← Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
From Punk Rock to Real Estate: Avery Carl's Journey to Short-Term Rental Success
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- [00:00]
A
I wasn't aware of money. I was aware of success and the freedom of being able to do what you want to do. So there was nothing that I wanted more as a girl growing up in small town Mississippi than to get out.
- [00:16]
B
And now, Escaping the Drift, the show designed to get you from where you are to where you want to be. I'm John Gafford and I have a knack for getting extraordinary achievers to drop their secrets to help you on a path to greatness. So stop drifting along, Escape the Drift, and it's time to start right now. Welcome back to the program, everybody. And again, the podcast that gets you from where you are to where you want to be. And today in the studio, ladies and gentlemen, I've got somebody that has taken the short term rental niche to a beast mode level. Not just accomplishing for herself. I'm talking about somebody that owns 250 years or has acquired that with her and her investors and just has taken that Airbnb game to the next level. She is the author of the bestselling book Short Term Rental, Long Term Wealth. She's the host of her own podcast called the Short Term Rental podcast with over 1 million downloads. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the program. This is Avery. Carl. Avery.
- [01:13]
A
Hey, thanks for having me.
- [01:15]
B
It's like, man, like there should be a sparkler or something going off with that intro. Fireworks or pow, Something going on with that. So. And let's get started with you, man, because, you know, obviously you are very driven in what you do. You don't reach this type of success without. Without being driven. So talk to me about. I always love the nature versus nurture kind of conversation. So tell me about you growing up, man. Tell me about that.
- [01:38]
A
Okay. Growing up. I grew up in a small town in Mississippi called Starkville, Mississippi. The only notable thing.
- [01:44]
B
Mississippi State.
- [01:45]
A
Mississippi State University. Yes. I was going to say that's the only notable thing is a very crappy. Sorry, dad who? SEC football team. As I say that as my alma mater, Texas, just got really embarrassingly whooped by Ohio State.
- [01:58]
B
Yes, they did. Should they have started Arch Manning? Should they go with Arch in that game?
- [02:02]
A
I think they probably should have because you know, the other, other guy who I can't remember his name went to Ohio State and they knew everything about him because he, he transferred from there.
- [02:11]
B
Oh my gosh. That's right. I didn't think about that aspect of it.
- [02:14]
A
Yes.
- [02:15]
B
Which is shocking that I didn't see that because obviously being from. And it's funny that you, you Being from that part of the world, obviously you went to Texas, which was interesting, but. But let's talk about you growing up. So you grew up in this small town. What a mom and dad do.
- [02:25]
A
My dad is a chiropractor. My mom is a stay at home mom.
- [02:30]
B
Okay. Mom's okay. So dad, chiropractor. Is he one of the, like, I can cure the common cold by cracking your back. Chiropractor. Okay.
- [02:36]
A
No, he's a. Let's. Your neck hurts, let's straighten you out. Pretty straightforward, you know what I'm talking about?
- [02:41]
B
There's the voodoo chiropractors with the gongs and stuff, and then there's the. Let me just straighten you out.
- [02:45]
A
Yeah. So he's on the state board in Mississippi. And I've heard some of those stor, like, chiropractors presenting themselves as, like, neurologists. Yeah.
- [02:52]
B
Like, oh, you have the flu. I can crack your back and we can make you better. Yeah, that's a little nuts.
- [02:56]
A
He sticks to backs.
- [02:57]
B
So growing up, growing up where you were did. I mean, obviously, Dad's a doctor. That's cool. Mom's there, which I love that.
- [03:03]
A
Yes.
- [03:03]
B
There every day. Was mom like the peanut butter and jelly mom, where like, all the kids would come to your house and she would. She was like, was she that mom?
- [03:09]
A
She was, she was. And still to this day is like, if when we go home, she'll make two separate dinners and be like, well, I made this, but I also made this. So whatever you guys want, you can choose. She's like the ultimate, ultimate mom.
- [03:20]
B
Yeah. So here's an interesting question though, because I always kind of think about this with my daughter. Right. Because my wife, thank God, is the stay at home mom as well. So we get to do that. It's what we decided we wanted to do when we had kids. And she wanted to be the peanut butter and jelly mom. Do you think that you being a woman, having mom as a homemaker, which is obviously a hard job, I'm not taking anything away from it, but that being her homemaker, do you think. How do you think that affected you as a daughter growing up in that type of world vision, as far as you kind of went the other way and became power entrepreneur. So did that affect you or. Or anything like that?
- [03:54]
A
That's a really great question. So I do think that I am a successful human because of the way I was raised, because I got a lot of attention from both parents. And, you know, my mom being around all the time, you know, my dad was around all the time too. But, you know, he worked. And that's kind of a really big part of why I ended up being an entrepreneur, because I did have the 9 to 5. I thought I had my dream job doing marketing for the music business in Nashville, but I remember having a conversation with my friend. We were walking around a track on my lunch break one time, and I was like, man, this is not going to work for when we have kids. We just got married and I was already thinking about, you know, the boss that I have is not somebody who's going to understand, oh, I need to stay home because my daughter got sick or. And it. I would have to spend eight, I mean, probably closer to 12 hours a day away from our future kids if I kept that job. So even back then, I thought finding a, like a job where you could work remotely was the answer. But the way. And we can talk about how I got into real estate investing later, but that's kind of the reason that it came about because I was looking for that flexibility. And now, you know, Fast forward this 10, 11 years later. We've kind of crafted our lives to where our kids have a two parent stay at home experience. Because I think that goes.
- [05:09]
B
Love that.
- [05:10]
A
Yeah, I think we kind of operate. I call it the family business model. You know, it's not like I'm working my own job, he's working his own job. We both built this thing. We both had separate jobs that we eventually both quit to do this. And now. And I think it goes the other way too. I think there's a whole generation of daddies out there right now who are like, oh, wait, I want to lay down with. I want to lay down with our son all day while he's sick. And let's watch. You know, they want to do the. The nurturing. And it's not.
- [05:34]
B
Not me, not me. When they're. They were sick. I take this one. Well, that'll come in when we need to talk about business advice. But us. Yeah. Wiping noses is never.
- [05:44]
A
Oh, no. My husband is like, oh, yeah, Sweet. Let's watch. Let's watch prices, right? They've never seen prices, right?
- [05:50]
B
Oh, yeah. So, dude, is there anything better than staying home from school, eating chicken noodle soup out of the can and watching prices, Right? Is there anything better than that?
- [05:56]
A
It's pretty good.
- [05:58]
B
It's just. It's the best. So let's. So obviously you were a good student because you went to Texas and did that. What was the first hustle you had as a kid? Like, were you were. You were you aware of money at an early age? Is that something that was. You were driven by that?
- [06:10]
A
I wasn't aware of money. I was aware of success and the freedom of being able to do what you want to do. So there was nothing that I wanted more as a girl growing up in small town Mississippi than to get out of small town Mississippi.
- [06:24]
B
I was thinking horse. I was immediately going equestrian with that.
- [06:28]
A
And.
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B
No, it was escape. I want to escape.
- [06:30]
A
I wanted to get out of. I wanted to go to big city.
- [06:33]
B
I can commiserate. My town of. See, you grew up in a college town. I grew up 42 minutes from a college town. There was like 8, 000 people in my hometown. So I. I could. I completely like, like, completely understand that feeling of I want to get out of here.
- [06:49]
A
I desperately wanted to get out, and athletics was my way out, so.
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B
Oh, I love that. Let's talk about that. So what'd you play?
- [06:56]
A
Soccer. And I went to Texas on a soccer scholarship.
- [06:59]
B
Okay, cool. See, I dig that because I, you know, youth sports for me, you know, I love it because my biggest fear is always raising worthless children. Like, it's my biggest fear in life, right? Like, I don't like, well, spiders too, but other than that, I don't. I'm not scared of a lot. But, you know, when you have. When you're affluent and you want your kids to, you know, like, experience nice things with you, especially when we travel and do things like that, I mean, I don't stay at the Holiday Inn Motel. And you're scared your kids are going to kind of wake up and be worthless. And I always found that when kids are affluent, they don't have a lot of adversity. And I love sports as a way to build artificial adversity because it builds grit. Was that something that you were drawn to or your parents really pushed you into and what you kind of felt developed a love for it? What was that?
- [07:45]
A
They didn't push us into it. Although I will say my dad played college golf and then a little bit of professional after that. So there was definitely a. I think they wanted us to have something that we really cared about and worked hard at, and they didn't necessarily care what that was. But, you know, small town Mississippi, there is only sports. And women's soccer at the time was not super mainstream, so they didn't know anything about it, but they were very, like, at every single game, they. My mom drove me two hours. The closest club soccer team was in Jackson, which is two hours Away.
- [08:19]
B
Oh, wow.
- [08:19]
A
Uh, so when I started getting really good and taking it really seriously, she drove me to practice two hours twice a week to, to do that. So I think it does, it does build grit. And I learned through that the, the value or the feeling of, oh, if I work harder, then I reap the benefits of that. So, you know, if I'm just can jump. I was a goalkeeper, so if I could just, you know, do a few more squats, I can jump a little bit higher, I might make a save. That one more college would be interested in me and I can get out of here.
- [08:48]
B
Yeah.
- [08:48]
A
Because I didn't want to like leave small town Mississippi and end up in small town Nebraska, you know. Yeah.
- [08:56]
B
Out of the frying pan.
- [08:57]
A
Yeah.
- [08:58]
B
Like, no, I already lived in this town. I don't want to do this again. It was, it's just so interesting that would. Especially when you, when you achieve, you know, a D1 scholarship like that, at that level. I had Dave Risky on the program a couple of weeks ago. He's spent 11 years in the major leagues and both his kids are in College on D1 scholarships. And it was really interesting to hear from his perspective how much you push, how much, how much you lay back to reach that level of, of skill. Because, I mean, look, there's athletic ability, obviously you have to be born with, but a lot of that's a lot of it's work. And to try to get a kid, you know, especially in this day and age of distraction.
- [09:35]
A
Yeah. Right.
- [09:35]
B
When the world's entertainment is at your fingertips in your bed and, you know, you can play Grand Theft Auto and mug people till 3 o'clock in the morning. It's hard to get a kid to be that interested in anything. So I think that's. That says a lot about. It's interesting that your dad was able to navigate that with you in a way that you don't look back at what he did at all and say you pushed. Because like Dave, he'd say, my kids would say I was dick. They say I was too hard about it. But so that's, you know, that, that's really interesting. So the soccer career was going well. Was doing that you got through school and soccer, did you have any aspirations to do anything after that with soccer? Do you know that was going to kind of be the end? Was there to go for like the Olympic team, any of that stuff? Or was that just, I'm gonna get through school, this is good. Or did you get to college and lose your mind a little bit?
- [10:18]
A
A little bit of all of that. So I was on. I made the regional team that they pull the Olympic team from, but I never really got any further than that. And, like, halfway through college, it's like, it's pretty clear there's not a major league to go to after. It's not like being a college football player and you have something to work towards. And I started having some shoulder injuries, which I still have, which still aren't fixed. And I also, as a hobby, played guitar in high school and really into. Was really into, like, punk rock and went to Warp tour and all that. And so I also chose my college based on where I could play music and be in a band.
- [10:56]
B
Austin.
- [10:56]
A
Yeah. So it was perfect.
- [10:57]
B
So wait, so you're. Okay, you're D1, you're D1 athlete in college, and you're also playing a band?
- [11:03]
A
Yes, it's very opposite. Yeah.
- [11:05]
B
How would that work out?
- [11:06]
A
It only overlapped for about a year, and somehow tours ended up not being during school. And then.
- [11:14]
B
So you were. So that was the. That was the. So soccer was the ticket, but the music was the passion. That was what you. You thought that's where you were going, that's what you wanted to do.
- [11:24]
A
Well, I don't think that I was delusional about it. Like, I wasn't ex. Planning to be the next Aerosmith or anything like that, but I was having a really good time. And I graduated at the worst possible time to ever graduate. Graduate and get a job for a soft major, like communication that I was. Which was spring of 2009.
- [11:41]
B
Okay.
- [11:41]
A
So there were no jobs, period. And so I was bartending and I was like, well, you know, I guess I'll just keep doing this music thing, have a good time until the job market swings back around. I'll go get my master's or something and. And do that. So I toured all over the U.S. europe, Japan. Had a really good time, like, really great early 20s, and then went back to school and got the real job.
- [12:05]
B
Did your brand get signed by a label to get signed by a label?
- [12:07]
A
A little tiny one. Nothing anybody's ever heard of.
- [12:11]
B
Okay, cool. Look, man, I love it. Back in the early 2000s, I had a live music venue in Atlanta that we had just randomly, just a bunch of people that wound up becoming very famous. Used to play there on the regularly. And it was always, always my greatest joy to be friends with the guys in the band, especially after they made it big. It's still. It's still my greatest choice to be able to Go to that stuff. It's great. When did you move to Nashville?
- [12:39]
A
Oh, so there's a lot in between there. So I lived in Austin for a while. Then I moved to New York for a gig. And what was the gig? I was playing bass with a guy named Ivan Julian, which is a really deep cut. You're only going to know who that is if you're, like, super into 70s New York punk. He. He was in a band called Richard Helen the Voidoids, which was kind of like one of the first big punk bands. Anyway.
- [13:02]
B
You were playing punk. This is. You were like, knee deep in this.
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A
Oh, yeah, Yeah.
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B
I love it.
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A
And I was bartending. So three happy hours a week in Soho making 90 grand a year.
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B
I gotta ask real quick. I gotta ask one question. What was the look in your punk rock day? What was the look?
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A
So it wasn't. It was nothing too crazy. So I had a little Joan Jet mullet.
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B
All right, cool.
- [13:23]
A
Leather. I still wear a leather jacket everywhere, but I live in Florida. Leather jacket, skinny jeans, motorcycle boots.
- [13:29]
B
All right.
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A
Cut off Iron Maiden T shirt.
- [13:30]
B
Okay, cool. Nothing. Nothing too crazy.
- [13:32]
A
No, no, no, Nothing too crazy.
- [13:33]
B
You didn't get. Obviously you didn't get any tattoos where the judge can see them, because I can't do crazy. Okay, cool. All right, good.
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A
All right.
- [13:38]
B
There you go. All right. Right on.
- [13:39]
A
Yeah.
- [13:39]
B
So you went to New York to play. Continue to play punk rock. That must have been culture shock, even coming from Austin to go to New York.
- [13:45]
A
I loved it. I always loved. I still love going to new cities, but, like, New York is the center of the universe. It's so great.
- [13:51]
B
I love it so much.
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A
So I loved living there, met my husband there, and we moved to Nashville just because we were tired of the city. It was right after Hurricane Sandy, and we could not get out of the city to even get away from it. The subways were flooded, and we didn't have a car because you don't need one. So we're just, like, stuck. And it was fun. It was like party central for a minute because everything was closed. But then all the restaurants started running out of food, and then the grocery store started running out of food. It got a little weird.
- [14:18]
B
Yeah, you're like, my neighbor is looking at me like they're hungry. This is not cool. I don't like this.
- [14:22]
A
Yeah. So we decided to go to Nashville because he was, and still is just on the weekends, a classic rock DJ on SiriusXM.
- [14:29]
B
Nice.
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A
And Nashville had an office for him. So we went on down to Nashville very Cool.
- [14:34]
B
That's awesome. So where did you live in Nashville?
- [14:38]
A
So we lived in north of Nashville in a suburb called White House.
- [14:42]
B
Okay. Right on. Yeah. Again, another great, great city that I. That I love. Some good friends of mine have a festival every year called the Pilgrimage Festival, which is in September, which is awesome. Love it. It's great that they' not Parker, not Brentwood, south of Nashville. Everybody lives there. All the rock stars live there.
- [15:02]
A
Oh, Franklin, Franklin, Franklin, Tennessee.
- [15:05]
B
Greatest downtown of any small town. It's so funny, dude coming for you. Probably experienced some of this too, because you come from this small town and all your whole life all you want to do is get away from it. And then when you go to like a small town as an adult now, if you live in these big places like oh my.
- [15:18]
A
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- [15:48]
B
That's so queen. I love this. I could live here. Like, when in reality, if you lived there in like five minutes, you'd be like, why did I move here?
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A
Yes, yes.
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B
I miss everything. Everything about it. So you're in Nashville and you got a job in. In the biz. What was the job?
- [16:01]
A
I was doing marketing for a music rights company. So if you're a songwriter, you have to sign up with one of these companies so that you can get paid your royalties when your song gets played on the radio.
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B
Okay, and. And how long did you do that?
- [16:15]
A
I had three different jobs in that field within about three years. I got put on a performance plan on two of them. Which means you're about to get fired. Because I'm not a good employee.
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B
That's where I was headed with this. Next.
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A
Yeah. So kind of got into real estate investing during that time and that kind of ended up being my. My exit, your pathway to it.
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B
It's so funny because anybody that's ever a high level entrepreneur, we're all chronically unemployable.
- [16:43]
A
Oh, yeah. I was so terrible.
- [16:45]
B
You're the worst employee, Al. I will say, personally, like a fun fact, right. I've been Fired in my life by two people, one of which was the AM Room service manager at the Ramada Inn in Tallahassee, Florida. Fuck you, Jeff. I still haven't forgiven you. And the second one is about to be the 47th President, United States. That's the only two people that have ever fired me. So good company for you, Jeff. I guess. Still haven't forgotten about. It wasn't my fault. Anyway, so. Yeah, you just do. At some point, you just look around and say, God, I'm just a terrible employee.
- [17:17]
A
Yeah. Yeah. And I also looked at who my role models were, and nobody in my family has had a corporate job like that. My dad has his own business. Both my grandparents. Both sets. My grandparents own their own businesses. And I'm like, oh, well, I've never. This example was not set for me.
- [17:32]
B
Okay, so what year was. What year was this you started buying investment properties?
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A
2013.
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B
Okay. Good time to buy.
- [17:38]
A
Yeah.
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B
Coming out. Coming out of the. Out of the crash. Good time to buy. And you were buying in Nashville, right?
- [17:43]
A
Yes. So it was kind of like by accident, actually.
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B
What happened? Tell me the story.
- [17:47]
A
So when we moved from New York to Nashville, our real estate agent at the time was really trying to get us to buy in, like, the hipster part of Nashville that was appreciating really fast and telling us, oh, people are making $100,000 in appreciation in a year. And we were like, oh, no thanks. We're moving from New York to Tennessee. We want to be out in the country. No more neighbors. So we bought out in the country in White House, which is now no longer the country Nashville has developed there. But. So we bought up there and didn't really think anything else about real estate. And then we got married, and we saved up a very small amount of money. But to us at the time, it seemed big. $10,000. And I was real into Dave Ramsey at the time, and no debt.
- [18:23]
B
No debt. No debt.
- [18:24]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
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B
So we don't buy that anymore, do you?
- [18:26]
A
No, no. So I was like, well, we gotta find something we can do with this $10,000. So we went to an Edward Jones office that was in the same building as my corporate building and went in and talked to the lady, and she told us we did not have enough money for her to bother with. And we were like, oh, great, we're. We're losers. So we started thinking, yeah, well, thank goodness she did, because otherwise we wouldn't be doing what we're doing. But we left with the wind let out of our sails, and we're trying to figure out. There's got to be something we can do with this.
- [18:58]
B
I got a question, I got a question. And this is something I think is important in your story because you guys bought your house before you got married. What was that thought process like? Because that, there's a lot of people that, that need that. Did you structure that? Like, how did you structure that deal, if you could.
- [19:14]
A
There was no deal structured. There were no. He bought the house. He bought was the girlfriend. Yeah.
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B
Okay, so. So when you say we bought our house, it was him by our house, Right?
- [19:22]
A
He did. And then once we got married, obviously that changed because we still lived in the house. But no, I was. It was his house.
- [19:28]
B
Okay. Because I see. And you probably now on the flip side of this coin, many years later, after being in real estate, you see people that are domestic partners or whatever that they go in together on and it's like, okay, did we talk about the house before we bought? It was our plan. So I just know when I, when I hear that in a story, like, I get it. And I'm just. If you're listening to this or if you love your, your boyfriend, your girlfriend, whatever, whatever, if you're in love, do, don't go buy a house with them unless there is a division of assets plan arranged by a lawyer ahead of time for. What happens if you break up 100%. Because that house is going to survive whether you break up or not.
- [20:06]
A
Yes.
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B
Unless you, unless you get somebody really crazy that burns it down. Then the insurance, well, maybe insurance doesn't pay it off anymore. I don't know. Who knows if they pay it off with their fire.
- [20:14]
A
Anyway, I, I have had a, an apartment building burned down in the last year and insurance did pay for it, but I didn't set that fire off.
- [20:20]
B
Was it in Southern California? Was it?
- [20:21]
A
No, no.
- [20:22]
B
Good lord. Terrible, terrible. Anyway, so you get a house, you're moving along, you got your 10 grand. You what? And isn't it so ridiculous? Dude, it's so. I want to talk about that too. Because you walked into a place bright eyed, like, excited to be there. Man, this is going to be the solution to our problems. And they look at you and they go, not good enough.
- [20:42]
A
Yep. Yeah, it sucked.
- [20:44]
B
And how did you. And look, I don't have to ask because I know you felt defeated, you felt less than.
- [20:51]
A
Yep.
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B
You felt terrible when you walked out of that office.
- [20:54]
A
Yeah.
- [20:54]
B
And the only reason I want to bring that up is because one of the first things that I teach so much to real Estate agents that work for us right. Is there's no such thing as a bad appointment. And if you're listening to your real estate agent, I'm going to, I'm going to teach you a lesson right now, which is if somebody calls you and they want an appointment with you, people know if their credit's bad. They know it's not a surprise. Nobody gets their credit report and they're like, oh my God, 520. How did that happen? They know. They already know. But they're still coming in on a slim hope and a prayer that you can help them. So you have two choices of what you can do with that client when you meet with them. Now, so many agents are so quick to try to pre qual people and like, don't even meet with them because they're done. I don't teach that. I teach. There's no such thing as a bad appointment if you can get in front of people. Get in front of people. And then if their credit's goofed up, man, you treat them with respect and empathy and you look across the table and you say, I don't care if it takes a year or five years, we're going to get this credit cleaned up. And if owning a property is important to you, then we're going to get you. We're going to get you there. And in the meantime, if you know anybody else that wants to buy a house, give them my card. And because you treated those people with respect, total respect, they will refer everybody they know to you before they buy. Yeah, so. But so many people in the financial services industry, real estate, what you just said, do exactly what you just said. They just blow people out.
- [22:10]
A
Yeah.
- [22:11]
B
Do you, do you carry that somewhere in the back of your psyche, that feeling?
- [22:15]
A
No, you know, I haven't. I only really think about it when people ask me why I bought real estate. And it's because she told me we didn't have enough money. And I just thought, well, there's got to be something we can do here. There's gotta be something we can do with this.
- [22:26]
B
Yeah.
- [22:27]
A
And no, I'm grateful, I'm happy she did that because I would have given her all that very little money that we had and it would be sitting in the stock market and we.
- [22:36]
B
Four and a half percent.
- [22:36]
A
Yeah. Yeah. So I'm grateful to her for sending us away.
- [22:40]
B
Yeah. So she. So she did you a favor.
- [22:41]
A
Yeah, she did.
- [22:42]
B
She did. So she sends you out, you're dejected a little bit, you got your 10 grand, at what point do you guys look at each other and say, maybe we should try to buy a house?
- [22:49]
A
I think we went to the bar directly after that.
- [22:52]
B
Fair, fair.
- [22:53]
A
And we were like, man, what are we gonna do? And then we. I don't know if he brought it up or I brought it up, but I was like, remember? I guess I'm gonna tell the story like I brought it up. Remember Shelby, our agent?
- [23:03]
B
She always take credit. Yeah. So he can't talk. He's sitting in here, but he can't talk. It's fine.
- [23:08]
A
No, that's not him.
- [23:09]
B
That's not him. No, we can talk about him. Other than your husband's at home.
- [23:11]
A
Yeah, he's at home.
- [23:12]
B
Oh, cool. Then he'll listen to this later. Be like, definitely take credit. Nobody's gonna.
- [23:15]
A
Yeah, I'll take credit. So it got brought up by one of us that, well, what about those houses that Shelby was talking about? We didn't even know it was called real estate investing at the time. And we said, what if we buy one of those? We put a tenant in it, so they're paying, you know, all the bills on that. And then in the future, sometime, and we have kids that need to go to college, we can pay for their college out of that appreciation. It won't have to come out of our incomes, and we'll be these real estate geniuses. And we went and bought a house on that premise. Luckily, that house cash flowed $1,000 a month over the mortgage, which is unheard of for a long term.
- [23:48]
B
So here's the question. All right, here's my first question is, did you guys underwrite this at all, or you just hope for the best? Well, this seems like a good deal.
- [23:56]
A
We did some loose research. Okay. We looked on Zillow to see how much houses rent for in that market, figured out how much. How much the mortgage would be, how much about we could get. And the rest was like prayer.
- [24:10]
B
Did you have to run out of the house at all?
- [24:12]
A
We had to paint it, and it needed new carpet.
- [24:14]
B
Okay. So light.
- [24:15]
A
Yeah, we got really lucky on that one because the it had one owner. They'd recently remodeled the kitchen, which is the most expensive thing to do. And their daughter was a new real estate agent and had listed it, and she listed it with no pictures. And we happened to be right down the street from it when it was listed. So we went and drove by, and we're like, this looks really nice. And we just offered on it before anybody else could see.
- [24:36]
B
Thank you, Real estate class of Wednesday. Thank you. Thank you for that deal.
- [24:39]
A
Yes.
- [24:40]
B
So you got in. Did you buy it? I mean, obviously 2013. I mean, we were scorching, buying stuff for the hedge funds. Did you. Were you guys able to buy at a decent margin? Did you walk into equity there?
- [24:50]
A
Yeah, I think we. Not a ton because I don't love it a little bit. A little bit. I would say maybe like 25 grand, not a whole lot.
- [24:55]
B
Okay, dude, exactly. Position. Yeah, it's going. And do you remember what your interest rate was on that at that time when you bought it?
- [25:02]
A
I want to say it was around 4. We weren't at the, you know, it wasn't 2020 yet.
- [25:07]
B
Better known as the good old days, five years later. So. Yeah. So you bought it there. Your cash flow in a thousand bucks a month.
- [25:13]
A
That was 2013. Yes, cash flowing. A thousand bucks a month. Which coincidentally, my dream job that doesn't pay anything is music business in Nashville. Pays nothing. There's always an intern who will do it for free. And that was about what I was making after all the deductions on my paycheck.
- [25:27]
B
Yeah. Thank you. Music business class on Wednesday. Thank you.
- [25:30]
A
Yeah. So I was like, okay, so I'm going to work, you know, sitting in an hour in Nashville traffic each way, working for this boss who I'm hate, who hates me. And this house is making sounds like.
- [25:43]
B
A productive work environment.
- [25:45]
A
And this house is making as much money while I sleep. And so then we were like, okay, we need more of these. How do we do that?
- [25:50]
B
Yep.
- [25:51]
A
And so only then did we start like listening to podcasts and stuff. I think really the only real estate podcast back then was bigger Pockets and there was no the coaching and all. That wasn't huge yet.
- [26:01]
B
Yeah.
- [26:02]
A
So we just kind of had to figure it out. And we said, okay, well, we've got a little bit of money. We've got enough for like one down payment. What can we buy that's going to make us the most amount of money the fastest so we can buy more faster? And we landed on short term rentals, but we didn't want to do it in Nashville because Nashville was already like very anti short term rental. But we just been on vacation to the Smokies, which Gatlinburg area about four hours east. And we'd stayed in a cabin. Our friends had stayed in cabins. And we're like, okay, well all of these are basically Airbnb. They're not being on Airbnb. They were on like big property management websites. But somebody owns these things and that should be us.
- [26:35]
B
Yep.
- [26:35]
A
So we went and bought one. Again, there were no short term rental gurus.
- [26:39]
B
How did you come up with a down payment for that one? How close were we. How close are we weigh from the revenue on this one? And did you lever? Did you start levering? At what point? I'll get to that. How did you buy the second one?
- [26:49]
A
We saved and worked extra. So Luke, who was like, live on the radio 12 hours a day, Ubered. Like, people would recognize him from the radio when he would Uber.
- [27:00]
B
Okay.
- [27:00]
A
He has a very distinctive voice. So, you know, how humbling is that? Like, you have this big public job and then somebody's like, oh, you're my Uber driver.
- [27:06]
B
That, that, that, that what you just said is the difference. That that is the line that most people that will never, never have an immense amount of success are willing to travel over.
- [27:18]
A
Yeah.
- [27:18]
B
Because they're not willing to do. They're not want to take the step back in the eyes of their peers. That is required to take 10 steps forward.
- [27:26]
A
Yeah.
- [27:27]
B
So listen, dude, I mean, look, if you learn nothing else from this today, I mean, you're going to see where this story lands, which is wild. How much, how much. How big this portfolio is. And they were driving Uber to make it happen. Like, like it doesn't happen by accident.
- [27:43]
A
No. So.
- [27:44]
B
So he Swan is probably driving Uber. You saved your money, bought the second one.
- [27:47]
A
Yeah, saved our money, bought the second one. And we thought we were going to have to get a property manager because, you know, it wasn't done at the time. There were no Airbnb gurus. There's nobody posting on Instagram every day about how to do it. And the property management split back then and still in a lot of the big vacation rental markets. Like, that was 40% of your gross because Airbnb was just kind of coming along, so they had a total monopoly on this. So we're like, no, no, we need that 40%. We got to buy some houses. So we figured out how to manage it ourselves remotely on Airbnb and just kind of figured that out over the next year, took every penny we made on that and bought another one. And that ended up being five properties over the course of about a year and a half. During that time, I got my real estate license and it kind of segued me out of my job. I got my real estate license. I did not want to be a real estate agent. I was like, I was gonna say.
- [28:41]
B
What was the point? What was the goal of the real estate license? I kick the commissions on the deals we buy back into the deal.
- [28:47]
A
Well, that was part of it. The other part of it was that my husband is a New Yorker, and he is. Can be abrasive. He's very direct. And he was embarrassing me in deals. And I was tired of apologizing to agents saying, like, oh, he's just. He's not really mean. He's just a New Yorker.
- [29:03]
B
So you got your real. This is. Could be. I've never heard this. And we deal with. I've dealt with thousands of agents. I got my license because my husband was embarrassing.
- [29:12]
A
Now, look, he was.
- [29:13]
B
My wife does a lot of what she does because I'm embarrassing, but she's never got.
- [29:18]
A
Never taken it that far.
- [29:19]
B
That's pretty. No, maybe I've never taken it that far. Maybe I need to take it further. I don't know. My wife's. My wife is going to get an MBA because I'm annoying. Perfect. I love the way this is working. I could be annoying. I have no problem. So. So you guys get the second one in the smokies. Now talk to me about managing that remote, that first property remote. Like, walk me through that.
- [29:44]
A
Okay. It is so much easier to do today than back then. There's so many tools to make it easier. But back then, we had. We found a cleaner and a handyman, and you. There were no Facebook groups to find these things back then. So we went to. We would sit at the gas station that was, like, off the main parkway, headed out to where all the cabins are, and we would wait to see a guy who had, like, a handyman sticker with his phone number on the side of his truck, and we'd take pictures of all of them, or we'd stop them and ask them if they were handymen. And then we were able to kind of find cleaners that way, because cleaners don't typically have advertising on the sides of their. Of their vehicles. So we sat at the gas station where they sell biscuits and waited for people to come get breakfast and found our first two vendors that way. And we used Airbnb and vrbo. And I had to sit down at the beginning of every month and look at our calendar and all of our bookings and write an email to my cleaner and say, these days. And I had to watch like a hawk to see if we got a booking because then. And there was no automation. So I had to sit there and respond to every single message. And we did it. Now it's. So all of that is automated.
- [30:47]
B
You have electric locks.
- [30:47]
A
Back then, we did have Electric locks. So. But, you know, this was 2015, so it was 10 years ago. And the, the industry was not what it is now.
- [30:58]
B
No, no, no, no, no. So, so at what point did you say, okay, we've got our two, and you went from, you know, we're doing this to we're scaling this?
- [31:08]
A
Yeah.
- [31:08]
B
What, at what point? What did that decision look like? And what was that process?
- [31:13]
A
Everything just kept working, so we just kept going. There wasn't a, oh, we need this amount of properties or that amount of properties. Once we got to five short terms and the cash flow was coming in pretty heavy, we started buying duplexes in Chattanooga because they were cheap. They're only like a hundred thousand bucks. And you notice, don't really notice that 25,000 leaving the bank account as much. So we started, I think we got up to like 40 doors there and have just kept, kept buying on all three of our asset classes. So we buy vacation rentals. Only vacation rentals. I want to make that distinction. The whole like Airbnb thing of like, let me buy a whole street in Kansas City and turn it into Airbnb because I can make more money than just long term renting it.
- [31:56]
B
Vacation rentals, you're buying where, where people actually plan vacation.
- [32:00]
A
Yes.
- [32:00]
B
That's where you're.
- [32:00]
A
Yes. So we are always buying vacation rentals, always buying apartment buildings, always buying single family long terms. And we just kind of have all three of those rolling at all times. We've got about 250 doors now been slowing down on buying because, as you know, the real estate market has sucked the past couple years.
- [32:18]
B
Well, there's going to be a lot of opportunity, I think, in the multifamily side because the syndicated deals are smashing into walls. They are just, I mean, those guys that I know a lot of syndicate, I know a lot of deal syndicators that were flying pretty high a couple of years ago that I. They haven't seen them anywhere because their deals are falling apart. So I think there's going to be some. I think rates are going to need to get below six to make that those deals work. But they're going to have to do.
- [32:45]
A
Something because have to do something. The entire market has stopped.
- [32:49]
B
It's bad.
- [32:49]
A
Yeah. Fewer homes sold in 2024 than the last 65 years, including, you know, 2008.
- [32:55]
B
Well, I think, you know, for the residential market overall, I'm talking about multifamily, but in residential. And tell me, you know, my number on residential market is 5. 5. That's my number what, what I mean by that is I think that when the rates now that we're far enough away from the 3% rates, we're far enough away from it that when rates tip back to 5, 5 when they hit there, I think people that have a 3 1, 5 rate are going to swallow a 5, 5 rate.
- [33:15]
A
Yeah.
- [33:16]
B
They're not swallowing 7.
- [33:17]
A
Yeah.
- [33:17]
B
If they're in a house, they're like, I really need a bigger house. But my interest rate, 3%. Right. I think that's the number that eases that up, that feeds, that feeds inventory into the market, that makes things go. What says you.
- [33:28]
A
Yeah, I agree with that. I think for the invest residential investment side, I think maybe six will do it.
- [33:33]
B
Yeah.
- [33:33]
A
But yeah, I think you're right right now.
- [33:36]
B
Well, I'm talking about, I'm talking what's going to motivate people to sell the houses they're in.
- [33:39]
A
Yeah.
- [33:40]
B
And look at other things. Because that's what, that's the problem is we've got those golden handcuffs, have just eliminated the inventory.
- [33:45]
A
Yeah. Which is the problem. Well, and right now on the investment side, people, people need a 1031 exchange if they're going to sell. And so they don't want to sell, take a hit on their value because somebody doesn't want to pay a 7% interest rate and make their payment, not make the cash flow work. And then they have to turn around and become a buyer in a high interest rate environment that they don't really want to be anyway. However, I will say that it is a really good time to buy right now because nobody's buying houses. So you can get better deals because you don't have that competition.
- [34:10]
B
Oh no, for, for sure. I mean when you look at, we advise clients all the time, it's like fishing. Right. Like right now there's not a lot of boats on the water, so it's easy to catch big fish. But if you wait till rates come around. Everybody's waiting for that.
- [34:22]
A
Yeah.
- [34:23]
B
Yes, everybody's waiting for that. I mean I granted if you're trying to do, you know, burr properties into long term, you know, rentals, it's challenging to get them to cash flow. Like right now, stuff we're trying to acquire. If I can just break it even right now, I'm fine because I'll ride the appreciation I believe in, especially in this market. I believe in it based on the growth of Las Vegas and what's happening. But yeah, cash, you know, buying a cash flowing asset in Vegas on a strategy is damn near impossible. Right now, it just, it's, it's just impossible. So at what point did you look? Because obviously you're learning as you're doing deals. What percentage of your education would you say, like you went to YouTube and figured it out what percentage it was School of hard knocks from getting smashed around in these deals?
- [35:00]
A
I would say it's all been school of hard knocks from getting smashed around. Yeah. Because when we first started there, there weren't youtubers on short term rentals. Now we got smashed pretty hard on one multifamily this year. And it really wasn't in. I learned not to buy cheap properties just because they're cheap. And a lot of those investment gurus out there will say, oh, you know, here's a list of the top 10 best markets. And it's like Memphis, Indianapolis, all these places that, yeah, it's going to be cheap, but you're going to have to replace that H Vac that gets stolen.
- [35:32]
B
Rust Belt garbage.
- [35:33]
A
Yeah. So we had a situation where we've got other stuff in that market. It's in the Midwest and it's fine. But we had a bigger property than ours across the street that the guy just like let it go to hell and ended up condemned by the city. There's squatters in there, there's crime, there's drug dealers. It's coming across the street to our property. Our tenants don't feel safe. They're moving out, they're breaking windows in ours. And finally we just were like, we're just going to sell this. And we had to sell it for like a little bit less than what we paid for it because the market turned. But we also bought in a market that doesn't appreciate, which is why all those markets on those lists are typically very cheap, because they're in markets that don't appreciate because they don't have a lot of people moving in. So I learned my lesson about not buying cheap stuff just because it's cheap.
- [36:18]
B
Yeah, see, I went the other way. I went the other way on that. I learned. I learned to stay closer to the median price, not the luxury stuff. I mean, last year when, when the interest rates hard turned on us in 2022, at the end of 2022, and the rates shot. Right. I was sitting on probably close to 12 million in luxury flips and that. And it wasn't a bunch of houses. It was a bunch of square feet. It was a bunch of big houses. And yeah, and when the, and when the, when the interest rates turned and everything stopped, we just got I mean, the Juice just demolished all those deals and it took a big hit. And, you know, that's. That's real estate investing. I always say, if you don't have a big loss, sometimes you're not entrepreneuring enough. Yeah, you're not entrepreneur hard enough.
- [37:01]
A
Yeah. Your number's going to come up at some point.
- [37:03]
B
What's the biggest hit you've ever taken?
- [37:04]
A
It was that one.
- [37:05]
B
It was that one.
- [37:05]
A
Yeah, it was that one, man.
- [37:07]
B
Is it. Tell me about a time through this, because you did something kind of interesting too, right? So you came out of the box doing something that it normally takes people a lot. It's a hump to get over. Most people when they start investing in real estate, even on small scale, they want to buy everything in the market they're in. It's a lot for them to say, how am I going to borrow? How am I going to buy a property across the country? How am I buy a property that's 800 miles away from me? Like that's something people normally work up to. But you came out of the box swinging with that. So did you guys even think about that or like, do you realize that's an anomaly with you or.
- [37:39]
A
I didn't realize it at the time. We just thought, well, it's not going to work here. Where's it going to work?
- [37:44]
B
Yeah.
- [37:44]
A
And found the place that it worked and we could get there quickly enough if we needed to. But the truth is, you don't really need to get there. I think everybody gets really hung up on that. They're like, what if there's an emergency? I'm like, what if there's an emergency? Are you going to go in the midst of a fire and insert yourself and perhaps accidentally create liability?
- [38:01]
B
Um, yep. That, that's, that's always my cutback too. It's like literally, if there's a. If there's a leak, are you going to go fix it or you call plumber? I'm not going to fix it.
- [38:09]
A
Exactly.
- [38:09]
B
I'm not going to fix it.
- [38:10]
A
So people have a hard time getting over that. But no, we were just like, okay, we can't get there here, so where can we get there? And we just did it.
- [38:17]
B
Yeah. So you mentioned earlier that you own properties and just a vacation markets. What markets do you have and what makes a good vacation market for you? This place you gotta like to go, or is it place where you just. What do you look at?
- [38:27]
A
Okay, so. So for my personal vacation rental investments, totally. I do not invest in different asset classes in the same towns. They're typically different types of markets. So for both my vacation rental investing and then with the short term shop, we only work in true regional drivable vacation destinations. So we're not opening up in Nashville. As a matter of fact, we had an office in Nashville and I shut it down because after two or three of our clients gotten a in lawsuits with the city because Nashville does not is not dependent on tourism. There's other industry there, so they don't want it there. They have the hotels, they have, you know, everything. Anyway, I focus on regional drivable vacation destinations that don't have a lot of hotel presence and that are dependent on tourism. So I own in the Smokies in Tennessee. So Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, Destin, Florida. 30A, Florida and Cape Sandblast. All these areas don't have a lot of hotel presence and get. So I live on 38. There's 10,000 of us that live on 30 a full time. There are 10 million people that come to 30 a every year and they all stay in vacation rentals. So if the vacation rentals went away, 30A would not exist. Nobody's business. Everybody else that lives there full time, small business owners, none of those would exist. You know, hospitality businesses, restaurants, things like that. So I focus on areas where the economy is dependent on tourism. So that there's a few exceptions to this, like Breckenridge, but in most cases they're very, very short term rental friendly because they're so important to the local economy.
- [39:56]
B
Well, I want to talk about 30A in particular because you own a bunch of properties there and I love that area. My family, we spend a week there every year. But I also know that, you know, being from Florida, growing up there, you, you have a little issue in, in that part of the world called hurricanes. Like for example, Mexico beach got leveled. What was it, three years ago?
- [40:12]
A
2019. Yeah.
- [40:13]
B
Oh my God. That far I got Michael. Good Lord. 2019 blank man. Yeah, I had friends that had houses in Mexico beach that got leveled. You know, when it comes to that and the new, the new laws, because now you have a roofing issue where you have to have your roof redone every so, so often in Florida to get insurance. And you know, you look at what just happened in Southern California with the fires and insurance companies. I mean, how much of, how much of, how much of the natural disaster potential do you pencil into these decisions when you're doing this stuff?
- [40:47]
A
So it's just a risk that you have to be willing to Take. When you think about. And I do not have exact probabilities on this, I'm not a scientist or a mathematician, but when you think about the percent chance that your property is going to take a direct hit and be a total loss, it's actually decently small. Like, is Florida going to get hit by a hurricane every year? Yes. But is it going to necessarily be your part? And how bad is it going to be? Like, I was eight and a half months pregnant for Hurricane Sally and we just, it was a category three. We sat there, it was like a long Mississippi thunderstorm for three days and then it was over. And it sucked. It was a lot of, A lot of water. But like, it was not. It's not always a Helene situation.
- [41:26]
B
Yeah.
- [41:27]
A
And the chances of you getting a direct hit, having a total loss are relatively small. But that's something you just have to be okay with if you're going to buy in a beach market. Now, the, the thing that beach markets offer is high levels of tourism, especially in that market. Expensive tourism.
- [41:41]
B
Yeah.
- [41:41]
A
So if, if you're not okay with that, there's other places you can buy. Like Scottsdale does not have natural disasters.
- [41:48]
B
Yeah.
- [41:48]
A
We've got an office there. Smokies. We have fires there too. Not as much as, as Southern California, but there's going to be something everywhere. I had a, I bought a duplex in Chattanooga, got run over by a tornado like two weeks after I bought it.
- [42:00]
B
So there's always something. Like, there's always something.
- [42:02]
A
Yeah.
- [42:02]
B
Except in Vegas, baby, it's just hot here. That's it. We have no natural disasters here.
- [42:06]
A
Yeah.
- [42:07]
B
You know, it's funny, you talk about expensive on 38. Everybody that ever bitches about the price of food in like football stadiums when they go, I'm like, bro, go buy a snow cone from the snow cone truck. It's east side. And you come back and tell me how expensive that.
- [42:20]
A
Oh, yes. I'll go out to eat, like just me and my six year old daughter and have like two appetizers. 90 bucks.
- [42:27]
B
Oh, dude, my kids, my kids will ride the bikes of those food trucks. And like, I got to fill out a credit app. Wait, what do you know? Dude, that's crazy. It's insanely expensive. But, but that's wild. But you wrote this book. I want to talk about the book. Okay, all right. This one short term now question, because I was a little confused with this. You have to forgive me, okay? But my podcast affiliate, my podcast associate that booked you on the show today is also my 16 year old son. So sometimes some of the notes I get are a little bit incorrect, so it's fine. The book, Short Term Rental, Long Term Wealth. That one's out.
- [42:59]
A
Yes, that one came out in 2021.
- [43:00]
B
Okay, cool. So you have another one coming out?
- [43:02]
A
Yes.
- [43:03]
B
All right, well, let's talk about this one first.
- [43:04]
A
Okay.
- [43:05]
B
So what inspired you to write a book?
- [43:09]
A
Bigger pockets.
- [43:10]
B
Ask me to love that bearded Brandon man. He's convincing dude, isn't he?
- [43:14]
A
Yes, yes.
- [43:14]
B
Such a good dude.
- [43:15]
A
Yeah, he is. And I, it kind of. We have, you know when you have clients and you have three or four of them in a row ask you the same question. You're like, okay, what can I get? Hand them when they come in the door or show them. That's going to answer all these questions. So I'm not answering the same question over and over again. I just kind of wrote the book based on that. Like, okay, we've got all these clients who ask all these questions. Let's answer all those questions in the book.
- [43:42]
B
Yeah, because that, that's your, that's your niche. We didn't talk about that. I'm sorry. That was your niche when you got into real estate was all sudden like, not only am I doing this for myself, but I can help other people do the same thing. I've got the blueprint, I got the plan. And that became very, very attractive to investors because I'm sure you're like a one stop shop. It's not just let me buy the house. It's we're going to set the whole thing up for you. Is that part of the process for you?
- [44:02]
A
Yeah. So what we do, and it started just because I had my license and say, you're making how much on that cabin in the Smokies, Help me buy one. Teach me how to do it. And then it became bigger. And then all of a sudden I was the top agent in the mls. And then we opened up other markets because I had clients again, more than one client coming to me and saying, hey, I want to buy something in Destin, Florida. Is there a you in Destin that you can send me to?
- [44:23]
B
Better yet, there's a me, right? There's a me right here. Let's do it.
- [44:25]
A
Yeah. So we just plugged other markets into the existing system that we have. And our, what we do is if you're going to buy a short term rental with us, we send you to what we call management Monday and we teach you how to manage it. We get you, we do it while you're under contract.
- [44:38]
B
It's like a boot camp.
- [44:39]
A
It's a. We have it every Monday. It's like a two hour thing. And it's Luke, my husband, because he has come up with all the systems and processes.
- [44:46]
B
Don't people find him abrasive?
- [44:48]
A
They.
- [44:49]
B
Just kidding. No, I'm kidding. Luke, if you're listening to me, I'm sorry, I haven't met you. I'm sorry.
- [44:52]
A
He's gotten a lot better.
- [44:53]
B
Okay, cool. So, yeah, he's better.
- [44:55]
A
Yeah, he's learned. But so he manages all of our properties, and so he teaches all of our clients how to manage. And so a lot of the big.
- [45:05]
B
Well, okay, hang on a second. I'm gonna say this, okay. If Luke is dealing with an army of cleaners and handymen nationwide, he needs to be a little abrasive.
- [45:14]
A
Yeah, yeah, he is.
- [45:15]
B
He's built for that.
- [45:16]
A
Yes.
- [45:16]
B
You gotta be a little assertive in that situation.
- [45:19]
A
Yes. And on the group text with this contractor who's rebuilding our. How our almost said condo, our apartment building that burned down. Like, sometimes I'm like, damn, Luke was just like a real dick to him, but he deserves it. Like, he's not getting stuff done. I'm like, thank you for doing that.
- [45:34]
B
So. Because you don't have to do it.
- [45:36]
A
Yeah, I learned too.
- [45:37]
B
He's the enforcer, right? He's the guy, like, stands behind you. Whatever you say just goes. Yeah. It's scary enough that they just do it. I love this. Yeah, It's a great partnership. Good job.
- [45:47]
A
It is.
- [45:48]
B
It's. Good job. Keep going. So. So not many Mondays manage management. Management Mondays. That's what it is. So, yes, it's a. I love that as a service. It's a boot camp. Do you ever let prospective clients go through that just to get a taste or do they. Is it like you got to buy a ticket if you want to get on.
- [46:03]
A
You got to buy a ticket if you want to get on the ride. We did recently open a mentorship program for, like, if people want to buy with us that we don't have an agent in that market, but they still want our help, then we've opened up a, like a year long mentorship program or people who are like really, really nervous buyers who don't want to wait for Management Monday, then they can pay to go into the mentorship program, which is much more comprehensive than Management Monday. But we try to keep that super affordable so that we can teach everyone. Because it's question mark.
- [46:32]
B
Because for you, the long term value is. Let me Let me show you how to make money here because these are repeat customers, which is, you know, in real estate or repeat customers every seven years. These are people that can buy something as they're scaling up and being profitable. So, yes. Good business model. Good for you. Look how smart that is, man. Bam.
- [46:48]
A
Yeah. I mean, the goal is we make you so successful with your first one, maybe you come back and buy more with us in more markets.
- [46:54]
B
Yeah, I love that. That's. That's. That's great. So the new book that's coming out. What's the new book?
- [46:58]
A
New book is called Smarter Short Term Rentals. How to out host the competition. So, okay, yeah, previous one was more like a primer on how to choose a market, how to choose a property, and some light management. But this is more like the business running aspect of it.
- [47:11]
B
I love it. So is this something that. So, so should people start here before they start talking to you? Is this like a, you know. Cause like, I have stuff with me, with. With. With not necessarily clients, but more like with. I'm like, okay, you need to go through this and then you'll. You'll speak the same language I speak and then we can talk. Is that like something you advise people to do? Your clients, when they, like, if they come on, are you going to use this as a leader for them or you like, let me send this to you as a gift. Are you going to. I mean, how are you going to utilize this? Obviously, it's. It's lovely to educate people, but in the course of your business, how are you going to use this?
- [47:43]
A
So for me, it's more of like authority building, like two books on this.
- [47:48]
B
I wrote the book on it.
- [47:49]
A
Yeah. Why would you go use another agent?
- [47:51]
B
Yeah. Schmucks. Terrible class on Wednesday. You never know what you're gonna get on the authority on this. All right, well, I love it, dude. That. That's 250 doors in five years. That's amazing growth and obviously you are tenacious and hats off to you and abrasive Luke for getting it done. That's amazing. If they want to find you, connect with you, learn more about this, buy the book. How do they find you, Avery? Where's the best place?
- [48:13]
A
So our website, theshortermshop.com on Instagram. Probably the easiest place to find me, it's at the short term shop if. Oh, gosh. At the short term shop if you want to follow the brand, or at the Avery Carl, if you want to follow me and YouTube, slash, the short term shop. And if you want to buy the new book, you can get it on Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Like you can walk into a Barnes and Noble and get it or you can preorder it. It's not quite out yet. It comes out February 11th on biggerpockets.com/smarter str.
- [48:42]
B
I love it. Well, dude, Avery, it was such a pleasure to meet you today. I'm so in awe of your success. It's awesome. If you're ever back in Vegas, feel free to stop back through.
- [48:50]
A
Well, thank you so much for having me, guys.
- [48:52]
B
Listen, man, if that doesn't get you fired up and inspired to do things, I mean, look, take some chances with your life. Do some things. Take steps back to take steps forward. Nobody's coming to save you, man. It's on you to get there. See you next week. What's up, everybody? Thanks for joining us for another episode of Escaping the Drift. Hope you got a bump bunch out of it or at least as much as I did out of it. Anyway, if you want to learn more about the show, you can always go over to escaping the drift.com you can join our mailing list. But do me a favor, if you wouldn't mind, throw up that five star review. Give us a share. Do something, man. We're here for you. Hopefully you'll be here for us. But anyway, in the meantime, we will see you at the next episode.