Ekabo Home Financial Freedom Mastermind Podcast
A podcast for those who do not believe they were put on this earth to work 40 to 50 hours per week for 40 to 50 years, to hopefully retire at the age of 65.
Ekabo Home Financial Freedom Mastermind Podcast
104. Maximizing Estate Success: Estate Planning Insights, Stellar Cleaner Relationships, and the Turo Rental Goldmine
Ever pondered the balance between legal expertise and online convenience when facing estate planning? Our latest Financial Freedom Mastermind Group podcast peels back the layers of this decision-making process. We delve into the nitty-gritty of property management essentials, from quick claim deeds to the nuances of rental pricing optimization. By sharing experiences with PriceLabs and discussing the transition from Beyond Pricing, we illuminate the pathways to maximizing rental income. Our conversation extends beyond the numbers, emphasizing the value of nurturing professional relationships and the pivotal role they play in securing not only your assets but your peace of mind as well.
Navigating the world of short-term rentals, we uncover the cornerstone of success—our unsung heroes, the cleaning teams. I get personal about the strategies that have bolstered my partnerships with these vital team members. From setting fair cleaning fees to implementing a three-strike system for quality control, we dissect the tactics that keep our properties shining and guests smiling. We stress the significance of mutual respect and trust in these relationships, and the impact it can have in scaling your business while maintaining the essence of hospitality.
Fasten your seatbelts as we shift gears to discuss the lucrative Turo car rental market. With a blend of personal anecdotes and seasoned advice, we explore the intricacies of insurance coverage and the allure of achieving all-star host status. The ride doesn't end there; we also spotlight our upcoming networking event, promising a wealth of connections and insights. Whether you're a seasoned pro or eager newcomer, our community's zeal for financial freedom is contagious—join us and fuel your journey towards financial independence.
🗓️ Tune in every Wednesday at 7 PM Eastern! Don’t miss out on our journey toward financial freedom through smart investments.
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Our Links
➣ Financial Freedom Mastermind Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/53083...
➣ Peer Space Host Referral Link https://www.peerspace.com/referrals/g...
➣ AirBNB Host Referral Link https://www.airbnb.com/r/niyia41
➣ Ekabo Home Network (IG, Youtube, Email) https://linktr.ee/ekabohome
Niyi Adewole is a licensed realtor in Georgia, brokered by EXP Realty. Feel free to reach out at Niyi.Adewole@exprealty.com if you would like to work with an investor friendly real estate agent.
Welcome to the Financial Freedom Mastermind Room Podcast. Here we're all unbreaking, free from the 40 to 50-year world ride and accelerating our journey towards financial freedom. Join us every Wednesday at 7 pm Eastern as we explore different types of investments that get best track your path to financial independence. We serve as a hub for connecting with fellow members during our sessions, seeing and share successes, past questions and keep the momentum going. Good evening everyone.
Speaker 2:This is Niyi Adewale, host of the A Couple Home Financial Freedom Mastermind Group, and I am excited to be joining you here on the last Wednesday of the month. Next week Wednesday is actually going to be the first of May, so this is exciting, and last week we went through a lot of the landlord things that can pop up for long-term rentals, but we didn't have time for the true open session, and so this week is going to be an actual open session. So feel free to throw any questions in the chat or to join via the join link down below, but I'll wait and pause for you to join. We're truly going to keep this one open. What's going?
Speaker 3:on Lee.
Speaker 2:Not much, jay, how you doing man, I'm doing all right, that is good. What's on your mind? You got anything new popping? I know we just talked like a little while ago, but you got anything new popping up.
Speaker 3:Nah, man, alexandra's actually going to join the call here in a bit. She's actually finishing up some food in the kitchen. But I guess, um, hey, I, I guess, hey, I feel like I always have so many things top of mind until we get on these calls. Right, I got to start writing this for a couple of hours so I can have it ready to go. Oh, I know what I got top of mind. I want to talk to you.
Speaker 3:I think today might be a good chance for me to talk to you about estate planning. You know, I was speaking with a lawyer earlier today, right, and I was getting one of my properties quit, quit, quit. I was glad these quick, uh quick clients with 12 miles clap. The 8 is located in a movement, so loc, she has a flat fee of 850 for that. So we got roped up doing that and I was like man, I forgot I just had a baby. Let's figure out how to get a will and test me some things put in place.
Speaker 3:So I got her back on the phone and I asked her about that and she was offering to do some estate planning for like 2500. You know, I've seen on the internet I could get it done a lot cheaper. But I'm like maybe building that relationship with the lawyer would be vital. And then I was like, well, does this include a trust? And she was like, let's do the trust. It'll be six grand. And I'm like, ah, should I go ahead and do that now to go ahead and start the relationship, or should I wait till I get a couple more properties in the portfolio, or should I just? You know?
Speaker 2:so I'm trying to going back and forth with that, but I'm thinking I'm just going to do the quick claim deed and just take care of that right now and then worry about some of the other stuff a little down the road. Honestly, I'm with you. It's one where I think the trust is something that's going to come into play down the road. I haven't done a trust in full transparency. It's something I've thought about, but I haven't gotten into it yet. All of them are the LLCs, to kind of structure it that way. And for the will, I think you should absolutely do a will. I just don't know that you need to pay $2,500 for it. What I've personally been doing for the will is and this is back in 2020, when everything kind of went down this company started becoming very popular TrustingWillcom. Have you heard of that company?
Speaker 3:No, I haven't heard of that company, but I looked up LegalZoom earlier today. But I would definitely check out Trust and Will.
Speaker 2:Yeah, legalzoom, you still got a bit that you have to do Trust and Will really guide you through the whole process and they have lawyers that look over the documents and you fill out all this information online and you have to get it notarized. It takes a good amount of time, but it's amazing and they got support people that you can call. I'm trying to think how much I actually paid for Trust and Will. I don't remember exactly how much, but it was definitely a lot less than $2,500. And they allow you to go on and update it. So I did this back in 2020, right, and I've since updated after I got married. Then I've added in other pieces and shifted some things around, and then you just have to get a notarized in and they keep a file uploaded for you as well, and so God forbid, anything happens you have a digital file that's with them that they keep track of, and then you also have your physical file and it's pretty cool and it teaches you to update once you have it going.
Speaker 3:Awesome, I'll definitely look into that so I can get that worked up. My little one's going crazy down here.
Speaker 2:Hey, come on, though. She's like hey, hey, there's Nautilus out here.
Speaker 3:He's showing you I'm going to get all your money, man. That's what she was saying about.
Speaker 2:On a complete side note, thank you for the tip on the price labs. I literally did that, maybe about an hour ago, so there should be like a referral. I don't know how it works. It should be coming to you.
Speaker 3:However, it works when I found it's referral code. But yeah, yeah, definitely, man. I'm glad that you got that hooked up, but I hope it works out well for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and for everybody else, that's kind of joining. I was one of the people that was using Beyond Pricing for the longest time and a lot of people have talked about Price Labs before, but I was using hey Beyond Pricing so I started with and, long story short, Justin here was like hey, man, you should really look into it. You get a couple of units, it may save you money. And so I looked into it and last month we paid $850 beyond pricing because it's taking like 1% of whatever. And when you equate that to what you can do with Arse Labs because they give you discounts and it's a set pricing I think it's like a $600 saving per month. So that's an easy decision. And that comes back to the conversation we had a few weeks ago about just optimizing your portfolio, whatever that means for you. Right, it's not always about buying the next property that's. That's important but it's also about optimizing what you have and trying to tighten up your system so you're making the most out of it yeah, man, 100 percent.
Speaker 3:I'm glad, like, like I said, like that worked out for you. Now that you're getting those, you know that's going to go straight to the bottom line because you're already incurring those costs anyway. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that's like setting two lenses in money ASAP and Desmond's probably joining, because he heard about these savings, Desmond, how you doing man? I was like man, let me get in here real quick.
Speaker 4:You're talking about savings dollars.
Speaker 2:Wait a second, get off the sidelines, justin converted me, man, from Beyond Pricing to Price Labs. Have you looked into Price Labs? I use Price Labs. Oh, you do. Okay, dang, he didn't say nothing, justin.
Speaker 3:Hey, thank you, got it Okay.
Speaker 4:Well now, man, I feel like you have your system so well-defined. I don't even I'm like man, I'm not even going to like try to get him out of his way. She's like with the building him thing. I wanted, I wanted to do that, but it's so sophisticated. I'm like man for my little like three, four tenants. I'm going to keep it, keep it simple, but that's scary and the am I saying this right?
Speaker 3:It's a nod guy in you saying I got to save that money.
Speaker 2:That's it, that is it. And I saw, when I did the quick math, I was like oh, there's six times. Well, is that me? That's, that's 7,200 a year. Yeah, we got to save that. That's a trip, it's a whole trip. Your world, he doesn't, he can hear you looking like limbo and?
Speaker 4:over here. I know I I was lagging so I switched my wi-fi because I was on like xfinity wi-fi, not my home, so I should be like live and in person now. I think before I was like a second slow, so yeah, anything new in?
Speaker 4:your world, man. Really, I think kind of to your point um of what you were saying. Right before I hopped on just trying to keep things like they are, um and like optimize. But I can really easily get caught up to the like man. Like what's the next thing? Like next, next next, like all right, like B&B's done, what's the what's the next B&B we're working on, all right. So I'm trying to slow down a bit from that mindset and just take a step back. Um, I'm like relaxed for a little bit too, because, like it's awesome man, I'm like I get some staff members too. Cause, like it's awesome man, I'm like I need some staff members. I need to do it right, no, so, yeah, I think.
Speaker 4:But after the last one I realized, like you know, it's American, so I don't want to just rush into the next thing. Yeah, so I need to. I'd file an extension for my taxes. I need to still do those and this year more than ever, am I finesse is not the right word strategizing around how I can reduce my tax bill, given that, especially given that booking doesn't remit the taxes on your behalf? Okay, so that's a piece that's really going to. I'm going to have to like take that and like suck it up, but it's going to hurt me. I think I have not at all been good about putting away the piece for the taxes that I should have been putting up, so that would be interesting. Excuse me, but I'm hoping that my expenses will be able to offset some of that, so that I'm not just giving all of my money away to tax man and when you think about it house segregation for real quick, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but even before that, just what you said you put a lot of expenses into getting a couple of these units up and running last year and so that's a major write-off. And then you bought the house. Like you cannot forget about that piece, like that's going to give you depreciation over time, right. And then to Justin's point now that we have the other house, quote, unquote. How do I want to do this? Like, but one of those houses could go into an LLC now you should definitely think about that piece. And if you move that to an LLC as a pure investment property now, now you can rent this thing out, now you can do the cost segregation and save a heck of a lot of money on the expenses for taxes.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely, and that's something I want and need to get buttoned up, I think this year. Figure out the LLC, play like all up, first for the properties, but also just in like the small money that I'm making. And I was even talking to AJ I hope he hops on here. I was talking to him earlier about churro and he'd set my mind spinning about that again Cause he's doing it, and he posted an Instagram earlier where his car is rented out for like past four months, just like nonstop. So he's killing it. Yeah, so it's something I want to figure out.
Speaker 4:The insurance piece right now is weird because, like I'm living in this first property, but like the second property I'm also like technically living in too, because, like it was an owner occupied, so the insurance there is also under the assumption that I'm living there. But it's kind of weird because, like this is my address, so I don't know, I need to like kind of figure that out. I'm kind of scared that it's like not right right now, and then if something does happen, they're like hey, like what's going on here?
Speaker 2:so let's switch, you can do, you can do it, you can switch it. You can switch that piece. And you just gotta designate one and let there's such things as life events not that you've closed on both properties, it could be hey, there was a life event and so I moved over here. You just gotta make one of them, your personal, and one of your other, and kind of just go from there. Just like Justin said, I'd switch it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no, that's a good point. I should switch it. And I guess it's just I'm scared to like tip the scales on the mortgage piece. I guess Cause like if I change the insurance policy to a landlord policy and then that alerts the mortgage company and they're going to be like, hey, like carpet, don't bat back. I don't know what I would say because that seems so silly. I moved across the street and then a month later I moved back, but I mean, I've heard of crazier things happening, so we'll see I should choose.
Speaker 2:Is this true, robbie? How you doing man?
Speaker 6:I'm be, but I was wondering, I wanted to ask you guys about how you work with your cleaners, because I've heard recently a couple of tips about you know, incentivizing the cleaners to. You know I don't want to go full in on the cleaning all the time, but I'm thinking, like you know, maybe if I set up a way for them to do like deep cleaning and I just do like make beds or, you know, take the trash out or whatever, like the easier stuff at a discount I don't know if cleaners would even agree to that, but just wondering if you guys have any tips for like outside of just the standard, standard model for cleaning and that type of thing. Justin, you got anything.
Speaker 3:You're asking If you find a good, solid cleaner.
Speaker 3:I think you just obviously you just don't pay them anything, but I think you pay them like whatever you know kind of what they ask, as long as it's reasonable, because you can build that relationship and as you continue to scale you can try to negotiate that price piece.
Speaker 3:But up front you want to make sure that your employees feel and I call them your employees, your contracts you want to make sure that they feel like they're valued right. You want to make sure that you kind of in a partnership and you're staying together in a sense, but like you want to try to encourage their business to grow, you want to try to make sure your business is growing too. That way, if you do, say, move out of state and like you got to rely on them to do a little more of the acclimate, it's like they feel more comfortable with doing that because you guys have established that relationship earlier for so definitely on the cost saving piece, but like as long as you know you can pass that call, that cost on to your customers and it doesn't hurt you too much. I I say you just try to keep that a good rate.
Speaker 6:Well, let me ask you this what would you consider a good cleaner? Because obviously everyone's human mistakes are going to be made. I feel like my cleaners. I saw how they share it but they get the job done. But there's definitely mistakes that they make here and there, like once in a while. But wait, I don't know. I'd be like nightly tracking it but it's hard to say like I can't. I'm not expecting perfection at anybody, obviously, but um yeah it's enough they.
Speaker 3:I found that my player like there's just a relationship piece, like when I got her there and we walked up. Do you have like a king of right now? I?
Speaker 6:don't know. I want her to hear that.
Speaker 3:No, like when I found, like when I found my clean, like we walked the property, I could tell by, like, how she was engaged and how she was putting things out. Right, so it was going to be really good. And just like the communication up front, right, if he's communicating a lot, to me that normally sounds like a good teammate or somebody who's going to be able to work well with you. Because it all falls back on communication, right, like you have an issue, you let them know what the issue was and she's able to communicate with, like oh, sorry about that, I'll be taking care of it the next time.
Speaker 3:You know follow-ups, like, do you have a checklist? Are you having them send pictures? Like, can you verify, like these issues that the guests may be saying that the cloners are abby? Because you don't want to become a back and forth thing? Right, if you have, you have documentation. Then you have some things to call to go back on. Like you said, you don't even know how many times they've messed up. You just know they've messed up into the house just here and there.
Speaker 6:Yeah, and you can kind of keep track of that and keep tabs. Yeah, that's good advice. Yeah, I mean, I'm happy with them overall. It's just that, like I don't live there, so I rely on them a lot, but once I move in, you know, I'm not going to need to rely on them as much, but I still want the relationship to be strong. They're not going to want to, you know, lose money obviously because they're getting like probably like $1,000 a month from the two units altogether. How many rooms and what is your rate? How many rooms on the desk? The house is split into two floors. The bottom floor is two bedrooms, one bathroom, and the rate that I pay them is $115. And on Airbnb I have it at, I think, $135. And then upstairs is three bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, and I charge $155 on Airbnb and I pay them $130 for this.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I mean. So they're getting like four a month on each floor, which adds up to like $1,000 a month.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean I think you got a pretty good spread on what you're charging the guests and what you're paying your cleaners. It's like what's covering the cost and you got a little bit left over for supplies. What's covering the cost? You got a little bit left over for supplies. For me. For Airbnb, I have my cleaning fee the lowest on all my other platforms. On all my other platforms I'm charging a different price for the cleaning fee, so I can increase that spread a little bit Because I prefer to book on Airbnb first. But if somebody's going to book me on bookingcom, it's premium for my cleaning fee and I have a 20% markup on those. All time I have a 20% markup. And then I think, on booking I charge $250 for my cleaning versus like one notch down there. Oh, wow.
Speaker 6:Do you get? Do you feel like that? I mean, how does that impact how much, how many bookings you get on bookingcom? Do you still get bookings there? Not as much?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm still getting bookings there, not not as much. Yeah, I'm still getting bookings there. I've had a couple bookings and it's normally longer bookings of, like construction crews and things, because I have a five bedroom home, so it's like bigger parties that are booking it for that. But I've seen, I've seen quite a few bookings on there. Even with my uh three one, I get some bookings on there as well. Like I said, like I'm kind of prioritizing airbnb up front. This is just easier platform. But if somebody wants to book me on there, they just have to pay a little bit of proof.
Speaker 4:Yeah, can you say that again, I'm going to record it as my second testimonial. Tap in. I'm just saying no, continue. I wanted to answer your question too.
Speaker 4:I feel like I have kind of a slightly different take in terms of you asked a few things, right. So especially right, I mean I probably would. So I'm negotiating within reason, right, because I realized you know they're valuable to me but I'm also valuable to them, right? So it's a working relationship, right? I want it to be mutually beneficial and us get to a point, to where it makes sense. So you don't want to go overboard, but I think it's. You have leverage too, right, and I think that's something to keep in mind In terms of giving them like extra or like additional payment. I'm never giving them additional money and I think to that point I'm trying to negotiate the rate down. But I will give them compliments and I try, I've tried to be better about that now, and I say that too because I'm going to be very quick to critique. So I think one thing that I've found success in and that's worked, at least for my BNBs, is like setting a high bar early, and I'll tell them that, especially now that I know, because the first time I was like, oh my God, you know what's going on. But I realize, like different hosts have different bars right for where they want their cleanliness to be and what they're OK with and what they'll let slide and what they won't. Right, and not everybody's perfect and I realize that. But we want to try to be as close to that as we can within reason. But we want to try to be as close to that as we can within reason, right, and I'm going to call them out If I notice things that I feel like a guest would notice.
Speaker 4:Now I'm not, you know, up under shit, you know like going crazy, but if there's anything it could be. I mean, the AC was left on, the light was left on. You know, is there hair in the shower? I mean, there's certain stuff it's like look, this is, this is egregious. Some stuff it's like look, this is the basic. Some stuff is like, okay, this is kind of a nitpick. Yeah, still correct this. But you know it's not as egregious as like I swept the floor and I see all this hair or stuff, like that, so to be as you have to be, as you know, strict on it as a guest might be, and they're not trying to see you know shit.
Speaker 6:They're not trying to see anything really Like. If they see the first thing, then they're going to be on the lookout for every little thing right off, exactly, and I realized that.
Speaker 4:So I'm on the lookout before the guest comes in and they hate me the first month they don't hate me, right. I tell them that like for real. I tell them look, I'm not trying to get you in trouble with Turnify because they're the middleman. I'm not trying to, you know, get anybody fired. I'm just trying to keep my business afloat, right, because this is my livelihood.
Speaker 3:But then that's a little different for me and Desmond Right, because this is my livelihood At the end of the day. That's a little different for me and Desmond right. He's working through a third party. I'm working one-to-one with my cleaner.
Speaker 6:Me too, me too.
Speaker 3:And something that helps me out too, that I think I forgot to mention, is, like I also have my cleaner clean my personal home. So like I have for my personal home is the same that I have for my.
Speaker 6:Airbnb. So once we've established that rapport and we're working well together, I think it's just kind of leads into all the other businesses. Yeah, I think one of the things that I brought this up because, you know, timing is everything but I had my one of my friends was in town and he has some you know Airbnbs and he's into real estate as well. I'm in san diego and I showed him the house and the cleaner had left like a grape soda on the mantle that was hers and he's like what is this you know what I mean? Like real judgmental. So I got pissed off and then I texted her. I was like you know, don't be leaving this or whatever, and she's like I'll be sorry, that was me and that was all she said and I'm just like I feel like it's tough.
Speaker 4:I would imagine it's tough when you're communicating directly with them, because I would feel intimidated, hitting them up Like the way I'd be hitting up Turnify. They would really hate me, right, like, but I know with Turnify that's the middleman. So I'm okay with kind of giving it to them and I'm like, look, you tell it to them however you see fit, but this is how I feel. Okay, so do your job right. So I feel like it's tough because I have a relationship with my cleaners too. Miracle, as Nii probably knows, cleans two of my units. I have a new team for across the street, but they're great, like, they're super friendly, very nice. We have a great relationship and I don't bring up none of the issues to them because I don't. I don't have to, because I'm telling turnify as soon as they leave look, this was missed, that was missed, they need clean this, yada, yada. But they understand like, look, I mean, that's just how it's got to be. Like, no one's perfect, but we're going to try our best to be right.
Speaker 2:That's the benefit of going with a third partner is because you can get a little bit of that separation. It's almost like having them manage all of it, except for your cleaners. I'd say I've been across the board right. When you look at all the properties that we manage and at any given time, we have two or three crews working at the same time. So we have the turn-of-five and a couple and we've got a couple that are independent. So to your point.
Speaker 2:The first question that you said, robbie, which was around like, hey, do you do incentives and things of that nature. We used to do that Back when we first started and we were growing and we had the first like 10 to one independent cleaner. It was just awesome. This cleaner was really good, and so what we did was we wanted to get them on our side. So we lowered the fees. Right, because we negotiate hard for that piece. You're given multiple units, you can negotiate, and so we lower the fees, but we align them to the Airbnb rankings. So we used to rank every property and hey, if you're at a 4.8 or higher on each property, that's an additional. I think it was like a $5 bonus per month or something like that. And we just look at the ranking, like, forget all the leather ratings, that's on me, but weather ratings that's on me, but the 4.8 for cleaning that's on you. And so they were aligned. They were like, hey, what do we get out of that? And it kind of got everybody on the same page there. So that was one thing.
Speaker 2:Um, from a bonus structure we moved away from that after we split it and kind of went with different cleaners because it was like, hey, one crew can't handle it, but if we were able to have one clean crew handle it, we would see that. And yeah, I talk about like how do you discipline things of that nature? I literally don't have the bandwidth to drive around all the properties and check it out. And Desmond, soon enough, you are growing fast man, you are not going to have the bandwidth to go and actually check it out. And so what we do is a three strike rule, right, and the strikes reset every three months, right. If there's three egregious strikes within three months, I'm moving those properties away. For at least one property away, right.
Speaker 2:And I think Justin knows about one of the cleaners that we had to move away from for a couple of properties because it was like, hey, they found a shoe under the bed. Whose shoe is this? Well, why did we not sweep under the bed? Ok, there was hair over here. Ok, this person questioned really, the place was clean. You know, I told you it was gonna happen. We gotta move it away, and then we move it away. So that's kind of how we work it. Now. Let's just face them, yes, feedback. And if we get bad feedback, yes, we take that seriously. Otherwise we take a step back and let the cleaners keep it there yeah, that makes sense shit aj.
Speaker 4:I'm trying to get better at that too. You guys, what's up aj?
Speaker 3:yeah, what's up, aj, what's y'all? Yeah, I see you're talking a lot about cleaners and everything. Yeah, I'm trying to check in and seeing your different perspectives and everything. I'll say my perspective on it is this I realize and understand how crucial a cleaner is to my business, right? Because all of this to be, you know, being that we're all short-term rental hosts, it's not 100% passive, I would say it's semi-passive, but it's still passive for farm income even though it is semi-passive. So, in order for me to even have some form of passivity, my cleaner is going to have to be a solid cleaner, right? And yes, I do agree that there needs to be standards set so that we understand. And, yes, I do agree that there needs to be standards set so that they understand.
Speaker 3:However, something that you know I like my clear and also the jump is that, yes, I have these fingers, but this is my business and I also want you to feel a part of this business, even though I'm taking on most of the risks and things like that.
Speaker 3:But in order for her to be comfortable doing her job and do the best of her ability, she needs to feel like she's a family within my business, right? So that's kind of how the approach that I took it towards my clear and perhaps she is an employee, but you know, I also like to make her feel comfortable and like to have personal conversations, because things happen right. You know, I think recently she just had a family member that passed away Like she's not a robot, you know what I'm saying. So you have to take those kinds of things into consideration. Realize that we're all hanging first before an employee or things like that. Just wanted to add that in. That's kind of not too sense on it. We want to make our employees, or really just the people around us in our business, comfortable so they can do the best of their abilities.
Speaker 4:And I have that direct relationship as well with the cleaner.
Speaker 3:Yes, Do I have a direct relationship?
Speaker 4:Yeah, as in, do you have a third party?
Speaker 3:No, this is someone I found off. I think Turtle, okay, and is it just one person? You?
Speaker 4:have, it is one person. Oh, and do you have a backup too, or just them?
Speaker 3:I don't have a backup. I think I did talk about that in one of our previous podcasts. She hasn't made me feel like that I needed a backup. I still do as a plate.
Speaker 3:No, that doesn't mean that I don't need a backup. I know I do, like I said, but I'm saying that she doesn't make me feel like I need a backup because, again, I think I probably chat the most for things, um, for a player from my perspective, is, you know, consistency, except something else. This is consistency and actual libel in the trial time, and so far she's shown me those things. So I hope. But I think you made a valid point, though, aj. Like a lot of us get out into this space to kind of get away from the nine to five because of, for some people, how they're treated in the nine to five, right, so think about how you were treated in your work, your day-to-day professional or anything you've done in life, and like you got to always keep that in the back of your mind once you become a business owner, even when you're working with guests, right, you're going to have some guests that are going to give you a hard time about everything but how you get on and can sometimes temper their response as well.
Speaker 2:And literally I love that, justin, and I love just this conversation and connecting with you guys, because the people in this circle get it and those that join the call get it. This is a long-term game. You've got to build relationships, otherwise it won't last long. In this game and there's other people that I talk to, or you know, there's two different types of people. There's people that are like hey, I understand, I'm going to be in this long-term and we build relationships and kind of make this work. And there's other people that are like, hey, give me, give me, give me, what can I get now? And it's like, listen, you can't keep burning bridges with all these different contractors and folks, because at a certain point I'm going to stop sending people to you, right? Because it's like, hey, I know it's going to get burned. I'm like I'm good, right, and then something bad happens and you can't, you know.
Speaker 2:So, long story short, I think that's like a 1%, that kind of, doesn't get it. And it's like, hey, you've got to, like you know, foster these relationships, whether or not you're going to work with that person or not. Keep the relationship, because you never know what could happen. And to your point, aj, what could happen. And to your point, aj, yeah, you have an awesome cleaner, but definitely we'll get a backup. Only because I had an amazing cleaner. He was doing my personal house too, justin. He was doing a lot of stuff, but then we started growing a little bit too fast and he was working seven days a week and he was like I got her, I got her, I got her I got you, so better, sooner than later, to have a backup, just in case there's probably I mean, she takes care of that probably the house hack I'm in.
Speaker 3:I talked to you about it briefly, but I mean it's such a small space, I don't mind, I like laying. You know, I've thrown some music in. That's something. I'm okay. I love cleaning my personal spaces and things like that. So you know, when a guest checks out of their b&b that I have the lower half of my home, my house hack. Um, I can knock it out in literally like 30, 45 days. So really that's nothing to me, and then on top of that, I can keep my cleaning team right, so then I can, in turn, use that for other things, for savings, I think. So that's just the process of doing house hack right now.
Speaker 2:There she goes, alex. What is up? Hello, this is the first time on the Financial Freedom Mastermind podcast and, justin, you know how we do. We're going to ask you a couple of questions, if you don't mind. Anytime somebody joins for the first time, we like to ask some of your goals and things of that nature. We've had the benefit of connecting with your husband, justin, but, alex, what are some of the goals that you guys have from an investing standpoint for the future?
Speaker 5:Yeah, I think right now we're just really trying to learn the business as well, as you know, trying to create some financial freedom and that like changes as we move down the road. So right now we're house hacking and our goal is to spend as less money as possible on our mortgage each month and eventually would like to occur more properties and set up something for our future.
Speaker 2:Love it, love it and I just thought about it. How many people on this call just raise your hand are house hacking right now? We all are. There. Should be house hacking.
Speaker 3:I don't know Robbie's paying. How do you see my house hacking?
Speaker 6:Well, I bought the house for a house hack, but I just have really liked living in my apartment where I've been, so I've just, instead of doing the house hack, I've just been. Both units have just been Airbnb. My lease ends in. It ends in September, so I'll be moving in at that point. It's already it's decided at this point. So I'm just trying to figure out the best way to to make it work with that transition. But either way, the portraits has been good for me it's. It's been making money, but it can definitely go a lot further, for sure. It's just that the personal sacrifices I need to make to actually move in there has been. You know, the challenge so far has been you know the challenge so far.
Speaker 3:So sometimes, robbie, like if you can cover the spread. Sometimes it is more beneficial to you know, rent your properties and stay somewhere else If you can find a good deal on whatever space you're in. Yeah.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I'm right on the belt line right now already, with utilities on my. On my rent I'm paying like just under 2000 a month and you know I walk my dog on the belt. So it's just, it's just nice. You know what I mean. And I'm new to Georgia, so that was the first place I moved in. So there's a lot of stuff going on over there that I enjoy. But you know, at the end of the day I did buy the house for a sack and the money would be. From a financial standpoint it would make more sense to be in the house I bought. But it's definitely just taking me a little bit longer to to make that move, since you know I'm still profiting at the end of the day. But it'll go a lot further once I once I do move in there, for sure so we're actually very close.
Speaker 3:I have a question. I have a question. So you said, uh, so you had the house hack, but you're also saying that period, how long after you purchased that um, I don't know if it's a duplex or something but in-laws fee this house hack. How long after you purchased that did you move out? I'm just curious, because typically with the bank of harness, they ask you to stay in a property for a year. I know there's loopholes and things about it that I understand, but ifled and what you actually did, your ID by there.
Speaker 6:Well, I mean, I have my. Everything is set up as if it's my primary residence. So my ID has that address, my car, you know my title and everything is set up to that house. And you know there's no law against having an apartment that you rent as well. You know, as far as the law is concerned, anything that comes up you can pay all the bills there. So you know it's basically it's my house, but you know I'm just spending my time in the condo. That's pretty much how I explain it. But when I moved here I bought the house like a few months after I moved and then I just like renewed the lease on the apartment I was in. So it'll be ending in September.
Speaker 2:Robbie, that was kind of like a zillion sound response. Do what Sorry?
Speaker 6:Yeah, hold it.
Speaker 3:No, I'm not, I'm not trying to interrogate you. No, no, I know he practiced that one.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I'm pretty sure he gave me a few of those, a few of those lines, so I'll credit him.
Speaker 2:But no see, that point I mean literally what he said is true and that's why you can go get a house, hack things of that nature, and you are allowed to Airbnb your unit I think it's 180 plus days and things can change after you buy a house. Kind of, coming back to Desmond with the whole like two house situation, things can change, right. I bought a fourplex, right, moved into a unit and then, lo and behold, got married a month later and was like, hey man, we want to live in a single family. So I moved out. So things can change right, there's ways around that piece. But the main piece is one do not own to rent that unit, please don't do that, because you will get in trouble. And then, two, just wait a year, right, wait a year to be safe and kind of go from there.
Speaker 2:And, robbie, you are past the year mark. Yeah, so he's good either way now, but yeah, but, aj, on a complete side note Desmond was talking about it a little bit earlier. I know you're heavy in the Turo. Have you picked up more cars?
Speaker 3:Is this something that you're going to continue to grow? Yeah, so, desmond and I, we had a pretty solid conversation earlier. I think I posted something on social media, so he hit me up, pretty much filled out all the questions he had to ask me. At this point in time it's going really well, mainly because so, to start this year, I have a guest. Literally like the beginning of January she rented the car and originally it was like a two or three day reservation. Fast forward to today, end of April, she is still renting the car out. So I'm fully booked. My utilization rate is 100% from January all the way to the end of April. So that's been allowing me to obviously collect that money.
Speaker 3:I have a, you know, llc business account. I don't even I barely even look at that money. I just have it, you know, pulling in, pulling in. Originally my plan starting out for Toro was to invest in a car on cash and then get 100% ROI on that additional investment and then pretty much rent and repeat. So I'm getting really close to that point.
Speaker 3:It's been a little over a year and now I have a couple of different options. So again, I could, option A just rent and repeat, buy another vehicle and then now I have two vehicles that are both out basically generating the income or I'm maybe thinking of, maybe, just I should be, I guess, um, maybe, but that will be again if I find, uh, um, something better to put my money in, so obviously, like real estate, for example, I can take that money from the total business and then deploy it into another property or something like that. So that's where I'm at right now, but overall I'm really happy with how things have been turning out, especially since the beginning of this year. I mean, I haven't seen that car in a really long time. Almost forgot that I even did to just allow a nice to spend.
Speaker 4:So that's forgot that I even did taro Just allow a nice expense. That's good. That's a great problem to have. And I have a follow-up question too, based off what we had talked about earlier surrounding the insurance piece. Right, and just to give some context. So you have this car under your personal insurance and then if there's any damage, you'll typically file that claim with Turo's insurance protection policy, because it's pretty good. So what happens if the car gets totaled? So the car gets totaled again.
Speaker 3:So I want to be clear the Turo is not an insurance, right, they're not considered insurance. Well, those are correct people with that. It really is a protection plan and you have to follow their protocols in order to get reimbursed for a claim. The protocols, pretty much, is. You know, there's a long list, not really, it's not, it's not excessively long. But the main important thing is making sure you take your pre-trip photos and your post-trip photos right. So if I give you the keys to the car and the car is in perfect condition, it doesn't have a dent, right, and then you bring it back to me after a couple of days and it has a dent in it, so long as my pre-trip photo shows that it does not have a dent in the driver's side. And then when I bring it back, I take a photo and it has a dent. They're going to reimburse you every single time. And then, on top of that, if you build, what is it?
Speaker 3:I always get confused between Airbnb and Toro, because they're similar. Airbnb is is it super host? I think it's Airbnb super host, and then Toro is all-star host. So if you become an all-star host on Toro, right, they'll be way kinder to you right. They handle claims much faster. So that's where the point why?
Speaker 4:So, to angle back to your original question, if it does get totaled, Because like dent I get dent or scratch I get, but like total or like big, big accident, what were you going to say? Like are you shit out of luck there?
Speaker 3:They'll reimburse you up to the actual cash value of it. They will.
Speaker 4:So they have okay, and.
Speaker 3:I'm the host personally that that have done that. It has been totaled and they'll get actual cash value, so it's effectively insurance.
Speaker 4:I mean they don't call it insurance, but it's effectively insurance. You file a claim and then they pay you out up to the cash value.
Speaker 3:Yeah right, they don't want to operate, they don't want to call it that. They don't want to call that because here's the thing, like with you know, literally neutral or progressive or whatever backhoe things like that you don't have to spit pre-trip photos to get a claim reimbursed back to you, right? So that's why it's a protection plan, and, but it's their plan and you have to abide by their rules in order to get uh reimbursed, right? So I don't take that pre-trip photo and it comes back um, uh, total your slf, right? You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4:So yeah, and I think them paying out the cash value, like you knowing that that's huge. That's huge because like that you you can have it under your personal insurance and kind of be able to sleep at night, because otherwise I think I'd have one eye open looking at that tractor on the car, yeah, and and honestly I still like the Turo thing is one I just still can't get over.
Speaker 2:I hear you, I know there's money you made here, but it's like, hey, there's a car moving X amount of miles per hour out there. It's got my name on it. You know what? I'm not driving. I get nervous about it. I get a little bit nervous about it.
Speaker 3:I get it, but hey, I think, but hey, I think that's what I said earlier to uh, to something I was like uh, you can't strike gold if you ain't there that was a good.
Speaker 4:I'm gonna write that down. I was like it's pretty good.
Speaker 3:No, it just came top of my mind. I think it was weak, I think it was. It was really because of the cycle that followed him. So he said, uh, you know, he's been booked out for four months. And I was honest. I said, you know, this is definitely the exception, not the rule, right? So if you don't significantly get a guest one guest, that's going to run out for four months, right. But in response to that I said, hey, you can't strike gold. If you make a deal, you know what I'm saying that's one way. But if you can't get the returns on your investments or get that solid four month booking or whatever you're doing Airbnb, things like that If you're not just dipping your toe in the water you know what I'm saying I think that's a struggle.
Speaker 4:Related follow up. Ok, so if the car got Because in that case your insurance does have some coverage to pay for the people in your car, right, they get hurt, yeah, especially if they're struck. Does Turo have any protection for that Bodily?
Speaker 3:harm, don't call me on it, but they do have protections. Up to that. I don't know the exact number on the top of my head.
Speaker 4:But they do pay out for bodily harm.
Speaker 3:I would check the tutorial document. I haven't seen it. I haven't seen it, I'm not going to say anything.
Speaker 2:We need a response from you, Robin. Go ahead and get this posted.
Speaker 6:I'll just say that I do like terror a lot and one way you can make extra money on that is if people they undervalue or they underestimate how many miles they're going to drive Because there's like an additional fee for miles over. And I had one person when he was doing it in DC. They said they were going to New York and back but they said it was like 300 miles total and it was only it's like 400 miles one way. And you know I I just told him I was like you don't want to do that, you know what I'm saying Cause that's going to cost you like probably thousands for as many miles as you're doing.
Speaker 6:I just felt bad, I couldn't do that to the man. I just stayed bad for him because I it was, it wasn't supposed to be like a money making, it was supposed to just basically cover my um, my payment, and that was it. And this man he was about to just he just didn't understand, saying I told him that but I had other people that would pay. You know they'd estimate like 150 miles or whatever. And to aj's point, you take all the pre-photos and you take the mileage so you can track it back to that and if they go over, then you know that's just. I forget how much they charge, but it's a lot that you can make A dollar a mile or something.
Speaker 3:Yes, look, man, I'm passing. I'm just doing this, my first little part. I have the business set up on an LLC. It's in the rules, it's in the business stage. So if you don't read those rules and buy by those, I mean I'm not going to say I'm going to give you any more hits. I told you you know what I'm saying. So definitely, it kind of is what it is. I hate that. I don't want it to sound harsh right now.
Speaker 2:No, it's business, it's business, it's it fellas and on fellas and lady on that note and and we're gonna end with a quote right and can't, you can't find gold if you're not digging and if you see that on an instagram caption. I did steal that from aj. Well, guys, I appreciate you joining this week. Next week we're actually gonna have, uh, one of my team members and I were joining. We said I talk about, uh, the market updates. We're gonna send out a newsletter and next week, friday, I look forward to seeing a lot of you over at the mansion. It's going to be awesome. Ricardo's going to be in town and it's going to be a pretty cool event. So looking forward to seeing you. Bring somebody with you and I will catch you later.
Speaker 3:I mean any kid gets on the ladies' session, bring it on and we're all in the zone. I know it's a.
