Welcome to the Financial Freedom Mastermind Group podcast . Here we're all about breaking free from the 40 to 50 year work grind and accelerating our journey towards financial freedom . Join us every Wednesday at 7 pm Eastern as we explore different types of investments that can fast track your path to financial independence .
We serve as a hub for connecting with fellow members during our sessions so you can share successes , ask questions and keep the momentum going . Good evening , everyone .
My name is Niyi Adewale , host of the Aqaba Home Financial Freedom Mastermind podcast . This is a group for those who do not believe they were put on this earth to work a W2 until 65 and then fade away . But this group is for those seeking to achieve financial freedom much , much sooner through different forms of investment .
So excited to be joining you guys here on this beautiful Wednesday evening and this is a cold one and I'm also joined by my co-host , leibon Ismail . How you doing ? Doing well , doing well To your point . It is a cold one .
I was out and about today and a fountain was frozen , so it's that bad . We are here .
We are here , man this is yeah , this is the temperatures I used to experience back in Chicago . So when I walked outside , I was like I'm going to go and go . So when I walked outside and realized that the jacket I was wearing was not enough , I had some flashbacks man yeah , and you know we're not .
I'm a Georgian , so we're not prepared for this . I don't even have the jackets . You know , shopping I was like I needed to protect . It's terrible . Thankfully no ice of burps , no pipes have burst , so we're , but that's something to very much . Watch out for it now .
Absolutely . And to those who may not be following our page yet , go ahead . If you have Instagram , go to a Kabul home and hit that follow button , because we're dropping tips all day long . But what Leabon just mentioned is critical . Right , and these cold temperatures , especially for a Southeast who may not be used to it you need to drip your faucets .
All right , if you're not dripping your faucets , they have the potential to freeze and then burst , and I've had that happen many times in , you know , the Northeast , and so , yeah , it's not a fun experience . It's worth paying the extra what $10 a day or whatever it is to drip your faucet all day . And we got someone in the comments .
They said three times last year . That's tough In one year . That's right , that's , yeah , that's not a fun bill .
That is not a fun bill . I feel like about that .
But this is going to be no . No , at that point you got to yeah , you got to call somebody , but tonight is going to be more of an open session , and so please feel free to drop any questions in the chat and or to join live via the chat option , and so there should be a join live button at the bottom of your screen .
You can only access this from a computer , Right ? So if you're not on a computer , you can only chat . If you want to join live , come and join us from a computer and we'll be able to talk live with you . Beliba , what you got going on Well , really what I got is a question for you .
I know you recently wrapped up a very interesting deal . We kind of teased it a little bit that while you were working on it , but now that it's finally wrapped up kind of wanted you to share the whole process , everything that went into it , because not many sub two deals happen and so this is one that's happened . So I'm very curious .
Hey , come on now , and I appreciate the platform here . And so to Leibnz point . This past Friday , thankfully , we were able to close on the sub two deal , been working on it for about two months .
And for those that do not know , subject to deal is where you essentially take over an existing mortgage from an owner and you take over the title of that property , subject to the mortgage getting paid . And so we took over payments this past Friday and signed the documents with the closing attorney . So we now own another short term rental .
We plan to get it up and running in the next week and a half . But to answer your question on the process , this one was unique . Okay , typically when you're going to closing you have to bring X percent for down payment .
Then you got to pay closing costs and then you got to , kind of , you know , bring all these other funds to the table to furnish the place . This is one where we had a unique end . Right , we knew this property was already fully furnished . This owner was looking to offset that payment .
Right , they weren't necessarily pressed for the cash right now or the equity that they had built in and they had already tried to sell it on the market at a significant rate and drop the price a couple of times , and it'd been like a hundred days plus on mark , I think it was more like it was probably closer to like 150 days 150 days on market right .
And because the interest rates had increased so much over the last year or so , they weren't able to get the number that they could have got back in 2021 or very early 2022 . And so we came in right at the point where they were getting ready to take it off market and we told them hey , what if we worked out something creative ?
And so , with this deal , what we're able to do is essentially close on a property with 0% down . All we had to do was play closing cost , which was less than $2,000 . We got to get it fully furnished and we worked out a deal to where we're going to pay the existing mortgage .
We owe about $70K in equity to the owner , but we worked it out in a way that , hey , for the next 36 months , you're just going to hold that as a deferred compensation at 0% interest , so we don't have to make any payments on that $70K .
All we got to do is pay the regular mortgage and over those three years , my bet is that this home , where it's situated , is going to appreciate pretty significantly .
It may not appear in the first 12 months , but over 36 months where it's located , I've seen so many changes that I believe it's going to be worth more when the time comes that that 70s due to the owner . We're going to be able to refinance and or sell this house and come out with some cash .
You took it over subject to the existing mortgage , with a 70K balloon pretty much that happens in three years .
Correct , correct . The owner was trying to sell it for X price and what we ended up settling on is hey , let's get an appraisal . Times have changed . It's getting appraisal on the property . It appraised for about 30K less than they were trying to sell it and it didn't make sense for them to even . They're like hey , we can't sell it for this price .
I gave them somewhere in between . We settled at roughly about 12K over the appraisal price , which was fine by me because we're hitting it fully furnished . That's the cost of the furniture anyway . I believe my bet is that over the next three years it's going to appreciate about 30K . If it does even just that , then we're good to go from that standpoint .
What if it does more and we're getting some cash flow along the way because we have better systems out here ? One of the things that was making them want to sell it is paying both cleaning fees but also paying property management . As you know , property management for short term rentals can be semi-expensive if you're not managing it yourself .
With us , we have a management company and so we're able to immediately eliminate about 20% in expenses and that's the cash flow we're going to cash flow . Just pay the existing mortgage and then in three years we'll see kind of where we're at .
It sounds like you were able to have an unfair competitive advantage in this because you did not have to outsource the 20% fee that normally is associated with management . That went straight off into your pocket as revenue , because you don't have the same expenses and that's how you're able to cash flow . This deal Exactly .
Exactly . You got to use the tools that are in your tool belt , and I'm always a huge fan and Leabon we talk about this all the time of adjacencies . If you're good at one thing , what is something else that's very similar that you could move into ? For example , if you're good at doing photography , could you also do video ? Could you hone your skills there ?
From a real estate perspective , if you're a realtor and you own short term rentals and you're building out a portfolio , could you also help other individuals manage their portfolios ? Do you have the bandwidth ? Can you build a team for that ? That's what we've been able to do out here .
Then we have a question in the chat . Aj asked of that 70K at no interest . How did you structure the monthly payment ?
Yeah , this was the cool thing there is no monthly payment .
Right , yeah on that 70 . Okay , yeah .
Subject two . You can structure it how you want . Let's think about this for a second . Had he sold that property on the market for that additional amount , one , he'd have to get past the appraisal , which is going to be tough , and two , he'd have to pay closing costs and he'd have to pay some agent fees , which would essentially knock 10% off his value .
What I'm giving him is net a little bit more than he would have made anyway , based on where the appraisal came in at . He sees it as okay , I'm getting my number plus . I don't have to pay this mortgage for the next three years . Me is going to be covering it Right and I'm going to get a balloon payment at that time . That's the benefit for him .
Today I'm getting this mortgage off my books . I continue investing in these other areas that I'm investing in , because he's heavily invested in another state that he lives in and he's building that up quickly . This was one he needed to get off his books .
And then , from the buyer standpoint , the benefit to me was not having to go out and get a mortgage right now , right . Not having to go and get my credit run and all this stuff right .
It literally was able to buy this in my LLC , so it's not even going to show up on my name because it's subject to , and so now I'm clean to go buy the other properties and house hacks that I want to buy this year .
Plus , I'm giving him the number that he would want and we're going to be able to bet on that appreciation over the next three years , which , in the neighborhood that this is in , I think it's a pretty solid bet .
Yeah , I would agree , I would agree . And I guess , final question , which I think everyone in the chat is thinking most important how did we find this deal ? Did they come to you ? Did you go to them ?
Yeah . So this is one where I think we talk about it all the time . When you are in real estate investing , you need to talk to everybody around you about it , and it doesn't have to be like you screaming from the rooftops , right , it just happens in normal conversations . Just don't be shy about talking about what you're doing .
And so this is one of the individuals that we actually managed for right . We took it over for them , I want to say a little over a year ago . They were having some issues with even the systems they had in place . They didn't really have any systems , and so we're like , hey , you shouldn't let that type of guest in . You should let this type of guest .
We can just take this over and make it hands-free . So it's something we took over a little over a year ago for them from a management perspective , and we knew they were going to be listing this because they're a licensed agent as well , and so they listed it . It was sat for a while . They had people come in . It fell out of contract .
There was just a lot going on , and we were in conversations along the way throughout just about the property and , hey , what can be done ? And it's something I suggested a couple months ago like , hey , would you be open to this , is this something that you've thought about ?
And it took a little while to matriculate , but after three or four conversations over a month or two period we finally settled on numbers . And then the last piece that I kind of threw in there was once we were looking at the numbers .
I'm like , ok , I need this to make sense to where I can make some cash flow on this month to month as well , and I need to know that I have room for the value to increase .
And so we were at a certain number right , and I was like you know what it's worth it for me to pay for an appraisal to come in and see , based off of the interest rates today and off of recent lease holds , what is this appraised for ?
It appraised for again about 30K less than he had it listed for and what we were talking about number wise , and we're able to negotiate from there and get to that 12K over the appraisal to keep all the furniture , to take this thing over , and that's kind of how we close that deal .
Yeah , and actually to your point about kind of letting people know what you do , I have a piggyback great story on that . That happened recently . So I have a friend who I went to high school with . Now he works on Wall Street doing well . He DM'd me on Instagram . He knows Desmond , so him and Desmond were talking .
He goes hey , I see that you work at the Cobble Home group . You helped one of my friends , desmond , Can you kind of help me ? And now we have a meeting tomorrow . So , to your point , it's crazy how you don't know what's out there if you're just letting people know . So , yeah , so . I realized the world is very small , also very small huge , huge .
And the longer you stay in the investing and things that nature and roads are , peace , the better it gets , and really this goes for any role . It's just like the more and more I think about it . You just got to pick a couple of things that you're going to focus on . Whatever that is , it could be your W2 , right ?
If you want to really focus on wherever you're working your workplace and rise through the ranks or your business and if you focus there and you stay persistent and consistent over a few years period , you'll be surprised how far you could go .
The piece that gets a lot of people is when you jump from one thing to the next , to the next , to the next before you kind of what we talked about at the end of last year hit that 10,000 hours , right . You've got to keep working . Whatever that strategy is , become an expert and you'll see opportunities coming your way out of nowhere .
Yeah , no , a thousand percent , a thousand percent .
But any questions in the chat , anything that's top of mind , no , we kind of took over with this whole subject . Two thing I was excited and thank you , levi , but anybody want to join the live call in and or anything that's top of mind for you , right ?
now . Well , if there are no questions in the chat , I have a question . Sure , well , I think the Fed announced recently that they're going to have rates drop again . Kind of , we've had the lowest inventory , I think , in a long time recently , these last couple of months , you know , I think you just froze up oh , you say that one time .
Yeah , so we've had extremely low inventory , right . But as summer comes , you know we're going to get some more going , some more going . I've kind of always said when people ask me why is housing prices going up , you know , with rates still where they are , I've kind of said it's a simple supply and demand problem , right .
I kind of wanted to ask you what is your take on that ? And because people ask me constantly , you know how come pricing is still , you know how homes are still going up , but you know rates are still where they're at now . They kind of don't understand it .
So I wanted to ask them you know someone who not only invests but is in it day to day what your opinion on kind of the state of the market is and everything that we're hearing .
Yeah , I think you're spot on right when you talk about supply and demand right , and I'm not an economist , but I listen to a lot of different podcasts from economists to kind of get the information and long story short . Ever since that 0809 recession , the builders got out .
That was one of the craziest time periods , right , and one of the the most drastic housing crashes that we've had in the history of the U ? S , and so a lot of people got burned really bad in that and they stopped building period for a good amount of years . A couple of people got forced out of the business .
And so when you fast forward all the way to 2020 , 2021 , 2022 , when interest rates are super low , we already didn't have enough housing built over the past decade and then you accelerate the demand because now everybody sees like , hey , real estate's been growing in value , this is an awesome investment and I can get a two 3% interest rate .
That's kind of what really put us over the edge from a supply standpoint and it's going to take a lot of recover , right , like , even if you , the people that have started building , and even us , like we've been doing this townhome thing , the storage , all that stuff , it takes a while to get that done .
When you start it , you're not going to see the effects of that for like two years , right , two , three years before you can actually bring that to market , and so we're still not getting the houses that we need to fill the deficit . And also there's just I mean , it's the perfect storm , right ?
I'm part of the millennials , and most millennials are between the ages of 29 and like 33 , something like that which is the house formation age , which is where it's like hey , a lot of individuals my age are looking for homes to go and buy their first one or their next one , and so it's like the perfect storm . You don't have enough homes .
A lot of people are looking , and if these interest rates do come down a little bit , like the feds talking to sub six , you're going to see a lot of individuals jumping back in .
Yeah 100% .
Okay .
Welcome . How are you doing ?
Awesome , bro . How are you Super good ? I will add to that , um , a big thing about the millennials .
The again not an economist , I just hear it talked about often is the millennials are like the biggest buying group right now and most of us are just chilling on the sidelines waiting , yeah , and so , like you said , as soon as it drops again , I think it's be a blood bath again .
Maybe not as bad as like 2020 and 2021 was , but it's going to go crazy again .
Agreed , agreed , justin . I like what you sported , man . Can you show that off one time ?
I should have worn them how you doing , justin , I'm doing good , man , I'm doing good , you know , just taking it day by day . Uh , my question was I wanted to get to you guys opinion on how you feel January is going . You know , I just got into the short-term rental game .
I'm an investor here in Atlanta , so I want to hear how you guys January has been going . I've seen it to be a little slow on my end . Uh , we hit the ground running , got a couple bookings back to back , but uh , we just listed another property . So we have two under our belt now and that one got some the first weekend .
But we haven't seen any bookings yet since then . So I just want to know how you guys are doing .
Absolutely , and , aj , if you're able to join live , we would greatly appreciate your thoughts as well .
So January , really , when you look at it , november through February are the slower months , right With short-term rentals in the Metro of Atlanta , and what happens is , I mean , a lot of individuals are , uh , paying a lot of money for their vacations and for the , the family time and things that nature , and for Christmas gifts .
So , understand , blue , they're not traveling and staying in BNBs unless you're coming out here to visit family . The busy time is between March and the end of September and so it's going to start picking up very quickly . But what we've done is we use , like beyond pricing linked up to hospital , and this is where you want to take your minimum lower right .
You want it to allow you know any business , travel and things that nature to come in , and this is where you just want to hang on .
But as it starts to get toward the end of February into March , you're going to see it start to uptick pretty quickly and then you start to bring in the massive volume of dollars heading into spring and summer , and so , yeah , january is a slow month .
We do have some homes where you've been able to get midterm rentals , and so that's been an awesome kind of revelation . And so you want to make sure you're on all the sites .
First and foremost , airbnb is good , oh and , and to answer that , to talk about that first piece , so Airbnb , vrbo , bookingcom , they're incentivized to have you get that that first hit right Like hey , I love this , I want to continue doing this , and so they boost your listing for those first three bookings .
For any new listing that you post , they're going to boost it . And so if you haven't already right , I know you're on Airbnb , but Airbnb I would already go ahead and post on VRBO as well , because you're going to get that same boost and get that booking coming and then post on bookingcom as , like , a third option .
And then another piece that we use is Furnish Finder for more midterm renters . But those are the top four platforms that you should be on . Aj , anything to add to that ?
Hey , what's up guys , Can you hear me ? Yes , okay , perfect . Um , yeah , I would just piggyback in on what you just said me , um , I've been in the game for about six to seven months . Um , surprisingly , the winter months , um , I thought will be slow , mainly because of the cold weather , and I thought , you know , people wouldn't be traveling .
Uh , that's kind of based on where I'm from . Uh , it's pretty slow . I'm from Buffalo , new York , if you guys don't know . Um , but a lot of people usually don't travel to Buffalo because of the cold . Um , but Atlanta is just a different market . It has so many different um aspects and like entertainment going on in the winter months .
So , like those were some of my biggest months . Um , I was like just bringing it in and then all of a sudden January hit and I'm definitely noticing that the bookings are coming in a lot slower . Um , I think this month alone , I think I only have about three bookings .
Um , my occupancy rate is still pretty high , but at the same time I had to bring down the prices , the nightly prices , to kind of draw in those few bookings . So just wanted to piggyback on exactly on what you said . I definitely noticed , um , you know , january being slow .
I kind of foresee that for February , but I think right now it was just the time to kind of hold on until we can get into the spring months , and then that traveling is starting to pick up and people are getting their tax returns and things like that .
Also , another thing with the money pieces you gotta realize probably a lot of people have spent so much money during the holiday seasons that a lot of people just don't have the funds to travel right now . So those are just a couple of things that I kind of consider with this time of year .
Hello , you guys dropping so uh on my . I got a three one . I dropped it down to about $70 a night . That's my uh minimum on a beyond pricing . And then I have a five , two and I have it at a hundred right now .
I think that's enough . Honestly go ahead Lager .
Yeah , I mean , I think it's going to definitely depend on your market . Obviously , like you know , we're in the Atlanta market , but then you have , like you know , you could segment it , segment it more your competition with , like your , your neighbors per se , like your Airbnb host neighbors .
So I always check out , like the Airbnb , if you check out , the nightly prices and then it'll show you similar prices of or similar properties to yours in the neighborhood and then see what those properties are going for and kind of price it based on that . But honestly , you know , if you do use an automated software pricing tool , it should do that for you .
I know , for myself I don't go any lower than like 85 a night , and that's just because you know . Regardless , it's like , yeah , we have seasonal high demand which goes high , high and low , but at the end of the day it's kind of like , you know , I have a full single family home with , you know , three bedrooms , two bathrooms .
I can't go , you know , to a point where it's just unreasonable . You know what I'm saying . So I think you definitely should have like your minimum which you're willing to not go like below and then just kind of set it there .
Agreed , and I see from the chat Karim , thank you for trying to get in here . So weekdays he's going down to 50 or 60 for Monday or Tuesday , for example , but then the weekends you can take it up . So there's ways to target certain days , but I think , to AJ's point , there should be a minimum that you're willing to go down to right For that piece .
Now one of the other things you can do for the weekends and the weekdays are you setting rules for hey , you can't just book one weekend like you got to book two , or you know what I'm saying . Are you putting combinations out there or you have it kind of open ?
Is that a question for me ?
For Justin .
Oh , go ahead .
Right now I don't have any minimum night , so I guess I could change it up to where , like I said , you got a book for Friday through Sunday , three day minimum , and then through the week I can do a single day book and I don't have any minimums on that yet .
Yes .
So , aj , I'd love to hear how you have it set up as well as Karim , but I personally have it set up for minimum two days on the weekends , because weekends those get booked out pretty much all the time and what I've noticed in the slower months is it usually gets booked closer to the time , like , for example , I have a property over an EAB solid area ended
this month through February . We got somebody booked . They booked for like 20 days , but this month there was like there was a weekend and then there was nothing , like from now until like the 22nd . I was like , okay , what's going on ? And then somebody booked last minute yesterday , from yesterday through the 22nd . I have no idea why .
They just booked it last minute . So you may get some of those , but to that point I have my weekend set at a minimum two day , aj , what about you ?
My minimum is two nights across the board . It's not gonna make sense for me and my property if I just get one night along with my cleaning fee that I charge and then basically have to subtract it because I pay a cleaner . So my property is not gonna make sense to do . One night minimum is two for me .
Okay , and you can see in the chat from Karim during high season he's doing minimum four days . I do wanna try that for some properties this year , just to check it out , because he's getting full weeks doing that and then during slow season , two days on the weekend . One day on the weekend on the weekday .
I'm curious on those four day minimum properties . Are those bigger properties or smaller properties ? Because I'm thinking you would want to do it for larger properties because you're assuming families right , or does it just not matter ? Or is it more so big stuff ?
Karim if you're able to join via the live joining , that will be awesome , and or if you could drop that answer in the chat for Leibon . That's some curious , Justin . What else you got , man ? That was a pretty good question .
I guess , on the piece of saying that the minimum bookings , are you guys doing that through Beyond Pricing or is that strictly on the platform that you're serving ?
I'm doing it directly on the platform , especially like Airbnb . They make it pretty simple to do it Through Beyond Pricing . I think you can . I don't even know if you can do that through Beyond Pricing . Am I off there ?
I use price labs , but I couldn't imagine Beyond Pricing is any different . You can do it on both . Like price labs , you can do it . You could also do it on Airbnb , but I'm pretty sure , like price labs or Beyond Pricing or whatever tool that you use , it'll override the Airbnb one . I'm pretty sure that's how it works .
Hey , everyone , but you can use either .
And Leibon , did you wanna ask that question to Karim ? Yeah , that's a good question , Karim .
Yeah , can you guys hear me or no ? Yeah , I can hear you , you can hear me . Okay , great , the property is a three , two and it's it's positioned as a near airport Place , like rest stop kind of thing . So I'm not really like trying to compete with like the luxury Rentals and like Midtown , so I'm targeting a like a different niche .
It might be a competition with me , with the location , interestingly enough , brother , this , this is .
There's a lot of us , there's a lot of .
Now , just when he said the air person .
Oh , I have a property at the airport , near the airport , so yeah , no , this is a lot of us .
It's just how you , how you position it and you know how to set up your keywords and that kind of stuff . This is , this is make sure , like targets , that niche that you're looking for . I think Desmond is over there as well , here with multiple properties to well , desmond's got a monopoly over there .
I don't think anybody's gonna be with how yeah , respect the colors .
I'm telling you like monopoly .
Oh yeah , oh yeah , no yes as far as the the high season , like I said , I I do the four-day minimum . I tried it last year and I had I was booked like four months straight with maybe two cleanings per month , three cleanings per month , stuff like that . Like if you , you , you on beyond pricing or price labs on price labs , so I get that too .
If , if you get your your base amount right , you'll , you'll get booked .
And I love that . I love that because it follows the same logic as why we ingest and why we do the two-day for the weekends Because you don't want somebody to book you know one day on the weekend and kill the whole weekend . Typically , when people are traveling , they'll book the whole weekend .
Hey , I'm going to you know , charlotte , I'm gonna be there for at least two days , right ? And so , karim , you just inspired me . I'm gonna pick out a couple of the properties and try out this four-day men as we get Into March . I think that'd be . That'd be pretty cool actually .
Do you ever get concerned with such a high minimum night we stay that you may not get that , and you know , maybe those folks that are trying to stay two or maybe three nights , obviously you know . I think that's the point though .
I see some high seasons , high season People , great people can't find locations , they can't find air B&B's . People are traveling all the time . There's families coming going . Like I said , I don't know . I tried it out and it worked .
I was gonna say it sounds like you're also wanting to eliminate those people , like you're trying to auto select . Hey , I don't want you if you're saying one , two nights . I'd rather just lose out on the potential one , two , three nighters and get more for night and beyond , because on a volume basis that's gonna equal more revenue .
Yes , and that's kind of where the perspective I'm coming from , because I'm like , when you're doing that , you're like you're not casting your net wide but and doing so when you're doing the minimum four nights , you're kind of targeting a specific group of people . Is that correct ?
You're going for the the the high hanging fruit , not the low . It's a little nerve-wracking too , because sometimes you won't get that booking until like a day before . So see , your weekend you're getting closer and closer to the weekend and no one's booking , and Then on Friday you'll get like a 15 day . Wow , right .
So I've never had a 15 day , but oh , taking your two days .
Y'all have had a say what's the longest you've had someone stay at a ?
AJ , what you got , what's your longest ?
I say about a week , make a little over a week , maybe week , week and a half . So about maybe 10 , 11 days .
Korean , I Think three weeks , because I have a cap at a 28 days , so no one can book more than 28 , which reminds me I'm On Airbnb at least I should Try to experiment with that a little bit , because I have a few system set up , zillow rental for example , so I can refer them to to that and they do like auto host kind of thing , but it's Zillow built
in and it's free , if I , if I remember correctly , and they do the same thing they pull credit history , they pull Income verification and they submit , like all all the paperwork . So if it's more than 28 days , you treat it as a long-term rental and you know , if the I've shown you a few of them , me , and we went actually over the paperwork .
So yeah maybe I open it up a little bit .
I have a question for you on that , because this is it sounds like you're flexible to doing short-term Slash , midterm slash , long-term rentals , okay . So what that means , that do you ever get concerned about ? I don't know if you're . Is it a superhost on Airbnb ? I get it confused because I do toro and it's all star hosts .
It's superhost on Airbnb , right , okay . So do you ever get concerned about if you were to sign a midterm or long-term tenant that you would start to lose the status on your short-term rental platforms ? Because that'll happen and I think that's something that Airbnb doesn't entice you to stay on the platform .
They don't want you going and rent it out or you know being flexible , but in doing so then you kind of run the risk of losing your you know Status on the short-term rental platforms and then that may decrease your bookings . I think I would take that first you can solve .
Yet I didn't have A . What do you call it all ? Star or whatever , like a star host , superhost , superhost . Yeah , and I was Booked , like most of last year , my occupancy rate right right at the wrong 80% . Without that , without that steps .
And to your point , aj , I hear you on the superhost , but that's . There's a piece I never want to lose sight of and that's how can you maximize the income in your property ? And you know the two biggest expenses are one , property management . So if you're doing that yourself , you're already cutting out one of the expenses and two cleaning fees , right .
So when you're able to get somebody that's a mid-term renter that signs a longer lease dude , that cash flow is going right to your pocket . And so we talked about the links . I've got kind of a cheat code because we have a management company , but we have somebody right now that's gonna end up staying for 12 months .
They originally signed for six months , paying 6,300 per month because they had an insurance fire at their house out in Decatur . So they booked our spot 6,300 per month . We signed the six months .
We just extended it to Nine months and the guys already told me hey , they're gonna really need to extend it to that full 12 months because the house has even started on the rebuild .
The insurance took forever To get the paperwork , so it's gonna take a minimum six months to get that rebuilt and that whole time we haven't had cleaners go in there and we're paying , they're paying a premium and so , especially when you get those mid-term renters , what I love about it is they act almost like long-term renters right , meaning after about a month
they know the whole house . There's no questions really that come out and then you get a premium on your dollars . So , yeah , I'm always in favor of that .
Even if you lose the superhost status , we can go and fight and get that back With a couple bookings , even if it has to be some fake bookings when needed , right , okay , and I'm glad you guys cleared that up .
For me it wasn't so much just about you know being a superhost . I mean , yeah , sure that's cool and it's a bad jump . The On your profile , I think , is what being a superhost does . And we know that Airbnb Prioritizes your listing if you are a superhost .
So that's something that's always in the back of my mind to kind of , you know , keep my listing to par so that it looks attractive to Potential guests . Obviously someone is gonna try to , you know , rather book out a superhost Listing than one .
That's not so that that was just you know , kind of the dots I was trying to , you know , connect there a few say Me how we get on the bandwagon up to insurance .
That's what I'm trying to figure out .
Hey , come on now . First you got to build a company , so literally it came through the same sites that we're talking about . Right , when you're in the short-term rental game , you're also in the midterm rental game . There's got to be individuals that reach out through these sites to say , hey , would you take a longer term booking ? Right ?
And so this was one of those instances . This person reached out and said , hey , I'm looking for a home , this looks like the right one , can we talk ? And then their insurance agent reached out after we talked and we just worked out a deal took about a couple days and we had to move a guest . And this is the one thing .
So , circling back to kind of what Kareem's doing , what AJ is doing and what we drew right , so Kareem has taken the bet that , hey , if I put it at a minimum four days , I'm willing to roll those dice and hang on tight to get that longer booking .
Aj and I were saying , hey , I kind of want a little more instant gratification , right , I need to get that booking in . So I One thing that can happen that has hit us before , but thankfully we have a portfolio of properties that we can refer them to is somebody will see a property and say , hey , I need this for X number of months .
But we'll look at the calendar and we have five bookings like next month and you don't wanna cancel those because , to AJ's point , you're gonna get hit hard . Airbnb will almost delist you if you cancel five , right ?
And so what we've been able to do in those situations which we did in another house that we have some construction workers at that are there for about nine months , is we just reallocate them . You say , hey , the top on the phone , this one's not available , but check this one out .
Right , we have the calendar blocked right now for us to work something out this week , and then we get them in for the long run . And then we keep that person's contact and we have a little email drip campaign with once a month , right .
And anytime we have a new listing , we'll send a message out to all the partners that have stayed with us long term and try to see if we can help them out . So , long story short , you're already well on your way with two listings . Now it's just leveraging those two If somebody's reaching out for the one saying , hey , I need to book something .
Well , unfortunately this one's full , but check this one out . Can we work a deal out here ? Anything else top of mind from the chat and or from anybody on the line , go for it .
I always got plenty of questions . I like to be respectful of everybody else , so if anybody else you know got one , you go right ahead . One , two , okay , I'll take it . Cleaners . So I believe I reached out to you about this some months in the past and I ended up finding a really stellar cleaner After going through , I believe , one .
She actually stole some money from me and didn't clean yeah , just had to charge it to the game . But luckily I was able to find a pretty stellar cleaner and she's been with us for some months now . My question I've been trying to figure out from other hosts is how do you handle backup cleaners ?
Because obviously you know people get sick or may have things that come up in the family and XYZ . So I'm like how do I get a backup cleaner or cleaning crew to backup my property ? What do I just say hey , you know , come tour my property , I'm gonna show you around . This is the things that you do . Get familiar with the property .
Okay , I'll call you up when I need you and then that's it . Like that part I'm trying to understand . It hasn't happened to me yet , luckily , but I'm trying to prepare myself in the event that my cleaner isn't available and I need to kind of make it shake , basically . So how are you guys handling that ?
Yeah . So with the Acaba Home Team we have to have backups right , only because we're managing a lot of properties . If somebody goes down , it's not gonna be good , and we've had instances where a cleaning crew starts off stellar and then all of a sudden the ratings start to drop off and we start to get complained to them . We're like , hey , what's going on ?
Well , they lost some people . And so the way that we handle that is we always are looking for we have our main crew right , which is similar to you . It's somebody that is more local and they're solid , but they don't have the bandwidth to do more . And then , as they start to get stretched in when we're growing , we look for a company that we can go to .
That's just gonna be solid . Now , that company may be slightly more expensive , but that company has the bandwidth to expand as big as you wanna go . And so I think Karim knows , justin knows we've connected them with some of the individuals that we use from a company perspective , and so we'd be happy to send those contacts your way .
But I would just keep a company on retainer right and not even retainer . You don't gotta pay them anything , just tell them hey , this is a property that I wanna tour with you . Make sure you have your cleaning checklist guide , like we keep one inside the cleaning closet that has . This is the standard . This is the pictures of what the place should look like .
So if a new cleaner has to come in , we're good . And then you want them to get pricing locked in so that you can call them at the drop of a hat to hey , the time has come . Can you please come out here if you need them in an emergency .
Yeah , unfortunately , you can achieve that with , like a Moms and Pops cleaning operation . Yeah , you can mitigate that risk . Unfortunately , even though they'll tell you , hey , we'll be there , we'll be there , trust me , we'll be there , things happen Versus when you're working with a company , it's actually their responsibility to find you somebody .
Now , if there's pros and cons to this , I'll tell you .
When you have a personal relationship with the cleaners and it's the same person or the same team that goes to your home every time , they'll do a lot better job and they will be better at working with , like , the inventory and your supplies and stuff like that , versus every time you get a different person and they don't know the context .
So this is gonna be like a lot of inconsistencies with , like , their reports and their comments . I've seen that firsthand . But I wonder , nia , I was hoping if you can maybe elaborate more on having like both sides , like having the close crew that come in and you know them and you have that company as a backup .
How does that work like logistically within , say , hospital ?
Oh man , so this is incredible , right ? So what we've been able to do with the scale is we have 90% of our properties with the local company , but we can't give them more because they're not ready yet . They've gotta build their team . If you overload a local company , believe me , I've done this two years ago and we've learned .
I was like , hey , just take everything , you know , kept giving , kept giving , kept giving , and what I found out was that our main cleaner was working seven days a week , no break , and people were . It was just so . It wasn't a good work-life balance . So we basically ran them out .
And so with the new one , we've learned I wanna make sure I'm checking in work-life balance . And so we have 90% with her , and then we have the other 10% with the company , and anytime we get a new booking , we'll just take it up with the company , which may be a little more expensive , right , but at least we're covered .
And so , through hospitable , when you have multiple properties , you can designate where you want the auto alert to go to right and kind of go from there .
But to your point , as a backup , that would be difficult , because you wouldn't want the backup company to be getting the same messages that the current cleaning company is , but you can set them up in hospitable and if you need to switch to them , you can turn it on right , and so we have it turned on for both , but only for the properties that they're
cleaning . And then if we switch any of those properties over in the future , like , say , the main cleaners are able to take more bandwidth , we'll switch it over to them . Keep going , or say , hey , we're taking on three properties this month and we need to get it up and running . We'll go to the companies .
Now we've been able to find companies that are actually pretty solid and keep the same type of crews running through . But to your point , Kareem , if they do send somebody else because one person's sick or the other , the benefit of that is you don't have to know about it , right ?
It's like , hey , the home's getting cleaned , but the one main drawback is they may not know the home , and so that's where that guide comes in .
At every property , we're putting a one-page PDF that has a QR code to the pictures of how the place should look , and it has just the standard hey , make sure you put two tiles per bed and make sure you're checking this , taking the trash out . Make sure this plate you can put whatever nuances you need into that document to where ?
Hey , they have a checklist in the cleaning closet that they see immediately that they can follow if they're new to the property .
To that point I would . Even if there wasn't a checklist , I would still rather take a clean . It may not be perfect and the person who regularly cleans it , whether that's your mom or papa , whoever you rely on if they're not available and the backup company comes in , I'll still just take a pretty solid basic clean over .
Can't even get the place clean and then I can't even get a booking . That , I think , is what scares me the most .
Agreed , agreed and we are coming up on time . But , aj , if you need those contacts , I got you . Anybody else , if you need those contacts , we got you . But it's awesome seeing everybody here thriving early in the new year .
I cannot wait to see you guys here in the coming weeks as we continue to expand our portfolios and , oh , we just booked our first guest of the year , who's gonna be joining us next week . So you're gonna learn from an investor that's been in the game in Atlanta since before 08 .
So this is one to definitely stay tuned for next week , but I will catch you guys later . Be safe and stay warm when there's 12 degree weather out here . Thanks , aaron , see you guys .