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[00:00:00] Sarah: Hello, listeners. Welcome back for another great episode. My name is Sarah Karakaian.

[00:00:04] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we are–

[00:00:06] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.

[00:00:06] Sarah: Let’s start this episode like we do every week, and that’s celebrating a host who’s using our hashtag, #STRShareSunday. We’ll share you on the podcast here, and on our Instagram. Annette, who are we sharing this week?

[00:00:18] Annette: Today, we are sharing @twochicksandahammer. Again, that’s @twochicksandahammer, T-W-O. And she just so happens to be our celebrity keynote speaker of our event. And what I love about what Mina has done with her Instagram is she’s got a lot of things going on. So she has a Linktree in her bio.

[00:00:40] And if you click on the Linktree in her bio, you will see her Airbnb amongst multiple other things that she is doing. But what I want to offer to all of our listeners is this is what everyone can do. Let’s say it’s your personal Instagram account, and you’re trying to find a way, whether it’s you, your life partner, your business partner, a family member wants to give you some love and share your properties.

[00:01:06] This is a one-stop shop. You can add a Linktree to your bio, and it can be there all the time. It could take them to your website. It could take them directly to your Airbnb if that’s more comfortable for them. Maybe they want to go straight to Vrbo. Um, but this is a way that you can have your property out in the world all the time with a lot of different options for people to book.

[00:01:28] So take a look at Two Chicks and a Hammer. See the way that they have directed people to their properties because they have multiple properties. So instead of having three different handles for all of their different houses, they put them on Two Chicks and a Hammer and send all the traffic to one place.

[00:01:44] Sarah: All right. And who is Two Chicks and a Hammer, and why are there celebrity keynote? Well, Mina Starsiak Hawk is the star of the HGTV series, Good Bones, which I’ve been watching for years. And so when we were developing the content for TFV Con, I asked Annette, I said, I think it’d be great to have a celebrity keynote, but not just any celebrity keynote.

[00:02:05] It has to be someone that our listeners can really look up to and maybe even find a common ground with. And Mina being a woman in this space, she is a renovator. She is a property owner of both long and short-term rentals. How did the whole HGTV come about? 

[00:02:24] Well, Karen is Mina’s mother. They are the co-founders of Two Chicks and a Hammer, and they began rehabbing homes in 2007 when Mina bought a house that needed a lot of love. Mina had just graduated from Indiana University, and all our friends had grown up jobs. And with the need to also feel like a grownup, she purchased her first home.

[00:02:42] And with the help of her mom, Karen, they were able to renovate this home and make it beautiful. The two were not only able to renovate that house, but also discovered a passion for home renovation in general. They were bitten by the renovation bug and Two Chicks and a Hammer was born. And of course, we know how that story ends. They were found by a production company, and that led them to their HGTV show. They’re entering into their eighth season now, which is so exciting.

[00:03:08] Annette: Come on, eight seasons? She’s put in the work.

[00:03:11] Sarah: I mean, listeners, I bet 90% of you, because you each out to us, we talk to you on Instagram, we know that you renovate your properties yourself too, or you’re project managing. That’s a lot of work. And so imagine having your full-time job being on TV.

[00:03:27] Annette: Cameras on. 

[00:03:28] Sarah: Yeah. It’s a lot. So she’s handling it. She’s a mom, a wife. So she’s doing a lot, but she’s doing the thing, and she’s going to be the perfect keynote speaker. And you know what, Annette, if you’re cool with it– so early bird pricing technically ends today. But I think to celebrate Mina being on Thanks for Visiting today and us celebrating her being our celebrity keynote, we should extend early bird pricing just until this Sunday, August 27th.

[00:03:54] Annette: Okay. Sarah’s asking me that because I’m the IT here. I’m the person behind the command panel, doing pricing and coupon codes, everybody. I’m Internety, if you didn’t know. That’s one of my other nicknames. Let’s do it because, people, you need to come meet Sarah and I. Duh. But also now Mina. So yes, we’ll extend the early bird for you. Use the coupon code PODCAST because we love all of our podcasts, listeners. You can use that for $150 off. Don’t delay. Get your ticket today.

[00:04:26] Sarah: Listeners, hope you understand that you get to stack the 150 bucks off the early bird pricing which we’re extending to Sunday. But then, truly, early bird pricing is over. Sunday, August 27th. It is gone. It is done. Come to TFV Con. Come to Columbus, Ohio. It is beautiful here in the fall. 

[00:04:43] And we want to share with you our amazing city. Once you’re here, getting around is so easy. There’s a ton of local, uh, restaurants and shops, but Mina has offered to do a Q&A after her keynote. So all of our, uh, ticket holders will be able to ask her questions, whether it’s about being on TV, getting on HGTV show.

[00:05:00] Annette: Her portfolio. 

[00:05:02] Sarah: Her portfolio. But if you’re a VIP ticket holder, which you can also use that PODCAST code for, you could meet and greet with Mina. But with that, without further ado, let’s bring Mina on the show. She’s got a couple of really interesting hosting hot tips that we can’t wait to share with you.

[00:05:18] Mina, welcome to the show.

[00:05:20] Mina: Hello. Thank you for having me. 

[00:05:22] Annette: Before the show, Mina, Sarah and I were talking. We’re like, okay, she’s flipping houses. She’s on HGTV. She’s a mom. Hosting is another full-time job, all the time. Overnight guests. Tell us why you got started in short-term rentals, and why you’re still doing it. Can you take us back to deciding to put a property up for overnight stays?

[00:05:42] Mina: Of course. Um, so my husband and I have, over the last 10 years, um, acquired and held some properties. It’s not necessarily my Two Chicks and a Hammer business model, um, but we were trying to develop a portfolio, and it was, honestly, I think, towards the beginning of this year where we decided to make the first one a short-term rental instead of a long-term.

[00:06:05] And our reason initially for doing the long-term rentals was just lower maintenance. We didn’t have the bandwidth. We weren’t interested in figuring out the management company or any of that. So we’re like, we’re just going to keep it simple, easy. We’re going to do long-term rentals.

[00:06:19] Um, and one of the properties we bought a while ago is a quadplex. It’s three two-bedrooms and one one-bedroom, and someone had moved out of the downstairs two-bedroom, and we thought, let’s give it a try on this one. It’s small enough that we can furnish it. It’s a two-bedroom, one-bath. Um, small enough that we can furnish it for a reasonable amount of money.

[00:06:41] Let’s just open it up for the next six months and see if it ends up making sense. I believe before we went short-term rental on it, we were renting it for $900 a month, which was a little low. We probably could have got closer to 1,200, but got it set up. I did, obviously, the furniture sourcing, and the staging, and all that, which was fun.

[00:07:02] Um, but also manageable because it was small. And I told my husband, I have the bandwidth for that, but I don’t have the bandwidth to manage it. So that’s you. We can get someone to flip it if that’s what you want. And he just dove in the deep end and was doing everything. So he was doing the flips.

[00:07:19] And I would say, probably the first couple of months, there was some tweaking, like, what days do we do a two-night minimum? Because if you have a one-night minimum, he was cleaning it every single day. So between 10:00 and 4:00, which is our checkout and check-in, he was trying to bust a move to make sure he could get there, to make sure there wasn’t other things going on because he also has his own business.

[00:07:39] I actually was looking at the numbers a couple of days ago because we’re debating about another long-term rental that just emptied, um, turning it into a short-term or not. And I think 2,880 is our average over the last six months. So we more than doubled what we were able to do with the long-term rental. And we have two others since then, and they don’t really have enough data yet. One of them’s only been up for about six weeks, and the other one’s only been up for three months. So, um, we’ll see about those ones, but yeah. 

[00:08:14] Annette: So your husband decided that he was going to be the one– when you say flip, I assume that’s turn it over. Clean it for the next guest.

[00:08:20] Mina: Clean it. Yes.

[00:08:21] Sarah: Amazing.

[00:08:22] Annette: This is amazing. And he was doing this while also running a business. Was he– 

[00:08:25] Sarah: Did he know what he was getting into?

[00:08:28] Mina: Well, I don’t know. I think, um, he had this interesting– I didn’t really understand his outlook on it at first because I look at everything as the time value of the money. So we charge people $75 for that clean. It takes you two hours. That means you’re getting paid 32.50 an hour. Can you make more money doing something else for your business? And does it make sense to pay someone to clean it? 

[00:08:52] And we had to have this conversation where the girl that was cleaning our other two, I said, we can give this one to her as well. It’s like, I don’t want to make anyone clean up after me. I was like, no, no, no, no. This is her business. She wants this. She’s trying to grow her business. 

[00:09:07] And when I presented it to him that way, it was just this very easy light switch. He was like, oh, yeah, this actually sucked, and it hurts my back, and I’m too old to make beds every day. So once we made the switch to having someone else do the cleaning, we still manage the platform, um, and message guests, and things like that, but Stephanie actually manages the flips, and she’s got a team. It was much more manageable for him to think about adding additional ones.

[00:09:36] Annette: And we know that Indiana, Indianapolis, is very, very short-term rental friendly, but Mina, we’re here in Columbus, Ohio, and Sarah and I are always in shock of how many people are coming to Columbus. Is that the same with you of how many bookings you are getting in this property in Indianapolis, and what are your guests coming for?

[00:10:02] Mina: It’s interesting. We have, I don’t want to sound stupid, but I believe it’s one of the biggest convention centers in the country. It’s really, really big. So there’s always conventions. Um, we’re also the crossroads of America, so we have a lot of people that are passing through, and this is where we’re staying for the night.

[00:10:23] We occasionally have the bachelor or bachelorette party because Indy does have a lot of things right downtown. It’s one of the few cities that you can walk to the football stadium, the basketball stadium, the baseball diamond. Three different music venues all from right where we are, downtown, which is really cool. So it’s been booming. Oh my God, when Taylor Swift announced her–

[00:10:44] Annette: Oh, yeah.

[00:10:46] Mina: I was like, get online. Because I, like a bunch of other people, thought it was this November.

[00:10:52] Annette: Right.

[00:10:52] Mina: We’re going to open for next November, but I went ahead and opened up those dates for the Taylor Swift show and raised the prices, and they booked in two seconds. So, um, when we have big things like that, especially like the Indy 500, we obviously get those people in, but a lot of them are for work or just a pit stop instead of a hotel.

[00:11:14] Annette: Love that. 

[00:11:15] Sarah: You are so creative with your designs. I have two questions. When you first set up your short-term rentals, is there anything you’ve since changed, you tweaked, and you’re like, oh, now that I have guests in there, that’s not going to work? And then what has really worked in your rentals that your guests love?

[00:11:34] Mina: So something that I haven’t done yet, because it just keeps slipping my mind, and I just got excited that I remembered about it again, I want to do– I think something that Nashville does really, really well with those short-term rentals is they have these– everyone wants an Instagramable moment.

[00:11:48] And I really want to get someone in to do some murals, even on a wall or on the outside of one of the properties would make sense. We’ve got a big, um, it’s a care toss above the garage, so I want to get something on the garage because then people are doing your marketing for you. If you put the mural along with your hashtag or whatever the name of your location, I think that’s a really great idea that I haven’t done that Nashville does really, really well.

[00:12:15] I think the biggest thing as far as tweaking has been playing with the minimum stay, and then playing with the pricing and figuring out what makes sense. Would we rather keep it open if it’s going to drop below? Because one of ours, when I was looking at it, I think if you do the smart pricing, it was $53 a night. I’m like, okay, so is it worth it for us to have the wear and tear on the sheets, them using the shampoo, the coffee pods? Our spoons are gone. Are your spoons gone?

[00:12:49] Sarah: They’re like socks.

[00:12:51] Annette: Scissors, knives. Spoons?

[00:12:53] Sarah: Wine openers. Those also away.

[00:12:55] Mina: I crowd source this. Because in my head, spoons, people are cooking drugs in the unit, which doesn’t make sense because we’re not slum lords. I posted on Instagram. I’m like, guys, why would all the spoons walk away? And I was shocked how many people say their husbands, their kids, or they themselves accidentally throw spoons away from a yogurt container or a carry out, which is just foreign to me because I use a spoon once a month. I would throw a fork away maybe. But yes, that’s been an interesting phenomenon.

[00:13:32] Annette: Yeah. You’ll have some random stuff definitely come up missing, but the good news is it’s only spoons. Those are easy to replenish, but yeah, I’m going to go with that. They eat something, it slides into the trash, and then they’re like, not going in after that.

[00:13:47] Mina: [Inaudible] fun my husband does do, um, that I honestly was like, you need to tone it down a bit because you’re spending a lot of money, he was hiding a100-dollar bill. And then when people checked in, he would give them a clue. And they only got one clue. And I think a handful of people found it over the first couple of months. And I’m like, can we make it a 20? People get so excited about it. 

[00:14:10] Annette: What? 

[00:14:10] Sarah: Wait, I need to know why. Why is he doing that? Just for fun? 

[00:14:14] Mina: For fun. He thought it’d be fun for the guests, and he hid it behind the wall mirror once, and the clue was something about, like, look within yourself to find the answer. He has fun with– when he proposed to me, he did a scavenger hunt with clues, and I’m terrible at it. I even used Google, and I was like, I don’t know the answer. But he loves it. So, um, that’s something fun that I think people seem to really enjoy.

[00:14:37] Sarah: Um, I never heard of that.

[00:14:38] Annette: I think it’s briliant. Like you said, it doesn’t need to be a 100-dollar bill. It could be a gift card to your favorite coffee shop. Listeners, this is a hot tip from Mina’s husband. I love it. Everyone loves gamifying things and scavenger hunt, and what a fun thing. And I love it. It’s like you get one clue. You don’t get it. You’re done. 

[00:14:58] Sarah: That’s on you.

[00:14:59] Mina: And if you’re staying there overnight because it’s your pass through, what else is there really to do?

[00:15:05] Annette: Oh my gosh, that is really–

[00:15:07] Mina: We got board games in there, but yeah, a little scavenger hunt. 

[00:15:11] Annette: Mina, did you spend a lot of time designing the space, or were you like, hey, we’re going to try this? This is the budget. Let’s get it done. It’s easy for me to source things and get it set up quickly.

[00:15:24] Mina: To be honest, the timing came really, really well. So the first one we set up, because I do so many houses a year and stage so many, a lot of the items, I can’t return. So we have this backlog of furniture. So I was able to pull a lot from that, um, a lot of the bed frames, the mattresses. Because I wanted lighter weight ones, things like that, I went ahead and bought, but a lot of items I had. 

[00:15:47] And then when we wrapped up this last season, we outfitted the next two for, honestly, probably a couple of thousand dollars each because I had the items. Since then, I’ve found some good go-tos. IKEA has a really, really good sleeper sofa that’s affordable. It’s $900. A lot of the big, fancy sleeper sofas, you’re going to get up to 1,500, 2,000. So I started to find my go-tos for when we set up our next one because I’m out of furniture.

[00:16:17] Annette: So it sounds like, like most hosts, you get addicted to that overnight stay, and you see the potential of the revenue. It’s lovely hosting guests in your hometown. Do you and your husband talk about the short-term rentals a lot more than the long-term rentals and have fun with that, scheming up maybe what the next property could be?

[00:16:41] Mina: Yeah, we’re in the midst of it right now. So where we live, it’s my house, and then we have a carriage house. And then the house next door is where I lived when Steve and I met. We kept it when we built this. It also has a carriage house. So it’s a four-bedroom main house. And then we have two two-bedroom, two-bath carriage houses.

[00:17:00] And he doesn’t want the main house to be an Airbnb because you could pack that full of a bunch of hooligans. And the back deck is right by our bedroom window, so we are going to long-term rent that. Um, and the carriage houses, we’re debating, do we short-term rent both? Do we just do one? One is a little bit older, but it also has a rooftop deck and garage parking.

[00:17:20] So which one’s going to make the most sense? Because I think we want to do one or the other, and maybe not, both because we do want to keep a balance between the short-term and long-term just because– it’s like stocks and bonds. That’s how I look at it. The long-term rental is good. It’s steady. We really only talk about it when a tenant is being a bugaboo and has a problem. 

[00:17:40] The short-term ones are a lot more. And while there’s more opportunities for problems, like, I can’t figure out the door lock, I’m like, did you put the combination in? Did you hit the button? And they’re like, no, I didn’t try that. It’s a little frustrating. But there’s also so much more potential for income. For us, it seemed worth the trade off to manage some more day-to-day conversations, um, than we necessarily do with our long-term. 

[00:18:07] Annette: Do you manage your long-term rentals also? Self-manage this? Okay.

[00:18:11] Sarah: Do you think you’ll always self-manage, or do you ever see yourself with your short-term or long-term?

[00:18:17] Mina: When I met my husband, he was in property management. Um, he did 200, 300 building apartments. Um, and so our long-term goal was always to build a portfolio so we could retire and live on that. And he was going to manage that portfolio. And he left his corporate job two years-ish ago now, and he’s always been really into fitness and nutrition.

[00:18:39] He has an online personal training platform called HawkFit, um, through TrueCoach that just took off. It’s been amazing. So he’s doing that. So I think it’s going to depend, honestly, how the next probably five to eight years shake out. Probably five to 10 years. I’m 39. He’s 41. So seeing where we are as the kids get a little older. They’re three and five. We don’t dislike managing. It’s just a matter of time management.

[00:19:11] Sarah: Right.

[00:19:12] Annette: Mm-hmm. 

[00:19:12] Mina: We’re both at positions in our career where we have the time. We’ll keep it in house. If it’s worth it to pay the money to put under someone else’s management, then we’ll go that route. Right now, it’s manageable.

[00:19:26] Annette: Awesome.

[00:19:26] Sarah: I have a question as a fellow renovator, Mina. What materials do you swear by for your rentals, long or short? You always go to these for rentals because they’re tried-and-true.

[00:19:39] Mina: Wipeable. Anything wipeable. A real leather couch is going to be very expensive. You can actually find some really nice ones on marketplace, and they’re leather. They’re not porous. And me as a guest, I would much rather sit on a leather sofa than one that was fabric just because it absorbs sweat, and skin cells, and all those things. 

[00:20:01] And as a property owner, it’s so much easier to clean. If you spill red wine on the leather couch, you can wipe it right off. If you spill red wine on this one, we have a problem. Um, so if you could find one that’s on marketplace, in good shape, I’d recommend real leather because it actually wears really well.

[00:20:23] But if not– we have one rental, that’s Charlotte Hall, our giant one. It’s 6,700 square feet, and we have six pleather sofa futon things that are 500 bucks a pop. So if they break, it’s not the end of the world. But it’s just a really good fabric. So same thing with dining chairs or bar stools. The ones with the fabric on them are beautiful, but again, you’re probably going to end up replacing those more. So those things. 

[00:20:51] Bedding, we stick with white because you can bleach it. So you have the cleanliness of it, the antibacterial cleanliness, but also you can bleach out any stains. The makeup hand towels are a great idea. Don’t know if you have the same experience. No one uses them. There’s a black towel that says makeup. It’s got cute little eyes with eyelashes. And they use the white washcloth and stain it with foundation and mascara. Um, but we still provide that. 

[00:21:17] Sarah: What is with that? I don’t–

[00:21:20] Annette: I’ve told you, I’m the person. I use the white. It’s like you’re washing your face, you just reach, and then you’re like, oh, dang it. I’m taking the fall on that one.

[00:21:29] Sarah: I’m going to go on your side with the leather couch thing. We manage properties as well for other people in Columbus, and one of our clients swore by leather. This was years ago. And I was like, this is not going to go well. But even when you do spill red wine on it or scratch it, it looks better worn in. So I was super wrong there, and I am now a huge leather fan.

[00:21:52] Mina: And if you actually do have a real leather couch, once a month, what I’ve found is– I had a leather couch in our house with three dogs, two kids for about five years. My brother actually has it now, and it still looks great. You just put the leather conditioner and water it down, then you can spray it. You don’t have to wipe it in. Because mine was tufted. Mine was tufted so it was a B to clean. The spray helps condition all the crevices, so it still looks really good pleather. You would have to do it with your boots as well. You got leather-condition your coach.

[00:22:26] Annette: Smart. Mina, I have to ask this. Because of your television show, do guests know that you have a short-term rental and seek you out for that? Have you ever had that, um, encounter at all?

[00:22:40] Mina: Our short-term rentals, all but one. So we have one, two– my husband and I have three, two of which were episodes of the show. And then my business has three that were all episodes of the show. So if people are looking, ours are called The House That Two Chicks Built.

[00:23:01] Annette: Oh, okay.

[00:23:01] Mina: First and second floor. And I post them every once in a while. So people know we own them. Um, I’m the one that made the account, so anytime, whether Steve or I message, it’s from me, so people think they’re always talking to me.

[00:23:13] Annette: No, that’s awesome. I love that.

[00:23:14] Mina: I was responding to a message the other day, and someone had said, we’re so excited to stay at your place. Love the show. Um, you’re so amazing, something like that. Some compliment. And my husband messages back, but as if it’s me. Oh, I’m actually pretty boring. My husband’s really the funny, handsome one. And nowhere in their brain would they think, that’s not Mina. They were very nice. They’re like, oh, you are as well, too, but she’s great. 

[00:23:47] Sarah: Oh, husband. He’s a live one.

[00:23:50] Annette: Yeah, we got a live one on your hands.

[00:23:51] Mina: He’s thinks he’s real funny.

[00:23:53] Annette: For you, I think it is a huge marketing opportunity. I know Jenna Kutcher. She has a short-term rental in Hawaii, and she has it specifically on her page. I’m like, oh my gosh, if you could just have so many guests, fans of your show staying with you, it’s ahuge marketing–

[00:24:10] Sarah: I was in Indy. My girlfriend lives in Chicago, and so we sometimes will meet in Indianapolis, and we try to actually stay at one of your places, and it was booked up. But I think that’s a great way for people to be a part of your brand and to experience that thing they see on TV. I mean, what a better way to immerse themselves.

[00:24:29] Annette: It’s fun.

[00:24:31] Mina: Yeah. It’s good marketing that not a lot of people have the opportunity to get, so I appreciate it, for sure.

[00:24:38] Annette: I love that you actually put that in the bio, so people can know and have that added bonus. So Mina, we are excited. We are going to have you at our conference here, um, in around a month. Sarah and I are dying to know, when you do a keynote, can you just give us a little snippet of what you’re going to bring to our conference guests?

[00:25:05] And I’ll let everybody know, uh, Mina’s manager that we’ve been working with is like, her energy is next level. So we’re very excited about that. Um, you can talk to him after this. But Mina, can you tell us, what are you going to be talking about? What are some of the things that you’re going to bring to the stage at our event?

[00:25:26] Mina: Well, it drives my husband crazy anytime I do a speaking thing. He’s like, so what are you talking about? I’m like, I’m going to figure it out when I get there because I think it’s really important to see the size of the crowd, the energy of the crowd, read the room. And I was speaking to, um, a couple of hundred legislators that were in town for a conference, and I was not educating them on anything.

[00:25:45] I was just the fun hype girl. And we were all over the place. We got deep on life lessons from the show, things I would do differently, in a big way. And we, uh, wrapped out with a poop prank that we played early on in filming the show. So it really can go all over the place. I don’t know if we’re going to have a set– even with a couple of hundred people, I love doing Q&A because then we’re talking about what they want to talk about. 

[00:26:13] And I hate boring people because you can– not boring people. I hate when I’m boring people. Um, and you can tell when people’s eyes start to glaze over. And I’m like, all right guys, what do you want to talk about? I got all the jokes. I got all the stories. I can tell you about the show. Um, but usually, it’s a little bit of a background I always do a poll like, who here has no clue why I’m here. 

[00:26:33] They’re always like– so a little bit of background of how I ended up with the show because it really is a weird story, and I think a lot of people think you apply. And that is, in some cases. So talk about that, and then the weirdness that is TV, and then, really, if there’s anything specific, um, obviously, you guys, it’ll lean more into the story of the short-term rentals, and the struggles, and things like that, but yeah. 

[00:27:03] Annette: I’m excited to hear the backstory too because I can share with you– we’ll just put it out there really quick on this episode. Mina, it really is so many people’s dream. And Sarah has had a stint on a HGTV show, and so we hear it time after time. So many hosts, it really is their dream to be on HGTV. They get a call or an email about a sizzle reel, and it is this thing that I think people put up on a pedestal of, like, will completely change their life, and all these things.

[00:27:36] So we are excited. Can you, at our conference, dig in there a little bit on the pros, the cons? The people that have this dream– and I love that you said your story isn’t the typical one that people would think. And I think that’s what so many people want, is to really see behind the scenes. I mean, HGTV shows, in theory, are behind the scenes because you’re going behind the scenes of the rehabs, but not really. So, um, I just want to encourage our listeners, if this is something that– and listeners–

[00:28:12] Sarah: Don’t lie. 

[00:28:13] Annette: You know you want to be on HGTV, so don’t fake, uh, even if it’s one episode of something. Um, come out to the conference. You guys can hear right now, just in this interview, Mina is so down to earth. She wants to share her experience. And the thing too is, her and her husband are building generational wealth, their portfolio, and they’re doing it in Indianapolis, Indiana. And that’s one thing that we actually– Sarah was–

[00:28:39] Mina: We don’t have a beach. We don’t have mountains. You got to work for it.

[00:28:43] Sarah: Same here.

[00:28:44] Annette: No. And we love that. When we were actually talking about keynotes, Sarah was like, Mina. You were top of the list, and actually the first and only person because you said yes, but it was very important that we show someone in the Midwest doing their thing, crushing it in short-term rentals, on the HGTV show, building a portfolio with her partner.

[00:29:10] That was really important to us because so many of these events, like you just said, Mina, they happen in Florida, or Texas, or California, and we want to show people that you can really do this anywhere, um, wherever you’re located, and if you have that passion. So we’re excited for you to share that part of you building your portfolio.

[00:29:31] Mina: I think it was maybe one of my first five episodes of my podcast, Mina AF. I did it with a guy named Michael Elefante. I think that’s how you spell his last name. And I literally stumbled upon him on Instagram, and I was like, would be super interesting to talk. I was asking him questions. 

[00:29:46] It’s a super good episode, if anyone wants to listen to it, but I actually got a message from him a few weeks back saying, they reached out about a sizzle reel, about this. What things can you tell me? What advice do you have? And I’m definitely excited to talk to people at that because, while there are such amazing things, there are very challenging things.

[00:30:07] So I think knowing what you want, then you can make all the decisions the right way. I think where people sometimes go wrong is it’s like, it’s fun, it’s flashy, it’s 15 minutes. It is a lot of work. It is a lot of work, and you got to be ready to do it. Um, and it’s a weird new world because it’s like learning to speak a different language learning how to be on TV. And some people, like mom and I, are weird. So we were good at it from the beginning, but it’s definitely a different world. So yeah, I’m happy to talk about that.

[00:30:38] Annette: And, um, the one thing that I want to just piggyback off of what you just said, for all of our listeners out there, too, that have a dream to show off their work, their properties to other people, the one thing we can say is, there are platforms like podcasting, like YouTube, like Instagram, like TikTok, where you don’t have to wait for someone to reach out to you to start to create.

[00:31:04] So, um, that’s what I think you’ll see now. Mina is doing her own podcast and still creating, um, her spaces for people. So that’s also what I want to offer to all the listeners, that maybe not sit around and wait for the network because, um, they’re going to probably see you while you’re putting your content out there. Anything else you can offer to our listeners? But not too much because we want them to come to the event, obviously. Um, anything else before we wrap up the episode, Mina?

[00:31:36] Mina: No, I mean, I’m just really excited to talk to them. Um, and we’ll just go all over the place. We can talk about investments, the good side, the bad side, the show. It really is a great poop prank joke. I love when it rolls into the opportunity to tell it. So if that happens, y’all are going to love it. But we’re just going to have fun.

[00:31:54] Annette: Love that.

[00:31:54] Sarah: Amazing.

[00:31:55] Annette: And listeners, you heard her. We are going to have an open Q&A. You’re going to be able to ask questions, and I don’t know about you, but tell me the last time you were able to sit down with a HGTV star and ask them questions one-on-one. We’re offering you that opportunity, so make sure to grab your ticket.

[00:32:13] Sarah: Yes. tfvcon.com. With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

[00:32:16] Annette: I’m Annette Grant. And together we are–

[00:32:18] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting. 

[00:32:19] Sarah: Talk to you next time.