KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Turning Cabins & Homes into Cash: Design & Strategy!

Episode Date: January 2, 2026

Friday Focus is your weekly mini-series from KGCI Real Estate On Air—a deep dive into one theme, broken into tactical, easy-to-implement episodes. Every Friday and Saturday, we unpack the strategies, scripts, and systems agents use to win more business—without the fluff.Catch every episode in the series to get the full picture, and put these moves into play by Monday.Summary:In the booming market of Short-Term Rentals (STRs), a "nice" property isn't enough to guarantee a high ROI. This episode dives into the tactical intersection of interior design, guest psychology, and revenue strategy. We explore how to transform standard homes and rustic cabins into high-yielding cash-flow assets by creating "Instagrammable" spaces, optimizing for booking algorithms, and implementing dynamic pricing. Learn the exact design pivots and amenity upgrades that allow hosts to out-earn their competition and turn hospitality into a scalable business. Ready for more? Subscribe to KGCI Real Estate On Air and grab the Always Free Real Estate On Air Mobile App for iPhone and Android. Inside, you’ll find our complete archive, 24/7 stream, and every Friday Focus mini-series—ready when you are.

Tactical, focused, just like a top producer. Here's a sample from this week's Friday focus on KGCI, Real Estate on Air. Welcome to the Financial Freedom Mastermind Group podcast. Here we're all about breaking free from the 40 to 50-year work grind and accelerating our journey towards financial freedom. Join us every Wednesday at 7 p.m. Eastern as we explore different types of investments that can fast track your path to financial independence. We serve as a hub for connecting with fellow members during our sessions so you can share

successes, ask questions, and keep the momentum going. This is Neh-Hia Adewale, host of the Akaba Home Financial Freedom National Group. I'm excited to join you guys from a coffee shop where you can hear somebody crying over the speakers. I'm not joining from my computer right now because it's kind of acting up. This is the amazing thing about having technology and being able to work anywhere because you can make it happen.

And so this is going to be an open session today. If you're going to just jump in and we cover what you have top of mind and what you're talking about. So I'm excited to jump in. So we'll see who joined and see where the conversation goes. Lex, how you doing?

Hey, me. How are you doing? Come on now. I'm super good. Who is this? This is my teeth. You never met him. Hey, good to meet you, man.

How you doing? Good to meet you, too. I'm doing amazing. What about you? I'm super good. And pretty soon's the background noise. My computer's not functioning. I'm sitting in a coffee shop

that is getting a little loud, It's good to see you guys. Hey, the noise cancellation is blocking it out, so you're good. I can tell. Hey, come on, I appreciate it. You're doing amazing. You said you're doing good, too? I'm doing good.

I'm doing good. I love doing these cars because, again, we get to jump on and talk real estate and what you're trying to do. And I know that you guys are searching for this short-term rental. How's it coming? So that's a good question. That's the whole reason we hop on the car right now. So my wife has been meeting and talking with you guys for the most part. And kind of been coming back to me and saying, hey,

you know, this is the deal we're looking to grab. And then I'll look at the deal, but I'll look at the deal and I have my perspective on my thoughts. I'm not a real estate investor by any means necessary. But I'm asking questions that are good questions to her. And she's like, well, we need to hop on a call, you know, with the man himself and kind of dive into these questions. So the way it's coming along is, to make a long story short, we're looking to make sure we find a property that's like desirable, right, that someone can look at and be like, yo, I, okay, I want to stay there. But we don't know what those factors are. So outside of the actual numbers, cap rate, rental to purchase price. Yeah, we got all the numbers down pack.

We got the numbers down pack. But what we're realizing is that when we do look at some of these properties, some of these properties are like going crazy. And some of them are like, you know, and I'm kind of look at it like, okay, cool. They saw what? she's bringing to me, I'm like, baby, I'm thinking the property is the properties are desirable because of certain factors. What are those factors? I don't know. But it's outside of the numbers. It's looking like it's more so of a comestic thing. Like maybe having a mountain view without trees blocking or when you walk up to the home, the sex appeal or the appeal of the home, not sex appeal. I'm tripping. But anyway, you kind of, you kind of get. Or the wood and

versus draw. Exactly. I realize like the wood interior of the cabin homes versus the dry walls seem to be asking for more demand when it comes to rent, right? When it comes to the, not rent, but what is it called? The ADR. Yeah, the daily rate, great. I'm no mortgage expert, but just more so sharing my thoughts and my opinion. What we're running to is not understanding what factors that we should be considering outside of the numbers. Yeah. So that's really where we are right now. From the vacation home and Helen and Blue Ridge and Delangga area

to the properties potentially in Atlanta, Georgia. We're just trying to figure out from like an appeal standpoint because we are talking about selling the house. That's what we're really selling, right? Absolutely. Yeah. You're selling the house, but also the experience. And this is where, and I'm happy you brought this up.

where a lot of people, especially those that are a little bit newer to it, make the mistake, right? So you're looking at the house, which is great, but you also have to look at how are you going to design this thing and what are you going to bring to it? A lot more than the case, like the house itself is just the base. You need to be able to fit an X amount of people in it, and you need to have certain spaces, and you don't want it to look crazy beat up, right? But it's really about that design piece that's going to take it to another level. And so what I'm going to do, because I think this work now, but it's going to be a little, I'm going to switch Show over to my desktop.

Okay. Switch in five, four, three, two. It's going to work. Okay, see if this thing. It worked. Okay. And can you hear me outside the background here? It's actually better than what it was the first time.

Really? Okay, this computer's better. Nice. So, all right. What I want to do is I'm actually under contract with a different client on a shorts and rental. And so I'll just show you what that house looks like and how we run the numbers to find out, like, hey, this is the one that makes the most. Actually, we'll use one that closed. This is one that closed recently, right?

This one that closed like last week. So when you look at homes, right, I'm going to pull this up. And I'm sorry. How do you pronounce your name? I don't want to. It's a knee. Knee, knee like knee cap. Ney.

Okay, cool. Cool. Ney. Nice to me. And my name is Rateek, by the way. You said Rateeatis? Riteique. Yeah, Riteek.

Hey, good to meet you, man. Good to meet you too. Yes, sir. Ney. Okay. So I love this, the conversation. I know you're looking to do that Kossack. So we got to get moving on this.

And so let me share my screen. going to be a short-term rental as well. So you can see my screen, right? Yes, sir. So we're going to walk through a couple things here. So this is a luxury short-term rental, 17-25 children. And we just closed on it for 735 last week, right? And so when you look at this, the thing that set this one apart the most is it has a pool. What you want to look at when you're looking at comps is the amenities. What you want to look at when you're looking at comps is the amenities. What are the amenities that they have? Why are they pulling in X amount? And so when we looked at this one, it was a couple of things. One, it's a larger house. And so you can fit about 16 people

into here. Yes, there's only five bedrooms, but with 5,000 square feet, all you got to do is have a designer that's able to incorporate a design where you put two beds in a couple of the rooms while still making it super nice. And you're going to be able to get a lot of people in here, right? So this had a pool, which is what made it justify the price for being able to pull in the most them out and you have backyard space so one of the things we're going to be able to do in the backyard is we're thinking about putting mini pot which nobody has we're thinking about putting you know the grill and things that nature back there and we were able to negotiate in this deal keeping they have some gym equipment and a pool table in here so some gym equipment we're able to

keep this piece and they had a pool table in here that's pretty nice but when you look at the comps right you got to go to air dna and i'm sure eric's been doing this alongside here yeah Lex been doing as, well, she's been, I haven't met Eric yet. There's been a technician, man. He will, he, yeah, he's really good. He was in a data analytics for a large multifamily firm for like a decade before he moved over to investing himself and then joining our team. And so AirDNA is where we pull all the data from.

When it comes to long-term rentals, you're able to know using like Rentonmeter and things that nature exactly what you can get for a long-term rental. And for AirDNA, for Airbnb's, when you use software like AirDNA, this is how you know exactly what you can pull in from a short-term rental standpoint. So I'm going to plug in the zip code, 303-1-Up, right? Or 303-1, which is Cascade. And what we're looking for is the top short-term rentals. And we want to adjust this as well. So what we're looking at is actually the bigger short-term rentals, right?

So this listing's a five-bedroom. So we want to look at maybe four bedrooms and bigger. The bathroom we can leave. We want to look at people that are renting the entire place and the whole house. And so when you pull this up, you can see kind of the comps cross the board, right? Like, hey, what are these houses doing that are able to house? 16 people. That's the key. Housing 16 people and then the amenities. Now, why is this one pulling in 391 and this one pulling in 215? Well, there's two reasons. One, we actually manage this one.

It's a 10,000 square foot mansion, right? But it has a pool. This one does not. And so when you pull this up, first and foremost, you look at the reviews. That tells you how long they've been around. I don't know about you, but when I stay at places, I don't tend to leave reviews. And so if you have 300 reviews, You've been around for many. Oh, wow. This is pretty consistent. That tells you it's been at least minimum four, five years that this listing has been up, right? And they have 215K in annual revenue, right?

And so we're looking at this. And what's differentiating it is it's a bigger home, eight bedrooms, four bass, but they're allowing 16 guests. Now, in the house itself, there's not much special about it. Like, this is actually just okay. It's not really designed really well. Like, you can beat this, right? you can make way more than this.

And even in the backyard, when you get back there, they got a pool table, though. So it's like, okay, we need to have some games in there. They've got a couple of rooms with multiple beds in there so they can fit more guests. And I think that's one question, too, like, who's the audience for such a large, like who are the people that's actually, because the audience is really what it's all about. So who is the individual that's actually looking to stay there, the individuals? So the cool thing about being in the metro of Atlanta, so the mountains,

and the Metro of Atlanta are two different markets, right? For the Metro of Atlanta, you have 30 of the Fortune 1,000 companies based here, right? So people are coming for work and to do construction and build. You have the entertainment industry here, right? The Avengers, Stranger Things. All these things were filmed here and are filmed here because all the tax credits. And then you have people just come in to visit Atlanta and have fun with a large group. And so the people that are coming to stay in these type of properties are those that want to have their own privacy and also want to be able to bring a large group in to go and hang out there. We've done family reunions. We've had film crews want to do stuff like that inside some of our houses. At the bigger houses,

we've had people like Kai Sinat, Desi, who does a lot of like skits on Instagram, Usher, Monica, come and book our places so that they can go and do films and whatever and photo shoots. And so for the larger homes, you're looking at more luxury. That's what you're pulling in and you can house more people. So from my kids. Consistency standpoint, I know you have the movie, the films, the, you mentioned, you mentioned film, you mentioned, if you didn't mention families, from a consistency of like the people who booked the most, who would that, who would that audience be for, I mean, what we, do we only plan on getting a home net big, though, right? So that probably wouldn't matter, right, for those specific properties. Because every property. And I can go into the mountains, too.

We can talk about the mountains as well, right? Because the mountains is what's going to allow you to be able to put down 10%. I know that's why you're looking more toward that way, as opposed to in the metro. But to answer that question, it's mostly going to be just families and people that are booking for random. Like, there's so many reasons that people come to the metro of Atlanta. It's hard to explain until you're in it. All I can tell you is that when you're looking at the actual comps, these are the ones

that we're looking at that you need a beat to be able to pull in the amount that they're pulling in. And the reason that these are doing so well is how many eight bedroom houses or 10,000 square foot mansions or six bedroom houses, do you know that you can actually just rent out, right? Yeah. We need to come over and things that nature. Most people are buying these houses to live in.

And so when you look at that, that's a key differentiator in and of itself. That's a niche. That's a niche. That's basically the niche of that property. Got you. That's a niche. And it's not even nice. The one that's nice is doing 390K. It does 30 to 40K a month.

This one's okay. This one is a seven bed three bath, 113 reviews, right? 16 people. This is not really nice at all, but it's doing 121K. because it's a larger house, right? Like, look at this. You could beat this design, right? Like, this isn't...

Well, I never saying, nothing special. Nothing special in here. It's just thinking how to... But it's still pulling in money. And I think it's because of the size of it. So with us, what would be our niche since we're looking to buy a property that's... In the mountains.

So in the mountains or Atlanta, but I think it's up... Something like, something on a, like a four-five-bed-row. A four-five. Give me a property, one that you're not... One that, keep in mind, other people are going to see this. So give me one that you're not necessarily targeting, but one that you've looked at in the past, like up in the mountains. You got a property?

We do got a property if you want to purchase in the mountains, but like you said, keep in mind, people are going to watch this. It's one that I really, really, really like. I'm happy to review it, but again, I can show you kind of directionally

like, hey, this is how you look at that and what you're looking from the comps and how we got to beat it. Yeah, yeah. I can give you one example that we're cabin okay and i do i'm sorry why you're looking at up i do want to say one thing right quick so one thing that i did take away from you was the factors outside of the numbers because i again i know what you just said was kind of for the bigger property it's the size and then in addition to that i'm sorry it was a sub amenities a size that's the piece so when you're

in the mountains and i want to look at the property that you're looking at and i can tell you you don't want to fall into the, like, for example, in the metro of Atlanta, you do not want to have a three, two, right? Or like a three, two and a half. That is, there's a max to what you can get there. You either need to go smaller and make it dope or go large and make it dope, right? So either like a couples or family. Exactly. If you fall in the middle, you're going to make the least amount, even if you make it the most luxury property ever, right? Because there's just too many three twos to choose from. I was going to say that. It's just, it's just, it's, it's just the saturation of that, of dope, like, that's the most common. Yes. That makes a whole lot of sense. In the metro of Atlanta, that's necessary. That's what we're looking at. And the mountains is a little bit different. There's a bunch of different crowds you can appeal to. The smaller homes up in the mountains, right, like the two bedrooms, three bedrooms, those can be the couple getaways. We've helped a couple people buy A-frames up there, and they have been killing it. Like, it's booked 24-7 because people seem to like A-frames, right? And so, yeah, you got a property I can

look at. Yeah. She's looking for it right now. This one, we actually was going to put an offer on it and then we withdrew because we felt like from an exit strategy, it would be really hard to sell. So I would like to know, like, your opinion on that. And this would let you know, too. The reason we felt that way is because the bones of the property. Like, you never, like, the facet of the property, interior, how it was like, it was weirdly shaped. This was a studio for the couple.

studio for the couples. Oh, I'm sorry. It was it. I'm sorry. I'm talking about another. It's 139, Maple Ridge. Yeah, Maple Ridge. Remember we put in the offering and we told Eric to withdraw it. Why? Because we felt like it couldn't, we wasn't going to be able to sell it. You said 139 Maple Ridge? Yes, Maple Ridge and Blue Ridge. Maple. Maple Ridge, Blue Ridge. This one to eat, remember? Blue Ridge or Cleveland? Oh, Cleveland.

I think. Wait, is it the one? Yeah, it's that one. Yeah. Okay, okay, fair enough. Fair enough. Okay, so it's a one bed, one bath. Let me look at exactly what we're here. Yeah, and they already have it listed on Airbnb. What were they pulling in? Were you able to find it? Yeah, I got to look back at my note. It was like, I think it was like 50, 60. Yeah, this is the one. Yeah, this is the one I was seeing how this is the same thing I was just saying to him, but I felt like the, like the appeal. of the of the house itself exterior-wise wasn't appealing like in certain homes i've seen where it was like it was saying come inside and this one is not given that so that was like and that's just that's not really a decoration thing from my understanding i don't know everything but i was just looking at that but the interior was is beautiful that's saying come stay here but the exterior wasn't and that's why it's more modern because it's a new house yeah exactly so so i was just thinking from like a desirability standpoint, thinking about who the specific audience is, which would probably be couples, and how the front part can just be very inviting. Because we've stayed

in the mountains in Blue Ridge and DeLanga, Delanooga, because we're a couple and we love doing it. So we wanted to kind of like be desirable to the person who's actually going to stay there. Yep. Okay. So we're going to take a look at this. We're going to break it down live. And the thing you want to do is the opposite of what I was just doing before. So from a listing standpoint, going to take it on the smaller end. We're going to go zero to two bedrooms because that's the market you'd be going for for couples, right? Oh, oops. One. So we're going to go studio up to two bedroom because we're going to look at, this is your real competition when you're looking at that. So entire place, house, we're going to apply that. And we're going to see what the top

properties are doing and what they look like. We need to get Err DNA. I thought you had any day. No, Eric's just been sending me all the data if I haven't like, oh. You need to get it, So it goes a one bed, one and a half bath, right? 10 minutes to Helen, same zip right around the Cleveland area. And this is doing 98K annually. And you can feel semi-confident in that because it has 294 days available. But I want to look for a better cop than that because it only has four reviews. So I think this is one that's a newer listing, right?

Yeah. So you put that on the higher end of the spectrum of what you'd probably pull in. But when I look at this one, this has 206 reviews, two-bed, two-bath, that can hold six people, 71K. So let's pull this one in. So what this looks like. What about the reviews?

Because the reviews is something that he's considering as a part of the comparable concept. Like I only want to compare properties that actually have traction. And not even that. So the number of reviews, let's look back at this, right? The number of reviews tells you

how long the property's been listed, right? And that tells you how tight the numbers are. And so if you look at this one, this is available for 294, but there's only four reviews. That tells us, let's listen for long. So let's look at this, right? I'm going to scroll down to the room. So it's like considering that a comparable, it doesn't really make sense because it's not

to know, you can't say their stability or like it's been there for long. Exactly. Like, for example, this one bed, one bat, this is a comparable. Why? It says 365 days available, right? The actual revenue was 64.9. It's saying it's going to be around 58 this year, but the actual revenue was 64.9 in the past year, and they have 106 reviews. This is literally a comp because that home you're looking at is a

one-one, but yours would be newer. And so what you want to do is look at this and say, hey, what amenities do they have or what amenities are they lacking? And how can I get it higher from there? So that's just how you know. Go ahead. Got you. Well, what about the exterior? Would you, the factor I was saying as far as the desirability of the actual skeleton of the home, that's beautiful, by the way. That's hard. So this is on the water. That's hard to compete with. You do not want, this is not a cop. This is not a cop. It's kind of cool. Yeah. Design inside, this is very basic. Like, they literally just put whatever in here and it's because they got that lake. Because they got that lake. Because they got the lake. They're

pulling their money anyway. But go ahead. You were going to say, sorry. Yeah. So going back to that property at Maple, so you're looking for comparable to that property right now. But one of my questions was, is because of how that property is shape. Like to me, And I could be wrong. It doesn't look inviting. Does that make a difference in the, in the desirability of the home, considering that's really one of our biggest focal points? I want to make the property as a desirable as possible.

That way it can, you know, bring it will a way. Desirability takes into account a lot of things. The exterior, sure, but you've got to factor in that you're going to design this place. It's not going to just look how it looks. Like you've got a deck that wraps around that has a decent view it looks like. And so you're going to want to have amenities on there. If you go put a hot tub on that deck, it looks completely different, right?

If you put some, like, you know, a fire pit when you pull up, it looks completely different. So you just got to think about how you're going to alter it a bit. The thing I would say that I like about that property is that it's freshly built. I think it was built this year. And so you don't have any cap X for a long time, right? Like your cap X is gone. And I want to switch back to that other property here soon, too. Cap X is gone.

We may be able to negotiate keeping the furniture in here, right? Because you don't just put a pool table into stage. so you may be able to keep some of the stuff here. When I look at this, this is more of like, one second, me, we had a call coming. We had to come back. Okay, we're good now. We're back on.

Okay. So when I look at this, right, I think this is a hot tub. I want to say this is a hot tub. Yeah, it's a hot tub. Water. But they're keeping, they're leaving that stuff. Oh, nice.

So you already have amenities that are built in. That's a huge key, right, to saving you money. And then let's look at the acreage. And it's on a 1.5 acreage. lot. So what I'd be focused on is putting amenities outside of there, right? So you already got a little fire pit. What else can you put outside of there to make it dope? And I'll show you an example of one that we helped a client purchase A-frame and show you what he did. But this home right here, Purple Air, this is a one bed, one and a half bath, I want to say, 204 reviews that

pointed 65K. This is a really good comp for what you can expect to pull in, right? So you're looking at this. They got a nice little jacuzzi thing. That's nice. The bathrooms aren't as nice as the new one, right? And they got carpet going down. They do have a pool table. They have some nice views. They have a hot tub. So this is a comp. Right? When you look at that property, you look at this comp, I'd say you can roughly expect to pull in about 65K if you keep it sort of similar. But what I want to do is stop sharing for a second. And I want to show you an example of, uh, Joel, welcome, man. How you doing? Man, full unblessed, bro. Good to see. Good to see you. Good to see you. We made you. We you at the pickleball tournament, man.

Yeah, man. Had some other stuff on the schedule, man. That is fair. That is fair. I wouldn't want to get whipped either. I get it. I get him. No, I'm playing.

Okay, let me pull this one up. Give me one second. So this one is excellent. And I hope my guy doesn't get mad. But it's just free marketing for him. He killed this house. This is a home that's going to do about 150 to 160K this year up in the mountains. Okay, can you see my screen now?

It's loading. Yeah, there we go. Okay, so we hope my guy to do. you saw this one yeah it's really nice so we helped them buy this one we helped my guy put this one gave him designers and things that nature the house itself is cool it's an a frame but it's what he did in the outside like this little snow globe over here right with the heated the little scree like you see how you can do small things to where it's like wow I really want to come and hang out here now he yeah a whole concept completely different you don't got to go with that concept but what I'm

saying is the way that's fire right outside is pretty dull and I love what back There's an a frame for sale right now. I love the fact it's him Blue Ridge, which is only one hour from Atlanta post. I mean, I like, I like Helen, but Helen's like two hours away. One hour away is really, that sounds desirable for the Atlanta market. True. It comes with a different price point, but true. And when you start adding these type of things, the other house didn't have a sauna outside.

The other house didn't have a snow globe where I can go and have some wine with my wife in this warm globe, right? Like, you put those things there. Now you're starting to beat that con. So what you have on there meets the comp that we were looking at before, right? You've got the hot tub. You've got all those things, right? It's kind of cool. And what beats that comp is using that 1.5 acres to just put some stuff around it, right?

Who's to say you can't put a sauna next door? Who's to say you can't put some workout equipment, maybe some turf, right? And kind of make it really dope. But that's what we look at it. Now, need, will the resale for like the A-frame be hard to exit because it's so, like, need-specific? It's funny. So we helped our first client buy an A-frame two and a half years ago. And at that time, we were able to get it for about $5.50.

This one was purchased in January this year, and they got it for $6.50. So those A-frames go up. When you look at the mountains, we just help somebody put a deal under contract where we were able to get it for $750 and it's on the river. And it's a bigger house. And the home appraised for 906. Like, it's nuts. So in the mountains, it's a little bit different logic. If you make it a dope short-term rental and you hang on to it, it tends to go up

into the right over time just because there's a scarcity of how many you can build up there. It's not like new homes are popping up all over. You've got to run electric. You've got to own piping. It's not as easy to build up there as it is to build in the city. Got you. Got you. Yeah, yeah.

Great point. Great point. Did this help at all? I don't know if this helped. It definitely did. One thing was the fact that we was not using Air DNA. That's how, DNA, right? yeah we wasn't what eric's doing in the background for you right he's not yeah he's when he sends

you a property he's pulling all these numbers saying hey this is what it looks like yeah you should get that though yeah and then the other thing that you helped with was far so more so just mentioning like i said the factors outside of the numbers uh even though the numbers matter 100 but the factors outside of the numbers that makes the property desirable the amenities uh and then like you said not going from the whole three-bedroom, four-bedroom room thing, either going big or going small and unique in Atlanta. Yeah. So that definitely helped the whole lot.

So with us, I think we, I definitely want to do cabin. My wife, she's interested. I'm interested to do whatever you want to do. As far as like doing Atlanta market, making it an option if we have to. But I really want to go to the mountains. Blue Ridge will be hands down where we would love to go. Yeah, that's where we really want to do so. a long story short it's just now that we have this information we should be able to make a lot more

you think so yeah yeah yeah because i i just was like they i want to make sure we got something that's going to do well i don't want to do i i want to do because i'm big on i'm a marketing guy i'm big on marketing marketing yourselves is my thing and we're thinking about you know more so creating an instagram page for the property that's the piece yeah yeah you're gonna do all this you want to you want to be able to put the amenities in there where you get excited about like hey, we're going to do this video, and you can take it to the next level. And it's not just Airbnb, it's VRBO, woken.com, your direct site will help you with all that stuff. But it's about finding that property and getting going there. And yeah, if you can find

those amenities and add on a couple more that other people may not have that are in the comp range, you're going to be off to the races and to the next level. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So one last thing, I'm sorry, I'm going to. And I got a last question too. When it comes to comparables, I guess the the biggest thing is just making sure we find comparables that is in line with the subject property as far as like amenities, because some amenities we can add it and some we don't. Like, for example, like a mountain view versus a non-mountain view, that will make a big difference, right? Exactly. Like that lake one, we had to eliminate that, right?

We're not on a lake. And that lake property is going to cost a bit more. But if it's an amenity that you can add, you keep it in there. For example, property with the pool in Atlanta, that's a huge differentiator. There's not many properties with pools. When you have a pool, immediate six figures, immediate. Like, you're immediately going to six figures. And the mountains, if you're able to have some of these other pieces, right, whether it be a view, whether it be, hey, we're near a river.

It's hard to replicate that. So, yeah, that's an important piece. Got you. And the last question I got for you. And I appreciate you so much. Thank you for you, Tom. The question I got for you is when it comes to the factors outside of the amenities, is there any other factor you would say is, largely need to be considered, like things you need to be considering outside of the actual amenities.

Outside of the actual amenities, just the design in general. And to that point, did we connect you with the designer or did you say you had a designer? No, we don't have a design. We need a designer. Okay, okay. We'll send you the contact for that individual that we utilize for a lot of our properties and for clients, but would highly recommend at least having a conversation. Because I've put a couple together myself, at least the first two or three that I did. One, it's a lot longer anything. And two, just when you're doing all that and in the weeds, it's hard to take a step back and say, hey, does this all kind of mesh together and what are we going for here? It's better to have an expert that does this all the time so that you can stand out. And that's

why that A frame looks crazy, right? Because he had a designer come in and just, hey, this is what we're going to do. And he's like, dude, I'm pulling in money. Yeah. Okay. And would you recommend hire, like, speaking to that designer now or like waiting. When we're under contract? Under contract. Wait until we're under contract. Probably when you're under contract, but we can connect you now just so you can be ready for it. But when you're under contract is when you want to talk to them so they can actually look at that and give you some ideas. Like, hey, this is what you hear and go from there. Okay, cool. Anything else you want to add? No, man, this was this was good, man. This was really good. Come on. I see you in a Pesla, man. Yeah, yeah. This is what I know.

Thank you, bro. Thank you. This is what I know we needed, though. This is what I knew we needed to just gain more insight because me and my wife together, we make an amazing couple, but obvious, but I just wanted to just dive into the specifics of the factors outside of numbers, because she was hitting the numbers in the head, but I'm like, hey, that probably don't look too appealing to me. You know, and I want to make sure we dial that

into, so this definitely helped with that. Is there anything else you want to, you want to add? Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool, all right. I'm pumped for you guys. I think this is going to be an awesome journey, and the key is right now, just getting it up and running before end of year, so you can still get those tax credits, because that is a huge savings. Believe me, I know

you're looking at that. It's a lot going on. Yeah. Yeah, 100% definitely. Okay, cool, cool, cool, man. Well, we'll be in contact and I appreciate you a lot. Thank you, man. I hope you're having a good day, man. Hey, come on now. Be safe. We'll catch you later. For sure. All right, bro. Peace, man. See ya. Joel, how you doing, man? Man, I'm feeling good, bro. Having a blessed time over here. Come on now. What's you working on? Man, shoot, these days, but I'm trying to get this. So I just, I'm over here finalizing my funding for the Airbnb property I'm trying to get started up. Nice. Yep.

And I just got on the final wall, so now I got the team. I signed over the paperwork, signed the agreement, so now they're getting everything worked out on the back end for funding purposes. Nice. That's where I'm at now. Now I'm just looking for a good location to do my first Airbnb outside of this home. Come on now. I'm excited for you.

And are you targeting Metro? Are you targeting, like, mountains? What are you targeting for? Right now, for the first one I'm looking for just the Metro Atlanta area, specifically, probably a location around the Braves Stadium. Okay, Marietta. Yeah, yeah, Marietta, Sandy Springs area. Somewhere not too close to Atlanta where there's a lot of maybe more ordinances and restrictions around full-term rentals.

Looking for Airbnb-friendly building to start just to kind of get my feet wet, get doing with the process, find my cleaners, and kind of get the systems up in place. Have the business structure and everything at LLC formation and going to be having that accounts and stuff. So just really trying to get started just to kind of get the system going. So that way I can just replicate it after this one. Come on now. And I know we talked about it before. Arbitrised is not necessarily my thing only because I want to own the land. But if it's the first one to try to get started and see if you like this thing, I'm all for it.

And I got to brag on Marriette, like on that whole area. So here, I'm going to share my screen. This is one that I have. And can you see my screen? Yeah. This is one that I have up there. we put together a couple years ago. We made it sports themed because, you know, you got the ATL battery.

And we purposely chose Marietta because you're not paying the same prices as Smyrna and Vining's, but you're still only 15 minutes away from the battery. I had one of my guys who's an artist, just he put all his art in here. We put QR codes to people who can buy his art, and he did some cool murals on the wall. And it's been jumping, especially during the summers. There's a lot of people for bigger homes that come up for, like baseball tournaments like travel you know how you growing up you play like travel basketball or aAU or whatever there's like aAU baseball i'm not a baseball guy so i even know this but they

travel up like crazy during the summer and and they stay in homes like this near the cob center sports center and and they just play games so like your calendar will be fully booked well in advance for this type of stuff yo man that is dope man come on now yeah That's a nice sporty experience, it seems like. Yeah, it's all about trying to, you know, create that experience for your guest. Either that or you got to compete on cost. If you can create an experience that's like, hey, I'll pay a bit more to go and stay there. That's ideal.

Other than that, you've got to compete on cost, and that's not where you want to be. You don't want to be fighting for the bottom. Yeah. Can you repeat that part? You was talking about fighting for the bottom. Yeah, you want to make sure that your spot as far as when you look at the comparables, is just a step higher, right? You want to make it shoot for more of the luxury, like the top of the market, because if you fall into that bottom 80%, it's a rush to the bottom. Now people are trying

negotiate with you on price. It's a lot going on as opposed to being able to call your shot, right? To an extent. Now, you're talking about going after smaller units, right? Like a one-bedroom, two-bedroom? Yeah, just to get started. Smaller, like one-bedroom, two-bedrooms, just to start out. Okay. It works. It works. There's only going to be, there's going to be a cap on how much you can charge, right? Because at certain point, it's like, okay, I'll just go get a house, right? or a three-bedroom, but it can definitely work. The only other piece I would watch out for, and I know you're probably already doing this, is some of these buildings try to double-dit, right?

Like, you'll be paying rent, but then they'll also say, hey, we need 25% of what you're bringing in from an Airbnb perspective as well. Like, hey, we're Airbnb-friendly, but we need 25% of that. And that would kill a business, right? Because that 25% is what you're using to pay the cleaners. It's a part of your profit and things that nature. And so just be careful of that. Like, make sure you fully know, like, hey, what are we doing here?

And are they actually going to play ball with you and not take you out of the business? Oh, yeah, 100%. Definitely. I'm definitely running the numbers, making sure everything, especially these agreements being signed. Because I noticed that with a lot of these buildings, they have change in management. And so they may not be agreeing to the original terms. So definitely going to make sure those legalities are in place too. Come on now.

I'm pumped for you, though. What's the goal of getting started? You're talking about numerical, like month a month? Yep. Well, profits, for the first one, profits anywhere from maybe 19 to 2,200, if possible, just starting out consistently. And then, shoot, from there, we'll see what, and then I was telling you, of course, about once I get this in place and then, you know, work around to, of course, I'm going to try

to get some more properties in terms of ownership, but then also then once I get everything set in terms of the systems, taking it internationally as well. Come on now. That's the stage that we're at trying to go international. And Hmong, how you doing? Yes, yes. I'm doing well. Thank you for asking.

Come on now. How is the property search coming? And what's top of mind? It's going while. I'm actually kind of still debating on like different cities that I want to invest in. And then like short term versus long term. And with all of the changes in my life that I potentially going to move soon somewhere to HouseHack, which is also on the down the line. So, yeah, there's just a lot of things going on to see what's my next step.

Well, Mong, I know I've said this before, and I've pitched Atlanta to you before. Yes. Love to have you down in the south. And there's just a lot of good things going on here. And so when you're looking at different cities, other than work, what else are you considering from a city standpoint? Are you looking for a place where you can continue to invest over time or what's top of mind for you? Yeah, yeah. I think I was going, for example, my first one was in awesome.

which was like a very hot market back in early 2020 2021 yeah and then now you know it was like overpriced a little bit at that time and then now I'm kind of a and then I start to explore North Carolina which is also a hot state for population growth and all of the industries growing like finance or the or like the Riley area and then now I move to see Seattle because of a kind of work and I also started to explore Ohio because it was really like part of my looking at my portfolio, right? Like I have different places. I want to diversify it, but also in the portfolio, you also want different types of properties, right? There are the appreciation ones. There are the cash flow ones. And different cities also have its own strategy. So yeah, I'm kind of just looking at what's my next step. I was kind of.

considering like burr to start for my next project. But honestly, it's kind of a probably require some like work, more energy. So I'm kind of hesitating maybe start the first one small in somewhere in Ohio. You know, just like a cheap one before I get into like a bigger or projects or like a multifamily kind of deal. So yeah, it's definitely on my list. I know it's also a pretty hot market. And then I have a couple of friends actually owns property there. And I saw them like getting one or two.

And then I had a friend who actually has a condo there for maybe four years now. And it's been going pretty well. So it's also always on the top of the list of attracting the most investors at a moment. So also still on my list on my brain. But I think as you mentioned before, Atlanta is done. probably more competitive and with a lot of the investors with more opportunities and also higher risk as well. So I am looking. I am exploring, but at this point I'm like, let me try something small and just to get my foot wet and then get some bigger things when I'm more confident

with more like either renovation or some like flips down the line. I would say two things, right to that. One, when you look at Ohio, like people get attracted to Ohio for the same reason I was attracted to Louisville, Kentucky, which is the purchase price. Like, man, you can go get a what for how much? The first triplex I bought, which was a house hack, was $190,000 for a triplex, three units. And it wasn't like just, you know, sticks. You know, it was legit triplex. And it was amazing. That was back in 2016. You can't do that anymore. But that house came with a lot of weird quirks. And four years later, when I sold it, I was able to sell it for about 100K more, which is awesome in a lot of respects. Whereas in Atlanta, I bought a fourplex in 2023, and it's already worth a little over

100K more right now, right? We just got it reappraised because we're going for a refinance to lower our interest rate, and it's nuts. And so when you look at some of those markets and going smaller, absolutely there's a game plan and a play in there. But if you're not going to stay in that market long term, I'd more be focusing on two things. One, If you're going to be moving, a house hack is a way to limit your risk. You're only putting down three and a half to five percent on the property. So you're barely in it. And you can run all the numbers on it and get inspections and still pull out of the deal

before, you know, anything happens. That's one. And then two, I'd be looking to invest also in my backyard where you can go and drive by and see the property and know the neighborhood. So if you're planning to move somewhere, I'd be targeting that sitting for the investment as well as opposed to moving somewhere and then still trying to invest further outside of state if you can marry those two up what are your thoughts on that yeah actually i was thinking that as well i was like at this moment because i couldn't really move until like potentially

early next year um so at this period of time because i still have like i don't know three four months left and that's where i was like okay maybe remote or like a long-term investment at this point for me to explore and then for when i can move again i'll probably pick say that's say at lantan And then I'll be moving there and then start my explore. And both of the houses will be like different criteria, right? So like my budget probably for like house hack will be higher because I'll be living there. You know, I will have like a lot of family versus in if I'm doing anything in Ohio, that would be like small, right?

Something like 100, 150K and then something just small for me to start versus like summer in Atlanta is probably going to be a little bit higher because I can put lower down payment and also I can live in as well. So that's my plan for now because the Leridge is like right now before I can move, I am kind of like looking at the deals that's out of state and cheap.

After I move to a city, that would be a completely different strategy that I'm focusing on, like as you said, like house hack. Yeah, I'm kind of just like still exploring the cities, but Ireland is definitely on my list. The only thing I'm hesitating is that it's too hot

right now. It's It's very popular. A lot of the investors are in and then it's on the top of the list for all of the recommended city for investors. Right. So it's like the time when Austin was super hot. And, you know, I said, okay, I get it in. Is it going to be like really high price point and then lock me up? And then the price starts to drop like, I don't know, down a couple years. That would be my kind of only concern at this moment. But yeah, I was wondering. your thought of like, is that like too hot right now for me to like start to consider or is it still have like a lot of potential to grow? So the cool thing about investing is it's all about the numbers, right? If you're not looking to sell next year and do a flip, that piece and you're looking to hold on long term, that piece kind of takes care of itself. What I focus on are, hey, are the fundamentals and do the numbers work on this deal?

And then over the next decade is this is somewhere where I want to own. And so when I look Atlanta versus a lot of other cities, the thing that always stands out is what I mentioned at the top. There's such a diversity in employment here and so many more people moving their employment out this way for that reason that it's not like one industry can take Atlanta down, right? It's not like the tech industry you could just take Atlanta down or, you know, and things that nature. Delta's not going anywhere. Home Depot is not going anywhere. As far as I know, Coca-Cola's not going anywhere. FedEx isn't going anywhere. Like all these places are based here, and they're making a lot happen. Even like all that happened with the new

administration, right, with like the CDC and things that nature. The CDC is based in Atlanta, and they laid off a lot of people with that piece, but it still hasn't affected kind of the growth and trajectory of what we believe is going to happen in the city over the next five to 10 years. And that's why a lot of people are coming. Not to mention, when I look at next year and what happened to Atlanta 20 years ago when they held the, really 30 years ago, when they held the Olympics here, the 96 Olympics, and what it did to the city by putting down the map, I look at the World Cup as doing the same thing from an international standpoint, being able to have the semi-final games here, depending on which teams are here, the city's going to be flooded,

people are going to be seeing it for the first time. It's going to be on TV and all those stuff to help it have another boom potentially. So I just live what I preach. And the reason that I moved from the northeast down to the south coast was to pick a location where I can invest over the next decade. I chose Atlanta over the North Carolinas, over the Florida's of the world, because I believe this one is one protected a little bit from some of the natural disasters because you don't have an ocean right there, right? You have Florida kind of protect you on one side and Alabama on the other side. That's one and two, the diversity of employment. Gotcha. Okay, that makes a lot of sense to me, actually. Thank you. Of course. Come on now. Joelle, what else you got,

man? Anything else? No, no right now. Right. In the meantime, I'm just kind of looking towards Another thing is the tax strategy, tax savings. So I was able to connect with someone who I'm having a little bit of trouble getting back with. But we'll see what's going on. I ended up touching base inside my network for the standard and got in touch with a good financial planner. And he also connected me with the CPA who specializes in real estate. So I'll see how that goes. That's the main piece.

Honestly, and Monk, you asked this earlier, the reason to go short-term or long-term rental. when I was in the W-2, I was in medical device sales. And there was some years where we had blowout sales, like a lot of dollars. And then you look at the check and like 40% of it's going to Uncle Sam. I'm like, what the heck? And so short-term rentals, especially if you have a lot of active W-2 income, can do two things for you. One, it can save you significantly on taxes. Like one of the deals we reviewed earlier with Lex and her husband is because they want to save money on taxes. And I'll give you an example. For that $400,000 house that I bought, which is that luxury sports art gallery I showed you earlier, I saved about $75,000 in taxes by doing a cost segregation and taking that bonus depreciation in the first year. And that was significant.

I did the same on a fourplex that I bought two years ago for last year's taxes. Because I had half of it as short-term rental, half-vis long-term rental, I was able to do a cost sec on that and save about 150, 160K in taxes. And so it's a way to shelter some of your income as you start to get to the short-term rental game, but Joelle, the caveat to that is you got to own the property, right, for the short-term rental piece. Other than that, the long-term rental still give you tax benefits, but it's going to be slower and over time, right? It's going to be over 27 and a half years, and you're going to get just a little nugget each year of tax savings. Does that make sense? Yeah, I guess like, sorry, I was trying to understand that for the tax

part, like segregation, I will have to live in the property for the, short-term rental to be able to deduct my tax? No, no. So that's the whole thing. You don't want to be living at that. Oh, okay. So with the short-term rental, you just go buy a short-term rental. You can put down 10% because of vacation home loan. And in that first tax year, right? So say you get a vacation rental right now, right? Before December, you put it into service this year. Like you have one person stay there this year. For tax season next year, you can do a cost segregation study at it. The cost segregation study is going to run you about three grand, three to five grand, depending on you know how big the property is and they're going to be able to put together a whole engineering report where you essentially give it to your CPA and it saves you roughly 20% of the 20 to right yeah roughly 20% of the purchase price is what it saves you in taxes which is pretty significant oh wow okay so I guess um my follow-out question that I'm not really able to do it at this moment but I'm probably going to do it like next year um I own my short term for uh four years now four or five years

And then I've been running it for about two years, I'll say. And can I still do it for the, like, next year? And it would be the same thing if it's not the first year. Yeah. So is it a long-term rental right now or short-term rental right now? Right now is short-term rental. Perfect. Yes, you can.

As long as you had short-term rental and you can show that to the CPA, like, hey, this is a short-term rental last year. Here goes the bookings. You can do a cost-de-you-do-a-year-one. It just makes the most sense the first year you put it in the service, but you don't have to do a year. You can do that cost-sec this year, or, or next year for this year's taxes if you want to save for this year's taxes because it's already

a short-term rental that's active. I see. Okay. That's good to know. Thank you. Of course. And if you need a CPA or help with that piece, let me know. And I can send you the what person I use for that. Yeah. So for the CPA-wise, like, are they going to be like doing all of different states? It will be the same person or are they going to focus on like a one state particular? Yeah. Ideally, you want a CPA that is well-versed in real estate, across the 50 states, right? Because it's not much changes from that standpoint with that piece. So the CPA that I use works across all 50 states and they're focused on real estate investors. The cost segregation firm that I use is also able to do it across all states. For smaller properties,

they do like a quote-unquote drive-by, we'll call it. They're able to do it from afar with pictures, with videos with the appraisal report. For larger properties, let's say 500K or more, they have to come in person and send somebody out to actually look at all the things. to do a cosset. Okay, got it. Yeah, that'll be great. If you can send me the recommendations for CPN, the segregation. Sure, wrong.

I got you. And Joelle, you were going to say? Oh, no, yeah. Yeah, so that's basically what I'm doing now, is trying to build the support team. I have the information about trying to get cleaners. I get a good cleaner. And then definitely once I'm just going to,

I'm just kind of going full speed. I'm more so in a position now where I'm just trying to take action very quickly. I'm going to, a couple pieces I'm going to need is definitely probably internal design. That's one thing. And then on the tax side of things also, I'm going to connect with the CPA that I haven't connected with them just yet. But I'm going to see what they're working with, see what's going on. But yeah, if you have any recommendations for any good CPAs in the Atlanta area,

definitely open to options right now. So I'm shopping for a good team. Come on now. Done and done. So CPA and then interior designer. And then you said cleaner? Yeah, yeah, cleaner as well. Okay, done and done. So with the cleaner piece, this is one where as you grow and you continue

building this crazy business, you're going to want to have a couple options. And so I actually work with three cleaning teams because we got 30 properties that we manage, including the eight that we own, right? And those cleaning teams, we have different metrics for them. And so long story short, we have three that split all the properties. And if there's like an issue at one of the properties that a guest reports, we have a three strike rule. Where if you have three strikes within three months across any of the properties that you're cleaning, we take that property away and we give it to somebody else. And that has helped keep all of our team in line. Now, with one property, you don't really got to worry about that as much. But as you grow,

you're going to want to get more cleaners because they're going to get busy. And not every cleaning team is good at expanding. For example, when we first started doing all this, we tried to have the same cleaning team grow with us. And it got to a point where that one person was working seven days a week trying to clean like 10 properties. And that's not sustainable, right? It's just not. If you got four checkouts in the same day, that same team or same person, unless they're really good operations, may not be able to do it. But that's something to think about down the road. Not for the first one. The first one, you should be solid. Second one, probably solid. We start getting it three or four. You may want to start looking and saying, okay, can this person expand

or do I need to get another person to take the additional units? Understood. Yeah, that's one thing. I like that. The three strikes are out strategy. That's nice. Yeah. It definitely helps because you get busy doing a lot of other things, right? Like, I know. you're busy. I know Mung's busy. I'm busy. Actually trying to help clients and things that nature. And so you want to just as much as you can set boundaries and be very upfront with those so that people know and they can almost hold themselves accountable. Now they know like, oh, man, if I mess another one up, I'm going to lose property. And it's like, hey, we talked about it up front. So one thing I definitely want to know is like also for like your cleaners. Do you more so specifically set them like on 1099 contracts or is it just based

off the preference. 1099. So as much as you can, 1099, we don't really do anybody W2 like that because you're getting paid per clean. And then we pay our cleaners through quickbooks. So it just keeps track of everything. And initially, all your cleaners are going to want to get paid immediately after cleaning, which is understandable. They don't know you. You're trying to build a relationship. We've gotten to the point now with the size and scale that it would drive me crazy trying to do payments every day. And so now we pay on the first and the 15th, it's a lot easier. So we just pull all the cleanings for the last 15 days, send that payment out, and kind of go from there, through QuickBooks. Got you, got you. Okay. And then another thing, so I'm kind of just running through. So funding,

funding-wise, got the funding out of your big things, got a chance to locate the property, approval through the front office, wherever it's at, got everybody moving to furniture and getting everything designed. So the designers, you have any recommendations on any good designers? Because I know there's a saying that sometimes a woman's touch is best. And so, yeah this is true this is true so i don't have a design mind i'll be the first to tell you like my my design is like clean right like i'm looking i'm like okay this looks clean i like i can move around but when it comes to putting colors and pops a color and like hey we're going to make this an accent wall and this is all going to blend together and we should put a neon sign over here

and here goes the string lights i'm not the one to put it together and so i highly recommend if you want it to pop to have that conversation i will connect you after this um at least to see like hey, is this within my budget or not? Now, you can do the research and the work and look at all the other B&Bs, see what they're pulling in, see, okay, what do I need to put into this house and then buy this stuff and do it? I just know it looks a little different when somebody else does it. Just like when I iron my clothes, it looks a little different than when the dry cleaner

delivers it to be ironed. I'm like, man, why is there as all like crisp in mind looks a little beat up? I hear it for sure. Let's see. What's another piece? So after they're designing everything, set up, systems are in place. In terms of tax savings, I know you separate your business from your personal expenses, see.

So the easiest way to do that, too, is just separate bank account. If you haven't already just open a new bank account and put everything for the Airbnb in that bank account. Yeah, got you, got you, got you business. And then for the CPA fees, if you have any recommendations on that, I'm definitely still shopping. I haven't kind of dialed in. I'm going on, what I'm going to do is probably just compare it, contrast, see what

different people's price ranges are, see what services they've had, you know, kind of just do my due diligence on that. Come on now. Nothing wrong with that. And I hate to cut this a little bit short. We got two minutes left. I'm going to get kicked out of here because I'm in a coffee shop. But Joel, Mung, I appreciate you joining us this evening. Again, we do this every Wednesday from four to five. We change the time from late at night because I'm a early sleeper now with a newborn. And so we do from four to five. And so I appreciate both of you guys joining. And I look forward to seeing you in the future. And I will hit you with the follow-ups. It just may not be right now. It may be early tomorrow morning with the connection. Sure. Awesome. Thank you. Of course. See you guys. Be safe. See you. Yeah. Join us every Wednesday at 7 p.m. Eastern as we explore different types of investments that can fast track your path to financial independence.