How Rob locked up two Airbnb arbitrage deals in Kentucky and Georgia

0:00 In this episode we're speaking with Rob, who's an absolute killer. In just a few months he's already locked up two deals that are cash cows doing over $10,000 a month in profit on average. He's one of the best when it comes to convincing landlords to make it a win-win. He's also going to talk about his strategy on how to find a rockstar team. We're also going to be breaking down his Airbnb listings and how he was able to secure them. Rob is a sharp dude and you're going to learn a lot. Heck, I even learned a lot just from this conversation alone. All right, we got Rob here in the house. He's a been crushing it since day one it seems like. You know, you send us over a new deal, some of that's interested almost weekly. I know you got a couple properties up and running, so thanks for hopping on, Rob. If you don't mind just giving us a little background on, you know, how you got started, maybe what you are doing before that. We'll go from there. Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, I mean I got started cuz I saw like, you know, it was it was kind of coming out of COVID and all that and you know, I saw a handful of the Instagram videos, you know, we're all trying to figure out what do we need to be doing or what can we be doing in terms of you know, just investing for financial freedom and getting to that point and the Airbnb arbitrage stuff started to I mean really resonate, made a lot of sense. It's like, yeah, I wanted to get in real estate but, you know, the idea of, okay, we got to go through the process of putting a down payment down and then that ties up your capital versus, okay, well, what if you just do

1:17 the arbitrage model where you can actually scale a lot quicker. And sure there's some tax trade-offs and, you know, for for doing that versus the you actually owning it, but to me I'm like, well, if we can generate cash flow a lot faster, we can scale quicker and then go from there. So, got into that, joined the group. As we again one of the first first groups that came in and ended up putting it off for a little bit. I was in school and, you know, two young kids at home and and trying to, you know, wear a lot of hats. But when I finally got back into it it was just like, okay, we're picking up the phones. We're just going to start crushing it. And you know, having a sales and marketing background it was it was pretty easy for me to just jump in there and and start conveying that value prop to a property owner. For them it's you know, what we're doing it's we're taking care of this as professionals. You know, we have our LLCs, we have companies set up that are designed to do this versus a a normal tenant. So, we're going to take care of it. They're going to get more or less get free property management cuz we're ultimately paying them, they're not paying us.

2:13 And you know, it's in the the way I always convey it is like, look, it's in my best interest to maintain your place and if not even make it better than where I found it because if I can't book this you don't get paid, I don't get paid, nobody wins. And from us everybody I've talked to they're like, yeah, this is a no-brainer. And then at that point it's just a matter of making the economics work. And so for me I have two properties that I'm doing right now. I have one in my own hometown of Louisville, Kentucky and then another one that I have set up in Saint Simon's Island, Georgia which I actually have the first two bookings for that this coming weekend. And that one's been a little bit of a you know, clearing a handful of hurdles to get it to the finish line, but it's it's going to be an awesome spot once it's all up and running the way it should be. So, yeah, that's that's the very long and short way of getting to where we are. Love man, I think we can end it here, but no, I want to talk about a lot of those things cuz you had a lot of good things in there. So, the first thing that I, you know, I thought of or, you know, people just some context. Like Rob since day one, like, you know, he's like, hey, can you take a look at this property?

3:14 Like pretty much every single property Rob submitted, you know, has looked like it's going to be a killer, right? And, you know, I think the main thing that separates you from the rest of the pack almost is because is you just got in there, you know, hit the pavement and just just started making dials, right? So, what are some of the ways that you overcame that fear? I know you have that sales and marketing background, but I know you probably have had some challenges going through that process. So, what are some of the challenges that you faced and how did you overcome those things? Sure. So, the first guy I called I was looking in kind of where you have your Oakland Park property. Like I was looking down in Fort Lauderdale trying to find something in that area. And uh the first guy I called just chewed me up, spat me out. And and that was good because it's like, you know, somebody in the group said like, get as many no's as you as you can as quickly as possible. And you know, again in my sales days that's that's what it was. It's like the quicker you start to realize, okay, where am I hitting that that stopping point? Okay, cool. Now I'm going to know that for the next call going in. And the funny thing is looking back on it, the the guy that the first guy I talked to, all the objections he threw up were all things that are very easily overcome.

4:25 He's like, I don't want wild parties at my house and I don't want this and and let me just tell you let me tell you how Airbnb is and what it does to a community. And I'm like, dude, those are all things we mitigate. Like those are those are non-issues knowing that now, but had I not had that first conversation, you know, I wouldn't have been able to have the wins that came after it. So, yeah, it was just having that realization of the quicker I can get through just start reaching out to people and start talking to them about the idea. Let's kind of see what the receptivity is to that because, you know, it's all you can given that it's it's a new thing to me it was where's the proof point, right? And the more people that I started talking to they were like, yeah, this makes total sense. Like if they're real estate investors, they just want to get a return on their investment, right? And if they know they're going to have somebody that's going to take care of it and ideally for two to four years, that's two to four years that they don't have to worry about it. So, the more people I started talking to, the more it's really started to click with and then for me I just got better and better at it. And then the the issue became, okay, well can I make the economics work on my end or else I'm just going to have to turn people down, which is what I ended up doing for for quite a few of the people I talked to. Yeah, I I think you know, we both have the sales backgrounds for So, for the people that, you know, maybe don't have that, like number one, this is a volume game, right? Like you start cuz if we talked to a lot of people they're like, yeah, I'm just getting a

5:41 lot of no's and it's like, how many landlords have you talked to? And they're like, talked to five. I'm like, yeah, of course, right? I mean it just at the end of the day and the the more calls you make the better you're going to get at the craft. And obviously, you know, none of us are born I mean maybe a small handful of us are just good at talking, but you know, a lot of the times like this takes a lot of work to get to get good at. So, maybe you if you want to talk about what are some like of your best pointers for someone that maybe doesn't have that sales background to eventually be able to get better on the phones and, you know, convince, you know, these landlords to let us sublease their properties. Yeah, so I mean, one keep in mind like this is a massive value prop. For the the value proposition you're bringing to the table is you are going to take care of their property. You know, someone that that that owns, you know, one of the houses that I I have actually like the one I got in Louisville, they had an Airbnb. So, they totally got the model. Like it made total sense for them, they understood it. And and they even spat it back to me. They said, look, the benefit of you taking this over versus someone else is we know you're going to take care of it because if you don't take care of it you don't you don't get anything out of it, right? So, it's for me it's knowing that kind of having that in the back of my head of like, look, this isn't just oh, hey, I want to rent your place. You mind if I sublease it?

6:59 That's not going to work. You really have to go in professionally and talk to them as from one business owner to another of, hey, look I understand what you're doing. This is what I want to do and this is why it's we're creating a win-win. And honestly, Preston, a lot of that came from like the script that that you provided. And you know, you rehearse that and and then you kind of put your own spin on it and and use your own language, but leveraging that, but it's all there. It's how do we create a win-win for each other? You know, business is all about how do you provide value to other people? And ultimately what we're doing is delivering a ton of value to to these guys. So, like Preston said, guys, it's a it's an absolute volume game. The more people you talk to, the more no's you get honestly are going to be better than getting a ton of yes's cuz the yes's might just be people that are desperate with a property that's maybe not so great. Why do you think they're desperate, right?

7:49 You know, versus when you actually go talk to somebody that's got something really good that could just totally kill it in that market you want to be prepared to talk to them and I'd rather have five or six no's leading up to that than have a bunch of yes's and not be prepared to answer some of the objections that they're going to throw up. So you know, don't be afraid to pick up the phones and start doing it and I think that's You're going to get told no a few times, that's okay. They're not rejecting you, they're rejecting the message. So, what can you do? You refine that message until it's it's starting to resonate with more and more people. Easiest way to do it. No, for sure. And I think getting to that no, like you said, is the most important part cuz at first it it hurts, right? Even if you're a seasoned salesperson, you're like man, like it it it it stings a little bit, but the more that you get the no's, then it you kind of start to get a thick skin about it. You don't you start to start to not really care about it. And then the other main important thing is recording your calls because if you don't know what you're doing wrong cuz in the in the moment you're like, oh, I said all the right things, but, you know, the intonation could have been bad. You could have been sounding like a robot. You might just have come across too desperate. There's so many little nuances that you're not going to be able to pick up if you're not recording and reviewing those calls. So, that's another reason huge reason why I tell the people that are struggling, hey, record your calls, we'll take a look and we'll give you some pointers and that's

9:06 another, you know, huge thing that you're able to overcome. Well, now I know I remember one thing like a sales tip that I heard too if this is helpful for anybody is is smile when you're talking on the phone because that will come across in what you're saying and your delivery. If you're like kind of, you know, down about it like, oh, I don't really know like is, you know, why are you even talking to me? Why'd you even pick up the phone? Like they're not going to want to do business with you. Like but if you say, hey, like I'm calling because I saw you have a phenomenal property and I I wanted to connect with you about it. You know, I have an idea that I wanted to share with you and see if this makes sense. You know, if it makes sense for you, great. We might be able to create a win-win here. And nine out of 10 times they're going to say, okay, yeah, tell me a little bit more about that. But, you know, there's such such a big difference between that and, oh, hey, I saw you have a house and I mean I don't really know like, no. Be confident about what you're saying because there is a ton of value that you're bringing to the the that I guarantee none of these people have heard from.

9:59 You know, we we tend to think it's common in this group, but a lot of these people that have their homes listed for rent have never been approached about this. So, you're coming to them after they've been approached by so many people that have like you know, quite maybe potentially questionable tenants. No, no, no, you're coming in as a company that's like we're going to take care of your place. We're going to furnish it and we're going to maintain it and leave it better than you found it. Oh, and by the way, if you decide to sell, you're going to be able to do it like that because everything's good to go. It's it's basically in stage ready presentation. Yeah, 100% and another tip to that is I always like to make cold calls standing up just cuz you know, same with the smiling tip. It it gives it brings that out an energy cuz you have to increase your energy when you're on the phones a little bit just cuz you know, like you said if you're just sitting down, you know, you just had a bad day at work. It's going to come across in your voice.

10:46 So, definitely those two tips. And then the other thing is you know, that you make a lot of good points. It's all about how you frame and this is why I know you are so successful is because you know that there's value props and it's a win-win for the landlord as well cuz if you're trying to like be sleazy about it and try to like sneak their way in of trying to sublease their property without them knowing. Like you're eventually going to get caught, right? But if you're upfront about it, all the benefits, the free property management, you're going to take care of their place better. You know, even sometimes you can pay them a little bit more in rent if the deal pencils out. Like there's so many different benefits for them if you you know, frame it. It's all about the way that you approach it instead of where a lot of people are just like, "Hey, can I sublease your property?" Like the first thing you say. So, there's there's a lot of good things that in in there that you said. All right, man. I know that let's talk about your first property in Louisville cuz Okay. after I saw your your property, I was like, "Ding, like maybe cuz I I actually lived in Kentucky for a few months for a job.

11:42 got you. So, I was like no one wants it I mean, no offense, but I didn't think people really want to travel besides the Derby, but Right. let's let's kind of talk about how you got your first property. I think there's a really interesting backstory on your property, too. So, let's talk a little bit more about that. Yeah, so the way this worked out is you know, I got my I've got an LLC for another another you know, business that I have here in town and you know, so getting that set up here was kind of a no-brainer. I'm like, "Yeah, I I know how to do this. So, cool. First step, get the LLC done. Second step, where do I want to operate?" And so, first I registered in Florida. I was looking heavily in South Florida cuz that's where I live for a long time hence the shirt. I was I just like wasn't finding anything down there that made sense. And maybe it was the wrong I think it probably was the wrong season. I was looking at winter when people they know people are going to pay premium. So, ended up saying, "Okay, let's look at my own backyard and see what's available here." Now, I'll be honest, I had not done the due diligence and and seen, you know, what the conditional use permitting regulations were and those kinds of things. So, the way this happened, I just completely lucked out on it. But, you know, say that, but it's like well, you wouldn't have lucked out had I not picked up the phone.

12:47 So, so I called this house. I saw it. It's in a great neighborhood you know, kind of near University of Louisville's campus, but also far enough away where it's like you have access to bars, restaurants and and kind of cool local attractions. Called the owners and they said, "Yeah, actually we're totally open to this model because we had the house listed on Airbnb." They went live during COVID like right in like February 2020 and regulations in the city and state came in and said, "No, no, no, we can't you can't do that. Like we're we're shutting this down unless it's like a long-term stay." So, they pivoted and went towards you know, longer term rentals and and did that, but the difference is they had moved out. The house was already furnished. And when I talked to them, they said, "Look, our current tenant is out in January. So, you're talking to us in August. Put the deposit down. We'll just call that a holding cost and come January, we'll flip it on. By the way, we also have the permit since we already had it as an Airbnb." So, literally it's as turnkey as it could possibly get. So, come January, I you know, made a couple changes, put another bed in one of the bedrooms, furnished it, set it up, you bought a couple amenities like a fire pit, some yard games and those kinds of things. But, everything in the list almost everything in the listing is like what you see is what I got. You know, we were able to negotiate a handful of you know, I guess freebies

14:03 in the lease. And and it worked out really well. You know, I I launched probably during the slowest season in the city. So, it was kind of jarring of like, you know, is this going to take off? But, I had like one bad month, which was you know, February and and March has done very well. April's on track to do great and then you know, for May, it's going to kill because of Derby. And some of the big attractions here, I mean, we have it's all the bourbon stuff. I mean, you have a ton of people that travel here to do the bourbon trail and given the house's location, there's a ton of stuff downtown 5 minutes away. People go to that. You know, or they drive you know, 30 minutes outside of the city and they go to some of the more remote spots, but I've seen a ton of traffic in in this house so far and and it so you know, this was for me the biggest proof point was we get it live, we get it launched and and it I get booking inquiries you know, at least two three times a week, which is crazy. That's awesome, dude. Yeah, let's let's actually take a look at that listing here. Let's kind of talk through cuz I think you've done a really good job of highlighting the the best parts of this property. Cool. So, let's just kind of talk through the pictures of you know, why why this as your first photo compared to the other ones and then we we can just kind of walk through the property here. Yeah, so I mean, in the front or you know, when you hit the listing like the home page, the hero is like the outside. And you know, we use the string lights that set you know, and that kind of stuff. Yeah, so like yeah, those are my like the first five on a

15:21 listing are super intentional, right? Like you want to show off what is what's the cool spot about this? And the this house is it's in a you know, a little bit of an older neighborhood. It's an older house. I think it was built in like 1909. The backyard's really unique. It's got a pond that's over to the right of the the table there. You can see like the pot. It's got a pond water feature thing. So, it's like you know, that's really cool. And it's got string lights up. So, this is I've got people staying in there right now and they were hanging out in the back last night and they sent me a text and they're like, you know, this is really cool. It's a it's a nice area to hang out in you know, when the weather's great outside. That's why I put some yard games out there like the little axe throwing kit I got at Costco. You know, there's a grill and you know, table, chairs and that kind of stuff. Ordered a fire table off of Wayfair just to make the outside like maximize as much space. The inside of the house doesn't have a ton of common area. So, it's like what can we do with what we have? For sure. And so, for me it was build up the outside and really sell that because yeah, it might be cold and you can go inside, but you know, in the summer and spring months, it's and even fall, too. It's it's a great place. So, sell the outside and then show off what's available inside. I mean, you kind of see like from the foyer and the the dining room like there's a lot of open space and while it might not be a lot, there's still enough that you can congregate. I've had people come over.

16:35 Mostly families are staying there and and they bring in their bring their kids from out of town. They're like, "Oh, we got some friends. We want to do a birthday party." I'm like, "By all means. Bring your families. Bring your friends. Like you guys can go hang out there." And I've had no real issues at all. I mean, like it's you know, as far as the living room, we try to set that up as well as we can. You know, that's a Roku TV, big fan of those. Mhm. Cuz they have a guest mode. You can sign people out. They can access other streaming services and those kinds of things. But yeah, just try to show off like, "Hey, this is this is how we're giving you as much information visually as we can so you can imagine yourself in this space." And we got a real estate photographer actually got somebody that had done another Airbnb around the corner. Mhm. Liked what they did. They lived across the street actually from this house. They kind of knew what to shoot for without me really having to tell them. That's awesome, dude. So. No, I this listing is like textbook on how you stand out for yourself and utilizing the space, too, right? Cuz you know, I think a lot of the listings in Louisville that I've seen at least, they just try to highlight the inside, but you're here trying to highlight, okay, like this is a cool backyard. You know, you got the games, the string lights. And then are you still adding the hot tub? We're kind of on the fence on that. I've actually I've got a buddy here that I'm I'm talking to that's got a you know, seven or eight properties and he's like, "If you're going to do it, wait till it gets cold." He's like, "No one's going to use it in the summer." He's like, "But especially here. Yeah, at least that's what he's saying. He's like, "But add it in the winter and and people will people will go crazy for it. It just gets so hot."

17:54 Yeah. It does. I mean, I'm I was there in the summer and Right. I can attest it gets disgustingly hot. No, yeah, that's that's good stuff, dude. And as far as you know, going through this and you know, people obviously want to hear about the cash flow numbers. And so, Sure. what are we looking at? You know, obviously, you know, we're kind of in the slower season getting out of that, but you know, come the busy season, what are we looking at here? Yeah, so I mean, I think my all-in expenses for this for this house because I was able to negotiate like basically all the utilities wrapped up into it. So, I pay the rent That's awesome, dude. and and they were like, "Look, not only are we going to furnish it cuz really with the exception if you go to the like there's one in the queen bedrooms upstairs. That's the only room that I've actually done. I added the T some of the TVs. This room here, this bedroom number two is the one that I I set up and you know, decided to buy those things and which wasn't crazy again, Wayfair Pro account. I highly recommend it. So, my all-in expenses, let's call it 3,600. If we're talking in terms of cash flow, if for March, I think I'm 1,500 up just to get and that's really again the first full months of booking. And then come by May, I think we're if I can get a couple more in there. I mean, as it stands right now, we're basically 5K in terms of cash flow. That's net that I I get from this.

19:01 You know, that's less cleaning expenses. That's less Airbnbs and Vrbos. I even started throwing it on booking.com. So, that's a five grand payout for that month and there's still weekends available. So, you know, which is great cuz like that you know, helps me recoup whatever went into getting this thing set up. Again, it wasn't much. And that's not necessarily an outlier, either. May is obviously the huge month cuz of Derby. But then I just had given the house the house is set up you know, to be lived in in a lot of ways. So, I just had somebody book it from you know, the beginning of July to the beginning of August for an entire month. So, that's going to be another big payout month, too. You know, what I've learned is like you know, first it was okay, should I be worried about you know, what's coming in or whatever, but what I'm finding is there's the lead time on average for the city Mhm. and then there's the lead time that I'm experiencing, which is I mean, it be anywhere from like 7 to 10 days. Mhm.

19:52 So, as long as I'm 7 to 10 days out and like things are still clicking, we're in a great spot. And I think it's just a trial and error and understanding, okay, this is how it works. And as long as you're using the pricing automation software and and monitoring that through PriceLabs, I haven't had any issues. And it's it's been doing what it should be doing. Let's Let's move on to this next property of yours in Saint Simons, uh Georgia here. So, I mean, this property is absolutely beautiful. I know there's probably a couple of headaches uh that you had to go through to overcome that. Maybe you can talk about what those were and then how you overcame those, but Yeah. Let's start and talk talk talk through this one. Yeah, so um Saint Simons. So, I got I was looking uh heavily in Jacksonville Beach and just again, was was making connections and, you know, identifying deals. But, you know, when you crunch the numbers, it's like it's too big of a risk. Like, it's like, you know, I want to at least be somewhere around, you know, between the 65 and 70 in terms of occupancy rate.

20:46 And, you know, it's like, okay, we let's go somewhere where either the numbers are a little bit higher. I think Dustin actually had a a calculation, uh another member from the group, and I can't I can't remember what it was, but it was basically like, if that's above 140 150 in terms of um I don't know if it's rev par or what, but it was like that's what you should be targeting. And as long as it's beating that, you're in a you're in a decent market. And what I couldn't find with the deals in Jacksonville were were those numbers to support it. So, crossed over into Georgia, Georgia LLC filing for a, you know, a foreign entity takes literally 5 minutes. So, I knocked that out and immediately called these people and said, "Hey, love your place. Let's make a deal." And they are out of state for 3 years and they were like, "Look, if you're going to lock it up for 3 years, we don't have to worry about three turnovers." So, go ahead, do do what you got to do. The difference between this one and the one in Louisville was Louisville was turnkey.

21:34 Like, that was ready to go. This one, this is like moving into a brand new house. So, there were a a lot of things that, you know, I I put a team together. Actually, um the way I did this this cuz this one was completely remote. I identified a handful of cleaners in the area because it is a big vacation rental place. Narrowed it down to the one I really liked, got her referrals, and then, you know, once I connected with them, one of them actually gave me their entire team. Obviously, like, you're working with the cleaner, here's who I'd recommend for photos, here's who I would do that, you know, see all of the above. I was like, "Okay, great." Ordered the furniture, had the handyman assemble it, move it all in, cleaners got in and did a deep clean, uh and then I actually flew down with my wife at the end of February to kind of do a walk-through and just kind of sort of see how things were, set up any furniture that was left, and, you know, just kind of see where where the places of emphasis where we need to do some extra work, and what's left, and we knocked out those few items. The rest that we couldn't get to, I just had the handyman take care of it. But, yeah, there were a few headaches with it, like, mostly with just painting things, you know, and right now there's some electrical stuff going on with the pool that I'm trying to get remedied before Sunday. It's such a unique place. There's nothing else on the island that is set up the way this is without getting like without being on the beach. So, this is I mean, this is a really cool spot. It can sleep up to 15 people, which is the highest occupancy

22:51 you can legally have in Saint Simons. It's got a pool, a hot tub, there's a playground on the other side of the garage. There are two king suites. We have with bathrooms en suite. So, you can see that there. These look huge, these bedrooms. Yeah. Yeah. Those bedrooms are absolutely massive. I mean, I had one that was doubling as a game room. Now, this is a little goofy, the uh the mural on the wall. But, we kind of played into it. We're like, "Look, you're queen of the sandcastle." You know, and uh my my cleaner actually she staged all of it. She did a great job. So, if you luck out and you find somebody that that is that that good at what they do, they are worth every penny because they treat it like it's their place. Um she told me what to order, I ordered it, and then she went out and found a core that that worked with the room. So, yeah, four bedrooms, four bathrooms, you know, it's like this giant U-shape. There's a courtyard in the middle where we put some furniture, fire pit with a giant playground for kids um right next to a pool. So, this property is so sick. It's It's pretty sweet.

23:42 Yeah. No, I mean, again, textbook of what you should be doing cuz I think Brandon Turner for BiggerPockets or former BiggerPockets, he always say, "Rockstars know rockstars." And so, if you find that really good person and then you just keep getting referrals from them, that's how I found to find the best people that are actually reliable. Um and you obviously do your due due due due diligence on that. And and they basically help you set up a lot of this stuff remote. Um that that's the thing that I preach about, right? Because we're not always lucky where our backyard is, you know, Louisville, Kentucky or, you know, one of these places that can generate a lot of cash flow cuz for me, I'm in Utah. All my properties are, you know, Arizona, Virginia, Florida. Like, we're all over the place. And I've never I haven't even visited half of my properties just because I built a solid foundation team to be able to do everything remote. And so, maybe if you want to talk a little bit more about how were you were able to find uh you know, your your team, maybe some strategies that you used to be able to, you know, find people that were trustworthy.

24:43 Yeah. So, in Louisville, I used Thumbtack cuz here I didn't really know anybody. I used Thumbtack and then, you know, I interviewed a ton of cleaners and yeah, I was just like, okay, you're either charging more than I think is economical for what I'm doing, or you just don't handle Airbnbs. You know, some of them don't want to do turnovers. They just want to do, "Yep, we'll get in there once a, you know, once or twice a month, clean a typical residence, call it a day." Signing up actually going to Turno or TurnoverBNB, which is now Turno, and it integrates with Guesty, so there's some benefits there. It's got that API, so it automates everything, which is great. But, the cool thing about Turno, and and not a plug for them, but uh it's they vet everybody that's on their platform, and they're all they also receive reviews from other people that use them. So, I was able to And the cool thing is like, you put out, "Here's the property, here's the size, here's how long I think it would take to clean. Also, here's the checklist that I can associate with it, you know, the things that I do." And And given that's a local property, I actually had a buddy recommend. He's like, "Clean it first like on your own. Like, go in, if you live close enough to it, go do it because you'll understand, okay, this is everything that needs to happen." So, you can kind of, you know, do that diligence and make sure that, okay, if I'm if I know this needs to be done, if someone else is going to come in and take care of it so it's turnkey, you know, I I know kind of what to assign them. So, went through Turnover or TurnoverBNB, got uh my cleaner through them, and thus far, they've done a pretty good job. Um so, that's the

26:01 Louisville thing. With with uh Saint Simons Island, that was um you know, they had a like three prominent or, you know, preeminent cleaners. Um when I got to the one I really liked, I I swear she was like, I talked to two. She had the benefit of being the last one. And the first two, I was leading the conversation. I'm like, "No, no, no. I Like, if you do this, I want you to tell me this is what to expect." You know, cuz again, being my first remote one, I wanted to make sure we're doing everything as as correctly as possible. When I got to the third cleaner, she was like, "I'm not a cleaner. I'm a hospitality group." And I'm like, "Okay, perfect." Cuz that means there's a little bit more involved there. And the to the sense that she said, "If anything ever goes wrong with your property, I'm showing up to it with a bottle of champagne, knocking on the door and saying, 'Hi, I'm so-and-so here on behalf of Rob. What can I do to make your stay better?'" And I'm like, sold. So, she uh she gave me her her referrals and I said, "I specifically want you to give me people that do not live in the area that are doing this all remotely." And so, she gave me one guy who had a property on Jekyll Island, and he lives in, I think, Boston. And somebody else who lives in Arizona. And both of them I talked to said, "We could not do what we do if it were not for her." And so, I'm like, "Okay, cool. Well, I want to join that club." And then, one of them gave me she gave me her handyman, and then the other guy gave me the photographer.

27:17 And Gala, who's the cleaner, she knew both of them. So. Um and that's and they've at this point everybody's done an absolutely phenomenal job. And Gala has has gone above and beyond cuz she's like, "We got to get this across the finish line." Because just as there's a benefit for us to, you know, or the landlord with us working with them to make sure that they get the rent paid, but we also get paid on it. With her, she's like, "The quicker we get this live, the quicker we collect that cleaning fee." I'm like, yeah. So, it's it's a win How do you create value for everybody? That's That's what business is. And so, it's it's worked out well. 100% dude. That a lot of good stuff in there. I think another thing cuz cleaners, they're going to be the lifeblood of your Airbnb business, especially if you're remote. And so, if you find a really good one, make sure to tip them. You know, we typically tip ours once a quarter.

28:04 Uh you know, we also give them a hol- a holiday bonus as well. And like, that's going to help them want to clean your your properties and put you in the top the top priority list. And I don't really think a lot of people do that. So, if you find a good cleaner, make sure you hold onto them for dear life. Oh, for sure. And like, I'm already looking at her like in terms of scale cuz she's like, "We cover as far north as Savannah, Georgia and as far south as Jacksonville. So, if you find anything in those properties cuz she's like, "I know this isn't going to be your last one, we'll take it and and take care of it for you." I'm like, "Perfect. I'd rather deal with one person that's absolutely killer." Cuz the other benefit is she has a linen service that's included, which when after you run the numbers on it, I'm like, "This is so much cheaper for me to go through you to get this than it is for me to order everything and then have to worry about laundry and this and she's like, "No, no, no. We We turn the beds over. We bring in new sheets. We provide guests with starter kits. It's It's literally I don't have to worry about anything." And if you do this right, which is what Preston teaches in the course, you don't have to either. You know, this should be as seamless as possible. I mean, cuz it's all about how do you build a system that works, can be automated, and can run well efficiently.

29:09 So, you're not caught up in the day-to-day of oh hey, I built another business, but now I have to manage said business every day. That's a good segue. So, after everything's been set up now, what are you dedicating to your Airbnb business per week, would you say? Yeah, per week, I mean, once like, you know, I was literally just in Guesty uh finalizing some like automated messaging and the the guest book um for when they check in and kind of run them through everything. But, after all this is done, I mean, it's it's pretty minimal. Like, the amount of time I spend on my Louisville property, I'll use that one as a reference point. Couple hours a week. I mean, it's it's just sort of it's monitoring um you know, I have the Ring set up so I can sort of see, okay, when are cleaners arriving? Is anything, you know, going on there? Um I might pop down to it myself, you know, every couple weeks just to if nobody's there, like, okay, is there anything I need to be aware of here? Is there are we running low on any supplies or anything like that? Cuz typically cleaners will tell me that, but, you know, I just like to have eyes on it, you know, every now and then.

30:03 With St. Simons, it's a different story because obviously I can't hop on a plane every 5 minutes. Um but I do I have a team down there that I really trust. And so I kind of rely on them to let me know if I need anything. And honestly the benefit is because they are so proactive, they are reaching out to me and saying, "Hey, have you thought about doing this? That that might be something you want to look into." And yeah, sure, go right ahead. Just send me send me an invoice for it. The amount of time is it's not crazy. I mean, most of the time I I either spend it on Guesty just maybe either tweaking messages, making sure everything's programmed, um which takes like 5 minutes. And I hop on PriceLabs once a week just to kind of check the listing health in terms of bookings and and pricing. But, you know, I've got some rule sets that run on Airbnb along with what's paired up in in PriceLabs. So, like, we're keeping things competitive and yeah, the occupancy rates haven't suffered at all. Love it, dude.

30:53 So, let's kind of talk about, you know, where your plans are for the future cuz there's some people that want to scale 10, 20, 30 plus properties. Others want just this, you know, side income so that they can use to go on better, you know, more vacations or whatever. So, what are what are your goals, uh you know, with this business and where do you see yourself in the next couple years? Yeah, so next couple years, I mean, I want the goal is complete financial freedom. That's why I got into this, right? Like um you know, the goal initially in getting into this was and it still to some extent probably is is generate the cash flow required to ultimately buy some sort of multi-family property. And, you know, I'd probably do that here locally. Kentucky's got a great real estate market for those kinds of things. You know, buy a multi-family property, rent that out, reap the tax benefits that come along to it. Is the income or cash flow as good as, you know, a short-term rental? Absolutely not. I mean, it's in in person. I know you know that, but it's like we, you know, you set that up. There there are other reasons for doing that. My goal with the short-term rental stuff though is I'd ideally like to have I don't really want to set a number on it. Um I know there are people that uh you know, they're doing apartments. You know, that's kind of their bread and butter. They're scaling a lot quicker with that cuz maintenance is pretty easy and they don't really have to They're not on the hook for the bigger items, like, what about the pool? What about this? What about the, you know, the gym and so on.

32:04 So, I might look at doing apartments from a scale standpoint. I think that makes, you know, a little bit of sense. Um but honestly I'd like to have I'm all about hedging and managing against risk. So, you know, if I have a property in Louisville, winters are kind of slow here. So, I set one up in St. Simons to kind of reap the benefits on, okay, well, people go travel south for the winter. Same time, I wouldn't mind a cabin or something a cabin-type property out in Colorado cuz I like to ski and snowboard. You know, things like that. It's figuring out, you know, I think you said it a while ago was where do you want to go to vacation? Cool. Why don't you have a property there that just pays for you to take those trips? So. Yeah. Yeah. Finding places where it makes sense and then just set it up and do it. Yeah, I mean, that's that's a great point because the thing with vacation, you know, markets or just short-term rentals in general, you can it's also obviously the cash flow is great, but you can also kind of double dip where if this is some place that you like to travel to, then you can, you know, block it off for a weekend and go take a trip to your property that you set up and be proud of. That's something that we like to do. Obviously we don't do it a ton, but that is definitely a huge benefit of this if, you know, it's not always about the money, right?

33:07 There's also a lifestyle component to it that you can, you know, you can take advantage of. All right, so like what are your what are your goals from the cash flow standpoint here like for the rest of this year? What are you what are you hoping to be at by the end of this year? Yeah, so I mean, my big thing at least with like St. Simons cuz that was furnished from top to bottom. So, a lot of what I'm focused on right now is and again, I have it for 3 years, so you can kind of amortize some of those costs over the the next, you know, the duration of the lease. But for me it's, okay, recoup investment, you know, which I have no doubt it'll do cuz I I know what that number is and, you know, that's between the two properties, that shouldn't be a problem, right? So, cash flow, I mean, yeah, it's first and foremost it's taking care of that, making myself whole. And then, you know, I'd like to do maybe 30 to 40 on top of that, which I think is entirely real 30 40 grand on top of that, which I think is entirely realistic just based on how the market's going in both areas. And especially again, especially with Louisville, I was really surprised. I mean, I knew it was going to do okay based on the numbers that we we'd run and and, you know, after I talked with you about it, yeah, just out the gate I think it's doing a little bit better than than I'd initially anticipated. So, if it just keeps on that trajectory, I think we're going to we're going to do very well. Love it, dude. All right, so to wrap this up, what advice would you give to someone that's either, you know, kind of playing with the idea about the program or just, you know, Airbnb in general? What would you say to that person? Do your due diligence, obviously, you know, before starting

34:23 anything, right? Like, you know, it's like those guys that are like, this is not financial advice. I mean, it's not. It's it's, you know, but you don't get anywhere by sitting on the sidelines, right? Like I had I toyed with ideas of like, okay, well, I can do this or I could invest here and, you know, whatever. And and, you know, you can you can go back and forth on it. Just pick something and get into it. If you fail, you fail. I mean, like, but, you know, we at least with this group, like, we've got a team of people that are very dedicated to making sure that you know, look, hey, I think I've I think I've got a good opportunity here. What do you think about it? Maybe maybe not. I mean, Dustin actually talked me out of one in Fort Lauderdale that I thought was going to be a slam dunk and he's like, I he's like, it looks good, but I would I would really reconsider it. And so I had he not done that, I wouldn't have gone with the St. Simons one. So, um so yeah, I mean, don't sit on the sidelines, guys. Like, if if that's with that's with anything, right? Like, I would definitely look into this because I think just from a cash flow standpoint, it's a really good opportunity. I don't think you're going to find this elsewhere, at least I'd say as easily, but like cuz there is work involved, right? You're building a business, you which is a you know, a grouping of systems that ultimately you want to have work well and efficient for you or efficiently for you. So, you know, know that there's going to be some work in it. And yeah, while it might be passive income, getting it to that point is not passive. Like, you are

35:39 going to be working. But, you know, once you the thing is like once you get it down and you figure out how to actually make it happen, you can, you know, copy-paste that wherever else you go. And you can scale very quickly. So, the first thing is you got to make the commitment to, okay, I want to do this. And once you do, get into it. And then like go all in. So, that's that's the best advice I can give for that. Yeah, bringing it back to your Louisville, put up put on those blinders, you know, like those those horses in the in the Derby. Put on those blinders, pick something, go at it for, you know, 12 months, and then and then you can decide or look into other things, but um for sure. All right, man. Well, appreciate the time, dude. A lot of good insights. Thanks for hopping on here. And yeah, we'll talk to you soon. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me.