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427. Solo

[00:00:00]

Welcome and Introductions

Sarah Karakaian: Hello, welcome back for another great episode. My name is Sarah Karakaian.

Annette Grant: I’m Annette Grant. And together we are

Sarah Karakaian: Thanks

Annette Grant: for Visiting.

Sarah Karakaian: Let’s kick off this episode like we do each and every week. And that is sharing.

Sharing Our Latest Project: Rich Hollow Retreat

Sarah Karakaian: Well, usually it’s one of you, but whenever we do a land update, we’re going to, we get a little selfish, we just share ourselves, but we do it in the spirit of doing what we preach and teach and that is sharing on your Instagram or whatever social platform you want to Marketing yourself. You want to show up on whether it’s TikTok, Instagram, wherever you’re at, Facebook. Market yourself. Snapchat.

Annette, who are we sharing this week?

Annette Grant: This week we are sharing at Rich Hollow Retreat.

Again, that is at Rich, R I C H, Hollow, H O L L O W, Retreat, R E T R E A T. And that is our project that we have been working on for quite some time. We are not up and running [00:01:00] yet, but we are excited to take you along the journey. And we, we want to be a source of inspiration there of, you know, we We don’t have our calendar open.

We’re not taking any bookings, but we are sharing with future guests what we are doing and we’re documenting as we go. So even if you, um, you know, you’re rehabbing your property, you’re doing some work there, go ahead and create the account and start just documenting your progress. So that’s what you’re gonna see there.

Please, if you listen to the show, if you could give us a follow, it would mean the world to us, and also, we’d love you to just watch our progress. There are gonna be so many times that we’re gonna be on there asking for feedback, as we make decisions, as we build things out, but we would love for you to follow along.

Once we’re live for you to come visit, we’re going to have some exciting things planned. I’m just going to put it out into the universe now [00:02:00] that we are going to do some sort of retreats there with our podcast listeners, with our community. So we’re hoping that, you will be able to come stay with us.

Sometime soon. So again, at Rich Hollow Retreat, give us a follow. They’re doing a fantastic job. All right, Sarah.

Project Progress and Challenges

Annette Grant: So as we get on to this episode, we are going to actually go through, the progress of our property and just kick off the new year. You know, we have a few episodes that we have recorded for last year.

So if you want to go back and listen to those episodes and get caught up on this project, please do. And if you’re already caught up, we’re just going to, we’re going to get you more caught up on where we are in 2025 and how we are pushing forward.

As with all large projects or small projects, things don’t go as planned.

And I thought we just, the reason why we did these land updates is because. We’re over here on this podcast, in the mics, you’re not [00:03:00] able to like chat back with us in this setting and it can feel like maybe we are coming at you like we’ve figured it all out and we know all the things. And my friends, after over a decade of renovating and building and hosting and running business, just businesses in general, more than a decade of that, like it is still.

Uncharted territory every single day.

And it is still, I actually, it’s like, it’s still challenging, it’s still hard, we still run into hiccups, and we just want to share with you that you’re not alone, but it, like, this is what’s fun for us, to get through the frustrations, to get through, all of the ups and downs, and for us too, like, continuing to do new things, this is exciting for us too.

To actually have a project and just continue, you know, honestly, talk about septic every day, every day.

Septic System Insights

Annette Grant: We just talk about septic. Yeah, cause it and well water and it’s, it’s funny. It’s like when I first do it, when I first got introduced to [00:04:00] Justin Ford and safety, it was like, I can’t stop seeing safety things everywhere or thinking about safety and Now I can bolt on to that to septic.

I can’t look at a building or, a town or a house and not think about septic and how it happens. Sarah’s giving the most disgusted face right now, but it’s true. No,

Sarah Karakaian: I mean, if you think about what is at, yes, what is at the heart of your short term rental, it is a comfy bed and a cozy couch, but it’s also a working bed.

Bathroom. Septic system. Yeah. Uh. Okay, a really quick down and dirty, maybe you’re new, thanks for visiting podcast, thank you for being here. If you’re old, thank you. No, and if you. Even more for being here for so long. If you’re an OG, regardless. So, we bought this, we purchased this land, we finally closed on it, we were searching for years.

We finally closed on it last February, so everyone, almost a year ago. After

Annette Grant: we walked away from it though, I want to keep bringing that up, after we put down a hefty, hefty deposit, we walked [00:05:00] away because the math was not mathing and it came back to

Sarah Karakaian: us. It did come back to us. We’re happy that we came back to us, but we are still having to revisit our why.

And what’s important to us and we’re having to do that with a diverse group of human beings. Okay. So it’s a large, it’s a large plot of land. It’s 134 acres. Nick, my husband gets mad every time because he listens to every single episode. Because we say 133, right? Well, I say 133, you say 135 or something like that.

He’s like We’re both wrong. He’s like, ladies.

Annette Grant: Okay.

Sarah Karakaian: Oh my gosh. Nick, Nick

Annette Grant: listens to every episode. He does. So shout out Nick Karakaian and we appreciate you. Have you left us a review? He probably has.

Sarah Karakaian: He tells us that we’re, he’s our biggest fan. The whole point of that is there’s a lot of land. It was not cheap.

Although we did buy with equity built in, which is incredible. And we have a team full of leaders. We have a team full of, bosses who own businesses, and that can be a blessing and sometimes can be really [00:06:00] challenging. Like today, for example, we still meet if you’ve been following along, we still meet every week.

And at first we met once a week and now we’re meeting twice a week. So we meet Tuesdays and Thursday mornings at 9 a. m. Eastern Standard. And for a while there also we were meeting for an hour and we allowed that hour to give us time to kind of putz around the Zoom call, the conversation, and we’re like, we need to dial this in.

We need to talk about, excuse me, what’s important and what needs to get done that week. So we actually cut it down to 30 minutes, which does help us get down to brass tacks faster. So So there’s a little tip for you if you feel like you’re having these meetings and things are just being like floated around and maybe because you have too much time,

Annette Grant: right?

And we want to share there that even though, even during the holidays, during travel, that we have not, even when progress is stalled, we did not sundown the meetings because we knew we had found a time on our calendars. And if you are like us, if it is not on our calendar, it does not get done. So we have those meetings, each and every week, twice a week now, like [00:07:00] Sarah said, we’ve cut it down to 30 minutes.

But I want to offer. There that if you are looking for your next project with partners or, you know, just Looking for your next property period, make sure that’s on your calendar, too, to set aside time to look for the next place. Go through the deal with your team, go through the deal with your, with yourself, because it’s, if it’s not on your, if it’s not on our calendar, it doesn’t get done, so we advise, if that is on your, goal list for this year, to make sure that you have that time calendared for looking for the new property or working on the current one.

Sarah Karakaian: And we’re all running, like, Annette and I are running Thanks for Visiting, and we’re running our properties. Our other partners have a construction company and they have 15 of their own giant short term rentals. My husband, Nick, owns an architecture firm, so he’s running that. So we’re all running our own businesses while trying to build this other business.

And it’s a big business. Like we have, you know, we can fit up to like 20, 25 units on this property. We’re not going to, but really the sky’s the limit. And it’s hard to [00:08:00] build this. Kind of on the side, but you know what we tell ourselves when we start thinking of it as this like on the side thing, we know that this business can be 10 million, 15 million.

Like it can be a giant, awesome business and we can serve millions. So many travelers, but we’ve got to put the work in. We’ve got to find time to move ourselves along in the progress, but we’re

Annette Grant: also comfortable. Um, you know, we might listen to this like years down of this. Isn’t anyone’s full. focus right now because we do need to have income from other places.

So we’ve made that decision collectively that we know progress is slower, but that is a purposeful to get us to our current end goal.

Sarah Karakaian: And it’s so nice to just real quick on that with having partners. Cause I know that partner topic is a hot topic, whether you should partner with family or not, or partner with, Whomever or not because someone failed at that at some point.

[00:09:00] So all of a sudden that’s no longer a good idea And actually one of the podcast a podcaster that I listened to is like well, that’s like saying I had a failed You know boyfriend back in high school, so i’m never going to date person again. Like that’s just not, that’s not realistic thinking. It’s also not productive thinking.

So anyway, we can tell you that having partnered with friends, family, people we’ve met at meetups, um, they have, it has its ups and downs, but with having a team, It is nice where, you know, Nick and I were on vacation, so I knew Annette and Mike and Ingrid could move the project forward or Annette’s travel.

You know what I mean? Like, your partners can help pick up the slack and make sure that we are moving forward, which

Annette Grant: I love. Right, and if people are gone, we can still have the meeting, everyone’s still kind of flowing there. Yeah. So, speaking of Flowing. Let’s talk about septic really quick. We can share with you one thing that we have decided to um, uh, to do in, in future casting the project.

We [00:10:00] found out through our soil testing and having septic designers on the land, we have, A cabin that was there previously and we are adding like kind of bolting on to that septic and we’re going to put our two mirrored cabins on that septic. But we’ve learned with the lay of the land and what we already have that we could actually have three units, well four total on the same septic system.

And again, this is all dependent on. The amount of people that were sleeping, the amount of, you know, what we’re putting in these units, but we have decided, even though we have. no plan on what that actual unit will be, but we are going to go ahead, dig the septic, have it prepped as if there is going to be a fourth unit on the property.

And we are, we’re all actually really excited about that. Um, it

Sarah Karakaian: really changes the proforma. It changes our numbers because right now, [00:11:00] everything’s going out. Right. We are spending everything’s going down the pipes. Everything’s yeah, everything’s in the septic tank right now and it feels like a lot but so we already know what it’ll look like with the three properties and so you add a fourth one on there and we’ve already invested in the most headache inducing aspect, which is the septic.

It just feels like a bit of good

Annette Grant: news. It’s encouraging. And, and we were even like, hey, if that fourth cabin is even something that is small and for us to enjoy, you know, maybe that’s what it, you know, we don’t even know. We want it to be income producing, but we’re like, hey, let’s just go plan ahead. So, And and have our septic team prep for a fourth unit.

Yeah, that it feels really encouraging that that will already be done. You already got approved by the county, so it’s all good. So there you go. Bit of good news went from three to potentially four. Very easy. In phase one. In phase one. Very easily there.

Construction Team Updates

Sarah Karakaian: Let’s talk about, if you’ve been following along, we did have a construction team last summer that we [00:12:00] fired fast. Maybe not fast enough, but pretty darn fast. And we took a little break and we found a new team. And so that has started back up. Yes. At the

Annette Grant: beginning of the year. And we, The way that we’re running this is, you know, we were at first going to get that first cabin up and running quickly.

And then we’re like, this is going to not be good because we’re going to have construction going on other things. But here’s what we’re doing this crew who had a lot of meetings with a lot of breakdown on payment that we know when they’re going to get paid, how they’re going to get paid. And, what we are encouraged about is essentially, You know, if our first cabin goes well, they’ll just be able to transition right into finishing out our mirrored cabins.

Interesting caveat for all of you out there that have ever looked at the mirror cabins, OOD. Ours are not finished. We are actually finishing those out ourselves. So they aren’t, you know, sitting on our land completely finished. We are doing that part. So this team. [00:13:00] Hopefully, crushes the interior of our gutted cabin, and then we’ll hop over and complete, cabin two, cabin three.

So we feel really good, like we get a taste test on the one and then move them over to, to two and three.

Sarah Karakaian: And it’s tough. We all live an hour away. So it’s a thing going out and checking on your contractor. It’s a drive, you know, almost an hour drive there and back each time. So, but it’s something you have to do.

TrustWet Verify, like no joke.

Annette Grant: And we are going to give, this is something that I find very interesting, that, I never, I’m learning so many things in this process, and our GC, who is one of our partners, he is a master at finding, uh, let’s say deals and or products for, um, construction, construction?

Okay, materials. I was like, that’s not the right word. He, um, because I do all the finances, so he keeps me in the loop on him purchasing things. I had no [00:14:00] idea this was a thing. He goes to Facebook Marketplace for construction. Materials. Okay? I’m sure there’s everybody gasping out there having thoughts and feelings on this.

He’s crushing it. I think it’s like kind of two fold for him. I think he enjoys. It’s a game. for him. So let me not just say he finds things there. He is a master negotiator. Let me. And he loves that game. Yeah. Let me layer that part in on, um, because he does a really good job of, always bringing to the team.

Had we bought this retail, it would be. You know, x price via this is x price. And so trust me, I have, am I like, Oh, well, what about warranties? What about this? What about, you know, there’s all these certain things that I’d like come up in my head and then he just. helps to, you know, um, relieve the stress of that.

And I, I don’t even want to call it stress or whatever, but I think that was interesting. I don’t, I’ve never, I can say I’ve never purchased anything on Facebook marketplace, but I’ve heard so many people do. [00:15:00] I know people do like their midterm rentals on Facebook marketplace. I mean, tons of people get a lot of things from Facebook marketplace, whether they’re selling or buying.

So I thought that was interesting that we have been getting some of the construction materials, especially the ones that don’t really, Like conduit, right? Didn’t we just purchase conduit? A lot of conduit. Which I don’t even know what conduit is. I couldn’t, if it was on the side of the road for free and were something, I wouldn’t pick it up because I don’t know what it is.

But that’s a for example of something that we purchased at a very deep

Sarah Karakaian: discount. It’s fun to watch Mike send us, send us things that he found and how great the product is. And these things aren’t, I don’t want you guys to think this is like used stuff. Oh no. It’s new stuff that like, Whatever that business in West Virginia wants to get rid of it or whatever You know what I mean?

Or like it was ordered by the client by mistake and so they need to sell this like yeah It’s not like secondhand or anything

Annette Grant: like that. No, I should probably clarify But I can share too though, I’m still requiring detailed receipt, if [00:16:00] you will, for our bookkeeping purposes. Because as you know, maybe if we’re going somewhere like that route, they might want cash or then, you know, whatever that may be.

So I am making sure that’s where I know Mike and I are, are newer in our relationship. I’m asking for very detailed account on all of the things that are being purchased for our accounting purposes, which is good. In the long run, it’ll be good. Speaking of accounting and money,

Sarah Karakaian: Let’s let’s pivot over there real quick.

Financing the Project

Sarah Karakaian: Okay, our last episode we shared that we were looking for a private money lender Did anybody email us with lots of money? If we did Meagan didn’t tell us So we were looking for private money not hard money because hard money it was pretty expensive and like we have enough relationships We know we can find someone who’s looking for a place to put their money, park their money with people they believe in what they’re doing and we were right.

We found someone. But that didn’t close the entire gap of amount of funds that we [00:17:00] needed. So I was calling, I have a mentor who I call with all my real estate questions and he’s also a loan officer and so I ask him a lot of money questions. He’s not just any loan officer. This man is. educated and he knows every which way to get something done.

If he’s not the loan officer for you, he will refer you to someone else because they’ve got a better product, better deal, whatever it is. He’s just the best. And he’s a real estate investor. So I always go to my mentor. I showed him, we actually made a, one pager where it has the broken down.

Hey, if we borrow money at this percentage or this percentage or this percentage, here’s what we made the whole pitch deck and I was showing it to him and he loved it. He was like, this is great. He was like, actually, I don’t have money right now, but I might have some money freeing up. Um, actually he said January, but, um, so he was like, come back to me then.

And I, I’d be interested. He believes in what we’re doing. He loves the product. He loves the land. He’s like, why don’t you just lend to yourself? And I was like, Mark, if I had the money to lend to myself, I would. And he reminded me, you know, you’ve, you’ve got equity in your properties.[00:18:00]

And so this is maybe controversial for some of you out there, but he recommended that I take a HELOC out on a property that. We, have and to borrow against it for this project. And you know what, it’s kind of like putting my money where my mouth is. It’s like, if I don’t believe in the project enough to ask a private money lender to bet on us.

then why would I have a problem bidding a property that yes, I’ve worked hard for, on this project? And so when he’s, and also I just trust him, and so if I thought he thought it was a good idea, then I think it’s a good idea, you know? So it took a while, it took three months to close this heat lock, but we actually literally just closed on it, and so that should bridge the gap for phase one.

For us, which is nice. And obviously there’s going to be, an interest rate on it. So I’m going to pat it just a little bit to cover, you know, fees and just just a little bit. Um, but yeah, and I think it’s going to help us move forward on this project and it’s definitely less expensive. The interest rate on this HELOC is way less expensive than any private [00:19:00] lender was offering us and definitely any hard money.

Annette Grant: Yeah, that’s the,

Sarah Karakaian: that’s kind of

Annette Grant: the

Sarah Karakaian: key component of that. But I can tell Annette, we’re actually going to talk about this at our next meeting, that I’ve already contacted my attorney. I want to make sure that the whole team signs on to this loan so that if anything were to happen like everyone is promising that they’ll, just like they would any other private money loan, pay it back.

And, making sure that we’re tracking it. So we’ll treat it like any other, any other loan, but I’m excited about it. We’ll keep you up to

Annette Grant: date on that.

Design Decisions and Debates

Annette Grant: Next, we just want to share, kind of go inside our minds a little bit. I think. To peel back to the beginning of this, we really in our heart of hearts thought that when we closed on the land, we would do a quick, let’s say, You always think this.

Yeah, well like a, what do I want to say, just like, it wasn’t a rehab, it would be like, Just like a facelift. Refresh, yeah, a facelift on the cabin and have that start producing income. You know, 30, 60 days when we were talking about, like, [00:20:00] get all, you know, get all new furniture, paint the inside, the outside, maybe do, you know, some carpet in there, like, yeah, some refresh.

But when we really just started. the layout, looking at it and like, it got difficult to like, there was still going to be a large investment in even the facelift. And it was like, well, if we’re going to do that much, why not really? It’s never going to be this like, how do I want to say it?

Sarah Karakaian: Here’s the deal.

We ran the numbers and we will be able to charge more having it be a more attractive property. We needed to add a deck so we could have a hot tub because not having a hot tub in Hocking Hills is like sacrilege. So we had to do that too. So we just decided after we ran the numbers and it made enough sense that we would just gut renovate the whole home.

But we’re still coming up with the challenge of when do we, when are we over designing the home? And when do we just need to, quote, unquote, when do [00:21:00] we just need to, quote, unquote, get it done to get cash flow? We find our, our team finds ourselves saying those sorts of things because it gets frustrating.

It’s like, you want to bring money in, but at the end of the day, it’s like, well, what are we going to regret? What are we sacrificing in the short term?

Annette Grant: No, what are we sacrificing in the long term for a minimal short term gain? So it’s And that comes

Sarah Karakaian: down to, like we were this morning, we were kind of, having a friendly, heated, passionate discussion about the kitchen layout.

And there are some things that it’s like, it just takes a little bit longer to think about. And you’re like, well, let’s just do this to get it. It’s like, Sarah, let’s

Annette Grant: share that a little bit. Let’s go. Let’s share some feedback that you’ve, that from guests about some things in the kitchen, for example, open cabinetry or open shelves.

I think that’d be a really like a little pro tip here about space saving.

Sarah Karakaian: It’s not even from the guests that the whole open shelves versus cabinet, closed cabinet, it’s, it’s from the cleaning team and the inspectors. And you already have to be on top of [00:22:00] the cleaning team to make sure that. Did the dishwasher, even though you’re pulling dishes out of the dishwasher, did the dishwasher run and is it clean when you put it back?

All right, and then when it’s up there on the shelf, did the guest put it back? I mean whether it’s open or closed actually, none of this has anything to do with open or closed, but when it’s open, And people aren’t using that third roll of wine glasses in the back, you’ve got to wash them. The

Annette Grant: dust I feel like is different.

Sarah Karakaian: Yeah, and you also, a floating shelf has less, a little bit less depth. And I guess depending on how much you can muster out of them. Um, it’s also not as much storage. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. So, I guess all this to say it’s cute. But I’ve had to put reoccurring tasks on our breezeway to make sure that, okay, today we take everything off the floating shelves and we wipe the shelf out because it’s exposed, so it’s going to get dustier.

And it also, like, when you’re cooking, those oils and things

Annette Grant: get on,

Sarah Karakaian: it gets sticky, so you’ve got to take everything off and you’ve got to wipe it down. And listen, you should do this with your cabinets anyway, [00:23:00] too. But they’re protect, they are, there is a shield, if you will. So we were debating on. Floating shelves versus an upper cabinet is one thing we were debating.

We were debating a window because sink size, sink size. And my husband, Nick, likes things symmetrical. But if you sometimes you put things first, he wanted to center a sink on this, on this, um, run of countertop. But then it also cuts up your countertop. So we were having that debate. We were having debate about a window because if we have the window there, you can’t have an upper or floating shelves.

Annette Grant: This is a small cabin. Oh. And we were debating microwave on a counter fountain or on the counter. Mm-hmm . People. These are, these are real decisions.

Sarah Karakaian: These are, and people are passionate about these decisions. Mm-hmm .

Annette Grant: And I. Yeah. Or a

Sarah Karakaian: dishwasher.

Annette Grant: Mm-hmm .

Sarah Karakaian: Okay. So, we were having that heated debate about whether.

The cabin

Annette Grant: is

Sarah Karakaian: small. It is tiny, right? And we were saying we can make.

Annette Grant: It’s under a thousand square feet. Right. I was gonna say under 700.

Sarah Karakaian: It may be. Yeah, it’s under, definitely under a thousand. And so one of our team members. Nick, can you give us the [00:24:00] facts on that square footage, please? He’s gonna, he’s like, why don’t you ladies just have the floor plan pulled up?

So anyway, And then you get to talking about this, we were going over time, and so we were getting frustrated with that, like, okay, now we’re over time, but this is, my argument was, but this is an important decision to make, and I know it’s not gonna be the biggest cash in, you know, bringer inner of cash on our, on our land, but, so that’s what, this is what’s happening behind the scenes, everyone.

Annette Grant: So to wrap up this episode, we’re going to put out into the, to the world.

Setting Goals and Wrapping Up

Annette Grant: Our goal is to be open early summer.

Sarah Karakaian: Yeah, I was like, girl, don’t you dare.

Annette Grant: 2025. Early summer 2025. I know I probably need to get a little more definitive on the date. We’ll leave that for the next update.

Sarah Karakaian: once we know that this is our construction team, That we found our team, then we can start getting a little, and I will tell you, just so everyone isn’t disappointed in us.

We have a schedule. There is a [00:25:00] Gantt chart. There is. We have a plan.

Annette Grant: There is. And we can, but we all know. This is what’s hilarious right now. We have had level three snow emergencies. Oh yeah. Rain for days. Like the, yeah, the, the, the weather has been so, difficult. And we have a very long road that is still under construction going to the properties.

That is like. Very muddy. So we’re, we’re just, we’re literally dealing with weather issues with, with mother earth right now.

Sarah Karakaian: It’s, you guys, you all know what

Annette Grant: we’re

Sarah Karakaian: going through. So anyway, that’s our land update for now. This is our, This is our fifth update. So we’ll put all the episodes in the show update update?

This is the fifth no update update. No, it’s an update.

Annette Grant: It’s an update. I just

Sarah Karakaian: hope everyone appreciates, like, they’re not the only ones out there. And if anyone’s nailing it and you want to coach us. My email is now. We’re doing it on our own pace. It feels good. We’re learning a lot. It’s having fun. Give us a follow.

Rich Hollow Retreat on Instagram. With that, I am Sarah Karakaian. I’m Annette Grant [00:26:00] and together we are Thanks for visiting. Talk to you next time.