Avery Carl from The Short Term Shop talks about how she got into real estate and describes how she and her husband started investing in real estate and built up their portfolio. Avery also discusses how she finds properties to invest. Next, Avery discusses the current situation in the real estate market and the difference of managing short-term and long-term rentals. Avery gives tips on what an agent should do first when starting a short-term rentals business. Last, Avery talks about her book titled “Short-Term Rental, Long-Term Wealth” which will be published in September and her coming podcast.
To buy Avery’s book “Short-Term Rental, Long-Term Wealth”, click here!
If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!
Avery Carl can be reached at 800.898.1498.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
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Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris. I am your guide and host through the show. And I have a question for all of the listeners or viewers out there right now. Have you ever thought about adding in short term rentals into your portfolio either in your own personal investments or for your clients? My guess is you probably haven’t thought about it. But today on the show we’re gonna be speaking with Avery Carle. Not only is she a short term investment specialist, she’s also one of the top Realtors in the country. So we’re gonna be speaking with her in just a moment. Before we get to Avery just a couple of quick reminders. Please tell a friend about our show. Think of one other real estate professional that could benefit from hearing from top producers from all over the country. And let them know that we exist send them a link to our website, which is keeping it real pod.com They can stream every episode we’ve ever done right from their browser, or if they are if they’re a podcast person, just have them pull up a podcast app search for keeping it real and hit that subscribe button. And second please follow us on Facebook every single day we find an article that’s written specifically designed to help agents grow their business and publish it there. And we also do all of our interviews there as well as lots of other tips and tricks for agents to grow their business so you can find us@facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod and now on to our interview with Avery Karl.
Paid today on the show we have a break from the short term shop with exp Realty Avery was named one of Wall Street Journal’s top 100 realtors and Newsweek’s top 500 agents last year 2020. She and her team at the short term shop focused exclusively on vacation rentals and short term rental clients. Now Avery herself has sold over 300 million in short term vacation rentals since 2017, and investor herself with a portfolio of over 30 properties. Avery specializes in connecting investors with short term rentals with the highest ROI potential and then training them to manage the short term rentals from their smartphone from anywhere in the world. She has a book coming out this fall on bigger pockets we are huge fans of bigger pockets and Upad. Many of their their people on our show, but this new book is called a short term rental. So all you BiggerPockets fans out there, keep your eyes out for that she sorry, short term rental long term wealth is the name of the book. She also has a podcast coming out very shortly called the short term show. And we’re going to be speaking with her about all things short term rentals and investments. Visit avery at her website, which is the short term shop.com. And Avery Welcome to the show.
Avery Carl 3:46
Thank you so much for having me.
D.J. Paris 3:49
We are Avery and I got derailed because I found out her husband is a Sirius XM DJ and I’m a big serious person and she also a serious DJ for rock and roll channels. And so we were talking rock and roll for about the last 20 minutes. I apologize if I’m keeping Avery from our busy day but and Avery herself is a big rock’n’roll fan as well. But But before we get into the music side of it, which we could really spend the whole rest of the episode talking about. Yeah, I would love to learn about how you got into because you yourself are a musician, but how you actually got into real estate?
Avery Carl 4:23
Sure. So I got into real estate. So I was working. I toured in bands for a while in my early 20s. And then I was working on the business side of the music business as a marketing manager of my mid 20s and got into real estate kind of by accident. I think a lot of people have that same story. So my husband and I moved to Nashville a few years ago or longer than I care to admit anymore actually in 2013 from New York and we want to buy a house and I didn’t have my license yet at the time. Our REALTOR at the time was really trying to get us to buy in the super hip part of Nashville called you He’s Nashville because everything’s appreciating so fast, and people are making so much money in one year on their houses. And we didn’t want to be part of that we came from Brooklyn, we’re good on hipsters, like we just wanted to go out in the country and not have to talk to anybody not have any neighbors. Sure. So we did that we bought a house out in the country, we have a little money leftover, and we thought, hmm, maybe we should buy one of these and rent it out and see what happens. And maybe it will have appreciated enough in 20 years that we can pay for our future children’s college with it. And terrible Do not ever invest based on appreciation as a terrible idea. I got really lucky that mine ended up going really well, I still have it, I mean, a 1031 exchange it this year into an apartment building, and it’s gonna be awesome. But we got the first rent check on that one, we thought, okay, well, this is something that we really want to make a business out of, we need some more of these things. And then we read the books and then we listen to the podcast, you should do that in the reverse of what I did. And so then we started educating ourselves and figured out oh, this is called Real Estate Investing what we just did. So we had like one downpayment worth of capital left, like single family downpayment, and said, Okay, well, what can we buy with this, we’re gonna make the most amount of money the fastest so that we can go buy more. And we landed on short term rentals. And we didn’t want to do that in Nashville, because Nashville is horrible for short term rentals. It’s like you do everybody’s getting their permits taken away. The regulations are ridiculous. So we’re like, alright, where can we go and do this, that it’s just normal for people to go rent a place that is owned by somebody and not a hotel overnight. And we’re like, oh, Smoky Mountains perfect. That’s like three hours from Nashville. So we went and bought a cabin in the Smokies. And this is kind of where me getting my real estate license happen. So when we went to buy a cabin in the Smokies, we knew we weren’t gonna put it on a local property manager, we knew we were gonna do it from Nashville because Airbnb and VRBO, there’s no reason to have to have a property manager anymore. So we bought one, and we none of the agents in that market could really answer any of my questions that were investment related, like, you know, return on investment managing this from Nashville. What do you do if this happens? So around that time, I got my license, mainly because my husband, being a New Yorker is a really bad client, especially to southern people like myself. We don’t do well with the New York thing. So I was constantly having to apologize for him. So I was just like, I’m just gonna get my license. And I’ll do this. And so we scaled that one cabin into five and about a year and a half. And during that time, friends started being like, how much are you making on this cabin? I want to do that, get me one. And then it became their friends. And then it became actual clients. And then it became the short term shop and now we have offices in the Smoky Mountains in the panhandle of Florida. So Destin, Panama City Beach, 38 area, Gulf Shores, Alabama, and Blue Ridge, Georgia, opening up a few other offices here in the next few months as well. And that’s how I got into real estate. I’ve got 42 doors now, not all short terms. Six, seven of them are short terms. 12 unit apartment building, and the rest are long term. Single families and duplexes. So we’ve got a pretty good mix of short term and long terms and Maltese and single families. So what I do,
D.J. Paris 8:22
wow, that is fascinating. You said a lot there. It’s funny, I was thinking about the other short term side, my sister who lives in South Tampa, she has a townhome that they bought and as an investment, and she short term rents that she does Airbnb or, or whatever, I think VRBO or Airbnb, and you know, and I don’t know what the downpayment was and whatever, but she basically only has to rent it out six or seven days a month to cover the cover the not and then the rest is all pure profit. And so you know, and she doesn’t do any of the management either. And that’s on top of you know, paying, you know, the cleaners and everything else. So she has to go over there every once in a while and you know, take a look at things but but it is it’s remarkable and it she’ll never ever get rid of that because Why Why should she and actually it’s appreciated to the level where she might but but you know, she’s like I don’t know it’s she’s like basically it’s free money at this point.
Avery Carl 9:19
It definitely is. I mean, there’s a little work involved in it but you can make you know, short terms will make between three and sometimes up to 10 times more than a comparable long term depending on the market and the management and such but that’s why we started with those we started our portfolio with the short terms and use all that heavy cash flow to go buy some more traditional stuff just to you know, round out the portfolio but the I think every real estate investing portfolio does need a few short terms in it just because they do they are like little cashflow turbo chargers to help you grow faster.
D.J. Paris 9:52
Well yeah, let’s so our audience is predominantly realtors, most of them are not on the investor side or rather, whether they’re an investor themselves or We’re not I don’t really know, because we don’t get the feedback there. But they often don’t work with investors. And so I know there’s a lot of fear around that that agents have around being knowledgeable and sort of just, you know, not knowing enough to really have a better conversation than somebody who is familiar with investments. And so there’s some natural fear there. And I’ve always thought what a great opportunity to learn about investments so that you can have those conversations because investor clients it at least for the brokers that I and I’m sorry, in Illinois, we call everyone a broker. So the same way I know Florida’s agent, and then brokers a different thing. But anyway, um, it just depends, I guess, where but but realtors, we’ll just call them Realtors tend to shy away from that saying, well, investors are tough. And then other people are like, no investors are the best, because they take a motion tends to not factor in as much. And they just want, you know, to look at numbers, and they just want you to find them great deals, and then you know, those can be really great clients. Just curious to get your thoughts on working. Have you ever worked with traditional buyers and sellers? Are you just exclusively working on the investor side,
Avery Carl 11:07
we exclusively work on the investor side, early in my real estate career, I did really wanted to work with a lot of primary homebuyers. And I learned very quickly that that was not for me, like with investors, it’s like, alright, this, this is how much it’s gonna cost. This is what it’s probably going to make, this is what it is. Whereas with the primary home buyers, I’m very much like I buy a lot of times, not all the time, but I have bought several Ugly Duckling houses and added in that value myself by doing a little work. So my, it does not compute with me when somebody is like throwing a fit because they don’t like the paint color, I cannot deal with that. I’m like, just you know, it’s like $2,500 To fix this, just fix it. Everything else is perfect. And you don’t like this one thing, just fix it. But that’s I can’t I can’t operate in that space. And I actually very last primary homebuyer that I took. So I was kind of trying to resist being investor exclusive because I felt like I was going to pigeonhole myself and not have as many clients when in fact, the opposite was true. So after my first year, in real estate, I think I had done like 30 million and investor property like investor clients that year. And I was still like, Oh, I really want some more primary buyers really wants more primaries, I was helping a friend of mines, parents buy something around Nashville, and they ran me all over for weeks on end, and then eventually fired me after I just had this amazing year, because I did not know where to find the serial number on a $50,000 mobile home. Ah, god, like, you know, you can all this experience and all these transactions I’ve done, I clearly know what I’m doing. And you’re firing me because I don’t know where to find this serial number. So I on my way home, I was like, You know what, I’m taking those clients anymore. I’m not taking any primary homebuyer clients, I’m taking the people who value, the knowledge that I have, the knowledge that I have is not where to find the serial number on a mobile home, the knowledge that I have is how to invest in short term rentals. So we’re just doing that now. This is what we’re doing. It was I think it was like two or three days after Christmas that my family was in town, and they run me all over. And it was cold. And I was just not. I was not happy about having spent all that time. And then that happens. It was like we’re just we are an investment team now. And that’s it.
D.J. Paris 13:29
I love it. I mean, it makes it makes perfect sense. You know, and obviously different personalities fit different client types. But I wanted to spell and I always think this is really important because I want I think we have at our firm here in Chicago, we have 750 realtors, and because of the way we do commissions and fees, we attract a lot of investor, the best realtors who are investors. And so I work a lot about, you know, probably a third of our Realtors are investors and the restaurant traditional primary. You know, I work with primary, you know, home buyers and sellers. But one of the biggest myths and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this because maybe you may or may not agree with us. But one of the biggest challenges I hear from realtors that are not working with investors that are what are thinking about it. They’re saying, Well, how do you find investors? And when I’ve ever talked to investors, they say oh, finding investors is the easy part. There’s there’s no shortage of investors and there’s no shortage of capital. But finding the transaction finding the good deal to bring to the investor is is the challenge. I’m curious to get your thoughts on on if that’s proven true for you or if you see it a different way.
Avery Carl 14:36
I would say that it’s not difficult to find investors and I think that is the limiting belief of a lot of real estate agents is they think, okay, if I do want to work with investors, they think investors are like this big institutional money people that they have no access to when investors is like, I mean, if you swing a stick in a restaurant, you’re gonna hit 10 of them. And it doesn’t necessarily mean that these people own hundreds of units worth of apartment buildings and investors just somebody who owns a piece of real estate that they rent out for a profit. So that is the you know, there’s a lot of different levels of that. So finding the investors is not difficult, it really is just learning how to analyze a deal, because it is a lot different in terms of what an investor might be looking for, versus what a primary home buyer is looking for, you know, like a big yard is not as big of a deal if you’re buying an investment property. As you know, if you’re going to live there, well, I have three dogs. So I need I need the space for this. But when you’re you know, it’s when you’re a primary homeowner, you’re your tenant is yourself. That’s one family, one person, when your people are investing they have, you know, their potential tenant is anyone so you don’t, there’s no, it’s not a specific, it really is just learning to run the numbers and like, Okay, well, this property, you can probably get it for this price. And in order for it to make sense. You need to be able to rent it out for this much money a month. The market rent is this, okay? Yes, this makes sense. It’s, it’s not that difficult, but I think people get intimidated by it, and then just choose to stay away from it.
D.J. Paris 16:11
Yeah, it makes it really makes perfect sense. And then the other one of the other myths or I shouldn’t even call it a myth, but one of the challenges is traditional realtors, not not in you know, realtors that work with investors or who are investors themselves often say, Well, gosh, I don’t even know where to find these these deals. Right? So okay, I get it that I can find. I can find investors once I find the deal. But finding the deal itself is there’s an art and science to it because traditional realtors are going to you know, live and die with the MLS and sometimes those properties, those multifamily properties, those investment properties do hit the MLS oftentimes they don’t. So I’m just curious on on with your own portfolio and how and how you teach other investors? Where are you finding most of your properties? Are you finding them on the traditional, you know, MLS is or are you finding them and through other means.
Avery Carl 17:00
So I found buyers before I found deals, kind of like we just mentioned, the places that I focus on. So my markets are a little bit different than big metro markets. The markets that I focus on are regional drivable vacation rental, like vacation dependent tourism dependent markets. So you don’t run into with real estate investing, a lot of times the investors are looking for, oh, I want the off market deal. I want the distressed property where I can pay at 80 cents on the dollar of what it’s worth. Those deals happen because those sellers are in a financial hardship at the time to where they need to sell this and they’re willing to sell it at 80 cents on the dollar. That doesn’t happen as much in the vacation markets, because those properties are mostly owned by either investors or second homeowners. And so if what causes a property to be distressed is financial trouble with the seller, those types of properties that they’re just going to list those at retail well before the trouble ever hits their door. So there’s not as much like distressed off market stuff happening in the markets that we’re in. It does happen, we do a decent amount of that. But just because a property hits the MLS, especially the way the market and the real estate market as a whole is right now does not mean that it’s not going to work for an investor, I have bought plenty of things right off the MLS personally, that have had been some of my best investments. So just because it hits the MLS doesn’t mean that it’s not a good deal. And just because it’s off market doesn’t mean it’s a good deal. So we, most of our off market stuff now is coming from past clients who are either trading up 1031, exchanging things like that, I’ve also got a few. And this is kind of a niche thing to the short term rental markets as well. I have a few developers who I have convinced and like shown my buyer list and said, Hey, I have this list of buyers, I need inventory. And they let me sell their developments to my clients only so nobody else even has has access to them. So I’ve generated some, some inventory that way. You just kind of have to get creative because right now there’s no inventory anywhere. Right? So you have to get as creative as possible. And, you know, just network with people I hate to use the word network because I It sounds so douchey when people are like, let’s network limited, let’s go network with people just be a person just talk to people. But you know, you just kind of have to talk to the people that you know and and see, but you know, like I’ve got a big buyer list. So anybody want to sell I have a great buyer list. And a lot of them are willing to pay more money to keep it from hitting the MLS nowadays than they are you know, 10 years ago. It was like, Oh, well if you don’t want to bother listing that, let me just pay you 80 cents on the dollar and you’ll be done with it. But now it’s like I will pay you more money. Need to not listen and get it in multiple offers and give it to me. So it’s like, a really different time in real estate. I know it’s not exactly what you asked, but my answer to that is you just kind of have to be creative.
D.J. Paris 20:10
Yeah, well, let’s talk. Let’s talk about kind of where we are right now. Because with low inventory, seemingly across the board, with our listeners, and our viewers, and certainly in in most major markets, and even smaller markets, we’re dealing with that because, of course, interest rates are low and a lot of buyers out there. on the investor side is is the inventory, has it been affected quite a bit as well?
Avery Carl 20:35
Oh, yeah. And especially with the mass, California Exodus, even the investment properties, I mean, everybody just comes in and sweeps them up for cash. And it’s, it’s definitely tough. I think everywhere, it’s, there’s not one market that I can think of right now, that is not hurting for inventory.
D.J. Paris 20:55
Yeah, and so do you have to end up getting more creative than to find that inventory in these in these times are like, I know, some investors will, they’ll sell postcards, or they’ll try to find the owners of buildings and call them, there’s a lot of different ways to do that. I’m just curious if those tactics have shifted in the last year or so since the, you know, the whole markets changed
Avery Carl 21:17
it, they haven’t really shifted so much as there’s more people doing it. So I don’t want to say it doesn’t work as well. But it’s just, you really have to do something to stand out. Because whereas people might have been getting one or two postcards a month. Now they’re getting 20. So for me, my biggest source of off markets is my past client book of business, because at the same time that we have all these buyers that want to buy stuff, a lot of people’s properties have appreciated quite a bit. And it’s a great time to 1031 exchange. So I’ve just been going back through my previous buyers and saying, hey, you know, it’s, it’s a really good time to sell, maybe you want to trade up, do you want to buy and one of the other markets that we’re in your property is probably worth this much, and you paid this much. And that’s been my biggest generator of it. Because we’re, we do a lot of volume. So we’ve got a really big past client list. I know that’s probably not gonna work for everyone. But even on a small scale, just getting one listing out of that is worth the time of going through. Yeah.
D.J. Paris 22:17
And as far as your, you know, your clients, I’m curious, how often are the investors that you work with visiting the property prior to putting in an offer? Or are Is that does that never happen? Does it happen half the time? What percentage do they actually go physically stand in the unit or the building and take a look at it,
Avery Carl 22:40
I would say this year, like in the past 12 months 0% It is all videos. And sometimes we can’t even get in there to video until after they’re under contract. Because when it’s an active vacation rental, if there’s a guest in there, Nobody’s allowed in. So there’s a lot of sight unseen, like even video sight unseen offers going on, and we just have the video as soon as the guest checks out.
D.J. Paris 23:02
And I just, you know, you that’s probably music to your ears where you’re not having to shuffle someone around, have them worry about the aesthetic, the all of the emotional feelings people have with, with aesthetics. And you know, you’re just basically finding deals, presenting deals and then putting in offers. I know there’s a lot more to it than that, but at least at least or how much of that are you doing from your, you know, your phone or your computer are you’re probably not out there racing around as much, I’m guessing.
Avery Carl 23:34
Right? You’re not out there racing around as much. But there is a certain expectation that has to be managed, because just like not every investor is like big institutional money. Also, you know, not every investor is going to be able to completely remove their emotions from it, especially when you’re buying a vacation rental because these are fun, like these fine and fun markets. Yeah. And you think oh, man, I never thought for a million years that I would have a house in great Beach, Florida. This is not this is I’m fulfilling my childhood dream. Even though it’s an investment, it’s really hard not to get excited about buying something in a cool mountain market or a beach market. So there is a little bit of still managing their emotions. So that is the thing that i is kind of hanging in the balance of okay, you’re not coming to look at it, we’re taking as thorough video as possible and everything else. But then sometimes they’re still like, Oh, I didn’t realize it was gonna be like this. Or I didn’t realize this back. There’s just kind of an always something there’s always a complaint thing no matter how well you video, so I do kind of miss sometimes the buyers being able to see things for themselves because then it’s on them to have not seen that. Or, you know, it’s sometimes it’s stuff that you wouldn’t think is a problem. Like, oh, yeah, that wall is actually green. Not tacky. Was that a problem? I didn’t realize screen was a problem. So it’s there’s a different set of things to manage. But it is nice to be able to have do it on your own schedule and not have to meet people and drive them around. But there’s definitely one set of issues is replaced by another.
D.J. Paris 25:16
So it’s also one of those things, too, that I’m curious on the properties that your investors in or you purchase, how often they were already short term rentals that you’re just, you know, continuing on that track, or were these more traditional rentals that you’re converting into short term
Avery Carl 25:33
in the markets that I’m in, they are typically something that has already been a short term rental, but it’s just kind of changing, changing avenues. So a lot of them are properties that were on traditional property management companies where you know, they have the on site, brick and mortar property management company, and they’re taking 25 to 40% of your gross, whereas now, most of our clients are self managing remotely through utilizing technology. So it’s just Yes, it’s it was already a short term rental, technically, but it’s just kind of changing from the old guard to the new in a sense,
D.J. Paris 26:10
and the margins are better to self manage, of course, oh,
Avery Carl 26:13
big time. Yeah.
D.J. Paris 26:15
Yeah. What does that add to the bottom line, on average, just in general to go from traditional management, which is taking 25% Plus, to, you know, an Airbnb model where, you know, you’re, you’re paying for cleaners, and you’re doing a few small things, but traditionally, are really it’s just kind of running itself? It’s kind of quite a bit.
Avery Carl 26:35
Yeah, yeah. So the average time that it takes to manage like five properties, or less remotely using Airbnb and stuff is going to be less than two hours a week. And it’s not going to be all at once, it’s just going to be, you know, a message here and there. And the average property management company takes 25% of your gross and to give you an idea, so I own four properties, that gross over 100,000. And if I had those all, and that’s not even all my properties. But if I had just those four, on a property management company, somebody’s making six figures to do something that I can do from my phone. And that is not a six figure gig. So it really stops making. I mean, to me, it doesn’t make sense for one property. But it really doesn’t make sense if you have a property that is, you know, a four bedroom it up in a lot of cases, definitely exceptions to the rule, nobody hold me to this, but a four bedroom and up in the market that I’m in is going to hit that 100,000 mark, typically. So that’s a lot of money. That’s your next downpayment on like two properties.
D.J. Paris 27:37
Yeah, it’s amazing. And then what just out of curiosity, what is how does the wear and tear shift from, from the short term, you know, to more traditional 12 month rental clients, I’m assuming the wear and tear is going to be more severe. But it’s still not so severe that it’s eating into much of those profits of guessing
Avery Carl 27:55
what actually, so we have 30 for long term units, and the short term stay in much better shape, because they have somebody in there cleaning them professionally, several times, you know, several times a week in some cases, whereas my long terms, those tenants are in there doing I have no idea what in the hell they’re doing. For a year, two years, however long they’re there. So I can pretty much guarantee myself that when we have a long term tenant move out that I’m going to have to repaint, I’m probably going to have to do new carpet may have to do appliances. So we’ve seen less wear and tear on our short terms and our long terms just because there’s people in there cleaning it every, every couple of days.
D.J. Paris 28:42
I love that too. I was thinking just because it was on the vacation side, maybe people treat the units more, you know more, they’re more rough on them. But but you’re probably right. It’s the people that are there every day all day for a year, that are probably the roughest, especially if there’s pets and things of that nature. So that’s, that’s really particularly interesting. So how how much of what you do is when you find, you know, your investor list, your your sort of, we call it your client list. How much of those people were investors? Or what, you know, prior to you working with them, they were already real estate investors, or how many of them have you trained, because I know this is this is a very popular thing right now, where realtors are training, you know, people who are traditionally not investors, maybe they were just primary residence, and maybe they started with a house hacking kind of idea where they bought a three flat, they lived in one of the units and they had that client do that. And then they said let’s do more. So I’m just curious, if you’ve done a lot of that where you’ve trained people how to how to really, you know, become investors.
Avery Carl 29:44
I would say it’s a little bit of both some people will come to us and have owned, you know, maybe two or three long terms, but we get a lot of brand new investors and the reason for that I think is because you know, just a regular family who may have 75,000 bucks saved up, that’s not somebody who’s typically, you know, 10 years ago, would have gone and bought a piece of rental property. Because typically, you know, back then before Airbnb and self management kind of came along and presented itself, you’re only making you know, if they were going to buy a piece of real estate, it was going to be a long term rental, and they were, you know, you’re gonna make five 600 bucks a month. Now, that same 75,000 can go buy them a property, not cash, obviously, and finance, of course, that is going to make, you know, 20 503,000 a month, and that’s a game changer that is game changing money for anybody. So we get a lot of people who are new because traditional investments, you know, they didn’t want to spend their whole nest egg to make a few 100 bucks a month, but something like this, they can just do basically exactly what I did is take all that cash flow and either go buy another one and double that, or go you know, buy more long terms or, you know, got go buy a Ferrari, I don’t know, but typically you would reinvest, so we get a lot of newbies, and those are actually my favorite because even though you kind of have to coach them, it’s really rewarding to see somebody change their own life like that, and know that you helped them do that. So a lot of newbies, but we love them.
D.J. Paris 31:17
And then what do you think? And again, no one has a crystal ball but just legislation around Airbnbs? Or, or just you we’ve seen it happen in certain certain markets where Airbnb is less accepted or less tolerated. Other markets embrace it. Are you specifically picking markets to to that are very Airbnb friendly? Obviously, vacation areas tend to be but does that ever? Is that ever an ongoing concern? What if What if the tide shifts? And and now all of a sudden, you know, the government wants to step in? Or, you know, the the the city wants to step in? Or does that happen a lot or have you not really experienced much of that.
Avery Carl 31:54
So that is the number one thing that we pay attention to before we go into a new market, whether it’s starting a new short term shop office there or buying. So the reason that we’re in the markets that we’re in, is because these are areas where people have gone and rented a privately owned property, whether it’s on a property management company or not, you know, it’s owned by an individual on an overnight basis rather than hotels. Also, there’s not a lot of primary homeowners in any of the markets that were in everything. There’s not a lot of industry, not a lot of jobs, everything is tourism dependent. So these are areas where because short term rentals have been a thing for decades and decades, like well, before the internet, the municipalities figured out how to monetize it and regulate that a long time ago. So these they have regulations, but they just been there for so long that it’s not a concern. It’s not a fight. Whereas in the big metro markets like Nashville, for example, short term rentals rather than hotels is kind of a new thing as of the past 10 years. And there is a lot of industry there are a lot of job opportunities outside of tourism, a lot of primary homeowners in a metro market like that, where they don’t want you to come in and open up a mini hotel next to their house. So that’s why we focus on the vacation. I call them mature vacation rental markets because that battle has been fought and they the cities are now so dependent on the income from they need Yeah, they need it so we that’s a big one with us. We make sure like I Will not I know there are tons of people that make tons of money on Airbnb is in Metro markets, I won’t do it because that’s it’s too volatile. For me, I want the tried and true vacation market where people have been coming and renting beach houses or or cabins forever. And there’s very few people who actually live there to have a problem with that. Sure. That’s what we stick to.
D.J. Paris 33:45
Boy, that is such a smart approach. And I did it to you I’m sure that’s just a natural thought. But I’m guessing for a lot of our listeners and viewers, that that is something that they wouldn’t have thought of. And and it’s winter’s interesting too. I always think that Realtors would do themselves a huge favor. If they’re not working with investors, either you really have two paths, well, there’s three paths. One is to just say I never talked to investors, I don’t want to deal with it, and I can’t help you. The second path is I’m going to learn I’m going to spend a couple years I’m going to subscribe to bigger pockets I’m going to you know read the books and listen to the podcasts and really understand real estate investing long long term investing or short term investing and then the third the third category which maybe is even one of the smarter ways to go for agents that this isn’t really their day to day thing is partner with somebody like Avery and when when one of your clients is wanting to is vacationing down in those areas. Say hey, by the way, I know a realtor who does this and you know you guys may want to consider some investment avenues. I mean do you get a lot of referrals from other realtors I’m guessing you would? Because you what you know is so specialized and also everyone vacations right? So you probably just it’s really a quite a brilliant strategy. If it was, I’m assuming you probably get a lot of phone calls from other realtors.
Avery Carl 35:04
Oh, yeah, we do for sure.
D.J. Paris 35:07
Yeah. So is that is that important part of is like networking and keeping those relationships going so that when they have clients, they introduce them to you.
Avery Carl 35:15
Yeah. And I mean, we have a lot of agent clients who are like even agents who are licensed in the state. Yeah, because they’re like, We could totally do this deal by ourselves, but we don’t know what to do once we get the house. So we need you. So we’re happy for you that and that’s a big thing, too, especially with investors is I invest in Chattanooga, I’m licensed in Tennessee, but I don’t do my own deals. Because I don’t know Chattanooga, I’m very happy to pay my agent full price and not even ask for a referral fee. Because when the good deals in Chattanooga come up, I want him to call me first. So here, you take all that money. I don’t want a referral fee, but call me first. And that works out really well. And I tried to be a good client to you and not a pain in the ass. So
D.J. Paris 36:00
well, I What did they say? They say like a doctor who treats himself is got an idiot for a client, right? Or idiot for a patient? So so ya know, it makes sense. And, boy, you’ve said so much. And gosh, I I’m just curious if I was a realtor who was looking to learn more about the short term space to vacation space. And, and really, you know, whether it’s for my own investments or so I can introduce, you know, my clients to this idea. You know, what would you do if you were brand new trying to learn this,
Avery Carl 36:33
I would buy my book in September and listen to my podcast when it launches next
D.J. Paris 36:39
month. So let’s mention that her book is coming out which is published by bigger pockets, and we are huge BiggerPockets fans. It is coming in the fall. And it is titled and this by the way, we did not set up this plug. So this is just a perfect, a perfect, I shouldn’t have pulled back the curtain, but it just sounded a little too polished. But it was really a great a great segue because I do want to talk about the book, which is called short term rental long term wealth, and it’ll be available on bigger pockets. And you can also follow Avery on our website, which is the short term shop.com. And her podcast, which is launching soon, soon called the short term show. And when the podcast and the book launch, we will of course promote that as well. And real quickly, tell us a little bit about the book, the short term rental, I’m assuming it’s a lot of what we just talked about.
Avery Carl 37:26
Yeah, yeah, it is. So it is more for the real estate investor than the agent who is working with investors. But I’m sure it will be helpful either way. I definitely do have some agent skewed perspective on a lot of it. But it’s basically the first half of it is teaching a potential investor how to choose a market and source a deal. And for that we’ll make a good short term rental. And then the second half is teaching how to manage it remotely.
D.J. Paris 37:57
I love it. And then what are it so tell us about the format of the short term show the podcast coming up.
Avery Carl 38:02
So it’s mostly going to be interviews of successful short term rental investors. Some of them are I mean, it’s anybody from Sir other agents on my team to people who invest in faraway markets. I’ve even got somebody on there who manages properties abroad, which is really interesting. So there’s a lot of different types of investors, but it all kind of relates back to how investing in short term rentals has shaped the rest of their portfolio.
D.J. Paris 38:29
I love it. And real quickly since you did mention International and I should have thought to ask this earlier, do you see yourself going into international vacation markets?
Avery Carl 38:39
Probably not. That’s just a lot to a lot of stuff to have to deal with. Because you have to like I would love to buy I would love to buy some stuff like into loom but then you have to also have a local partner and then there’s just like a lot of red tape. There’s there’s a lot of markets to cover here before we go abroad.
D.J. Paris 38:57
Yeah, that makes sense. I was I was in Nicaragua, of all places. You know, I don’t know 10 years ago or so. And we met we met a couple from Australia that was investing in and we were just staying at this sort of surf beach thing. And anyway, and they were investing in this property they were building this property on the beach and they they were all in and they were huge Nicaragua people they would go in every year and vacation and surf and and they were saying that the learning experience was was really was really tough and Nicaragua is also a country with a brutal volatile history and and there’s just you know some some political unrest that that happens surfaces every so often and so they were nervous about about that as well. And so I imagine you know, there’s there’s always those fears for those international investors but but I guess you know, you pick your niche and and you stick to it and you’ve got cash, a number of offices, a number of areas that you guys serve us. So if there are any agents out there that are interested In referring clients to Avery and her and the team at short term shop, or if you’re an investor yourself and you are interested in the short term space, the vacation rental space, you know, talk to Avery and her team. But Avery, what’s the best way someone should reach you?
Avery Carl 40:14
Right on my website at the short term shot.com.
D.J. Paris 40:18
Yeah, go over there. And you can find everything. That is everything Avery short term shot.com. But one thing that we also want to tell you is go to YouTube and do a search for short term shop and hit the subscribe button. Because her channel she’s putting a lot of video up a lot of video content up, which is also investor focused. So visit her on YouTube, just do a search for short term shop and she’ll pop right up. But yeah, visit her website short term shop.com Listen to her podcast coming out soon called short term show and buy her book coming this fall short term rental long term wealth. Avery, thank you so much for being on the show. We really appreciate your time.
Avery Carl 40:56
Thank you so much for having me. Yeah. And on
D.J. Paris 40:59
behalf of Avery and myself, to everyone who’s nice enough to listen or watch, we want to thank you and ask you if you want to continue to help us grow to do just one thing. Tell a friend think of one other real estate professional that could benefit from hearing this great interview that we just had with Avery and send them a link to our website. That’s if they’re not a podcast person, they can stream every episode we’ve ever done right from keeping it real pod.com and also find us on Facebook, we are@facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod we post every episode we’ve ever done. They’re also all as we’re recording these episodes, we broadcast them live for early adopters. And on behalf of the audience and myself once again we thank Avery for her time. She’s awesome. She’s amazing. And we’ll talk rock and roll next time because that’s that’s what Avery and I are very passionate about. But for now it will stay with short term rentals and vacation properties. Avery, thank you so much and we’ll see everyone on the next episode. Thank you so much
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