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[00:00:05] Sarah: Hello, listeners. Welcome back from another great episode. My name is Sarah Karakaian.

[00:00:08] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we’re–

[00:00:10] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.

[00:00:11] Sarah: Let’s start this episode like we do every week, and that is sharing one of you, our listeners, who’s using our hashtag, #STRShare Sunday on the gram. If you’re using it there, we’ll find you, we’ll celebrate you and all the amazing work you’ve done to your property, and then we’ll share you on Instagram on Sundays, and then here on the podcast, to our entire email list. So make sure you use that hashtag. Who are we sharing this week?

[00:00:33] Annette: This week we’re mixing it up a little bit. We’re going to share a place that we just stayed. That’s a new mix too. If we stay with you, we can highlight you.

[00:00:43] Sarah: Bumped up.

[00:00:43] Annette: Yeah. So we are sharing @treebonesresort. Yes, you heard that correctly. @treebonesresort. T-R-E-E, Bones, B-O-N-E-S, Resort. And woo, let me tell you, it is on Big Sur, coast of California, and it was a once-in-a-lifetime trip that Sarah and I booked last minute and had an unbelievable stay and almost ran out of gas.

[00:01:16] Sarah: Wait, now we have to tell the story.

[00:01:18] Annette: We’ll tell the story after we highlight Treebones. Please go to their Instagram, get carried away and feeling as if you are there. The couple that owns Treebones, they are really trendsetters in glamping. They have been doing this for decades, and this is so remote. They have yurts. They have cabins. They actually have this open human nest that you can sleep in.

[00:01:45] Sarah: It’s incredible. I would never stay in it, but for the right person, it’s a giant nest.

[00:01:52] Annette: It’s like a twig hut. It is unbelievable. It has an outdoor mattress for sleeping if the weather permits. So it is incredible. But their Instagram too, you’re going to see it. They have so many followers, and you’re going to know why. This is really a wishlisted place. This is on people’s bucket list. I’ve never stayed anywhere like this. Every corner that you turn or you look, it is absolutely breathtaking, and you’re going to see it in their profile.

[00:02:19] One thing that they do a lovely job of, and hopefully you guys can put this on your list of things to focus on in the future, is sharing when their guests share them and reposting them. So if you want to put some sort of note in your messaging to your guest and just, hey, if you could share some moments of your stay, that way– hey, let’s make life easier on ourselves.

[00:02:38] If you can have user-generated content and you can reshare it, there is nothing better than someone creating content for you and you being able to reshare it. And Tree Bones has really mastered that by using guest photos, guest videos, and highlighting the stays that they have there. But just take a look at it, and you will see.

[00:02:58] They also do a really good job of highlighting all of the reviews that they have, and then guest shares. So check it out. @treebonesresort, and do yourself a favor. Put it on your wishlist.

[00:03:11] Sarah: Okay, we ran out of gas.

[00:03:12] Annette: But make sure to get a lot of gas before you travel up Highway 1.

[00:03:16] Sarah: Yes. Annette and I are smart women. I have no doubt in my mind that we are smart. We think ahead. We’re planners. What went wrong?

[00:03:28] Annette: Well, it was a rental car.

[00:03:32] Sarah: That’s not an excuse.

[00:03:33] Annette: Okay. It was a rental car. Here’s the situation. We were a little novice in understanding Highway 1 in California and how remote Treebones really was and that there had been a lot of damage on Highway 1 the year prior. So we were unaware of some of the gas stations not having gas or not being open, but we’re not joking when it was pitch black outside, we needed to be there by a certain time. We are literally on the side of the coast.

[00:04:07] Sarah: The windiest of roads. Yeah, so there was a gas station. There is a gas station right before you get to Treebones. So the whole night we’re like, oh, we’ll just stop there, we’ll get some gas, and then we will take the two minute trip up to Treebones. It’ll be great.

[00:04:19] Except, because of the remoteness and because of other factors, we didn’t even think to check to see if this gas station didn’t have gas or was closed for business. And it was closed for business. Guess what? The next morning, we realized, or when we were checking out, we realized we don’t have gas to be able to get to the airport on time.

[00:04:39] Annette: And they were like, oh, there’s a gas station at this city or closer, but it didn’t open until 11:00 AM, and we needed to get to the airport 11:00 AM. And I was like, oh, I have AAA. And the guy was like, good luck. No one’s going to drive up here to give you gas.

[00:04:58] So Treebones, forever indebted. They are remote, so they have gas on site for their equipment, and they have golf carts and other things, and they had extra. I might have paid, a premium, but I wanted to pay. They did not charge us for that. They were going to help us. But it was–

[00:05:15] Sarah: Clutch.

[00:05:16] Annette: Yeah. And it made us feel really ill-prepared.

[00:05:20] Sarah: But hosts out there who have remote properties, it could be a good little safety thing for you to have a tank of gas. Maybe you all already do this.

[00:05:28] Annette: Oh, I wonder how Justin Ford’s going to feel about that.

[00:05:30] Sarah: I think, yeah, having gas that you can gas up anything that might help you, whether it’s chopped on a tree so you can get out. Anything that’ll help you operate your property, because that was something that we weren’t anticipating and they were prepared. So good on you, Treebones. Thank you. All right. It is May, and it is– Annette, what are we calling today this month?

[00:05:49] Annette: Moneymaking May.

[00:05:51] Sarah: All right. With who?

[00:05:52] Annette: PriceLabs.

[00:05:53] Sarah: No. I mean yes, but with Profitable PriceLabs, would you call it?

[00:05:56] Annette: Pricing Profitable Properties with PriceLabs.

[00:05:59] Sarah: There we go. Okay. 

[00:06:01] Annette: Alliteration times four.

[00:06:02] Sarah: Wow.

[00:06:04] Annette: The reason we’re talking about Treebones too and PriceLabs is we got the minimal amount of gas to get us down Highway 1 to our airport, which was in San Luis Obispo, and our guest today came right up to us at the airport. Sarah and I were a little stressed because we were like, are we going to be able to get gas? Are we going to run up? We got that. But you know how you have those moments and it takes a while to come down from them? So we were still wondering if were going to get there okay. This amazing gentleman came up to us at the airport.

[00:06:30] Sarah: Please reenact what he said to us.

[00:06:34] Annette: He went, are you the Thanks for Staying girls? And we were like, yes. And then we corrected him, of course, but, love that he came up to us. We’re going to get into that episode, but you’re going to hear throughout this episode what we want to help everybody with.

[00:06:47] And our guest, Michael, was way underpriced when he got started and left a lot of money on the table. He’s crushing it now, but you can hear it’s one of those mistakes that he made, and he will not make again, because he’ll share about his journey and other properties and how pricing software has been an integral part of him setting up properties after he made some errors when he first got launched.

[00:07:13] Sarah: And pricing your property is a very important part of hosting because you don’t want to leave money on the table, especially in 2024, now that the marketplace is really normalizing. You have to be able to optimize every single night that you have available to your guests to price it appropriately. And we use PriceLabs in our hosting business every single day, and they are obsessed with helping hosts so much so that they have live workshops every week.

[00:07:47] And so for the entire month of May, pretty much starting today, we are going to be talking about pricing appropriately and how you can use software like with PriceLabs to get that perfect pricing. They also have some really cool products inside of their platform that I use as a realtor and as a property manager.

[00:08:08] So when I have people who want to buy a short-term rental, or they have a short-term rental they want to put on the market, we use the marketplace features that PriceLabs has inside of their software to understand what those projections are going to look like for that exact property in that exact area plus the whole pricing software that they’re known for. 

[00:08:30] So all month long we’re going to have Instagram lives, we’re going to have podcasts around pricing. And if you want to be in our newsletter, go ahead, email us, hi@thanksvisiting.com, and we’ll get you on the newsletter. but our newsletters will be around pricing.

[00:08:41] Let’s get you all priced right this month. But as we do that, you’re going to love the story with Michael because he also leveraged seller financing, which is another big topic here in 2024. He leveraged seller financing to get an amazing deal in New York. I can’t wait to tell a story.

[00:09:00] Michael, welcome to the show.

[00:09:01] Michael: Thanks, a lot.

[00:09:03] Annette: Michael, I want to know, since we met at the airport– we love this story– we love that you came up to us, and I think maybe you botched our name a little bit, but I’m here for that. I think you’re like, are you the Thanks for Giving, thanks for Visiting?

[00:09:17] Michael: Thanks for Staying.

[00:09:18] Annette: Thanks for staying. Okay. Hey, we’re here for it. It’s all good. As just a human and doing uncomfortable things, was that uncomfortable for you? Were you like, should I say hi? Because it’s brought us here today. So this is just a lesson because I stutter a lot or I stop myself from doing things that I probably should do that would get me to other places.

[00:09:35] So I want to know, when you saw us out and about in the wild at the airport, were you just like– you probably had no expectations, but what pushed you to just come up and say hello to us?

[00:09:45] Michael: I love that question. Yeah, absolutely. My heart was pounding in my chest. I was like, oh my gosh, is it really them? But I couldn’t not say something. And then I told my business partner and my brothers who are in this with me, that have properties with me, and my wife.

[00:10:02] And they’re like, wait, you just went and said hi? I’m like, yeah, of course. I think part of the reason I botched your name was because of that rush. It’s totally clouded my ability to think straight. So yeah, thanks for asking about that. I was pretty much shaking while I was trying to introduce myself.

[00:10:20] Sarah: I’ll say that it was flattering for us, Michael, too, because our podcast has been successful, and we have longevity and a lot of episodes, and I don’t want to discount that. Thank you to everyone who listens. But at the same time, sometimes it feels like no one’s listening because you’re just talking to yourself half time. Or we see that there’s downloads, but who are the downloads?

[00:10:43] So thank you to you because it was really such a lovely end to our trip in California, which had everything to do with real estate investing. And it really was just a nice little like, okay, people are listening. We’re helping. We’re doing the thing that we set out to do. So thank you for saying hi and for doing that. It meant a lot to us.

[00:11:00] Annette: That’s our invitation to anybody. If you ever see us out in the wild, please come and say hi to us. And Michael probably doesn’t know. We probably had the most not inviting faces because we were in Big Sur and literally almost ran out of gas. Had to ask the host where we were staying for gas to get us a couple of gallons to get us to our next location.

[00:11:24] So we were– and Sarah, I’m just going to say it, she had gotten pulled over by the security at the airport and had to get rid of a lot of her toiletries, so we were probably standing there just like, oh gosh, what a day. But you completely made our day, and we are so excited to have you on the show because not only did you make our day, you were on your way– we’ll get to this at the end, but you were on your way to see a property across the country you had just bought for the first time with your partner, but your story, Sarah and I were so encouraged by it. 

[00:11:57] We were so inspired by it, and we wanted to share it. It was after talking with Michael for quite some time that we were like, oh my gosh, we’ve got to have him on the show because his story is wonderful. So let us know how this teacher turned– well, real estate investors, still teacher, how you were doing all the things and what started it all for you.

[00:12:15] Michael: Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, thanks for the invitation to share my story. I guess I should start with the disclaimer that I’m definitely still a newbie and learning as I go and all those things. But yeah, we started out. My wife and I, live in the central coast here in California, and it’s expensive. It’s really expensive here. 

[00:12:34] And we were teaching, saving all that we could, and right around 2018, ’19 when we started really trying to find a house that we could set roots here because we knew we want to stay, we were just getting priced out of everything.

[00:12:50] We were finding these little like starter homes, and it’s like 600,000, and we’re like, great, we can just make it work if we stretch our budget. And then we would have 15 other offers competing with us, and it would go up 10, 15%. And we were just getting desperate and feeling so discouraged.

[00:13:08] So at some point in that process of looking for a home, we pivoted a little bit and thought, what if we find something that has a little rental? If it could just pay for even a third of our mortgage, then that would give us the opportunity to, I guess, extend our budget just a little bit.

[00:13:25] So long, long story short, years of searching, right around the end of 2020, we found this fixer upper. It was rough, but it had an apartment above the garage, and we went for it. We went 51,000 over asking price. I’m an open book, so it was listed at 650. We bought it at 701, and we put everything we had as our down payment because I didn’t really realize at the time that you don’t need to put 20% down, but that’s one of the lessons learned.

[00:14:01] So we put everything we had into it, and then because we were basically broke, I was in there myself, with friends, or with family, ripping out all the carpets that wreaked of smoke and crawling under the foundation to fix up posts, and basically learning how to fix a house.

[00:14:20] And it was funny because I told my dad, I’m like, yeah, we’re going to buy this house. We’re going to fix it in three weeks, because that’s how long my winter break was. And we had a three-month old at the time. We had just had our first baby, and my dad’s like, you think you’re going to do this in three weeks?

[00:14:36] And I was like, yeah. He’s like, no. It’s going to be four months. And he nailed it, spot on. It took us about four months to get it livable. So in the meantime, we had to go move in with him and my mom. So thank you to my parents, who made room for us. But we cranked it out.

[00:14:54] We moved in, and then we turned the upstairs little apartment into a short-term rental because one of our friends from church, said, hey, you should try this short-term rental instead of a long-term. And I was like, that’s a great idea. We’ve stayed at Airbnbs

[00:15:08] And then I guess the moment that the light bulb went on, it took us a while to get that Airbnb ready to go and then listed because we were focused on just getting our part of the house livable first. So this was June, six months after we bought the place, 2021. I don’t know, it was this pivotal moment for us where we launched our little Airbnb on a Tuesday night at 11:00 PM, and when I woke up the next morning on a Wednesday– it was like middle of the week.

[00:15:36] I woke up the next morning, and we had five bookings overnight. And that was the moment where I was like, oh my God, what did we just do? This is going to work. We’re going to be okay. So that was huge for us.

[00:15:49] Annette: I seriously have goosebumps right now.

[00:15:50] Sarah: I know. I love that story.

[00:15:52] Annette: Yeah, that is awesome. You said you’re an open book. How strapped are you at this point in time to make this work? Is it paycheck to paycheck? You said you’d put everything in. You got these five bookings, but how did you even design this and have enough money? You’re putting on credit cards to put furnishings in there?

[00:16:11] Michael: We got pretty creative, I’ll say. So a little bit of marketplace finds. And when we bought the house, some of our good friends gifted us an hour with an interior designer, and we used that actually, for our own place. But it was this lady at our church, Suzie Fiddler. She’s an awesome interior designer.

[00:16:31] When we started working on the Airbnb, we’re like, she does such amazing work. She goes above and beyond. We brought her on board, and it was just like, I don’t know. It was magic. She came in and did the work and just, again, went above and beyond.

[00:16:46] So the amount that we paid her, I feel like she more than paid us back by saving us on some of the decisions that she helped us with. I was ready to pull the trigger on getting some blinds installed, window treatments, and it was going to cost us thousands. And then she’s like, dude, you can just get these ones at Walmart. They’re way cooler looking, and it saved us thousands probably.

[00:17:12] So that having that, her perspective on things, helped us so much. And we still get comments to this day just about, oh, the place is designed so cute. So having the right person for the right job, that interior designer, that was huge and ended up saving us money actually.

[00:17:29] But yeah, to answer your question, we were super tight on our budget for sure, and I think my in-laws at the time gave us some money to use to fix up the place. Thankfully at the time we were both– actually, I think at that point it was just me working, but I had a consistent income with teaching. So it was a little dicey for sure, but we made it work.

[00:17:48] Annette: Give us the stats on above-the-garage unit, how many bedrooms, how many bathrooms, how many do you sleep and then the stats on what those five reservations, the money after that one-night sleep.

[00:17:58] Michael: Yeah. I know that looking back we were way under priced, hence why we got so many bookings. So I was like, okay. All right. I think even one of our guests that booked that night probably told us like, you guys should be charging a lot more. This is before I knew anything.

[00:18:17] So we weren’t using a dynamic pricing tool or anything. So I want to say that we were priced around 150-ish a night, and this is peak season for us, versus now, with a pricing tool, if it’s a holiday weekend or something during the summer, we’ve gotten up bookings for as much as 400 and something a night.

[00:18:40] But back then it was like, hey, we’re doing it 150 a night, and those bookings all just got a steal of a deal. But even just that exceeded our expectations. Because in my mind, I was like, hey, if we can just cover part of our mortgage, we’re good. And then what we found out pretty quickly was that this is actually going to cash flow for us if we do it right.

[00:19:02] Sarah: Wow.

[00:19:02] Annette: Ooh. All right. And how many do you sleep at this above the unit garage?

[00:19:07] Michael: Yeah, so it’s a one bed apartment. It’s a 600 square foot place. So the main bedroom has a queen. You can sleep two in there. And then we have a sofa sleeper. I would say, pretty comfortably, we can host up to four. We have had guests that have stayed with five.

[00:19:26] I think that’s the max so far. And we just tell them upfront. They ask, hey, can we bring a fifth? I’m like, it’s up to you. Especially if it’s a child or something, they’re bringing in a pack and play, or we’ll let them borrow a pack and play. But we tell them four pretty comfortable. Five, definitely like, you’re going to be creative, and it’s going to be tight.

[00:19:45] Annette: Right. And how close is this garage unit to your home, to your wife, to your children, to where you’re living? Do you share parking?

[00:19:54] Michael: It’s pretty close. It’s pretty close. Yeah.

[00:19:57] Annette:  Do you see all of your guests?

[00:19:59] Michael: Yeah, yeah. Not all of them, but a lot of them we do. Yeah, for sure. Our house is the downstairs unit, and then there’s the garage on one wing of the house, and it has its own separate entrance, but the apartment is directly above the garage. So when I’m in the garage, I can hear them walking around because they’re right above that.

[00:20:17] But it works out okay because we don’t spend a ton of time in the garage. We can’t hear it when we’re in our house, other than sometimes we can hear the entry door opening, but that’s about it. So it’s just enough space. And that worked out really well starting out because it helps us keep tabs on the place a little bit easier.

[00:20:35] Sarah: So are you still cash flowing on this property?

[00:20:38] Michael: Yeah, yeah. We just looked at our numbers for 2023, and our gross revenue was just over 50,000 for the year. And then our mortgage and all that stuff is just a little bit less than what we bring in. 

[00:20:53] Sarah: That’s amazing.

[00:20:54] Michael: Yeah, it’s pretty incredible. We get to live in the house basically free. It makes a little bit of extra that we get to put into savings for all the other investments that we’ve started.

[00:21:05] Sarah: That’s right. Are you still all about it? Do you plan on being here for a while and continuing with the short-term rental activity?

[00:21:11] Michael: Absolutely.

[00:21:13] Sarah: I love it. Okay. So then this wasn’t enough for you. You guys want to invest out of state, nonetheless. I don’t want to spoil over too much here, but talk to us about this deal. First of all, yes, how you found it, but how you found it as a teacher and a father of a very young child.

[00:21:32] Annette: Two. They have two now.

[00:21:33] Sarah: How did you find the time? Because I know that for a lot of people it feels like, give us the whole story.

[00:21:38] Annette: And hosting.

[00:21:39] Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

[00:21:41] Michael: Yeah. Are you asking about the more recent ones, or are you asking about our central coast?

[00:21:46] Annette: Oh, you know what? We know a little bit more about this story. So yeah, you got bit by the bug for sure, because you’ve made some other investments since. So yeah, let’s go through all the investments and then the one that we just met you on. Because this was your first real estate investment, correct? Your primary residence?

[00:22:03] Michael: Yeah. First time buying a house.

[00:22:05] Annette: Okay. And then you’ve got some more under your belt. So when you get bit– because you’re a realtor now. Were you a realtor then?

[00:22:12] Michael: No. Yeah, that’s it. That’s pretty new. I’ve been just about a year. I’ve been a realtor for a year and change.

[00:22:17] Annette: Okay. Because I think you made an investment with some family members after your success. So let’s go through how your portfolio has grown. I know our listeners will love that.

[00:22:27] Michael: Absolutely. Yeah. So after we launched that first Airbnb above our house and it blew our expectations out of the water, like you said, I got the bug. So I started searching up podcasts and just became obsessed for a while. Still kind of am.

[00:22:44] So what I did was, my brothers and I, they’ve always been interested in real estate investing, and I was like, let’s do this thing together. And for a while, we were looking at like Houston and doing a multifamily, and all these things, and I was like, you know what? I really have loved doing this short-term rental thing, and some of the podcasters– I don’t know how much attention I should give to other podcasts.

[00:23:05] Annette: It’s all good. We’re friends with them all.

[00:23:06] Michael: Not as great as TFV.

[00:23:11] Sarah: You’re good. Now you’re fine. Go ahead.

[00:23:14] Michael:  So anyways, but Robuilt and Tony Robinson, they’re huge investors in the Joshua Tree area, which is not too far from us. I can get there in five hours of driving. And my brothers and I we’re scattered across California, so it was like, let’s try that.

[00:23:32] They’re doing it, and it’s working. And long story short, we bought at a weird time. It was the middle of 2022 when rates were just starting to explode, but prices were also still at a peak. Long story short, we bought this little house and put a ton of effort and work into it just to be competitive.

[00:23:51] And we still have that one. We’re still running it. This past month of March was, I feel like finally we’re like turning a corner because it’s been costing us more than it’s making us up until this point. So hopefully, fingers crossed, we’re like getting that one on track. But what that whole experience– really, the biggest takeaway from that was the importance of doing your homework beforehand, picking the right market, because we were going based off of like, well, it seems to be working for everyone else that they’re doing Joshua Tree.

[00:24:20] And then when we got there, we realized like, oh, we tried to jump in to black belt level, and we’re competing with all these guys that are way more established than us. And it’s been tough. It’s been so hard. So we’re doing our best to make that work, but after that experience, I knew I wanted to keep going even though it was tough.

[00:24:42] But I just wanted to do it way different, so I bought Tony Robinson’s partnership book, and then through that met some people because there was a Slack group, and one of the guys that I met, he was like, hey, let’s sign up for a course together with this guy Kirby Atwell, who has his own little group of– he coaches people, basically.

[00:25:02] And his whole approach is picking those markets that are under the radar and then picking places that are multifamily. Because of exactly what I experienced at Joshua Tree, where he is like, hey, rather than getting into the places where it’s super competitive, where the small little homes are going to cost you close to a half a million, you can go to the Midwest, let’s say, and there’s little homes that you can pick up, little multifamily for a fraction of the cost, and you’re still turning out a great cash flow.

[00:25:32] So it’s like, hey, this sounds awesome. And then meanwhile, I’d also had gotten my real estate license, and just started calling everybody. I was going to try and follow David Green’s footsteps, but yeah, found out that I’m not so great at that either. 

[00:25:47] That’s been tough, man. These guys make it look so easy, let me tell you. But anyways, through that process was calling a bunch of people and connected with an old friend, that was also a fan of some of the podcasts that I’d been listening to and wanted to get into it.

[00:26:03] He’d done his own little house hack. Long story short, we decided, let’s partner up and find one together. And he’s the one that found our latest property, which was the one that I met you all on the way to go set it up. We’re flying out to New York, an upstate New York, little town called Almar.

[00:26:22] And we found these three little cabins on this one and a quarter acre property, and that’s the one that the third unit, we just launched it last week. So I don’t know when this podcast might air, but I just flew out there early March to go stage it, and now we’re just getting it ready to go for the spring season.

[00:26:42] Sarah: Well, it’s more than that though. Tell us the deal structure.

[00:26:46] Annette: Yes. We are amazed at this buy, and we want to share it with everybody because you’ve got yours now. I know you’re still on the prowl, but what were the non-negotiables? What’s your partner’s name? Let’s give them a shout out.

[00:26:56] Michael: Yeah, Carl [Inaudible]. He’s a great guy. Just been an awesome partner to work with.

[00:27:01] Annette: Okay. Give your brothers a shout out too because they’re partnering. We’ll get back to the brothers.

[00:27:05] Michael: Oh yeah. Brian and Thomas. They’re great.

[00:27:08] Annette: I love it. Love it. So what was in your buy box for this next property? You said multifamily. Did you have the price? I know there’s one, huge one, that knocked our socks off. Give us the breakdown of what you guys were looking for.

[00:27:24] Michael: Yeah. And I think, I don’t know, the big criteria that makes this one so unique that you guys were interested in is that my partner was really looking for something that was seller financed. My big things were like, hey, I want to pick something that’s not a super competitive market yet, and we want to pick something that’s multifamily, and we want to pick something that basically fits our budget, which I was looking for stuff that was under 300,000. 

[00:27:51] And then my partner was like, hey, why don’t we try and find something that’s seller finance? And I kept trying to talk him out of it. I was like, seller finance is tricky because you’re going to limit your options a lot. And he is like, well, let’s just see what we find. 

[00:28:04] And I was looking at Midwest, and unbeknownst to me, he had just been looking all over the map, and there’s other parts of the story I’m finding out later on too, where, it was like a joke that he found this place.

[00:28:17] He showed a buddy. He is like, oh, check this one out. And his friend took his phone and hit the button to request a tour with the agent or whatever it was. And he is like, well, I’m this far now. I might as well share it with my partner. And that’s when he shared it with me, and he is like, hey, what do you think of this one?

[00:28:32] So I started doing the analysis and stuff, and I was like, this could work. So yeah, that’s in a nutshell. Basically, it was just Carl scanning in the map. I think he typed into his search criteria, seller finance, multifamily, and it popped up,

[00:28:47] Annette: And is this on Zillow? Where are you guys looking exactly?

[00:28:51] Michael: Yeah, Zillow.

[00:28:52] Annette: Just Zillow. Okay.

[00:28:53] Sarah: For everyone who might not know, Michael, I grew up on BiggerPockets, and I always loved it when Josh and Brandon would remember us newbies out there who didn’t know what the heck any of these things were. I like to pretend I did back then, but I was going on Google and searching. So what does seller finance mean for this deal? What were the terms? Why was this seller interested–

[00:29:14] Annette: Wanting to finance.

[00:29:15] Sarah: In financing it for you, and what are the terms.

[00:29:19] Michael: Yeah, great question. I still Google search those terms. So anyways, seller finance, basically, the idea is instead of going to a bank to get your loan to purchase the property, the person selling it to you, they basically act as the bank. They say, hey, we’ll sell it to you and just take the down payment ourselves, and then you can make monthly payments to us instead of having to get a loan and all that stuff. 

[00:29:45] And the short version, you probably know more about it than I do, to be honest, is that it benefits them because, first of all, they’re getting to collect interest in addition to the principal. So instead of a one-time payout– we bought the cabins for 263 or four. Yeah, 263,000.

[00:30:06] So instead of her just collecting, hey, here’s 263,000 today, and you got to pay out your agent, and you got to pay all the taxes, instead she’s getting the 20% down payment, and then she’s getting a payment every month. And that payment, as you guys know, it’s like when you buy a home, the initial payments the first few years, most of that monthly payment is just going to interest.

[00:30:32] So it’s barely touching the principal. You’re like, principal’s barely going down a little bit every month, and then it snowballs later on. But what that means for the seller is really, at the end of our deal with her, because we have a five-year balloon payment, which basically means that, in five years, we have to refinance, or we have to pay her off, or whatever.

[00:30:51] So at the end of that five years, the amount of principle that we’ve paid off is going to be minimal. So she’s still going to collect a pretty good chunk of money from us, and she’s been able to collect from us every month, which is a great deal for her too, and it also benefits the buyers because we’d be paying probably a higher interest rate to a bank at this point anyway.

[00:31:14] We ended up getting this place. She gave us some different options, but what we decided on was with a 20% down payment, that she would give us a 6%, interest rate, which I know the interest rates right now are fluctuating. But since we were looking at DSVR loans, which is debt to service coverage ratio, which is basically like what you use for investment properties instead of primary, we were looking at those kinds of loans, and they tend to be higher than the standard rate anyway.

[00:31:42] I think we were looking at close to 9% when we were trying to get loans. So when the seller’s like, hey, we’ll give you 6%, I’m like, that’s amazing. Let’s do it. It’s a win-win for everybody in a lot of cases. And I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes more common as people become more familiar with what it is. I think that there’s maybe some hesitation for people to use seller financing just because there’s a lack of understanding of what it is, but it really benefits both.

[00:32:14] Annette: My understanding is you miss a payment, you default, she gets the property. If that happens with the bank, the bank gets the property, where she’s still sitting in the same position, if not better, because she has the property, you’re 20% down, and all your payments. And then secondarily, I would think, from her perspective, I believe she wanted to retire, correct?

[00:32:35] Michael: That’s correct. 

[00:32:36] Annette: There’s probably a lower tax burden for her if the payments are over five years versus a lump sum. I’m thinking capital gains. I’m not sure for her particular, but I know sometimes people, it might be a tax situation for them if they’re wanting to seller finance. But I think the huge thing is too, they still get to own the property if there’s any default at all instead of the bank owning it. 

[00:33:01] The owner, when you guys talked about the seller financing, was she very like, your friend pressed Zillow. Let’s do a walkthrough. Obviously, you guys are in California. You don’t do a walkthrough. Are you both still using realtors? What are the discussions with seller financing? Is it you and her face-to-face on Zoom? Did she have a couple of different offers? How long did that process take with the seller financing?

[00:33:23] Michael: Yeah, great question. And one of the big takeaways that I got from the course I took with Kirby Atwell is he’s a really big proponent of, when you find a deal like this, it’s going directly to the seller’s agent. We reached out to her, and we said, hey, would you be interested in being a dual agent? Would you work for both of us? 

[00:33:43] And basically, what that does is it streamlines some of the communication because now instead of me talking to Bob, and Bob talking to Mary, and Mary talking to Lisa, the game of telephone. You’re like, wait, did the message even get across? And then it’s got to go both ways, and you’re cutting out at least one more person.

[00:34:03] So we’re talking directly to the seller’s agents, and then she’s able to talk to the seller, and it’s a little bit more streamlined for sure. But basically, she gave us some pretty clear options with the seller. The seller gave us some pretty clear options about if we wanted to have a lower interest rate, we would’ve to put a bigger down payment, which we considered for a little bit, but we decided to go with a smaller down payment and a 6% interest instead of like a 30% down and 5% interest or something like that.

[00:34:37] Because we feel like leveraging the debts in a way that’s smart is really what’s going to help us scale. So putting a little bit less down is a big advantage for sure. But yeah, we never talked directly to the seller I think until we closed. 

[00:34:45] And I feel like that’s just a really good little safeguard that a lot of real estate agents use to keep everyone protected, is they want to make sure that– I don’t know. I guess I don’t really know why they do it that way. I know it has to do with just keeping everyone’s best interest in heart.

[00:35:15] Sarah: Yes. I don’t do a ton of transactions. Obviously, my expertise is in property management, but the transactions I’ve done, there’s a lot of emotion in buying and selling, and a deal can really go sideways if a good agent isn’t going to relay the emotion that someone might be having. They can come at it a fact, keeping it really emotionless as possible and just stating the facts with the buyer or the seller.

[00:35:40] Annette: Facts over feelings.

[00:35:41] Sarah: Facts over feelings instead of getting all heated because of whatever. So yes, I agree that it’s– and dual agency is tough sometimes too for an agent. So I do want to caution everyone, like, make sure it’s a good experienced agent, because that agent does have to represent both the buyer and seller’s best interests without sharing either clients information in a way that gets the deal done and not showing favoritism, which I think is an art.

[00:36:09] And so you want to make sure that you’re working with a great agent. It sounds like you were. And so you guys got the deal done. When it comes to looking at what happens after the deal is done, which Annette and I, this is what we think a lot of people in the short-term rental space don’t do, is really understand your operations from a, okay, you got the deal. Here you go. 

[00:36:29] But how are we going to get this to a place where it’s profitable and it’s stabilized, and you guys get to a point in five years where you can refinance? Just planning all that out, Michael, what were some of the things that you had to do to get it ready for you guys to make it your own? What were some of the things that you have planned to make it ready for you guys to rent out and to make some money on it?

[00:36:53] Michael: Yeah, great question. There’s definitely a lot of prep that goes into it. For sure, It starts with just analyzing the deal and really being conservative. Again, that’s one of the lessons I learned from Joshua Tree. Whereas there, I talked to our agent who was also a real estate investor, a short-term rental host, our Joshua Tree agent, she was like, oh, your estimates are too conservative. And I wish I would’ve gone with my initial estimates because we’re in the binds now where, okay, we’re not hitting those initial projections.

[00:37:26] So setting up the analysis so that you’re being really conservative and really diving into, what is my competition look like? And that was another great strategy I learned from that Joshua Tree agent. Actually, she was like, hey, we use the enemy method. So you go on Airbnb, and you look at your area, and you’re like, what is my competition doing? How much are they renting for? 

[00:37:49] And then again, my coach, Kirby Atwell, he is like, hey, you even want to go through and click on a listing and look at the reviews? And he is like, look at the dates of the reviews. Because if you’re looking at, oh, they get great reviews, but the last one they got was six months ago, and then the one before that was another 10 months before that, or whatever, you want to see that they’re getting consistent, bookings and consistent reviews, because if they’re not, then that’s a red flag that maybe this area doesn’t have the demand to support it. 

[00:38:21] So anyway, being conservative, really diving deep into the research, and then what we found with this property was that there were some areas for improvement, not only like, oh, it could be updated, renovated, but also just implementing some systems. I think she was using a flat rate pricing.

[00:38:39] She had like one price for summer and one price for winter, but there wasn’t any dynamic pricing going on. And I’m also pretty sure that the way it was listed– and again, this isn’t trying to knock what she was doing because she was doing a great job with what she had, and she was meeting her goals. The previous seller was doing awesome.

[00:39:01] But for us coming in, buying it at a higher price, and really wanted to expand our portfolio, it’s like, okay, what areas can we tweak the systems that she has in place to make it better? That was one of the big ones, was like, hey, there’s room for growth because we can just put it on a dynamic pricing tool, and that’s going to increase our occupancy, and at times even get us bookings for those peak seasons at higher prices than we would’ve. Cool story to that point. I had no idea that there’s an eclipse coming up in a couple of weeks here. and New York just happens to be right there on that line–

[00:39:36] Annette: It’s called the path of totality.

[00:39:38] Michael: Yeah.

[00:39:39] Annette: I just want to say that. I wanted to say that. Thank you, everyone. And I did Google that last week. I wish people could look at our Google searches. So you’re on the path of totality. 

[00:39:47] Sarah: That’s exciting.

[00:39:48] Michael: Yeah. So our cabins are on the path of totality, which means that instead of booking for 150 for that weekend, we actually got all three listings booked, and each one for around 400 a night. So I’m like, whoa. We almost just covered the mortgage with one single night.

[00:40:08] Annette: Boom. Love that. That’s awesome.

[00:40:09] Michael: So that pricing tool was like, that’s what it’s all about, right there, is the 20 bucks that you spend per month for the pricing tool is going to more than pay for itself.

[00:40:16] Sarah: Mm-hmm.

[00:40:17] Michael: So during the prep work of okay, we’re getting an idea of what this could be renting for and trying to analyze it correctly, and then moving from there to find what other ways can we improve and expand and whatnot. So we’ve given it a facelift. We are currently talking through, if we want to expand, we could turn the storage room into, potentially a little studio unit, or we could build some glamping sites on there, which is another thing that I would love to ask you all about because you guys are just entering that space, and it’s fun to geek out about.

[00:40:52] Annette: Well, when we met you, Michael, this was a Friday afternoon, or one of those days. Who knows? Maybe it was Saturday. You were leaving the airport to fly to New York to meet your business partner. Was it 48 hours? How many hours did you have? You were showing me some pictures.

[00:41:14] You had a general contractor in there. You guys had been doing some facelift from afar. We want to know, like what was the plan to get done that weekend, and what did you really get done in that amount of time, and how much did you sleep, and how many energy drinks did you drink?

[00:41:29] Sarah: And did you sleep in the property? Didn’t GC tell you like you cannot sleep here? It’s not sleepable. And you’re like, I’m going to be sleeping here, so great.

[00:41:38] Michael: Oh man. Yeah, I love that your questions just set it up so well because you already know where this is going. So we were flying out there. Again, we bought this place end of 2023, a couple of days before the new year, and I’m flying out there March 1st. And thanks for trying to be discreet about the date I was flying out there. I think I told you guys when I was there that I was taking some sick leave days. I think it’s safe to share that now because I’m transitioning jobs into sales.

[00:42:09] Annette: Oh, boom. Okay. We can say. No, I want to share that. Michael took a sick day. He is making it happen with what he’s working with right now. And so we applaud that. Those are your days. You’d earn those days. So you were taking that sick day, and you are on a very strict schedule right now, and you’re also leaving your family. Were your flights on time? I feel like things were delayed. Did you even get there on time?

[00:42:33] Michael: One of my flights was delayed, but it was the last connecting flight, so it didn’t make me miss any other flights. So I made it. I made it. Thanks for asking. I appreciate it. But yeah, we had set out to go out there and see the property for the first time, which is a little risky for sure and add to the adrenaline. 

[00:42:53] And then we were setting out there to basically stage the furniture and take the photos, and then get the place launched. That was basically the goal, was like, let’s have all the photos by the time we’re leaving, so that first thing when we get home, we can launch this property and have it running for month of March.

[00:43:10] Long story short, you know how it goes. We didn’t sleep almost at all. I think I got maybe four hours a night, and the place was not ready like it was supposed to be, so we had to pivot. We had to make a few different pivots on what our expectations were, what our goals were.

[00:43:29] And the biggest one was just that we were going to stage two of the units because we had renovated two of them. The other one, the third unit, we left it as is. That one’s already been running. We figured, hey, for our budget and for the time, let’s just keep that one as is, and let’s focus on these two.

[00:43:46] And when we got to the property, actually, even before we got there, our cleaner was the one telling us like, this place is not ready. You guys are not going to be able to sleep here. I was like, whatever, we’re just going to sleep here.

[00:43:56] Annette: Time out. Time out. Where’s this cleaner? Did you inherit this cleaner, or did you have to hire a new cleaner?

[00:44:03] Michael: Yeah, we did. We inherited this cleaner. She had been working with the seller for years, and they had a great relationship. She’s like the mama bear of the place.

[00:44:13] Annette: Yeah, we love that.

[00:44:14] Michael: Which is so helpful because, another story for another time, when we had the conman contractor, as I like to call him, the first guy that we hired scammed us out of a bunch of money. The cleaner was one of the people that told us like, hey, there’s some red flags here. So having the right people for the boots on the ground is, oh my gosh, can’t understate how important that is. So she was texting us like, you guys, it’s not ready.

[00:44:41] You’re not going to be able to sleep here. And we’re like, we’re going to have to. We’re going to have to because we don’t have another arrangement. So we get there, and one of the units is 90% ready, but the other one is maybe 60% ready. Because what happened was the contractor, you know how it goes.

[00:44:59] He started getting into the walls and under the house and finding that there were more things that needed to be fixed, which delayed the project. And so we had to address and go, okay. We can focus all our energy on this one property that’s 90%, and it’s good enough to where we can do the photos, and nobody’s going to notice that it’s the wrong size toilet in the bathroom.

[00:45:22] But the other place we’re like, okay, our stretch goal is we’ll get a few photos, but it’s not going to be ready for all the photos to be completed. And that’s basically what we accomplished, was we got all the photos we needed for the place that was ready, and then the one that was almost ready, or 60% ready, or whatever, the contractor kept working while we were there, and he got it close enough to where we could get some of the photos of the living room and the bedroom.

[00:45:50] But we’re going to have to send someone to finish it up and do the bathroom photos, and the kitchen photos, and all the other stuff that– probably the exterior too, that kind of stuff. So yeah, it was definitely an adjustment. It was adjust as you go. And we busted our butts, and we did what we could.

[00:46:09] Annette: Where were you having everything delivered? I know listeners are probably like, well, how are you ordering things and having them there ready for you? Is it just your team, your boots on the ground is bringing it in, or do you have them delivered somewhere else? Logistics.

[00:46:23] Michael: Yeah, great question. Yeah, we had most of the stuff delivered to the property. And then we have a handyman, and we have a cleaner that we inherited, and then we have the contractor that we hired. And between those three groups, I guess, it was like there was almost always somebody there.

[00:46:41] And they were kind enough to move those furniture pieces in. Actually, the contractor even opened the couch for us and put the legs on. And so when we got there, it was like, oh, this is a nice, little visual of what it could look like. So yeah, they took care of us in that way and helped us out with that.

[00:47:00] There were some times when stuff would not get delivered because it’s a little bit of a rural area. So we had to get creative with like, all right, can we ship to our cleaner? Can we ship to our handyman? And just give them a heads up.

[00:47:13] Sarah: All right, so obviously, you’re on the path of totality. Are you renting them all three that weekend? Was it April 6th or something?

[00:47:21] Michael: Yeah. We got some bookings for one-night stays, but yeah, we got all three booked. That was another big push for us, was when we realized the first one that we had already listed and that we left as is, when we saw that it got booked for a high price, I was like, wait, what’s going on here?

[00:47:40] And the guest messaged us like, oh, we’re coming into town for this eclipse. I was like, I didn’t know about this. So it was like, we need to get the other units launched so we can capture those bookings at the high price. So that was a huge motivator for us to like, get it done. So yeah, we’ve gotten them all booked, and we’re really thankful for that.

[00:47:59] Sarah: Are you going to self-manage?

[00:48:01] Michael: Yeah, we’re figuring out. Another, big thing that I’m learning as we go here that I want to develop is our automation. But yeah, we’re going to self-manage, and our mama bear cleaner, shout out to Brenda. She’s been so amazing. She actually has been helping us with, when we get questions, it might be 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning there, but it’s 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning over here, still jump on and respond on our behalf, which I really appreciate.

[00:48:29] So we’re self-managing, but we have the help of the cleaning team that goes above and beyond, and we’re looking into some other tools. I loved y’all guys’ episode, just recently, the Hosting Hack, because a lot of the things that I’ve been wanting to research more, you guys tapped into like, what are some good PMSs, property management services, and what are some good apps for basically responding automatically to some of those FAQs that guests have, right?

[00:49:02] Annette: Yeah.

[00:49:02] Michael: So we’re learning those things.

[00:49:04] Annette: Are you compensating Brenda above and beyond? What’s the conversation like? Because I think inheriting a cleaner is a touchy subject. Did she want to raise from her old relationship? Is she doing more for you now since she knows you’re in California? How did you have a new discussion with what your expectations are versus what the previous owners were? How did you take over that inheritance of an amazing cleaner?

[00:49:28] Michael: Yeah, the short version is a little bit of all the above. We talked to the seller, and she’s like, oh, I got this amazing team. And she is like, they do the cleanings for me for 15 an hour. And I was like, is that even legal? Here in California, we’re like, dude. So when we got the property under our names, one of the first conversations that my partner and I had was like, okay, how can we show appreciation to this team and make them feel compensated and all that?

[00:49:58] And I was like, well, we could give them a 20% raise, and I feel like that would be awesome. And we presented that to them, and I was like, hey, we want to show you how much we appreciate you, and we’re going to give you this raise. And there was just like crickets for a minute, and then she’s like, that’s not really the going rate anymore. I was like, oh, okay. All right. Didn’t mean to lowball you. But she does manage other properties or clean other properties. And she told us, hey, the going rate right now is 25 an hour, and we’re like, great. We’ll do that.

[00:50:27] Annette: Go, Brenda. Go, Brenda.

[00:50:29] Michael: Yeah. So we appreciated the transparency, and we want to make sure she’s compensated, right?

[00:50:37] Sarah: Yeah, she’s the backbone. And she’s already proven that she’s trustworthy. And with you guys both not being there, yeah, that’s got to be a strong relationship. My last question for you, Michael, Annette might have some more for you, but my last one is, do you know when you guys will start cash flowing?

[00:50:54] Michael: That’s a great question. And just to be clear, you’re not talking about like breaking even. We’re talking just monthly expenses.

[00:51:02] Sarah: You’re getting paid, everyone else is getting paid, all the expense, they’re getting paid, and you’re making more money.

[00:51:09] Michael: Yeah, yeah. To be honest, I don’t know when that tipping point is going to come. I could take a stab in the dark and say I think that the fall season is their peak, because it’s a little fishing town. I always forget if it’s salmon that comes through then. And we’re already starting to get some bookings for fall, which is pretty wild to me. But I think when that season comes, that’s when we’re really going to start to see a profit. And we’ll be able to just start cash flowing a pretty good amount there.

[00:51:42] Sarah: Yeah. So the goal is for you guys to take profit from this business within the next year. That’s part of your goals.

[00:51:49] Michael: Yeah, that would be the goal. We’re not going to be able to pay ourselves back for all the investment we’ve put in, but we’ll at least, hopefully, by that point, have enough in the LLC account, in the account for the property, and then we’ll be able to start hopefully taking some payments out for ourselves.

[00:52:10] Sarah: I love that.

[00:52:10] Michael: That’s the goal. Yeah.

[00:52:11] Sarah: Yeah.

[00:52:12] Annette: My last question is your hosting hot tip. What is the one thing that you learned the hard way that you hope that other hosts wouldn’t have to learn the hard way, or that’s helped you out tremendously?

[00:52:22] Michael: Yeah, I think probably going back to what I’d said before about the choosing the right markets and doing your homework to analyze so that you don’t end up with like, oh man, we’re just not making money. So yeah, making sure to get that part right on the onset. That’s what’s going to be the make or break.

[00:52:41] Annette: Awesome.

[00:52:42] Sarah: Yeah. Because I’ll say this real quick on that note, Michael, which I thought was really great, because I think a lot of people might ask, okay, if you don’t want it to be oversaturated, but then you also want to have a market where someone’s going to want to come and stay, you had an immediate response when we were talking about that at the airport.

[00:52:56] You’re like, it’s a fisherman’s town, and people have been coming to these cabins for years now. So there was a market. It seemed pretty stable in that you would at least have that avatar who would come and stay with you. And then hopefully you guys would also put your spin on it to be able to attract other people who might be coming to the area for other reasons. Is that pretty correct?

[00:53:17] Michael: Oh yeah, you nailed it. And you guys are doing an awesome job with just– I love how much you guys hear and then you remember all this because, man, the details, that’s amazing. That’s exactly right where finding that balance of, it’s not oversaturated with listings, but there is a clientele that comes here.

[00:53:36] Annette: Demand. Yeah. It’s amazing. I can share this. I was like economics class in college for some reason. I know the reason now. Because I didn’t have enough life experience. That stuff just went over my head, and it was probably one of my most difficult, just supply and demand. Now it’s so crystal clear to me.

[00:53:56] I’m that person that wants to go back now and take that class. But yeah, you can’t create the demand, unless it’s like some super unique experience. But it’s so important to look at the basic economics of supply and demand, and you’re doing that now in your new property.

[00:54:11] But, Michael, thank you for coming up to us at the airport. We’ll have to have a follow up show in a year, see how all the properties are doing. But you’ve just gave everybody, I think, this three for one, your primary residence shared wall, a deal that is causing you a little bit of pain right now, and then a new venture with seller financing. So you just gave us a three for one.

[00:54:34] Sarah: I am soaking in a whole bunch of content right now, Michael, and I just want to give this to you that you are taking action, and you’re not letting challenges stop you. You are five to 10 years away from everything you ever wanted.

[00:54:51] And I think that’s so cool for you and your family. And to keep your why at the center of everything, and you put it in your onboarding notes, like you want to spend more time with your wife and kids. And so to keep that laser focus at the forefront, but know that it’s going to take hard work, and it’s going to take time, and vigilance, and knowing when to pivot. 

[00:55:11] That Joshua Tree property, think long and hard about it. I know people don’t want to get rid– me included. This didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to, and I don’t want to get rid of it because then I feel like I failed. But if you can run the numbers and know where you want it to take you and you stay focused on the wife and kid thing, that’s where it’s at. That’s why we do this.

[00:55:33] Michael: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you all so much for the encouragement. It’s so good to hear from you all that have so much experience in it. I love that idea of keeping the laser focus and not getting too attached to a property to be able to make the right call for the lifestyle goals that we have. Because yeah, it is absolutely emotional. This is our baby.

[00:55:56] Annette: Mm-hmm, for sure. And you have family involved. It’s a lot. But you’re crushing it. You are crushing it. So we are so thankful for you stopping us.

[00:56:04] Sarah: I’m glad that you’re our friend now too. So Michael, if anyone wants to check your properties out or learn more about you or reach out to you about, hey, man, how do I go from this job to sales and real estate investing, and all that, where can they reach out to you at?

[00:56:18] Michael: Probably the easiest way would be on Instagram, just @michael_lacalle_real_estate.

[00:56:26] Annette: We’ll link to it.

[00:56:27] Michael: Yeah, yeah. My name’s kind of hard to spell.

[00:56:30] Annette: We got you.

[00:56:31] Michael: Yeah, I appreciate that. But yeah, Michael Lacalle Real Estate on Instagram. And I guess on that note too, I’m making this commitment now to step up my posting game because I’ve been mostly a spectator to this point.

[00:56:47] Sarah: I’m saying this for Annette and me too. People love the process, Michael, so don’t be afraid if the picture isn’t perfect. People just love to see– especially where you’re at, there are so many people who aren’t yet where you’re at, and they want to be making moves. They’re the ones listening to the podcast right now, getting obsessed, getting prepared. So I would love to see the behind the scenes of what you’re doing. I think it’s so cool. So I love that you’re making that commitment. And have fun with it.

[00:57:13] Michael: Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks a lot. And similar to how when I saw you guys at the airport and came over to say hi, would extend that encouragement to people to do the same. And even for on Instagram, shoot me a DM if you want to hear more of my story, or for the people that are looking for someone to partner with. My goal and plan is to partner with more people and hopefully, do some more properties like this with partners. So please reach out, say hi, ask questions. That’s what it’s all about. I want to be an open book.

[00:57:46] Sarah: I love that. Thank you so much, Michael, for your time and your story. With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

[00:57:51] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we are–

[00:57:54] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.

[00:57:55] Sarah: Talk to you next time.