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Show Notes
[00:00:00.310] – Christine
Wanted to enjoy the house. We love our house. And that was something that’s really the heart behind this whole story, is we bought this house, we gutted it, we redid it, we made it a beautiful area, and we were like, we want to share this with other people. Like, it’s just we love it, and it’s fun for us to come back and visit, but it was so much easier to just move out and not have to move in, move out, move in, move out, which we did during the month of june.
[00:00:27.410] – Intro
Welcome to the michigan short term rentals podcast, the show about buying, optimizing, and managing short term rentals in the state of michigan. Get insights and recommendations from vacation rental operators to help take your property to the next level. Are you ready to profit from your short
term rental? Let’s get started.
[00:00:49.390] – Tony
Welcome to the michigan short term rentals podcast. Today, Jordan and I sit down with a couple of good friends in the southwest michigan area, and you’ll learn how they made $30,000 renting out their primary residence on airbnb only. You’ll also hear about their first guest experience, how it turned into a bit of a disaster, got a one star review and recovered from that. You’ll also get some tax insight, as one of them is a CPA, so you won’t want to miss this. Let’s get into it.
[00:01:19.890] – Tony
All right, today we’re sitting down with christine and paco velasco. Well, christine stopped at a real estate meetup that we were hosting in stevensville, michigan. So there’s one that happens every month, and we offered to host it at one of our short term rentals. And I don’t think jordan or myself actually got a chance to meet her at the meetup. But then afterwards, matt swab actually reached out to me and said, hey, christine and some friends want to learn a little bit more about short term rentals. So I think he connected us. And then paco and christine ended up coming over to a property that we were finishing the staging on. My wife and I, so did a lot of talking about short term rentals. You guys brought some donuts appreciate that. Shortly after that, you guys started getting yours listed. And I know I told you, hey, everything wasn’t perfect. The pictures I think you guys weren’t super happy with. And I just said, hey, every day that you guys don’t have it listed, it’s costing a so I think I encourage you guys to hurry up and get it listed. And so I think you guys carved out a saturday, got it listed, and I think you guys got a booking within 48 hours.
[00:02:33.300] – Tony
You guys can correct me if I’m wrong on that.
[00:02:35.430] – Christine
Yeah, that sounds great.
[00:02:37.160] – Tony
Yeah. And then you guys have just been a huge referral source for us as well. You guys referred the stager and decorator that we work with on a regular basis who ended up being a client of ours. You connected us to a local realtor who actually referred a month to month tenant for us. So still in the property right now, paying $2700 a month. So I really appreciate that.
[00:02:59.110] – Christine
It sounds like you owe us donuts now, is that right?
[00:03:01.860] – Tony
I think we definitely owe you some donuts for sure. And then you guys also connected us with some other people in the area, did a Fireside chat around short term rentals, and now someone else that you referred to us actually is doing property inspections for us and doing some organizing. So you guys have just been awesome in terms of a referral source. And I would just say, hey, somebody can find a Matt Swab and a Christine Velasco in an area. They’re well ahead of the game in terms of kind of getting embedded into the community and getting the right connection. So I appreciate that.
[00:03:35.130] – Christine
It’s all about community, right? The more people we know, the more people we connect with, the easier and more fun it becomes.
[00:03:40.590] – Tony
Absolutely. And today we’re bringing you on because this was your first year hosting as a short term rental, and you guys actually converted your primary residence into a rental over the summer. And we just had our first short term rental meet up a couple of weeks ago, and I had several people actually say that they were looking to list their primary residence as a short term rental. And so we wanted to bring you guys on here and hopefully shortcut some of the path that it takes to get there. You guys would have some great tips to give those individuals that are actually looking to get their primary residence listed. So does that all sound accurate?
[00:04:18.300] – Christine
That’s accurate.
[00:04:19.770] – Paco
Awesome.
[00:04:20.340] – Tony
So would you mind just taking a second and telling me, hey, when was your first booking, your last booking? And if you don’t mind sharing some of the revenue around that as well.
[00:04:31.110] – Christine
Yeah, you bet. So we went around the school calendar. We have four kids, so we waited till school is out. Our first booking was the weekend of Father’s Day, which is like around June 10. And then we went all the way again, kind of on that school summer schedule. We booked it out all summer until Labor Day weekend for our last guest left Labor Day weekend also.
[00:04:53.610] – Tony
What kind of revenue between June 10 and Labor Day weekend?
[00:04:58.320] – Christine
We ended right under $30,000. And we could have done better bookings, more bookings. That’s probably another podcast, but we could have done more. But we started off slow, kind of weekends only, and then it really picked up mid July and August. We were booked during the week and the weekend, so that’s when it really started getting fun.
[00:05:18.850] – Jordan
So you could have done better. What are the things you may have done differently that would have changed that?
[00:05:24.060] – Paco
And that’s what I was going to jump in. One of them would be to start early, right. Or early Earth. It was mentioned earlier. We weren’t sure about what to do, how to do it, should we do it? We finally made the decision we should do it. And so it took us a while to get to the point where we felt comfortable listing it. And so that took, I don’t know, two weeks maybe. We probably could have listed it earlier, but because you go through this phase of shit, are we ready? Do we have everything that we need to? And so that was huge that we were able to talk to Tony, and he was at the beginning, he’s like, you’re ready? It’s just a matter of doing it right, listening it, and then things start to fall into place. And that was the case.
[00:06:09.600] – Christine
And I think what we didn’t take into effect or what you didn’t understand then the kind of algorithm of airbnb right. That it takes time to really season your listing and be noticed when you have no reviews. So, yeah, we got a booking within 48 hours, but that didn’t necessarily bump us with reviews that would naturally bump your listing, that more people would see it. You do get kind of a what is it, Tony? Like, a couple of days the airbnb? Or is it 30 days? The airbnb, naturally. The algorithm function listing. Is that what it is?
[00:06:40.380] – Tony
Yeah, they say roughly a month, your listing is getting a little bit of favorability and kind of rank higher on that. Did you guys do the 20% discount on the first three bookings?
[00:06:52.910] – Christine
We did not know.
[00:06:55.150] – Tony
Got you. Well, I mean, to still get a booking that quick is awesome. So it sounds like 30,000 in roughly three months or just under three months. Yep.
[00:07:04.780] – Christine
Right. At three months.
[00:07:05.820] – Jordan
Good point to highlight, though, is that if you’re getting into this short term rental game and whatever your peak season is in the market that you’re in, it’s really helpful to have a month or two before that to kind of get people in, get some reviews, get the kinks out, make sure jumping in in June full tilt, that’s pretty awesome. Do you guys have any issues with those first people that you called in?
[00:07:27.450] – Tony
Actually, I think you guys have a great first guest.
[00:07:31.540] – Christine
No, I really had to tell that.
[00:07:37.160] – Tony
First guest went, and the story behind that, I mean, I do think sounds like it could have started out as a disaster, and it sounds like you guys ended up really correcting that and seeing some success on the other end of it.
[00:07:48.790] – Paco
One thing to remember is I think there’s a difference between converting your own home into a rental as opposed to getting a separate property that you’re renting. At least to us, it was a big deal to rent our home. Right. And to somebody that you don’t know. You don’t know who they are, you don’t know how to make sure the property. I think you have those concerns as well. When it’s a separate rental, but again, when it’s your home and you’re going to go back to that property, it kind of makes it at least for us, it was a big deal. And so that was part of the reason why it was difficult for us to say, okay, we’re ready, because you want everything perfect, right? And so one of the things that we wanted to do from the get go was to make sure we had as much understanding of the individuals coming into our home as we could. It’s difficult to get a lot of information from them, but we asked a lot of questions to get some idea of who they were again, because our biggest concern was who’s going to stay in our house and then the neighbors.
[00:08:53.620] – Paco
Our property is in the middle of Pipe community and so we were concerned about our neighbors as well. So the first one was kind of interesting.
[00:09:00.960] – Tony
Yeah.
[00:09:01.260] – Christine
So we broke all the rules. Tony we didn’t know what we were doing, so they don’t rent to locals. While he was a local, we didn’t have our camera. Fortunately, we did have a ring camera in place, so we could at least tell what was going in and out of the door. But we didn’t have like, a backyard camera up yet. He checked in at four and we left Sprinting at 358, doing all of our last minute. I mean, it was really like, oh, this is real. So, yeah, running to a local, they had like ten cars in the parking lot and we weren’t really sure in the driveway. We didn’t know what to do. And then we didn’t have really good camera footage, but we had some complaints from the neighbor, so it ended up, unfortunately, we had to kick them out. Like, Airbnb was great about it. They called them. He went, you know, like a Lambda slaughter. He was just quiet and calm. He still walked all the dishes, he still did a load of laundry. The house was pristine when we got back, like, everything was in place, the garbage was taken out.
[00:09:58.500] – Christine
I mean, he really did take good care of it. And in hindsight, as seasoned Airbnb owners now, we probably would have treated a little bit differently. But again, like my husband said, we panicked. Like, this is our house, this is our neighbors. They’re up till 02:00 at the fire pit and swimming and making loud noise, and this is our very first guest. So we kind of panicked, learned a lot, got more cameras, updated our settings, vetted our guest, didn’t let him auto book anymore because that was an auto book. We didn’t realize he was local until the booking went through. And again, it was a user glitch. I didn’t understand the system enough. I had the wrong settings on. So the great thing about having your bad guest first is that you learn a ton, the hard knock. And then we adjusted, and then really, and I don’t say this lightly, but it really was a very smooth experience for the eleven guests. After that, it was just so much easier and so much smooth. We get the hard part out and really had our systems in place and we’re ready.
[00:10:59.220] – Tony
So you ended up taking them out right on the second day, and then they left you a one star review, right?
[00:11:07.650] – Christine
Yeah, and that was hard, too. So again, we were like, well, nothing we can do about it, right? But then we found, as we searched and searched and searched, everyone’s like, no, no, the secret with Airbnb. And I’m not familiar with verbo, so I can only talk to Airbnb. But it was call after call after email, after text, after a different rep. Different rep. And then finally, probably after my 10th try, someone was like, oh, okay, yeah, we can take that down. Whereas everybody else was like, no, it doesn’t fit into the parameters, we can’t take it down. But finally, probably the 10th customer service rep was like, okay, yeah, we can take it down. And that was after me just digging for, you know, I sent video footage of what we saw in the ring of guests coming in all hours of the night, in and out of the door, and just giving them the information as much as we could and just being persistent. We were finding. And again, that so, Jordan, your question earlier, like, what would you have done, you know, to get that booking so it wasn’t so slow for the month of June?
[00:12:05.170] – Christine
That had a lot to do with it. We were a one star rating for that first couple of weeks until we could get that rating taken off. And then finally, once we got it off, was about the time our second guest came, gave us a raving five star review, and then the algorithm pushed us back up and we were visible again. So it hurt us, to be honest, it definitely hurt us. But we were okay with the slow traffic because we were just easing into Airbnb.
[00:12:28.780] – Tony
Well, I would just say great job, crisis averted. I think a lot of people probably would have pumped the brakes after that first one. Maybe not kept going, but sounds like I think you also probably set a lot of expectations going forward, right? Maybe incorporated some what is it, where you have them sign the documents, like.
[00:12:51.450] – Christine
Our own contract we can do in.
[00:12:54.070] – Tony
The contract, and letting them know what’s kind of expected from them and hey, no more than a certain number of guests and such like that to that point.
[00:13:04.540] – Paco
Tony, I think for those who are wanting to give it a try, when it’s your home, you want to make sure that you put a lot of information out on your listing. If you want it to be quiet, the times of quiet time, right? When you come in, how many the more you put out there, the better. And then you want to bring it up as much as you can. Again, because it was our home, we did all this. I think that if we have when we have a rental property, it would be completely different, I would think. But because it was our home, we wanted to make sure that they were, quote unquote, warned, right, about certain things, like the people that you’re going to bring and what time you can be outside. Because we do have a pool. It can be kind of a mess, right? If it’s late at night, if we’re not careful. But again, we were able to bring it up as they were booking. After they booked, we would send another reminder, hey, here’s a reminder. When they came in, we’d have a little sheet that they would have to sign.
[00:13:57.930] – Paco
So we try to do things to make sure that they were aware of the things that we wanted to make sure that we’re aware of.
[00:14:04.600] – Jordan
Yes, that’s really good information. I think there’s a huge difference between buying an investment property that has no emotional attachment to renting out your personal residence. That’s just such a vastly different experience that you’re going to have as the owner, for sure. So as far as someone that was looking to rent out their own primary personal residence to someone, what are the tips that you would give them to say, hey, make sure to do these things? How do you protect your personal property and maybe whatever else that would go into having it ready for guests to come?
[00:14:38.590] – Christine
That’s a great question. We have a lot of extra space in our house. We have a full basement and a garage. So we had the garage locked, so there was no access to the garage, and we had the basement locked as well. So we spent a ton of money on plastic bins. But all of our stuff in the basement, people are like, oh, your house is so clean and it’s so beautiful, and yeah, you want to see the basement? And there was just all of our personal items got sort of way in the basement. And we let them know in the listing that there was no access to the garage or the basement. But probably our biggest thing is really once you go through and you simplify and you really keep out, you know, what looks nice and what is functional for them, then you walk around the house and you ask yourself, if anything in here were to be stolen or broken, would I be sentimentally attached to it? Would I be sad? Would it really bother me? And if it does, that goes to the basement or the garage. Everything else has to be breakable or stealable and you’ll just move on and replace it.
[00:15:39.250] – Christine
Otherwise, again, when it’s your personal residence and that’s the vase or the picture frame or the mirror that’s heirloom and they accidentally break it. You just can’t. It’s part of separating business from personal. You find a different mirror to hang in the bathroom or in the hallway, or you replace that vase with a cheap Walmart vase or something. But that would be our biggest thing, right? Simplifying and taking away sentimental stuff and all personal.
[00:16:05.470] – Paco
We removed everything that was personal.
[00:16:09.180] – Tony
No family photos, all that stuff. So we still have that vacation rental feel to it, right?
[00:16:17.040] – Christine
They wouldn’t walk in and feel like they were coming into the Velasco’s home. It felt very much like this is just an empty house. They wouldn’t know we lived here.
[00:16:24.940] – Paco
And I think it was Tony the one that gave us this advice. So, for example, where the pictures were at, right? The family pictures and so forth. I think it was the stage where Diane she suggested to make it more of a local type of thing, right. So we had pictures of St. Joe and the lake and again, more of a vacation feel to it. So that was kind of a cool thing.
[00:16:48.690] – Christine
That was an easy switch. And switching out personal pictures to local pictures.
[00:16:52.350] – Jordan
What was it like for you coming and going throughout the summer with guests part of it, and coming back and living in it? What was that transition like? How did you manage that?
[00:17:01.930] – Christine
It’s a great question. We learned really quick. That was a terrible idea. We would come in and my kids would settle in and we’d kind of settle into the house and it’s time to move out again. So we’re fortunate that my mom just lives around the corner. So we were able we finally got to the point where we were booking out during the week. Anyway, we’re like, we’re done, we’re just going to move out. So we moved out completely and then just came back to clean it and swim in the pool, like between guests. My kids still wanted to enjoy the house. We love our house. And that was something that’s really the heart behind this whole story, is we bought this house, we gutted it, we redid it, we made it a beautiful area, and we were like, we want to share this with other people. We love it and it’s fun for us to come back and visit, but it was so much easier to just move out and not have to move in, move out, move in and move out. Which we did during the month of June.
[00:17:58.530] – Tony
Double cleaning that way, right?
[00:18:00.460] – Christine
Yeah.
[00:18:01.990] – Paco
So one tip would be to get double set of linen just because you have to do it somewhat quick. And if you’re having to move in and move out, it’s best to just not have to clean something, wait for it and then put it back on to try to get at least two sets of everything when it comes to the Lenins so you can quickly change it and move on.
[00:18:26.380] – Tony
Absolutely. So you had your first year $3,000. Are you happy with the results from season one and are you looking forward to season two? And if so, is there anything that you guys intend to do differently in the next season that you didn’t do in season one?
[00:18:48.660] – Christine
That’s a really good question. We’re super happy with how it went. I mean, with 300 of extra money with tax benefits, beautifying our house, all the upgrades that we did to it, we get to appreciate from September to May. That was really fun, honestly. To be totally transparent, the money, the $30,000, we didn’t profit from the 30,000 because we put it all back into the house. So we didn’t walk away with cash necessary because we chose to put that back into the house. So we upgraded all of our the air conditioning, the heating, the pool heater, different things in the house. We put it right back in so that next year we’re solid, we’re comfortable, we know nothing is going to break on a guest. Right. There were no doubts. So that was just something, a personal choice for us that we chose to do with that money. So, yeah, we definitely feel like we hit a home run this summer and definitely looking forward to next summer. The things that we learned from this year, we’ll be applying to next year. Like starting earlier, getting our listing up sooner.
[00:19:51.760] – Paco
I was going to say something to think about is because you are a van, being that activity is a business, right? And so anything that you spend related to that activity to the rental of in this case, your home, is a deduction for tax purposes. And so sometimes people are not aware that you can we did that.
[00:20:14.080] – Jordan
Right.
[00:20:14.250] – Paco
We decorated our home with new frames, new pictures, new decorations and whatnot. And all of that is going to be part of a deduction for tax purposes. So that was also another reason why we wanted to do it. We thought that would be kind of a neat way to do business. The big repairs that we did. Right. There’s no answers to that, but you can do some of that. Something to consider as anyone, as anyone is trying to decide if it’s something that they can do. It’s not only profitable because there’s a lot of cash, but you can also, as Christine was mentioning earlier, beautify your home and get some deductions for it.
[00:20:58.120] – Tony
And you are a CPA, right?
[00:21:00.910] – Paco
That’s correct, yes.
[00:21:02.470] – Tony
And not your guys’cpa, so you always want to check with your CPA. But again, just from a tax standpoint, he can speak to some of the benefits from using his own personal residence as a short term rental. Are you familiar with the cost segregation? Not that we’ll give any tax advice here. Again, you guys, all everybody wants to check with their own CPA. Or I don’t know if your company has some openings for bringing on some new clients, but yeah. Are you familiar with like, cost segregation and some of the benefits on the short term rental side of that?
[00:21:39.030] – Paco
Yeah, definitely. It will get a little tricky. So normally when you put your house as a rental, you get to depreciate your home. There is a life expectancy of the home, and so oftentimes it’s 27 and a half years or 39 if it’s a commercial. But when you do a cost segregation study, you get to allocate different things of the value of the house to shorter lives, and so the depreciation becomes much higher, especially in the first year. So, again, from a tax point, it’s a great benefit to be able to rent your home and be able to get all these different benefits, including depreciation, which is the biggest deduction that often times rentals will have.
[00:22:29.940] – Tony
Thanks for sharing that. So, yeah, going into next season, anything different that you guys are intending to do? Different amenities, different yeah, just anything different that you guys plan on doing going into next year?
[00:22:42.250] – Christine
Yeah. Honestly, this might sound a little arrogant, but I gave Tony all the credit. I feel like we went in pretty prepared. Tony, really, you helped us so much, leading us in the right way of different podcasts, to listen to different websites, to look at what amenities are important in Southwest Michigan for Beachgoers. So our reviews were raving. We had all five star reviews. I really feel like we hit it head on, on the amenities, on the systems, the customer service, because we were prepared. So even though we talk about when we listed it, we were scared. And is the house ready? And is the house we spent months listening to podcasts and reading books and looking at websites and following people on Pinterest and just really YouTube videos. Just getting other people’s experience, hearing all the negative sides of different people’s experiences of hard things that happened to them, really helped us prepare for the what if. Right? So I don’t think we’ll change a lot.
[00:23:44.470] – Jordan
You just mentioned some of the resources that Tony had shared with you. Is there like a top one or two, either a book or podcast or something like that, other than ours, obviously, that you’d recommend for people to listen to that they could learn from?
[00:23:56.200] – Christine
Yeah, definitely this one. Definitely. Thanks for visiting. We listened to that one a lot. I think she hits on a lot of good topics. And again, to be totally honest, if you are considering doing this and you already run a full time, like, maybe you and your spouse both work, or maybe it’s your own property, but you work full time, hopefully I’m allowed to do this. Tony and Jordan, but I would seriously consider using a company like booking gather to manage your property for you. I run my own business. I have a very flexible schedule. My husband, like we said, is a CPA. He works a typical 60 hours week, but it’s a full time job running one short term rental by yourself. Even though it was our own personal property, again, we chose to clean it ourselves and manage it ourselves this year because we really wanted to get a feel for what is in short term rental, what it involves, what the customer service is like, what the customer experience is like. So truly, if you’re worried at all about do I have the time for this? I would recommend looking into a company like Booking Gather.
[00:25:03.490] – Christine
They can do all the customer service part of it for you. Even just trying to get a cleaner to come to your house and show up and do the job right is really hard. And that’s a tiny little piece of it. So that would probably be my advice. Jordan, does that answer the question?
[00:25:18.150] – Jordan
That that’s great. One of the reasons we started the company was because we started managing the property and realized, holy cow, this is a lot of work. And I think our first couple of weeks we had cleaners that were just Mia. No problem.
[00:25:29.970] – Tony
No problem.
[00:25:31.460] – Jordan
We can’t be the only idiots who think this is going to be easy, that need to help. So that was part of the beginning of Booking Gather for sure, I think.
[00:25:40.870] – Tony
Similar experience, right, where the cleaner just didn’t show up when they were supposed to show up. And you guys had the same day turnover, right. And you’re expecting cleaners show up and they didn’t show up.
[00:25:54.390] – Christine
Right. But again, since this is my baby, like, yeah, I had her schedule, but I always knew I am there cleaning with her. I couldn’t rely on will she show up or not. So I had to have my schedule free that I could be there, I could be the one cleaning. If I was a full time working mom outside of the house, that would have been very challenging to have her just not show up. And I don’t have a list of seven other cleaners to call it the last minute, whereas, like, Tony and Jordan, you guys probably do like, if one doesn’t show up, you’re like, no problem, I got six others here, we’ll send another one out, right? Yeah, it did. I think that was probably the biggest thing we learned this year, is just surprising how much work went into owning a property and renting it out.
[00:26:37.330] – Jordan
I guess that would probably fall under the least favorite. So what would you say is your most favorite part of the experience? And besides the extra income, what’s the benefit?
[00:26:47.140] – Christine
I’m doing a lot of the talking here, but really sharing our little piece of heaven here with the community. That truly is our drive. We love Southwest Michigan. We moved here seven years ago. We bought this house two years ago and just immediately. Like we want to share this with other people. It’s so beautiful here. And I know lots of people that live south of us don’t have the views of the lake that we do in this really chill, beautiful, quiet little community. So that was what we love the most, is just knowing that we’re providing an opportunity for other families to have an experience away from work, away from the rigor of life. And I would say the hardest thing was having to live on my cell phone. Twenty four seven. It was really draining to always sleep with my ringer on and wonder if a guest was going to call or wonder if something was going to happen in the middle of the night, or wonder if wonder if, wonder if right. And so just constantly, no matter where I was having my phone on me and being accessible, I might be out on a boat ride with some friends.
[00:27:56.380] – Christine
It’s like, oh, shoot, am I going to have WiFi? Because if a guest needs something, I got to be able to answer it in 20 minutes, you know?
[00:28:02.220] – Tony
Right.
[00:28:02.710] – Christine
So I think that was the hardest part. Anything of just constantly being on call for three months.
[00:28:08.020] – Jordan
The interesting part about the businesses, especially with one rental, it’s not an overwhelming amount of hours, but you have to be ready at all times. That’s something you’ve done a great job at, just responding and being available. But yeah, if you don’t have someone doing that for you, it’s got to be you. Especially in Michigan. It’s when you’re on vacation, too. A lot of times, like you said, being out on the boat and just always having to be available, right?
[00:28:33.370] – Christine
Yeah.
[00:28:33.840] – Tony
Well, awesome. Is there any other tips it could be about getting your home ready from a tax standpoint? Any other tips that our listeners should know if they’re looking to get their primary residence and use it as a vacation rental?
[00:28:51.870] – Christine
I think the biggest thing that I would think is just finding, likeminded, people that are already in the business, preparing yourself, finding local meetups, following Tony and Jordan on booking gather, listening to podcasts, but really just finding a community of other short term rentals that you can share ideas with and collaborate with. I think it would probably be our biggest tip, don’t you think?
[00:29:17.910] – Paco
Yeah. And we also joined groups online, and it was interesting, Facebook groups. It was interesting because what came out of those groups most of the time were negative things. And so if we would have done just that, right, we would have not done it. The only thing they talk about is the bad experiences that people are having. Again, we only had one, and our home was not nothing negative happened to our house. It was just the fact that we had to kick them out. So from our standpoint, it was a great experience to be able to do this. But again, if we would just focus on what other people are saying online, we would have done it. Again, Tony was great. He would have waited a little longer if it would have been for Tony’s just listed. And so, again, having people that have done it, that are doing it, being able to ask questions, a couple of things, I don’t know if everyone is aware, but when you sign in or onto Airbnb, again, we can’t speak to.
[00:30:24.070] – Christine
Verbo because we’re not familiar with that. For sure.
[00:30:25.950] – Paco
With Airbnb, they assign somebody that can help you. You can always ask them questions and so they will give you some advice. Any questions you can ask them, any questions, they don’t charge you, but they do assign somebody, your buddy, if you want to call them, that can help with any questions that you may have as you are getting started.
[00:30:44.740] – Christine
I think they call those Airbnb ambassadors and they hold your hand up until your first booking. That was really helpful too, and free to us. And then they get a kickback, which is kind of a winwin. They get a kickback for answering all your questions and you get a free service.
[00:30:59.400] – Paco
So, again, different things, right? So that was one, having Tony and other individuals that are doing similar things was what made it, I think, a positive experience. If you don’t find people, it’ll be difficult because you’ll feel alone, right, and you’ll have a ton of questions, but if you don’t have somebody to reach out to block you through it and maybe a negative experience, that’s great.
[00:31:20.080] – Jordan
Yeah, definitely. One of the things I’ve really enjoyed about this business is we’ve just met a lot of amazing people and people are willing to share information and help out and give advice and not charge for it in a lot of cases. So there’s a lot of free resources out there to get started in this business and a lot of people who are willing to help and add value and so definitely tap into those resources. And as you mentioned with some of the groups, you do hear the horror stories. If you’re in this business, you are going to experience some level of them. You just have to expect it and take the good with the bad to a certain extent. But it sounds like with the lessons that you learned through managing, a lot of those bad experiences can be avoided. If you’re betting and managing and you got the house rules set up and the ring cameras and some of those things, you can delegate some of that risk elsewhere to a certain extent.
[00:32:09.670] – Christine
Yeah, for sure.
[00:32:10.720] – Tony
Well, awesome. I just want to thank you guys for taking the time to come on the podcast, share your experience with the listeners and provide some tips and insights on to just hey, how can you list your primary residence and have some success on that? So I think you guys offered a lot of valuable tips. And then I just wanted to say just as much as we’ve been a resource to you, we really appreciate the resource that you guys have been to us. Again. You guys have just made a lot of great connections for us in the area. We got against some clients from you guys. So really appreciate that. I appreciate you guys taking the time.
[00:32:47.220] – Christine
Well, thank you to have you guys in our life. It’s been so much easier having you guys on our team. So thank you. Thank you.
[00:32:54.260] – Tony
Awesome. Well, have a good day and we’ll talk to you guys later. Alright?