Download the full transcript PDF.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:00:05] You are listening to the Thanks for Visiting Podcast. We believe hosting with heart is at the core of every short-term rental. With Annette’s background in business operation–
Annette Grant: [00:00:14] And Sarah’s extensive hospitality management and interior design experience, we have welcomed thousands of guests from over 30 countries, earning us over $1,000,000 and garnering us thousands of five-star reviews.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:00:29] We love creative ways for your listening to stand out, serve your guests and be profitable. Each episode, we will have knowledgeable guests who bring value to the short-term rental industry.
Annette Grant: [00:00:39] Or we will share our stories of our own experiences so you can implement actual improvements to your rentals. Whether you’re experienced, new, or nervous to start your own short-term rental, we promise you’ll feel right at home. Before we dive into the content, let’s hear a word from our sponsor.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:01:01] Hello, listeners and viewers, welcome back from the great week. My name is Sarah Karakaian.
Annette Grant: [00:01:05] I am Annette Grant, and together we are–
Both Sarah and Annette: [00:01:07] Thanks for Visiting.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:01:09] We’re going to kick off this episode like we do every week and it’s sharing one of you our amazing listeners, viewers, followers who are using our hashtag. It’s #STRShareSunday. And we are prowling that hashtag. So if you want to get shared on the podcast, to our entire email list, on our Instagram, use the hashtag and we will share your space for the world to see. Netty, who are we sharing this week?
Annette Grant: [00:01:33] Today we are sharing @StayVillaMila or I’m just going to have to say I’ve been saying @StayMilliVanilli, but that’s not true. Sorry, Stay Villa Mila. Really, no it’s true. I want to stay at your short-term rental. Here’s what I want to say about them. And again, it’s @StayVillaMila. So it’s V-I-L-L-A-M-I-L-A.
And one key takeaway I want people to pay attention to on their Instagram feed is they have this amazing like nook that they have turned into a gaming and puzzle and book area. I know that some hosts are like, pieces go missing from the puzzles and games. Game pieces go missing. I think it’s at least worth a try.
I love the way that they have built this into the home. And I just love it. The puzzles, they’ve actually taken them out of the boxes and put them in clear see-through containers and put a picture of the puzzle, what it looks like on the outside. So I’m sure that does help keep them around.
But I love being able to offer this to your guests because they are away from home maybe doing something out of the norm, which would help them maybe do a puzzle– I know my mom loves puzzles– do the board games, read a book, but I think that it’s a really well done the way that they’ve created this space inside their home. So take a look at their Instagram. It’s just a few scrolls back. And the other thing I love is they have an amazing use of color in this home.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:03:02] That’s what I was going to say. And I love how what she’s done is just paid attention to detail with– you can tell that her colors are bright, they’re vibrant, and then every so often in her photo, she makes sure her brand colors are showing up. So that’s a really nice way to make your feed cohesive and really just show off what you are and it’s bright and bold and fun.
Annette Grant: [00:03:19] All right, let’s do it. Let’s get on to the show.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:03:24] All right. So today we have on the show for you a really fun, inspirational story. This is a gentleman that we met at the STR Summit that we went to. That is the real estate Robinsons. They are doing short-term rental conferences now quarterly.
But we met this gentleman there when Annette and I spoke about co-hosting, and then he drove everyone from 2 AM to Vegas, stayed all day till TFV Live and then drove home. So we’re going to talk about a lot of things in this episode. But one thing I want to talk about is this gentleman’s dedication to his industry and to up-leveling not only his education but his network.
So today we have Alex Sabio, who is a married father of four from Southern California. He has been in the healthcare industry for over 20 years and focuses on helping other healthcare workers become financially free through investing in short-term rentals. Alex, welcome to the show.
Alex Sabio: [00:04:26] Sarah and Annette, thank you for having me on. I drive 500 miles to go see you guys.
Annette Grant: [00:04:31] But would you walk 500 miles? That’s the question.
Alex Sabio: [00:04:34] Probably not. I’m just letting you know.
Annette Grant: [00:04:36] That’s fair. Listeners, we say this all the time. If you come to an event with Sarah and I is that we always thought it would be the guest that we would be friends with, and it’s the host that we have the best relationships with. So if you have not created a relationship with another host in your area or just on the interwebs, please do that ASAP. It is the gift that keeps on giving is being able to be friends with hosts.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:04:58] So, Alex, walk us through your story of getting involved in short-term rentals. You’ve been in the healthcare industry for 20 years. So maybe tap into a little bit about what you do in healthcare and then how you parlayed that into real estate.
Alex Sabio: [00:05:11] Yeah, I wish I had a better story to tell you guys, but I think I’ve made every mistake in the book. So I started investing in long-term rentals early to mid-2000s. I thought it was great. I bought all these– I would say they’re revenue-neutral properties. They were long-term rentals, hardly profiting anything. If anything, I was losing money. Didn’t really know what I was doing and I was hit.
Annette Grant: [00:05:35] Alex, were they in Southern California, your properties, the long term?
Alex Sabio: [00:05:38] Probably one of the worst mistake I made.
Annette Grant: [00:05:40] Okay, got you. Keep going.
Alex Sabio: [00:05:42] So I bought a property in Southern California. I’m in healthcare. I’m a respiratory therapist. I’ve been doing that 20 years, and I bought a property next to a hospital I was working at. And I thought, hey, I’ll be a landlord, I’ll rent it out. It was brand new construction and it seems like the second I signed on the dotted line, the market completely crashed in 2008.
And at the time I was renting it out for 2,000 bucks a month and I think my mortgage payment was 3,200 bucks. Ouch, right? Awful investor. And that’s if they paid on time. That’s if they even paid. That didn’t even include vacancy, HOA repairs, or anything. So I actually hit hard times. I almost lost everything. I had a foreclosure. Wound up filing for bankruptcy in 2013.
But I knew there was something to real estate. And actually, you know what? Hospitality was staring me right out the face the whole time. I just wasn’t paying attention. My great aunt actually owned a motel on the Las Vegas strip, and we would visit there as a kid. Crazy, right?
It’s no longer there. It was bought out. It’s near where the “Welcome to the fabulous Las Vegas” sign is. You’re right. And we would visit her during the summertime. She would give us five bucks as like– and I was like a eight-year-old kid. And she’d say, “Here’s five bucks. Go walk to Circus Circus and play some video games.” It’s crazy to think that that would happen now.
But it was staring me at the face and I would stay up all these short-term rentals. I thought they were really cool in national parks and never really thought about investing in there. And it wasn’t until like 2015 or so I really started wanting to get back into real estate. I started working like crazy overtime and I was getting taxed like crazy at the hospital.
And I hired a CPA. Her name is Amanda Horn. She writes books for BiggerPockets. And she said, “You should think about investing in short-term rentals. You’ll get a nice tax break and they make a little bit of money.” Still not listening. Because at the time, what do I do? I go and invest in multifamily syndications.
And through there, I knew two things, either I needed to ramp up how many rentals I had to get to financial freedom or I needed to ramp up my income. And so after talking to a bunch of investors, they said, “You should look into short-term rentals.” One investor told me, she said, “I’m making $24,000 a month off three Airbnbs.” And I said, “What the hell is that? And what is your profit look like?” And she said, “You’re not listening to me. That’s my monthly profit.” And then at that point, I was finally listening. I said, “Tell me more.” And so that was summer of 2020 when I got into short-term rentals.
Annette Grant: [00:08:37] I want to rewind to the bankruptcy. Did that have any deterrent when you were getting back into real estate at all? Does that pop up when you’re trying to buy? Can you talk to us about that a little bit?
Alex Sabio: [00:08:52] I think you do have some limiting mindsets where you think you can’t purchase anything for X amount of years because I think I filed for bankruptcy in 2013. And so in my mindset, I’m not going to buy anything for nine years, which is today like it would be right now. I would just be getting back into the market.
But I started talking to more and more people and they said, “Yeah, it’s only been like two years since I filed. Why don’t you go ahead and go try?” I’m like, “No, I’m not going to do that.” So actually my first short-term rental I was buying with a 10% down payment loan.
And 14 days before closing that property, my lender came back and said, “We can’t do this deal.” And then I had to scramble and find a different lender. And we wound up closing on that home within 13 days. And that was from that bankruptcy.
I don’t think my interest rates or anything changed because of it, because it’s been a few years already and I wound up having to put a little bit more money down. But you have all these little adverse roadblocks in your way and you just have to fight through them and figure a way out.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:09:58] Actually, we mentioned this last week on our TFV Live recap, Alex. But like you, you hear things, especially listening to podcasts, having friends in the industry, but sometimes it’s just like you’re just like looking and you’re nodding your head, but you’re not really ingesting what they’re saying.
And for me at TFV Live, it was hearing people say, don’t stop at bank one, two, or three. And it’s like, that’s what you did. It’s like we think, oh, there are these rules in place for lending. And if I don’t fit in the box at ABC Bank, then XYZ Bank isn’t going to– and it’s just not true. They are all so different.
So keep trying and keep going after that. And so listeners, Alex and I bring– because I’m doing that right now and it’s like I’m not stopping until I find a bank that can at this particular situation I’m in help me solve it.
Okay, so you get through the bankruptcy situation, but talk to me about how did you– just for everyone listening to Alex, who might have also gone through some hard times in 2008 and even now with the market, people say it’s softening and the rates are rising. Do you have PTSD at all from then or how are you facing this? What did you learn from getting back up, dusting yourself off, and getting back in any way?
Alex Sabio: [00:11:21] Yeah, I guess my mindset was, well, that was the worst of it and that wasn’t so bad. Life is just too short. Why not just give it a try again? And I just kept going at it. I didn’t even tell you guys, my first ever real estate deal, I got scammed out of $16,000. I put a 5% down, payment down, and the guy didn’t even own any of the land. I wound up losing the entire thing. So I have made all of these mistakes along the way, but I kept going.
Annette Grant: [00:11:54] Oh, my gosh. Because I’d be crawled in bed like, oh, my gosh, I can’t do it. Well, let’s help people with that. I do believe that when we learn lessons, it’s to help everybody else, including ourselves. Let’s talk about the money being stolen from you because there are people that listen to our show that don’t have the time, they’re going to invest with somebody else. What were some of the red flags there that you know now that you won’t do again with that–
Alex Sabio: [00:12:23] It’s crazy because everything on that deal really checked the boxes off. I’ve bought a lot of homes and a lot of homes that I’ve never visited before, just analyzed on paper. This home was in Englewood, Colorado, and I wanted to buy brand-new construction there because I really like the area.
And it was $320,000. It was a duplex, went and visited the realtor, went and visited the plot of land, signed papers, and then like a month later, they were like, “Oh, this guy doesn’t own anything.” It was like a Ponzi scheme. And it was like I even viewed it with my own eyes.
But I guess my mistake back then, this is early 2000s, it really was just not networking enough with a bunch of other people. I met a nurse I was working with and she told me about the deal and I said I went, I want in on that. And I think networking is going to be your biggest ROI. It doesn’t cost anything. A lot of times going to a network meetup, it just cost you your time. I know you guys met at– what was it? An event or something like that?
Sarah Karakaian: [00:13:24] Yeah, City council meeting.
Annette Grant: [00:13:25] Yeah, it wasn’t ideal networking, but that is where we met. You got to get out and meet people for sure.
Alex Sabio: [00:13:31] Right. So just getting out there and I wish I would have talked to many other investors because I’m sure there was other deals that could have invested in. So yeah, that was my biggest lesson learned.
Annette Grant: [00:13:43] So that money was just gone. You wired them the money and just gone.
Alex Sabio: [00:13:46] Then done.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:13:47] Did they ever find the person?
Alex Sabio: [00:13:49] Yeah, he went to jail and everything.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:13:50] Oh, okay. Well, there’s that.
Alex Sabio: [00:13:52] Yeah. And my wife really should have pumped the brakes right then and there, and, like, we are not doing this, but something inside me just kept saying, just keep going. Like I said, my great aunt owned the motel in Las Vegas. My grandparents owned boarding care facilities throughout Southern California, and my grandparents had 12 kids, a lot of grandkids. And it’s really weird because I’m like the only one that thought real estate was a good deal.
I’m Filipino. A lot of Filipinos get pushed into the medical field, which is me and a lot of my cousins got pushed into the medical field because it’s stable, it has benefits. But for some reason, they didn’t really teach us to be entrepreneurs. But something inside me said, this is where I need to be.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:14:37] So can we go back to that real quick, also with your partner, with your wife. How did those conversations go as you hit those bumps in the road? Because we sometimes get emails or DMs of how do I convince my spouse, my life partner to go in on these short-term rentals with me to take a chance? If you don’t mind, what were those conversations like between the two of you? Was she always just on board? She’s like, yep, let’s get up and do it again. Did you have to convince? What was that like?
Alex Sabio: [00:15:07] I don’t know what she saw in me, to tell you the truth. Look, so I’m wearing a Cleveland Browns t-shirt. I’m a Cleveland Browns fan. It is the worst team out there, but I’m loyal to them, to a tee, and I still follow them. I don’t know what she saw in me. She just trusted that I knew what I was doing.
And that’s the thing. I would never get in a deal if my partner wasn’t fully on board. But she just gave me the keys. And I think with that she said, “You’re going to make mistakes along the way. But I know that if we keep at it, we’re going to make really good decisions too.”
Sarah Karakaian: [00:15:42] Really good point.
Annette Grant: [00:15:42] And I actually appreciate you being on the show because I feel like a lot of times in the short-term rental world, it’s always like a win, win, win, win, win. Everyone talks about the wins all the time and like 3x, 4x 10x, all this money. But I love that your story started with– I’m just going to say– with some pretty big losses in the beginning.
Alex Sabio: [00:16:00] Huge losses.
Annette Grant: [00:16:01] So when you finally decided to purchase your first short-term rental, can you talk to us about where it was, what the deal looked like, what your numbers are, and then where you are today? Can you talk us through that?
Alex Sabio: [00:16:13] Yeah, a little bit before that, this was like March of 2020, I was looking to get into multifamily syndications and I really wanted an apartment complex. I still want one. And a partner of mine, Tony, we’re looking at multifamily syndications. There was a 60-unit apartment complex in Kentucky and the population was like 5,000.
I really didn’t like the deal and it needed a huge fixer-upper. And I said, okay, I got to get comfortable with this. But I started talking to a bunch of investors and everyone pointed me into short-term rentals. And they said, “You should invest in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee.” I had no idea where that was being from Southern California.
I looked into it and I said, “Oh my gosh, these numbers look way better than the numbers this apartment was going to generate.” And it was brand new construction. So the first one I bought was $625,000. It was a four-bedroom, three-bath there in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. That property went on to generate $130,000 to $135,000 the first two years each year.
Not only that, that property went up. I just got it reappraised for $970,000 and I cashed out all my money that I have in the deal. So on top of cash flowing on average $5,000 a month, on top of not paying anything in taxes anymore because you get a huge tax break, I know you talked about it in your event with cost segregation, I have like $165,000 sitting in my bank now. And that was more than what my initial investment was. And now I’m looking to buy more deals with it.
Annette Grant: [00:17:55] And did you have partners on that Smoky Mountain property, Alex?
Alex Sabio: [00:17:58] No.
Annette Grant: [00:18:00] No. Solo? Hey. All right. I like that. And you’re still operating that property as of today?
Alex Sabio: [00:18:07] I am. I love that property. Love that property. Yeah. We’ve scaled in the Smoky Mountains. So we have two that are alive. We have a third one that I’ll get into in a little bit where things don’t work out your way all the time. So I’ll have three in the Smoky Mountains by next month, and then I have three in Gulf Shores of Alabama.
Annette Grant: [00:18:26] Okay. Oh, yeah. We talked about Golf Shores. I know all of our listeners want to know, how are you managing this, though. Talk to us about your team. You are far away.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:18:36] And you’re still full-time in healthcare, Alex, is that correct?
Alex Sabio: [00:18:40] I am full-time. My wife was actually able to retire within three months of purchasing that first short-term rental, so she help manage a lot of it. Once you starts scaling, you start feeling the pain points. I think you famously said it, short-term rentals is part time, but it is all the time. It is, and I feel that too.
So anyway, she started managing a lot of it and then we just started hiring virtual assistants and creating systems for them. But yeah, that’s pretty much it. It’s a really small team and we have a lot of the same automation tools that you teach. We use dynamic pricing. We love dynamic pricing. The biggest difference is now I’m putting myself in the CEO mindset where I’m managing from a distance and delegating and I feel like that’s helping me grow my business even more.
Annette Grant: [00:19:31] Let’s talk about Gulf Shores. What the heck? Why not keep putting all of your money on this sure bet in the Smoky Mountains? Why’d you mix it up?
Alex Sabio: [00:19:40] Yeah, I guess coming from where I come from, I’ve always had confidence issues growing up. And I’ve always seen beach homes and it’s something I’ve always wanted and had no idea how to get. I always thought people that own beach homes have to be millionaires and billionaires, but there are so many of them like, what the heck are people doing?
And so in the back of my mind, I always wanted a beach property. And I’d been networking with so many different individuals. Every day I’d talk to three or four or five different real estate investors, short-term rental operators, and I wound up coming across a lot of them that owned in Gulf Shores.
And I said, “Hmm, that could be my way of getting a beach rental.” And so you could imagine, I’m here in Southern California. I told my friends, “Hey, I’m buying a beach rental.” They’re like, “Cool, Santa monica, Huntington Beach, Newport.” I said, “No, it’s an Alabama.” They’re like, “Alabama? What the heck? I didn’t even know Alabama had a beach.” But yeah, Gulf Shores, Alabama, it’s amazing beach, white sand, beautiful properties there. So we have three properties there now.
Annette Grant: [00:20:48] All right. Talk to us about those. Are they all on the beach?
Alex Sabio: [00:20:52] Yeah, they’re really close. One of them is a condo that has beach views. One of them is a four-bedroom, two-and-one-half bath that we wound up having to put way too much money into. We wound up pretty much fixing up. We spent about $50,000 fixing it up, and that’s my favorite house and that’s like a three-minute walk to the beach. And then we have like a brand new construction three bedroom that’s also like a five-minute walk to the beach.
Annette Grant: [00:21:18] And are these all with partners or are these still just solo, you and your wife?
Alex Sabio: [00:21:22] Solo.
Annette Grant: [00:21:23] Really? Love that. No, that’s awesome. We heard you say in there there might be some roadblocks. What what’s going on with some of these properties right now that things don’t go the way you always planned?
Alex Sabio: [00:21:35] Yeah, as a business person, things don’t go as they’re planned all the time. I purchased a four-bedroom with an indoor pool in the Smoky Mountains. My realtor just came back to me. She walked the property. I got it under contract in December of 2020. Really cool price. It’s gone up so much in value since then and it’s taken them almost two years to build. But my realtor walked the property and she goes, “They built you the wrong house.”
Annette Grant: [00:22:01] Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:22:03] What does that mean?
Annette Grant: [00:22:04] Yeah, the wrong spec?
Alex Sabio: [00:22:06] They built the wrong spec. They built the wrong one. They built me a three-bedroom home.
Annette Grant: [00:22:11] Oh, my gosh. That’s a big difference.
Alex Sabio: [00:22:14] It’s a huge mess up. And you’re always going to have all of these adversaries. You just got to work through it. We’ll figure it out. There could always be something worse. It’s still going to cash flow really nice. I was heartbroken for a day or two, but I always tend to look at the bright side. I got a cool three-bedroom with a pool and it’s going to cash flow strong. Not going to be what I wanted. They took $100,000 off the purchase price, so I guess.
Annette Grant: [00:22:42] That was going to be my question. How do they make restitution on building you the wrong home? Oh, my goodness.
Alex Sabio: [00:22:50] So they built the wrong house.
Annette Grant: [00:22:52] I mean, it’s not funny. I’m glad you can smile and laugh because that’s devastating.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:22:57] I feel like I can ask you this question, Alex, the way I’m going to ask it. So 2020, you get involved in short-term rentals and little do you know, unlike your luck back in 2007, 2008, you’re actually on the heels of the best time to get involved in vacation rentals.
But now in 2022 we’re experiencing– I hate even saying like a softening, I just think it’s more of a normalizing. So we had awesome occupancies, crazy high ADRs, and we were all living the dream for a year and a half. And now it’s back to kind of like, okay, we got to settle back into having to figure out how to market our properties and make them the best and maybe have a little bit of a like a, oh, what are they doing in there? I have to one up them a little bit, so there’s a little bit of competition there.
Talk to me about your numbers when you were going into things in 2020. Are you going to be okay or how are you feeling confidence-wise in your purchases? Did you buy so high that these numbers aren’t going to work? Talk to our listeners about now that we’re getting into like a more normal market.
Alex Sabio: [00:24:02] Yeah, I’m still buying and I know I’m going to make mistakes along the way, but I keep going. These properties are still cash flowing very, very well, even at today’s prices, even with today’s high-interest rates. And what else are you going to buy? Are you going to buy long-term rentals? Are you going to buy some of these apartment complexes with low cap rates and deal with evictions and all of the other stuff that you have to deal with with long-term rentals?
I’m really enjoying myself. And these properties, they’re not going to be home runs. But will you settle for a nice base hit or double? I mean, there’s still like property and now I’m looking at– it’s true. You can’t just buy any other home now and just put it on Airbnb and VRBO. Those days are long over.
So it’s a buyer’s market. So you can have your pick of the litter. Like right now I’m looking in this market and I saw this very unique property and even though the prices are overinflated, I know if the market does quote-unquote “soften,” I know that that property will still have really strong fundamentals, like if it has an amazing view and people go there and it has a pool or something like that’ll track people, I think those properties are still going to do very well.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:25:17] Well, the old adage of, don’t wait to buy real estate, buy real estate and wait, I want us to remember that it doesn’t need to be this immediate gratification that we experienced if you got into it in 2020, 2021. Real estate and short-term rentals and any business really should be for– it doesn’t have to be the long haul as in like 20 years necessarily, but it’s going to take some time and you can, of course, sell it, and hopefully not only have you had cash flow along the way, but you’ll get appreciation. Alex, you’re experiencing those tax shelters. So it’s just like so many wins.
Alex Sabio: [00:25:51] Yeah. And that’s another thing that you really bring up. I have a friend that just came to me, I showed her how to do short-term rentals or get into it, and she was so worried that she would pay taxes this year. She’s a nurse practitioner and she said, “Oh my gosh, I just got my tax refund and I got $60,000 back.”
Annette Grant: [00:26:10] Wow.
Alex Sabio: [00:26:11] That’s life-changing. Even if I broke even and I got the tax benefits, it would be worth it. And I walk around these markets, I live here in Southern California. I drove up to Big Bear and everyone always says, “Man, I wish I would have bought these rentals 20 years ago.” No, you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t have bought them 20 years ago. The numbers didn’t really work that well. They work now. They work really good now.
And so even if we buy these and are breaking even and making a little bit of cash flow, if you’re in it for the long haul, what’s it going to look like 10 years from now, 15, 20 years from now, all of a sudden ADR are through the roof.
Annette Grant: [00:26:48] What is your long-term plan, Alex? I always want to ask people this, like, okay, cool, you’re probably– you can let us know also how much you care to share, like how much you’re actually cash flowing each month. But do you have a plan of like, “Hey, I want eight properties? That’s it. We’re going to stop. And that’s reaching our goals.” Do you have that plan in place yet?
Alex Sabio: [00:27:11] I think initially the goals were financial. And then after that money comes and goes and that can’t be what drives you. And to me, it was to generate about 25,000 a month net profit on average. And I’m really close to getting there. But for me, I just shouted my story to the world. Anyone and anyone that wanted to hear the story, and during COVID, a lot of healthcare workers were absolutely miserable.
And I would work my 12-hour shift and we would talk real estate for 3 or 4 hours just to as many investors as I could. And then my goal wound up, I’m just going to help as many people as possible. So, yes, there are financial incentives to investing in real estate, but there’s other things like how many other people can you help out?
So really, that’s my next goal. I don’t know what that is. I don’t know what that number– I think with me it’s a saying my coach told me when I was playing basketball, he said, the harder you work, the luckier you get. And I feel like I’m just going to work hard, help people, and we’ll see where that goes.
Annette Grant: [00:28:18] I love that. That’s great.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:28:20] I have so many takeaways from this episode, Alex. I just want to recap them really quickly. So we’ve got try, try again because good things happen, work hard and it’s like–
Annette Grant: [00:28:32] I’m going to say it, Alex. You got frickin knocked down, man. You had some TKOs going on. You got back up.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:28:38] But look at you now like you’re close to $25,000 a month net profit. And I like how you specified that. That’s amazing. You also want to help people, and I don’t know how you have time for that with four kids, a partner, short-term rentals, and you’re a respiratory therapist. You’re fantastic.
One other thing I want to touch on before we let you go today, Alex, is I notice when I went to STR Summit, so that’s Tony Robinson. He is the podcast host of the BiggerPockets Rookie Podcast that shouted you out a bunch of times. And when I met people there, other people were shouting you out. You– I mean this in a good way, you get around. Your networking in other areas of our industry too. And I know we’re niche but it’s still a pretty big industry. So talk to me about what that’s done for you.
Annette Grant: [00:29:28] Oh, he’s just trying not to watch the football games on Sunday because he’s a Browns fan. He needs to be out and about and networking with people just like you, with you.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:29:35] And I love this, too, you’re investing these properties on your own, so you don’t yet have a partner. Not saying that you won’t or you don’t want to, but so far you’re doing this on your own. So just for everyone listening because Annette and I still very much believe that we could number one, Annette and I couldn’t be where we are today without each other. And just the power of talking to people, hearing other people’s stories, how it drives you, what is it about you connecting with people that that’s important to you?
Alex Sabio: [00:30:04] It almost became an obsession with me. I get a lot more like– I don’t know– gratification when I hear people’s wins. If I nudge someone in a certain way and then all of a sudden they’re killing it, that makes me feel really good. And like I said, it almost became an addiction where I just helped one person buy a short-term rental, then it was another, then it was another.
And it became this snowball effect where we helped hundreds of people buy short-term rentals and they’re getting to financial freedom, too. I mean, how many generations are you affecting by doing that? And so I just put myself out there not really wanting anything in return. And actually, like I said, I get a lot out of it, too. It makes me feel really good that I’m seeing a lot of other people become successful, too.
Annette Grant: [00:30:52] Yeah, because I will be honest with you today, I just had assumed that you had partners on all these properties because you’re out there networking. I was like, “Oh, Alex is out there networking so much because he’s finding his next partner.” And so I will say I’m kind of shocked by that because I just thought for sure you were going to all these meetups to find that next person that you were going to invest with, and you just proved me absolutely incorrect. I’m here for it.
Alex Sabio: [00:31:16] I just like going out there, meeting people, telling my story. I hope it inspires someone else. I know there’s all of these really smart people out there that like, buy properties with no money down or like all of a sudden got all of these short-term rentals go from zero to 50 short-term rentals. That’s not my story. My story is just slow and steady, working hard, making mistakes along the way, and just helping people along the way. That’s really my story.
Annette Grant: [00:31:44] As we wrap up, though, can you give us some hosting hot tips? What are some things that you know listeners need to hear, something that you’re like, oh my gosh, that changed the game for you once you figured it out when just hosting guest, something on the guest relation like the hospitality side?
Alex Sabio: [00:32:01] Okay. So I started using QR codes and I use dynamic QR codes. It’s like a landing page, so I put them up in different hot spots where I know guests are going to have issues with. I’m self-managed these properties from 2,000 miles away and guests will always have an issue with the hot tub. I didn’t own hot tub before I owned short-term rentals. I had no idea. And so I’ll put those QR codes nearby.
And what’ll happen, there’s a video of me troubleshooting the hot tub. And I try to make it really quick. I’ll do like 30 or 40 takes because I’m trying to get it within a minute because people’s attention span isn’t there.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:32:39] That’s like me in a YouTube video. I’m like, let’s get–
Annette Grant: [00:32:42] And did you film it live on the property with that piece of equipment, like let’s say it’s a hot tub?
Alex Sabio: [00:32:49] Yes.
Annette Grant: [00:32:51] That is legit. Okay.
Alex Sabio: [00:32:53] And there’s hot tub, there’s a thermostat, there’s like a Wi-Fi light, there’s the coffee maker. And here’s another thing that we found out because there’s all these things that you won’t find out until you’re owning your property. So there was a kid that shut off the water valve in our house because it was next to the water spigot.
And then all of a sudden there was no water pressure. And we’re here trying to text the guests like how to turn it back on, and they have no idea. So I wound up having to call a handyman. And so anything, something like that happens in your business where you’re like, okay, this is an opportunity for a mistake to happen where a guest is going to completely mess it up, we’ll go to the property and film a quick 30 to 60-second video on how to troubleshoot something and we’ll put it on our landing page. And that’s why you need a dynamic QR code. It can’t be static because you can always adjust what goes in that QR code and you could upload as many videos as possible.
Annette Grant: [00:33:45] Alex, I’m just going to put this out there. You’re going to have to come into our Insider series in our private membership and teach our folks how to do these dynamic QR codes again. So I’m just putting it out there. And listeners, if you’re not in our private membership, what the heck are you doing? Come on in because we have guests that are on our show come speak to the whole crew for an hour. But I love that. So where did you get that? Have you been fine? Can you see how many people are using those QR codes? Is there a way to look at that on the back end?
Alex Sabio: [00:34:11] Yeah. So I use something called Flowco.com. I use them. I think it costs like 100 bucks a year. And you can have as many QR codes for different properties. It’ll even tell me if it was an android or if it was an iPhone, what time of the day. And then not only that, I will post the videos on YouTube and it shows me how many views. And then on the video on YouTube, they’ll say, “Hey, book direct at Tanyascabin.com if you’re interested.” So there is a little bit of marketing to this one.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:34:41] Call to action, I like it.
Annette Grant: [00:34:42] So how often are you seeing these QR codes being used?
Alex Sabio: [00:34:48] Yeah, surprisingly quite a bit. And each property will be a little different because like I have an indoor pool and obviously people want to see that or I have how to use or unlock the pool gate. And so they’ll watch that. Or I have a home that doesn’t have a Wi-Fi door lock. It’s actually a lock and key and it’s a storm door and it’s a little difficult. So they watch that video quite a bit. So it’s different each video.
Annette Grant: [00:35:14] And have you noticed once you started to implement the dynamic QR codes that your customer service, text messages, and calls between you and the guest, did those decrease significantly?
Alex Sabio: [00:35:25] Yes, and that’s where we’re trying to figure out like I always put the blame on me, like if a guest is contacting me, what is it that I can do to get the guest not contacting me? It could be something simple, like, hey, if people are calling you about the Wi-Fi password, you could always blame the guests. You could do that and be like, these guests are so stupid. I send them all the message, but put the blame on yourself and say, what can you do to solve this problem? So we put those QR codes where they come in and says, scan here for the Wi-Fi password or whatever to log online. But yeah, put those out there and you’ll see.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:36:02] I love it. You’re meeting the guests where they’re at. And listeners, that’s what we need to do. So I know you might be saying, well, it’s in our welcome book. But at that time maybe the welcome book was put on top of the fridge because they were cooking. And so I like these QR codes exactly where the pain points can happen. And that’s–
Annette Grant: [00:36:18] So smart.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:36:18] So it’s right there. Alex, you are a–
Annette Grant: [00:36:22] Star. We need to hang out with you more. So I guess we have to go back to California.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:36:25] That sounds fine. I’m here for that, especially as Ohio gets into these cold months here.
Annette Grant: [00:36:29] Alex, how how can our listeners, though, follow along with you? What’s the best place for them to see what you’re doing on a daily basis? Because I know you post a lot about your real estate journey.
Alex Sabio: [00:36:40] Yeah, and a lot of random stuff too. I’m on Instagram @therealalexsabio or I’m on Facebook. You could find me Alex Sabio. I do have a healthcare group that I help out. It’s called Health Care Professionals Investing in Real Estate. We host meetups once a week and a lot of the guests that you had at your event were my featured guests. But yeah, Healthcare Professionals Investing in Real Estate, the Facebook group, join that and I’d love to help anyone else.
Annette Grant: [00:37:08] Awesome.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:37:09] You’re incredible. All right, Alex, thank you so much for your time and your expertise. With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.
Annette Grant: [00:37:15] I’m Annette Grant. And together we are–
Both Sarah and Annette: [00:37:17] Thanks for Visiting.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:37:18] We’ll talk to you next time. Thanks for listening to the Thanks for Visiting Podcast. Head on over to the show notes for additional information about today’s episode. And please hit that Subscribe button and leave us a review. Awesome reviews help us bring you awesome content. Thanks for tuning in and we look forward to hanging out with you next week.
