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- [00:00]
A
What's going on, everyone? Welcome to Real Talk Real Estate. This is the David Green Show. I'm David Green and I'm joined today with special guest host Ashley Cole. And we are going to be bringing you guys a fun filled, exciting and value packed show for real estate investors to learn a little bit more about how to build wealth through real estate. If this is your first time listening, the Seeing Green style shows are where we take questions from you, our listener base, and we bring them for everybody to hear. And that's what we've got today. If you'd like to be featured on the show, go to davidgreen24.com apps ask where you can upload your video and please do so because we need more of these to make these shows. And if you like the show, please consider sharing it with somebody else. Ashley, how are you today?
- [00:42]
B
I'm wonderful. How are you?
- [00:44]
A
I am doing great. And you're probably lying right now because I asked Ashley about an hour and a half ago, last minute, would you like to join me for a scene? Green, and she's pretending like she's not nervous, but she's probably super nervous because this is her podcast. But I am confident that you guys are all going to love Ashley as much as I do after you get to know her a little better. Before we jump into our first question, Ashley, can you just take a brief minute to, to kind of explain a little bit about your own portfolio and your real estate business?
- [01:08]
B
Yeah, absolutely. So I Invest in Branson, Missouri. I have short term rentals there. I own 19 and then I manage for others as well. I have a little over 40 total. I've been in love with real estate for as long as I can remember. Started I think about my first one when I was 21, just long term rental and bought it. Bought a bunch after that and then got into short term rentals and yeah, that's just, it's my love now.
- [01:32]
A
Okay, and how many short term rentals do you have?
- [01:34]
B
I own 19. Yeah, and then there's. I manage a little bit more than that for other people.
- [01:40]
A
You don't want to say how many you manage.
- [01:42]
B
Honestly, I don't know. I just, I onboarded two more here, so it's somewhere over 40.
- [01:46]
A
She's so successful that she lost track of how well she's doing. And this is why you guys are going to love Ashley because not only is she really good at what she does, she's super humble. And then you're buying a farm right now as well or something like that right?
- [01:58]
B
Yeah, yeah, we just closed like 10 days ago. Yeah.
- [02:03]
A
Okay, so you got a farm, 160 acres. You're going to lease that to someone else who's going to manage it?
- [02:08]
B
We are leasing the house. There's a house on there also. And then my husband's hobby is cows. I collect condos. He collects cows and he's going to throw a bunch of cows out there.
- [02:19]
A
Have you considered an Instagram page called Cows and Condos?
- [02:23]
B
No. That's a great idea, but I'm so bad at social media, so I'd have to have somebody else run that.
- [02:29]
A
Heifers and HOAs. I'm sure that there's lots of ways that we could play on this. We'll have to think about that throughout today's show. So thank you for joining us. Now she's going to be throwing in her two cents on your guys's questions, the overall state of the market and the comments that we receive over here at Real Talk Real Estate. All right, let's get into our first question from Anthony Wheeler.
- [02:52]
C
Hi, David, big fan of the show. Got a question about getting started in real estate. I want to try to do the house hack method with a multifamily. There's a few duplexes in my market that I'm looking at. Based off of numbers, I should be able to purchase around 220 and possibly rent a second unit out for 1100 dollars a month, maybe 1200 dollars a month, give or take, depending on comps. While living in one unit. How do I get started? My timeframe is about six months from now. I work a 9 to 5 with a secondary job for extra income. I'm looking to scale and get real estate this way. If you could possibly give me any kind of advice or tips.
- [03:36]
A
All right, we got a red blooded American here who's willing to work two jobs, house hack, climb his way into wealth. We love seeing that here at Real Talk Real Estate. So thank you, Anthony, for your question, for sharing it and for your work ethic because Lord knows we need more of this. I don't know if you ever house hacked Ashley, but it sounds like he's trying to buy a duplex, live in one side, rent out the other. He thinks he can get one for 220,000 and he thinks that he can rent out one side for 1100. It seems to me, to me, much better than buying an actual house. What advice would you have for Anthony here?
- [04:08]
B
I love this, I love this question and I love the. I love what he's Trying to do there. So I have house hacked. In fact, I said about my first, I think I was 21 and I house hacked, I think eight properties, just one after the other with having. Yeah, just having friends live with me. And so I love what he's doing here and I think that's absolutely the right way to go. I haven't done the multi family where you do. Where you do multiples, but I would absolutely say that buying the one side and renting out the other is a great way to get into real estate in a way you could grow fast if you. If you get in that way.
- [04:46]
A
Okay, what advice would you have for a house hacker since apparently you've done this eight times in a row? I mean, you should be writing a book on house hacking and I'm sitting over here not knowing that you did it. What are some, like, as much as you could think of? Dump your advice on people who are considering house hacking or maybe they're doing it now. What are some of the challenges they should be aware of?
- [05:06]
B
So my house hacking, it was me and then I had roommates that live with me. And I'm going to think it's very important to get people that you trust in there with you. I also did like a lot of rehab when I was in there at the same time. So kind of burring also at the same time. So I think that if you can find something, if you're handy, try to, try to do some work on it as well. So that way when you go to sell it later on, you can also make money on it that way as well.
- [05:36]
A
Do you think that rent by the room is worth it? You think it's too challenging? You have any thoughts on that?
- [05:41]
B
I love that. No, I love rent by the room and that's something that I would like to get into more as well. I think especially in this economy where affordable housing is such a problem, rent by the RIM is a really, really great option in. I mean, I know the. Everybody's heard the numbers before, but you can get so much more out of a single family home or, you know, if you can rent out the rooms individually as opposed to renting it out to like just a traditional rental.
- [06:07]
A
Oh, yeah. Now, the multifamily thing has some challenges. You get your own space, but you're often buying into a neighborhood that's zoned for multif family. And those can come with unique challenges. Do you have any thoughts on if Anthony should avoid the duplex or what you'd recommend somebody who's thinking about Getting started with small multifamily.
- [06:25]
B
Yeah, I'm not really as familiar with that since I haven't done it before. But I mean I absolutely, you know, with any kind of real estate you want to make sure you're very familiar and very, very in tune with all of the regulations are.
- [06:41]
A
Yeah, well, what you want to avoid is buying into an area that you can't sell because it's really bad. So sometimes you see really low priced homes that are very enticing because other investors don't want to buy them. Typically you're not going to run into that at the $220,000 price range. This is like 50k and below, I'm sure. Ashley, if you think of like 50k, $50,000 houses you've come across, they're always changing hands because there's always some new person taking it on because the last person didn't want it. I don't know if you're going to run into that at the price point you're at, but I would definitely drive the neighborhoods like this isn't a thing you want to do long distance, but if you're looking to live in it, you're going to be looking at the house anyway. So a couple of pieces of advice that I've got for you, Anthony. 1 contact us at the 1 brokerage to get your financing for this thing. We've got some really good low down payment options that we would like to help you with. You can do that. Going to intake@the1brokerage.com.com and emailing us or what I recommend is even better is go to my website davidgreen24.com and use the chat feature to get in touch with me directly. Tell me what area you're looking at, what type of property and let me put you in touch with the right person myself. I also can sometimes put you in touch with real estate agents that I know that are in those areas that can help you. Then that's the next piece I wanted to mention. Make sure you get an agent that's not like a friend or a person that does this on the side. And they've sold three houses in their whole life. It doesn't. They don't need to be like a massive producer that sells 100 houses a year. But you want this to be somebody that's not unfamiliar with the forms, that knows how transactions work and that's going to hunt hard to find you the house that has a seller that wants to sell. So when you're writing your offers, don't only think about purchase price, think also about closing cost credits. If you can get a lot of closing cost credits to cover, like, all the closing costs, and then you can put only a small amount of money down, you can get into this thing and keep more of the money that you're working very hard to save in the bank to either fix up the property, keep his reserves, or put towards your next one. I prefer to pay 220 for a house and get 10k back in closing cost credits than to pay 210 for that same house. Right. If you could do both, do both. But I would prioritize getting your closing costs covered by the seller. And then once that's already established, work on the purchase price. But good luck on that, man. Thanks for your question. Big fan of you, too. All right, our next question comes from J.R. matthews.
- [09:04]
D
Hey, David, it's J.R. matthews here in Boston. A little bit fired up over Airbnb stuff. I've got two places that I Airbnb.
- [09:11]
A
All right, Ashley, before we hear about this airbnb mess, which I know you're gonna love to sink your teeth into, scale of 1 out of 10, when someone tells you they're from Boston and doesn't say, I'm from Boston by the harbor, how upset and disappointed do you feel?
- [09:29]
B
You know, that's a really good question. That is. That's funny.
- [09:33]
A
Yeah, I'm always like, come on, man, that's not how people from Boston is supposed to be sounding. You're on the David Green Show. Let's see a little bit of that east coast accent. You got no eyes. Where's the eyes? I'm hearing eyes when you're talking. But, like, sometimes there's people from New York or Boston and they sound exactly like we do. And I am just thoroughly confused how this happens. Like, if you're. If you're swimming in an ocean full of red dye, you should be red. How does it. How do you live there? And you don't have that accent? So, Jerry, you're going to have to explain this on a future episode. Did you. Were you transplanted from North Dakota? I guess no. You'd have a different accent if you were. But how did this happen? Okay, now, as the rest of you are listening to this, if you're not a short term rental owner, you might not be aware that there is a growing wave of hysteria and rage directed towards Airbnb right now as we have one of the most difficult short term rental markets that's ever existed. Probably the worst. And they're like oh, that's hard. I'll see that and raise you a whole bunch of additional problems that are being mentioned, which I'm guessing JR is probably going to get into Asian.
- [10:35]
D
And I think you're running into some of this, too. I feel like Airbnb does not have my back, or not even in an even, even way. I feel like every other guest is sort of bringing up something that doesn't exist, a cleaning issue, something, and asking for discounts or asking for all their money back. And no matter what I produce or Airbnb, they. They seem to side with the occupant every time. I also had another Airbnb guest sort of sneak a dog into the place, and I got on the phone with Airbnb and asked, like, what if the dog bites somebody? And they couldn't give me a clear answer that their insurance would. Would cover things, which makes me think they it probably covers nothing. So my couple questions are, do we have any other options other than sort of making my own direct booking site and developing that? Is there anything else out there that I can be utilizing other than Airbnb? I do depend on income from that. Second question is, do you know anybody who's used their insurance and did it actually work for a situation? And other thing that I've been doing is I sort of, before they book or even after they book, if they're on direct book, I put together like a expectation and rules list and say, here's what's what the property is going to be like. If you're not okay with this, then you can't stay here. And that seems to have helped a little bit. But even still, it doesn't seem to be solving all the problems. Would love your input and thank you much for your show.
- [12:11]
A
Okay, that's some really good stuff there. I'm glad this is making its way to me here at the David Green show, because I think that as much as people are complaining about it, I think they're even more worried about it than what is being said. I think that there's like, a high degree of anxiety going around right now about this. So let's start off by just if you wouldn't mind, Ashley, explaining what your experience as a property manager and an owner has been with Airbnb, what it was and what it's turned into, and then we'll get into some of the specifics of JR's question.
- [12:45]
B
Yeah, this was an excellent question and one that I've definitely dealt with over the last few years. I think when I first started Five and a half years ago, Airbnb was. It was a great company to work with, honestly. It definitely felt like they had your back a lot more than they do now. Now it's a necessary evil. Hosts can go to, you know, only a handful of platforms, Airbnb, vrbo, There's not really much else out there. So our hands are tied with the golden handcuffs. Guests can go anywhere. So Airbnb understands that, and they're definitely going to, I mean, in a lot of ways, kind of hold us hostage with the rules that they put in place. As far as what he was talking about, with Airbnb siding with the issues that come up with the guests, that's. That is such a real problem right now, and it's, it's sad, but you can go out onto YouTube and find different ways that you can scam the guest or scam the hosts, honestly. And we're seeing that. We see the, we see the guests come in and they're looking for things. They're. I mean, we have them go into our H Vac closet, look behind our H Vac machine and be like, there's, there's. There's dust here. They'll send it into Airbnb and airbnb will be like, yep, you know, refund. And we don't even. We don't have a chance to review, refuted or anything.
- [14:01]
A
Now, you mentioned that there's ways people can go on YouTube. It sounds like what you're saying is there are videos on TikTok YouTube that are literally teaching guests how to get refunds on their airbnb. Stay with these things that we're calling scams, right?
- [14:15]
B
Yes. And I actually hate saying that on here because it's just bringing more visibility to everybody that exists. But it's. I mean, it's.
- [14:23]
A
The people listening to our show aren't going to be the ones that go do it. But I understand you're like, we're kind of. No one wants to talk about this to the people in real estate. Right. Because we don't want it to catch virality and happen even more often.
- [14:35]
B
Exactly.
- [14:36]
A
Because what, what you would need would be airbnb to put their foot down and be like, no, mfer, we're not going to do that. Don't look behind the air furnace if you don't want to see dust. Yes, your house probably has that. Everyone's, this is unreasonable. You're clearly trying to scam the owner. But airbnb is not doing that. And they haven't come out publicly and said Anything about this that I've heard? Yeah, we have to speculate, but I feel like it's a pretty safe speculation to say Airbnb doesn't want the guests to go on VRBO or booking or Agoda or some other platform. So they are scared to death to lose their customer, which is the guest. Us, as the host is not a valued customer of them. We are a pawn to be used in their business that could be discarded very easily and replaced with another one. What they need is the guests because there's less demand there now. Can you just share a little bit about what it was like when Airbnb was newer and everyone was rushing into the short term rental space as far as your experience with them versus what you're seeing now?
- [15:34]
B
Absolutely. We would get, first of all, a lot less complaints or, or requests for refunds. But then when it did happen, it felt like I was listened to. I'll give an example. We had a guest come in, they stayed for a week, and then when they left, they filed a claim that they wanted a full refund because we had black mold. And I was like, oh, my gosh, you know, what in the world? And they sent a picture and I mean, it was, was a white. It was a white corner. It looked like, you know, black mold. And I was like, oh, my gosh, like, I'm freaking out. And I was actually on my way to the property at that time, so I said, hold on, let me get there. I looked. I found exactly what they're talking about. It was the corner of a window that they blown up like 500 times. There's a little, little bit of dirt. I mean, I wish I could show you guys a picture of how ridiculous it was called Airbnb and explained it to them. They looked at pictures, they said, no, this is ridiculous. And, and to. And denied it today. I think if that same thing would happen, it. I, you know, I don't, I don't think it would have the same outcome. We have so many examples now that would prove otherwise.
- [16:35]
A
I've got a cabin we manage, and very same thing happened. The guest said, there's black mold all over the upstairs bathroom. We sent someone there. He said, this is not mold. There's a little bit of dirt that is in here. And when someone took a shower, the condensation hit the dirt and it kind of made it a little bit more like a little bit of mud, I suppose you could say, on the wall. It's not even close to mold. I cleaned it up and I sprayed. I Treated it as if it was black mold to make them happy, but it's not. The guest then came to ask us for a refund. We said, we will. Like, I don't remember what we said. I think we gave them free tickets to a place down there, and we had to pay the guy to go fix the thing. Then she came back later and asked for another thing. And we're like, okay, now it's at the point that if we keep saying yes, you're going to keep asking for stuff. Long story short, we said, we've don't agree it was black mold. We sent someone by as if it was black mold. He said, it's not black mold. And now you seem more interested in getting money than you do in being like, also, I forgot to mention this. We said, if you'd like to leave, we'll give you a full refund and you can go. We are not going to hold you to the lease. Like, yes, if you think this is unsafe. No, no, no. We don't want to leave. We want to be here where the black mold is. We want you to give us a free stay. They leave. They tell Airbnb, all of my guests got sick because of the black mold that was everywhere. Airbnb shuts down our listing, takes it off the platform without asking us anything. Takes us 40 days to get it relisted. We lose about $7,500 in revenue during that period of time. Because this was during spring. That guest knows, if you don't give me my $2,000, I can hurt you for 7,500 and they have nothing to lose. Yep, there's not much they can do. Now you are able to leave guest reviews, but no one does it because they're afraid that if the guest sees a bad review, they'll turn around and give you the bad review. So the hosts have no incentive to give the guest a bad review financially. But the guest has big incentive to give the host a bad review. The only thing that would protect the host would be if Airbnb would punish a guest. Hey, everyone's going to see that this guest makes a complaint this percentage of the time of this severity. All the hosts would say, no, not going to book you. Now. The guest would have some incentive to be a decent human, but that isn't what's happening. And so all the Airbnb hosts are like, all right, the economy is bad. There's massive competition with all the other people that are on Airbnb. The cleaners are fighting us left and right because they're having a hard time cleaning company having very hard time hiring staff that want to do any form of manual labor. So what, a couple years ago was like 150 bucks. Now is 300. 350 bucks for the same turn sometimes depending on how big the property is. I don't know if you're noticing this as much on like, like condos in Branson, but you get a 5,000 square foot cabin. That is a very difficult job to get someone to want to go do spotlessly. And they're going to charge a ton of money. And on top of that, we're getting hammered by guests that are asking for refunds all the time when we can barely make our mortgages as it is or we're not. And now we have Airbnb joining with the, the guests. And it's so discouraging. Like, this is the most demoralized I've ever seen short term rental owners. And what you would typically do is you'd sell, you'd throw the white flag. I don't want to do this anymore. I'm getting out of the business. But there's another problem. If you're in a vacation market, who's going to buy it? You need a person that wants your problem, which no one does. Right. So if you live in a residential area, maybe you can sell that thing, hopefully, even though most markets are not really good. But if you're in a vacation market, you can't sell because there's nobody to buy it. I don't know what the answer is. One of the things that JR mentioned was direct booking. Now we've moved into this at Coast To Coast Getaways. That's my vacation own rental management property. We're doing quite a bit with direct sites. What's your thoughts on this? Are you doing it? Do you have any advice for. If it's a legitimate strategy, break it down for us?
- [20:35]
B
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, ideally, I mean, I think every host would love to have 100 direct booking and be able to get out from underneath the thumb of Airbnb. We market ours within the condos with our, with our direct booking cards. We get a lot of directions, booking requests and bookings after the fact. But yeah, I mean, it's really, it's hard. We're going to start doing more social media, but unfortunately, it's like I said earlier, it's just kind of stuck.
- [21:10]
A
Now, direct booking would be when you have your own website. People go there and they say, hey, I'm just going to sign up on the site. I'm not going to go through Airbnb or VRBox. The problem is most people are not looking for a direct site when they're booking a vacation. They're just logging into the app because they have no idea if they're a good person, how this whole thing works. Have you seen anybody who's having luck getting people to use their site instead of the online travel agencies?
- [21:37]
B
So we're. I've actually been talking to. So have you. Have you heard of Wander? No wonder is it's a one of the main, I would say short term rental management companies that have been extremely successful at doing their own thing. They do like the top 1% of properties. So really high end properties. They are now starting to do direct booking sites for the rest of us that aren't the 1% on top. And they have amazing SEO. I don't know what to say. Marketing, whatever. And they're going to be offering that. So I think that if ever anyone is going to be able to compete with Airbnb, it would have to be somebody like a Wanderer. And I think that they might be headed in that direction.
- [22:21]
A
What do you. So Wander is an app that people can use to go look for properties but they need more hosts to join kind of.
- [22:28]
B
So no, not really the way it works. So Wander is like their own short term management company like coast to coast, you know, and they have their own properties. They have built a really fantastic user interface that's. It's beautiful and it's really well optimized on in on SEO. They are now offering that to everybody else. So you have your own. It's still going to be your URL but you're using their back end technology and you get the advantage of. They're doing a lot of stuff with AI too. So if you know, not just Google anymore now it's, you know, if you go to one of the other big AIs and you search there, Wander pops up really, really fast. You would get the advantage of getting their SEO bump just through your own personal brand.
- [23:20]
A
Okay. So they sort of created a direct booking website so they could get direct bookings. Did a very good job with it. People are actually finding it. It's not lost on the Internet somewhere. And they're now offering for some form of a fee which sounds reasonable or you probably wouldn't like them, that you can kind of piggyback on to what they're doing. And people can find your property using the traffic that they're generate, right?
- [23:41]
B
Yes, exactly. They haven't ruled it out yet. I think it's going to be in December, but they're offering it now to a handful of testers, I guess.
- [23:49]
A
Okay, well, if you can get me in touch with all those people, I'd love to have them on the show and talk about what they're doing. And that's a great idea how they're fighting back. I think that. I think there's frankly a sense of desperation. So we just made our direct site. You guys can see that@coasttocoast getaways.com that's where you'll find the properties that my company's managing, and I write blog articles on there. And you can see all the properties and what a lot of people don't know. Actually, before I even get into that point, can you share a little bit about the pricing structure that's changing with Airbnb, as if it wasn't already bad enough?
- [24:21]
B
Yes. Yeah. I mean, historically, they've. They've charged hosts 3%, and then they charge the guests, I don't know, 12% maybe, something like that. I don't know. It was. They are shifting all of that now to the hosts. So hosts are now being charged 15%. And when you do the math on, like, what you actually have to charge to be able to break even, and that includes the cleaning fees and, you know, any other fees that you have on there, everything now goes to 15%. So to be able to make the same amount of money you were before, you have to do 18.35%. So, yeah.
- [24:52]
A
So if a host wants to make exactly the same they're making before, they have to increase their prices by 18.35%, correct?
- [25:00]
B
Yes.
- [25:01]
A
@ a time. But it's already hard to get people to travel at all because less people are traveling and they all feel like they have less money.
- [25:08]
B
Right?
- [25:09]
A
Yeah. Brilliant. That this is what's going on now. I think Airbnb's argument is, well, we need to get the guests to have cheaper fees so that they're more likely to go travel. But if the host ends up increasing by 18.35 and the guest is saving 12%, they're paying 6% more. But all the host is going to do is increase what they charge for each property by 18%. Okay, so now the guest is going to be paying. Paying 24% more because of the change. And who makes that extra money? The company that is publicly traded, that's making a lot. If that wasn't enough, they are also rolling out a new model where they want to make even More money from the people that are staying at a host property by offering catered events, massages, I don't know, maybe like circus clown coming and putting balloons together, whatever. Like they want vendors to be able to advertise to your guests and they want to charge, charge the guest and the vendor for their stay. And you get none of this. Even though it's all happening at your property, it's increasing your risk, it's increasing your insurance exposure, and you're going to be the one that has to clean up all the stuff that goes wrong from all these people coming onto your property. And if you don't like it, Airbnb is going to say, well, then fine, don't use Airbnb. There's plenty of other people that will come in and we'll do it. And this is why you have so many people like J.R. here that just feel so defeated. Just what do you do? Do you think that there are some owner operators that maybe should be looking into a professional property manager to take this over because it's getting so complicated?
- [26:51]
B
Yeah, absolutely, it is. I mean, the, the operational side of things has gotten more and more and more complex over the years. I think that if you don't have the time, I mean, it. Everybody knows that short term rentals are not passive. They're not, they're. It's a business, you know. Yes, it's definitely real estate, but it is a business. Usually you'll have your operating company and your property company, two different things. It, the operating side of things is it's a lot of work. So if you're, if you don't have the time and the expertise, and especially when you get into like the revenue management and all of the, the metrics and stuff, if you don't have the time to dig in and really learn that, I think it's extremely important that you hire somebody, otherwise you're just going to be leaving money on the table.
- [27:34]
A
Yeah. There is an element where, if you have a really good property manager, most people look at what they have to spend because you're going to spend money for a property manager, but you probably aren't thinking about, they'll get your property booked more often. And the combination of getting your time back, getting better reviews on your property, if you have better service from a property manager, assuming they're good, and revenue management, meaning you're getting more per night and you're getting more bookings, even if, let's say they charge 20%, even if they make you 16% more, you're really only paying 4% to get all the work taken off of you, which many people would gladly do. Right. I just don't think that that is talked about very often, that you're not necessarily paying this much money more because they should be making you more money now. On the same hand, a lot of them suck terribly. There are horrible property managers. I'm in a lawsuit with one right now that was stealing money from me the entire time. And their employees reached out to tell me about it. That it's just normal in the Smoky Mountains for companies to do this. So what are some things that you think if someone's an owner, operator and they're at the end of their rope, they cannot do this anymore. This new Airbnb stuff is putting them over the edge. Like what are some questions they should ask or things they should look for to make sure the person who's in charge of managing their property and actually running the business that is their property is doing it well and better than they could do it themselves?
- [28:57]
B
Yeah, this is a great question. I mean, honestly, I think that number one question I would ask is, do you invest? You know, I mean, there's so many, so many property management companies out there that, you know, they'll grab the, they'll grab every property they can get and they don't have the systems in place or they're, they cut corners, they hire, you know, inexpensive help and then they're not doing anything. They're not doing you any favors on their property. So I would say, number one, do you invest yourself? If, if you do, then you probably. I mean, I would say somebody who's investing in their own property is going to treat. More likely to treat your property, you know, as well as they would their own.
- [29:38]
A
That's wonderful advice. I used to talk about this with traditional property managers, not only short term rentals, where I noticed there was kind of two business models. One business model was a person that owned a bunch of real estate, was vested in managing it well, created systems and models to efficiently run it and get as much money as they could out of it, and said, wow, I got this down. Let me bring other people in and do for them what I'm doing for me, because I already have staff. The other model said, I want to make money and I want to do it through property management. So let me get really good at marketing and let me bring people in and I'll manage their properties. But it's not because I'm doing it myself. They don't necessarily have great systems, but they do have very good marketing. They know how to sell you on a dream and get you involved. Is that more or less what you see in the short term rental space too?
- [30:28]
B
Yes. So very true. And honestly, I'm glad you brought this up because I have taken over and I don't know if I should, you know, say this or not, but like, you know, evolve or vacasa. When, when I get those clients, like when they come to me, they were paying, you know, 10, maybe 20% as their, their commission. And then they come to me, I charge more than that and they make, make way more money. They were getting feed to death with those companies. I mean, it's just if somebody owns their own properties and I mean they're, they're going to treat you and they're going to get you into what they already have and you're just, you're going to get such a higher return. I've had, I've had a number of clients that have come and they'll just be like, I can't believe, you know, how much more money I'm making this year than I did last year. And that's even in this down, this down environment.
- [31:20]
A
Oh, I can second this. The. It's not just property management companies like them, it's every business. There's pressure to tell people what they want to hear. So like, let's take I'm a real estate agent, for example, and you come to me and say, David, I hear your show. I love what you do, I trust you. Do you want to sell my house? And I go, yeah. And you go, what do you think it would sell for? And I look at all the numbers and I go, I think we should list it at 300,000. And I'm looking at, I'm like, there's a chance we get more. But from what I'm seeing, we'll probably get multiple offers. And if we do that, I can screen out the bad ones, I can negotiate them against each other. I can get you way better terms, a buyer way more likely to close and more money. But if we listed at 320, they probably all go to the people at 300. We sit on the market for a really long time. We get lucky. If we get anything, we probably won't. And now we have to drop the price. But our days on market is at 45 days. I've lost that window. So I tell you 300, but the other agent says 320. If you think he can sell it for 320 because he's better than me, and you don't understand. The buyers don't care who the listing agent is. The buyers care about the property. It puts pressure on me to tell you 320 because if I'm honest with you, I get punished. And if they lie to you, they get rewarded. Now, at the end of the day, you as the client have the bad experience if you go with the liar, but they still got the commission. This is a problem in business. There's companies that will come in and say, I'll do it for 20%, 15%, 10%, 8%, I'll just lower the fees. But in doing so, they have to keep their costs low. So they go hire somebody in the Philippines to talk to your guests. They go create an AI model to try to communicate with a guest who's clearly asking a question. I can't get this thing to work. And there's no human being that even sees this. The AI bot just keeps on spamming them and they get so frustrated that they leave a one star review and no one even knew. And this torpedo is where you show up in the search engine. But you won because you got that nine and a half percent number that you wanted. And the company doesn't care because they've got 75 more people that want their nine and a half percent rate. And they just budget for a big percentage of them will come in, we'll collect upfront fees and then they'll go and they'll be replaced by the other ones. We're looking for the human that doesn't pay attention to their property and just keeps on paying us money. And this is the reality. If you're honest, you will often lose when the consumer is looking for the cheapest thing. I don't want people throwing money at bad companies, but I do think the conversation needs to be, let me pick at you, let me push at you. Let me see how you respond to see how well do you know the market. And your piece of advice is the best one anyone can get if they own property there. They have inherently learned things about how to be successful before you ever came into the world.
- [34:10]
B
Very true.
- [34:11]
A
Right? It's like if I want to know questions about little kids, I can go ask someone that read a book on parenting and they'll know what to say. Or I can go ask a mom. The mom has to know. Like, the kids would have been dead by now if they wouldn't have figured out some of these things, right? So if this woman has children that have been raised, I have a way better chance to ask her questions about kids and know she knows her stuff, because if she was wrong, she would have been made right at this point. It's the same thing with real estate. You want real estate agents, ideally that buy properties. You want property managers that manage properties. You want loan officers that own real estate and finance their own real estate and have loan products that work that they would use. You, generally speaking, want to find people that are doing it themselves that have learned the hard way and are you benefit from that experience versus smooth talkers, clever marketers. Right? There's people on billboards all over these big cities like Branson and the Smoky Mountains and any big vacation, Orlando, Disneyland type stuff where they're like, this is what we do. They're just good at marketing. They're not good at it. And unfortunately, you often commit to a contract and can't get out of it. And they know that and they've got you there and they've got a team of lawyers that will sue you if you try to get out of it as you're losing money. So I think that that's fantastic advice. Now, what I was getting into was a lot of people don't realize if I wanted to go to Branson, Missouri, and I found your listing on your direct site, you could charge me more than you did on Airbnb and you could make more money and I would still pay less.
- [35:50]
B
That's absolutely true.
- [35:51]
A
Avoiding all the fees. This is a reality that those of us that are in the business know so frequently. Like if we don't do this. But if you found my site, I could increase what you're paying by 10 to 15% and it would still probably be a 5 to 12% savings for you as the guest booking on there. It's wild how that works. You just have to be able to find it. What's your, what's your advice for those that are going to vacation for how they can be looking for properties and save money booking direct, I would go.
- [36:23]
B
On, I would Google it. I mean, honestly, you should be able to find direct booking sites just by googling your destination. Another way is, and this is, this is a little crazy, but if you go on to like Airbnb and you find one you like, a lot of times hosts will put their company name in the description itself. Like within the first 200, it'll be like, hi, you know, this is Ashley from Rega Stays, then you can take that Reggae Stays, go put that into your search engine and almost always find a direct booking site.
- [36:50]
A
Wonderful, wonderful example. So is your Company called Regastays. How do you spell that?
- [36:54]
B
R, E, G, A Rega stays. S, T, A, Y, S. Is that.
- [36:58]
A
Is that like an acronym or. Are you a fan of reggae?
- [37:02]
B
No reggae. So as a very busy mom, and I would say ex workaholic, I really, really wanted to be able to slow my life down. And one of those ways, like, I'm just very passionate about being intentional with the moments. And in Hebrew, rega means moment. So our. Our tagline is moments to memories.
- [37:21]
A
That's awesome. Maybe you could have, like, a sister say list days for, like, taking a pause and enjoying your vacation while you're there. That's good. Ours is coast to coast Getaway, so that's exactly right. We've had people that will go find us on a VRBO or Airbnb, and then we'll find my Instagram page, CTC Getaways. Or they will go to coasttocoastgetaways.com and they will reach out to us through there and say, hey, we'd like to book. These are savvy people that know if I book it on Airbnb, it's more money. If I book it here, it's less money. Now, here's what else I think that smart people realize. I'm way more likely right or wrong, to trust and feel good about giving a discount to a person that came to me direct than I am on Airbnb. Take a guess, Ashley, why I would feel more comfortable with somebody who wants to book direct than through the app.
- [38:14]
B
Well, I'm. My guess would be the same experience that I have is, like, when somebody comes in asking for a discount, those are generally going to be a problem guests and the ones that are going to be asking for refunds, I mean, 90% of the time that you have somebody asking for a refund, they might have already asked for a discount or something up front.
- [38:30]
A
That's a great point. Let's use a dating analogy. Okay. Let's say there's a guy who's asking a girl on a date, okay. And she says to him, it depends. Where are you going to take me? What is she sort of indirectly admitting when she says that?
- [38:44]
B
Yeah. How much money do you make? Yes.
- [38:46]
A
Yeah.
- [38:47]
B
Sizing them up.
- [38:48]
D
I don't.
- [38:48]
A
I don't like you that much, but I might go out with you if you're taking me somewhere super expensive. Right. They're telling you in the beginning this is what you're getting into. I'm this kind of a person. Right. So if you're coming to me. At AirBB, you ask for a discount. It's like 80% of the time that you're like, oh, I look behind your air ducts, and I found this thing. And I opened up your kitchen cabinets and moved all the pot and pans out and pulled up the little thing you have that you put on the bottom of the cabinet so that there's. They don't move around. And I found a piece of speck of dirt.
- [39:19]
B
Yes.
- [39:19]
A
Versus if you go and book directly, there is nowhere that you can leave me a bad review and hold me hostage. You're sort of waving the white flag and coming in with your hands up like, I don't have weapons. I'm not coming to hurt you. There's no way I can take advantage of you. I'm trusting you, and you can trust me right that right there. I tell my staff all the time, I'm like, they didn't ask for a discount. Give it to them. Say, thank you for coming to us directly. We would like to give you this additional discount to reward you for being a good human.
- [39:50]
D
Right.
- [39:50]
A
It just. I want everyone to hear this. If you don't have your own site or you don't want to make one, I don't blame you for it. Seriously consider going with a property manager that has a direct booking platform and ways to book people direct, because the quality of person that comes to your property is light years better than when they come through the app. And, like, I found ways like Airbnb now is doing things where they won't show you the name of the person booking it, they won't show you their picture. There's, like, no information that you can get to go look them up on Facebook to try to get a feel for who's this stranger that's coming? They don't want you to know because you might go on their Facebook and see, oh, you threw parties at other people's places. I don't want you here. Right. Or you've got a bunch of pictures of, like, pit bulls fighting to the death. I probably don't feel comfortable about letting you bring pets into my property. It's hidden. You'll never know about it. Now, the direct stay. There's nothing they can do to really hold you hostage. It's very difficult, and they probably don't want to, and that's why they're.
- [40:48]
B
If.
- [40:48]
A
If they. If they're coming direct, they're not planning on screwing you over, because that's hard for. If they go through the app and they insist on going through the app, they know. Oh, Airbnb is my biggest ally. We're going to join forces. We're going to take out Ashley or David or. So that's some really good information. We've been doing a lot of episodes lately on this, like, Airbnb thing because I'm getting blown up on Instagram, on emails, on YouTube, comments of people saying, I'm desperate. I don't know what to do. Airbnb took my listing down. Airbnb is taking money away from me and refunding it to the guests when it's obviously something that I'm not agreeing to. And so the word needs to get spread. And at the end of the show, we'll let people know where they can reach out. Do you manage anywhere other than Branson right now?
- [41:31]
B
No, I'm going to be picking up some in Springfield, but that's right next to Branson, so, yeah, it's just that little area.
- [41:37]
A
All right, folks, if you've got a property in Branson, Springfield or the surrounding area, hit up Ashley. If it's anywhere else in the country, come to us and go check out coast to coastgetaways.com, see what our direct booking site looks like. If you guys want a discount on it, I will work very hard to twist the owner's arm and get you guys a discount on it. And yours was Rega stays. Was it Regas Days?
- [41:56]
B
Yep. Regust days dot com.
- [41:58]
A
Yeah. Go check out Ashley's. All right, moving on to the next segment of the show. Here, this is the Quick Hitters. This is your hot takes. Viral headlines and real estate rumors that are worth a lightning round response. So what we do here is we read comments that people have left on my Instagram, on my YouTube, on our newsletter, or that people have reached out to me, and there's absolutely no rhyme or reason to this. Ashley, you can just spit whatever stream of consciousness moves into your head when you hear these. Okay, so the first one comes from mark. Mark Krenson, 9296. He says, Hell, no. I love it when you tell me about the bad deals so I can learn from someone else's mistakes and not have to do it myself. This was in response to a video I did where I said, are you guys tired of hearing about the depressing deals that go wrong? Do you want me to make more content where I'm like, real estate's great and everyone's crushing it? You can crush it, too, and you can get 17,000 units in 14 seconds. If you sign up for My coaching program and he didn't think so. What's your thoughts on just the overall, like, like, is there a level of. It's too depressing. Don't tell us the bad news. Are you always wanting to hear about the bad deals? Where do you rank with, like, inspiration versus reality?
- [43:07]
B
Yeah. No, I love it when, when people are willing to go get vulnerable and share those things. And honestly, above all, it, it increases trust. If somebody's just telling me all the good all the time, I'm not going to believe it. But if they're saying, you know, this went well, but you know, right now, things, the economy, the rates, all of this, this is, this is not going well and this is, is the impact that's had on me. I, I love hearing those stories. I mean, like, like Mark said, you learn from them and then also you just, you, you can develop more of a, you know, a trust for what they're saying all the rest of the time.
- [43:41]
A
This is good life advice, especially if you're a believer and so you have a vested interest in trying to be the best person you can be. But even if you don't, you just want some wisdom here in your relationships. It's very valuable to start a conversation off by saying, hey, I feel like I've let you down. I'm sorry that I've blown it here. I've let you carry the weight here. I haven't admitted I was wrong. I haven't been patient. I interrupt whatever your deal is. It's wonderful to build credibility with someone to start off saying, you deserve better and I blew it. And I feel bad about that. Rarely ever do people pile on you and be like, yeah, and you know what else? And if you're doing that, you probably don't deserve to get these apologies right. It builds credibility. I like in debates when I'm arguing with someone or they're telling me I'm wrong about something. Like, to be honest, like, you're in Spartan League. This is our faith based group where we talk about our, our faith and how to be closer to God. There is valid criticism against Christians and against the church. Yeah, A lot of the times Christians are wrong about stuff they don't know. They won't say they don't know or they thought something that wasn't right. And there's this fear that if you say I was wrong, it's like the whole faith will collapse. It's okay to be like, yeah, you're right, I talked to you the wrong way. I had a bad tone, like, Jesus wants me to behave this way. And I did not do that. And I'm sorry. Because you deserve better. As a believer, that should be the first thing that you say. It shouldn't be a thing we're afraid to say. So in debates, I like to tell people, I think you have a good point there. That's true. Like, I would get in this with law enforcement all the time. People would want to just spew their hatred towards law enforcement because they knew I was a cop for a long time. And I'd be like, yeah, you're right. Sometimes as a cop, you're having a really bad day day. And I've seen a lot of cops take out their bad day on the person on the traffic stop. And what you don't know is sometimes I pull that guy aside and I let him have it. I'm like, that person has nothing to do with what you just went through before this. Like, you need to get over yourself. You're acting like a prima donna and your feelings are so important that you think you can rip them apart. Right. And law enforcement does do that a lot of the time. And once I acknowledge that, it's hard for them to not hear my argument that it's not okay to just like curse out a cop because you're having a bad day. Right. So just overall, this is a good practice. If a guest complains about something for our short term rental companies, the first thing we say is, usually, I'm so sorry that that happened. I feel terrible you went through that. This is not up to the standard that we keep for cleanliness of our properties. I'm going to work on fixing this immediately. Would you feel comfortable if we send somebody out to fix whatever your problem is? Right. You start with acknowledging this is where I failed.
- [46:27]
B
Exactly.
- [46:29]
A
Well, you're lucky that we let you in our property at all. Right. Which is where people can be tempted to go. So thank you for that, Mark. We appreciate it. Next comment from Michael Apple. David, all this short term talk got me thinking. Since we have a turnover coming up soon, would you ever Airbnb a a Dadu when you live in the main house on site with a family? Not really a destination type B and B, more like an easier hotel. Stay one bed, one bath. Maybe it's not special enough for short term. So it sounds like Michael Apple is thinking he lives in a property, it has an ADU on site. This is probably in like the Pacific Northwest. If he's using the DADU designation there and he's wondering about putting it up as a short term rental, but it's not a vacation spot. What's your thoughts, Ashley, on if you could do Airbnb when it's not a vacation destination?
- [47:24]
B
Yeah, I mean, I would need to know a little bit more about the area. I mean, obviously, if there's other hotels there, it may be a really great alternative. If there's businesses around, it might be, you know, a great option if somebody doesn't want to stay in a hotel. So I think that would be a little bit more information also about the. The regulations and all of that. You have to understand that. You have to understand your market and whether or not it's even allowed. So I have a lot of questions, but, I mean, I definitely think that those are great questions that he should be asking.
- [47:56]
A
All right, speaking of questions on this very topic, should I have an Airbnb in an area? Will it make money? Will it lose money? This is a great time to bring up today's show sponsor, Price Labs. Price Labs is a company that we use at coast to Coast Getaways to help make sure that we are not leaving money on the table. We're getting the maximum amount that we can for our guests, while also making sure that we're not losing potential bookings because we are asking for too much. And oddly enough, Ashley recently gave a presentation to my company because she's wicked smart, to use a Boston terminology there, with how this works. And although we know how to use it and we use it, it's not like we're dumb. Ashley's super good and has invested a lot of time into this. I think a lot of people look at tools like Price Labs, like Airbnb itself. I'm trying to think of some other ones that are not coming to mind, maybe like a direct booking website. And they look at it like, what was that?
- [48:47]
B
Wheelhouse, I think, is another one.
- [48:49]
A
Wheelhouse. Thank you. Do I have it or not?
- [48:52]
D
Okay.
- [48:52]
A
There is a difference between having a tool and knowing how to use the tool. Okay. Like, we always can be putting effort and time into growing in our skill level with that thing. Oddly enough, we talked about this on Spartan League not too long ago. The Greek word arete, which is translated as virtue, but it can be looked at like, how good are you? How useful are you for the purposes that you serve? If we are serving clients, we should be very good at using our tools. And you came in and you gave some training to me and my staff, and they loved it. Can you just share a little bit about how Price Labs is something that can help you serve your clients and make sure that they're getting as much as possible without getting greedy and losing out on bookings.
- [49:33]
B
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I obviously, you know that I love price labor. The first probably year or so that I managed my properties, I went in and made changes myself all of the time. And I remember when I first started with Price Labs, it was suggesting prices way more than what I would have ever, ever done myself. And I was uncomfortable with it, but.
- [49:50]
A
I was like, all right, scary, right?
- [49:51]
B
Yeah, exactly. But I did it, and my goodness, they were booking. So, I mean, honestly, I think that if you aren't using Price Labs, you're going to be leaving money on the table. It does a really good job of, you know, monitoring supply and demand in your area. It's very specific to looking at all the listings in your area. So it's. It's going to take all of the guesswork out of it for you.
- [50:13]
A
It's a powerful tool. Now, one of the things that you shared with us had something to do with like, hey, X percentage of properties in your pro in your area are booked or not booked. And then you had a way of adjusting the price up or down based on that, just at a high level. Can you explain what you were sharing to us and how if people are not doing this, maybe either they should learn it or they should find a property manager that does?
- [50:35]
B
Yeah, absolutely. So Bryce Labs has, like market dashboards. So you can go in there and it'll give you exact metrics on this is where you are compared to the rest of the market. It gives you baseline, it gives you suggested ranges. So honestly. And there's all kinds of metrics in there, too. There's some metrics that you really want to pay attention to, and it will help help you with your pressing decisions.
- [50:58]
A
Okay, there you go. Price Labs cares so much about you guys building wealth in real estate that they came on the David Green show and they said, hey, if you guys are listening to David Green, we want to help you. So check the description below if you're listening to this on YouTube to get a link for a discount code to use their services. I just can't think of any reason you wouldn't be using them unless maybe there's an alternative that you're using already. But there should be some form of pricing tool, and the other ones aren't going to be a discount like these ones are. You can also go to hello, Price Slash David Green, and you can find a discount there if you don't want to have to remember all that. Just look up this video on YouTube and you'll find it in the show notes and save yourself some money while making yourself some money. So really, you're winning twice. Just like in the podcast from David Green and Ashley Cole, you're winning twice now. Ashley, I couldn't help but notice that you also have 24 in your name. A very clear sign of respect to me and the David Green 24. Would you like to share with everybody why you chose the 2424 in your Instagram handle?
- [52:01]
B
Oh, because honestly, for a number of reasons, Ashley Cole is an extremely popular name. So you can't get Ashley Cole anything without throwing a number on there. And the number 24 was my sports number all growing up. So.
- [52:14]
A
Yeah, as was mine. It's like we were raised in parallel universes and we're meant to join here today. All right, I'm. Enough with the cheese. Enough with the green cheese. I don't think people are eating green cheese from draw, sir. You're good, brother. Love the episodes. Love the time that you take to do each one. Keep up the great work. Well, that's a really nice thing. I'm going to put you on the spot here, Ashley. As a listener of the David Green show, what have you thought about it? Is there like I miss him and Brandon, are there things you think that I'm doing well or things you think I should incorporate into the show? What's your overall experience with listening to the podcast before you were on it?
- [52:54]
B
I mean, I really enjoy it. Obviously I'm listening all the time. I love your Monday, your market. Is it Market Mondays? That what it's called?
- [53:00]
A
Mortgage Monday.
- [53:01]
B
Mortgage Monday, Yes. I love that. It's a, it's a really great way to stay in tuned with, you know, because somebody can read the read headlines all day long. But I love how, how you really break it down and explain because, you know, I, I don't, I'm not a realtor. I don't understand a lot of that stuff. So it makes it very bite size for me. So. Yeah, no, I, I can't think of anything, you know, offhand that I, I would change about. I think you did a really great job.
- [53:23]
A
At least nothing negative because you don't want to say anything thing hurtful because, you know, I'm very sensitive.
- [53:29]
B
Exactly.
- [53:31]
A
Speaking of that, our next comment actually comes from Georgie. Mh. And this was a comment off of a Mortgage Monday episode. Transparent lending isn't just good ethics, but it's good business. Most investors don't mind fees, they mind surprises. This was on an episode we did about ways lenders rip people off. It drives me nuts. In complete transparency. We've had loan officers in the one broker brokerage that, because they can't rip people off with us, but they wanted to do it. And so they approached Christian and I with a, with a plan that we could make a lot more per loan, but the client would have to pay more per loan and they had a clever way of hiding it that the person wouldn't find out. And I said, absolutely not. You are making a lot of money already. You don't need to make more per loan because you're lazy. Especially from people that trust us. And they just went to another mortgage company and they stole our loan officers, they stole our processors, they stole our clients. Many people listening to this is doing business with some of these people and don't know that they're not with the one brokerage anymore. It's painful, it's harmful, it hurts, it sucks when this stuff happens. But the lending industry is incredibly easy to do it. It's hard as an agent to rip people off because there's only one way you make money. It's a commission check that comes to you. In mortgages, there's so many clever ways to move things around. It's very easy, easy to have it happen. So at the one brokerage we're committed to having the same rates, the same fees for every single person. We don't move it around based on the fact you're a 90 year old grandma and don't know what you're getting or you're a savvy person that's shopping us. It's always the same thing. We just pride ourselves on being better than everybody else, very competitive on price faster and having more products. Do you have any advice when somebody is getting a loan, is somebody who's bought real estate for maybe the, the mortgage provider. Like hey, you guys need to be aware the person getting the loan feels this way whether they're a real estate agent or they're a loan officer themselves. I think in the business it's easy to forget what the experience is like for the person on the other side.
- [55:32]
B
Yeah, no, I mean I've, I've, yeah, I've had really great experiences. I've had pretty bad experiences. I mean, I think most, most important as a consumer is, I mean, I know, I know I get what I pay for. So I, I, you know, I definitely don't always go with the lowest anything. I want to go with those that I have, like, referrals and things like that. But I would say, to answer your question, as a consumer, it's. I don't want to give you things, like a hundred times. I want. I want you to ask me for it once. I want to give it to you once, and then I want to know that I'm taken care of. Very. And I feel like very often with lenders, it'll be. Or it'll be the, you know, 11th hour, and they're like, oh, we need all these things too, you know, and that's. Oh, nothing makes me more angry. 30 days or 60 days or whatever. It was like, just, you know, like with the one we just closed on with the farm, like, that was an. It was amazing experience. They asked for everything up front. And then I. I'm going back to them going, do you need anything else? Do anything else? Like, no, we're good. We're good. And yeah, it was. It was very easy. So I would just say, you know, make it easy for the consumer.
- [56:35]
A
I love asking people what drives them nuts because so much more of their personality comes out when they're frustrated. That was awesome to see that. Did you ever wonder why they will sometimes come back and ask for the same things over and over?
- [56:49]
B
To me, it has to be. It has to be disorganization. Like, I don't understand because I'm literally. I will forward you the email that I've already sent you that already has this information. It's got to be just.
- [57:00]
A
They're disorganized if they don't have a good system in the company, like processors that are. It really should be a processor asking for that information, not a loan officer. Officer. Right. Just like, I know what I'm good at and I know what I'm bad at. I'm not the guy that runs my own calendar. I will forget everything. There has to be a person that I run it through that makes sure it gets in front of me. A lot of loan officers are. One man shows, because they don't want to pay for help. So that's one reason. Because they didn't look at their emails. Exactly. The other one is they're not experienced and they're not skilled. And so what happens is, especially if they're a mortgage broker or I guess a direct lender, you could have the same problem. They basically let the underwriter be their boss. The underwriter says, I need this. They're just a middleman that goes to you and asks for it. If they're good at being a middleman. They know what the underwriter is going to ask for. They ask for it early. They upload it into the portal. The underwriter has it right there. You never hear again. If they aren't organized, they have to ask a second time. And even if they are, sometimes the underwriter comes back and goes, oh, by the way, I need this, too. And they don't want to tell you I'm an idiot and I didn't ask for this when I needed to. So they just pretend like, oh, if you could get me this thing, that would be great. And they try to make up for niceness what they lack in competence. And so that's one of those things where if you try to go with the cheapest person, it doesn't mean this is going to happen. It's much more likely to happen than if it's an experienced person that's done it a whole bunch of times. They know what an underwriter is going to ask for. They not only tell you up front, but maybe they explain to you, if we go with this loan program, this is what your experience will be like. Like, do you want an easy one or do you want a rough one? So not everybody gets to hear this because a lot of real estate podcasts, they don't have real estate teams and mortgage companies and property management themselves. They just. They flip houses or they have one element of what they do. Whereas I kind of have a little bit more experience because I'm involved in a lot of them. So hopefully that helps some people there. From Anthony Colensini. Our political views probably don't align, but our ambition is universal. You don't have to agree with every aspect of someone else's life in order to learn and better yourself from their knowledge and expertise. Keep pushing. This was from a comment about people on a previous show unsubscribing, because I will do YouTube lives where I describe what Donald Trump is doing in the economy. And I make it very clear. You don't have to like him, you don't have to hate him, but you should know what he's doing because he's our president. What he does affects how real estate's going to play out, how the economy is going to play out. But there are certain people that if you say anything other than I hate this person, they don't want to hear anything about it. And there was quite a few people that were very vocal about. I unsubscribed because David put Donald Trump's face on a thumbnail and it didn't say, this man is evil. And we kind of had a discussion about, is that even wise that you get so caught up in your own emotions that you can't objectively look at a person you don't agree with? I wasn't a big fan of Biden, but I still wanted to know what he was doing. I want to know what decisions he was making, because it could affect the things that I do care about. What's your thoughts overall on just should you find a person to get content from that aligns with you completely politically, or is it not as important as the content itself?
- [60:10]
B
Oh, no. I mean, obviously it's a softball. It's definitely not as important as the content itself. And honestly, I think, you know, 15, 20 years ago, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. I mean, it wasn't such a thing. Like, Republican, Democrat, we were all still friends right now, in this day and age. I think because of, you know, the social dilemma, social media, all of that. Like, the algorithms are saying, saying, you will only see this, and therefore this is what you believe. And it's honestly, it's shaping who we are and what we think. So, you know, I think it's sad that this is even a topic today.
- [60:40]
A
That is great insight. It's kind of concerning. That's a thing we even say, like, I won't listen to you if you don't think the way that I think. And here's why. I think we got in the mess. You mentioned that social media algorithms feed you a consistent stream of whatever it knows you already like. It's not only that you like it. What I find is whenever you receive the news, you don't get told what the news is you get. It's followed by, and here's what you should think about that, okay? X person just did Y because they are bad. X person just did Y because they hate you and they want you to die. X person just did Y because they're incredible and we should just do everything they say. There's always a spin that you're given, whether it's cable news, whether it's Instagram, that you're told what to think of it. And that drives me nuts. I don't like in my personal life, when I meet someone and they give me advice, they tell me a thing about themselves and then they tell me how I should think about. Drives me nuts. Like, yeah, I don't like to eat meat because I'm superior than everybody else that does eat meat. Let me make up my own mind about that. But I do wanna know that you don't eat meat. Cause I don't wanna offer you a steak. That is good to know. Overall, I think people should be cautious of any human being that comes into their life. That that tells you what you should think about them. Just be who you are and let people think for themselves what they think of that.
- [62:07]
B
And also recognize that you're being fed it by your phone every single day too. I mean I think that just the, the knowledge and the awareness is, I mean we don't, it's been such a gradual introduction into our lives. I think, you know, over the years social media has evolved to what it is that we don't even realize that we are being told told what we're being told and it's influencing who we are to the point that we have very strong feelings about it. We see something and you get really angry like that. That's not natural, you know, it's, it's something we've been talking about the last however many years.
- [62:39]
A
That's a great point. Max Cruz, do you provide loans for Virginia real estate? Yes. Not only do we provide loans for Virginia real estate, we are hiring Virginia real estate agents because we have a broker with coast to coast real estate and we're looking for you. So if you're listening to this and you're in Virginia, if you're a real estate agent, we want to talk to you. And if you know, estate agent, we want to talk to you. And if you need a loan in Virginia, we got you. Head to davidgreen24.com use the chat feature and let me know if that's something that we can help you with. Now Ashley, I have a personal question for you.
- [63:10]
B
Okay.
- [63:10]
A
I've noticed when I go to restaurants, I'm often served by a 21 year old Moppy headed goofball. And they frequently will reply with I got you when I asked for something thing. Does this bother you as much as it bothers me or is this a personal problem I have?
- [63:30]
B
It doesn't. My kids do it to me so I guess I'm probably used to it.
- [63:34]
A
You're inoculated.
- [63:35]
B
Yes.
- [63:36]
A
Why does it irritate me so much that I have some 19 year old saying I got you, I got you all the time?
- [63:43]
B
I don't know. That's, that's really.
- [63:44]
A
And why are kids saying it? Yeah, I don't know, maybe I need a therapist because it's just like you can just say yes, I can get that. I don't need this. I got you thing like, like I don't know, makes me feel like they think that I'm the child.
- [63:55]
B
The one that gets me is like my 14 year old daughter. She'll be like bro. And I'm like mom, not bro. You know that one, that one is. That one I don't get.
- [64:06]
A
It's a bit disrespectful. A wee bit. She probably doesn't mean it that way but it can be perceived that way. If I heard and I got you bro, I'd probably lose my mind. From Cassie buys real estate we are feeling it at the moment with the shutdown. Not sure what the long term effects it will have. Not exactly sure what Cassie was referring it to there but thank God the shutdown is over. Do you think Ashley, we're going to be going into another one in a couple months?
- [64:34]
B
I, I honestly don't know the answer to that. What do you think?
- [64:37]
A
Odds are we probably will be. I think we need to be ready for it. They didn't actually come up with a solution here. They just agreed to meet and I think they're going to talk about it again later. My understanding and you never know because you never get just the news. You always get told what you're supposed to think about the news.
- [64:50]
C
Right.
- [64:50]
A
But my understanding is it the sticking point is the Republicans don't want health care included people that are not American citizens who are not paying taxes to receive it and the Democrats want it included for everybody. And they're just neither side was willing to, to budge on it. Do you have any other additional insight into why the shutdown happened?
- [65:08]
B
No, I haven't. I haven't. I honestly haven't followed it that closely.
- [65:13]
A
From Joham FRT Give me the house with character all day, every day. As long as it's a buy and hold. This is about a question over what to look for in a property. Whether it's only numbers. If you should be looking at neighborhood and architecture and things like that. What's thoughts on what people should look for in an investment property?
- [65:30]
B
Yeah, no, I think that's very fair. I think this and I think that probably applies across a lot of different niches. Like you know, same thing with short term rentals. You want something with character. One of the ones I'm picking up in Springfield is like from the early 1900s. It's got stained glass windows. It's. It's gorgeous. It's an amazing property. You know it's something I think that would I, I think it'll resell as a, you Know what it sells? I think it's going to be great as a short term rental. I mean, yeah, I think anything with character, if you think is much better than a cookie cutter.
- [66:00]
A
Yeah, that would go for your podcast host too. So be careful if you're listening to those 20 year old Moppy headed muppets that we talked about because many of them have podcasts too. All right, last quick hitter, Jesse Rogers says wholesaling is where it's at right now. Ashley, where do you think it is at?
- [66:18]
B
Oh, that's a great question. That's a really great question. Honestly. I mean, I think that with the economy the way it is right now, just any kind of affordable housing I think is where it's at. I'm just worried about the future and I think that if, if I were to go all in on something, I would, I would go in on like affordable housing. I think owning assets is extremely important right now.
- [66:41]
A
In general, higher priced homes are higher risk, higher reward.
- [66:45]
B
Right.
- [66:45]
A
And lower priced homes are lower risk. So in both markets, lower priced homes are the safer option. And in today's market, it makes much more sense to go with affordable housing because we don't know. I think things are likely to go get worse before they get better if that makes sense.
- [67:02]
B
I do.
- [67:03]
A
All right, today's second show sponsor is Turbo Tenant. Turbo Tenant is the software that we use to manage my long term rentals all across the country. If you guys haven't already, I recommend you check out my book, Long Distance Real Estate Investing, published by good old Bigger Pockets. If you would like to learn how to build systems to manage your properties. Living anywhere and investing where it makes sense. It was the first book I wrote, it was my first love and I think that there's some really good information in there that applies today. By any chance, Ashley, have you ever read a book that I've written?
- [67:34]
B
I don't think so. That said, I was literally talking to a really good friend yesterday who was reading the Longdistance by you, so.
- [67:42]
A
Oh yeah. Did he hate it? Did he say he reads it at nighttime to go to sleep because it puts him out?
- [67:48]
B
It's her second time. Ready?
- [67:50]
A
Oh yeah. Wow. Maybe we should have her on the show to talk about this book. We could have a book club.
- [67:55]
B
There we go.
- [67:57]
A
All right, moving on. We have the next segment of the show. It is the real news report. Headlines that matter. All right, our first article today has to do with overall home prices. They're under pressure, but don't count on a crash. My God, how often have we been hearing about home prices are going to crash, interest rates are up, they're going to crash. The economy is bad, they're going to crash. Trump is talking about tariffs, they're going to crash.
- [68:21]
C
Crash.
- [68:22]
A
There's a war, they're going to crash. They haven't freaking crashed. Do you have any thoughts before we get into this article about like, if we are going to have a crash and if so, what would make it happen?
- [68:32]
B
Man, honestly, I think that's exactly why people should be listening to the, the Mortgage Mondays. You know, I'm this is, these are things that it's important to really follow along with. As far as is a crash coming? I, I honestly don't know. I mean, I feel like it, like you said, we've been, we've been hearing it over and over for as long as I've been in real estate.
- [68:55]
A
Home buyers may have taken the driver's seat in the housing market, but so far they're not stepping on the gas. There's no question the negotiating power has swung in home buyers favor at least over the first half of 2025. Nationwide, there are almost 30% more active listings on the market than there was last year. That's a pretty big jump. 30% more houses are available and that's probably less about more people sell their house and more about how long it is taking houses to sell. If a house used to sit on the market 10 days, now it takes 30 days or 20 days, now it takes 60. You would get exactly what we see here. Home price growth is decelerating and even turning negative in some regions. The May Case Shiller report showed the national price index was up only 2.3% year over year, while the seasonally adjusted national index declined 3.4%, its third straight month. Going, going down month over month. Changes have turned even more sharply negative in expensive west coast markets like Seattle and San Francisco. So does this mean that another crash or even another major price correction is coming? Probably not. To understand the current ebb and home price growth, consider the recent cooldown from late 2022 to early 2023, when higher mortgage rates put home buyers demand on ice. The parallels between then and now begin with affordability, like today, the double whammy of high mortgage rates and high prices two years ago. Locked out of the market as demand slackened, inventory built up, and that put downward pressure on prices as sellers felt the heat of competition from similar listings down the block and the remaining buyers began to flex their negotiating prowess. But sales volume never picked back up Existing home sales fell to an annualized rate of about 4 million by the end of 22, a level last seen in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. And total home sales remained near 4 million million in 2023 and 2024. It does seem in my estimation, that it tends to be feast or famine with real estate.
- [70:52]
B
Yeah.
- [70:52]
A
So buyers don't like buying homes. It is scary. Ashley, you bought a couple houses. You remember how scary it was the first couple times you did it.
- [70:59]
B
Yeah, absolutely.
- [71:01]
A
It's still scary today.
- [71:02]
B
Yeah. Even. Even now, like, I'm just like, you know, every single time, like, am I making the right decision? The numbers make sense, but do I still get me the, you know?
- [71:10]
A
Yeah. And most of the time, what drives us to do it is the fear of somebody else getting it.
- [71:16]
B
Yeah. Y.
- [71:16]
A
So when other buyers aren't competing with you, it becomes so easy to talk yourself out of moving forward. There's always, what if I get a better one? What if this one goes bad? There's a problem. In the home inspection report, interest rates ticked up a quarter of a percent. Whatever it is, especially if you're not experienced, it's easy to talk yourself out of it. But when other people are snapping, ramping them up, and you're seeing the prices are going up, there's a fear of missing out that combats the fear of making a mistake.
- [71:41]
B
Yep.
- [71:41]
A
And I find that that's why if you don't have a strong buyer's market, you just see things getting worse. So we haven't seen prices drop, but we have seen the market take a big crap because nothing's selling. It just sits there at its current price and it tends to be feast or famine. So until the economy is healthy and people feel wealthy and they start buying and all the other buyers see, oh, if I don't get it, someone else is going to get it. Think we're probably going to see more of the same. All right, our next article is about STR regulatory tides rising. Let's get into this one here. Council okay's new rules for short term rentals. The city Council voted Thursday to approve a series of regulations regulations for short term rental properties by taking the next step in advancing changes that were kicked off by a February vote. The resolution, which collected several amendments and had others withdrawn or voted down, was approved 10 to 0, with council member Mark Duchen abstaining. The new ordinance updates eligibility and licensing requirements and sets a new timeline for enforcement obligations for short term rental platforms like Airbnb and vrbo, such as requiring Licensing numbers in listings and honoring D list notices will now take effect July 1st of 2017, 26, two months later than originally proposed. Other provisions, including licensing reforms and operator responsibilities, take effect October 1st. I should have mentioned this is in Austin, Texas, where that market exploded and there wasn't enough inventory. And everybody demonized short term rentals because that's what people do. And they were like, not in my property. And they went after him. And now everybody is leaving Austin and all of their real estate is sitting on the market and they way overbuilt and nobody wants to move there anymore. And so now they're like, please come back. We'll work with you. We'll be nice. This drives me nuts every time this happens. The council also approved changes to the city spacing and capacity rules. Instead of measuring a thousand feet between each short term rental unit, the distance requirement will apply site to site, allowing up to two rentals per lot. Ashley, what's your thoughts on when regulation moves to the point that they want to try to decide how much space has to exist between two short term rentals?
- [73:59]
B
Oh, man. I mean, I think there is so much over regulation in the short term rental world. And I'm mean, that's just. That's just kind of a ridiculous example. I mean, if I don't know, I could go political there too, and I won't, but. Yeah.
- [74:12]
C
Yeah.
- [74:13]
A
Well, before you were here, I was just on YouTube live doing a video about the portable mortgages and all the plans that the government's trying to put in place right now to make homes more affordable. And we're talking about everything other than get rid of regulations so we can build more houses and then the overall price will come down.
- [74:30]
B
Yep.
- [74:31]
A
It would be nice, right? Human beings tend to love control and power and significance. And when you get to be the person that gets to tell everybody no, it's kind of like the hall monitor in junior high that gets to report you for running. And those hall monitors grow up and they fail in capitalism. And so they end up running for city council and getting a job in the mayor's office, and they become code enforcement officers and they just run around ruining everybody's lives and eating all their steak and making them hate owning real estate. And then nobody builds it and then everything becomes expensive and then we all just get mad at whoever the president happens to be.
- [75:07]
B
Yep, yep, yep, yep.
- [75:09]
A
Let's just get rid of regulation and let people build houses. And just my thought is like, less regulation, more transparency. Say you can build it wherever you want. It doesn't have to be a thousand feet away, but you got to tell people on Airbnb there's another unit this close to it.
- [75:22]
B
Exactly.
- [75:24]
A
That means let people make up their own minds what they want to do.
- [75:26]
B
That's exactly I was going to say, it'll fail or it'll succeed on its own.
- [75:30]
A
I think I was, like, reading your mind because you didn't want to have to be the one to make the political statement. But maybe against better judgment, I make those statements all the time. And so I took us there. All right. Our last article is about the coastal city named the world's most vulnerable real estate bubble by ubs. This comes out of the New York Post. Do you have any guess what the most vulnerable real estate bubble is in the country? Oh, gosh, it's a coastal city. We know that.
- [76:03]
B
Something in Florida.
- [76:05]
A
Yes, very good. Any guesses on the city?
- [76:09]
B
Miami.
- [76:10]
A
That's a great guess, and that's probably because it's been the hottest market in my entire lifetime. Miami's housing market is losing its sizzle and fast. Once hailed as a pandemic boom town, the city has now been branded the world's most vulnerable real estate bubble by ubi. Underscoring the latest setback for a metro that has endured one crisis after another, the Swiss Bank's annual global real estate bubble index. Boy, that's a mouthful. Ranked Miami as the top 20 major cities worldwide, citing a combination of runaway prices, softening demand, and mounting costs that have pushed the city into uncharted territory. Ashley, have you visited Miami anytime recently?
- [76:50]
B
No, I have not.
- [76:52]
A
It's absolute debauchery depending on where you go. It's like Sodom and Gomorrah. Man, that place just went nuts. At least the part I was in. I would go record with the Fresh and Fit podcast sometimes, and I was like, this is like a circus being called a city. The correction is being fueled by more than just waning demand. Insurance premiums tied to climate risks, rising homeowner association fees. And drumroll, please. Regulatory crackdowns on aging condo towers have all made ownership more extreme expensive. At the same time, the city's price to rent ratio has climbed beyond even the extremes of the mid-2000s housing bubble, suggesting that speculation has divorced values from reality. The UBS analysts caution that Miami is unlikely to see an abrupt collapse, pointing to its enduring appeal as a tax friendly coastal destination. Even so, affordability has rarely been worse, and Florida overall has lost more than $100 billion in housing market value over the last last year. Other global hotspots are flashing red as well, with Tokyo and Zurich join Miami in the high risk category, while Los Angeles, Dubai, and Amsterdam landed in the elevated zone. But Miami stands out as the epicenter of volatility. That's a cool phrase, right? Like, that's the girl you want to avoid dating. The epicenter of volatility, once a pandemic refuge, now a case study in how quickly a boom can back backfire. A lot of people ask me the question where to invest. In fact, I think this is how most people do things, is they ask where everybody else is investing, and then they want to go invest there. How do you pick the markets that you want to invest in?
- [78:27]
B
I mean, I only invest in one market, but it's based on location. But, I mean, I think going where everybody else is going is absolutely, obviously the wrong answer. Most of the time, you want to try to get ahead of it, not behind it. But. Yeah, I mean, my. My strategy has just been to stay within driving distance, but not. Not in my own backyard, because then I. I know that if it's in my own backyard, I'm going to be trying to do more than I should, rather than letting the systems work themselves.
- [78:54]
A
So you like to invest like where you live or just what you're familiar.
- [78:58]
B
With, what you're aware of, What I'm familiar with? Yeah, I mean, my. My portfolio is four hours from where I live now.
- [79:07]
A
Yeah, I guess that's an extent. That's a really big backyard if it takes you four hours to get across it. Yeah, but you know it very well, right?
- [79:15]
B
Yes, I do. I do. And I can drive there if I need to. I can be there, you know, within. Within a morning.
- [79:20]
A
I can attest to that because I've talked to you when you were driving there.
- [79:23]
B
Yes, you are.
- [79:24]
A
You are very involved in Branson. In fact, fun fact here. I've heard when people told me about Branson, it might even been you in the group that we were at, at BPCON that did this, that Branson is like Gatlinburg in Missouri. Is that sound familiar?
- [79:38]
B
Yeah, I think it's. I think it's a very fair comparison.
- [79:40]
A
And Gatlinburg is where a lot of the properties are that I manage in the Smoky Mountain. So it's funny that we're both in a similar market. All right, moving on to the last segment of the show. This is a featured property, and we don't have an entire property to show, but we do have a before and after. We are working on the final pictures. The photographer went today and didn't take pictures of the outside. I was hoping to have these pictures to share in today's show, but he only did the inside for whatever reason. There was a miscommunication. Do you find photographers are crazy expensive today? Is that only in the Smokies or is that everywhere?
- [80:15]
B
No, that's everywhere. That is insane. Yes.
- [80:17]
A
Explain to me why they charge so much money to take pictures.
- [80:20]
B
I think because they can. And there really is a. There's a gap. I mean, you can find inexpensive photographers, but you get what you pay for. And when you find a really good one, like, they can charge whatever they want. I mean, with. With real estate, it's important that you get really, really good photos. So you gotta pay them.
- [80:38]
A
Yeah. My goodness, though, it could be crazy expensive.
- [80:41]
B
Yeah.
- [80:42]
A
Because I was like, man, maybe this guy's really good, but he's still like on the. He's above average price, but he's not like crazy upper echelon. I'm just like, how did you not take pictures of the outside? That's a whole fire pit that we built. So I think you can see. Yeah. From the screen.
- [80:57]
C
Share.
- [80:58]
A
This is probably not the best picture to start with, but this was the area that I had cleared out. Let me see if I can find a better picture of this front yard. All right, that's what we have now. I wanted a better picture to show everybody because we have the professional person going. This was them making it. There we go. This is what it looked like before. So I had this kind of slope chart with these very weird concrete hands that were there when I bought it. Still don't know exactly what those were for.
- [81:26]
B
What did you do with those?
- [81:28]
A
They're heavy. Afraid. They are crazy heavy. I don't. It's maybe not be common knowledge, but I recently ripped my bicep tendon on my left arm picking up a really heavy arcade machine to put into the truck. And so I can't move them. I had the landscaper, like, knock them over and tumble him down the hill and then somehow put them into his truck. Or at least he said he did. He might have just put them in the neighbor's yard because they're so heavy. But this was a space. It's like, useless. I don't like when there's useless space in one of the properties. Like, I don't want to go spend 100 grand, but I don't want it to have, like, nothing that's there. So we took that and we turned it into, as I mentioned, Here. So in a future episode we should actually have some new pictures of the front of the cabin and the fire pit that was built and I'll be able to share some of the numbers of doing it. But if you guys have a property and you're looking to improve it, you're looking to have some manage, that is something that we offer at coast to Coast Getaways. If we take over your cabin, we don't only manage it. I also look at what I think you could do minimally spending money to improve the value of it. And Ashley here is someone that I will bounce those ideas off of as she does the same as we try to figure out what could we do to make this space nice. As you guys can tell from Ashley's background, she is very good at making things look pretty. Thank you, Ashley. Thank you for joining me today. If people want to follow up with you, learn more about your company, what you can offer them or just your own investing, where can they go?
- [82:53]
B
Yeah, regays.com or reg stays R E G a s T a y s on pretty much any social.
- [83:00]
A
There you go. Make sure to reach out to Ashley. Let her know what you thought of today's episode. And if you've got a property in Branson, you want it to do better, I highly recommend reaching out to Ashley and letting her take a look at managing it for you. All right, before we get out of here, just remember the one brokerage is here to finance any of your real estate needs. And we mean that. Go to davidgreen24.com and use the chat option to get in touch with me. Or you can check out the website itself. The one broker brokerage.com we lend in all 50 states. We know what we're doing. We have more loan products than everybody that I've come across. We have raving reviews and we want to make sure that nobody rips you off. So if you're thinking about refinancing a property, if you're not, you should be because rates have come down. We can save you money there and if you want to buy, we want to help you there too. So check us out. You'll love it. Thank you guys for listening. Thanks everybody for joining. Please share the phone the Share the Phone Please share this episode with a friend. Especially if they have a short term rental. You probably want to check in on them. They might not be doing so well right now. And let's all work together to see what we can do to stay in the game. Avoid foreclosure, avoid losing a bunch of wealth and ride the wave when the economy gets better. This is David Green for Ashley 24 Coal, signing off.