Business Innovators Radio - Making Money and Making an Impact: Business Innovator Andrew Alanis’ Short-Term Rental Journey

Episode Date: July 26, 2023

In this episode of the Agents Lounge Podcast, hosts Nathan Gaylor and Francisco Bermudez Jr. invite Andrew Alanis, the co-owner of 210 SDR, to delve into the thriving realm of short-term rentals. With an extensive background in business analytics and software engineering, Andrew shares his journey from a full-time career to venturing into the world of short-term rentals.The conversation kicks off with a lighthearted discussion about the best lightsaber color, setting an engaging tone for the episode. Andrew recounts how his foray into short-term rentals began as a means to earn extra income during the pandemic. What started with renting out his own property soon evolved into a family business, with Andrew and his wife expanding their portfolio to include multiple properties.The hosts and guest explore the unique advantages of short-term rentals over long-term rentals in terms of cash flow and property maintenance. Andrew emphasizes the importance of maintaining properties in top-notch condition and solidifying positive guest experiences to guarantee return bookings. He shares valuable insights on the screening process for potential guests and the benefits of partnering with reputable property management companies.The discussion takes an ethical turn as the conversation delves into maintaining high standards and treating guests the way one would like to be treated. Andrew shares his long-term plan for property owners, empowering them to take control of their rentals and build an asset with a substantial customer base.Throughout the episode, Nathan, Francisco, and Andrew discuss their experiences with different rental platforms, the significance of customer reviews, and the value of effective communication and expectations management. Whether you’re a property owner considering short-term rentals or someone interested in the fascinating world of real estate investment, this episode provides valuable insights and practical tips from an industry expert.So tune in to this captivating conversation as Nathan, Francisco, and Andrew uncover the lucrative world of short-term rentals and guide you through the path to success in this dynamic industry.About Andrew Alanis:With a background in business analytics and software engineering, Andrew found himself exploring new opportunities during the pandemic and stumbled upon the world of short-term rentals. What started as a way to make some extra money quickly turned into a full-fledged business venture. Today, Andrew shares his journey of building a portfolio of 10 properties in just one year, all while focusing on family-oriented travel in the vibrant city of San Antonio. Join us as we dive into Andrew’s strategies for success, from furnishing rentals to attracting the right guests. Stay tuned for expert advice on property management, guest matching, and maximizing returns on your investments. This is an episode you won’t want to miss. About The Show Sponsor:The Agents Lounge Podcast is proudly sponsored by Airtegrity Comfort Solutions, your trusted HVAC experts in San Antonio, TX. With a commitment to exceptional service and top-notch comfort, Airtegrity is dedicated to keeping your home or business cool in the scorching Texas heat.Visit their website at https://airtegritycs.com to discover the range of services they offer. From professional air conditioning installations to reliable repairs and maintenance, Airtegrity has you covered. Their team of skilled technicians is equipped with the knowledge and expertise to handle all your HVAC needs efficiently and effectively.Whether you’re looking for a new system installation, need repairs, or want to schedule routine maintenance to ensure your HVAC system is running smoothly, Airtegrity Comfort Solutions is just a phone call away. Reach out to them at 210-446-0105, and their friendly staff will be ready to assist you.Experience the comfort and peace of mind that comes with Airtegrity’s exceptional HVAC solutions. Trust their reliable service and enjoy the benefits of a well-functioning heating and cooling system. Visit their website or call them today to schedule your next HVAC service. Airtegrity Comfort Solutions, your go-to HVAC experts in San Antonio, TX.Agents Lounge Podcasthttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/turbopassusa-podcast/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/making-money-and-making-an-impact-business-innovator-andrew-alanis-short-term-rental-journey

Welcome to the Agents Lounge podcast, where we talk all things real estate with the industry's top performers. Join us as we dive into the inspiring journeys of successful agents and uncover the secrets to their success. Whether you're a seasoned agent or just starting out, we've got the tips and tricks to help you navigate the world of real estate. Brought to you by Eritory Comfort Solutions. So grab a seat and join us in the Agents Lounge. Welcome back. This is episode 8 of Agents Lounge Podcast. I'm your host, Nathan Gaylor, accompanied by co-oist Francisco Bermuda Jr. Also, owner of your security comfort solutions, and we also have some guests.

Co-owner and owner, rather than just owners of the handsley man. And a handily woman, I guess, is what we're pointing her for this shirt. Sir, and this would be the handley man. 20, 23, you could do what I would. 30 men, okay. Yeah, and the focus of today's episode is Mr. Gendrew Alainese with 210SDR. How's it going? Good, good.

I'll be here. All right, so before starting, I would just like to do an icebreaker question. What is the best lightsaber, Ellard? Oh, Grant. Of course. Do you have one? Yeah, red. Red?

What? Do you have a lot? I mean, just think of, you know, World One where Dark Raiders in the dark, he just lights up the red lightsaber. That's... It's just... It's just... It's...

It's just... It's down your spine and... And, uh... You know, uh... You know, I mean, business. And, um... I don't know. I guess the second one, if I were to get away from the dark side, I would probably

should be green. I like the green lightsaber. So, uh... Yeah, do you ought to be a preference? They're all of the Star Wars people, but, uh, there's so many different colors and meetings now. I'm just like... I'm going to say invisible so I don't get cut.

I guess for me, pink. I mean, with stickers, oh, yeah. No, it's been a good. I'm not sure. Whatever my daughter puts on it. I've always liked the purple one, but, yeah. I see you. I need to close the thing to pink.

Yeah, the purple. No, but I'm not. All right, Andrew. So just tell us a little bit about your background and how you ended up, would you do before you got into, um, at the Europe? Okay. Yeah. Um, so I'm actually, um, border-based at San Antonio. Um,

has been here on my life. It's kind of my community and my city. Um, I had a career mostly in business analytics and, uh, software engineering, which I still do a lot of times, but, um, you know, uh, how we got out into short-term rental, which what's STR means, short-term rental, um,

is really kind of, It's one of those businesses that you kind of, pandemic business, you kind of figure out, oh, what can we do to make an extra money? And I started getting to short-terming my own startup home. We have, we and my wife, which I'm a new home. And so that's the deal we started, and we thought, hey, this is really good and we really like it. Let's go ahead and do it. And we ended up having my mother-father-in-law who were affected by the pandemic,

you know and it lost their business in Opaso that was with the state and they needed something as well to do when they had a background in property maintenance and construction and so we kind of had our ground crew already there inside the family and so it kind of became a family business from there and once I saw one property do really well I was kind of just thinking in kind of a business mindset because it's not the only business I had started yeah but I knew that hey if something does really well it doesn't usually last for long. So then you have to really scale out while the good is going. And then when the tough times come,

you can already make things efficient and, you know, kind of do better than what those people, if you were to go into a bad market or, you know, a slow market. Yeah. And so that's what we did. And we started doing one property stage for over a year, which got us to about 10 properties at some point. So just a quick question.

So your first property was like your own house? Could have what you're saying? Yeah, it was a house where I was going to be a landlord essentially because let me get to rent it out. Yeah, we didn't want to sell it. And we just thought, hey, well, what if we just buy some furniture and, you know, rent out the furniture and make an experience? And maybe you would make a little bit more than you would be in a landlord. Yeah. How long did that process, say, for you, like, imagine listeners, they're like,

they wanted to do the same thing that you have done. So you buy a house. How long did you live in it? Like, how long did it take you to actually do that? Yeah, we lived in about a couple of years. Probably about three to four years. And then we're able to get another house. And then it took about about a month or so to month, a month and a half

to buy all the furniture and set it up. But in reality, I guess, you know, when you get into something, you don't know exactly how much it's going to be. You know, it's a lot of upside, but you don't really think about all the downsides or, you know, all the complaints or what could go wrong in the property. Yeah, all the things you can think about. Yeah, it is to see. And so what I think about with short-term rental or any other type of rentals, most people think it's really easy at first. And then once they get into it, usually kind of wears off after a few months because then they realize they're in practice.

They're in a subsection of property management, and what can go on and will go wrong, and you have to be the one that services it. It's a little bit different than a long-term tenant because the long-term tenant is living, and they can kind of rent a little bit, but someone who's paying for a stay wants you to come and fix it. Oh, yeah. Or give you a refund, you know? Yeah, so it's a much more hands-on type of rent-tee. Just a random question.

How, what did you all, are you all buyers? I don't have your own place. Yeah, we own. We own our own home. Yeah, we basically service and maintenance other people's properties. We don't own any properties of our own. Really? Yeah.

Although, you know, I did help friend managed an Airbnb for a little while. And so, like, I do have experience with that. It's an interesting market to get into because I would say one of the things I saw is that, like, it seemed like the quality of the, like, in some ways I saw. all like the structure being maintained a lot better, you know, because you're going in, like, as soon as they check out, you're cleaning up, you know, as opposed to when you have a long-term wrencher and things deteriorates. But you don't stay on top of that, though, and you start neglecting it. It goes downhill pretty fast. Yeah. So that's something I didn't think about. You just mentioned

it. The turnover, I guess, is so quick, right? I feel like it might, does that help with the mean it's of the place like is there the same like kind of check out check in process for somebody that's staying like in an Airbnb for like a month not as to somebody who's renting for like a year they've a lot more stuff that goes wrong if like you if you have somebody rented out for like a whole year yeah you know because stuff just falls apart and they just don't even talk to you about it and yeah yeah so it's a more of a headache unless it's an emergency I guess right so yeah they just live with it. And then you come in after they moved out. You're like, there's mold everywhere. And they're like, yeah, really,

yeah. It's just, yeah, and just a little bit of mold. Yeah. And I think that's the thing that I think you're right. A lot of people are amazed about when the first tier right. Because they don't think about that. I always tell them, it's actually a benefit that you have someone coming in and renting short term or midterm or 30 days of work. Because now you have those quicker places where you're going to have to check in and make sure QA everything works and not at least. And, you know, when I first started, so just to know, when we extended, we did not buy nine or ten homes in like a year. We just don't have the capital of that. Or he started working much like they mentioned. What I do is more for service

now. We start working with landlords that either be a richer, and stage or service ones that are ready furnished. And what's interesting is that a lot of landlords would say, well, why should, you should pay me more, right? I'm like, actually, I should get a deal because I'm maintaining a home a lot better than you would having a year-long tenant for exactly those reasons, you know, that we're maintaining and we're keeping eye on it or cleaning it every single week. Yeah, that's that a great point. So that would be a comparative advantage. Yeah, that would be like, this is why I would be a fit tenant or this is why you should do this. because it's actually, when people, they might think that, oh, people are going to be short-term wrenching or in and out all the time.

And so that's them make more rent care. It's actually better because you're going to have service people out there all the time. It's actually going to keep your asset a lot. I'll not nice or what we're telling you. It's a different style of wear and tear, but also it's quicker and easier to catch that wear and maintain versus a lot of homeowners, a lot of renters, long-term renters. they don't maintain so they live with something until they can't live with it anymore and then have a substantial repair bill. Right. Whereas a short-term renter in and out and then you go out and you see, oh, I can do some repetitive maintenance here.

Yeah. As a property management and then far cheaper. And I found it's a trade-off. You do have to deal with more frequent complaints. So when you have a long-term renter, it feels good because, like, man, you can just cool. You're getting your check on a monthly basis. You're moving on with your life. You're not even paying attention.

Right. Right. But it is a train off because after they move out, you're like, ooh, yeah, I wish I would have known about that before my property went to my, yeah. Back then. Yeah. So you can get that year pretty, like, co-sing for the most part, I'm saying. Yeah.

All dodged of those wrinkles, it's, you know, about any of all the errors because it gets pricey. Yeah. And every landlord who has red set up on long term, does this exact thing, you know. It's always when you move, they move out. That's when you get to do the work because it's, you're lucky if you get a renter who was completely clean and did everything for it. So I'm kind of curious with, so for like store terminals, what, what's the process for the screening new tenants?

So I love that you said short term rental, first of all, because Airbnb have become such a big, like a brand in the industry. Yes. But in reality, there's much more platforms in Airbnb now. There's a lot of other platforms. There's a lot of direct booking websites. There's a big movement for a lot of hosts and people who do short-term rentals to just make the own website.

It will pay the platform beat. There's a lot of sites like Boostley and other things like that. Mark Simpson has been a big, broken on that. But short-term rental, the big thing about Airbnb is that they do all the background checks. I don't know if you've noticed if you ever put a profile, but they do a lot of screening and they take care of the payments for them. Yeah.

Right. But when we get customers outside of that, we go through, we personally, our company goes to a vendor called Know Your Guest. I think the company was called SuperHop for a bit that they rebranded to Know Your Guest. And they essentially are the same thing, but they also have a little damage waiver or the security deposit.

And so it's kind of a service they provide. So we essentially, when they book with us, on our website or through any of these other platforms. Does VRBO doesn't do a backup check as much as I'd like to say. I mean, they probably do what it's not as, for what we've seen, it's not as significant as Airbnb. Really? And Airbnb is pretty good with it.

Yeah, I had to, I mean, I used to Airbnb before, but I didn't feel like I was getting, like, my credit background checked and, like, you know. Yeah, but I feel like one of the things Airbnb builds in is, like, constantly asking for user experience. And, you know, that boosts up your profile. And so the minute that something goes wrong, it's going to affect your profile and it's going to affect your ability to book another one. That's right. Yes.

And the reviewing system is a lot better at Airbnb. And, of course, there's an algorithm that says they don't admit this, but bad guests usually book with bad hooks. They don't have a match good host with good guests because they want everyone to be happy, right? And so, but a lot of the other ones, they don't really do. do that. It's just kind of a booking platform like booking. And so I remember we've had so bookings and

booking up comp has a lot more, you know, credit card. Like you have to go check on a credit card. Yeah. Or it's, it isn't the, you know, who they say they are. You have to do ID check. And so we just went, let's just have some know your guests do that. And that way, no matter where it comes

from, know your guest does a lot even bigger background check and ID check and all that stuff. And it just kind of took bad idleblower our hands and what's great is that they're actually, this is not an advertiser than them at all, but it's just a good product that they, I think they end up offering some insurance that's a lot cheaper than most insurance because the ones they screened, they have the data port. And so like if you don't, if they say this person's not going to

come into your place and you still let them, then they're not in it. Oh, there's not already cover their insurances and stuff like that. So they always love. Yeah, that's interesting. It's I have some like question popping in my head that like that y'all are provoking so naturally always think about like bad

um guests coming in or like it's just irresponsible or whatever it is what is a bad host to look like most of the time if you could generalize

about hosts I would like to hear what they think because of they're they hosted before well we did maintenance we did maintenance for yeah so

That's the thing, is you call us when things break. So a bad host is somebody who doesn't go in and fix things when things break. So we're concerned. Yeah. The minimum required. So a bad guest, I can give you an example, is they didn't let us know about things. Well, we were helping with this Airbnb. And what we did to clean out for them, it was like we had to clean out this Airbnb that had horrors in it.

They were boarding the pizza boss. with Pizza Crestle minute from nine months ago. Oh, yeah. Sand it up and things like that. I had to strip and basically try to save a gorgeous butcher block countertimes. That was a sad thing. That was destroyed. This was for some friends who turned their home into an Airbnb,

and they had, you know, they had antiques, they had linens, they had like, you know, like proper lit. They have nice things that basically just Yeah. Yeah, just come to destroy. No, that's, okay. And that is never a question. Has the way that this gift was there, was there

extended time not? Yeah, yeah, exactly, right? Designs a thing. And that's, that's, that's. This was college kids and they made the mistake of opening up there via being to longer to. Well, so mean, yeah, I mean, there's a mistake, but all mistakes, right? It's business

honors, right? That's the thing about, I think, They're learning opportunities. It was like, it was a response, but it was a response to COVID. People weren't traveling. And so, like, how are you going to, like, maintain your income? And then, fortunately, that also came with us. Yeah.

So one of the things I tell people who are going into being a host and buying furniture, I absolutely adore those short-term rentals and Airbnbs that had, like, antique and, like, their unique stays. They definitely need to charge the most for that because that's just all sorts of. But generally what my company has been at is the average word in a day type of family experience and travel. Because Santuang, it was a very travel-oriented city and they were also very family-oriented. And that's kind of been our bread and butter. And a lot of times with other owners who have maybe three to four bedrooms, which is a very family-oriented state, I tell them, hey, get sturdy,

reliable furniture as things that you don't have any erosion toward, but that they're also going to look modern and nice and in style. Yeah, for sure. You don't have to break the paint to get them because I'm also hearing from other people who have done this in other cities. And they go out and they get even nicer furniture sometimes than they have in their own, thinking that they're going to milk it. And I'm like, no, people will just damage and break it because they're going in and help.

you know, and unless you're aiming for a luxury experience, which if you're getting started out to any kind of real estate or long-term, late-term or short-term, luxury is nice, but that's usually not where people start. Yeah, and if you're going to get into that space, I would say, like, yeah, I would totally agree with you about not spending your money on high-end furniture or anything like that, because we've, I mean, we love using Airbnb in Italy. with but what's the world? I've restayed at the nice ones that have the antiques and all that.

And you're afraid to mess with it and Windows guests that aren't afraid to mess with things because they don't care. The best experiences that you've ever had. I mean, for the most part, it's just a nice, clean space, well maintained, fairly empty. Fairly empty, you know. Middle of, but with just like really, like, really mindful touches, right? So, like, a basket of... We had grace very sudden Airbnb

and Rockport that, like, made a point to, like, have, like, set out, like, beach toys and, like, a little cooler and, like, a volleyball. Are you sitting with you when you go to the beach? Yes. You know, and you can tell they didn't spend

a lot of money on it. It's a cheap... Herky and Bernic shirt, but just all the red and little things that you mean, like, right where... And so, yeah, one of those sonners can go where it doesn't have to be like you were saying high-end stuff. If you put fruit out or just some like basic breakfast stuff for them,

then that goes a long way to like his spirit. Or even, yeah, like I said, or because the thing is like the effort rate and I'm putting on my business center, like if you want it to get it to the space, maybe don't do that. I mean, just be mindful of the fact that like if you're going to constantly provide snacks and stuff out there, that's going to be a reoccurring charge, right? Yeah. And you also have people that have food allergies. But if you're going to see, but if you want to add a few little touches

and you're creating a space that's more family friendly, maybe set us like some games and or some interesting board games, or games, some interesting books, like, you know, just things like that. On a vacation setting, like, you love playing with somebody else's stuff. It's fun. Can you see the other books that they've never seen before? And toys are they've never played with before. Yeah.

Even if it's a toy they have at home, they will go nuts up because, oh, a toy, I don't even believe if this at home any work, but this is cool. I did to see. Well, I think, like, there's one that we went, too, that had, like, the little 3D viewer, and we're like, you know, they, like, must have actually gone to store and just on some cool stuff from the 80s, and we're like, man, if we had that when I was a kid. And then her, yeah. Francisco, sorry, did you have a favorite? Do you use it or maybe when you travel?

I was going to, but Melaleish. the Hilton son of us. You know, the only interesting is that people say, I mean, it is a competitor a little bit to the hotel, but it's actually very different because you get like a whole kitchen and you get like, you know, we've actually been experimenting a little bit with converting homes and these will be more outside the city limits, but converting homes into more professional stays where it's like per room for people who are coming to travel. Yes. And that would be kind of a Ken Chu and Brentford or, you know, a room. But that's a different experience of having a home to yourself with their. And I have a question for you. So there's a lot of Lailor-Chain St. Antonio, right?

What would push them to go into a short-term rental? And what's the difference between doing that themselves versus hiring somebody like you? Okay. So what would push them to come into short-term and a term is because some of them, some landlords, they don't know about the benefits of maintaining their hunger, right? What we just kind of talked about earlier is a big selling point. Because honestly, I was a landlord and I've had renters long term. And when I had this personal, I was kind of scared to let renters again be there for a whole year or two.

Even though it's passive income, it's not really as much of a cash flow as you would think because you have to keep money back to maintain the loan. And so a lot of people saying, well, if I go to rent to midterm, that's going to produce a lot more cash flow, right? I may have to invest a little bit into furniture, but I can make that back in about, you know, two or three years. And we've been operating for that long, and there's been still places that we still have the original furniture

that have been well maintained. So that's one of the things. And so looking at a bigger cash flow. And then the other question that you had was, doing it themselves versus hiring a company like your

well doing it yourself it's we went through a whole discussion about what you can do for all these little

things to make an amazing experience and believe me if this is something where you're by yourself and we have one listing

or one home that you can kind of maintain you can do all of that once you get to three or four it's it becomes a full time job

to do that exactly at that level And so I would say, I always tell people if you're going to start it, please get somewhere that's within like five minute drive. Don't try to get somewhere on the opposite side of town if you can help it. Because after you set it up, you are going to get annoyed by some of the things that come up. And some of them can be just simple things, but a lot of people like to be there and make sure the guest is taken care of right. And so that's why I would say if you don't feel like you can commit that amount of time,

then have a full service operator do it for you. And a lot of people think, oh, well, just get the cheapest operator out there. Here's the thing. When operators, they come and help you, they do a percentage off of gross sales, okay? Which is a pros and con. Pro is they're actually incentivized to increase your revenue, actually. And most of them probably know how to increase the revenue of a place and give a better experience more than you do because they've probably been hosting a lot longer.

They've probably been in the industry a lot longer. And so I would say that that percentage, based on what you decide and you negotiate with them, the higher it is, the more they're actually going to be incentivized to only work for you to make sure that they're getting more of a cut. And so it's a little bit different than the mindset of trying to, like, oh, I'm trying to bid for the lowest contractor, right? And I always tell people like, well, if you go with someone that's going to say, I'll charge 10% of the gross nightly bookings, and you only get 40,000 a year. But then you go and say, oh, this guy's going to make 80,000 a year in bookings. But he's charging 30%. We do the math, which one is actually going to give more money. It's going to be the 30%.

And so in that kind of scenario, it's actually good to not really look at the percentage as much as how much experience how they are. Are they booked in their calendars? Like, look at all their listings. They need to be booked two months out. If you ever see a host that has an open calendar in any of their listings, I would question them all that. Why aren't you reducing prices? Why aren't you getting occupied? And so those are some of the things that can kind of help someone to decide on a good operating. You want someone local. Don't try to get someone who's going to be a national company because they may help you a little bit, but you're still going to end up doing things yourself because they're not local. Well, I mean, if I owned a property, that's just too much work. Yeah, I really got time

to work from me to buy them and then since and the family. Imagine responding to emails, fixing things, responding at night. Like, I think it's definitely worth it to, to hire somebody to manage it. Yeah. And if you think about it, I mean, if you have no mortgage, and you just have to pay property tax. As I'm going to get a little bit more than the property tax, you're great. You're getting a little bit more than the mortgage bank. You're great. So, quibbling about the percentage that you're paying to the management company becomes, like,

as long as you're getting a little bit more than your mortgage, and they're managing everything, the maintenance, the repairs, the customer bookings, as only you get, like, let's say you get $50 a month over your mortgage on this, that you don't, it's basically hands off. $30 you didn't have before, and you're not really doing anything but paying the mortgage. And now you get equity. Yeah, you know, for basically not.

And then if you can build that up, even if he still have a mortgage on that property, a lot of the mortgage companies will look at, okay, he's had that property for like two, three years. It's doing really well for him. And then he gets a size to go buy another property, you do the same thing. They're going to be all about it.

And you can get more properties. And then you can hand that to that, a management company, company's going to be like, oh, yes, another opportunity at that same rate. Awesome. Let's do it because we're going to make even more. And grow yourself and you can grow that management business together. And the more properties you in and the more properties that the management group is managing for you,

the less they're going to manage for other people. And the more they're going to focus on you and you're going to continue to grow. I think your services are really great to incorporate into what I would call like sort of more of like a blue collar wealth management strategy. you know, a lot of people always like to talk about your side hustle and passive income. It's such like a great buzzword. But passive income is not as in at all. Right? And so, but I think that if this is a space that you want to get into, yeah, basically if what you're really getting into is more along the lines of real estate investment

and wanting to keep a real estate purchase as, something that you're going to develop in your portfolio, right? And you don't have the time, though, to be changing the sheets and fixing the light fixtures and fixing the broken furniture, then yeah, definitely like utilizing those services. You know, you just make that into the cake. Maybe you're not making as much money right now in the short term, right? But you're preserving your assets in the long term. It's like I'm in a stock broker, but for real estate. And in all honesty, it's actually a safer bet because you can't tell what stock is. States, I think it's always,

it's tangible, yeah. It's tangible. And it's also always, for the most part, the price of the property goes up, especially if you're making smart decisions when you do purchase property and then you're making a smart decision a foolish property company to manage it for you. And then

No, no, there's some risk, right? They just have to know your risk. But that's the thing. Yeah, that's the thing is, know your risk. It's always you're picking the right people. And then if you ever have to sell a property because you need a quick but it's easier than selling real estate or you mean it's so ready but so what this is kind of where I can at least give my little spill while I can because I feel like the when I we always start a business you're with what's a competitive advantage right what makes you different than any other there's a

lot of hosts and a lot of operators are in saturday and I've actually met a lot of them in the saturday austin area because you like to just trade tips and help each other in the community um with what we do, especially what I like to do with the owners, is I give them a long-term plan. I say, hey, initially, you can sign with me for a couple of months without contract. We can redo the contract any time. There's no cancellation for you nothing. You should leave me whenever you want, right? Make it very flexible. But a lot of times I have about a two or three-year plan I go over with them. And I say, first things first, let's get you on the major OTA. Let's go ahead and put you on Airbnb. Once you get that done in two or three months, we're going to work on your

behalf because we get a percentage or we want to work to make it more reverber again. And so we're going to put it on a lot of other platforms as well as Airbnb. And now we're going to start getting more of your emails and for either to where you own the customers. And so at that point, you're now thinking, wow, we're actually owning the customer data. And then I'm going to say, after six months, you can re-email those customers and ask for referrals, ask for people who are coming into need a stay. And then at that point, you go into direct booking websites. And now, after a year, you now, whereas when you started, you probably had

maybe 70, 80 percent of your bookings on Airbnb. A year or two from now, you have only 20 to 30 percent of your bookings coming from Airbnb with your IPO or any of those big platforms. And so what I just did for you as an operator over two or three years is now I've given you an asset that has an email list that has a customer list. And now you have bookings far out and are not just from AirVB, but are your own direct bookings that come from referrals. Because we've been operating three years. We get a lot of return customers.

If you provide a good experience and clean experiences maintain, people want to go back to that at then come to San Antonio. Because guess what? They don't want to guess how their experience is going to be with the new coasts. I have heard some host's horror stories kind of like what you guys have said. And I'm very worried of new hosts. that I try to pick on Airbnb when I travel too because I don't want to come to a place

that has like a leaky roof for something. Yeah. And so for the landlord, I'm telling them that's my two or three year plan. And guess what? In three years, if you want to sell that home, you're not just selling the hole. You're now showing them that you have bookings,

two months out, and they're all direct bookings. Right. And now that's actually worth more than just the hole. Yes, you're selling that investment business essentially. And that's something that I feel like is our competitive advantage is because no one really talks about that. I'm more in it for the owners to get the most out of this in this business relationship than it is about me just getting my cut. Right. And you're explaining where the book was there going from. So I feel like that's really helpful.

We are kind of running short on time, but I do have one more question that's kind of for I guess everyone is, I guess, heaven and Andrew for sure, but have you ever faced any ethical illness during your property management? All the time. All the time. Not really ethical. It's more treating people the way you would want to be treated, right?

Everything that you do, right? And you've got to try to put yourself in a customer situation. Yeah. And when you say ethical, it's more like, oh, you have to choose between good and bad. It's really about how would I like to be treated if I was in your personal. or shoes. And a lot of times, what I found the two major things is putting your expectations clear in the beginning with the landlord and the guests in your messaging and your communication. And then two, well, well, what is to, taking your expectations and having good expectations.

I send emails correctly and then the other one is communicating and effective. So like, yeah, you have somebody that stays at what somebody's location. that you're managing. And they're like, it has a weird smell. I didn't enjoy it. It made me nauseous and I get some money back. So I think that could, I don't know. I'm just firstly.

This is actually in general business, right? I mean, in the E to D you guys probably get this and handing my services, you probably get this. I would send this foot. Personally for me, now that I've owned a business, I come from the business side. I've been in that customer shoes as well wanting to get something. It depends. If you have good agreements and contracts, you can kind of define what is, you know, like, able to get refunds. So it has to be.

It has to be. Again, your expectations have to be up front with the customer. Yeah. And so we had a bad experience. Well, we think now, I would say it would be something that's a concern. But my first thing I would draw to say, did you give us a chance to go and mitigate it right away? And because it's one thing to have a bad smell and then complain about it and expect a refund and then have a bad smell and complain about it. And then we responded immediately and send somewhere to Ozo in that place to figure out what the end.

Right, right. And now we've overcome with that experience and now is there really neat for a refund. Exactly, yeah, that's a good point. It's like only way at a restaurant eating all the food and saying, oh, there was a hair man. Yeah, or says, oh, seeing the hair angling, calling a waiter over and getting the food. Immediately. Yeah. Yeah.

So that if they contact you right away and give you a chance to go and fix the issue and, oh, as a courtesy, we can do this. Great. But if they don't, then what can you do? Right. Regardless of your industry, right? You want your customer to have a good experience. Yeah. Right?

And so I feel like, and like, Daniel and I are definitely both the kinds of people that will really beat ourselves up if customer doesn't have a good experience, right? And so to a certain extent, you're willing to, in some situations, you're willing to take a little bit of a loss or whatever. Probably in our case because it's like crazy guilt or whatever. But it's also brand preservation too, you know. And so, yeah, so, I mean. What can one bad have reviewed? Yeah, but he doesn't. That, although at the same time, there are some people that are just, you can tell, they're just at amid the pot.

Out of blood, yeah. Yeah. So it's also people that take advantage to, you know, they're doing that true. There's nothing you can do about it. And so there's people that either coming into it with an attitude of, I'm just not going to be happy, and they're going to try to take advantage. There's some people that go into it and they just have a bad experience, and there's nothing you can fix that.

And then there's people that have a bad experience tell you about it. You go in and try to fix it, and they can see that you're making an effort. and they're going to be appreciative of what you can offer. Right. And you build a relationship out of those. The first two, there's nothing you can do. If you offer it and do what you can do, and they're not accepting of it, that's your... That's not the way.

Yeah. And those situations, all you can do is, like, do the best you can to, like, in your good conscience, know that you try to serve them to the best of your ability. And then also document it, right? So that way, like, if they write a bad review or they try to take you to small claims court or whatever, it's like, look, you know, you just respond to the bad review and say, I did this to try to make you happy. And you just put it publicly out there so everybody can feed your case. I think like, the house to have operations so efficient enough that you should feel confident if someone wants to take you to small claims court because you're like, yeah. we have the documented

that cleans it out so where you know you're really not you're not we don't have a lot for these here because we did everything reasonable right now so a lot of people have fears on bad reviews and even going like small clings court yeah um

it doesn't really bother me because if you put in the effort to put the expectations you put in the effort to put everything then you're covered then that probably is something that happens very rarely and so that's not something

really. How far will you get used to? Yeah, you're kind of a use to that, that hard skin and everything of that. And unfortunately, that's also what you learn by ruining the business. Yeah, they're right. Dilling with people in jail. Yeah. And yes, judges, so we'll be able to sniff out people wanting to just gross you for nothing.

And what if there's a Bible or a proper problem and that you need to go fix? The most judges, they've been around the block so many times that if you're doing everything right, all you do is just show up, let the judge deal with it. And then at that point, it's definitely out of your hands. It's just let the judge do his job, you know. Yeah. Thank you for all for being here, but that is actually going to wrap it up for episode eight. Thank you having, Daniel, Andrew, for coming by taking time out of your day on a Friday to give us some valuable. I'm grateful.

I'll appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for a lot, then yes. Yeah, I appreciate it. That's course. You've been listening to the Agents Lounge podcast brought to you by Integrity Comfort Solutions.

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