← The David Greene Show
The David Greene Show
The Truth About Short-Term Rentals Nobody Warns You About I Episode 118
00:51:35
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to Real Talk Real Estate, the show where we cover how to build wealth in real estate with no fluff, no BS and no sales pitches. I'm David Green and I've been doing this for over 10 years. I've seen the ups, the downs, and everything in between. This is the show where we pull back the curtain and show it to you too. So if you want to build wealth through real estate or you just love learning about it, you found your home. What's going on, everyone? Welcome to Real Talk Real Estate. This is the David Green Show. Hope you all had a good holidays. It's a great time of year for everybody except for real estate investors. Just kidding. It is a tough time in the real estate investing market. If you own property, in most cases, you're probably hurting. If you're trying to buy property, you're probably having a difficult time trying to figure out what to buy, where to buy, if you should buy, what place to buy in and when a good time to buy would be. And if you're trying to sell something, it might be even worst. The economy is just rough and we have been having several guests have been reaching out saying, hey man, I got a story to tell. That's the opposite of what you heard on Bigger Pockets for years. I'm not crushing it. In my first 18 months of buying real estate, I'm getting crushed and it's not really my fault. And that's what we're talking about today. I'm joined by Colt Savage, who is a short term rental investor who's got some frustrations to share. And a cautionary tale for other investors who may be thinking about getting into the space or those of you that are in the space now, consider it's a therapy session. You are not alone. It is not you, but it is the system. Colt, thanks for joining me today. Welcome.
- [01:25]
B
Yeah. How's it going?
- [01:26]
A
Good to be here, man. Very good. Let's start off by just hearing about how you bought your first house and how you got started in your journey of real estate.
- [01:34]
B
Wow. So my first Property was in 2014. Did house hacking before I knew it was house hacking. Out of college, I had a goal to purchase a property with a mother in law suite that I could rent out. And so, you know, less than a year after I graduated college, I was able to do that. And two days after I bought the property, my buddy moved in downstairs, had it own, has his own, you know, kitchen, bathroom, room, everything. So pretty separated. He helped pay for a portion of my mortgage. He got a tremendous Deal on a place to live. And so that was kind of the start. And then from there it continued. Just reading, reading more books and every wealth book seems like the common theme was invest in real estate. And so, you know, very into bigger pockets at that time. Remember before there was a podcast, I'd read all the articles online and stuff like that, so. And then, yeah, 2017 got my second property and tried to continue buying at least a property Year was my goal or mindset kind of moving forward.
- [02:38]
A
All right, so how many did you end up with?
- [02:41]
B
Right now there's four properties.
- [02:42]
A
Four properties. Okay, and then how many of these are short term rentals and what's kind of the makeup of them?
- [02:47]
B
So three of them are long term and one of them is a short term in Phoenix, Arizona.
- [02:53]
A
Okay, and is that the newest one?
- [02:55]
B
That is the newest one that was purchased in 2022. Right before the interest rates went through the roof.
- [03:01]
A
Brother, I went big right before interest rates went through the roof. I bought 18 houses in two months.
- [03:09]
B
Oh, wow.
- [03:10]
A
Rates went up about a month and a half after I closed on the last one. It was very, very, very bad timing. And as we all saw, the economy basically grinded to a halt as the Fed kept interest rates high to try to stop inflation. And all it did was kill jobs, kill income. It killed. It's kind of like, you know, when they put antibiotics in you, and it kills the bad thing, but it kills everything else too. We did, for some way, stop inflation, but more importantly, we destroyed all the good things that we had going on in the economy too. And now we're kind of a country full of people saying, what's next? What are we doing? What's the plan? And I don't know that we have one right now. So for those that own real estate at this time, it can be very challenging. And that's what we're here for. This is a group therapy session on the David Green show, talking about just what the hell is going on. So let's start with your Phoenix property. Tell me about the property itself. Like, what does it look like? Why'd you buy it? Give me a little bit of background on that.
- [04:04]
B
Yeah, so I've always wanted a property, you know, out of Washington, where I'm based out of. And I've traveled a lot for work all over the United States, from Hawaii to Florida to California. And so the allure of my mind was always, you know, buy a property in each place you you lived. Actually had an opportunity to Buy 1 in 2018 in Clearwater Florida actually off market. The lady would have finance the whole deal. She had moved to Italy. But I got cold feet and I was very scared to have a property out of state. So kind of, that always stuck in my mind. Then Fast forward to 2022. I had kind of taken a sabatical from my W2 job and went down to Phoenix for kind of a date weekend with my, my partner at the time and met a gentleman who had just bought a couple properties down there in Paradise Valley and Scottsdale. And we got to talking and he showed me around his properties and he was fixing them up and you know, someone just got done with a W2 for 10 years. It was like, man, this is what I want to do with my life.
- [05:03]
A
Right.
- [05:03]
B
And so came back to Washington and less than a week later I was under contract on a property. So I think one of the main things I wanted was kind of a place for my family, a place that my, my children, my, you know, my extended family, close family could go to and try to give my children a life that I never had. And I've always been into buying distressed homes, fixing them up. So in typical fashion, got a property that needed a lot of work. So you know, knocked down walls, replaced tile bathrooms, kitchen stuff like that. Knocked out a fireplace as well to kind of open up the space. It's kind of your typical Spanish house with the stucco, the concrete roof, a little simple pool in the back. It's a rambler. I love ramblers. Really, really good location right next to Shadow Mountain. And it, it just, I think the property to me kind of represents more of like what is possible for someone like me. Just kind of a normal, normal kid, kind of from Washington.
- [06:05]
A
So.
- [06:05]
B
And then the thought was rent it out when we're not using as a family. And that's kind of what we do.
- [06:11]
A
Okay, so you vacation there with the, as you're with your family occasionally and then when you're not, you have it on different booking platforms.
- [06:19]
B
That is true. And then right now there's a tenant that stays there during the winter from usually November till May, which is nice because I personally I, I like the long term rentals better. I think it's a lot less management time because I am managing everything by myself. I'm probably going to switch that come spring at least with a short term to kind of put it off my plate. But the long term tenant down there is tremendous. She's, she's super sweet and kind. She takes care of the house. She lets know when there's anything Wrong. And it's, it's. It's very nice to have that. Unfortunately, I can't use it during the winter when I want to get away from Washington the most. But, you know, it's okay. I'll. I'll take one for the team right now.
- [07:00]
A
Yeah, I think that's a huge blessing to have, especially if it's the same person every year. That's what you're looking for is you get that snowbird. Are they like, Canadian or something?
- [07:09]
B
Minnesota. So not too far from Canada.
- [07:11]
A
Yeah, Yeah. I don't know. Their accents sound the same to me. That's right. So they want to get out of Minnesota, they come to Arizona, and then they go back. Okay. Now, the rest of the time you do have it listed on booking platforms? Is it just on Airbnb or do you have it on a couple?
- [07:25]
B
It's on BNB and VRBO.
- [07:28]
A
Okay. Do you typically get many bookings from VRBox?
- [07:34]
B
A handful, maybe 20, 30% from VRBO versus Airbnb. I do think that VRBO does pay out a little bit more, so I don't mind using them, but I think more people are aware of the Airbnb platform, which provides a lot more traffic towards the property.
- [07:50]
A
I would say the same. I typically have better experiences on vrbo, much better experiences with the guests. I think the payout is more favorable for the host. For whatever reason, VRBO can't get attacked together and compete with Airbnb. And so more of the guests choose Airbnb. And so that ends up being where the lion's share of our income comes from. Now, today we're going to be talking about what your experience has been like with Airbnb. So let's just start. Give it to me like big picture, and then we'll drill down on some of the details.
- [08:20]
B
I think big picture is that is a platform that you can utilize to find guests to stay in your property for a shirt short amount of time. Overall, big picture, it provides one location where essentially people come to you. You're not out trying to find other people. I know I've used Zillow before to find people for long term rentals, and that's great, but it's not quite the volume and what I'm specifically looking for on that property. So overall, that's kind of what it is. It comes with challenges, pros, cons, and I just kind of roll with the punches as they come along.
- [08:57]
A
All right, so what are some of the punches that have come along since
- [09:00]
B
you've had a short term Rental, some of the punches. I think, like everyone else, pretty early on had some kids have a party there, and so a few things got damaged. I think that was probably the second weekend that we had it live. And, you know, the red flags were there. But I think, you know, being so excited to have it online, get it rented out, etc, was kind of what propelled me to. To allow that to happen. But overall, nothing too crazy got damaged or anything like that. And I try to remind myself that most things that do get damaged aren't thousands and thousands of dollars. So it wasn't too bad. And I think some of it, too, was. You know, I probably get a little bit too emotionally into some of the properties I have because I do put a lot of time in there and I spend time there with my family. So that's one thing that I need to get away from for sure.
- [09:47]
A
But, okay, that is one school of thought that you can't get attached to it. There's another school of thought that says, this is my effing house, and I expect you to treat it like you would treat my house if you walked into my house and I was there. Okay? So I know we are told, don't get caught up in this stuff, because it's easy to tell people that. I don't know, though. Like, we're wired to be protective of our stuff. If I went to visit you, Colt, and you were there at your vacation house in Arizona and you let me in, I wouldn't just go knock the TV down and break it. I wouldn't just go, like, pee all over the walls. I wouldn't go spill stuff all over your rug. I'd say, oh, my God, I'm so sorry. Let me clean that. Right. It would be a completely different conversation than if you're not there. And I feel like I have license to just destroy someone's stuff. I don't know how we got here as a society that not only is it okay to break other people's things, but we tell the person who had their thing broke, don't let that upset you. So, yeah, don't. I don't know. I don't know if you should feel bad about that. I mean, you have to accept that it's going to happen. But we're human beings, and I don't think we should be told to stop feeling like a human being just because other human beings are acting out of control.
- [11:00]
B
That is fair. And I do think it's the minority that treat your property horribly. I think most people have been very kind Treat it well. You know, obviously things happen sometimes, and I think 89% of time they're, you know, usually because of kids or just something that happens or whatnot. But it's been a very select few that I think have treated the prop. The property badly. But with that said, there's been no broken windows, nothing crazy that I think would be out of control. And again, maybe it's the. We. We do care so much about our properties, especially with the bnb, where it's not just a property. It's. It's furniture, it's TVs, it's all the little things that you put time and effort in to make it an appealing aesthetic place for not only yourself, but for. For guests as well.
- [11:47]
A
That's it. I think when we're the host, we're like, man, I got to get amazing pictures. Every detail has to be perfect. What angle am I going to get? What lighting are they going to use? Are we going to get the rug to match the wall, art to match the curtains to match the comforter? There's like crazy detail. And then somebody just comes in and destroys it like it's nothing. I don't know. I think if you're an artist and you put a lot of time into a painting and somebody knocked it off the wall and damaged it, you'd probably be upset, too.
- [12:17]
B
Yep. I agree. I agree. And I think also as hosts, you know, they see a decently nice house and they assume that, you know, we're. We're billionaires and we have all this disposable money, so it's, you know, oh, well, a thousand dollars here, a thousand dollars there. You know, it's no big deal for someone like you kind of thing when reality, you know, I think majority of us are just normal people that are doing our best to. To make ends meet and provide for our families and other people, too.
- [12:42]
A
Yeah, well, they also don't understand because unless they're a real estate investor themselves, there's a mortgage, there's taxes, there's insurance, there's extra sales taxes that the city charged you to do there. Then there's all the fees from the booking platform that are outrageous that's going on. There's damages to the units, there's cleaning fees. There's normal maintenance on a house that wears down over time. I could go on and on and on. There's insurance costs that continue to rise. There's the fact that the house is furnished and that furniture breaks and needs to be replaced or falls out of style. The amount of expenses in a business, if until you've had one, you do not understand how quickly these things add up. Even just a regular, like, remote business. You've got Google admin fees, you've got fees for the email of every agent or loan officer that I bring in. I've got zoom fees. Maybe we need a second zoom because people are in meetings all the time. There's different software that the company has to use. We probably just, with the one brokerage alone, have six or seven different software platforms that all cost several hundred bucks a month to be able to use that. There's website fees, then there's domain fees, and there's the price of buying the domain. Like I'm just spitballing off my head and it goes on forever. There's a lot, a lot of fees that go into these things. And the guest sort of shows up probably irritated that they had to spend more than they wanted. Right. They thought they overpaid. Now here's the rubber. They're booking direct. The fees would probably be a lot lower, the price would be a lot lower if we didn't have to cover air. What's Airbnb at? Somewhere between 15 and 18% that they're
- [14:12]
B
taking right now, I believe something like that. And then, you know, in certain areas, they have, you know, certain taxes you pay to the city to even host it or to apply for permitting and stuff like that, too.
- [14:22]
A
Yep. And then if there's something that goes wrong, the maintenance guy, you're not going to schedule a maintenance guy at a cheap time. He has to go out there that day, at that moment to keep that guest happy. It's going to be more. So, yeah, if we had a system of people that book direct, the guests would have. They'd be paying less. We'd also be making more. We wouldn't be being held hostage by the bad reviews. And I think more people would travel if they could pay less. The whole thing could be fixed if we figured out some way to get people to book direct, but we'll get into that later. So you got this place. It's your first one, right?
- [14:54]
B
First short term rental? Yes.
- [14:56]
A
Right, right. So did you have like a coach or a group or something that help walk you through getting this thing launched, or did you just figure it out yourself?
- [15:04]
B
For the most part, figured out myself. I did have a partner that we kind of spearheaded together where she would kind of handle most of the. The management and I would handle most of the construction finances and stuff like that. So we basically teamed together to to kind of make it happen. A lot of it was just reading various books, going online, doing research. That's kind of how we, we spearheaded it.
- [15:28]
A
Okay, so you get this thing up and running, you got it listed, your first booking comes in. What's that like when you get that very first message, if somebody wants to book your property?
- [15:37]
B
It's exciting. It's. It's exciting. It's also nerve wracking, you know, is everything right? Is everything clean? Is everything where we need it to be? Are they gonna like the place? They're not gonna like the place. I think overall it was very much excitement that, you know, we had put so much time and effort getting it to this point and, and dealt with a lot of. Just a lot of trials and tribulation to get it there. So it was very exciting. Very exciting.
- [16:01]
A
Yeah, I remember that feeling too. When I first took them over and I saw them coming in, it was like I just hit all sevens on a lottery machine. Oh, that feels good. I want more of that. How do I get more people to book them? Right, exactly. Which is quickly followed up by the wind being taken out of your sails by some of these guests. So let's start off with like the first, first time you had a picky guest or even a nightmare guest. Just the level where you said, this is unreasonable. What the hell's going on? Do you remember that story?
- [16:30]
B
I think it might have been the second weekend.
- [16:32]
A
Oh, boy.
- [16:34]
B
When a younger lady booked the place and it was, you know, supposed to be her and two other people. And quickly on the cameras of the entrance, we see there's probably 10, you know, I'll call them kids, probably late teens, early 20s, that kind of pile into the house and just having a good time coming in and out. And, you know, I think that was the first time I was like, holy moly, there's a lot of people in this house. I didn't get any complaints from the neighbors. Luckily, I'm pretty close to my neighbors, so, you know, we have a group chat together and they, they talk to me quite often, so. And they've been tremendous too. Let me know if there's any issues or anything like that. And they've never contacted me and said that any guests have been out of control. But once they did leave, I, you know, the cleaners, who have been awesome to work with, actually, they do a tremendous job of documenting everything. What's broken, what's, you know, not in its place, et cetera. But there were numerous things that were broken or damaged. So we did have to do a claim through B and B. Again, I wouldn't say it was anything at the time. It seemed the biggest issue in the world, right. I think it was maybe 1200 bucks. But in hindsight, looking back, it could have been a lot worse. And I think when you're in the, you know, riding that wave, it seems a lot worse than it really is. So it was funny. I went down there the weekend, literally, I think, like the week after they were there. And I remember going to the recycling bin. I think there was about a dozen bottles of Hennessy in there. And it kind of made me laugh that, you know, hey, these, you know, kids are in here having a good time. And I just kept reminding myself it could have been a lot worse. You know what I mean? To kind of stay even killed and. And just be grateful nothing worse happened.
- [18:15]
A
But it does go to show the mindset is often not, this is a person's home. This is a house. It's. This is a place that I have the right to do what I want to do in. And there's like no supervision to tell me no.
- [18:26]
B
Exactly. On top of that, you know, you book it out with certain expectations. Who's going to be there, you know, how long they're going to be there, how you're going to treat the house, etc. And then it turns into the exact opposite real fast. And sometimes it's the definitely overwhelming. But it's been. It's definitely been the minority versus a typical.
- [18:45]
A
All right, so let's go on and just kind of walk me through what this evolved into. What kind of complaints have you been getting? What kind of guests have you been getting? What's different than what you expected?
- [18:59]
B
It seems like there's complaints over every little thing. And notice kind of a trend on if they're very needy on the front end before they even get there, they usually lead to a needy guest when they're there. And it's nothing in my. Some things are reasonable, some things are not. You know, I mentioned the hand towels, that there weren't enough hand towels in the kitchen to dry dishes, even though in every bathroom, bedroom, there's at least probably half dozen, if not more towels to use. But for me, it was simpler just to send them down more towels and say, hey, you know what? Here's more towels, you know, thank you for letting me know kind of thing. The other reoccurring thing has been, I think there's only been two instances of scorpions in the three years that I've owned The property. But, you know, the host always kind of gets the finger pointed at them for not providing a sanitary and safe place for the guests, even though you're providing interior, exterior, pest control for various types of insects. And at the end of the day, you know, not sure what else you can really do to help them provide a safer place. Right. We even went through all the door jams and had the stripping repaired and replaced. And that way everything's nice, tight and sealed. And unfortunately, when they complain, you don't know if it's something that they left the door open and a scorpion got in or a window or whatnot. So you're left there kind of doing whatever you can to please that particular guest.
- [20:32]
A
So you're talking about guests that will complain that some kind of insect got inside the house, Right?
- [20:37]
B
Yes. And the only complaint I've got is they've seen a scorpion in the middle of the desert in Phoenix that had gotten in the house somehow. And again, the finger gets pointed towards the host that I'm not doing enough to provide them with a safe place for them and their kids to stay. And I try to come from a spot of empathy and understand, because I know when my kids are there, I'm worried about scorpions as well. But I think I've also come to the realization that there's only so much you can control when it comes to scorpions or insects. And if you're checking the boxes, as far as, you know, pest control, you know, bimonthly interior, exterior, you're almost limited to what you can and can't do. So I try to take it with a grain of salt and, you know, put my service, customer, customer service hat on, per se, and kind of give them what they. They want or need.
- [21:27]
A
Well, it sounds like that's been your plan. Every time someone complains about something, you fix it. And the thought process would be, at a certain point, there's nothing left to complain about. It's. We fix everything.
- [21:40]
B
Yes. And something always pops up, though. And that's, you know, where we were talking about being the host. You're kind of put in that position to where, you know, you almost don't argue. You don't hold them accountable. You just say, all right, whatever you say, and we give you what you want to kind of prevent that. That negative review on your property, which we, you know, spend hours and hours and thousands of dollars to take care of, maintain, and provide a good experience for the guests that do stay there.
- [22:06]
A
Yeah. So is that what you think is going on? You think Complaints are coming in from people because they're looking for something from you in exchange for not leaving a bad review.
- [22:17]
B
I don't want to be a negative, Nancy. I don't. Not everyone is like that. But I do think there are a minority portion of people that do do that and that their goal is to see what kind of discount they can get, or can they get a free night, or can they get a free weekend, or, hey, you know, for the days that, you know, I didn't have towels or this or that wasn't up to my standards, can I get some kind of money back? And that's where, you know, I try to ask questions on the front end before I accept their. Accept. Accept them to stay at the property, to try to weed them out. And sometimes I have, you know, weeded them out pretty quickly. But I do think some people, their whole entire goal in life is to, you know, come up on other people.
- [23:02]
A
Yeah. Now, obviously not everybody on Airbnb is doing this, because if that was the case, everyone would take their listings off of Airbnb. So there's good eggs that are out there. We're just sort of talking about. There's a really high proportion of not good eggs. And part of me has wondered if this is worse in certain markets than others. Like, I have a theory that vacation markets get more difficult guests than traditional markets. Because if you're someone who's just visiting Cincinnati or Toledo because you're visiting family or your mom's in the hospital and you're going to stay for a couple months and you need a place to stay, you don't think. You're not like a regular Airbnb scam artist that does this all the time, that knows how this works. But if you're going to Orlando to visit Disneyland, if you're going to the Smoky Mountains, if you're going to Branson, Missouri, just like these other places that are very well known for attracting tourism, I do think you probably get a higher percentage of people who are professionals. They're like, hey, we want to get the family together. We're going to go here. It's two grand. Let's see if we can get it to one grand. That's the mindset. And they just walk in, like you said, looking for stuff to be upset about. Do you have any other examples of things you can point out that just in your short time experience doing this that people have complained about? So far we've covered lack of towels, a scorpion getting inside the house. Do you mention anything else? I'm missing there.
- [24:28]
B
There was an incident where a woman was complaining there was no hot water in one of the bathrooms. And so as a concerned owner of a property, if there's an issue with my water heater, I want to get it fixed immediately. Not only for my sake, but for hers as well, because I'm putting on my customer service hat. And so I got a plumber out there. He was out there for me 30 minutes. He called me back and said, hey, I. The water is plenty warm. I'm not sure what she's talking about. His comment was, sometimes people come from various states that aren't used to having the temperature of water that is typical in Phoenix. But other than that, it's, you know, had to pay him his, his fee out there, which is fine, it's reasonable. But it was essentially all, you know, all for nothing. Right? Which all. All takes away from that bottom line. Another issue that got brought up a few times was there's too much sun that comes in the master bedroom windows in the morning. And you know, I. Now I put it in my details about the property that, hey, if you stay in the master bedroom, just know that a lot of sunlight comes in there early in the morning and there are blinds in there. And I think sometimes people don't know how to use the blinds. They're the blinds that you. They're kind of two way, I guess, where one, if you have it one way, essentially light comes through and if you pull it down further, it blocks it so there's less light that comes through. I'm an early riser, so I personally enjoy the sun. I love waking up with sun on my face. So now, you know, in the description of the property, I kind of mentioned, hey, just so you know, if you're sleeping in the master bedroom, it gets the most sunlight in the morning. You might want to have a, a face mask or something if you're looking to sleep later in the day. The other, you know, there's three other bedrooms that provide a lot more shade and darkness if you're gonna be sleeping later in the day.
- [26:22]
A
Be honest with me here, man. You can tell me if you think I'm wrong. Okay. Are we actually can like taking serious a complaint from someone that says the angle of the sun in the morning coming into the room was unfavorable?
- [26:43]
B
I'm not taking it seriously. No. Again, I kind of revert back to first world problems. And there's a lot of things that we should worry about and there's a lot of things that we should not worry about. However, as that customer service hat that I'm throwing on. I try to say, I apologize for the sun coming in. And that's why I try to now say, hey, I give them an upfront notice if you're standing.
- [27:06]
A
I know, man, I know. You're doing everything you're supposed to do, baby. Bring a face mask. I'm just like, at certain point, are they going to complain about excessive dust? And so they were sneezing and we're leaving nasal spray in the cabin. Like, this is what this has turned into, that we are so scared, so scared of a guest putting in their reviews. The sun came in the window exactly as sun tends to do. But it woke me up. And I didn't like that three stars because, like, it. Somebody who reads that would think you're a psycho bee. But they'll never see it because the three star review will drop you down in the algorithm. So you see where I'm going at with this? Like, yes, that actually is an effective way to ruin somebody's life and their livelihood.
- [27:50]
B
I couldn't agree more. And it's, you know, as I said, we're. We're in that position to where you almost have to agree with the insanity that they bring, that they bring up where you would never complain about this at a hotel or any other place, or go to a friend's house or if you were kind enough to host me at your house, David, I would never complain that, oh, man, this, this room has too much light in the morning.
- [28:17]
A
It's like, is that a real thing? Because couldn't you also complain that not enough sun comes in? And so, like, in the morning, it was hard to wake up without sun in your eyes.
- [28:26]
B
You can go either way. You can't please everyone.
- [28:29]
A
I just, I don't know what to make of the level of ridiculousness that this has become, especially because you have blinds on the windows, right?
- [28:36]
B
Yeah. Yes, there's blinds in the windows. Actually, one other comment was that, you know, one of the neighbors has their lights on. I don't know if it's a floodlight or garage light at night, and it shines into the, into the master bathroom. Right. And so what I do is I just shut the master bathroom door. That way it. It creates more darkness in there. And that's something that maybe I need to tell people as well and not give people the benefit of doubt that, hey, if there's light coming from the bathroom, that you can easily close that door and cut the, the light off,
- [29:11]
A
but because it feels so demeaning to say that to someone. You know, you could close a door and then light won't come in, but they're gonna feel insulted.
- [29:20]
B
Exactly.
- [29:20]
A
But, like. But it's obvious that the assumption here is they know they could close the door, but the fact that they didn't and they complained about it, it kind of lets you know that they're fishing for you to give them money, and they're just kind of testing the waters. Like, where's the boundary at? What can I. Can I get away with here?
- [29:39]
B
Exactly. And that's what I've seen, too, is that there's test boundaries, and anything they can complain about, they will complain about. And it's like I said, it's gone out of hand to the point where you don't even. It takes more effort and time to try to talk logic and reason into them than it does say, hey, I'm sorry about that light. I know there's a door that you can shut. But, you know.
- [30:02]
A
Yeah, right.
- [30:03]
B
Don't even suggest things, because at a
- [30:05]
A
certain point you're like, well, are we really talking about real stuff here? Or like, okay, why are you telling me this is. Do you want money? Like, I get to the point. I just want to say that how much money do you think you should get because you didn't close the bathroom door before you went to sleep?
- [30:18]
B
Yeah.
- [30:19]
A
So what's the answer? Like, I mean, is it. What? No, let me ask you this. What has it done to your emotional state regarding your enjoyment of being a real estate investor?
- [30:33]
B
I'm gonna say overall, nothing. I. I love real estate very much. It's. It's. It brings me much happiness, and I try to take. I try to understand that anything good comes with some of these bumps in the road. Right. And the reason that most people don't invest in real estate is because they can't handle these emotional states. Whereas I try to stay very grounded and almost laugh it off and say that the people that are doing this, These complaining or these complaints aren't the type of people like you or myself that will go to a BNB and just appreciate it for what it is. And if there's a spider, hey, oh, well, I'm gonna kill the spider. It's life. You know what I mean? I see spiders in my home. I'm gonna deal with it. So I think overall, it hasn't really detached me from my emotional love of real estate. It might have made me rethink managing properties myself versus someone else. And I know that's one Thing I have been looking into heavily for the spring of 2026 is to kind of get this off my back because every time someone's there, I'm essentially working. Right. I got to be kind of on if there's anything wrong and kind of looking after them. So, yeah, I don't think it's really damaged my emotional state as far as real estate investing goes.
- [31:47]
A
But it sort of discouraged you from wanting to buy more Airbnbs.
- [31:50]
B
It sounds like potentially I think I might have a different look on it if I had someone else that was managing the property and taking a little bit less income, but getting back some of my sanity. And you know, for me, my, my time is far more valuable than any dollar amount. And so I think getting that time back and, yeah, maybe a little bit less stress having to, having to manage it and deal with it because to a certain point you're reminded of people and how pity they can be sometimes with nothing being good enough for them.
- [32:25]
A
Yeah, that's kind of where I was going with this because I think you are not alone in the frustrations. In fact, my gut tells me you probably would be sharing more, but you don't want to come across like you're complaining. You're just a man of integrity. You don't like that. But inside you could be seething with knowing you're being taken advantage of. Right. Because I, we don't get to go to the guest and say, hey, you agreed to pay me $2,000 to stay here for a week, but here's the thing, you brought a couple extra people you didn't say you were going to bring. And you flushed the toilet more than I thought you were going to flush it. And I had to do this thing to get the house ready for you that I wasn't expecting to anyways. It wasn't what I was expecting. So I'm going to need to charge you 2,600. And if they say no, we can't go, leave them a review on Airbnb that says they were a terrible guest, don't book with them, they didn't pay me more. It's a one way valve that is very frustrating to deal with. And if this does talk somebody out of owning real estate 30 years from now, that will have a very significant impact on their family's financial position. I don't like anything that discourages people from owning an asset, especially the way you do where you're a good host, you're doing what you're supposed to do, you're taking care of people. You're in the hospitality industry. You are doing your very best to give them the best time they can, and that is not being reciprocated whatsoever. They're making you hate your life so they get something from you. So for those in that position, I do think you should strongly consider using a property manager. If for nothing more than they're absorbing all those toxins. They're the ones having those negative emotions, they're the ones feeling bad, they're the ones frustrated. They get paid for that. Yes. You as the owner, you're like, man, this is like one property and it has, it's responsible for 70% of what I don't like about my life. It could turn into that. But if you're a property Manager, that is 50 of them. Adding 51 doesn't really do much for you. You've got the skills, you've got the thick skin, you recognize these people when they come. You've dealt with this for a while. You're kind of conditioned for this. So it doesn't have as much of a negative impact on you. It actually is the value that you are providing to the industry is you're absorbing all the negativity out of owning real estate so that the other person doesn't have to deal with it. I think that that's a legit response that people can take for when they're just like, I've had enough of this. This is ridiculous. Don't give up on real estate, Give up on the part of you you hate. What's your thoughts on that?
- [34:54]
B
I couldn't agree more. And I think as you kind of scale out and, you know, I know when I had one property it wasn't too hard to manage it, but as you get, you know, three long terms and a short term now, it's, you know, accumulating more and more time. And so, you know, I think you kind of work yourself out of the things that you don't enjoy and try to delegate those to other people. And this is a common trend between so many podcasts is that delegating sooner than later and, you know, putting those funds and investing in people that are going to help run your business better than you can. And I know that I'm not an all star property manager and I'll never be a property manager all star, because I don't necessarily want to be, but there are people who are all star property managers and I need to leverage them far more than I'm doing currently. So I hear you loud and clear and I Couldn't agree more.
- [35:48]
A
Well, that's a whole new show or a couple shows to talk about how you find an all star property manager or an all star agent or an all star lender. Because just like the short term rental industry is ripe with people that are trying to rip you off, so is the real estate industry. Unfortunately it's most agents are not very good. Most brokers do not train their agents very well. Most agents don't go to a broker where they pay a reasonable split so the brokers don't care. Most loan officers know how to rip you off and not tell you and hope you don't find out about it till the last minute. And most property managers want to just get your property, lock you into a contract, pass off the work to a W2 that's paid very poorly, that doesn't care and collect money from you while taking no responsibility for fixing things and just passing on the costs. Everyone listening to this has experienced everything I just mentioned. It's very hard to find good people. So there's actually a skill involved in figuring out who you're going to work with, who you're going to trust, what's reasonable to expect. Real estate Tricky. It's very tricky. That's why we have podcasts to talk about it because it's not easy. What's your plans going forward? Do you think you're going to buy another short term rental? Do you think you're going to focus on traditional rentals?
- [36:58]
B
I think continue focused on traditional rentals. I, you know, I'm a big proponent of buy and hold. I might end up getting one more maybe kind of short term. It's just a goal of mine to have a property out of the country. So maybe someday I'll have a property out of the country that might rent out when I'm not using it or if it's in a third world country that I can pay for it cash, maybe I'll just let it sit and let friends and family stay there. But I think for the most part trying to get my my systems and processes more dialed in and get a better kind of deal flow going on and continue to to add to the long term rental and basically just try to continue building my wealth for myself and the family.
- [37:38]
A
All right. I don't think we asked what do you do for work?
- [37:42]
B
I'm a civil engineer, so I do more construction management for huge bridge and marine projects around North America. I've been doing that for about 12 years now. Right now I currently work remote so it's Very, very nice to be able to free up some time from driving and spend more time with my family. I do think a lot of my construction management experience and big commercial, you know, bridge projects did translate over pretty well when I'm managing these construction projects for my property as well, because every property I've had has needed work. So I always, you know, buy them under market value and, you know, put in, you know, what I need to put in to kind of get it where I need to rent it out.
- [38:25]
A
Has anyone ever told you that you are the most articulate, socialized and well spoken engineer they've ever met?
- [38:32]
B
I have not heard that at all. And the fact that you said I'm articulate, I'm very flattered because I work very hard to be articulate and use my words well, which is funny because I think you are very articulate with your words, the way you speak. And I know I've listened to hundreds of your podcasts, whether bigger pockets are here. And yeah, you're someone I look up to tremendously. So coming from, I appreciate that.
- [38:56]
A
I was a cop for 10 years in terrible areas. So you learn to speak well and read people well or you die. And I worked in restaurants before that. So you kind of had to be like quick off the cuff. They were like really fancy, nice restaurants where there was a high expectation. And then doing a podcast with Brandon Turner, man, that guy expects a lot out of you. So if you listen to me, when I first started podcasting, I was not as articulate and I was much more long winded. I had to learn how to communicate at like podcast rhythm. But thank you for the compliment. You're an engineer though. You don't see many engineers that can talk as well as you can talk. You have to know that.
- [39:36]
B
I do not know that. In all honesty, I think I also put effort and work into it. I mean, I've read a few books on articulating words and how to communicate what you want and stuff like that. And I'm always trying to identify issues or problems in my life and then find a book that can then help me with that problem. So I've definitely spent a good amount of time trying to speak articulately to people.
- [40:03]
A
Well, let me just tell you, if you ever decide you want to start your own engineering firm, I think your tagline should be the only engineer who's also a Savage.
- [40:12]
B
I think that sounds amazing. You got to use the Savage name. Yeah, it's my ex partner and I used to, we had a, you know, real estate Business together. She was a loan office or sorry, a real estate agent. And it was. Her slogan was don't be average, work with a savage.
- [40:29]
A
So that's not bad at all either.
- [40:31]
B
Let's try to utilize it whenever we can.
- [40:35]
A
Well, today's show is sponsored actually by Price Labs. Price Labs is software that helps you get the most for the pricing of your property. If you've ever wondered that you might be leaving some money on the table when you could have been charging more, or if you found that you're not getting bookings at all because you haven't dropped your price enough, but you don't want to drop it too much, Price Lab is what you need. We use it at Coast To Coast Getaways to price all of the properties that we are managing and we play with that pricing every single day, seven days a week to get bookings in the short term when we don't have any, and to maximize how much we're getting in the long term. Price Labs that you look at all the bookings around you, how many of them are still vacant, what occupancy levels are, what your competition is doing and more. We love them and they love the show. So if you've been considering getting something to step up your own short term rental revenue game, reach out to us at Coast To Coast Getaways and or contact Price Labs to get started increasing your revenue today, folks. We should have a link in the show notes for Price Labs as well. So go check that out. We might even be able to get you a discount. I didn't ask you, Colt. Are you using Price Labs for, for your pricing?
- [41:37]
B
We do use Price Labs for our price.
- [41:39]
A
How do you like it?
- [41:41]
B
It's, it's. I think it's great. I don't adjust. I maybe should look at the prices more and adjust them, but it does everything for you. So I essentially kind of sit back and it's one less thing to worry about. It kind of adjusts for the time of year, summer, winter, et cetera. And then that basically plugs into IGMS as well, where it can essentially manage all the platforms in one location.
- [42:03]
A
Yep. Well, if you ever want us to talk about managing your property for you and saving your sanity, I'd love to do it. Like, you know, I have a property out in Scottsdale that I own with Rob and I actually have probably six or seven properties in the Phoenix area. So kind of like, I don't know if you learned the cities around there, but I've got quite a few around there. That we manage already, so we'd be able to help you there. And if you're listening to this and you've got a short term rental, your. Your wits end and you can't stand this anymore, don't give up. Let us see if we can help shelter the load for you. Anything that you haven't shared so far, Colt, that you think would be beneficial for people to hear?
- [42:39]
B
I think for the most part, just there's a difference between doing and learning. And I know I got stuck sometimes feeling like I need to learn everything and it's just taking action and learning from people that are doing what you want to be doing at a higher level. And so that's where I, you know, I've leaned on you for a long time, Brandon Turner. Brandon, obviously being from Washington and me being from Washington, you know, little special connection there.
- [43:03]
A
But are you from Grace harbor area?
- [43:05]
B
I'm not from Grace Harbor. I'm from Tacoma area.
- [43:08]
A
Yeah, much nicer.
- [43:09]
B
Much nicer. Don't talk bad about where Brandon's from,
- [43:13]
A
but everybody there's talking bad about it though, even though you don't. Yeah, it's probably like the worst place in the entire state of Washington. At least, at least in western Washington. Eastern Washington might have a couple spots that'll give it a run for its money.
- [43:25]
B
Yeah, I would definitely say the worst part. But other than that, I mean, I think more than anything, I'm just a normal, normal guy that's trying to work my way to a better life for myself, my family. And I feel like if I'm not incredibly intelligent or anything or super talented. But one thing that I do have pride in is that I will work at work. Anyone. And so I think anyone that's willing to work is. Can kind of get where they want to get. Which is one reason why I, you know, kind of aligned with you and your story, where I believe you were working all the overtime you can get as a cop and making really good money. But you were also, I believe, getting pretty drained, which kind of led you to eventually going to the full time real estate investing, if I recall. And I've listened to so many podcasts now I can't keep them straight, but I believe that was one of the stories I can recall from you.
- [44:15]
A
Yeah, I worked like an animal saving up money in law enforcement and put all that into buying real estate and then eventually transition into being a real estate professional. So selling houses and doing mortgages and now doing property management. That's kind of where like my whole business has evolved. Into is we provide services to real estate investors, whether that's consulting, podcasts that help them know what to do, encouragement. The books that I write, you don't make any money off writing books. I probably get like 9 cents a book or something like that. But it's all to help people with the hopes that they'll come use my brokerage, use my loan team, use my property management company or if you're listening to this and you are real estate professional to come work with us. So the one brokerage is hiring loan officers coast to coast Real estate is hiring real estate agents and brokers. And I'm actually looking for a full time marketer to hire that can help with social media, podcast production, emails, newsletters, stuff like that. It's just a bad time to be super exposed to real estate because there's no transactions happening. It's a mess, mess, mess, mess. So guys like you, Colt, that are holding the W2 and you're also investing in real estate, man, I'm proud of you. I is that is the best place to be. For years I was telling people, don't quit your W2 until you absolutely have to. And I was ridiculed. It was so easy to tell people, quit your W2 and get full time like me and take my course and I'll show you how. And I just think, man, they probably regret that decision now. A lot of cases because it's so hard. If you're making your living out of flipping homes, you probably got a lot of listings that are sitting there that are moving and you're five years out the job market or three years out the job market. And trying to get back in there can be very tough, especially where we're at now. So I appreciate you sharing your story and I love that you're just doing it the boring way. You're grinding at the W2, you're grinding at real estate. You're a good man, you love your family, you're providing housing to people that need it. You're doing the best job that you can serving the people that do go stay in your place. You don't deserve to be taken advantage of like this. And this is why I'm so frustrated that Airbnb is letting people get away with it. We need them looking out for the people that are providing the housing, not just the people that are taking advantage of it. So thanks for coming on the show. The last question I've been asking people and I don't tell them that it's coming, so don't feel Bad if you had to take a minute. Okay, what's something that you've always wanted to ask me but never thought you'd be able to?
- [46:32]
B
Man, it's funny you bring that up because I was going to make a couple notes of things I might want to ask you. I got you here. I will be honest, I wasn't sure if this is even real. For a while I didn't know if I was getting. Getting scammed. It all seemed kind of first full circle to come in actually talk to David Green. I guess maybe this is kind of what I'm trying to work on currently. But how did you find was the best, most efficient way to go from we'll say four units and and start kind of creating a better deal flow to acquire more properties or is acquiring more properties maybe not necessarily the best answer into then invest in the property. I do have to maximize the income from those properties considering interest rates, prices, etc.
- [47:26]
A
I think when there are properties to buy that makes sense and that's usually in most cases going to mean they cash flow healthy or there's a lot of equity. Those are the two main reasons that you buy something that are like you can't turn it down. Then you buy more properties in a market like this one, it's not that they aren't out there, it is much harder to find them. The ROI on your energy and your time is significantly less hunting for something. So in those cases I like the idea of switching into improving what you've got. Now when you have a short term rental, there's an obvious bridge into improving what you got. Because if it's traditional rental, what can you really do? You can make it look nicer. The rents aren't going to go up and the tenant's probably just going to break it anyway. So unless it's like adding an ADU or making the garage into part of the house or it's. It's hard when you have traditional rentals to improve them once you have them because you probably did all the improvements you needed when you first bought it. So that strategy doesn't work as easily for traditional investors but for medium term, short term rental people, when there's nothing new to buy. Yeah, it's better to put your profits into improving what you have and then just waiting for the market to move to a point where it does make more sense to go acquire again.
- [48:40]
B
Okay, I appreciate that. Yeah. Actually two of the properties, one of, well, one of them I would like to add an ADU in the backyard and then Another one has an unfinished basement that has plenty of room for an ADU which I have been looking at updating. Especially you know, with the times we have right now. Everything's so expensive. The other thought too is, you know, everything's in Washington. I'm really trying to get steer away from investing in Washington and get to better landlord friendly states because Washington right now has just, just been horrible. And you know, there's new laws every single year that make it more and more difficult for us to provide essentially affordable housing. You know, you know, as taxes, insurance, everything goes up, we're forced to keep up with that, that increase as well. So I'm definitely looking at different markets to kind of dip my foot in and, and explore and try to acquire some more cash flowing properties.
- [49:37]
A
Well, let me know if I can help you with that. You got my email now. So if you want us to get you pre approved at the one brokerage, we'd be happy to do that and give you an idea of what the next steps would be. I appreciate you coming on today man. I appreciate you sharing the good, the bad and the ugly and not just sharing the rosy depiction of real estate. So I don't like to only make depressing shows, but I also don't like to only make shows that look like everything is great because I have a business that needs you to think everything is great. So I try to give a good rounded out version of how things look and you are a perfect person to do that. So thanks man. Where can people reach out if they want to learn more about you?
- [50:14]
B
I'm most active on Instagram. My Instagram just Colt Savage and that's where I'm usually most active. I don't have too much real estate on there right now. It's mainly just pictures of landscapes and stuff. But I'm always trying to connect with people, especially like minded people and I'm always traveling around the world and I, I love talking real estate, talking business and learning from other people. So feel free to hit me up@colt.savage on Instagram.
- [50:39]
A
All right, there you have it folks. And I'm@DavidGreen24.com you can use that website to send me a direct message or funny on the ch with the chat feature. I've gotten five messages this just this morning from David Green show listeners. So you guys rock. Please keep reaching out and doing that. Make sure you subscribe to the show and for goodness sake share this with other people who might need some encouragement or might need a Real talk real estate podcast. To listen to. Thanks, everybody. We will see you next episode of the David Green Show.