And guys, yes, I, I did get engaged. All right. Had to happy. Congratulations. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Ha. Thank you, Kareem. I wanted to join you. I appreciate it. And you know, that was the last investment of 2022. All right. It took a, it took a huge chunk. You know, you might have been wondering when's de buying more real estate? That was the real estate. All right, it's, now I gotta recover, right? . So we're going, we're gonna figure it out in 23.
. We're gonna figure it out in 23. What's up everyone! This is Niyi Adewole, Host of the Ekabo Home Financial Freedom Mastermind Group. This group meets virtually every Wednesday at 7:00 PM Eastern, and the members of this group are committed to achieving financial freedom well before the traditional retirement age. So on this podcast, you are gonna get v i p access to the conversations we have about different forms of investment and creative ways to get your dollars working harder for.
Then you originally worked to obtain those dollars. Good evening everyone, and welcome to the Financial Freedom Mastermind Group. It is good to be joining you for the second week in January, and I know that last week we focused a lot on goals this week. Really just wanted to reconnect with the group, see what everybody has going. And, and continue to help out from there. So anybody that wants to join, feel free to chat in questions.
Feel free to join from your laptop and we'll get started here shortly. And now we've got the whole team on. Welcome everyone. Hi. And actually wanted to kick this one off with a couple questions and a congratulations to Amity on getting her. B and b up and running. Congrats to you. Thank you. . . And the, the piece that really threw me off when you texted it over, I was like, Hey, this, this can't be real. I gotta see the receipts.
But T was able to furnish a four-bed, three bath for less than 10 K. Amy. Amen. T please let us know how you. A lot of research took a lot of research. I just don't go off the first thing I see, and I think you can, you can find reasonably priced furniture and still get good quality at the same time. But the way to do that is, well, mainly we went through, we used Wayfair and Amazon, a lot of Amazon for like, you know, the smaller pieces, some of the bigger pieces. We really looked at way.
and Wayfair is kind of like your, your Amazon with different companies providing different types of furniture. So you can have their low quality and then you have to, you really have to read and the time to really research through all of it so that you don't, you get the best quality for the lowest price. So those are the main two. And then I also went to overstock.com as well, so we were able to pull it off. But it does take, require a little bit more time in research to do it.
, that's the theme. Of course. Yeah, of course. No, that is amazing. That's a huge feat. I know I don't know if everybody's heard of a guy Rob built, but he's huge in the short term rental space. And one of the things he always preaches is buying nice not rice. And so that's, that's the key, what you just mentioned. These sites sell furniture all ranges, but you being able to seek out, hey, this is the quality ones. I've read the reviews, I've checked other sites and pulling those in. Exactly.
Yeah. And so we ended up spending 8,500 total for all furniture pieces, . Nice. And then, then the other was, was just repairs and stuff like that. I met my goal, so I'm surprised it was, it was amazing that I met it. Hey, that is awesome. Congrats a mattee. Happy that you're kicking this off as we're heading into the spring. This is one of the best times to get going so that you can get a couple reviews before March when it takes off. Absolutely.
Yes. finally, I got my first booking and I was waiting for that long stretch to get the second one, and I was like, oh my God, I need the second booking. And so I was thinking about where should I list next? Should it be V R B O? Perhaps? Yeah. So right now you're, you're only on Airbnb, right? Yeah. Agreed on that. Agreeing with Kareem. I think the next one is V R B O, just because it's very similar to Airbnb. It's almost copy and paste and they have similar protections. booking.com.
I actually need to start digging deeper into it. I've set aside literally four hours next week to get on the phone with one of their guys and talk through, Hey, how do we protect against this? How do we collect money? How do we have our systems work with it? Because booking.com, the main difference is everything is instant book. So there's no real screen. And you don't need an account to actually book a booking.com.
If you wanted to book a hotel or a place with booking.com, you could google it, book it, and you could be 18, right? So just getting, getting comfortable with that piece is the one, the one thing I'm trying to work through. And you, you can't sync the calendars with booking.com king. , I think you can with Hospitable, right? Kareem? I saw that on Hospitable. So you can now you can in Rigo. Hey man. Welcome to the Financial Freedom Mastermind Call man. Hey, thanks.
One of the things that we do for somebody that's joining for their first time, and this is the first time I've seen you on , is we like to kick it to you and ask just what are some of your investing goals? What do you do? Just to share with the group. Yeah. Yeah. So, hey everybody, my name's Rigo, Rigo Sanchez. by a degree. I'm a mechanical engineer, so I do a lot of manufacturing work, design work, project work.
Ultimately what I want to do is get it kind of diversify my income, kind of move away from the corporate world. It, I still would probably wanna work it, but I wanted to kind of do both sides of it. I wanna ultimately get some short toras. I kind of talked to needy about this and I wanna do some buy and. , maybe get into, try to get a multi-unit soon or, or, or, or go ahead and move into the Shorthorn rentals. That's kind of what I'm, I'm focused on right now.
I got my first property, which is my first primary. I'm gonna convert that to a rental eventually, and then once I get the next property that's pretty much it. I'm not really sure what else to say. Thank you ne for, you know, introducing me to this. I heard, I heard some of you guys on the, on the podcast and I was like, oh, this is cool. You know, let me get me, let me reach out to them and see what's, what's going on. You know, , no. Well, welcome.
We're happy to have you on, and you're gonna be just as impactful here as we hopefully are for you because Good. We all really help each other out. This is really just a big therapy session, all right? We all go do some things, we talk through it, but at the end of the day, we're all moving toward that goal of financial freedom. Yeah. And as somebody that has thank. Made it through the portion of financial freedom where you can now do what you love each day. Mm-hmm.
It, it's, it, it truly is just taking it one step at a time. Dude, I started in 2016. and 2022, I was able to move into full-time real estate. Never would've saw it coming that soon. Yeah. I was planning for a 10 year career. It turned into about eight years. Yeah. And, and it can definitely happen. You just gotta keep moving one foot at a time. One step. Good. Yeah. I appreciate it. Like I said, look. Yeah, look, look forward to learning from you guys and see what you guys have to teach me.
. Done and done Desmond. Welcome man. How you doing? Yo. What's up man? I'm good. How are you? Super good. You still. I, I notice right now you're sitting in a place with good wifi. All right. You're not, yeah. I got a more, yeah, I got, got, got my setup with me today. I was at the laundry mat last time, man. Playing cleaner. Hey, ha. Have, have we started taking steps to remove yourself from that? So, you know, it's still something I go back and forth on every day, to be honest. Right.
Because okay. I put my first listing up Christmas Eve. Okay. And I haven't had a vacant day since, which is a good problem to have. Right. But I don't know that it would've been that way had I been charging. , you know, a more expensive cleaning fee. And also I think too, it's been giving me, and also my girlfriend too, who's basically the co-host at this point, a lot of experience, right?
Because if I would've just had a cleaner come in right off the bat, I wouldn't even have really known, oh, you know, you guys really need to be checking on this. Or like, oh, you need to really go over the shower twice cuz there's gonna be a strand of hair you missed. Right? So you need to really, you know, those sort of like details. I didn't really know about it. All right. And I think those are slowly, you know, being learned as we go through more and more turnovers and whatnot.
So I feel like for. This year and for this current property, I'm thinking that we might just end up continuing to be the cleaners, right? Because I mean, it's kind of worked out right now such that Abby, my girlfriend, is able to, you know, do those turnovers and that's definitely saving, you know, us some money, me some money. So that's been great. But yeah, I mean, I think on the cleaning piece, it's gonna stay the way it is.
I, you know, I, my mom's told me, you know, for a long time, if it ain't broke, don't fix it right now. It ain't broke . It's far from, to be honest, and, you know, the, like, the only pieces that we have to be here, Right. So if we want to take a vacation, the, the, the listing gotta get blocked off, right? That's the only way around it. And I think with the way it's been going and, you know, with such a high occupancy rate at the moment, that'll be okay.
Like I, I'd be willing to, you know, block off four or five or six days. , you know, if I had the four months before that booked up, you know what I mean? It's not going to hurt my pockets too much. Right. So yeah, that's kind of where I'm at. But you know, as the year goes on, you know, we'll see how that goes and, you know, we'll see if that changes. So, , who knows? No. Hey to, there's a lot of ways to do this.
And when you look at the short term midterm game, the two biggest costs are cleaning. And if you go with the management, company management, right? So those are the two biggest costs. If you are able to eliminate both of those, which you have, it's a lot of cash in your pocket.
You've already identified the piece that's a slight drawback, which is, hey, if we wanna take a trip to, I mean, dude, you travel all the place, so if you wanna take a trip anywhere, I, I'm just surprised you're in Georgia right now, so I'm happy that this is kind of keeping you close. But if you wanna take a trip somewhere, then yes, you gotta kind of plan ahead. My whole thing is it's an equation at the end of the day.
You've gotta look at, okay, as we start to get busier, as we start to get busier with, you know, the job as well as other things that we're. , what is the dollar per hour that we're getting paid for this piece and when does it stop making sense? As long as you do that calculation and right now it still makes sense. That's ao okay? You've put out a lot of capital to get these things up and running. This is a great way to recoup it a lot quicker.
And to your point on that travel piece, right, those four, five days, , that could almost be a time where you try out a cleaner where you say, Hey guys, we're gonna be gone, so let's just hire the cleaner. Even if it's, you know, we're gonna make 50% less cuz we're using this cleaner. At least try it out. Try to get comfortable with it when you take that trip. Yeah, definitely. And that's a good idea. I mean, that's, that's something, you know, I've thought of as well.
And you know, I, I probably, I had a, you know, chat with Alpha, he's not here right now, but I had a chat with Alpha last week. We got on a little FaceTime for a while and he was mentioning Turnover B and b or I got it written down or whatever the software is where you can fly in the local cleaner. So I think that is something I'm definitely gonna try out.
Cause I know at a certain point, you know, and as I continue to scale, especially cuz right now it works for this property, for the next property, we gonna be in trouble. Right. , we, we, we, we can't just clean 'em all. Right. Especially given that, you know, the, the check-in and checkout windows are all pretty much gonna be the same. Right. So that's where I know. things are gonna have to change. But I think you mentioned an important point where I. A lot of capital, right?
Getting this stuff up and running and you know, just down payment aside, right? Just in buying the furniture and painting the ugly brick building that, that it was before, you know what I'm saying? So getting everything together and ha you know, creating a space where guests will want to stay and we'll feel comfortable staying right. Probably in a whole like 20 bands right now. You know what I'm saying? So as quick as I can bring that back is what I'm trying to do.
And you know, I'm not necessarily doing any screening or you know, none of that. Your money's green. Come on in, come on, come on in, man. Come on. Come. You can stay. And you know, actually it's crazy too because I'm, I'm happy to share. I had my first direct booking today, right? Yeah, right. It's crazy. So I had a lady who has stayed off of booking.com. A couple of weeks back. She hit me up again like, Yesterday, literally. And I was like, Hey, like do you have any other properties?
And it was crazy too because Unit C, the other unit, I was actually like just getting ready to host today. So it actually worked out perfectly. But I screwed up and I'm gonna tell y'all where I screwed up. So I had her sign a guest agreement and I thought I had put all the house rules in there, but I didn't put no pets man. Didn't put no pets. And I got, I got these ring floodlight cameras, shout out to ring. And I noticed, man, there's a dog with one of the, one of her, yeah, one of her guests.
I'm like, are you kidding me, man? So you living, you learn, you know, I'm hoping that they don't eat up my furniture all night. We gonna see you tomorrow. But I can tell you she's not, she's not gonna stay again, probably , at least not on that same agreement. I can tell you that now. But yeah, you know, you live and you learn. No, and that's awesome. And thank you for sharing cuz we all have different items that pop up, right?
Like the first time I hosted on V R B O, I think I've told you this before, I've said it before I didn't know that there was a feature where you can have guests where you had to enable it to make guests put down money for like damage protection. I thought it was just included. I'm like, yeah, it's, it's included. These guys threw a party, broke the couch, brand new, like $1,500 couch. I'm like, come. Had all this stuff all over the place. So to your point, we all make mistakes.
It's gotta be fine. But the key is, you know, learning from it. And for the direct booking. Did, do you have, cuz I know I currently use Hospitable, are you using that software or did you do this through something else? I didn't do it through nothing, dude. Like, she hit me up on booking and we started texting back and forth and, and you know, I'm not so, Proud of this, but I mean, she basically just sent me the money on Cash app.
I had to sign a little agreement that I had pulled off the web and kind of, you know, put my little house rules on there and that was pretty much it. Right? So she basically sought me out and I wasn't even. You know, going to her like, Hey, you wanna book Direct next time? Or nothing like that. I think as time goes on, I definitely will take advantage of hospitable and, you know, set up a direct booking site. I was actually on their clubhouse q and a earlier, which is I think super cool.
They're, they definitely are like, you know, super legit with that. But yeah, so, you know, right now it's just been, Hey, send me the money, sign the agreement. Here's the access code. Welcome. You know what I mean? Yeah. . Hey, well, hey, I love it, Desmond. I love that you're getting. We're gonna get so many learnings through you. And, and to that point, two things that you mentioned. One you keep mentioning, booking.com, gotta get on there.
I'm gonna have that promise you guys, I'm, I'm saying it here so that you guys can hold me accountable. By the end of q1 we're gonna have these properties on booking.com so we can figure that thing out. And two Clubhouse. Kareem has mentioned it multiple times. I need to figure that piece out too. We will get on there. Don't worry. I'm meeting with a guy on Friday, so , we'll get going. Clubhouse for. Or just, what is that for?
Not even for bookings more for this, so we can pull in even more people that are around Atlanta. Right. So, but, but to your point, Amy t were you gonna ask about some of the direct bookings? Yeah. When it comes to hospitable, I, I can see how it would be really effective if we have like more than one unit. But when you're, I, I guess my question was if you only have one, you know, house or one unit, you know, is it really worth it to.
Invest in for your automated messages and or can you still automate like through Airbnb and, and merge a calendar a different way or, you know, I was just trying to see if it was really necessary to add the extra expense because expenses are adding up, as Desmond was saying, , they do add up. Yeah, for sure. For me, it's been crucial, honestly, and like between having the bookings from Airbnb and the bookings from booking.com, it, it's, it's been really crucial, right?
Like I, I mentioned, I haven't really had a vacant day since Christmas Eve, and I also have a, you know, 40 hour a week day job. So, It, you know, it, it is definitely, I don't know that I would have, I know I wouldn't have been able to send out the messages on time and like at the, you know, at the same rate that Hospitable sending them out basically. Right. Cause I send out like a new reservation message, so once on books I send out a message and some folks book it.
00 AM and I think they really appreciate that automated message. And they'll reply back, oh, thanks so much. Like, I'm looking forward to it. And that wasn't even me. Like, they thought it was me. It wasn't even me. Right.
00 AM like, there's no way I'm, I'm sending out messages right then. Right. And also I'm forgetful. I, I don't know about, you know, you or you know, how your calendar looks, but I know I at least would've forgotten. One check-in instruction message or whatever. And I think the crucial piece for me, and I'm working out some of the kinks, there's been a few bugs I've been seeing on Hospitable. I'm working with their support team, but the smart lock integration has been crucial for me.
Cause I, I know, and this actually happened where before I had it set up. , I was having to go and enter in the codes myself manually, right? So I actually forgot to enter in a code for a guest. She like, Hey, like, the code don't work. I'm like, well, shit, I ain't put it in.
Like, no wonder don't work you can integrate your, you know, smart lock if you have a August lock, which knee recommended to me, or they have, they support some other ones as well where you can put the code into an automated message. And it'll automatically like save that code onto your lock and also like send it to the guest. And I think that for me is like the most useful piece since it really does kind of completely automate the whole messaging and like logistical side of things. Mm-hmm.
. Okay. A about the smart lock. I had a, a situation just recently with I think my first booking my cleaning lady tried to get into the house and she ended up having to use the key because I think that the guest locked the bottom lock. Like, you know, so I, so I think what my trick is now is to just put like tape over the door, , like over the doorknob of that lock so that they.
, you know, mistakenly lock it cuz it's just like, you know, in second nature you just wanna lock the door manually instead of using the, the s slage lock. So I think that would be one way to maybe keep them from doing that and maybe put like a sign up that says, you know, do not lock bottom lock. Just use your key. Amy. T i I will do you one better. And I had this happen for the first one. Okay. Kareem knows what we do, but I would just switch that bottom.
Lock out for where basic hallway door lock, those don't have locks on them. It's a quick switch. Those locks are gonna cost you like $20 at Lowe's. Switch that out and nobody can lock the bottom. All he can lock is the top. Hmm. , but that's definitely a call out. We do that cuz you want to make it as you know, tenant proof as possible, right?
So anytime we have a door with two locks and, and you can twist the lock at the bottom, we just switch out that bottom lock with a basic doorknob that has no lock on it. And then only thing you can lock is the, the deadbolt, which is automatically able to lock two. But piggybacking off of Desmond, one of the other pieces and really the real reason I got hospitable. , you don't, you don't necessarily need it for the auto locks.
It's great for that, cuz you can send out customized messages, but you can do that through Airbnb as well, if you just link it to, directly to Airbnb. But the piece that made my heart drop and, and thankfully you haven't hit this yet, and Desmond, you're, you, you, you haven't moved to this yet, but I had cleaners doing my property and a couple other properties. and I was texting 'em and messaging 'em the schedule, right.
Originally and there was a last minute booking and so I didn't get a message to them. And literally people showed up to a house that wasn't cleaned and it's like, ah, crap. You know, like, this is not good, you know, this is not gonna be good. You need to give credit, you gotta get somebody their asap.
And that's when I really made the decision, like, Hey, I'm moving to an automated, because what that thing does is it gives the, the cleaners their own calendar so they can see exactly what's going on, no matter what platform somebody's booked on or if they've booked direct. That's the reason why I take direct bookings through there is cuz it's the same messages that go out, same thing that goes to the cleaners. And then also it allows you to create text messages if you're going to.
Like a local cleaner, it'll text them two days before day of, Hey, this is what's going on. If you're using like a turn, which, which I use now, you don't need that. But when I was using local cleaners, that was critical to be able to have automatic text messages go to them saying, Hey guys, there's your checkout. Need you to be here. . Yeah. And I, I, I even do that too.
Like my girlfriend's a cleaner, but I still send her an automated text, honestly, just to use every piece of the software cuz it is not cheap. So I'm trying to, you know, get every dollar's worth, like, guess me, did you text me again? ? Nah, literally. But I mean, she's also found the calendar piece helpful too, right? Cause you can integrate like a, they give you a ICA link so you can export that and put it in your own calendar. So she kind of used that to do her own scheduling and whatnot.
But Yeah, man. The, the dirty house piece. That's crazy. Yeah, I can't imagine that. You don't wanna have that. That's not, it's not it's not a good . It's not a good feeling when you're like, man, I forgot to text them. ett. T what? You got anything on your mind? I always have questions. . I guess one question is, and, and excuse my look today, I'm, I've been working out and knee caught me right in the middle of a heavy sweat. Hey, come on now, . So but.
my question about your listings, like, do you all usually have or require an, the government id? Or does Airbnb automatically require that? . Anybody want to take that? Desmond, you wanna go first? So, yeah, like I had said before, and I, I, I'll admit like my , my processes, my processes need to be improved. My, I'm, my focus right now is cash. Cash, cash. I will say that right now.
So I think Airbnb does have a like, Verification process, or they at least make sure that the guest is of age, I believe. But I know for booking, which is where most of my listings or my bookings have come from, they don't really do any sort of like verification or anything. So I'm still trying to figure out like what the best way is to, you know, protect against that. And same goes for like damage deposits, like I think booking's a little behind Airbnb where they don't really.
Like give away to like send or request money from the guests or also like. . You know, I, I don't, I don't, because typically it's hotels on booking.com, right? So typically they'll have like credit card processors and I don't have that. So that's like a piece I'm trying to figure out. But I'm definitely curious to hear other folks' thoughts on like what their verifications look like. Cuz mine is nonexistent. , come on now.
Hey, we, they say that the, the good artists create the great artists still, man. So I learned that from others as well. Marcus Mayfield, who actually has joined us a couple times, is the one that taught. But long story short on Airbnb, they have some toggles that you can hit where you can say, Hey, you gotta, you require government id.
You can say, Hey, I require them to have positive reviews from other hosts, and I personally recommend that you do like a good portion of that just to protect the property When you've been through, you know, one or two people damaging a property or a V R B O party on the first time that somebody's there, you start to get a little paranoid. So I may go overboard, but we definitely do verify Id. And on the V R B O front, which is as CRE mentioned, a little more shaky on that verification.
If somebody's reaching out and they don't have, you know, the ID and things like that verified or reviews then we're, we're sending a message saying, Hey guys, please confirm that you've read all the rules and that you agree to 'em and also send us your driver's license, like, you know, so that we can verify that you are you before accepting the booking, so you are actually requesting their driver. Nice. It's, it's a bit much, but yes, yes, we are.
And some people get a bit offended with it, and those people may shift away and things of that nature. And sometimes we're thankful because somebody's like, oh yeah, well, I, I'm actually getting my driver's license next week. I just turned, you know, like 19. I'm like, Hey man, this aint the spot for you, . You know, we can get you when you turn 25. It's just like, you know, the car rental places, right?
Car rentals aren't gonna let you get a. Unless you're 25 plus, because they know that typically it's 18 to 24 year olds that are trying to, you know, jewelry ride the car. So is that to say you don't allow 18 year olds to book your property? We usually go 25 plus. Right. Wow. Unless you have reviews. The, the key is, the caveat is if you have, if you have positive reviews, anybody can book, you've got good reviews, you can book.
If you have no reviews, which is a lot of people, we're gonna ask you to send the ID and then also confirm you've read the rules. And when you're sending the id, we're looking to see that you're 25 plus, if you're not 25 plus we decline it. Mm-hmm. , I think I have mine to 20.
. Yeah. And would you say need that, that's a luxury that you have given, like your occupancy rates or maybe given your number of listings, I'm guessing, like is that something that you were doing, you know, earlier in the game or is that something that you kind of adopted later on down the line? Definitely something that was adopted a little later, and it was really to avoid the, the issues, right? Because at the end of the day, I'd rather the. For three days or four days sit vacant.
Then to have somebody go in there and throw a party and now I've got a headache cuz I gotta stop what I'm doing, go over there and fix this and then come back. So always try to counterbalance and, and this is a thing that you should do as well. Right? And even with like the, the cleaning thing that we talked about, right? It all kind of goes together. You gotta counterbalance everything that you have going on. and figure out what's the best use of your time.
I know for me, the best use of my time is working with more clients. It's trying to optimize the system and build the team up to where it's really strong and things of that nature. And so if I have to drop everything for four or five hours to go and, you know, fix the situation, it's not good. It's like, Hey, I'm burning time that could be doing something else. And so that's, that's why I adopted some of those rules.
And then I learned what others were doing that had been in the space for a while too. How do you Go about, oh, this is, I'm sorry, this is like, so separate, but the subject is insurance companies like partnering with different companies and you know, like outside of Airbnb, V R B O. So how do you go about partnering with like insurance companies? Yeah, so we've been, it's kind of cool, a lot of insurance companies and things of that nature.
Reach out through those networks, through a Airbnb, through a vrbo. And what we typically do is when we get one of those, and we have three of our properties where we have, whether it's insurance or a construction company or or something like that, that, that, where people are staying for longer terms and they've signed like leases. And so anytime somebody books, and the example I'll give is this house we have in Lithonia.
This insurance company reached out and said, Hey, we need to book this place for the whole October because our client had a fire. Right? And so we said, absolutely. You know, we let them book and they've since extended through the end of the year and they just now extended through the end of January and they're probably gonna extend again cuz anytime they're fixing up a property, it can, you know, especially a fire, right? It could be a lot going on.
But I also follow up with the actual insurance agent cuz they have to have their info in there. So I call. and and talk to the agent. Hey, you know, we've got multiple properties, all these other ones going around, any clients that you have, we would love to be able to service you. And then take it a step further. I get their email address and add them to like, I have something called Follow up Boss. , which I use for my real estate for my realtor business.
And so I created this campaign and follow up boss where once a month it sends any property that we have under our management to them just in a email at like a reminder like, Hey, if you need a property, check out this one. Here goes some highlights with pictures to kind of stay top of mind. And so that's, that's what we're doing. Any other comments? Any thoughts? This is all new to me. I didn't even know, and that totally makes sense that insurance companies need to place people.
I didn't even know that that was a thing, and now I'm like, shit. Like should I reach out to my agent and say, look like you need, you need a spot. Because I mean that, that would be a great. Deal. Right? Cause I mean, ideal, like right now all of my bookings have been like one or two nights. So we're turning a place over every night or every two nights, and we're going to a laundrymat every three nights, every four nights. And it's starting to get exhausting.
But it'd be cool, you know, to have extensions or midterm stays of a month or two months. Like that's the ideal. So, , I might need to start hitting up some insurance agents. That's awesome. Abs. And I added my personal insurance agent too, after I talked to somebody else. I was like, hold up man. I, I, I've been using the same insurance agent for so long. So I added her to the list too, to get those emails. Just like, Hey, we have these. Just a reminder. Yeah. So I just closed in October.
I got a four unit need. Help me close. And I've got one long-term rental. Me and my girlfriend living one of the units and then the two downstairs are short-term rentals. Mm-hmm. , that's a nice deal. . I was looking for that. Yeah, man, it feels like it, dude. I, I, I was trying to take it from him. He wouldn't let me have it though. I was like, Hey, man, let me, let me take this one. . I jumped on that shit asap. Yeah, it's crazy too.
Man. It, it is crazy because like, okay, the projections, you know, for the short term rentals were about like 2200 for the one bedroom, one bathroom. And by the way, I'm in College Park for the folks that are in Georgia. And it's crazy because I'll just, you know, full disclosure, my currently my mortgage is at 3,300 and it's gonna go up a little bit cuz my insurance, I just changed it. But my mortgage is currently 3,300. I got a long-term tenant who's paying about 1100 a month.
I. You know, you do the math and literally the, the, the unit downstairs that I have hosted has been hitting the projections, if not exceeding it, and I just hit a realization the other day. I'm like, oh shit. Like when February comes, I think I can pay my mortgage with just one short term rental and the long term tenant that I have, which, I could, I'm just giddy thinking about that, honestly.
You know, I could be in here doing back flips, just talking to y'all about that because it's, it's crazy to think, right? And like before I jumped into all of this, I had been running the numbers and crunching a bunch and I probably declined like 30 properties that NE has sent me. I'm like, dude, like, I don't know. I don't know. And like I have been looking at a lot of or a lot of single family units with like the ADUs were on the market.
I was scared to jump into that because, you know, it only gave me one other property to kind of, you know, rent out or do a short term rental with. But now having the four units do it is been gold. And like with the, the unit downstairs that's about to be listed now and I have the, she, I got the direct booking in there tonight. Who won't be saying tomorrow because of the dog, but I think with once that one goes up and starts generating some money, I'm gonna be paying the utilities.
I'm gonna be, you know, paying hospitable, they're $40 a month and all the other small fees. And I think I can maybe even profit a little bit, which like, I, I can't, yeah, I mean, I can't even put it into words how, like, exciting that is for me. True. I can't, I can't, I can't communicate it. But yeah man. It's been cool. Desmond, all guys say is once that, once that other unit's up and. , the whole Financial Freedom Mastermind group is coming to your crib for dinner. It's on you, man.
Alright. If you, you making money out here? You rolling the money? We coming to your crib for dinner, man. Well, I can tell you right now, my unit, if y'all could see it, is basically a storage locker. , , everything else. So that's another problem I'm trying to figure out where do I put all this stuff I got. Towels and sheets, man, everywhere. So need to figure that out. That is amazing, man.
And I actually have a, a really good friend and families, but man, I lived in Philly for a decade, so I, I gotta punch people up in Philly. But one of my good friends is looking to buy something out in the Poconos too. I can't figure out why, cause I'm trying to get out of the cold, but apparently people travel there. Right. Apparently people go to the Poconos. And it's beautiful. It's beautiful in the Poconos. I love the Poconos. Huh? Desmond, you've been there. Yeah. I, I'm trying to think.
I was actually there in the winter too, when I liked it, which is saying a lot for me. Cause I don't like the cold either. But yeah, I mean, it's, it's nice up there. Dude. I lived in Philly for a while too, so. Yeah, it's nice. Closing cost is typically two to 3% of the purchase. And so if you're gonna buy a house for 200 K, you can expect, call it 6k enclosing cost on top of the down payment that you're gonna put down. And then there's other things that you can do.
There's something called a two to one buy down that lenders are probably talking to you about where that would add more cost. Or you can buy down the interest rate, which would add more cost. But if you have just the basic closing, It's roughly two to 3%. But what I'd recommend, especially in the time period that we are right now, which is the wintertime with interest rates way high, any offer that you put in, and this is something I do myself, go for it. Always ask for two.
If you're doing it conventionally, you can get 2% toward closing from the seller if they agree. So say you got a house that's two 50, right? And you're approved for two 60. I would offer, let me even take a step back. I would, any offer that I put, I always put X percent toward closing from the seller if they don't agree to it, . E it's even worth paying over asking if you need to. Right. Like I'm akay having that financed to keep the extra money in your. All right y'all.
Well, hey, I appreciate you joining. Thank you for just continuing to continue down this pathway toward financial freedom. It truly inspires me too, and these calls that we have really do function as a a mini therapy session, and it helps just keep everybody energized. So I appreciate it. I love this and I look forward to seeing much more success from everybody on here in 2023. Let's. All right. Y'all have a good night. Y'all. Be safe. See you guys.