Top lessons learned from scaling to over 200 properties

0:00People can can kind of Chase the shiny object and think you know the vacation markets are where they're going to get big rents and where the the Airbnb Community is is the the most attractive to guess I would say that the utilitarian Market of an Illinois where you know we focus where we are Kirby is about six miles from the only Naval training base in the United States so you have to find that your Naval training base right that's going to give you that base of customers that is going to consistently fill your units and you know wherever that is in the country you know you have Michigan city is a

0:49Or the valpro area you've got a lot of properties down there it's it's there's a great draw down there actually my one of my biggest clients and good friend his sister has four five down there and she does incredibly well yeah yeah you know smaller homes right and they're she manages them herself and and they do well but you just have to find whatever that that key Market driver is for you in that area and and honestly it's it's limited competition too to a degree you know if you go into a Sarasota there's a lot of competition here you have to be on your game and you have to price it right and you have to for the right features and you know it's it's not as easy as as just putting a property on Airbnb and saying hey everybody come get it right

1:38Yeah it's it's a lot harder than that so Cape Coral you know we looked at the Airbnb Market down there and said there's a little bit less competition than there is in other meccas of of vacationing in Florida right it's not not not a Naples or a Fort Lauderdale or a Miami or a Tampa or even a Sarasota but people still want to go there and it's a a price point vacation that they can go to with their family and still enjoy a beach 30 minutes away so yeah so that's what the draw was for us there but I I would just say start small you know don't don't buy the $2 million house in the Smokies right you know go with something that's that's going to provide the returns that are going to be

2:26Consistent and you know steady yeah yeah yeah yeah great advice Shannon from your your perspective I mean I think just watching my dad these past like 18 or 15 years building his business I think he's been really good at sticking to what he knows too but then growing off of that like I think it's interesting he started in a market like Wan where my mom grew up and they knew that market so well and then they switched to another Market close by where they they knew it was a market that people would be attracted to they were familiar with the area and I think just taking those stepping stones and growing with that

3:15He's been very very successful at it and another thing in the Airbnb Market specifically is we get so many repeat guests every year where they're coming every summer and they want to stay for 3 to four months at a time so seeing that growth over time has been very interesting because we just keep getting people coming back to our units and we're able to even if it's not the same house we're able to provide something else to them because we have such a a large portion of the airbnbs in in those specific markets that we're in so I think that's also added to the success yeah yeah it call we call those the reverse snowbirds

4:04In Illinois in the summer yeah reverse snowbirds so they they come from Florida they come visit family in Illinois and yeah snowbir they own in Florida they don't in Illinois so okay yeah yeah then capture the the real snowbirds on the other side of it yeah yeah yeah that's awesome yeah and and to your both your points about Focus I it's funny because I I've been doing this since 2011 so very similar time frame and almost to a person I've I could show the level of success that they've had with the level of focus or non shiny object syndrome that they have you know there's all kinds of people I know that one day they're doing crypto the next day they're doing flips then they're doing you know some

4:54J day trading scheme and and there's never any traction in that you know but what you're talking about and what you've done and obviously like you like Shannon you mentioned you build on what you know and and it'll evolve over time but to stay focused on your bread and butter there's so much to be said about that and knowing your market and you know improving little iterations over time and I I I love that advice and I would I would wholeheartedly agree with that I'm curious from your guys standpoint as as family members there's a lot of people listening that would like to get their kids involved with their business myself included my oldest is seven so not quite there yet but Someday I'm hoping that my kids will will be interested in this as well we drag them along and you

5:42Know they'll they'll pitch in here and there and especially on property setups but what advice would each of you have from very different perspectives on the right way to get your your family involved and how to do that successfully without it turning into uncomfortable Thanksgiving meals good good way to put it so you know from my standpoint you know I set boundaries on what I want to be inv involved with when when it comes to working with family right so Shannon and my my my son will have been involved in some of the airbnbs and they've done flips within the business so I bought a property

6:31I've said here are the contractors to use and you go manage the project and and go try and go sell it and my oldest daughter who's a resident at IU and for emergency medicine she did one of these as well so they learn the business a little bit from the construction and and flip standpoint that way but I try to stay out of that right and just let them learn from the mistakes on it which is how I did it we've we've my wife and I have also provided them with some property as well where you know they borrowed some money from us in order to to to and and find we Finance some of it as well to have them own a property and understand what it's all about to you know run it and see the financials and and

7:20All that kind of good stuff so you know I think that experience is is very valuable once you understand what it means to own some property so but but long term for me you know I I I think it's important to to you know not necessarily want to work with my kids but more divide the the tasks that you're going to do and and let them do what they're going to do like Airbnb setups and a flip here or there and U and then I work on what I'm going to work on in the business so that Thanksgiving is great you know and everybody enjoys it right so yeah yeah but it's been great I've I've en enjoyed it they're both they both have their own careers the

8:08The two that are more active in the company and setting up airbnbs and doing their thing so yep yeah good advice Dad yeah I think for me my parents have always just been very adamant about the idea that family's first even if you're working together and there can always be stress points and any job that you have but working with family you can have certain stress points or certain things that happened in the day that you didn't expect but it's always just having that perspective that your family first before you're working together and going off of what my dad said too I think he's been very good at not I don't know if compartmentalizing

8:58Is the right word but just allowing us to do our own thing and like take control in a specific aspect and like look to us for advice too because at the end of the day like in in general when you're hiring a team or growing a team you're not just like hiring them to tell them what to do you're looking to to them for advice too and I think he's been very very good at that just over time that's allowed us to get better at what we do for the business as well so yeah I think on the other end of things I think he has higher expectations for me sometimes than he would for others but but it's just allowed me to kind of push myself too and become

9:46Better at what I do so it's a win-win yeah obviously it's working if you're choosing to work in the business since you don't have to be you know you've got a full-time job as well so and I think finances where it unravels for a lot of families are you guys clear on how that all is set up and what the expectation is and how you know it works in terms of compensation for the roles and all that yeah yeah yeah we you know because it's a a secondary role for Shannon and will to help set up the airbnbs and and do that piece of it it's actually a you know we're all in it together and building something that someday you know they'll

10:35Inherit U you know some of this because I I feel like you know selling real estate is not the best way to go you know it's it's something that you can hand down to the Next Generation so it's you know they're they're doing this for themselves as well and and everybody understands that so it's but but finances is something that can can make it unravel if if you don't have that clear path of where everything is going at the end yeah yeah so yeah and and kind of as an offshoot to that point too once you get to a point I think most people listening to this would envy your position at this point Bill like you know you've kind of achieved what most people would have set out to be or set out to achieve and they would

11:24Imagine being down in you know CS key right now on the beach instead of working at a property so how do you manage your goals how do you stay motivated how do you set goals from here because you're past the point of you know Financial Freedom and so what does that look like for you you know I I talk about that a lot with my wife Roseanne because you know I say I I do have to take my foot off the gas and I have in a lot of ways because we you know I used to have maybe five or 10 or 15 projects going at one time and doing the construction management of those which I believe is one of the biggest components of saving money and creating the equity in the project is something that I try to keep a a good hand on I backed off from that and now we're we're just

12:12Focusing on build from the groundup developments town home communities that will be Airbnb communities or long-term rental type of projects so it'll be less work fewer projects is the goal and and yeah I am vacationing way more than I ever thought I would at this point in my life so it's it's fun but I still have to work I mean I'm just not the type of person that can just lay on the beach all the time or go play golf all the time I enjoy what I do and if you can enjoy it you know why not keep doing it it keeps you young yeah yeah yeah yeah no that makes sense if you yeah if it's if it doesn't seem like work then you know why why not do it what's so the the town home

13:00Communities you're doing how how does that work where are you building and that sort of thing yeah so in Libertyville we own a 1.5 acre parcel it's it's all airbnbs that are connected five in a row that we're in the planning process to tear all those down and and build from the ground up a more dense offering of airbnbs that'll be you know it' be a great investment and more cash flow and so that's the idea and then we're under contract for another parcel in Libertyville as well to do the same thing and we own a piece of land down in in Sarasota that we're going to look to do the same

13:48Thing at as well build 24 Town Homes furnished rental type of community so about a mile from the beach and so it's wow those are exciting so yeah that's cool how many units are you getting on the on the Libertyville locks so it it goes through what's called a plan Urban Development process you know there are ways to calculate it based on the zoning of it and then there are ways to increase that density based on providing affordable units within that same Community so that's what we're doing and we're targeting 20 units at one location and 18 to 25 at the other location so I'm on the board of a

14:37Nonprofit that we we focus on providing affordable affordable housing units throughout Lake County and so one of the things that I'm focused on with these developments is making sure that they're providing those pieces to seniors or whoever that need affordable units it's not a lot of the units but it's some of the units so that teachers or firemen or restaurant staff can can live in the community where they work got it okay so you get higher density by setting aside some of those to be affordable units that you'll rent long term and then the rest you can do short-term rentals then exactly

15:26Got it okay that makes sense yeah yeah yeah I'm a huge proponent of multi-unit short-term rentals the C net cash flow just it's it's hard to match so I can imagine in a in a key area like that a nice suburb with local draws having 20 on the same you know not all of them are going to be short-term rentals but 20 units total that that could turn into some really nice cash flow well when they're all the same unit you know then then the Deb the the occupancy opportunities explode right because then you're not just booking somebody at one unit it's kind of like a hotel yeah but a but it's an Airbnb type of community so it's yeah yeah yeah and we do really well with the super listings in the summer as well where

16:14You multiple units together yeah and you could have some really interesting super units there you know whole wedding parties and you know family reunions and stuff like that that we've done that actually in the on the block of them that we own right now they they've taken three or four of them in a row it's kind of cool my daughter actually did that for her wedding so yeah oh cool nice