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Sarah Karakaian: [00:00:05] You’re 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: [00:00:15] 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: [00:00:28] We love sharing creative ways for your listing 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: [00:00:58] Hello. Welcome back for another great episode. My name is Sarah Karakaian.
Annette Grant: [00:01:02] I am Annette Grant, and together we are–
Both Sarah & Annette: [00:01:05] Thanks for Visiting.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:01:06] We are pumped to be with you yet again. Thanks so much for tuning in each and every week. It really means so much to us to share the stories of our guests with all of you, our listeners. And of course, we love sharing your properties using our #STRShareSunday on Instagram. We’re prowling it. We want to celebrate you and all the work you’re doing, being great hosts out there. So if you use the hashtag, we will share you here on the podcast, in our email shout outs, on Instagram–
Annette Grant: [00:01:33] All the things.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:01:34] All the things. Annette, who are we sharing this week?
Annette Grant: [00:01:36] All right. This week we are sharing @lakhabine. So the Canadians always get me with the pronunciation. So pardon me, but it’s L-A-K-H-A-B-I-N-E. Again, you say– what do you say, Sarah? @lakhabine–
Sarah Karakaian: [00:01:50] Lakhabine.
Annette Grant: [00:01:51] It’s okay. It’s beautiful. So please, three things I want to highlight about this property. Two amenities that I don’t see often is, one, they had an electric charging station because they’re in a ski community. And I’m just wondering if people are driving there with their electric cars, how many people are offering them that amenity? So that really might help them stand out in the crowd.
And they also have a outdoor sauna and again, in a ski community, something that I know people would really enjoy after a long day of skiing. And the third thing I do not see this often is they have an all-glass deck so that the deck is actually wooden, but the railing is glass so that when you’re on the deck, it kind of just flows into the amazing woods around.
But more than that, their cabin is almost all glass. So if you’re sitting on the couch, if you’re laying in bed, if you’re sitting by the fireplace, if you’re drinking your coffee, you actually kind of just fade into the beautiful outdoors that they have all around.
I’m sure that wasn’t an inexpensive thing, but I know that the guests probably rave about that. All three of those things, those were probably hefty investments at the beginning, but I’d love to hear from them. I’m sure it’s paying invaluable dividends on that return.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:03:09] I know it is really safe too.
Annette Grant: [00:03:10] Yes. So, we love a safe property. Looks amazing, but well done. Thank you for using the hashtag. If I did butcher the name, I’m sorry, but hopefully people will come to your feed and like all the photos. So, Sarah, with that, let’s get on to the show.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:03:24] Yeah, I’m super excited. Listeners, if my husband and I started this real estate investing journey back in 2010. After, of course, reading Rich Dad Poor Dad, we were convinced that we were doing everything wrong and we changed our course of action. Working with your partner can be super fun. There can also be some challenges and it’s like, when do you come together? And you’re like, “You stay in your lane, and I will stay in mine.”
Well, today we have two rockstar entrepreneurs. We have Kacia and Seena, and they are brand new to the short-term rental industry and real estate investing. But they have a big vision of where they want to take this and how they’re going to use the power of community to build out a short-term rental brand. They are no strangers to building a brand, so you are going to learn about the power and community and brand from these experts. Welcome to the show you two.
Kacia : [00:04:20] Thank you so much for having us.
Seena: [00:04:22] Yeah, thanks for having us on.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:04:23] Yeah, let’s get into it. If you could, separately, just give our audience a little bit of your background before we dive into the real estate section so they can see where you’re coming from and where you’re headed.
Kacia : [00:04:34] Yes. I’ll go first, beb, and then you go afterwards. We have very different back stories. So I’ve been an entrepreneur since 2014. I have a podcast to myself in the personal development space and then a business helping female podcasters launch, grow, scale, and monetize their podcasts as well as host live events.
So it’s a cash flow-heavy business, but I’m kind of the face of the business. So one of the things that we were really interested in doing, which got me excited about real estate, is I love the experiential part and prior to getting into this short-term rental space, Seena was interested and he’ll go into his story, but he was interested in long-term rentals and it just didn’t feel as exciting to me. But I loved the idea of real estate as another stream of income to take this business that I was building and take some of the cash and put it into something else to generate other streams. But also because I’ve helped a lot of women in the podcasting space, a lot of the things that they want to do to monetize their own shows is host retreats.
So I was like, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we could create an environment where they could actually host those retreats somewhere and curate really cool experiences around it?” So that’s kind of a roundabout way how I got interested, was I just thought about the experiential part and getting women together and that’s my jam. And then Seena does all the numbers and stuff. So beb, you tell them that.
Seena: [00:05:55] All right. I get all the contracts and the accounts. I got all the payable bills, all that fun stuff. But, yeah my story is very different than Kacia’s. I actually used to be a dentist. I spent my 20s getting to that point and I started practicing out of school and after three years I was like, “Oh man, this is not for me for the rest of my life.” And I was like, “I’m not passionate about it.”
Kacia is super passionate about her job, and I wasn’t having that with dentistry, and real estate has always been something I wanted to try. So I got to a point– and there’s a lot more that goes into the story, but I got to a point where I was like, “You know what? I’m going to take a break from dentistry and I’m going to try real estate for six months, and if it doesn’t work out, I’m going to go back.”
And I told Kacia this. She got home from a business trip and I told her and she was like, “Yeah, go for it. Quit. Let’s go.” And I put in my notice that Monday and haven’t looked back honestly since. And it’s been a really fun ride. Like Kacia said, we started with long-term rentals. And for me I’m more analytical. I like the numbers, I see the big vision. I’m a long term thinker, so this is really fun.
I would be listening the podcast out loud on my phone and Kacia would listen in, and then all of a sudden one day she’s like, “Yeah, I was at the gym and I listened to this podcast you’re listening to and it’s really cool.” And then she started getting into it more and it was when we really went to a short-term rental meetup and we can get into that whole story how we really saw the power that we can combine our two lanes and create these experiences for women or her community and she got super interested after that.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:07:21] Can we ask, do you remember where the meetup was? Who hosted it?
Seena: [00:07:25] Our friend here has a brokerage in Denver called Good Neighbor Realty. They focus on short-term rentals. They sell short-term rentals. All their real estate agents have short-term rentals, so it’s their niche. So they throw these little once-a-month gatherings and we became friends with her before, and so she invited us and we went and we just put the pieces together.
I never really thought about it, but we met all these people that are having so much more fun. They’re making more money, and we’re like, “Wait, this is cool. This could be really fun.” We never really open up that possibility. And after that night, we were just all on board.
Annette Grant: [00:07:57] Love it. And hosts are a different breed.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:07:59] We are a different breed, but we are fun–
Annette Grant: [00:08:01] Which is a good way. It’s a special breed. Yeah.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:08:02] Fun breed. But I have a question–
Annette Grant: [00:08:04] Show breed.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:08:05] Seena, so you kind of glazed over the fact that you had to go through a lot of schooling that I’m sure it wasn’t cheap. So can you just speak to anyone listening right now who may have that same background as you do of investing in a medical or a legal or just something where you really have to commit, you get out of it and you’re honest with yourself that this isn’t for me. How did you decide? What was it? Was it the support of partner? What did it for you?
Seena: [00:08:32] Yeah, and I love answering this question so that I can hopefully help someone who might be in the same situation. When I first decided, there was a lot of guilt that comes up when you’ve spent so long in so much money getting into something, whether that’s dentistry, lawyer, engineering, some of those professions that take a lot of time and money and effort to get to. So you kind of have this feeling of, wow, I shouldn’t leave because I spent all this time, I spent all this money, I should be doing this, I should like it.
But really, when you ask yourself at the end of the day, is this the life that you want? Is it getting you closer to the life that you want in the future? And there’s some tough questions you have to ask yourself. And sometimes it doesn’t feel good with the answers that you get. Kacia is so supportive, 110% on board. So I’m very lucky in that sense to have such a supportive partner in coming to that decision where some people might not have that or they have family members. I definitely have family members saying things. Listen, I’m Middle Eastern and to tell you, Middle Eastern mommy at least being a doctor, they stamp it on your butt when you come out of the womb like, “You’re going to be a doctor.”
Annette Grant: [00:09:28] For sure.
Seena: [00:09:28] And to say, I’m going to get into real estate investing it’s like, what does that even mean? They’re like, what are you doing? You’re throwing your life away. I’m like, “Don’t worry, mom, it’s going to be good. Trust me.” No, but really, it’s hard to navigate some of those feelings, too.
But surrounding yourself with people that lift you up and believing you and putting positive things around you to help you make that decision, but if at the end of the day you know it’s the best for you, just hold on to that feeling and trust yourself by making the right pivot.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:09:57] And how long ago did you make the pivot? Did I miss that?
Seena: [00:09:59] Well, just over a year ago.
Annette Grant: [00:10:01] Nice.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:10:01] Oh, wow. Congratulations. And so, Kacia, as the partner here, you’re with someone who has a super quote-unquote– I have air quotes right now– “secure” job in dentistry, were you faking it so you make it being supportive or did you really believe in him all in? What was going through your mind when he told you that?
Kacia : [00:10:18] I think I’ve just been someone who really wants to help people just do whatever it is that’s going to make them excited in their life. And I’ve helped so many women in the entrepreneurial space, and I just feel like our days are numbered here and we don’t know the count. So I knew that he didn’t love the industry that he was in. So it didn’t matter to me about the time invested into it. I was like, “We can create whatever we wish existed and we can go generate income in different ways, but like we can’t get our time back.”
And also, selfishly, I want to be married to someone who’s passionate about what they’re doing too. So I think I was just really on board with the idea of it, and I didn’t know initially– what Seena mentioned, I didn’t know initially what my role was going to be. I knew I had my own business and we could support ourselves with that financially. So I think that gave us a little bit of an opportunity to go into this with an optimistic perspective, but also without a lot of pressure straight out the gates.
But at the same time, as soon as I saw where I could contribute and add value to this business, I was like, “Let’s freaking go.” I didn’t want to even wait. I was like, “Should we buy some in tomorrow? And Seena’s like, “Hold on, Kacia. We got to figure out the numbers. We got to do that.” So I’m definitely the let’s go person and then Seena make sure that it’s a smart decision in this line.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:11:34] Let’s talk about the real estate portfolio. Where did you start? Where are you now and where is it going? Let’s talk about all the things.
Seena: [00:11:41] Yeah, we were lucky enough to have a friend and mentor in the real estate space that really showed us the possibilities because neither of us came from a real estate background. Our parents or family weren’t in real estate like that. And he sat us down one day and we told him the trajectory with the cash flow from the business. He’s like, “What are you doing with it?” And then laid it out. I remember at the dinner we were at and he just showed us what’s possible. And I was like, “Whoa, you can do all that? You can move the equity. You can get all your money out of the house,” all these things. I’m like,”That’s crazy.”
So our first property we bought is in Phoenix. It’s just a turnkey single family home, four bedroom, just straightforward. We have a property manager on it, but it was just a really good deal and a really good area, which we ended up actually getting all our money out of just from appreciation over the year.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:12:28] Wow.
Seena: [00:12:28] Which was crazy in its own.
Annette Grant: [00:12:30] Congrats.
Seena: [00:12:30] Yeah, just this little pocket in Phoenix that all these houses sold for really high values and a good time to go refinance. So that turned out really well for us. We have a town home in Everett, Washington. We’re from Seattle, so it’s just outside of Seattle. That a really easy tenant she kind of self manages, which is really cool. So she just takes care of all the issues that come up. This is a little bit below market rent. So we’re like, “Well, she’s really easy.”
Sarah Karakaian: [00:12:53] Yeah. If she’s taking care of it, so probably a wash on that. All right.
Seena: [00:12:58] Yeah.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:12:58] What was next?
Seena: [00:13:00] This was all we’re living in Austin, Texas, and then we got married and moved to Denver. And then like, “All right, we’re ready to buy local so we can get more hands on with everything.” And to be honest, I had a little bit of analysis paralysis for a while of trying to make the right choice.
Kacia : [00:13:16] Seena read all of the books, all the podcasts, and I was like, dude, let’s go.
Seena: [00:13:21] Yeah, there’s no podcast or book I didn’t read so that I could be prepared. And it turns out after we closed this whole another story that we were prepared for what happened after that. So it’s a side note that you’re not going to be prepared to start and you’ll learn more from the action.
So Kacia, one day was like, “Well, what are we doing? Are we going to buy something or not?” She’s got the short-term rental bug. So we go to our same friend Shantelle that owns a brokerage like, “All right, we’re ready. Let’s find a spot.” We were looking and looking and we wanted something that had community space. We really wanted to make sure people could interact with each other, have big dining room, everyone can sit in, and have dinner, and gathering spaces more than just the bedrooms. We wanted people to really have a space to connect.
And nothing was working. And we saw a bunch of places. This was in July and they’re all overpriced or unrealistic sellers. But then she found this off market deal where these flippers couldn’t sell the house. They finished the flip at the same time. There’s like a time in March where they raise the rates and everyone stopped doing anything and they put a ton of money into this place and they just couldn’t sell it.
And I don’t know why. It’s really nice. We were walking in like, why isn’t this sold? And they took it off market and they were actually going to Airbnb it. They’re flippers, but they’re like, “We’re going to try to get some of our money back.” So Shantelle, our agent, called. She was like, “Hey, is that still available for sale?” They’re like, “Yeah, we’re putting on Airbnb next week. We’re going to start furnishing it.” They’re like, “Would you still sell?” And they’re like, “Yeah.”
So we went in and saw it. We walked in and we’re like, “This is it, we’re buying this.” And we submitted an offer that day and closed that about three weeks later. And they actually had the Airbnb license and everything because this was in an area where it’s limited licenses and they’re actually sold out now.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:15:08] Oh, okay.
Seena: [00:15:08] So we got in and we are one of the last few licenses in that area.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:15:11] Was that easy for them to transfer that to you?
Kacia : [00:15:13] Yeah.
Seena: [00:15:14] It was then because there was enough licenses, but now we can’t transfer it. You have to kind of get in line and wait for your spot.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:15:21] Perfect score for your team. Were you documenting this to your community as you were looking for this property or designing the property?
Kacia : [00:15:27] Yes.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:15:28] Oh, okay.
Kacia : [00:15:29] I love that you asked this too because I think a lot of times people wait until the thing is done to say like, “Ta da, look at my new thing” and people like to be part of something and they like the behind the scenes. And I knew that from building a podcast community. So I said to Seena, “If we’re going to do real estate and you want me to do this with you, we have to make sure that we’re taking people along on the ride,” because the premise with my podcast is, “Come with me, let’s figure this out together.”
And I felt as if, as new investors, it would be really cool for people to see whatever goes wrong, too. And what we can just teach people as we’re building it out, which was really, really helpful for when we actually launched it, because people felt they were part of the process and seeing us furnish it and seeing where we purchase things. And we were having people vote on stuff and really making it feel very community based, which is not what I’ve seen a lot of people do in the short-term rental space.
And again, a way that I felt I could contribute was like, “Ooh, this feels like this could be really fun and community driven.” And then I wanted everyone that I knew that wanted to host retreats to pick this place is where they’re going to do it, and then duplicate that model over and over, is the idea.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:16:36] I love it. And it looks like, number one, you found the dining space because I did look through your photos. Your dining space, how many does it seat? I saw there a lot of chairs.
Kacia : [00:16:45] 12.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:16:45] Okay. I didn’t take time to count all the chairs, but I saw a lot of them. And I also saw it looks like you have a lot of moments inside of the home that if there are retreats or guests going on that they could also post on their social media. Do you want to talk about not only the design for the community, but it seems like you were designing with your specific avatar or your ideal guest in mind. Did that come from your branding experience and building your show? Where did you get that insight for the short-term rental?
Kacia : [00:17:13] So this was more the rental. I was like, “We’ve got to make this something where people want to share about it and they’re tagging their girlfriends like, we have to stay in this place for a bachelorette party or a retreat or that type of thing.” And I’ve been in 16 weddings at this point, so I was like, I already know we all want that. I know that we want to have like the picture of photo op and everything.
So we figured if we created a lot of those experiences, people would feel really drawn to it. So we’ve got a lot of very intentional, like neon signs, one that reflects into a mirror that says, you’re really pretty and it has peach wallpaper. One Greenwald that Seena and I made together that has a neon sign on it. And we actually had a friend of ours paint a mural on the wall that had a quote with swinging chairs by it, because again, we knew that would be another photo op.
And our intention with building off this property is it was expensive and we’re happy to talk about whatever you guys want to talk about, but we knew that the ROI would be there because it was going to be such a luxury property in this area, that there’s not enough bachelorette party mastermind retreat houses in Denver, let alone now there’s no licenses in this district, so no one else could have a five-bedroom house in this area besides those already has it.
So we knew we wanted to stand out in that way, and we made the intentional decision of like, we could try and reach a broader audience by making this less geared towards women. But we also knew the community that we had and also who we were going to be really excited to have stay there and just really focus all the efforts on designing for that demographic.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:18:41] Can you give them the Instagram handle just so as they’re listening to the show if they want to take a peek at what we’re talking about? Can you give that to the listeners right now?
Kacia : [00:18:48] Yeah, it’s peach–
Seena: [00:18:48] Yeah.
Kacia : [00:18:49] Go ahead, beb.
Seena: [00:18:50] Peachhouse.denver. And we named peach house because there’s two giant peach trees in the backyard and they’re really good peaches.
Annette Grant: [00:18:58] Wow.
Kacia : [00:18:58] There’s a plum tree too. But I felt like plum house sounded undercut.
Both Sarah & Annette: [00:19:01] Like Plumhouse?
Seena: [00:19:01] It didn’t hit like Peach house did.
Annette Grant: [00:19:02] Like peachhouse does.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:19:03] I want to dig into the numbers, but before we do that, Annette and I, we have a podcast. We are building a community. We invest in real estate. And you know what still trips me up is how the heck I find the time to do it all. So, Kacia, how did you do that? How did you do a wall with Seena? And how did you document the experience while managing, furnishing and getting ready furniture for all these 12 chairs and waiting for them to be delivered, while taking care of your podcast and your community and showing up and all those things. Can you two talk to us about your time management hacks or maybe it was chaos? What was it for you?
Kacia : [00:19:44] What we’re really good at is– and this is because I’ve been an entrepreneur for a really long time, is I’ve had to just get good at outsourcing things that aren’t in my zone of genius because I know that the return on the investment of finding someone like we had a designer that helped us with the designing and ordering. And we knew straight out the gates, yes, we could do this, but just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should do it. And if you’re in a situation where it makes sense for you to do it, 100%, it’s going to take more time. But we were very intentional to say, what will be my lane? Seena, what will be your lane? And then what could we outsource?
So Seena’s doing property management of even our quadplex and oversees the whole project, and he was really the one that was communicating. And my lane was show up and be part of the decisions and do some of the social side of things and then create my own business so we could pay for all the furniture and stuff like that.
So we really knew the lanes of when we were going into this way. So for anyone that’s doing this with a partner, whether it’s a significant other or it’s a friend or whatever, really doubling down and saying these are my natural strengths and the things that I’m really excited about. And what are your natural strengths and the things that you’re excited about and stay out of each other’s way. We’ve been together for 14 years. Seena and I have built a lot of things together.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:20:51] Wait, since you guys were born, whatever filter you’re using, give me the filter because they don’t like that together.
Kacia : [00:20:58] Straight out the wheel we got together, that’s what I mean.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:21:02] Right when he was getting stamped on the bottom that he’s going to be a doctor, you guys get the stamp that you’re going to be together?
Seena: [00:21:08] One side a doctor, other side is Kacia on it.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:21:11] Oh, you should get that stamp for your one year wedding anniversary. So let’s dig in. We want to talk about the numbers. We want transparency. It sounds like you guys nailed it as far as like knowing your area that you were going to, knowing your avatar. But when you were making these design decisions, we all know when you buy the house and furnish the house and you had a designer, it hurts.
There is so much money like fire hosing out of your bank account. Where were the numbers? Did you have a budget ahead of time of the furnishings? Since this was your first investment for short-term rental, if you can give us as much transparency as you feel comfortable with how you were running those numbers.
Seena: [00:21:50] Yeah, I think first off, when we decided to do this, we go for it people. We don’t want to just do a one bedroom, we want to do it and want to do it right. Everything I learned or heard from short-term rental community was like, “Just do it right the first time.” So that was our mindset going into it. So we did set a budget. We’re trying to keep it under $50,000 for the furnishings and it ended up being right around that.
I think it was just a hair over that for furnishings, but we wanted quality stuff. We wanted to really make sure the beds were comfortable, the functionality of the place. There’s enough towels, there’s enough seating for everyone, because if we do really want people to have that feeling inside the house, it’s going to take a little bit of quality stuff in there. And it is hard for your first one. You’re like, you’re putting out a lot of money on the line. So that part definitely was something.
But we kept in mind of who’s going to experience this. The whole time, we’re just envisioning people experiencing the property, having fun, connecting and all that. So that helped with that feeling coming up.
Kacia : [00:22:49] The mindset of it is so different though, because my background is I’ve created online programs and courses and memberships. And I was preparing to host my first big 500 person event while we were building out this Airbnb. As you guys were just mentioning, money is just coming out and you’re betting on yourself.
So there was also this element of wanting to make sure that we did research and we had people around us that we actually met our comp. He’s a really good friend of ours that lives 5 minutes down the road and we’re like, we’re seeing the numbers that he’s doing with his rental and it’s a four bedroom and ours is a five bedroom and we’re seeing the square footage difference and they’re very centrally located. And we’re like, “Okay, well he had this experience.”
So it’s almost like for anyone listening in because you could hear $50,000 be like, “Oh my gosh, don’t tell yourself the story right now. I can never do this,” but instead be you’re, “Who can I find and plug into? What people can I listen into that I can borrow a belief from that if they can do this, I can do this too?” And then being smart about what is the demographic that you’re going to serve. And for us, we were in a situation not even necessarily to do it right, but to do it the way that we wanted to also use the property. I want to host retreats at our own Airbnb.
So we saw the way that we could even cover the mortgage and other creative ways. And one thing that we didn’t mention that was actually really helpful is we reached out to a mattress company and we’re like, “Hey, can we get mattresses from you? But could we get at cost and get a QR code for anyone that sleeps on these mattresses so we can get affiliate cut on the back end?” Things like that that we were trying to create to drive a little bit down the cost because it does feel really scary to spend that much money on something for sure.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:24:22] Was the 50,000 just furnishings or did that also include labor?
Kacia : [00:24:26] That was everything.
Seena: [00:24:27] Yeah, that was like design, and–
Sarah Karakaian: [00:24:29] Yeah, you guys, that’s good. For five bedrooms–
Annette Grant: [00:24:31] Beautiful five bedroom home.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:24:32] How fast will you recoup your investment? Do you know that?
Seena: [00:24:40] I’m aiming for 5 to 6 months, not including the down payment, but yeah–
Annette Grant: [00:24:46] Nice.
Seena: [00:24:46] 5 to 6 months of profit to get that back.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:24:48] Perfect. That sounds–
Annette Grant: [00:24:50] That’s incredible. Let’s do it.
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Sarah Karakaian: [00:25:55] Ah, absolutely.
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Let’s talk about the industry’s leader in digital guidebooks, Hostfully. We use Hostfully digital guidebooks in our properties because there is no need to download yet an additional app prior to the guest stay. We can differentiate our listing from the rest by showcasing local highlights that make our property and location unique, and we can share important directions and check in information.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:26:45] During this day, guests can access essential information like the Wi-Fi, how-to guides for all your appliances and all your fancy coffeemakers, all the things and additional information on property specific amenities and give them a heads up on any checkout instructions.
Hostfully guidebooks are a fantastic way to share a local recommendations, the House manual and even upsell additional services. Listeners at the Thanks for Visiting Podcasts get two free months when you use our code TFV100. So head on over to hostfully.com and sign up today.
It sounds like you did have a designer, someone to help you do the install and get things ready. But I’m sure there were some hiccups or bumps in the road. Can you share some of the things that you thought you had it figured out and you thought you had the right team assembled and you’re like, “Wait, we still have a lot of work to do.” Did any of that happen to you?
Kacia : [00:27:41] Oh, yeah.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:27:41] There’s like multiple giggles now.
Kacia : [00:27:45] Well, when our couch didn’t fit because we didn’t measure it right. Whoops. And then we–
Seena: [00:27:50] No, we measured right. The door opening we didn’t.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:27:53] Every time. Yeah.
Kacia : [00:27:56] Our designer moved, and we thought that we were–
Seena: [00:27:59] In the middle.
Kacia : [00:28:00] Helping with the assembly, but she got a really amazing job offer. So she moved to Austin from Denver while we were working on this project, and we had to really have the conversation of what can get done by us and what should we outsource and what are we willing to pay to outsource certain things. But Seena went into hardcore manual labor.
And for anyone listening and is not well versed in this space yet, we also looked at this like an opportunity because both of us went to college and were willing to spend all this money to go to college to then get a job later. Well, if you’re doing your first Airbnb and you want to do this and you want to do several of them, you’re going to learn so much on the first one that we’re going to make some mistakes on things that we choose to do that we should have outsourced.
We’re going to purchase something that was a waste of money. We’re going to have things that go wrong. And it’s almost like we went into it with the perspective of this is our first one. We’re going to learn so much that knowledge is going to be invaluable, and then we’re going to apply that to the next one’s going to be even better and we’re going to do it more efficiently. So definitely, there is some furniture stuff there’s–
Seena: [00:28:57] I’m glad you touched on that because that was the mindset. I was like, “I don’t want to do everything, but I wanted to be enough hands on that the next one I know I can outsource and have a rough idea of like, okay, to paint that wall or to install that furniture of timing and the quotes and stuff,” because dealing with contractors for the first time, I don’t come from that background. I have no idea. They just throw out a price. And honestly, some contractors, they saw the house and gave me a different price because he house and they assumed it was nice. So I had wildly different.
Kacia : [00:29:24] One guy told you that. One guy literally said to Seena, this house looks nice. I think you could pay this amount. And Seena’s like, “Wait, what? Like number that you just set up?”
Seena: [00:29:34] That’s sales job. I’m not going with you. There’s no way I’m hiring you.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:29:37] Moving forward, put a clause with your designer that they can’t move in the middle of your install.
Kacia : [00:29:42] Yeah.
Seena: [00:29:43] She’s still great. She did an awesome job remotely and we’re happy for her because her job that she really wanted. But that was interesting.
Annette Grant: [00:29:49] Yeah, that was something you would have never ever anticipated when you were going into it.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:29:54] Okay, so you bought the asset, you set up the business, you learned along the way, you open your doors. Is it everything you thought it would be? Is it worse? Is it better?
Annette Grant: [00:30:04] And are you managing it or you have a property manager, someone helping you to co-host?
Kacia : [00:30:09] Seena is managing it, and I think that’s going to be great because our vision is to have a couple more properties that are local, and then we’ll eventually hire someone to help support that. Ideally in a perfect situation because we also bought a quadplex that we’re turning into mid term rentals, we bought it within a week of this property because like Seena mentioned, we just jump in and we’re going to furnish that and that will be for traveling nurses.
But the idea would be to eventually have a property manager. But right now, even back to the point that Seena mentioned, we want to learn what we don’t know. So we also need even know how to hire because we don’t know how to hire someone to manage it or what to look for yet. So we’re willing to learn that on our own first and then ideally outsource.
And as far as the reaction to it, I think one of the reasons that we had such a positive reaction and so many women that are reaching out, wanting to book this for their bachelorette parties, and retreats, and things like that is because we did take people along on the ride. So I was talking about pets all the time. We’re like, “This is what we’re getting.” And to anyone listening in, if you’re going to do this, whether you have five followers on Instagram or 500 followers, it didn’t make a difference.
It’s like if people feel part of it, there’s so much more invested and then it creates this routeability with your property and your new business that they want to tell their friends about it too. And I think that really served us and we didn’t really anticipate how until now that we’ve launched it and are doing it.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:31:29] So what are the inquiries you’re getting? Are they Instant booking? Do you have people asking questions about the retreat? Talk to us now that the doors are open, some of the stuff that’s coming your way.
Seena: [00:31:39] So we opened four days ago and I have it set up on Instant Book, but it also asks a question as soon as they book. So I want to know what they’re coming for, just out of curiosity. And we’ve had three bookings, so two so far, one’s like a girls retreat and one’s a birthday retreat with a bunch of girls. It’s exact demographic that we thought would come through.
Kacia : [00:31:58] The third one was a one day booking on a weekday. So we were intentional about wanting– our ideal situation is a Thursday to Sunday booking and then eventually loading up the calendar for that every single weekend. That would be the ideal.
And then having the weeknights are options for people that want to use the house to host something in person in Denver. So another person that just booked it yesterday, she’s hosting a women’s meetup and she’s booking it from 9:00 to 9:00 on a weekday and they’re doing an in-person retreat. And that’s exactly who we want. And all the people that are reaching out are bachelorette parties. It’s literally exactly what we envisioned, and nobody outside of that that’s even reaching out, asking questions.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:32:37] No, you nailed it on that one. Are you even entertaining the thought of listing it on a peer space where people could just rent it like during the weekday? Have you thought about that at all?
Seena: [00:32:47] Yeah, we’re just down the list to get done.
Annette Grant: [00:32:49] There’s always going to be, welcome to the never ending hosting list.
Seena: [00:32:55] After you launch, too. Yeah. It didn’t go away.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:32:58] So we’ve talked about the furnishings and the design. Are there any amenities, whether it’s tea or the type of shampoo and conditioner, are there any amenities that you thought about specifically with your ideal guest in mind also and while they’re staying?
Kacia : [00:33:15] The hot tub was non-negotiable for us, and we actually got this really cool custom made barrel that looks like a peach barrel for Peach House. And it was made in Denver, which was really, really cool. That was not negotiable because we knew it was going be a lot of women’s groups. And then even downstairs we have this movie room. But we did little things like we put a little HDMI cord on it because whenever I’ve gone to bachelorette parties, you want to play something, whether it’s asking the significant other questions about the bride to be or whatever.
And we’ve always needed that. Let’s just make this super simple where it’s very clear that it’s targeted towards that demographic. And I actually was there the very first weekend before we launched for a bachelorette party. So I got to be part of a bachelorette party that was my best friend’s bachelor party who we did at that house. And we got to run through it and see all of the things that worked and then a couple of things that we needed to tweak.
And then amenities wise too, we were aware that the bathrooms are a little bit small in terms of having straighteners and curling irons and makeup everywhere. So we took the downstairs, which was– what would you even call that, Seena? It was like a– what was that?
Seena: [00:34:18] Yeah, just like an open space. It’s like a secondary counter and a sink.
Kacia : [00:34:22] Weird thing, and we were like, let’s turn it into a vanity. So we turned it into this big vanity mirror, and then we put chairs down there so people could hang out, have a glass of wine. But there was a ton of outlets and space for people to get ready together, and I didn’t tell anyone, this is what the intention of this space is for. But I got to see firsthand while I was there as an attendee of this bachelorette party that that’s where everyone was getting ready.
And that’s exactly what they used it for, because the bathrooms were so small. So it was working against what we knew was going to be a problem to show that we tried to compensate for that. And that was really helpful, I think.
Annette Grant: [00:34:57] And this is where that magic happens when you know who you’re talking to and you niche down and you really get into their psyche and how they move about, how they think, what they’re going to say, where they shop all those things. Yes, you’re casting a really narrow, deep net. And will you get some gentlemen or maybe women who don’t really care about all? I mean, yes. But you’re going to nail it with that guess and you’re still going to be able to please everyone else who comes the doors. So you got big plans.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:35:24] Hold on. I want to ask one question.
Annette Grant: [00:35:26] Oh, yeah.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:35:26] I want to know, what did you notice you didn’t have when you were hosting the bachelorette party? What were some last minute things that you noticed to help some other hosts out there that could help them also?
Kacia : [00:35:35] Just more space, especially the back of the vanity area. I was like, we don’t have enough garbage by that, and then throw blankets. I think we needed more throw blankets because a lot of times you’re like lounge in it and you just want to put like a little blanket over you.
I would recommend, and I know that we’re so new to this, but I would recommend that everybody stays in their house first, because I noticed, even how we moved around the chairs and I think that was really helpful. But it wasn’t major things. It was really a couple of things that were just more comfort of like, “Oh, it would be nice to have throw blankets. It’d be cool if we had a little fridge down here because now we have to go all the way upstairs when we’re in this movie room, if we want to grab a water or we want to grab more wine.”
But we were really thinking like we’d sit in the room and Seena and I are like, okay, what will people be doing in this room? Oh, we need to get a little table here. So we tried to do a lot of that proactively and honestly, I think we did a pretty good job. There wasn’t a lot, to be honest.
Annette Grant: [00:36:26] But those small things are the difference makers. That’s what Sarah is very famous for, always saying, like, “You want your guests to reach for something and it’s there.” So what you said they wanted to reach for that blanket and the guests time after time, if they were gone because everybody else is you, they’re going to notice or they want to throw some trash away and there’s a garbage can there. Those are the things that don’t seem a big deal, but they mean a lot to the guests that you thought about those small things.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:36:49] And then anyone else getting ready to open up a place and you are new, you can think about all the things you stayed in your place. We also recommend having that like truth telling friends stay, like that really bold brass friend who is going to tell you the truth. But then you know what, you’re still going to get suggestions from your guests and having that open mind of, okay, they’re not wrong. If they wanted it, if it works with the numbers, you look at the numbers and make sure, can we give that to them and just stay open minded and your property is going to ebb and flow over time.
But I’m so excited for you guys, you’ve got such a good grasp on what you want out of this. It’s like you know where you want to go. And I’m sure you’re ready to pivot or what have you along the way. But what’s next for you? How many of these do you want? Are they all in Denver? Are you going to be all over the country? What’s that plan you mapped out with your mentor? I know you’ve got a spreadsheet. Don’t lie.
Seena: [00:37:39] Yeah, we definitely want to buy another, maybe a mountain one, because we’re in Denver, Colorado, and there’s just so many cool little cities that you feel like you’re kind of out of the city within an hour, which is really cool.
So probably the mountain one, I think our plan by then the next year would be get to five and then we can hire out an internal property manager to handle that. So that’s our plan now. Well, currently right now we bought a quadplex too, and we inherited four tenants and then two just moved out. So we’re flipping those for mid-term rentals. So as soon as Peach House is finished, I literally met with the contractor the next day at the quad to get that going.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:38:13] Awesome. So exciting.
Kacia : [00:38:15] I think big picture, we would do more though too. I think it’d be cool to do other cities where we could use them ourselves and get to host retreats there. I feel like this is going to be big. I’m the visionary and seen as the integrator for sure. So I’m like, let’s do like 10, we’ll just figure out how to do it. But there’s a good check and balance too.
Seena: [00:38:33] Yeah.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:38:34] You can do 10 because my husband and I are both visionaries and it gets ugly over there. So you guys are very lucky to have the yin through yang.
Annette Grant: [00:38:42] I love that for you.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:38:43] I have a question for you too, because you’re really big in branding and we get this question all the time.
Annette Grant: [00:38:48] I know what you’re going to ask. I want to get there too. Our listeners want to know know. I want to know.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:38:52] Okay, you have more than one property. Let’s say you’ve got your mountain, you’ve got your New York, you’ve got your LA, wherever you want to go, Seattle, you’ve got all these properties. Are you going to have one big hospitality company and these are all like your locations, or are they each going to have their own brand, their own Instagram account, their own websites? What do you envision for the brand that you’re going to inevitably create?
Kacia : [00:39:12] My guess will be that they’ll each have their own brand, but they’ll probably be similar in terms of, you’ll be able to tell that they’re intertwined. The vibe might be similar, some of the products might be similar. We actually really want to play with the idea and we’ll have to loop you guys in on how this goes, but I want to bring more actual brands into it because I have sponsors of my podcast and that are the exact demographic of the people who are staying at these houses.
So I want to see about partnerships into our short-term rentals and then doing that to the entire portfolio once we have it even a year from now and seeing how we can monetize through that direction and then also give our guests a really cool experience by them getting to have free fun products there. So there would be cohesion around all of that and we would probably try and sign brand partnerships for multiple Airbnbs, but I think they’ll have their own separate identities.
Like the Mountain one will have its own name, its own identity. We have an idea that we’re thinking about and trying to find a property for that, but each will have its own Instagram account and personality I think.
Seena: [00:40:15] Yeah, piggybacking off that, and maybe this is a better question for you too, since you’ve been in it longer, but people go back and forth of starting a management company, call it something, something stays. I think personally for us it feels better that each one has its own identity.
So when someone comes across it, it has its own feel, it’s not just like a corporate brand. There’s ways to not have it come off like that. But I think right now our mindset is individuality, but create a network within. I want to collect email addresses so that I can like ping everyone like, “Oh, did you find a Peach House. Well, have you checked out so-and-so house in North Carolina? Like 20% off. You can go stay there. That’s my nerdy technical side that I see that vision going like that. Well, Kacia can handle the branding and the excitement around it.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:40:55] Yeah, I love it. Especially the retreats in the bachelorette parties, those are not going away anytime soon. And like you said, if they had a wonderful stay at the Peach House, they’ll want to tell their friend, maybe their friend is never going to come to Denver, but it’s needing a place in one of the ancillary towns will definitely be able to give them that information.
Annette Grant: [00:41:12] It’s so unique that you two went into this with like, yeah, yeah, yeah, bedroom count. Because a lot of times unfortunately in this space it’s like, how many heads can we cram underneath this roof? How many can we stuff in there?
And instead you’re like, how many can we put around a big table to support conversation and masterminding? I just love how– and listeners, I just encourage you like it doesn’t have to always be, and especially with Seena here, spreadsheet, return investment guide, you can still get that return investment when you think outside the box. When you think about cramming a bunch of heads in there, what other ways can we make this place a no brainer to book and stay at and want to be a part of? There is money in that again and again. So I just applaud you guys for really thinking about really who you wanted to cater to and why that was important to you and how it fits into who you are already.
Kacia : [00:42:00] Thank you. And thank you guys for always sharing so many different types of stories on your podcast because it’s hard to be with what you can’t see. I feel like you guys do such a good job of showing all different ways that you can get into this space, because obviously our story is unique in how we’re approaching this, but so is everybody else’s, and I love even just hearing what you guys are doing. So thank you for it.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:42:20] And that’s why we love real estate. I get it, people are like, “How I do this? What’s next second step? But like you said, Seena, it’s like you’re just going to get started because there really is, even if you choose the same adventure, short-term rentals, multifamily urban metro stays, okay, you niche down, but even that journey is just going to be so different from the person you’re learning from and just kind of get started and you just got to listen to yourself and what you want out of this because we’re all doing this because we think it’s fun. I know if we get 2x, 3x return, that’s great. That is fun. Money’s fun. We love money.
Annette Grant: [00:42:50] But you’re also working 24/7 365.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:42:52] Seena, I guess you’re three guests in. Are you nervous about the part time but all the time aspect?
Seena: [00:42:59] Yes and no. I’m prepared to learn as we go. And that’s part of why I wanted to self manages is to learn what guests like, what’s their feedback? Because if you want to scale this, I need to know that stuff of like what they care about where the garbages are. They care about this and that. So it’s like a healthy excitement for it and knowing that I’m not going to have all the answers right away, and I think if we just make it right for the guest and we’re learning along the way, then we should be good.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:43:23] Okay. We got to know, though, because you are fresh, you’re new. How amazing was it when you got that first reservation, you got that ding, you get that Airbnb ding on your phone? What was the celebratory like? What did you do?
Kacia : [00:43:35] We were in a coffee shop and I screamed.
Annette Grant: [00:43:39] Everyone remembers their first time. They really do because it’s magical. You’re like, “Wait, somewhat it works.”
Kacia : [00:43:46] It works. We were like, “Well, it was like $1200. We high five.
Seena: [00:43:50] It feels like free money because it’s like–
Annette Grant: [00:43:53] I love it. They just $50,000 and all the time–
Seena: [00:43:53] It’s not fundamentally, but it feels like it.
Annette Grant: [00:43:56] But it’s free money, everybody. It’s free money. You heard it here on Thanks for Visiting. It’s free money when you do short-term rental service.
Seena: [00:44:03] Yeah. It’s for me right off.
Kacia : [00:44:05] It’s going to be easy and free.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:44:07] No, I love. Did that person even ask you any questions or was it like magically they just booked and you’re like, “Holy smoke.”
Kacia : [00:44:14] They found it through social media.
Annette Grant: [00:44:16] Boom. I love it.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:44:17] I love it. And you haven’t really had that, being able to see that yet, where people are staying and leaving reviews and being able to get that action and the momentum.
Kacia : [00:44:28] How it goes. It’s fun too to be on right now at this stage because we’re so fresh and eager and excited. We’re like–
Sarah Karakaian: [00:44:35] I’m 11 years in and I’m still excited about it. Yeah, and I just know that this is the right move for you just because of that you thought that was free money. You don’t even mean like you’re doing this for all the fun reasons and that money is going to follow. Is there anything we haven’t touched on that you think listeners should know about from your perspective with your journey so far?
Kacia : [00:44:54] I think being married to Seena is so awesome because he thinks about a lot of the information and how are we going to do this and he’s the how part and it’s so beneficial.
But I also think what we’ve learned just through taking action, you can’t expect anything. You have no idea. One of our tenants in another building ended up going to jail and this whole thing happened and we’re like, there’s a book on this. You have no idea what you’re doing. But the longer that you sit, the more as a human in our primal brain that wants to keep us in the same of what we already know, even if we’re not excited about it anymore, we just sit and collect information.
And then you start to look at other people and you think that they have something that you don’t. But it’s like, “No, they’re just taking action while you’re watching them take action.” So you’ve got it. You just have to start and you’re going to probably fumble a little bit and it’s fun.
Annette Grant: [00:45:44] I love it. I think that’s where we wrap it up. But can you let us know? Obviously, you gave us our Instagram. We’ll make sure that’s in the show notes. Can you just tell our listeners also if they want to hear you on your podcast, where can they find your podcast? Where can they connect with you more?
Kacia : [00:45:55] Yeah, so I have a podcast that’s in the personal development space. It’s called Empower Her. And then over on Instagram, my name is Kacia Ghetmiri, probably the hardest name ever to spell, but I’m going–
Sarah Karakaian: [00:46:06] We’ll put it in the show notes.
Kacia : [00:46:06] The show notes. Yeah.
Seena: [00:46:08] And then you can find me @Seenaghetmiri, and then we also have our real estate page Get.investing, so G-E-T.investing and we have a podcast too if you want to follow our journey, just interviewing newer real estate investors and hoping to share the journey and help them too.
Annette Grant: [00:46:25] All right. We will make sure to link all of that in the show notes. Listeners, reach out to them. I know when we give out this information on the show, the people that are willing to give this up, they want you to reach out. So check them out on Instagram and let them know about your questions. Maybe you can be a guest on their show potentially, but we are so thankful that you’re sharing your journey with us.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:46:43] Yes. Thank you. And with that, I am Sarah Karakaian.
Annette Grant: [00:46:45] I am Anette Grant, and together we are–
Both Sarah & Annette: [00:46:47] Thanks for Visiting.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:46:48] 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.
