Blue Dirt
Blue Dirt: Commercial Property Investing delivers expert insights and strategies for building and managing a successful commercial real estate portfolio. Whether you're a seasoned investor or just starting out, this podcast uncovers market trends, financing tips, and key investment principles to help you thrive in the industry.
Blue Dirt
Buildings Matter More Than Markets Ever Will
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Have you ever wondered if there's a stepping stone between residential and commercial real estate investing? In this eye-opening episode, we uncover how short-term rentals like Airbnb can serve as the perfect gateway to building your commercial real estate portfolio.
Jesse from Carro Properties shares his journey of transforming a 450-square-foot apartment above a garage into a thriving short-term rental business. The numbers are staggering – these properties can generate three to six times more revenue than traditional long-term rentals in vacation markets like Pensacola. But the real value lies in the transferable skills and knowledge gained along the way.
We dive deep into the practical aspects of setting up a successful Airbnb operation, from creating Instagram-worthy spaces that market themselves to navigating zoning laws, insurance requirements, and tax obligations. Jesse's insights on developing systems for guest communication, maintenance response, and turnover management mirror the exact skills needed for effective commercial property management.
What makes this conversation particularly valuable is the discussion around differentiating your property in a competitive market. Just as commercial properties need unique selling propositions, Jesse reveals how offering private parking and full kitchens gives his rentals an edge over local hotels. The episode also addresses common challenges, including dealing with difficult guests, managing maintenance issues, and the importance of documentation to protect your investment.
Whether you're considering your first real estate investment or looking to expand your existing portfolio, this episode provides a roadmap for using short-term rentals as a training ground for larger commercial endeavors. Subscribe now to learn how you can build value from the ground up in your real estate journey.
Learn more about Blue Commercial Properties on our website.
Introduction to Blue Dirt
Speaker 1Welcome to Blue Dirt, the podcast that digs deep into the foundation of commercial real estate investing. Unlike most real estate shows that focus on dealmaking and market trends. Blue Dirt gets into the nuts and bolts of what truly builds long-term value the building itself. We break down how to spot deferred maintenance before it costs you, why a solid preventative maintenance program is a game changer and how triple net leases can maximize your investment returns. We'll also explore the importance of strong landlord-tenant relationships and how they drive stability and growth in your portfolio. Whether you're a seasoned investor or just getting started, blue Dirt gives you the practical knowledge to make smarter, more profitable decisions in commercial real estate. It's time to get your hands dirty and build value from the ground up. Let's dig in.
Speaker 2I'm Don Redhead with Blue Commercial Properties and this is Jesse with what would we call it? Is it Carroll Asset Management, carroll Properties? So Carol asset management, carol properties, asset manager with Carol properties. But he happens to have a Airbnb that he does and thought, because Carol ditched me the last second, after I already set everything up, he says that apparently he can't make it and he's in the front conference room. So we're going to go ahead and still record something for Adam, our friend, and the listeners out there ahead and still record something for Adam, our friend, and the listeners out there.
Speaker 2And one thing that I had done, or at least seen a lot of other people get into, you know, a lot of people kind of get into real estate with residential, and one thing we see a lot of, of course, is Airbnb, and our podcast, of course, is about commercial real estate investing.
Speaker 2But sometimes you may have and maybe I'll let you go into some of the other ones in your experience or what you guys have worked with that may be their first step into their investing market. They may have an extra house, they may have something like a studio apartment, maybe above a garage or something like that that they can turn in to start making money and it can be their first step into commercial real estate investing. So I guess, kind of tell us a little bit about yourself and, as well as what you have been, your experience with Airbnb. I think you guys have done a pretty good job and have worn some of the maybe small details, but what are some of the items that if somebody is saying, hey, I think this qualifies for Airbnb, maybe they should look at in advance to getting outside, you know, getting ahead of their skis, so to say. So, tell us a little bit about yourself, your experience, all that fun jazz.
Speaker 3Well, before we do that, there's a great example I have for your first part of that questioning, which was how do people get started? How does this relate to commercial? And I have a prime example. We have our Airbnbs. In a row of Airbnb, there's 4 lots with 4 lots behind us, and every single one is investing in a rental.
Speaker 2Okay, so the whole pocket already is that whole block. Okay, it was very saturated.
Speaker 3But we have one neighbor who's never done any investing in real property at all. He just bought his house for himself, happened to have an apartment above the garage like ours exact same floor plan and he turned it into an Airbnb after consulting consulting with my wife and I, because we had been running our apartment as an airbnb for some time and so he recently reached out and says hey, this has been really lucrative. Uh, it's also been really fun. We're looking at maybe getting some commercial spaces, maybe we could lease those out. He goes I know you guys know people in the commercial real estate industry. Is that something viable for us? And so something as simple as starting as residential investing has now brought in their eyes to what is possible when it comes to real property and making money, leasing or buying.
Speaker 2Yeah, because that one typically, like I said, is just is your first you, your first residential, because most people either live in a house or an apartment, something like that, so it's just much more approachable. A lot of people, if they're starting in commercial, it is Unless you have someone that you're maybe partnering with or maybe you've leased space in the past. It does seem a bit overwhelming. Space in the past, it does seem a bit overwhelming. So when you guys bought that residence, did it already have the, the garage with it? Because that that's what it sounds like you guys have. You guys have an apartment above a garage. Did it already have that there? Did you guys build that out? No, no, we uh.
Speaker 3In our investigation into purchasing a home into the western side of pensapola, we noticed that there was one builder specifically that was building a very common looking new kind of row house, that typical look board and baton that we're seeing pop up all over. But this one builder, uh, was building a two-car garage detached and he was putting a 450 square foot apartment above it, and we noticed he was also building it with a separate meter, separate address.
Speaker 3Now, water there was one caveat that the city wouldn't allow, which was separate water, so it doesn't have its own water meter but, it gave us an instant opportunity to either keep it as a guest house or turn it into an income generating part of the property. Okay, and so we sought out after it, and it was being built. Or turn it into an income generating part of the property Okay, and so we sought out after it, and it was being built. We made our bid, we won the bid, and so this is all brand new right, brand new construction yeah.
Speaker 2You guys most likely just what had to furnish it, prepare it for that. Now, when you guys were beginning the journey of, of getting it set up, as did you guys consider going short-term rental versus uh, long-term versus long-term, absolutely okay, what was your kind of? How did you weigh out the pros and cons of that?
Speaker 3well, you really got to look at what you're willing to. Is this an investment property or is it your primary residence in the extra space? So for us we live in the front house, which is detached. So we really wanted to weigh the factors of there are going to be strangers less than 10 feet from you at any given time versus one tenant for a long period. And then we started weighing out the price. And if you want a very stable every month you get a check you know the person, you know their habits that's a great way to just have that extra income that can help you with your mortgage or whatever your needs are. But it's much, much more lucrative. To go short term, okay, you, in one month, this small 450 square foot apartment can generate three to six times what a long-term tenant will pay you for one month of rent.
Speaker 2Okay, and what is obviously that? I have to assume there's not a, there is a, a, a weight to that on the opposite side. What are some of the things? Why is it six times, four times, whatever it is? Why is it so much more lucrative? What is? What does it require out of you guys? Is it, is it more intensive? Is it okay? What do you have to? What do you have to deal with?
Speaker 3with a long-term tenant, you basically are hands off that they take care of it. If they run out of toilet paper, it's on them to go get more. They don't that? The wear and tear on the unit is higher. So when they move out you may need to collect that security deposit to place anything that's broken or damaged.
Speaker 2So it's more and even intensive on the wear and tear for for a longer term than a short term, okay but that that's by location.
Speaker 3We are in a vacation town, uh, we have a lot of tourism. We have a lot of outdoor dining. Outside dining, we have a lot of uh people that visit and they won't even use the kitchen as like a storage facility for their belongs. We can tell.
Speaker 2They're coming in. They're dumping. They're running out. They're going to enjoy the city, going out to eat. They're coming back to sleep Is that okay.
Speaker 3It's basically how you would treat a hotel room. You're not cooking in hotel rooms. Now, occasionally we've had some week-long guests who you'll tell we can tell they've used the stove at some point. So maybe who you'll tell we can tell they've used the stove at some point, so maybe we. This air bb is very close to the joe patty's fish market so maybe they decided to visit that landmark get some fish and try it, but generally very little wear and tear on the unit compared to someone who's there full time every day now.
Speaker 2So, obviously, weighing these out and, uh, before you guys even got the space to market, what did you guys have to do to prepare, uh, that space? I mean, obviously we talk about furnishing. I mean, how, how extensive do you go with that or kind of additional things that maybe you guys didn't think of, that you needed that you, that you ended up was kind of nice to have. What was, what was that like?
Speaker 3So the main thing was was is why rent this apartment at all? So if we're a guest and we're coming to a town that has beautiful hotels, prime locations, why choose to be five minutes walk to the west a little bit more? So we knew we had one advantage private parking. Parking is a premium downtown right most hotels have parking, but some of them don't.
Speaker 3You have to park into a paid parking lot, so this has its own parking. No hotels in the vicinity of downtown offer a kitchen, so if you were someone who wanted to experience cooking, some of the local the face of joe pay as you get.
Speaker 2You come down here for fresh seafood. We are in florida, coastal so that.
First Steps into Real Estate Investing
Speaker 3So we, we knew we had that going for us, but we really wanted to make it stand out in a sea of other airbnbs so we really thought instagram or social media worthy. So when we set out to build a theme for the airbnb, we really wanted to do a big, full wall. Mural of the sunset was what we chose, very beach oriented. All the furnishings are rather beach themed.
Speaker 2Not necessarily expensive, but not necessarily the cheapest but just when you're, when you were going through there, you just stuck with this vibe yeah, right, okay, we wanted the.
Speaker 3When you walked into the space you want, you felt almost compelled with this newer generation especially. You get your phone out and take a photo of this cool place You're going to post, you're going to send it to your friends. They're almost self-advertised. Now, how many people do that? Almost Well, I shouldn't, I shouldn't, guess, but we have seen many times where we'll see a post on tag Pensacola and we'll recognize our apartment, and so look where I stayed and they'll put we have a hashtag hashtags. And so look where I stayed and they'll put we have a hashtag hashtags.
Speaker 2Interesting Cause I would. I would assume it's. It's really great for advertising and listing the property, the mural wall and kind of making it. Obviously, the nicer it looks, probably the more desirable, right. But how many people would actually be posting that, the photos there?
Speaker 3I'm just. I was surprised to see it online, just generally searching as if I were a tourist. But one thing that I didn't know until I got involved with Airbnb that company specifically is the more Instagram worthy or the more photo worthy your unit is, the more it seems that Airbnb was posting it.
Speaker 2I bet, because it just makes it. It's that assimilation that you're, you're, you know you want to have a great product Airbnb and if you, if you post the best looking photos, it makes your website already look better, right?
Speaker 3so that, okay, that does make make more sense, right and then, once we got on the platform, we started realizing there's two tiers of hosting. There's regular hosting and then there's super hosting, which we thought was just kind of like, hey, cool, I'm a super host. But once you hit that qualification, we no longer had to really push that. Our listing for that specific unit. Airbnb did it on our behalf, okay, and it it was featured. There's many email blasts that go out, that airbnb puts out if you subscribe to their notifications. Yeah, yeah, yep, and we got a couple for our I didn't have to do a lifting finger and also in my inbox. It just promotes it. Right, staying in this, uh, pensacola region, check out these great, uh, airbnb options, and ours was listed right there on the main email.
Speaker 2On the main, that's great because, yeah, that that is that kind of reactionary uh purchase that you're hoping for, right, you know that people are. Well, what do you want to do this weekend? Let's go travel and and that helps push it up before we go kind of more into that, that marketing, what is what other things does someone need to to really prepare the space for? So? So you, you got it. Yeah, the vibe pretty cool. Do you guys provide any ancillary type products, like when I go to a hotel? Of course I have. You know, uh, yeah, they have the shampoos and the soaps and you know random things like that coffee. Maybe you guys provide just everything, just like a hotel.
Speaker 3We try to. Yeah, we want it to be an all-inclusive experience where you come in and you, if you forgot something, we have backups now granted, just like a hotel. There's many times where we go in lean group comes in and we notice most of it's missing. So you just have to be prepared as a host that, not take that personal, that's just the nature it is and to have doubles and quadruples of everything your backup inventory that way when.
Speaker 3That way, when something goes missing, it's not a big deal. Like uh, recent examples we had someone come in we could tell they did not use the coffee maker, but every single cabinet was scoured through and all the coffee pods gone, whatever the reason.
Speaker 2So, but you guys actually do the management yourself. Correct Cause there is an option, and I had done this, uh, with the house that we had the last lived in very close to yours. Um, we had used a separate company, uh, to manage it for us and we had put it on Airbnb for a period of time and, uh, I guess I had never thought of all those things that they had managed for us the linen management, everything so you guys took that on your own, did that? Is that something you guys charge for? As part of that, we do.
Speaker 3Yeah, Um it. We don't charge it in our personal Airbnb.
Speaker 3We charge it for those that are not ours, because we do manage some of the neighboring because, they're all the same floor plan and some of the our neighbors knew we were entering into this and they're like, hey, we don't have the time to self-manage. Would you guys manage our unit? And so we manage one, literally next door it's. It's a mirror image, not of the decor and the theme, but how it's ran. But the floor plate, yeah, it's all the same. The entrances are the same so we can duplicate how to get in, access stuff interesting. But yeah, we do charge for that now?
Speaker 2do you need to from a legal or maybe insurance standpoint? Did you guys have to do anything to prepare for, for listing it?
Speaker 3Yes, okay so the first thing you need to do is find out, um for any Airbnb anywhere, is it zoned Okay For short-term rental? If that's what you're doing, okay, if there's an HOA, uh, most likely it will not allow short-term rent, and that was a big issue. In our previous state we lived in, almost every small, perfect airbnb property was governed by an hoa and it in the bylaws said no short term rental which eliminate.
Speaker 3That was the city's way of banning hp or airbnbs, because all the hotels were lobbying against it and, of course, they can't dictate truly what you do with your property, but an hoa in place can, and so that's one thing you have to check right away. Second of all is your homeowner's, and of course, they can't dictate truly what you do with your property, but an HOA in place can, and so that's one thing you have to check right away. Second of all is your homeowner's insurance. You need to let them know that you're potentially going to have short term rentals and that's that's kind of a tourist based thing. So you also need to let the city know. Like the city of Pensacola has a tourism tax, a 5% tax, airbnb will not collect that in Escamilla County, so that's something you have to do on your own. It's due every month by the 20th, okay, and so that's something highly involved on your part in accounting.
Speaker 2Okay, Interesting, Because they do the same thing in the commercial world. We collect sales tax right on rentals in Florida and I think there's only one other state that mandates it for commercial use maybe Arizona or something like that, but it's interesting. So you guys are having to collect that the Airbnb doesn't differentiate counties and cities and collect that and pay it for you. It's something you have to specifically do.
Speaker 3Well, this is what we learned they collect your sales tax for you and they disperse it as needed, and then in certain counties not Escambia County they will collect the tourism tax, but only Escambia County. In this area you have to do that yourself. This ball rolling and really started seeing an income generating uh property. It really started to take shape as a business and it no longer feels like, hey, I'm just renting out a room on a platform. This really feels like this is a day-to-day operation. It takes foresight, planning. Thankfully airbnb does a lot of the calendars, but we have to. We don't get to really vet anybody. That's airbnb's job, but we, you know we have to maintain a check-in and check out time, okay, and so it feels like you're running a small business right Many hotel.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2Right. So yeah, now you've you've double-checked your insurance, your state laws, your local laws, and now you've got this place prepared from a visual standpoint, maybe an infrastructure standpoint about separate meter the amenities, if you will, coffee, you know, all those extra things, little treats. What do you do now with Airbnb? How do you actually set up an Airbnb account?
Managing Short-Term vs. Long-Term Rentals
Speaker 3I mean, I'm sure the app is super simple. It's just easy as setting up a social media. Okay, it's that simple. You basically just you log in, create a login and then you, you switch to the hosting platform and then you put the the property and they will do a good review of the property to make sure that you're not running out a tough shed in the backyard. Okay, it does need to have health, hygiene and safety. That's part of the tourism um tax as well, that the city can come in and inspect. Uh, in this, in the city limits of downtown, we even have to have a business license, uh, a vacation rental license. Oh, you do. Okay, but that's that's very select. A lot of cities, a lot of towns don't require that, but here pensacola does, I'm assuming, because we have such a large tourism, I would imagine. So, yeah, and so we have hygiene standards we must abide by now.
Speaker 2So pretty simple once again. You know, these guys have really thought it out. It's not like they only have 15 rentals right on airbnb, so you've got the place listed. Everything's ready there to go. People start. I mean, how interactive is it with the people coming in to get checked in? I mean, how do you guys set it up? Is it pretty hands off?
Speaker 3It is completely hands off. We have no interaction with any single guest other than on the Airbnb platform's chat ability To gain access to the unit the day of check-in. We give them a door code. We always use keypads, no physical keys. Nothing to lose, Nothing to take to the beach and lose at the beach.
Speaker 2So minimize communication issues that potentially could happen. Yep, they can just pull up their phone, which they're gonna probably lose probably probably. Um, okay, so no interactions.
Speaker 3Has anyone ever tried to interact with you guys, not physically, like where they were trying to get us to come. Uh, at one time we lost power at some point in the night due to a storm and they couldn't get the smoke detector to stop going off, and I then, okay, I just kept telling them on the on the chat app, I said it will turn off once the power comes back on. It's just, it's a power failure mode, so it's not it wasn't blaring, it was just like.
Speaker 3Hey but it was. It wasn't like a backup power it wasn't like I have the same ones in my main house because I live 10 feet away.
Speaker 2But it's so you're doing you're doing the same thing, like, if you want to come over here and hang out, you can see, okay.
Speaker 3But no that that was probably one of the only times anyone's ever really reached out a couple of times, because it can get quite congested with all these Airbnbs coming and going. Someone accidentally parked in their parking space and so they said hey, there's a truck in our spot, not a big deal, but you know we'd like to use our parking. So I had to go out there, put a sign on and said, hey, this is for this unit, not the unit you're staying in. Other than that, almost no communication, no interaction.
Speaker 2So kind of on that same issue what about you know emergency happening? You know where the pipes bust? Have you guys ever had to deal with anything like that?
Speaker 3being that everything in this block that we manage is new construction. We, thankfully, have not had that. The. The worst thing that was hat that we've ever encountered was last summer. One of the units the ac wasn't, didn't seem to be cooling enough. I just made a call to our ac company. They came out. I didn't even have to be on site. They I just made a call to our AC company, they came out. I didn't even have to be on site they came out. They said, yep, pressure's low. A fitting was loose, they fixed it and the tenant said so, no different than for your own home. Exactly, your own home, okay, and we have a booklet inside everybody gets to have. It goes over procedures, it shows the local areas they can go explore, but also has a back for emergencies. Who to call? Of course, 911, our phone numbers If there's anything that's not, or that's something maybe we could handle, or a question. And then we list like, hey, if we're unavailable, this is your utility company, this is a sewer company, so just keep us.
Speaker 2Now is this something that Airbnb helps you with? So you did this all, which is probably great. Planning right, you probably minimize 90% of the times people would reach out to you. Correct, Right.
Speaker 3And that's ever evolving too, because every day or every guest might have something that you didn't think of. There's no.
Speaker 2So then you just update the document Exactly. Print off a new page put it in the booklet and hopefully that suffices. Okay, what about? So you got the space. Everything's is flowing Well. People are checking in you know loving the space that are leaving. What is, you know, assuming most of the time is, is a pretty standard turn. I'll call it, for lack of a better term you guys get in, it's clean, prepare for the new, the new tenant that's coming in.
Speaker 3Like all, all places where you have strangers staying, they don't own it. It's been, for the most part, great, but we've had a couple where they didn't care about the fact that they have a deposit. Airbnb holds a deposit. They just went for it anyways. We've had some broken stuff in there that we had to make the decision. With Airbnb, there is a certain threshold you want to make your claim for, and other times it's just not worth making. It's just kind of wear and tear.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3Thankfully I have the ability to fix stuff. One visually we could see on we do have cameras on the property for security, for the guests and for the property and we could visually see out in the back, uh, the driveway that he was visually upset and him and his person he was staying with were verbally fighting, um. And then when they checked out, it was an unusual checkout. We have it set for 10. They, they were ignoring all the checkout requests. Uh, the keypad showed it hadn't been accessed, so we didn't know if they were sleeping, had they been up all night. So we gently, uh, used the app, the airbnb app, to try and reach them and finally we were able to get them out, get inside and okay, so they were still in there. They were still in there and finally we were able to get them out, get inside and okay, so they were still in there. They were still in there and they had been trying to fix a nightstand. This night sand was a floating nightstand, so it's bolted into the wall. Okay, something happened.
Speaker 3We, we don't know, but it was on the ground and broken, and so, as a host, we had to decide in the property and we had to decide do we go after the air insurance, airbnb's insurance on for their guests, or do we just take it as a loss and fix it ourselves? Because I have the ability to fix it. We went that route. But you can file a claim for any amount. It just lower the amount the less likely. Airbnb will reimburse you quickly. If it's something substantial, we'll come out and investigate.
Speaker 2So if it's a real claim, somebody torches the place, then it's just go for it Just go for it.
Legal and Insurance Considerations
Speaker 2That's when you really should get all your documentation together, prepare for a real claim insurance claim and it's probably handled in probably a very professional manner. Um, I might assume, I would assume. But you're saying the smaller stuff is kind of this, it's, it's there's like such a gray area. Yeah, it's because I've had and I think I shared this with you where we had a terrible experience, um, going into a place that fortunately, uh, we were in, you know, visiting my hometown where my mother was and she had decided to rent a place in the mountains. So we went there, everyone was staying.
Speaker 2She videotaped the property when we got there and there was a microwave broken and, post fact, they came at us with, I think it was a couple thousand dollar claim between miscellaneous accusations and claims and it was like it just felt like you were very much just trying to be taken advantage of and I it was. It was, um, fortunately, she had taken that video. So I would recommend now, when I go places, I take a pre walkthrough video and now a post when we're leaving, cause you just never know.
Speaker 3I recommend it too. And now a post when we're leaving, because you just never know. I recommend it too. I do the same, and especially now that we've been hosting Airbnbs and managing them for over two years. If we ever rent someone else's property, we video everything. It has a timestamp. We've seen people on the camera when they're checking out, take a photo on their phone and then walk downstairs. So we know other people are, then walk downstairs.
Setting Up an Airbnb Property
Speaker 3Okay, so we know other people are doing the same. Yeah, it's just good practice. You never know with the homeowner or the management company what they're doing. In my experience and I've seen this on the Hostings Airbnb Reddit forum people are saying like hey, I didn't want to make the small claim. Everyone knows that Airbnb takes forever to pay out small claims, but they're much more active on bigger, substantial claims. So there's a big concern that they'll rack up a list of all these things about their property that have been wear and tear or damaged over the course of renting and then they'll find someone that did enough they felt to just hit them with everything, because it's much easier to get that Airbnb claim claim if it's a bigger ticket item, because they'll put a lot of effort into it.
Speaker 2Interesting, so they'll. So they'll just let that that you know, a little bit of damage to the door kind of ride for a while. They'll say, hey, they've damaged the backsplash here and some bathroom tile there and this faucet there, and then they'll just package this big claim up and then go at them.
Speaker 3Yeah I have personally never experienced that, but if you ever jump onto reddit and you can go to and it's open, open to the public you can go on to airbnb hosting complaints questions. It's there's a lot of armchair advice out there, but it's there's a few questions that we found relevance where we're like oh cool, someone else dealt with this, how'd they deal?
Speaker 2I got you Interesting Well guidance from.
Speaker 3Reddit. Yeah, you take it with a grain of salt, but sometimes it can match up to your question and the answer makes sense.
Speaker 2Okay, Fair enough, I don't use Reddit, so I'm familiar. I've gone on a couple of times and people just were saying some radical stuff and I was like I gotta go yeah, I've got time for this.
Speaker 3Definitely got to be careful when you take their advice.
Speaker 2So kind of overall, yeah, definitely seems like a positive experience.
Speaker 3Oh, absolutely, and it's so easy to talk about those, those dramatic moments where things are negative, or all the attentions, because how long have you been doing it?
Speaker 2for now, Two years, okay.
Speaker 3But I mean, that's maybe three instances in two years and that's hundreds of guests that have stayed in these units, and almost every. We still have a 5.0 rating, which all it takes is a a lot of people don't know this. A 4.0 rating, which all it takes is a lot of people don't know this a 4.9 rating will it'll pull down your super host status. It was imperative to maintain that 5.0. How many ratings do you guys have? Oh, I, I stopped looking at it's gonna be a ballpark. Ah, it's gotta be 50.
Speaker 2That the last time I say you have 55 star, perfect reviews yeah, at at least.
Speaker 3The thing is, though, you're not required to leave a review, so it's kind of like one in five leave a review.
Speaker 2Yeah right, because I don't ever leave reviews. That's what it is, yep.
Speaker 3And then occasionally we get the one where they'll leave a five star review, but then they have the option to leave a private note. They're like hey, you know what, the stairs were kind of hard for us, but we, we picked the second floor unit. Nothing we can done about it, just wanted you to know. Like, right, well, I can't rebuild the place, but thanks for telling me. And others had good feedback. Like, hey, you know what? We love a tea option with thank you for providing coffee, but we'd love a tea option.
Speaker 3We're not coffee drinkers, but we're heavy tea drink okay, cool so now we throw in a couple little bags of tea, okay just Just simple stuff like that. But they didn't put in the rating like the big review that everyone gets to see. It was just a private note on their exit that Airbnb allows them to do and we find that far more valuable than the rating system that that really just works for the marketing. They don't want to keep marketing for you properties that are getting lower and lower rating.
Speaker 2Because that's really more of a, a true constructive feedback that you're hey, let's, let's modify this, let's do this, let's make the experience better. And the other one is purely how a or b and b is is monitoring your listing and promoting it. Yeah, that's a perfect way to. Okay, you're gonna buy more.
Dealing with Guest Issues
Speaker 3I would love to yeah, we get a whole fleet of them if we could. It's just it's, it's not. We have made it not passive income it is in the sense is that it's the property that we own. We're not using it in the sense that I'm not in the space, I'm not occupying it, but making it where, we manage it ourselves. We're very active in the process. It is. It is definitely active income to us and then managing other units, it's become its own little business and really would love to, like any business, keep expanding.
Speaker 2Yeah, cause that seems like I was going to say you maybe would you ever bring on a third party management, but you guys are kind of doing that for other people, so it doesn't make sense and at this point there's probably a little bit of scale there. Yeah, you know, you guys are buying multiple soaps, multiple towel, whatever the scenario is, and you're just multiplying it across.
Speaker 3Strangely enough, towels are the worst part of this whole Airbnb experience. We go through more towels that just seem to vanish than anything else in these units. Is it because the quality?
Speaker 2you guys buying real nice towels.
Speaker 3Yeah, maybe, that's it, maybe we need to lower the quality of the towels that leave them for it yeah, that's.
Speaker 2Uh. Well, at least everyone's getting fresh towels. Hey, every time they show up, pretty much awesome. All right, I don't have any more questions. What else am I? I missing anything that you really wish you would have known getting into this thing?
Speaker 3I think one thing that people do is they own a piece of property and they just think of how to maximize the use of that property. But when you have the luxury or the opportunity to choose a property that you want to invest in, is making that decision right there Just because it's got cool features? That saying location, location, location is everything when buying real estate, commercial or residential. When you're looking at creating a short-term rental property, the number one question is how far you are from this, how far you are from that, and that's what I think has made or break a lot of Airbnb hosts. Before it had a good property, it was just not near what all the guests potentially would want to be at Makes sense Awesome.
Speaker 2Well, thank you, jesse. Once again, I'm Don with Blue Dirt or Blue Commercial Properties, whatever it is that day, and thanks for listening. Where even idiots can make a killing in commercial real estate, Michael, I think, would be proud of that. That little accent.
Speaker 1That's a wrap for this episode of Blue Dirt. We're here to help you build smarter, invest wiser and create long-term value in commercial real estate, one solid foundation at a time. If you found today's insights useful, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode, and if you know somebody who could benefit from these discussions, share Blue Dirt with them. Got questions or topics you'd like us to cover? Reach out. We'd love to hear from you. Until next time, keep digging deep, stay sharp and remember real value is built from the ground up. See you on the next episode.
