. That's bill.com slash bigger pockets. We are going to bring in today's guest. Today's guest is Ziana McIntyre. She is awesome. I met her in Denver a few months ago.

Mindy introduced us. And then when I found out she was coming on the show, of course, I said Mindy has to do that show. Actually, I don't know if I was one that said that. But somehow Mindy decided to come on the show because you are good friends with her. And today's show, we just got down recording it. It is a blast. We had a lot of fun talking to her.

You know, whether or not you care about vacation rentals or not, that's kind of the topic today. You're going to get a ton out of this show because we talk about private lending. We talk about early retirement, financial freedom, frugality, house hacking, finding good deals, picking your niche, all those things we talk about today. So make sure you guys pay attention for all that good stuff. And, of course, if you have not yet left us a rating or review in iTunes, please. do so, I will give you a virtual bear hug, as will Mindy, right? I will give you two virtual bear hugs. Pretty fancy.

All right, so with that, let's give our guest today a virtual bear hug and invite her in. Ziana, welcome to the show. Am I saying your name right? Ziana? Yes. Yes. I said Ziona earlier and Mindy yelled at me earlier because I said it wrong. Yeah.

I'm learning. Ziana is not correct. I think Mindy yelled at me because I didn't correct her for a while. I was like, oh, I do that sometimes. I do that sometimes, too. Yeah. Do you guys ever watch Parks and Recreation, the show? No.

Yes. Lesle, nope. Yeah, yeah. So it's one of my favorite shows in the world. And there's this character, right? His name was Larry. Let me think. How to go?

It was Jerry. And then, like, halfway through the show, like, you know, three seasons in, they change it to Larry for, like, no real reason. Like, and his name's actually not either, though. That's Gary. And so, like, it's like this running joke throughout the whole thing is nobody ever calls him by his right name. And then they just,

change his name to another rung. Anyway, all that to say, speaking of Larry Gerich, how did you get involved with real estate, Ziana? I mean, how did you get into this game? So I got in doing Airbnb stuff. So it's kind of a non-traditional route to get into real estate. Yeah, I had a friend who heard about Airbnb and he just got laid off and he was going to, he was living in New York and he wanted to just like travel and see if he could live off of his apartment because he couldn't afford it on his own. And so he's like, I'm going to try this thing I heard. I'm going to go travel. I'm going to see if I can rent my apartment. And the whole time, he ended up traveling for a whole year. And the whole time he kept telling me,

like, you got to do this. You got to do this. It's making so much money. It's amazing. And at the time, I was in massage school and I was like working on that hustle. I was going to start a private practice, like this whole thing. And I just didn't have time for it. But he was so persistent. And at the end of the year, he told me I made $50,000 on my apartment. And I was like, oh, damn. You know, like, I don't even know if I'm allowed to say that. But yeah, so I just thought, okay, now I'm listening. You know, like, that's real money.

And so that, I think it was like that weekend. I went and got a place. And I just started kind of doing it. So the way I started it was using an extra room in my apartment. And so I kind of just tested that out. And so I think I started kind of like, before he fully was like a year in, I think I was like, well, let me just test. it, you know, and so I tried renting my room out. And then when my roommate would, like, do a trip or

anything, I would rent her room out. And she eventually left. And so I was just renting both rooms and, like, staying wherever, staying at a friend's house, doing whatever I had to do. And it was just so good that I was like, I'm going to just go get more apartments. And so it kind of like blew up into this whole thing. And, you know, eventually I ended up buying. But that was kind of my test of it. You know, I was just getting a taste. So my first thing is I want to back up just a pinch and explain how Airbnb or have Ziana, the expert, explain how Airbnb works because when I first heard about Airbnb, I thought why would anybody want to just rent a bedroom? Why would anybody just want to rent a level of a house? So I like that idea behind Airbnb. Can you explain how the different options are to rent out

different portions of your property or the entire thing? So I feel like Airbnb won't admit this, but I feel like the idea came from couch surfing. Like, I don't know if you know about couch surfing, but it's this website that I heard about in, like, 2006 when I was traveling in Europe. And it's just like essentially people are just letting you stay on their couch or their floor or their spare room or wherever for free. And it was just this really cool exchange of like travelers and getting to like see how people live in different parts of the world.

And so I think like that started to open up this like idea of trust. and this idea of just sharing. And so with Airbnb, I feel like, you know, that's kind of what they're working towards. They want people to just start to trust other people and to realize that we're just like humans connecting. And so, yeah, you can rent out a room. You can rent out a tent in a backyard. You can rent out an RV in like a driveway. Like there are so many cool creative things that people are renting on Airbnb.

And I think the goal is just to like, you know, meet other people and get a taste of culture. see how other people live. So it's just a really cool way to just share what you have. And you said you didn't, you started, you didn't even own the property. You were renting and then you basically sublet via via BBB, right? Do you recommend that? Is that a good way to start? That was 2012.

And that was like the Wild West. You know, I think they officially started in like 2008. But I hadn't heard about it until, yeah, 2011, 2012. And that was just kind of what you did, you know? I mean, you just take what you have. and you leverage that. And so if someone wanted to just test it out and see if they liked it, sure, I would recommend that. Like if you have a spare room in your house or if you want to just rent out your room when you travel, yeah, test it out. Because if you're going to go out and buy an

apartment or you're going to go and like rent another place or you're going to go and like manage something for someone else, like you need to have a little bit of experience. You want to know that you actually like it before you dive in deep. So I think that's a great way to start. The only thing I wouldn't recommend is just going out and renting an apartment without the owner knowing what you're intending to do because, man, I lived in fear forever. It was a long time that I would not answer a call from a number I wouldn't know. Like, I mean, oh, it was tough there for a few years. So, you know, and the way that I rationalized it is that, like, my places are getting cleaned

like a couple times a week. Like I live in a college town in Boulder, Colorado, and most of the rentals out here are just trash. They're like totally student rental gross. And my places were really nice. You have to keep a certain standard with Airbnb. So I felt like I was doing them a favor. I was paying the rent they're asking for. I'm keeping the place clean. Something breaks. I'm fixing it. So that was how I rationalized it. But it's still gray area. I've got to admit it. Yeah. Yeah. It's a whole like sub-leasing thing. Yeah. Yeah. So when you first started, you were in a rental property yourself and just renting out.

Yeah. You know, I got- Did your landlord ever find out? Yeah, good question. No, that guy never did. The next place that I rented, so I, so I went from there and I was renting my place and then I rented a whole new two-bedroom. And that place I never actually lived in.

I just furnished it over a weekend and started Airbnbing it. And that guy found out. And my mistake there was that he owned the whole building. So it was like nine units. And of course, like my neighbors all know the landlord because it's all our landlord. So somebody snitch, you know, and that sucks. But, you know, the great thing about it is I got my full deposit back. I didn't get evicted.

Nothing happened that was bad. It was just kind of like, oh, all right. And I just sold all my furniture and got another place. So I mean, like, I got lucky, you know. How long were you in that place before you got kicked out? Not very long. That was, it was interesting. It was actually a turning point.

When I went to get that place, I borrowed like $4,000 for my dad. And I said, I don't know, there's this cool Airbnb thing. It's been working for me. I just, like, won a little bit of money for furniture and, like, down payment, deposit, whatever. Let me see if I can do this thing. And he was super into it. And then when I told him that I got kicked out and I was feeling just like, gross. I felt really bad.

He was like, no, you need to just go out and get another place. And I was like, okay. It was like my turning point. I could have just completely stopped there and just been like, this is not for me. And that next place I was in probably like a year and a half or something. And when the owner found out, he asked me to stop doing it. And I just played dumb. And I was like, oh, I just like do it when I travel, whatever.

And then like maybe a month later, I found out that the girl that I subletted it to, she was doing it. And then he was doing it at his house because I saw them both on Airbnb. And so I can't stop the system. Everybody's doing it. That's funny. Okay. Okay.

So let's transition. Well, first of all, real quick, I randomly, I met a guy a few months ago who does Airbnb the same thing. He doesn't actually own the property. He rents it. And he rented like a, what was it, like a four or five bedroom like apartment, basically in a really nice like area of some big city. Anyway, he rents it out on the weekends for a thousand bucks a night to bachelor parties.

And he rents it out two nights every week. So it's two grand. a week, eight grand a month. He's bringing in on this thing. And his rent is like a thousand bucks a month. And he's at the landlord knows that he's doing it because the landlord's doing it to the other unit because there's two, two of these similar units in the property. But he just put a bunch of bunk beds in there. And he's, that's his full time job now is managing one vacation rental property. And he doesn't even know the property. Isn't that crazy? Like, they're unique. Wow. Wow. Yep. For one one unit is super easy. Yep. So that's great. Yeah. So there's,

so many ways to do it. So let's transition to talk about when you got into buying property. What was the first property you actually purchased then? Well, the first property I purchased was the one that I live in. So we could talk about my first purchase or my first rental because that was the very next one. So I don't know what you're more interested in. Start with purchase, the one you live in. Yeah. So this one's kind of a detailed story. But my mom at the time had cancer. And I was, I knew she was going to pass away. And we were sort of staying at a friend because I was living off on my apartments that I was renting. And my friend was a former landlord of mine. And he, He's a real estate investor.

He owns like 17 apartments in one condo complex and just lives off of those. And so I kind of just went to him and said like, hey, I want to buy a place. I want to like take her to a different place. I was also very concerned that she might pass away in his place. And I thought that you would have to put that in your seller's disclosure. And I don't know for some reason. I thought that was really not a good idea. So I wanted to like have a place of my own.

And it was so interesting because he just was really. easy with me. You know, it was kind of like, I'm asking someone for $144,000 and he was just like, you know, I mean, I know you have a job and like, how much do you make a month? Okay. And then he gave me the money. I don't know. I mean, I don't think that everybody has that experience, you know, but I did get really lucky. Um, yeah, but that's, he helps me. This is like a private loan? Yeah, totally. Yeah, we did a promissory note and then registered. against deed of trust. And I just found a condo that I really liked in Boulder.

And I knew that I could Airbnb be it. So I don't know that I even thought that I made enough money to like, I mean, like I knew I couldn't qualify for a loan. But I knew that I could cover everything because of my Airbnb scale at that point, you know? And so that was in 2014. So I'd already been doing Airbnb like two years. And so I was really like confident on what I could do with it. Well, so there's a couple things I want to,

I want to talk about here. First of all, you said, you know, I was really lucky, right? And this is something I've been, I've been really doing a lot of, like, I want to say research, but research essentially on lately because I'm working on, either of whether there's a book or blog post or whatever, about this idea of luck, right? And so people are always like, I don't know, I mean, when it comes down to real estate is 100% about luck, I think. And every way, shape, or form, luck plays into everything.

I mean, but that said, I mean, luck is all around us. And so that's why I've been really, really interested in this concept lately. In fact, there's a study that this guy, this psychologist did. I think this is fascinating. So he took like 400 people, and he asked them to define themselves either lucky or unlucky. And so out of those two groups,

unlucky and lucky people, then he took a newspaper, and he had all of them read it, and they had one goal, as they had to find all the pictures in the newspaper and look through them. On average, the lucky people got done in two minutes. The unlucky people got done

in like eight minutes on average. So the question is, why did the lucky people get done so much faster? It's because on page two of the newspaper, he put in big, huge font. there are 42 pictures in this newspaper, stop reading, the test is done. And so the lucky people naturally found that much more easily than the unlucky people. So his finding basically said, isn't that cool?

Like basically people who can sit in so lucky or look towards luck naturally look for opportunity. And they look for those things like you did. So yes, you got lucky and yes, I got lucky. And yes, Mindy's gotten lucky. And every single person who invest in real estate gets lucky all the time. But is that because some universe aligned in some way to make us lucky? Or is it because we had that outlook that we were looking for opportunity? So, I mean, the fact that you talked to the guy, you approached him with this idea.

Like, how many people have approached a private lender saying, hey, can you fund a deal for me? I mean, people are scared out of their pants to do that. How did you work up the courage to do that? Yeah, I was scared out of my pants. I don't even fully remember. You know, I think like, well, first off, I want to say that we do create our own luck. Like, I'm a total believer in that. And I think it's about believing that you can be lucky and being positive. Like, that goes a huge, that goes the whole amount of way. Anyway, yeah, gosh,

I don't even know where I got the idea. I mean, it might have been one of those things where you're in your car and you're just thinking or you're in the shower and you have these like light bulb ideas. But I just, I knew he had the cash and I knew he'd done it probably for family. Yeah. I just kind of thought, well, this is a place to start. Like, then I can go see if I can get alone, which I didn't think I could, and see if there was other things that I could work out or try to see if some of my family would help me or something. But yeah, it just worked out for me.

And it was scary. And I felt like I had like all my talking points. And I was like, I'm going to convince him, you know. But I think it was also just being like vulnerable and saying like, this is what I need. And these are the reasons. why and this is how I know I can cover it. And he just kind of like took a chance on me. That's awesome. So it worked out. Henry Ford has a quote, whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right.

Yeah. And you know, what was the worst thing that he was going to say? He was going to say no. That's the worst thing. When you approach a private person and say, will you give me alone, they will either say yes, which is great, or they will say no, which is not the end of the world. Yeah. You know, and then maybe you've. you know, you go back in your mind after they say, no, oh, what could I have done differently? And you find somebody else. And eventually they'll say yes. If you have a good idea, if you're a solid person, I mean, if you, you know, oh, I just got off, I just graduated from high school and I wanted to buy a $25 million apartment complex. I'm not going to guess that you're going to get a lot of responses in the positive for that. But, you know,

maybe you're a super go getter. But, I mean, I've met you personally and you are an extremely confident person. And I can I can just imagine you going to him and him like, sure, how much, you only want 140? Okay. Here's a check. Well, and that's the key of private lending, right? It's relationship based. I mean, all private lending. I mean, yeah, whether or not we're talking about your own private house or, you know,

who's going to fund your next department complex or your duplex or whatever, private lending is my favorite, like probably my favorite strategy to acquire property is private lending. I know, Mindy, like, you've done private lending. I've done it and on both sides of the transaction. you've, Zana, you've done it. And it's, I mean, it's based on relationships. Who do you know? How do you develop yourself as somebody who's confident that's trustworthy? And the other side of the private lending thing is this.

When I started out, I felt like I was asking people for help. Private lending was like, I need something. Can you do me an honor, a favor and let me use some of your money, right? That's how I approached it in the beginning. But then a few years ago it clicked on me. All of a sudden, like, wait a second, the private lender gets a lot out of this as well. It's not like this guy was just randomly being. because he liked you was doing, doing you a favor.

I mean, he was helping you, but he was then getting a return on his investment. And so it truly is, private lending can be a win-win. I think people need to get that out of their head that they're just asking for a favor. And instead, they're offering an opportunity. And that's a huge difference. Totally. Yeah. Cool.

Yeah. As a private lender, I'm making more money on my loans than I am with it sitting in a bank account. And it's more stable because of the person I'm lending to, it's more stable than, in the stock market. Yep. Yep, I totally agree. Totally agree. So anyway, so anyway, people listening just, if you guys are thinking about private lending, how that works and all that, I mean, there are definitely some things to be aware of on how it works and, you know, make sure your paperwork's in a row. But I understand that you do not need to be a, you know,

multi-million dollar real estate investor to jump in. I mean, this is a perfect example right here, your first official deal and you got at work. But that said, you had some experience in the Airbnb thing. And I think that's important too. You had some collateral in it, right? So, yeah, yeah, very, very cool. Yeah, you brought some. something to the table. It wasn't just some brand new person saying, hey, can you give me a great big bunch of money? And I promise I'll do something good with it. Yeah. Well, I mean, he didn't know that I did Airbnb. And actually, when he found out, he was not very happy because he was a very old school investor and was like, that's not okay, you know. But now he's turned around and

thinks it's cool, you know, later. But I think he just, I think he also knew the market. So we were kind of in a market in Boulder right before a big boom. And he had been saying that like condos haven't appreciated the way that houses have. You know, and so he's like, it's just about time. Something's going to happen. And like right after I bought it, went up like 18%. So it was crazy. And I got really lucky again. But I think just like, yeah, he just knew me. And I think he trusted that and he wanted to help me out. And that was great. But one thing I will say about private lending is I think you need to understand different kinds of loans. So the loan he gave me was an interest only loan and it was a five-year loan. Man, I wouldn't do interest-only again. Why? It was low. Well, because

interest-only, like, gives you a balloon payment at the end, right? So it's like, it's a low payment, but at the end, you haven't, like, dropped the principal down at all. So I have an interest-only loan that's coming up next year in July, and that thing haunts me. Like a little little thing. Because I know that I have to have that full amount. You know, it's not like all these years that I've been paying it. Like, it hasn't gone down at all, you know. So I'll be able to pay it. It's going to be okay.

But it's one of those things that I don't know that I do again. Like now when I talk to people about lending me money, because, you know, I've gotten to the place where people just come to me with money, which is quite cool. But yeah, I won't do that anymore. I want to have like a just kind of almost like a mortgage where you have like the whole schedule of payments and then what percentage is. getting paid down a principal. I prefer that. So everyone's different. I think that's really important. I think a lot of people in 0607.08 got into a lot of trouble with the interest-only mortgage and the arms. And they just, they didn't realize what they were getting into because a mortgage means that in 30 years it's paid off. That's what a mortgage is. And that's not, you know, that's not really true. That's not always what a

mortgage is. So I think that that's good advice in everything is read through it. If you don't understand, it, read through it or ask questions until you do. My dad went and closed on his first house a thousand years ago and the mortgage lady or the title company or whatever, it was a really long time ago was, you know, they read you the papers. Oh, this is what this is. They summarize it and they hand it to him and he sits back and he starts to read it. And she said, oh, do you have any questions? He said, I've just never read this before so I'm going to read it. She's like, you're going to read the whole thing. Can you imagine how long a closing would take if you actually read every single document. So yeah, that was probably the longest closing of her life ever.

But, you know, he's totally within his rights to read it. Sure. And if you don't know what you're signing, ask before you put your name on the paper. Yeah. Yeah. Not, not, I'm not yelling at you, Ziana, I'm just saying in general. Oh, no. Yeah. No, you, I'm sure you went in there, knowing that it was interest only. Oh, I did. But, you know, like I'm saying, I don't think I fully understood until you're in it. Until you're doing it. And then you're realizing, like, like, oh, that doesn't like safer itself. Well, so one thing I talk about a lot, and we talk about our bigger pockets a lot of this is like the four wealth generators of real estate.

Like there's there's cash flow, the extra money you get every month, there's appreciation, the property going up in value. There's the tax benefits you get that kind of offset your other income. But the fourth one is that loan getting paid down. And so, you know, you could break even on cash flow. You could, the property could never climb in value whatsoever. And you might get no tax benefits from a property for whatever reason. But if all those things were true, and you had a mortgage on the property, you're still paying it off over 15 or 30 years, whatever you choose.

And that alone can make you a very wealthy person. In fact, that's how I bought a fourplex for my daughter the week she was born. We're just putting on a 15 year mortgage. So when it's paid off, it'll fund her college education. Like my tenants are basically paying off her college, right? Isn't that cute? Yeah. And that's the fourth.

So if you do interest-only loans, you lose that part of the wealth generator. Yeah. You don't get that. And so I tend to think like on a flip, interest only all day long. I don't care. I'll pay interest only. But the longer loan is, the more I want to take advantage of that other wealth generator. And I'll even sacrifice some of the cash flow for that.

So very cool. So let's shift on then. So that was the first deal. What about the first investment property you bought? Okay. So that was September 2014. And my mom passed away at the end of that month. And so it was a really rough time for me.

And it was like June of the next year. And I was just kind of like, How long can I do nothing? You know, Mindy knows me kind of from the like early retirement kind of club. I'm very into that. And so luckily, I had gotten really into early retirement in like 2011. And so I had been working myself towards being super frugal, like using what I had and trying to save.

And so by the time that happened in 2012, I was like, I'm retiring. That's it. So I had like two properties, one that I owned. and I was just going between the two and just living that way and kind of just making it work and trying not to like have that much responsibility. And it did fund my life and it was awesome. But I knew that I wanted to do more with it. You know, I wanted to have rentals.

I wanted to get into real estate. I wanted to like build this Airbnb thing because I knew it could be something. And I was reading a blog at the time called Afford Anything. I don't know if you guys are familiar with it, Paula Pan. Yep. I love Paula. Yeah. She was like 20.

at the time, which I was as well, and she was in Atlanta. And I just read a couple of hers about buying rentals and fixing them up with her partner and all this stuff. And that was enough. Like I just needed that little kick of like someone my age who is a girl who's doing it. And I was like, I'm doing it. So. Paula is amazing.

Paula is awesome. Super inspirational. Yeah. By the way, Paula was on episode number 35 of the Bigger Pockets podcast way back four years ago. So if people want to check that out, they can go to biggerpockets.com. Yeah, Biggerpockets.com, so I show three, five anyway. Cool. Yeah.

So right around that time, it was like June. My girlfriend had been living in St. Louis. And she was like a friend from high school. And she'd lived there like five years. And she said, like, come out, come out, visit us sometime. And so I was finally like, I just needed to get out of my space. I want to go visit this friend. And so I call her up and she's like, oh,

great, we're getting married. So come in June, we're going to make this happen. And so when I was there at the wedding, I was telling people like, you know, small tech, oh, yeah, I do Airbnb, whatever. And I knew my friend's, like, rent was really cheap, but I didn't realize how cheap mortgages were. And so it was talking to these people and they were telling me like, oh, I have a friend who does Airbnb and they do really well. And then they would say, we've been thinking about doing it. Our mortgage is $300 a month. And I was like, I mean, I live in Boulder. Like, a house is like 800,000. Like, nobody's $300 a month, you know.

And they're talking three bedroom, front yard, backyard garage. And I'm going, huh. So I decided then and there that I was going to buy a house. And so exactly a month later, I was there buying my house, sight unseen, the whole thing. So I had talked to a few of my friends, friends about Airbnb and just got like a little bit of info about the area. I started pulling up like maps and charts and reading about neighborhoods and I just kind of made a plan and did it. I think I was still crazy from like being in grief because I don't know that that was like maybe the best plan. And I got really lucky again,

like the place just worked. And I remember I closed in two weeks because I had cash again. But I remember like right before closing, I'd never seen this house. I didn't drive through the neighborhood, you know, I'm just kind of like trusting. My girlfriend who lived there was like, I don't really think that neighborhood's going to work for what you're trying to do. Like, you know, St. Louis is really complicated. It's like street to street. There's a lot of crime. Like, yeah, I don't think you should do it. And I was kind of freaked out, you know? And I called my sister and she was just like, no, we just do everything different. Like you have always been a different person. Just trust it. Like this, do you feel good about it? And I'm like, yeah, I do. She's like,

this is like who you are. This is what you're about. Just like get in there. So yeah, I just showed up and furnished the thing and I had it rented before I was even done. And so yeah, I mean, it's just kind of worked out for me. Now you did Airbnb on that one or are you normal rental? Yeah, I do Airbnb on everything. Oh. Okay. Do you have any long term rentals right now? No, I'm everything short term. I have all these friends that like they don't know anything about real estate, they have like a rental. It's their first one. They have this huge eviction, you know? And it's like $10,000 or something. And like Airbnb, like I have these people come in and out. They take care of it. It's super clean. They pay in advance. Everything's great.

I don't want to deal with that. You know, nobody's destroying my house. So yes, you guys are like super tough. You like long term rental people. I'm like that. So I want to back up a little bit and you said, You found this house sight unseen. You bought it a month after deciding you wanted to do this. I'm a fly by the seat of my pants kind of girl too. So I'm not questioning that part at all. But how did you find the house? And then you mentioned trust.

I just have to trust that this is going to work. Did a real estate agent go and see it for you? Did you just not ever, nobody had eyeballs on it and you just jumped in? I'm not judging. I'm just asking. Yeah. So I do it a lot differently now. You know, so I have an agent now in St. Louis.

and he like goes and videotapes everything for me, which is really cool because not only can I watch it one time, but I can watch it like a bunch of times. So I really like that if anybody wants to try, you know, buying in other states. But what happened for me is like it was just kind of the serendipitous thing. Like I decided there that I was going to buy, you know, at the wedding. And then I came home and I said, let me think about it for two weeks, you know. And in the time that I was thinking about it, I started like just, you know, I called a few of her friends. I was finding out. about if Airbnb could work, what are the areas people suggest. And a friend of mine knew that I was interested in buying in St. Louis, and he knew an agent

here in Boulder, who was licensed here in Colorado and in Missouri, and he was from St. Louis. So it was really interesting. I just kind of said, that sounds like my guy, you know? And so I think his brother went and looked at the property. And I just really, we kind of just went off photos, which, again, I don't recommend any of that. But obviously I got like, I got an inspection and that whole thing tells a big story there. Yeah, that's good. So I think some people don't do inspections.

I'm all about the inspection. I just found it on the MLS. So I use Redfin. I'm obsessed with it. But I know a lot of investors are all about like, oh, well, if you're buying off the MLS, you're losing out, you know, you're missing a huge chunk of your deal. And in some cases, I can see that that's true. but for me, I think what's important to have an understanding of is that there is a whole real estate food chain.

You know, there's people who like develop the land and build the house and they make their money. And then these people later who like flip the house and they make their money. So I know where my food chain is. Like I know where I am in the food chain. And my Airbnb margin is so good that I can buy a house right off the market. And yeah, sure. Maybe I could have made $10,000 more if I, I had found it from someone who was distressed or whatever,

but all of that like analysis paralysis, maybe I would have never bought a place. So I kind of don't worry about it. And, you know, maybe one day I will get more houses that are off the market. But with the margins I have, it just works. And how much does it cost to find those deals off market? You still have to market and pay for postage and postcards and all of that stuff.

So it's not like it's free versus you paid $10,000 more. Totally. But sometimes you can find, like, I have another friend who does, like, crazy Airbnb stuff. And he, he's always getting stuff. And I think it's mostly just off Craigslist. But he gets all kinds of things where he can do, you know, like, what are they called, lease options and all kinds of different funding. And, you know, he's just really creative. He finds ways to do it.

So that's nice. Like, that's worked out for him. But I don't know. You kind of know what you know. And then you just go with that. So. There's so much to real estate investing, like the umbrella of real estate investing encompasses so much that we wrote a book. We Brandon Turner and Josh Dork and wrote a book called The Ultimate Beginners Guide to Real Estate Investing.

It's a really long title. And you can find that. We'll link to that in the show notes as well. That gives a great overview of some of the more popular types of real estate investing. And you're absolutely right. Focus on one thing, especially when you're just beginning. Because you can't be managing a flip or flips and a long-term rental and a short-term rental and buying notes and selling land.

And you're going to go crazy, especially if you have a job. So that's a really good point to know what you know. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I wanted to just like show that you don't have to be this big expert, you know, because I think like I consider myself an expert in Airbnb, but not in real estate. Like I do this one little sliver of real estate and like I can do.

really well with that. You know, I've come up with a way to make really good returns. But, like, there's so much more to real estate. And, and I want just people to feel like it's accessible. You know, like, I don't have all the flashy terms. And I get confused with, like, gross and net. And, like, you know, like, there's just things. You don't have to be the guy who's, like, super studied. Yep. You just have to start doing it. I love that. I love that. I think, yeah, I think that applies to. Yeah, I apply to a lot of things, but especially, yeah, tweet that, yeah. Because, I mean, like, yeah, people, people want to learn everything. Like I got to go and read 100 books and I got to go figure out this and I got to, you know, and so for five, 10 years, they're studying and analyzing and they're never doing anything. Like I love that idea of going, you know, it was an inch wide and a mile wide and a inch deep. Like, yeah, figure out what you like to do. Like Airbnb or vacation rentals in generally, they work for you. You like them. So why not just become the master at that instead of trying to become every, you know, become good at everything. I mean, and it goes back to like finding deals too, right? you talked about earlier, you got a friend who uses mostly Craigslist. Does Craigslist work? Yes,

it does. Does the MLS work? Yes, it does. Does driving for dollars work? Yes, it does. Does direct mail work? Yes, it does. So just pick one and become the expert, the best person in your market at that thing. And then just go crush that. Like, it doesn't matter really what you choose. Just do one and stop talking about it. So. Well, and St. Louis is a unique place. There's just so much on the market all the time. You know, it was a huge city in the early 1900s. Like so much was built then. it's just slightly less popular. So there's just lots of vacant homes. There's a lot if you want to do fixes and flips.

There's so many different things that you can do there. So, yeah, things sit on the market for a really long time, and you can get really good deals right off the market. And at the time that I bought, it was right after Ferguson. And I think a lot of people were freaked out about, like, race riots and crime and just diversity that's there. And I wasn't. So I think sometimes there's just timing and opportunities.

Sure. So what did you end up paying for that house? Do you remember? That one was, I think I paid too much. That house was 72,000. Okay. And it was a three bedroom with a garage and front backyard, the whole thing. Okay. What do you write that thing on Airbnb for? Like, what does it? You could get a night. So that one's a weird one. So I decided that because I didn't live there, I wanted to get a full-time person living in that house. And then I wanted to have two individual Airbnb rooms. And they would manage it and they would clean it. And so, So that I knew that I had someone committed to, like, cleaning because cleaners can be flaky.

And just who was like invested in the home. So I have the main person paying like $500 a month, which is, I think it's a little overmarket. But I pay them a little bit. So it sort of kind of is a job for them. I don't know. And then the other two rooms. So that place probably makes, it makes about like $1,800 a month, which is pretty good. Yeah.

So you have it split. That's weird. It's so weird. I wouldn't do it again. Oh, really? Okay. I was to say, like, I think it's weird just in general renting out bedrooms, which, you know, like. Totally.

Yeah, for somebody, but you wouldn't do that again. That was this one time. You know, what I have learned. I mean, so I've done like Airbnb a hundred times, a hundred different ways and all these different houses. Like, I've learned that when you have individual bedrooms, it's, it's more attractive to people that have less money, but it's just not, it's not going to make you the same return as what you could get with just renting it as the three. bedroom house. And I've kept it that way because that one woman manages the rest of my

properties there now. And so it's like, all right, she likes it. Let's just do that until I buy like a fourplex or something and I can just put her in her own unit. So it's okay. But I still think, yeah, I could probably make a little bit more. But yeah, and what's cool about Airbnb is there's seasons. And so in the height of it, you know, I can make $2,400, $2,800. But yeah, it's usually right around like 16 to 18. Okay. But it's good. Good money.

And what's your mortgage on that? Do you have a mortgage on that? Oh, you said you paid cash. Yes. But that one, no, that one's the private loan that I have that's looming. So I have a $333 a month payment on that. Yeah. Okay.

That's awesome. Yeah. All right. So bring us up the speed on that's kind of how you got started in your first couple deals. You know, what have you done now over the last? five, six years or whatever since this time when you got into it. Like what's your portfolio look like?

What do you manage? Tell us your story now. Yeah. So I own five now. And I have probably, I'm looking right now. I think I'm going to buy three more coming up really soon. And then I've managed probably like 25 places and they keep coming and going because a lot of times you manage for someone or your co-host is what we call it for like a period.

You know, they're going to be gone for five months while they're traveling and then you have the house. then you only sort of help them out on the weekends when they're gone or whatever. That kind of changes all the time. So I get new houses and then they sort of go dormant sometimes. So yeah. But yeah, so I bought that one place in St. Louis, my first place there. I bought it in July of like 2015.

No. Yes. And then in November, sorry. In November, I went back and bought two at the same time. They were cheaper. I bought one for 52,000 and one for 60,000, and they were two bedrooms, and I rent them as full units, all in the same neighborhood. One's on the exactly same street, and the other one's like a street up. So I bought those, yeah, in November of that year.

And then I bought another one this year in January. So, yeah, but only, only like last year around summertime did I start managing other people's homes. And that's really blown up. So that's a really fun thing. And I've figured out a way to kind of automate everything because I think once you have more than five listings, it becomes a lot more to keep up with. So I started using, you know, more people that help me and softwares and things like that. And now I'm training other people to be like co-hosts under me so that I can just give them houses and make a percentage. I'm trying to like get to the place of doing nothing.

That's like the goal. That is the goal. So you co-host, which means an Airbnb. I know because they have a way of doing that really they have like a system for that. So somebody else can hand. In fact, like, so I have my first vacation rental right now and I'm, I've been doing it now for three months or something like that. And it's good.

But I have my assistant as my co-host or co-host. And so she takes care of a lot of the interactions with people, the conversations, the scheduling. If we have a little maintenance thing, she takes care of all that. So that's kind of cool. So like, do you have then like a full-time job elsewhere, part-time job elsewhere? Or is this, this is your thing? Like full time.

That's awesome. Did you see the look she made? I know. Like, ew, ish. Ish. It's insulting. I haven't had a job in like, I can't even remember. I think 2012.

Do people ask you that? Do you have a real job? Is that a common question? Like, why don't you get a real job? I don't know. I think most people know that that's like not my jam. Okay, so let's talk about that. You mentioned this word.

Earlier you said the phrase, early retirement thing. You said I was doing the, like, what does that mean? I mean, what is early retirement? Let's talk about that. for a minute. That means you are like a total psycho. Like you just find your number and you do everything for that number. So you pretty much find out how much you need to have for the rest of your life, you know? And so my goal was 600,000 and a paid off house. And so I was working towards that like just a madwoman. And it was it was everything. It was just like, yeah, I can make $30 from like

sleeping on my couch tonight and have someone in my room or over here or over there. Like it was just anything to get towards that goal. And so I feel like when you come from that background, you have a lot more flexibility. You know, when you learn frugality, it's like this muscle that you can turn it on and turn it off whenever you want. So I know now that like if my business changed and I lost it all, I could just start like cooking meals and riding my bike everywhere and not driving anymore and, you know, staying between a few of my properties and just never pay rent. Like, I knew that that was my goal. And actually when, when I really started Airbnb, I was like, huh, like I have this like $700 a month rent payment. And if I can take that out, that's like a huge

chunk. So maybe I should just do this house hacking. I mean, they didn't call it that back then, but that was kind of how I felt about it. It's like, I'm going to just have these people pay my rent and then some. And then, you know, it built from there. But that was the main goal. It's just to take out that huge chunk that I needed to save. That's awesome. You know, in that book, you know, we launched a book last month called Set for Life, Scott Trench wrote it. And it's a lot about this concept of frugality and house hacking and stuff.

But one thing Scott made a point in there that I never had never thought of before was that, you know, a lot of the financial gurus you hear about on TV or they have talk shows or whatever, they all talk about like cutting out your lattes and, you know, trying to skimp and buy the cheaper pair of jeans from wherever. But Scott's argument in the book is all that is, is like stupid kind of to avoid. The real issue is your housing payments, your car payments. Like those are the things that add up. I mean, that's 80% of your expenses are in like two or three little categories.

So if you can focus instead on cutting those things out, you can enjoy all the latte you want from Starbucks. You can go every day and get yourself a $5 latte. And if you really want it to, that's not going to add up even close to what you're paying for a mortgage payment, especially if you live in Denver or Seattle. San Francisco, New York City, you know, somewhere where you got a $2,000 mortgage payment or rent payment. Yeah, you can cut that out. You can do amazing things. So I like the early retirement thing, you know, like, I don't know. It suits me. So. Yeah. It suits me too. Well, it suited me until

I found bigger pockets. And then you're like, I'm going to go, well, and that's the fun thing. Like, Scott mentions this too. So when you have financial freedom, which, you know, Mindy, you've got, Zana, you've got and I've got, like this idea of like, this idea of like, you don't have to go out and hustle to build another business or go with a job, right? You don't have to. It gives you the ability to do what you want. So, like, Mindy loves doing stuff for bigger pockets. I love this stuff as well.

I love being on this podcast. Like, I do this because I love it, not because I have to do it. And there's this, like, fundamental difference. Like, you don't have to, you don't have a boss yelling at you. You have to do something. I don't know. There's just something that changes in that. And it's not that I don't want to work or that Mindy doesn't want to work or you don't

want to work. It's that we don't want to have to work. And that's the difference. For sure. That have to is such an important part of that sentence. Yeah. I work full time at bigger pockets. I absolutely love my job. I say this to everybody. I can't believe I get to work here. Yeah. So get to. But I get to. I could quit tomorrow. I'm not going to, Josh, but I could. And my life would not change. I mean, I would still be on the site 24-7 like I am now. Because I can't stop talking. That's funny. I get to talk about real estate.

I know, it's fun, right? Like, you get to do what you want. When you have that financial independence, you can kind of do what you want with your life. And if you want to help build a business or you want to talk real estate all day or you want to go and volunteer at an orphanage, you know, you can do what you want to do because you've got that freedom to do it. So that's very cool. I mean, I travel a ton. I don't like the cold and I live in Colorado where it snows. And so I'm gone like four months, five months.

Mindy can attest to this because now we're buddies. But yeah, I just go. And I can still run my whole business from wherever I am, you know? And so that was the goals. Like, okay, I want something I can do from anywhere. Yeah, that's awesome. And so Airbnb's been that for me. And it can be that for everyone.

Speaking of that, I want to go into, I have a list of questions here. I want to just kind of burn through. And the first one is on that topic. But they're all about managing vacation rentals because you're the expert at it. And like I said, I'm on my first one. So the next five, ten minutes is pure selfish brand in time. Yeah, help me out here. I think there's probably other people out here that have these questions, too.

So I want to know what you say. So first of all, I mean, how do you manage at a distance? Like, do you have any tips on, like, if I wanted to leave, because I don't like the cold or rain either. So like, I want to be a snowbird. I want to be a 32-year-old snowbird next year. So how do I manage my Airbnb at a distance? Well, so so much of Airbnb is already online, right? So you're communicating through the app or through your laptop.

and so you've got that kind of covered there. But it's really about the team. So, I mean, I think any real estate person would say this. Like any flipper or whatever, you need to have like a good team of people. So like for investing, I have my real estate agent that goes through and does videos for me. For cleaning, I have like a head cleaner and she hires and trains the other cleaners and she schedules them all. I don't have to do any of it. You know, and then I have handy people.

And, you know, over time you get a list of all the specialized. people that do only like plumbing or HVAC and whatever, you just kind of like figure it out. But all those resources, you know, we have the internet. So everything is there for you. But it's, yeah, it's nice to have someone else kind of responsible. So an important piece, which I mean, people can choose to do or not. But I've always been a fan of like lockbox or the digital touchpad like deadbolt. Because those are awesome.

Like I think people don't even want to meet you anymore. Like, it's a little sad. But they just want their privacy. want to just walk into the house, feel like it's theirs, not have to like tiptoe around. So if you can just give them a code from afar, you know, I have mine just in the house manual. It's automatically sent to them when they book. It's easy. Do you worry about them at all having the code ahead of time?

You know, so, you know, two months from now they booked it. Now they have the code. They can go in and rob and murder. People see that stuff? Oh, my God. So I've had certain codes at certain houses forever. Like the whole time I've had the house. People are like, do you change the code every time?

I'm like, no, someone's going to come back knowing there's another guest there. That's weird. They never do it. Like, I'm going on like six years of Airbnb. Never. There's all kinds of stories I can tell you. No one ever comes back. So I wouldn't worry about that.

All right. All right. Good. Next question. Mind, do you want to take one? We got a whole list here to go through. Yes. So when you book, I am on the other end of the Airbnb.

I use Airbnb to find places to stay when I am traveling. And sometimes you can book and it auto accepts me. And sometimes I have to be accepted by the host. What is your method? Do you just blanketly accept everybody or do you have to review them? So I do instant book. So one thing that you don't really talk about with Instant Book is that you can, you have 24 hours to like decide that you don't like the guests for whatever reason.

So if like they instant booked and then you start. reading these weird messages from them and you get a weird vibe or you realize they're going to just come and party, you can cancel it. So it's, I think you have that little leeway, which makes it good. Another thing that you can add as features on the instant book is that they're verified. So there's a bunch of different ways to verify. You can do like a government issued ID. You can do like Facebook and Google and a bunch of different websites. They verify their phone number. They verify their address. So you kind of know like they are who they say. And then the last piece is that you can put house rules that they have to read and accept and agree to before.

Next question. How do you deal? Actually, before I get that one, this is a true story. Last week, a guy booked with me, instant booked. I said, no, no, he wanted to be pre-approved for some reason. Anyway, and he asked the question, is there a bus that goes out to wherever? And I said, yes, there is. I'm sure there is.

There's kind of an obscure location. We have a pretty good bus system out here. It should be just fine. And then he wrote back, what time does the bus? come and what time does it drop me back off again? And I was like, I'm not really sure you're going to have to actually look that one up. I was really nice. You're going to have to look that one up on the thing.

So he cancels and say, fine, I'll go talk to a super host, somebody who wants my business. And I'm like, is that really my job to look up a bus schedule for him? No, it's not. I guess so, Brandon. Maybe you're just illuminating against people who don't have cars. I guess. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I was like, what?

I try to give people resources, you know? I'm like, use Google Maps, blah, blah, blah. But like, yeah, you know, nobody got to. time for that. Yeah. Okay. Let's make sure I wasn't in the wrong there. All right. Next question. How do you deal with bad reviews? I always, so they give you an opportunity to respond. So I always respond. And one thing that a lot of people don't know about Airbnb as well is that they have a rule about reviews that it has to just be facts. And so if someone is creating like this very dramatic scene in their review, like, oh, it was a horror scene, this and this and this. If it's not actual

facts, you can get it removed. So you just tell Airbnb, this person is just elaborating, blah, blah, blah, blah, and it's gone. So that's nice. But I always address it. You know, I haven't gotten that many, but you definitely do find people that have really high expectations or they're trying to get something free or whatever. And I just address each point that they mention and then the ways that we tried to help them or that they didn't actually tell us. And if they don't tell us, then we can't do anything about it, you know. So just things like that. Okay.

Cool. But yeah, you definitely don't want to be the exaggerator. So it's like try to stay calm. But they, yeah, I mean, nothing makes you more upset than someone who doesn't like your place. It's really kind of sad. But it's actually my least favorite thing about vacation rentals, like my Airbnb right now is like the fact that I'm emotionally like tied to.

to it where, you know, not that I'm, I think I'm a pretty good landlord, but if my tenants don't like my house, like, they know my long term tenants, I'm kind of like, well, you know, you signed a lease. You saw the place ahead of time. If you got bugs, it's your problem. You brought them in. You know, like, it's just some degree, right? Yeah. But, and I don't really care if they don't like me. I'm Lord. No, I'm a good landlord. I, but, but there's like this, I don't really care. I'm not, I'm not, I don't care if they don't like my property. I'm not, I don't care if they don't like my property. If they're mad at me when they leave, I'm like, screw you. I have all the power here.

Like, that's how really mean. But, like, in a way, like, I have all the power in a landlord-tenant relationship. And I like having the power. And all of a sudden, I realized with Airbnb, I do not have the power as much anymore because of those negative reviews can hurt my business. So now I have to try to make them happy all the time. It's just different. I think people don't realize that, that like, a negative review, like, you're affecting

someone's livelihood, especially if it's not true. That's the thing that really, like, is terrible. It's not true. That's awful. There are, I've read one Airbnb review. I was looking for a place to stay. And the person said there was dust everywhere.

There was dog care. And they took pictures. And it was like they'd never swept in the whole lives. The house was really gross. So you got to keep it clean. But if it's, you know, if it's an outright lie in the listing, that's one thing. But if it's just, you know, oh, I thought it was something else. It's like one speck of lint on a carpet sometimes.

And you're like, really? Like we vacuumed it, but sometimes like the one lint is holding on good. You know, it's crazy. You walk through the house after and you're like, okay. You know, but it's really sad when it's your personal home. So I don't know if you actually rent your personal home. But that's like, oh, man, it hits you in the core. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. All right. Next question. Mindy. Okay, do you do anything to your listing to make it stand out? It sounds like the auto accept or the instant book would make you stand out.

So there's this other thing that you can do that I feel like everyone ignores, but you can write a guidebook and put it in there. So it kind of like allows you to tag little like restaurants nearby or, you know, yoga studios and hike or whatever. And I literally think that no one ever looks at it. But for some reason, I have this belief that it makes you. show up higher in the listing. So I usually do it. Brandon.

That's something that you could do. I did mine. I did. I did. Oh, good. I tell everyone to go to Casamia because that's the best pizza place in the county. So if you ever drive through Graze Harbor County, go to Casamia. It's a good place.

So there are a couple other things to do. So I say good photos obviously are super helpful. And, you know, sometimes I get lazy with that because you take a couple good ones with your your phone and then you. you know, edit them, and they're like good enough, but really getting the pro photos and Airbnb allows you to do it for free. So that's like, that's do it. It's really, it helps. And then, so a lot of my places are just Airbnb. So I, when I'm furnishing it, I'm thinking about that, I find that people want to stay in a place that's really unique. So I put like vibrant colors and I have

cool styles and all of my houses are different themes. And I just find that that attracts you to a place so much more, even if it's not your style. You're like, ooh, I want to stay at that beach house or ooh, I want to stay at this like madman house or whatever because it's just different than what your normal, you know, beige house is going to be or whatever. Yeah. So go wild. That's cool. I decked out mine in beach theme because yeah, I wanted to go make it kind of, because we live near the ocean, so I made it very beachy. And so on that note, how do you furnish properties? I mean, how do you have any tips on? I mean, I thought, I was surprised at how expensive it was for me to furnish my property. Like, I mean, there's a million things I just didn't think of.

Like, oh, a can opener. Oh, yeah, I got to get that. Oh, yeah, microwave. Dang. Oh, my God. You should have talked to Ziana. The list of things that you go through that you have to get, even just for like a two bedroom is crazy. It's so many pieces, so many little things. But I am like the Craigslist garage shell thrift store queen. And I, because I just, you know, you could just go to IKEA and get one big shop, you're a place going to look like everyone else's place. It's so boring. So, and I love IKEA, but, you know, just for certain things. So yeah, I love to go on the hunt. And of course, it's way more time consuming. So someone like you who's maybe doing a lot of volume, you're like, I don't want to spend the time. I'd rather just pay twice as much. But for me,

I've furnished like a three bedroom with less than $3,000. You know, like you can do it super cheap if you're out there looking for the stuff. But Craigslist is awesome. Garage sales are like freebies, thrift stores, consignment stores. You just find such cool treasures. And that makes your house stand out too. So I'm all about it. That's like my favorite part. Cool. They get the mattress on the side of the road. I haven't done that yet. But I have to say, fun fact, I've never bought a mattress new ever, even the one that I sleep on and live on, but I've gotten some high end like awesome mattresses off Craigslist. You've got to know how to buy it. Yes, you do. I'm very particular about mattresses. All right. Cool. Next question. Mind, do you want to grab one? How do you determine how much a vacation

rental will rent for? So you can kind of, I mean, it just depends on how involved you want to be. So there are actually pricing websites that help you out. You can use like Everbooked or Beyond pricing. And then they also have, Airbnb has a smart pricing tool. tool, but I think it still sucks. They're trying. It's not good. It's always like way too low, I think. Really? I've had mine on auto ever since I got it. I should take it off. Yeah, girl. Okay. Good to know. Also like, I know I look at mine and I'm like, mine is by far. I mean, not even like close, by far the nicest one in my county. I mean, there's only like eight in the entire county and mine's the nicest one by far. Yet mine's, they're auto bidding mine.

whatever at the same price as the other ones. So I have a feeling I could probably get a lot higher. I just haven't. All right. I'm going to do that today. That's my goal today. Okay. So here are my tips.

So in general, yes, I'll just like type in the address and I'll see what everybody else is charging around. But it's also really important to know what events are happening. So like I live by a college. So like parents weekend, graduation. Like there are a couple of things that are huge around here. So putting those in my awareness and making sure to charge a ton more for that. And then like football games.

games and I don't know, there's just all kinds of events that happen. So if you know in your area what those things are going to be, it's really good, certain concerts or whatever. And a lot of times you can find all those resources online. So that's super helpful. So I get kind of an idea about what everybody else is charging and in my neighborhood. And then I always try to go higher. So like out a month or, well, I'd say like three months, I make it like higher than I think I can get. Like I just do like ridiculous pricing. And I usually open it. for six months to a year. And so I do really high pricing.

And then as it gets closer, I'm, like, lowering it. And so I'm messing with my pricing like every two days, probably. And so it's kind of like each week is a different price. And then as it gets closer, whatever's not full gets less and less. But, yeah, I mean, I usually just try to go as high as I can go. Yeah. Yeah, you know, on that note, so Fourth of July weekend is a huge, is a huge weekend out in my area. Ocean Shores, which is the closest beach to Seattle is like the cool.

The coolest 4th of July you guys will ever go to because there's literally like a million people on the beach. Everybody with homemade, you know, or not homemade, but fireworks, basically, shooting them off for like nine hours straight. It's the best thing ever. I mean, there's seriously like, it's an unbelievable sight to behold. I recommend everybody go out there someday. Anyway, so my house is like in the town that's next to this area. And I forgot to change the listing. So, of course, somebody books it at 65 bucks a night for that whole week.

And I'm like. Wait, 65 bucks? Yeah. What the heck is that place? Is it like a one bedroom? No, it's a two-beder my house, like standalone house, but Airbnb's automatic pricing was $65 $65.00.00. I'm feeling sad for you right now. I know. I was like, I could have probably charged hundreds of, like, 300 bucks a night on Fourth of July or higher. Yeah. I don't even know your

neighborhood and I'm like, for sure. Yeah, that was a mistake. So, you need to go co-host Branden's property. Yeah, I know. We need to talk because, man, this is a, because I look at my rental and I've honestly considered giving it up because I look at it and I'm like, I'm averaging, like, with weekends are a little higher. I'm averaging like 70 or 75 bucks a night. I'm getting like 20 nights a month and so I'm like $15,600 but then I'm like I'm paying 800 bucks in water, sewer,

garbage, electricity, taxes, insurance. Not even count in the mortgage. I'm paying like 800 bucks. And so at the end of the day, my cash flow is not that much higher than what I would just as a normal rental where a tenant pays all their own utilities and everything. Yeah. And it's like way less work. Yeah, it's way less work. So I've considered

switching it. But if I can find ways to get that from an average of, you know, 1,600 a month up to an average of 2,600 a month. Well, now of a sudden it makes way more sense. And then I'll turn a bunch more properties into Airbnb. So, yeah, you and I know. So on my blog, which whatever, I'm not trying to promote myself, but you send your assistant to my blog because I do have a post about how to optimize an Airbnb listing.

And it literally goes through every single column of what you can do on Airbnb, how I set up a listing. And I think that helps. And then also, yeah, you need to talk to her about pricing. It is more work to go every two days. look at it, but if it's one listing, it takes you like a minute. You really need to be on that because the pricing is like the bread and butter. That's the whole whole deal. Yeah, that's good. Okay, I'm super convicted now. I'm going to do it. And, uh, yeah, very good. It's going to see,

this is all worthwhile right here. Calla Pant wrote an article where she had a couple of different properties in Atlanta. And when her lease came up, she turned that into an Airbnb. And she compared the Airbnb cost versus the long-term rental cost. And the Airbnb was more work, but it was way more money. Yeah. Yeah. But she actually decided not to do it anymore because it was more work. And she was traveling.

She, like, writes a little story about when she was traveling and something happened and it was like so stressful being away. So you kind of like learn to weather that storm, but it sucks. You know, you really need to have like cleaners you can call or somebody who's like your manager in the area. So like what I do is I pay someone like $100 a month just to be available. And then they go and they'll do anything that I need. But I can call them any time and go, hey, you need to go to this house.

And then they have an hourly wage that they make beyond that. That's cool. But yeah, you can have like a manager for almost nothing that will help you out. Right. And Paula's problem was the people who rented it. It was like a one bed house and they had a kid. And they didn't tell her when they booked it. So she didn't have an extra bed for them.

And they thought that they would just get it when she got there or when they got there. So she had to actually go buy a bed overnight, have it like Amazon overnighted to them and have her neighbor underneath, bring it back up. It was a whole ordeal. So $100 for just somebody to be on call. That sounds like a bargain. Brandon, do you know anybody that could be on call for you? I do.

Well, and that's one of the benefits of Airbnb here is that I already have my whole system set up. I've got two or three cleaners. that I know. I've got contractors. I've got my assistant. So I just need to, I guess, start shifting those things over to someone else. And speaking of shifting those things, we're going to shift right now to the next segment of the show because it's actually more questions on Airbnb, but we're going to head over to the world famous fire round. It's time for the fire round. Wouldn't it be great if your houseplants paid rent while you were out of town? I mean, they've got the whole place to themselves, lots of sunlight, zero responsibilities.

But no, they just sit there waiting for someone to spray them with some cool mist like a bunch of leafy loafers. But guess what? Your home actually could be earning you money while you're not there. Airbnb has a great feature called the co-host network, which makes hosting your home so easy. If you live far from your property or are away for extended periods, you can hire a local co-host to take care of the hosting for you. These co-hosts are vetted locals who already have experience hosting on Airbnb. A co-host can handle all the details like messaging guests, creating your host space, and managing reservations. so everything runs smoothly.

It's a practical way to earn a little extra money, maybe even some cash toward your next trip. Plus, you get to share your place with someone traveling to your area while you're off making memories somewhere else. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host. Tax season reminder for all the real estate investors listening. If you own rental properties,

short-term rentals, commercial buildings, basically anything that's not your primary residence, you need to know about cost segregation. It's an IRS compliance strategy that lets you accelerate depreciation on your properties, which means you're paying less in taxes this year and keeping more cash in your pocket for your next deal. Cost segregation guys is the go-to firm, having done over 12,000 of these studies with 500 million in total depreciation identified. Head to Costsegregationguise.com slash BP to get a free proposal and see your potential tax

savings. All right, rental property investors, listen up. Our friends at Dominion Financial already have some of the best DSCR rates in the industry. Now, they're the fastest, too. They just launched 10-day DSCR closing. That's right, 10 days. And they're still the only lender with a DSCR price beat guarantee. That means faster closing, the best terms, zero guesswork.

That's Dominion Financial. Check them out at biggerpockets.com slash dominion. Again, that's biggerpockets.com slash dominion. All right, let's get into the fire round questions. These come direct out of the Bigger Pockets forums, which, of course, you can go and ask your questions at for free at biggerpockets.com slash forums. It's fantastic. So we're going to fire them at you right now. Number one, do you have recommendation?

What's like a good insurance policy for vacation rental? Do you have to use something different or is it just the same as normal? I just use my regular one. There are special ones, but Airbnb and I think Homeway, VRB are doing the same thing now where they have a million dollar coverage host guarantee. and then you have your little security deposit. So I've actually been completely fine with that. Okay. Yeah.

Do you have minimum stays and specific check-in days? I do one-night. I know a lot of people have all the things. Don't do one-night. You're going to get people just having sex and whatever weird shit. I do the one-night. I do it. It's awesome because if you booked a bunch of one-nights,

they are paying the highest rate. Because you're doing like weekly discounts, monthly discounts. So you get a bunch of one-nighters there and they fill in the awkward gaps. Otherwise, if you have like three-night minimum, there's going to be all these weird spots in your calendar and I want everyday full. So I do one-nights. All right. That's such a great tip. Yeah. I like it. How do you choose a vacation rental site to list with, Airbnb, VRBO, Home Away? Do you use all just one? It depends on what your needs are. And it also depends on your property. So I mean, I think Airbnb has just gotten so much traction

lately so it's a really good one to be on um vrbo man that site just sucks they got bought by somebody recently and i thought yes it's going to be better it's just still bad i don't know why they don't just look at Airbnb completely copy them but anyway um but one thing you should know is Airbnb only charges 3% home away VRBO charges 10% i've also heard booking dot com is really good but depending on where you live it's up to 20% and so is Expedia which is like that's a big chunk of change. So, yeah. Yeah, good to know.

I never thought about putting it on like Expedia or booking. That's not a terrible idea. You know, that's kind of how I came up with my original, like, when I ran the numbers on my Airbnb, I was thinking the average hotel in my area is $120 a night, which is still crazy because, like, anyway, it's crazy. But anyway, it's like $120 a night. So I thought, well, if I'm around there,

then it should be just fine because people would rather stay in a house than a hotel. That's my theory. But then Airbnb suggests $65 bucks a night like every night. And so that's why I've been stuck there. Because the pricing sucks. Yeah, I guess their pricing sucks. All right. So I'm changing that.

We already covered that. Last question. How many times could we harangue Brandon about painting his pricing? I don't know if it's like really fun. All right. Number four, Mindy, go ahead. Okay. Are there any types of properties that do not make a good short-term rental?

I am actually surprised that Brandon has eight, short-term rentals in his area because you're not really a tourist destination, are you, Brandon? I mean, not really, but we are the gateway to the Olympic Peninsula, which means if you go out to the Olympic Peninsula, you're where, like, Twilight takes place, like, you know, the whole, like, Olympic forest in Washington. Like, we're like the town. Brandon, I didn't see Twilight. Okay.

You never saw Twilight. I read them all. All right. You know Forks then, right? Like, I'm like the closest town to Forks. And so, anyway. You must, I mean, I don't. know if they still do that, but they used to do like full on twilight tours.

Yeah, they go crazy. You must get a bunch of those people. Not anymore, but we used to. We get a lot of Kirk Cobain people. Yeah, we get a lot of Kirk Cobain folks because we're the hometown of Kirk Cobain as well. So, and I still need to, I have a Kirk Cobain's very first two houses. He lived in when he was a baby. I need to turn those into Airbnb's and then make them like, you know, classic.

Oh, my. Oh, my. Hey, Brandon, I know a girl that can help you furnish your property. Wow. I don't even start. I've got a book. We're getting rid of a lot of stuff. and I've got a book, Kurt Cobain's like handwritten notes or something, I'm mailing it to you.

All right. I'm looking forward to that. Put that in your Kurt Cobain house. Okay. So back to the question that I asked 25 minutes ago, are there any types of properties that do not make good short-term rentals? Okay. So if I was just going to go and buy a property with this in mind, I am really leery of condos these days. Airbnb started with condos.

That was like their bread and butter. But HOAs, they can make their own rules completely separate of the same. city or the state or whatever and they can shut you down and that I can't tell you how many HOA board meetings I've been to on my behalf and other people's luckily where I live this is only condo I own they're okay with it and it's all worked out but I had to go and stand for it and talk people into it not everyone's going to be that lucky so you may find this super deal and everything perfect location and then they'll just shut you down so I I don't know that it's worth the risk which is unfortunate because condos are usually in these highly populated areas where all the cool stuff is.

So it's tricky. It's tricky. As far as location, I mean, I've heard about Airbnb's being popular anywhere. I mean, you can make it a destination. I know people that just so happen to live kind of close to a highway where people are driving cross country all the time and they so happen to just get a ton of bookings. I think now that more and more people know about Airbnb, almost anywhere can be an Airbnb. So, I mean, obviously you're going to do better. I only like to buy in college towns with over 14,000 students. That's my little niche. But, yeah, I mean, I think almost any place can work. And it's cool if you already have something to just try it.

Cool. I love that. On that note, you talked about like condo HOA is having a problem sometimes, which I've heard. What about legislation like in government? So I was in Hawaii last month, you know, learning to surf. And I love the idea of doing Airbnb there. I want to buy a property. Oh my God.

Me too. Yeah, but the government does not like Airbnb, just like in New York, San Francisco, Denver. You know, you can't, like, Denver has all these rules against it, right? So like. Boulder does too. Okay, yeah. So where do you see that, how does that come into play in this whole thing? Where do you see that legislation heading?

I mean, is Airbnb on its way down because of all the governments are getting mad or are they just fighting a losing battle? Yeah. I mean, I just think that you kind of learn how to be flexible with, with the rules, you know? you like learn the rules so you can break them properly kind of thing. It's like you don't necessarily have to break them, but you just kind of like learn how to work with them. You know,

so I think that it's fine. People are putting things in place. So now Boulder's collecting, I think 7.5% on all of our Airbnb income. That's great. This is going to go to schools and roads or whatever, you know? I think that's fair.

I mean, I've always paid my income tax. It's not like I'm hiding, you know, and I think everybody else is doing that too. So I think it's fine. Yeah, it changes it. And for most of these places, they want you to be the owner of the place. So that makes it a little trickier for some. And some of the rules are being owner occupied. So like you can only rent the place that you live in or, you know, like a mother-in-law unit or a basement or another room in your house. So but it doesn't mean you don't do it. Yeah. So you just find ways to do it. I don't think it's going to stop. I heard some people in like Denver where like Denver, they don't allow it. But there are like exceptions. Like if. you live in the property, you can rent out the other unit.

So like what guys people do is they partner with their tenants who then the tenant then rents it on an Airbnb. Then it's legal. You know, I might be getting that slightly wrong. But basically that's the idea, right? Is you learn the law so you can figure out how to make it work within the law or, you know, like you just figure it out. Like in a lot of areas you can.

And there's ways to do that in Hawaii too. I talk to a number of people who they just figure it out. Like, and, uh, and you get there. So or you buy in an area that you, that it works. Yeah. Yeah. They just make it hard. I'm actually from Hawaii.

So I'm from Maui and like I would love to own an Airbnb. out there. But yeah, the fee for the license is really high and then it's hard to get even so. And then it takes like years. Yeah, you have to become like a bed at breakfast. It's the whole thing.

And I, you know, what's kind of sad is that a lot of the places that are rental places like, you know, coastal towns in Florida and just a lot of like well-known places that people go, they're not that flexible with Airbnb. You would think that they would be, you know? And I think it's to their detriment, really.

I mean, I think for a while, people have been just trying to resist it. But I think what's going to happen is that people are going to realize, like, we're voting with our dollars. And if everybody wants to do Airbnb, it's not going to go away. So it's making the hotels have to be better. You know, they're making them more boutique and more interesting. And maybe some of these hyats are going to turn into apartment complexes. Like, sorry, but you've got to change with the times. That's it.

Yep. So I would love to see that because I think they're kind of boring. And people want to live in the neighborhood. So I love it. Love it. I'm into it. Very cool. Very cool.

Well, shall we head over to the world famous? Famous Four. I'm going to start off the Famous Four, which is actually Famous Five, because Brandon doesn't know how to count. All right. Go ahead. Similar to not knowing how to prices Airbnb property. It's famous four and then a bonus question at the end of the famous four.

We like bonuses here. There we go. All right. Oh, then. Go ahead. Okay. So what is your favorite real estate book? Oh.

I don't know that I read that many real estate books. I definitely read like Ridge Dad, Poor Dad. I should probably say something that you guys wrote. I do read your blog a lot. That counts. That counts. It's got to catchy headlines, you know. Allison, Allison crushes it on the headlines.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I do, like I said, I'm going to plug Paula Pant again, afford anything. That blog really got me started. So it's awesome. But yeah, as far as books, I find that I just don't, I don't have the same beliefs as a lot of people. and they just frustrate me. So I start reading it and I go like,

this is not like what I'm trying to do. I think the Airbnb thing is totally different. So it's kind of having like different philosophies. Cool. I think you should write a book on Airbnb. I was just going to say that. I know the woman who does the publishing here at Bigger Pockets Publishing. Yeah, that's fair.

Yeah, Mindy's got the connections. All right. Number two. Wow, this is weird. Josh always asked this question. Number two, what is your favorite, if you have one, business-related book? Anything business-related book that comes mind?

I like the four-hour work week. It's super meaty, but I do really like a lot of his concepts. I really like, oh, God, there's all these on my website. What's it called? Oh, you know, I'm just blanking right now. I could give you a list of them later, but I think. We can put them in the show notes later if you think of them. Oh, okay.

Well, so the big leap is a really good one. I don't know. I haven't read that. Oh, my God. The big league. It talks about upper limit behavior. So it's like you kind of hit your glass ceiling and then you fall. And it's just like how to keep moving that glass ceiling so you don't like self-sabotage, I guess.

Oh, and the e-myth. That's a really good book. These are all on my website. But yeah, that's a great one. I don't know. I read a lot of books for sure. Okay. What episode was Michael Gerber on?

That's Michael Gerber, right? Yeah. Yeah, he was on way back a long time ago. So if you want to find the episode we did with Michael Gerber. Go to Google.com and type in Biggerpockets Podcast, Michael Gerber. You'll find it. That's what I'm doing. All right.

That would be. Number, you can look at out, ball eyes number three. What do you do for fun? What are your hobbies? I love to travel and I love to be outside. I'm super into the ocean, so a lot of water sports. I love to surf and paddleboard, even though I live in Colorado. I just travel a lot for that.

Do we do a lot of hiking here? I love to ride my bike. It's frugal and fun. Nice. Yeah. I don't know. Cool. Where's your favorite place you've ever traveled?

probably South Africa, like Cape Town, super awesome. Yeah. Very cool. All right. And did you find it, Mindy? No. No, all right. Number four, you want me to ask or you want to ask it?

I will ask number four. You got it. What sets apart successful investors from those who give up, fail, or never even get started? Well, first you have to try. So, you know, if you never do it, then you would never know if you could be successful, right? And I think you have to be able to weather the storm. Like there's definitely places I've paid too much for. There's mistakes I've made. There's, you know, just things happen and you learn from them, but you learn so fast. Like the learning curve is awesome. And I think if you're just kind of open to being

flexible, you know, it just depends on what your definition of failure is because in a day, you can have like 100 failures and 100 successes. So it's like they don't have to be big enough to destroy you. You know, just keep going. I like it. Great advice. Cool. Yeah. Okay.

And Michael Gerber is on show 1-25. Nice. Finally figured out how Google works. There you go. There you go. All right. Okay. Now that was the end of the famous four.

And now I will add the bonus question on the end. Where can people find out more about you? Oh, my website and blog is ziana macintyre. How do you spell that? I just my first and last name. Z-E-O-N-A. McI-N-T-Y-R-E. All right. And we will, of course, link to that in the bigger pocket.

Show notes for the show at biggerpockets.com slash show 229. And with that, we're going to get out of here. So thank you, Ziana. That was awesome. I learned a ton. That was fun. That was totally a selfish episode. We just wanted to, you know, I wanted to know how to improve my business,

which is what this whole show is about, right? It's all about me. So thank you. And, yeah, we'll see you around. All right. Bye. Bye, Ziana. Thank you.

All right. Right, big thanks to our guest today. Ziana McIntyre. Awesome, awesome show. I love, I love that stuff. I love the conversation. What do you think, Mindy? Have a good time? Oh, my goodness.

I couldn't take enough notes when I was talking to her. I know back and listen to it again so I can write down. She had some really, really amazing points. And she's just a really great person. Her story is so awesome because it's doable by almost anybody. Yep. I totally agree. I totally agree.

And I love the fact that she's like, I don't know a lot of stuff. I don't know everything about everything about real estate. I'm not Mindy Jensen, but I can figure this stuff, you know, this one niche out and I'm rocking this one niche and I have early financial freedom because of it. I mean, I love that. Yeah, she is rocking out that one niche. Even better than you, Brandon. Even better than me, as we clearly saw in today's call. So, no, but here's what I love about the Bigger Pockets podcast.

You know, if you're brand new to this, if you're never done real estate before and you hear an episode like this, you're going to get some really good ideas on maybe a niche that you want to go into, which means it's beneficial. But if you're somebody who's experienced, maybe I've been doing this for 10 years like I have, like this show just gave me a whole bunch more money in my life, you know, like a bunch more income potentially. If I can put these things in the practice, I mean, just simple things like make my own pricing. Like I'm not going to sit by 65.

In fact, after this call, after you and I get done here recording this, Mindy, I'm going to go change my pricing up to like $99 just to see what happens, right? I'm going to check on you. You should. For the next show, I'm going to make sure that Scott comes on and asks you, first off, did you change your pricing? Good, because I'm going to change it. And I mean, let's say I get an extra $25 a night.

And I'm booking at 20 nights a month. That's an extra, what is that, $500, right? Yeah, that's extra $500 a month in income on that property just by making that little change. For doing nothing. For just going on there. Yep. Yep. This is awesome.

Okay, I'm going to do that. All right. So anyway, so that's what I love about the Bigger Pockets podcast. I feel like every week does little things that help improve my business. And they also help teach other people. I knew stuff. Awesome. So with that, Mindy, I have another couple questions for you. If you don't mind, I can ask you. I'm not really, I don't really care if you mind because I'm asking. Anyway, will time travel? These are just random questions that I thought were pretty good.

Will time travel ever exist for humans? Yes or no? No. Unless you get into the whole quantum theory wormhole. Is it quantum physics? I don't know. I don't. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. It's all fake. It's all fake. Josh is smart a fan. Next question. Have you ever put up something on the internet you later regretted? Yes, I did. What did you do?

And I'm glad you asked me this question. I put up on the Bigger Pockets forums, somebody asked a question about 1031 exchanges. And what they asked turns out to be probably the only thing that is completely forbidden in the 1031 exchange. And I answered, oh, sure, I bet you could do that. And then one of our 1031 experts comes in. And he's like, no, how could you possibly say that? That's like the stupidest thing you could ever. I mean, he was really nice about it, but he was definitely telling me I was wrong.

Wow. So then the original poster comes back and asks another question. And I answer again, because I didn't learn my lesson the first time. I'm like, oh, yeah, I bet you could do that. And the guy comes back again, he's like, no. That's funny. So I don't answer questions on 1031 exchanges anymore. Probably a good idea.

Probably a good idea. And I felt, I'm not sure if this happened right. I started working at bigger pockets or before when I was just a fan. But I felt really bad that it was then out there with my bigger pockets logo in the signature. Let me ask you this. When you got, when you got like hired at bigger pockets, did you go in and delete it? I did not. Oh, wow.

Good job. I have not deleted any of my, yeah, I've not deleted any of my crappy stuff either. But you can go back and find like stupid questions like, what does a rental property do? You know, like, yeah, like back in the beginning, like I had no idea what I was doing. You can go back and look at them all. Last question. Brandon, the author of the book on rental property investing. How do I get started reaching property? Yeah.

How do I do this? What is this? All right. Number, last question for you. Do you choose paper or plastic grocery bags? I choose plastic because then I can put them in each other and recycle them. Okay. Paper bags are just big.

Paper bags are nice for like crafty things with kids, though. You know, like you make like a puppet out of it. Paper bag? I don't know. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I don't. No.

Actually, you know what else paper bag is really good for? Microwave caramel. Honestly, you ever made that before? You like make, you like put the popcorn in a paper bag. You pour like the caramel sauce all over. You shake it up like a bunch and then you shove the whole thing in your microwave and cook it for a while. And it makes like the world's best caramel corn. I don't know why.

But yeah, inside of a brown paper bag from the grocery store, it makes really good caramel corn. Brandon will share this recipe in the show notes. I won't. You can find it online. But with that, let's get out of here. Mindy, thank you so much for being a wonderful co-host today. It was fantastic and it was a lot of fun. Thank you for having me, Brandon. I always have a good time talking to you. Thank you. We'll see you guys around. Take care. And we'll see you next week here on the Bigger Pockets podcast for BiggerPockets.com.

This is Brandon and this is Mindy. Signing off. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio. Simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the height, you're in the right place. be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. It's time for it's time for. It's time for.

The random five. All right. And we're going to come back in now and hit today's random five. So if you happen to still be listening at this point. Let's get some random questions just to get to know Ziana a little bit better. Number one, do you read books in print or electronic format? Oh, print. So I'm like a super.

library nerd. I like the smell of old books and I don't like to own them because I'm frugal. So I have a library just across the street and I just like, I'm in there. I love that place. Awesome. They're awesome. All right, Mindy. Okay. Do you, what is one very surprising fact about you that no one knows? That no one knows. Oh my gosh. What's a surprising fact about you? No one knows, Mindy. Give me like an example. Give me something to work with here. In 1999. I rode my bicycle from Seattle, Washington to Washington, D.C. You did really? I did really.

Wow. That's a long way to ride a bike. I didn't do it in one day. Are you sure? Was it two days? I promise. Did you camp? 48.

We camped every night. Oh, wow. That's impressive. So what's something nobody knows about you, Ziana? I've traveled to 44 countries and six continents. Wow. Wow. Why are you an Antarctica racist?

Yeah. Oh, my God. I applied to work down there, actually. I was even going to be a janet. to work there. It didn't work for me, which is okay. I think I'll go at some point. It's just the cruises to get there actually really pricey.

It's like 10 grand. Yeah, maybe you should get a job. I tried, girl, I try. They don't even want we scrub in their toilet. Like, pooh. All right, next question. What is like one, number one thing on your bucket list to do still? And you can say travel to a certain place you want to travel to or just anything.

What's one thing in your bucket list? I think I want to get married and have a kid. Is that like okay to have a on a bucket list? I feel like like I've had a lot of life. So like I want to see what that. That's awesome. That's the bucket list. You want things you want to do before you die.

Totally. I, you know, I've never really been that into bucket list. I think it's a weird thing. People are super into it. And it's like if I want to do something, I go do it. Yep. Like I don't want to sit down.

It's like a bucket list. Yeah. Kind of it. Kind of is. All right. Number four. Mindy, you want to, is that your turn? Or was it my turn?

Did you? Yes, it is. I don't know. I'm going to ask the next one. Okay. Do you think today's youth have it tougher or easier than you did? Oh. When you were growing up.

But you're like, you're really young. I'm 30. So, yeah. I mean, I'm obviously not like the last generation, but I don't know that it's that different. I think places they're going to struggle is like connection, which I think is huge. there's just too much technology in our way of like connecting with other people. So in that way, yeah, it's going to be a little awkward. But I think there's so many opportunities now.

And like the internet like pretty much Airbnb and Uber and Lyft and like all of these companies have created like micro entrepreneurs that all you have to do is have a phone. You have a smartphone. You can have a whole business. And like that didn't exist before. And so there's no reason that you have to work for a minimum wage if you don't want to do it. So I think in that way, it's awesome. Awesome.

Awesome. That's a great answer. All right. Number five of the random five and the last question of the day. Do you use an umbrella when it rains? No, man. I don't know. I can't even remember.

I don't even think I own one. I wish. So I just, you know, this is one of the great things about being early retired. Like if you're financially free, you're like, I'm going to just hang here. I'm going to just wait it out. I don't got to be anywhere. I work from home. It's nasty out.

Yeah. You know, choices. All right. I like it. Choices. Perfect. Thank you, Ziana. Thanks, guys.

Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K. Copywriting is by Calicoe content. And editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for our free newsletter, please visit www.w.com.

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