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

[00:00:09] Annette: I’m Annette Grant. And together we are–

[00:00:11] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.

[00:00:12] Sarah: Let’s kick off this episode like we do every week, and that’s sharing one of you our amazing listeners who is heading on over to strshare.com, sharing all the information about your short-term rentals so we can spread the love here on the podcast, on our Instagram on Sundays, our email list. Annette, who are we sharing this week?

[00:00:31] Annette: This week, we are sharing @visitanacollection, that’s V-I-S-I-T-A-N-A Collection. And what I love about this feed is it’s a question we get all the time, what if I have multiple properties? Should I be on one Instagram handle? Absolutely. Yes. You can see they have done a wonderful job. They host both events and vacation properties.

[00:00:57] And when you go to their feed, you can see in their highlight section they go through the event space and then they go through the individual properties. It is a masterclass in how to have multiple properties under one handles. Please check it out. Also, their photos are amazing. Their reels are amazing.

[00:01:19] Aesthetically, they have a brand and it is a through line, all of their vacation rentals and their event space. The one thing I love best about what they’ve done in their feed, they do have an event space, and they are clear. It is baby showers, bridal showers, anniversary parties, retirement parties, birthday parties.

[00:01:41] And they are very clear, no weddings. And I actually love that. They know what their space is best catered to– the event space. They’re more than happy to host wedding guests in their properties, but they don’t host weddings, and it’s very clear in their marketing. And I love that. You’ve got to be clear to who you’re marketing to.

[00:02:03] They’ve done a fabulous job. I want to have an event at this event space. It is absolutely gorgeous. And the other thing that they’ve done is they’ve done a lot of before and afters of the properties that they bought and their visioning. And it makes me feel a part of their story. So well done. Check it out for a multitude of reasons. If you’re interested in getting into hosting events, and then also multiple properties underneath one handle.

[00:02:28] Sarah: Today is the who, what, when, how, why of midterm rentals. We were inspired to do this episode because it is September, October right now in Columbus, Ohio, and we are starting to think about transitioning into our midterm rental strategy that we go all in for December, January, February, and March. And I thought there might be other people who are also considering whether they do this strategy during a certain period of time, or if they want to do a hybrid. Maybe you’re just midterm curious.

[00:03:02] So we brought on the show today Jon Styer who is a real estate broker and owner of Styer Real Estate Professionals with Steyer Hospitality Co. And in just over a year and a half, his family-owned business, it’s him and his wife, Sara, and a team have grown to over 50 doors under management in just over a year. But make no mistake, Jon is not new to the real estate industry. I actually met Jon when he was a long-term rental property manager.

[00:03:29] Annette: Managing 500 properties.

[00:03:31] Sarah: Absolutely. Absolutely. And Jon has some really great mic drop moments, just that mindset shift of why staying nimble and really– the property tells you whether it should be a short-term or a midterm rental and how both strategies can work hand in hand. And sometimes it’s best just to decide that this is a short-term rental, and this one’s a midterm rental. Jon Styer, welcome to the show.

[00:03:59] Jon: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

[00:04:01] Annette: Before we dig too deep into your story, I just want to give a public service announcement to everyone, because Sarah and I are so passionate about meeting people in person at events. Sarah’s husband actually hosts a meetup here in Columbus, the Central Ohio Investors Network. And we want to share with our listeners that we have met Jon locally at that event.

[00:04:26] And it reiterates our message of like, get out there. Go to these events. Meet other people in your town that are in the real estate world, see what they’re doing. This is that message. If you haven’t gone to a local event in your town, it matters. You’re going to meet people that are going to impact your business. So Jon shows up at this event every time. You are a team member, right, Jon?

[00:04:55] Sarah: No, he just shows up often.

[00:04:57] Jon: No, I’m there I would say probably about 80% of the time. I can’t make it all the time, but I try to be, and I like to be.

[00:05:03] Annette: It’s important to your business, and I know you bring your team members too.

[00:05:06] Jon: Yeah, I do.

[00:05:07] Sarah: That’s was actually not where I met Jon. I don’t know if you remember this. I was actually reminiscing with Annette when I first met– I don’t know when I first first met you, but the one time that I remember was Jon and I were actually co-managing a building-ish. So Jon was a property manager for long-term renters, and I was like, I don’t know anything about long-term. I want nothing to do with that.

[00:05:29] And there was a couple of units that were being managed short-term. So I did the short-term and Jon did the long-term. And one time there was a lockout, and Jon, I don’t remember what happened, but you and I both showed up to save the day. And you were like, this is weird.

[00:05:42] I’ve never had someone also show up. But you were such a good sport. It was actually really lovely working alongside you for that brief– it was actually quite brief, I think, in the grand scheme of things. But that’s how I know you.

[00:05:56] Jon: I remember a lot of stuff about that building. I don’t remember that specific, but I know there was a lot going on there. But yeah, no, I always enjoyed working with you during that time for sure.

[00:06:07] Annette: But that is interesting, though.

[00:06:08] Jon: But that was a different lifetime. That was so long time ago.

[00:06:12] Annette: But interesting for our listeners to know that you guys were both managing one building, but with different– Sarah had the short term units, and then Jon had the long-term units. But that is something that I love just in general about real estate, is there’s so many different ways to participate. And even the owners were having two different managers on the same building, which seems like a lot to manage.

[00:06:33] Sarah: I’m not sure if it was ideal, but it’s just the way the cookie crumbled. But let’s actually unpack it, Jon.

[00:06:38] Jon: All right. Let’s do it.

[00:06:40] Sarah: Tell us your story. How the heck did you get involved in real estate? Is this your first career? Tell us the whole thing.

[00:06:46] Jon: This is not my first career. This is my second career, but this one’s going to stick. So I’ll back it up. I graduated from college in 2009 with degree of math. And 2009 was a pretty rough time to be graduating college. For those who don’t remember, it was a recession.

[00:07:08] Annette: The math was not mathing during 2009.

[00:07:11] Sarah: In the real estate industry, it is not mathing.

[00:07:16] Jon: No. I went to school in Indianapolis at Butler and I moved back to Columbus. And I was trying to find a job and it was like, no one’s hiring somebody in 2009 with just a bachelor’s in mathematics. So I called up a restaurant I had worked at in high school and I said, hey, can I work four or five nights a week until I find something?

[00:07:36] Well, 10 years later, I decided, hey, I’m about ready to find a new career. I stayed at the restaurant. I loved it. I met my wife there, managed a restaurant for a while. It was really fun in my 20s, but in my 30s, it was getting a little old, and I was ready to make a change.

[00:07:55] Well, at that same time, I had been living in our current home that we purchased for about five years, and we were ready to make an upgrade. And I started getting interested in renting it out instead of selling it. And I fell down the rabbit hole, which I’m sure a lot of your listeners and viewers will be very familiar with.

[00:08:17] And started researching real estate and real estate investing, and I was hooked. So as part of that, I got my real estate license. And when I got licensed, that was an easy opportunity for me to make that career change. I ended up getting that job in property management, managing long-term rentals.

[00:08:41] And I did that for a few years, and it wasn’t my passion. The long-term rentals are tough, and we could get into that and we could probably have a whole half an hour on that, but we’re not going to go down that rabbit hole. And so I did that for a few years until I transitioned into sales, and I did love working with real estate investors.

[00:09:06] I still to this day love working with real estate investors, and I invest myself. So I stayed at the same brokerage with the management company, but I was more involved in the sales piece, and we were a one stop shop. So you could come on, I would help with acquisition, and then you stay for management.

[00:09:27] And so I did that for a while, and it was going rate. But I was seeing where things were trending here in Columbus, and I was worried about the future, not that Columbus wasn’t going to do great, but that Columbus was going to do so great that it was going to affect my ability to do well in the sense that my investors want cashflow.

[00:09:51] My clients want cash flow, and I need to be able to provide that for them. And I saw the trend line of appreciation here in Columbus, and I watched that trend line not really matching up with rent rates. And the appreciations continued and continued, and I have every expectation that it’s going to keep continuing here in Columbus, but I was worried that, hey, my investor pool is going to start drying up if I don’t figure something out.

[00:10:19] And so for me, the answer was short term rentals. And so I did a lot of research. I came up with a business plan, and I took about a year to study to get my broker’s license. And then in April ’23, I opened up my own brokerage with the idea that, hey, we’re going to be a brokerage that has that same model of the one-stop shop.

[00:10:51] We’re going to help you with acquisition, and then you stay on board with us for management. Well, in practice, that’s all great. But what I learned was, hey, there’s a lot of nuance with short-term rentals, especially here in Columbus. And we very quickly realized that midterm rentals for us is completely where it’s at.

[00:11:15] We’ve been running with it. And it’s been about a year and a half now. We’re over 50 doors, and about 90% of those are midterm rentals. We manage midterm rentals all over Columbus and in just the greater Columbus area. We will go about 50 or 60 miles outside of Columbus, but for the most part, we’re pretty local.

[00:11:39] And so we’re just continuing to grow the brokerage to grow the management company, and we’re going to start focusing on bringing on more agents as well. We have five agents right now, but we’re going to see where we land.

[00:11:53] Annette: What was the aha moment shift that midterm rentals was going to be your sweet spot? Were you solely focused on the short-term and then did something come into your portfolio that it had to be midterm and you started to figure that out? What was that shift?

[00:12:10] Jon: I think there was probably several, but we were getting so many people coming to us, guests coming to us looking for midterm rentals. And we just started kicking it around. And I knew a little bit about midterm rentals, but I wasn’t by any stretch an expert or anything.

[00:12:31] And we were looking at comps, and I’m sure you guys are familiar with Furnished Finder, and just like, wait a minute. By the time you account for saturation in specific areas and your occupancy, it often makes more sense to do a midterm. And there’s a lot of pros involved with midterm as well that you don’t get with the short-term.

[00:13:00] And it creates a great hybrid model between the short-term and the long-term that have been very positive for us. As far as specific aha moments, I can think of one instance. We have a property in Clintonville that we own. It’s a single-family home, three beds, two baths.

[00:13:27] And it’s a short-term rental, great location, beautiful property, historic area and all that. And we had it marketed as a short-term rental. Well, we had someone come to us who lived in Clintonville, and they had a fire in their home, and they were going to be needing to stay for about 6 months while they were having the repairs done to their house.

[00:13:52] But the insurance company is paying for this. And there’s third parties that are in between, but big picture, the insurance company is paying. And that property if you were to rent it on the market, you might be able to get a little over $2,000 a month, which is not bad at all, but that’s not a cashflow opportunity for us with that property.

[00:14:13] And we were able to rent that property out for 5,500 bucks a month for about six months. We have one unit turn. Granted, you really got to go in there and take good care of it after. And we did have cleaners come in every other week and everything. But for us, that was mind blowing that we could do that well at that property, over two times market rent on a property.

[00:14:40] My mindset when it comes to real estate investing in general is cashflow is great. Obviously we all love cashflow, but if you’re breaking even, you’re making money because at least here in Columbus, our appreciation is awesome. And that’s where I view the real wealth building on top of all the other advantages of your depreciation and your tax advantages and all that.

[00:15:04] So for me, that was probably the one aha moment where it was like, hey, this midterm, there’s a lot to it. And then it started opening our minds to how much demand for midterm there really is here in Columbus. We have such job growth, population growth, and so much development happening here that we see so many people coming into Columbus that need somewhere to stay while they’re here for work. And people always think traveling nurses. That’s the go-to– oh, traveling nurses.

[00:15:34] But it’s not just traveling nurses. We have a lot of traveling trades people, corporate rentals, even digital nomads. A lot of people move to Columbus, and they don’t have housing set up. So it really plays, and there’s a lot of opportunity for midterm guests here in Columbus. So we’re running with it, and we love it.

[00:15:57] Sarah: Why not go all in with midterm? How is it for you, Jon? Because you offer short and midterm all the time. Because we’ve decided that we only offer it really during the low seasons in our operation, but you offer it all the time. You said you’re about 90% midterm rental, so that 10%, isn’t that obnoxious? Or does it work out? Does it fit into between the midterms? Talk to us how you make that work.

[00:16:23] Jon: It’s property specific is the short answer. But it’s also owner specific because we manage for owners, and different owners have different strategies that they want to play. Some only want to do short term rentals for tax purposes. And I’m sure you guys could talk all day about tax purposes with regards to short-term rentals, not that we’re going to give any tax advice, but you know what I mean.

[00:16:44] And so there is that, and we’re happy to manage those for those owners. Additionally, we like to have opportunity for 100% occupancy as much as we can. And so say we have great midterm guests that are going to be here for three months. And then we have another great midterm guest that’s coming for another three months.

[00:17:06] But in between, it just so happens there’s a two-week gap. We don’t want a two-week gap on our calendar if we can avoid it. So if we are able to open up that calendar to short-term during those two weeks, hey, why wouldn’t we? And again, another piece of it is we’re systemized to do it.

[00:17:28] Midterm and short-term, they really play really well together. So for us, it’s like why wouldn’t we? And additionally, there are some properties that are better set up for short term than they are midterm. We’re trying to maximize here in every way we can. So if the income is going to be better with short-term, short-term it is. If midterm is better play, midterm units. Again, it’s really property specific, I would say is the reason.

[00:17:55] Sarah: Do you do long term as well?

[00:17:58] Jon: We have kicked it around a lot, and every time we decide not to, because we’re not systemized for long term. It is a completely different thing. It wouldn’t be ground up, ground up to flesh that out, but it would be fairly close. And I also just have my own trauma from it.

[00:18:17] Sarah: I don’t blame you. I’ve got a friend who is all long-term all the time, and she manages her own properties. And her and I think we’re both crazy. You know Jesse. I’m like, I don’t know how you do this. I think you’re insane. And she thinks that we’re nuts, and it’s fine. It’s a beautiful friendship.

[00:18:32] Jon: But the beauty of what she does is she manages her own properties.

[00:18:35] Sarah: She does. Yes.

[00:18:36] Jon: And when you’re managing for other people, it’s harder.

[00:18:39] Sarah: You’re right. It is.

[00:18:41] Jon: That’s the difference. So yeah, Jesse does a great job though.

[00:18:46] Annette: What’s your team look like? You said you have 55– was it 50 or 55 properties right now?

[00:18:51] Jon: It’s hard to keep our pin on a number because we’re always adding. I think the last count was 56, but that’s not 56 live because we’re always getting them going. On our PMS, there’s 56 properties. How many do we have live? It’s probably about 50.

[00:19:14] Annette: Right.

[00:19:15] Jon: We add about 5 properties a month. I’m sorry, I forgot the question.

[00:19:22] Annette: What’s the team look like currently at this 50 spot?

[00:19:26] Jon: Yeah. I would be remiss if I didn’t bring up Sara. Sara is my wife, and she runs the day to day. I’m the broker. I oversee the business, and I oversee the sales. I hand everything off to Sara once the property’s been acquired. I’m still around. I’m still there to help, but she operates the day to day. So Sara oversees day to day, and she’s in communication with owners. She communicates with guests. And up until recently, she was out in the field day in, day out.

[00:20:02] We recently just hired an employee to be out in the field, and we bought a vehicle, wrapped it. She’s driving around all day, hitting up properties, getting them ready, as well as in between. We have a VA who handles a lot of our admin stuff out in the Philippines. And she also helps us with our books. She’s great. She’s full time. And then within the brokerage, we have a business development admin. The management company is a piece of the brokerage.

[00:20:39] So she definitely helps with hospitality aspect of stuff as well. But we do have plans to bring more people on. In fact, she just put three job descriptions on my desk today that I haven’t had a chance to look at. So the business is growing. I think we’re going to hire some more VAs, not specifically just for the management company, but we’ll be in that a lot. And then additionally, big plans are to bring cleaning in house. So yeah, that’s a big step that I’m excited for us to get to.

[00:21:19] Annette: And that is probably leading into my next question. There’s challenges in every business and every business with growth. So this growth that you’re having right now, what are those challenges between you and the guest or you and the owners? What are some of the things that you and your team, you and Sara have had to work through and find solutions for to continue to grow?

[00:21:45] Jon: In the past, we did have some trouble hiring the right person. We’ve now done a great job, and I love who we have on staff. But before, we struggled a little bit with– it was like, hey, this person’s in front of me. I need this role filled. Okay, they need a job. Here we go. And we changed our systems to really hire to the role based on personality more so than relationships. And that was a game changer. I read a book on how to hire people and it was like, here’s the system you follow. And I did it, and it worked, and I’m so happy I did.

[00:22:29] Annette: What’s the book? Give us the goods.

[00:22:31] Jon: It’s called Hire.

[00:22:32] Annette: Oh, original. Book on how to hire.

[00:22:35] Jon: Yeah, watch out. And so that was a challenge we had before. I would say, I think that this is probably not revolutionary, but the biggest challenge that we want to make sure we’re always focused on, is with the growth, we cannot allow our level of service to drop off.

[00:22:58] Because as everybody knows, this is a review-based business, and the bad reviews will kill you. We’re super hosts. I think we do great. And I think the review show that, but between the marketing and the reviews, it’s pretty much everything mixing a good cleaner.

[00:23:18] And so that I think was the constant everyday challenge and focus, is we can never allow the level of service to drop off both for the guests and for the owners. Because owners have expectations. We’re here to take care of the property. We are a full-service management company.

[00:23:38] We’re not co-hosts. So we manage the property top to bottom, all the way from landscaping, maintenance, utilities, guest communication, marketing, all the way through trust accounting. Like I said, we are a real estate brokerage, so we handle all the funds within a registered trust account with the division of real estate.

[00:24:02] It’s a whole other level, and the reason being a lot of that has to do with the midterm. It’s a legal requirement that if you’re going to manage a midterm, anything 30 plus days, it has to be done through a real estate brokerage. So there is a difference between the short-term and the midterm in that everything has to be done legally on the up and up because the division of real estate could come into the office anytime and say, open up your books for us. We want to take a look at all of it.

[00:24:30] And we have to be able to do that, and it has to be done accurately. So I would say that managing to that level of service while still being able to grow is a huge challenge that we’re constantly trying to– and it’s not even maintaining. You want to get better. How can we improve our systems? How can we improve through bringing on people to always– and I think that that is something that we do strive for.

[00:25:02] Sarah: Jon, we have a lot of listeners who are on the newer side of things, and they rock out managing their own property and then someone asks them to manage their property for them, so they become a co-host. And then I’ve found, Jon, that these people are terrified about getting their license and becoming a– it’s like property manager is a bad word.

[00:25:25] So let’s pretend that you right now have a sea of potential new hires for you to come into your brokerage and be licensed property managers to help you. These people love hospitality. They love short-term. They love midterm. How can you sell them on the benefits of getting licensed and still managing properties for other people, but instead of calling yourself a co-host, you call yourself a property manager?

[00:25:50] Jon: Well, I think that it depends on what you want to do. And if that’s what you want to do, then great. And by that want, do you want to grow your business beyond what you can do on your own? Because in any kind of growth, you’re going to hit a limit on what you can do. And whether that’s investing in real estate or how many properties you have under management, you’re not going to be able to scale all by yourself.

[00:26:20] So if you want to scale your management business, the way that you do that is by managing for other people. As far as being scared of being a property manager, you’re already a property manager. So you’re already doing it, and you’re probably doing more for yourself than you would ever have to do for someone that you manage for.

[00:26:42] Now, obviously the stuff that you do need to do, you need to do it excellently. But you’re handling your own taxes. You’re handling making sure that you’re getting your loan to purchase your property, all that. You’re not going to do that for somebody else’s property. Now, if you represent them as a buyer’s agent, you will be greasing the wheels on all that and making sure that deals and transactions are going smoothly and all that.

[00:27:06] But that’s a whole other conversation. As far as property management goes, if you’re scared to do it, but you’re already managing your own properties, you’re already a property manager. If what is scaring you is the liability, then that’s a healthy fear to have. Because we are responsible for other people’s assets, and that’s not something anyone should take lightly.

[00:27:32] But all that being said, if you’re able to find someone who can mentor you through that, assuming your license, you’re going to be under a broker, you’re going to want to be very upfront with your broker on what you’re planning to do. And a wise broker is going to assist you with that because it is their license on the line as well. So I would say, like, if you’re worried about it, do your research, but you’re already a property manager, so you’re 90% there.

[00:28:02] Sarah: Mm-hmm. I couldn’t agree more.

[00:28:04] Annette: What’s a piece of technology that has unlocked either time for you or leads for you? What’s something that you and Sara, your wife, could not live without that’s been game changer on the tech side?

[00:28:19] Jon: I would say that our property management software is the hub of everything. And other things do attach, but that is where you’re going to do all your guest communication. You’re going to sync your calendars. We do all of our listings there.

[00:28:40] Another big piece for us is that our business, now that we’re established, we’re about two thirds direct bookings. So we have to have something like that to sync everything. But also, we get people through Furnished Finder. That isn’t a booking platform. It’s just a marketing platform.

[00:29:03] Jon: So everything that we do can happen through our management software, including putting our listings on our website. And so with the direct booking, the listings on the website is a huge piece of it. If you’re booking through Airbnb, or if you’re looking at our property through Airbnb, and you say, oh, hey, can I book direct with you?

[00:29:28] Well, no, you can’t in that. We can’t say, oh, yeah, no. Why don’t you just check us out at our website here, styerhospitality.co.com. Type it into the chat. Well, guess what? That doesn’t make Airbnb very happy. So we need to be marketed externally, on the internet, through our website, and our management software allows us to do that with ease, and it looks great.

[00:29:55] Annette: I know our listeners are going to want to know.

[00:29:56] Sarah: They want to know.

[00:29:57] Annette: What PMS do you use? It’s a million-dollar question.

[00:30:00] Jon: Yeah, of course. And I know that there’s a lot out there. And really, it’s like they’re all the same, but they’re not. We use Hostaway by way of Guesty. Guesty is an enterprise solution, and we were using it, and it just was not a fit for us. I know a lot of people our size and bigger do use Guesty.

[00:30:26] It was not a fit for us. We kept running up against it, and Sara did a lot of research into looking into other options, and we landed on Hostaway because it does everything that Guesty does for about half the price. And I couldn’t be happy with the decision that we made to switch. I know people love Guesty, some people love Guesty. For us, it was ongoing struggles, and we were happy to get away.

[00:30:53] Sarah: That’s fair. And that’s the thing that I don’t think a lot of people take into consideration, is it’s not just the features. It’s like, do you need those features? And then how much do those features that you don’t need cost at the end of the day? So like you said, we’ve got people in our community who love Guesty, will die on that hill.

[00:31:11] And we get it, but I’ll never forget getting on a sales call with them and being like, I am so sorry. How much? And it just didn’t make financial sense for us. So we make it work and yeah, so I agree with you. They’re all the same, but they’re not the same.

[00:31:26] Annette: I know our listeners want to know this too, alongside Sarah and I. With your growth, how are you marketing for these new clients? What’s working in the Styer Real Estate Professionals right now?

[00:31:42] Jon: I wish I had a sexier answer, but we book so much by word of mouth. And I think that’s almost a boon to midterm more so than it is us in that a lot of our guests, as I mentioned before, are traveling trades people. And they come, and they come to work on these big projects. They’re not the only person.

[00:32:03] It’s not like ABC company, corporate office guy is coming and he’s coming in as a consultant from wherever, Timbuktu. These projects are bringing in people from all over the country. In scale, they’re bringing in 100 people or whatever. And they all talk, and they all need somewhere to stay, and they don’t want to stay in a hotel, and they’ll sign a contract, and they’ll be here in three days.

[00:32:31] And they’ll need something. And so they probably usually start out at a hotel and they’re like, I got to get out of this hotel. And so they talk to the guys at the job site. That’s just 1 example. And so they’ll say, oh, reach out to Sara. She’s great. They have great properties. And so what that allows us to do is most of our properties, I’d say about 80% of our properties, they’re booked before they’re even live.

[00:32:59] Literally, it happened today. We’ve got properties in the pipeline. Like I said, we add about 5 properties a month. They’re in the pipeline, and we’ve got a guy that says, look, I need a place. And it’s like, yeah, okay, we have this, but it’s not really ready yet. You got to give us a few days.

[00:33:17] And they’re pushing to get in there. We’re like, no, it has to be right. We can’t put you in there until it’s ready. They’re like, all right, I’ll stay another few days in the hotel. Oftentimes the photographers are going in an hour before the guest checks in. And so that way, what that allows us to do is like, hey, we can start finalizing the listing once we already have a guest in place. So it’s like, we’re worried about the next guest at that point.

[00:33:45] Annette: Oh, that’s great. That’s good.

[00:33:47] Jon: It is great. It can cause some stress because you have a deadline. They’re coming. We got to get this done, that done, that done, all before the photographer gets here because the guest is coming right after. So yeah, I wish that was sexier, but I think piece of midterm rental is that the word of mouth for us is huge.

[00:34:09] Annette: What about the client side though, the owner, the people buy in the assets? Is that also word of mouth?

[00:34:16] Jon: I have built up a sales business long enough now that I do get referrals and repeat investor clients. That’s a big piece of why I like working with investors. And I’ve built my whole sales model on repeatability. I don’t do transactional business because to me, it’s not worth it.

[00:34:34] I’d rather do 10 deals with somebody than one. So that is a big piece of how I do my sales. They literally just closed one today. This is their second one and hope to do more. And then I get a lot of online leads actually through– actually BiggerPockets is a big source for us.

[00:34:55] And we did just build out two websites, really fully customized, one for the brokerage and one for the hospitality company. So I’m excited about the prospect of what those can do. When you build a business, a lot of times you tick in a box for the time being.

[00:35:16] And so the websites for us, it fell under that category. I got on ChatGPT and I built out a GoDaddy website over an evening. And it’s like, all right, that’ll do for now. But as you continue to grow, you’ve got to always be leveling up. And so I took several months working with a web developer to build out these two fully customized websites, and I’m really proud of them.

[00:35:43] And also, I’m excited about the opportunity. The information is there now. Start at the website versus just asking me. So I’m not having the same conversation four times a day. But I’ve been always happy to have it. But it’s good to have it all in one place, and it looks great, and I’m really happy with our website.

[00:36:01] Annette: It can help you sell. It’s your sales assistant now.

[00:36:05] Jon: Exactly.

[00:36:07] Sarah: I think our listeners are going to want to know– because I want to know how you guys approach this. When it comes to furnishing, do you furnish every property so that it’s suitable for midterm and short term? And then if so, what are some of your Styer hospitality brand standards?

[00:36:24] What have you drilled into your team? We have to have these things. These things have to be dialed in. And what’s one that surprised you that you added over the past year that, I don’t know, you didn’t have at first?

[00:36:36] Jon: So we do furnish everything for short-term and midterm, but our properties, they’re homes. We’re not building out like, come have a big blow out over the weekend with 20 guests type properties. We got two, three, four-bedroom, two-bathroom homes in the suburbs where it’s like, hey, I’m going to come here to stay.

[00:36:59] So for us, it’s a lot easier. Maybe we put a foosball table or something, but no one’s coming to party here. Effectively, they’re coming to stay. And so for us, making that a property that can be a short term or a midterm, it’s pretty easy because, what do you need to live?

[00:37:19] You got to have a full kitchen. You got to have your linens. We’re putting a home together. And so, yes, as far as standardization, we don’t use the same couch. We don’t use the same art. We try to use the same TVs. It never works, whatever. One thing that we do use on every property is our locks.

[00:37:48] Sarah: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:50] Jon: Got to have the same locks. Every now and then we’ll take on a property from, either it was self managed or another management company, and they have different locks, and it’s just like, what are you doing guys?

[00:38:02] Annette: Tell us your lock. You got to tell us–

[00:38:03] Sarah: What’s your lock, Jon?

[00:38:04] Jon: Oh, it’s a Schlage Encode. It’s the creme de la creme. I’m telling you. We love it. We’re systemized. You can’t get away from that. So that’s a non starter for us. We got to have the locks.

[00:38:19] Annette: Ooh, I like that.

[00:38:20] Jon: Yeah.

[00:38:21] Annette: What’s your midterm starter pack though for your guests? I know we have a lot of people all the time, like, if they’re going to transition to from short-term to midterm, they’re always like, what do I supply them with? Is it like one week of toilet paper and paper towels? Is it they just got to buy their own? What is the Styer style of midterm? What is the Styer starter pack for your midterm rentals? What do you supply them with?

[00:38:47] Jon: TM, right?

[00:38:47] Annette: Yeah.

[00:38:48] Jon: I would say that it’s probably pretty similar to what you would do. It’s similar, but a little bit more than what you would do for a weekend stay. We’re not going to keep you in paper towels for six months. We don’t want you to have to walk in and go to the grocery store right away by any stretch.

[00:39:09] So instead of two or three trash bags, we might have six or seven. As far as toiletries and stuff, we try to do everything that you would probably do for– we have shampoo, conditioner, soap. We do provide full linen sets. People are going to mostly use their own stuff.

[00:39:34] If you’re staying for three months, you don’t want to use our soap. Not that it’s not good, but you got your own stuff. We’re not giving them deodorant either. You’re going to bring your own stuff. So really, the goal is like, hey, we want to get you through at least the first week. Here’s three or four rolls of paper towels. Here’s six rolls of toilet paper for the bathroom.

[00:40:00] Again, we’re not going to keep you in stuff for six months because that’s just not feasible. In the midterm, you are staying there. You’re living there. It’s not just a stay. You’re living there. So with that comes, you’re going to have to hit the grocery store up every now and then.

[00:40:21] Sarah: You did long term for a little while, and now you need to be in the midterm. What is that difference in the tenant experience? Is it night and day for you personally, or what stands out to you?

[00:40:34] Jon: I’ll caveat by saying that people are people. You’re going to get all kinds in any situation. But I would say overall for us, it is still a guest-host relationship, and we do not refer to them as tenants. We internally refer to them as guests 100% and view them that way.

[00:40:57] We are hosts. We are still hosts. And I think that’s a really important piece of how we operate our business. And I think that it really helps both ways. It helps for the guests, and it helps us. The relationship is a guest-host relationship, and we establish that with them, and we expect that from them.

[00:41:20] And that helps us a lot because there’s a lot of benefits to that. We’re going to do our best to take great care of them because we view them as guests. Just like, if you’re having a guest stay the weekend in your house, there’s different level of, oh, you’re my roommate, or whatever.

[00:41:41] And we get the treatment back from the guests in they’re going to take great care of the property. Again, people are people, but most of them are going to take great care of the property. They treat the property as if they are guests in the property. And so for us, it plays both ways.

[00:42:00] We have less maintenance issues, less wear and tear on the properties for our owners and for the properties that we own. And another big piece of it is there’s less adversarial conversations. Let’s be honest here. Who likes their landlord? Find me somebody. We’re not landlords. They’re not tenants. We’re their hosts, and we’re here to take care of them. So I think that’s a big piece of who we are and what we do. And I think that it shines through for us.

[00:42:42] Sarah: I’m not going to preface; I’m just going to let you answer. We hear conversations often where people accept stays that are considered no longer short-term. They’re longer stays over 28 days, over 30 days. And sometimes we hear hosts gambling a bit and they won’t do the full on background check, credit check, whatever.

[00:43:05] Someone’s staying 30 days, 35 days. What advice do you have to give to a host out there who wants to try longer stays? If they’re looking at the 30, 35, 45, two months, three months stays, what vetting do you have to do and do you recommend for those types of residents, those guests?

[00:43:26] Jon: I mean, as far as have to do, if you own the property, you don’t have to do anything. What do I recommend? I recommend if you’re going to do anything– states are different, and I can’t give legal advice, but look at your state laws and determine the difference between a short-term guests and a tenancy situation. And usually it’s probably going to be about that 30 days.

[00:43:53] And if you’re over that threshold, you’re in a whole different world. And as I mentioned for midterms, those have to be managed by a real estate brokerage. Because we’re in Ohio, we are in that tenancy situation. So while we refer to them as guests and think of them as guests, they are technically legally tenants.

[00:44:11] And to that point, we have to cross our i’s and dot our t’s. We work with an attorney. We create an occupancy agreement. Every guest has to sign it. We sign it as well, like, you would at least, things that maybe you wouldn’t even consider. But anything over 100 days stays, you have to have the guest sign a lead-based paint disclosure.

[00:44:38] That’s a federal regulation. So that’s something that most people wouldn’t even maybe know about or think about. So things like that, I would say do your research. As far as the, oh, do I a background check and all that, it’s not hard. It’s really not hard.

[00:44:57] Have them pay for it. They pay for it. People are expecting to pay for it. And there’s a million systems on there. Furnished Finder has one called KeyCheck. It’s 40 bucks. They do everything. You just get a report. It’s not hard. Have them send you a picture of their ID. Do the background check.

[00:45:15] Not doing it because you’re lazy or whatever, I don’t even know what other reason not to do it, it’s not worth it. It’s not worth what you can get yourself into by not doing it. So my advice, I guess, is just suck it up. Just do it. It’s not hard. And it’s very important. That’s the biggest thing. It’s like, why wouldn’t you do it?

[00:45:41] Sarah: Yeah, I agree.

[00:45:42] Annette: And I feel like the person, if they know you’re not going to do it, they’re seeking you out. They’re seeking out the people that aren’t going to run background checks because they’re like, good, I’ll fly under the radar. So if someone isn’t anticipating it or gives you any sort of grief about it, that is also a red flag because it’s like, yeah, of course, you have to do this for any length of stay. So that should be a red flag to you if a potential guest, long-term guest is giving you any sort of grief that why not? It should just be done. You can move on and find the next guest.

[00:46:12] Jon: They’re just weeding themselves out because anyone that’s worth booking with you is fine to do it because it’s not a problem for them.

[00:46:20] Annette: Mm-hmm. Right.

[00:46:20] Jon: They don’t have issues

[00:46:21] Annette: It’s just part of the process. Right. Exactly. We talk about this all the time in short-term stays with, let’s say, a deposit or a damage waiver. It’s like, I walk into a hotel. Their first two questions are your ID and a credit card for accidental damages. Or you’re not staying there. It’s part of the routine. It’s not even a question of whether you’re going to give your ID or a credit card.

[00:46:42] Jon: Yeah, exactly.

[00:46:43] Annette: There’s no room for you.

[00:46:43] Jon: And I think that it speaks to any service industry. You have your boundaries. And those are your boundaries, and they’re not negotiable. This is just our systems. Blame the systems if you’re getting pushback. It’s not me. It’s the system. It’s the process. I wish I could help you, but the process is what it is. And it may be your process, and you may be the only person, but, hey, what can I do? It’s out of my hands. It’s the process.

[00:47:10] Annette: That’s great. My final question for you is, how many properties is enough properties? Do you and Sara talk and say, this is our goal, or are you just like, we’re going to continue to scale? What are those current conversations in your household and in your office?

[00:47:29] Jon: So the conversation has always been from day one, we’re going to get to 100 doors and then we’re going to assess.

[00:47:39] Annette: Not going to assess at 99. We’re just going to wait till 100.

[00:47:43] Jon: Okay, we’ll probably start assessing at 99. You got me.

[00:47:46] Annette: No, but that’s the first goal, is like, let’s get to 100 and then we’ll see, is this enough or do we want to build and scale more? Okay.

[00:47:53] Jon: Yeah, because who knows where we’re going to be? That will probably be by the end of next year.

[00:47:59] Annette: End of 2025 is what we’re– okay.

[00:48:00] Jon: End of 2025, we should definitely be by that 100 doors. I’d be surprised if we weren’t. We’re a husband and wife, mom and pop right now. Where do we want to be with our family? Do we love it? Do we want to add more? Do we feel like this is the perfect sweet spot? Do we feel like this is too much? Do we want to cut from the fat? Who knows? I think it’s a healthy number. 100 doors is a good, solid, even number. Is it enough? I don’t know.

[00:48:35] I will tell you this. Personally, in my business, I’ve never been satisfied. But I view business as growth. And I don’t know if I’ll ever want to stop growing or learning and doing that. I try to learn every day, and who knows what will happen. I’m not going to speak though past that 100 because I don’t know.

[00:48:59] Sarah: Yeah. My final question for you, Jon, is how is life with you and Sara both being in real estate? That yes, you do sales, but you also have this property management component.

[00:49:12] Annette: Open 24/7/365. You’re mom and pop, but you’re open like Walmart.

[00:49:16] Sarah: Yeah. And I’m looking at your team. You got one employee in the field, and everyone else is like admin. So what is that like for you and Sara? Do you feel like right now you guys are just putting the reps into billet to a place where you can then offset the 24/7/365 component to a team? Are you guys going on vacation? Are you guys okay?

[00:49:39] Jon: I will say that we’ve had our ups and downs, for sure. And we’ve had a lot of struggles, because again, it’s all about the level of service, and it can’t drop. So when you have that mindset other things can internally be sacrificed sometimes. We had a baby. She’s about to turn one year old.

[00:50:00] Sara had the baby and was on her phone working, from the bed after. She didn’t get a maternity leave. And I don’t know how I feel about that. Is that necessarily good? I don’t necessarily know that it is.

[00:50:18] Annette: But it’s reality, and we appreciate that. That’s the realness that people–

[00:50:22] Sarah: Don’t talk about.

[00:50:24] Annette: There’s always a give and take. And so yes, she could have maybe had a maternity leave at a corporate job, but there’s other things that were give and take there. It’s real.

[00:50:35] Jon: I can talk all day about the beauty of owning your own business and the freedom that comes with it. Sara described it one time as freedom with a side of fear. And I couldn’t put it better than that. We are free to do whatever we want. We have a couple of kids and if we don’t want to work today, we don’t have to.

[00:51:01] Do we want to do this forever? No, we don’t. Do we have goals and plans to get out of the day to day? Of course we do. The 24/7 guest communication, I mentioned we got three job descriptions on my desk. You think those all three of those aren’t going to be trained in guest communication? They are.

[00:51:25] So that is definitely in the cards. I want to get her out of the day to day as much as I can because I want her to be able to do– we have a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old. I want to be able to enjoy them as much as we can. And so that’s in the cards. We’re working on it. We got plans.

[00:51:51] Sarah: I love that. Well, Jon, thank you so much for your time. Is there anything we haven’t asked you or talked about that you want to make sure we share here on the show?

[00:51:57] Annette: That hosts need to know.

[00:51:59] Jon: Oh, I would say, if you’re looking to get into this business, find a mentor. Find somebody that wants to help you, but you can provide value to. It’s very hard to get into real estate without someone guiding you. If you’re looking to decide whether or not to buy a property or take it on for management, the 1st question you need to ask is, why is someone going to come stay here?

[00:52:28] And if you can’t answer that, then move on. And if you want to find me, go to our new website. It’s Styer, R-E- P.com. S-T-Y-E-R-R-E-P.com. And you can go to our management site from there as well in the menu. No, I really appreciate you guys having me on here. I really enjoyed the conversation, and honestly, I’m one of those I could talk all day.

[00:53:00] Annette: No, we appreciate you and doing good stuff in our city. It’s important that any of these midterm and short-term guests, you care. You provide a safe space for them. And we just appreciate you being a part of the up and up in the market, you and your wife, you and your family.

[00:53:19] Jon: Well, we do what we can, I suppose.

[00:53:21] Sarah: With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

[00:53:23] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we are–

[00:53:25] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.

[00:53:26] Sarah: Talk to you next time.