Using Medium Term Rentals to Achieve Financial Independence with Sarah Weaver

You can contact hospitals directly, you could contact recruiters. I could go on and on about all of the different ways that you could get tenants. And I think it's really important that everyone hears me. I just list on Airbnb and furnish finder.

Welcome to the Next Level Income show where it's our goal to take your income, your investments and your life to the next level. I'm your host, Chris Larson. If you haven't yet, get a copy of our book for free at our website, nextlevelincome.com. that's www.nextlevelincome.com. just click on the book link and I'll even send you a copy if you put your address in. On today's show, we have Sarah Weaver. Sarah is an author, speaker, coach, real estate investor, and business owner. She runs three businesses that serve both real estate investors and real estate agents. She travels the country coaching real estate agents and hosting intimate retreats for investors. Talk about a dream life. We are going to talk about more of what Sarah's getting into on today's show. Sarah, welcome to the show.

Hi, Chris. Thanks for having me.

Absolutely. I love Einstein. I love the picture of him riding a bike. Bicycle. I rode bikes for a lot of years. Race bikes for a lot of years. But yeah, what an interesting character in history.

I think he makes me look pretty smart.

There you go. Indeed.

Yeah. It's so funny that you mentioned that painting of him riding a bicycle. There is this incredible street artist. His name is Eduardo Corbo, sorry, Cobra. And he just has this incredible piece of Einstein riding a bike, like really vibrant colors and it's like a 200 foot mural. And it's just, it's really cool. So anytime I think of that photo, I think of this really cool street artist.

I gotta, I gotta get that photo or that, that picture from my. For my home. But we're gonna talk about you today, Sarah, and a little bit about you, your journey to where you are. I'm really excited because I just ordered your new book on midterm or medium term rentals, which we're going to get into. We're also going to talk about your invested adventures and some of the trips that you have coming up here very shortly. Because I know this is airing here right around the time of your announcement of those. So I'm excited to share that with our audience too. But we'd love to share kind of what you're up to, what led you to this point and what you have going on right now.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, right now It's a really exciting time in, like, my business, and I think also in real estate investing in general. One of the themes that I recognized pretty early on in my investing is that the moment you decide to own rental property, your friends and family that aren't in real estate, like, think that you are either making a huge mistake or you're a slumlord, or they think you're super rich or. And. And so essentially they just don't really get it. And. And there's a lot of doubt that I experienced when I invested in real estate. Like, am I. Like, am I an idiot? Like, is this a good idea? Am I making that decision? And I was lucky enough to have a lot of other real estate investors to lean on. I'm also probably one of the most extroverted people you'll ever meet. Um, you seem.

You seem pretty easy to. To talk to initially, but, yeah.

Oh, I'm glad to hear that. I. I really love connecting with people, and because it came easy to me, I really took it for granted that networking is something that I enjoy. It fills up my cup. Whereas I think a lot of people, it exhausts them, and there's nothing wrong with that. My very favorite people in the world are. Are introverts, and they're exhausted, and so they like having me as a wingman. And. And so what I recognized is that while there's incredible conference out there and you'll see me at a lot of them because I love going to them, they're missing something. And what I felt like they were missing was, okay, Chris, I want to know about you. Like, what do you want your life to look like for you and your family? What is your strategy and what questions do you have? Because as we grow, our questions change, our challenges change, our needs change. And the conference is like a presentation made for the masses. And so we don't get to know, like, Chris and Mike and Susie in the audience. And so I wanted to create an event that gave you the connection that you're craving, also gave you the community that you deserve, as well as examined you and your goals and your strategy. And that is how Invested Adventures was born.

I think that's fantastic. And I think, you know, one of the. I was actually at an event with my wife here in Costa Rica just. Just a couple weeks ago and sat down, very, very intimate, very small event, only about a dozen people there, and this very successful couple, woman, sits down and says, hey, I'm buying this. I want to buy this property. I just put an offer on it. Goes through it all, tells me how she's going to short term run it, the whole process. And she goes, what do you think? You know, like, is it a good deal? Tell me this and that. I said, well, what are your goals? And you know, so we, I said, let's take a step back. And so she goes and tells me her goals and, you know, her, her plans and why she's buying the property. It's for her kids. And I said, do your kids want the property? Like, I don't know if they want the property. I said, do you want to be, do you want to be in this business? She goes, not really. And by the time we finished talking after three minutes, she's like, I don't think I want to buy this property. We didn't even talk about the numbers. And I love how you start with, you know, I say you start with the why. Right? Like, what are you trying to create? And if we consciously try to do it, then the strategy can help formulate itself. Right?

Absolutely. And that, what a gift you gave this woman that otherwise at a huge, like even 100 person event, she wouldn't have an opportunity to have someone ask good questions back like that. And so exactly what you experience is what I'm hoping to bring to other real estate investors.

No, I love it. And it's, it's neat. Now tell, now tell the audience. You just tell me before the show. Sarah, you are going all over the world just in the next couple of months, some of the places that you're going to be.

Yeah, by the time this airs, I have left Omaha, Nebraska. I've gone to a conference in Mexico City, spoke at events in San Francisco, spoke, spoke at an event and a conference in San Diego, spoken at an event in Phoenix, taken my grandma to Sedona, spoken at another event in Phoenix. And that's all like in the next, you know, six weeks. And so incredible. From there, my company, Invested Adventures, is taking 10 investors on an African safari in Tanzania. Wow. Yeah, that's in June. Then 10 other people, mostly the same group. I think seven of those people, or, sorry, seven of those are going to go hike Kilimanjaro after joined by a few other people. So that's another, I mean, talk about epic business trip. You're taking bucket list experiences like hiking Kilimanjaro, Africa's tallest peak. And you're pairing it with real estate investing because you're doing it with other real estate investors. And for your listeners that are like, no, not a hiking fan, don't sign me up for that. Well, I also have an event in June for real estate investors in the south of Italy.

Wow, that sounds great. I wouldn't mind, I wouldn't mind going to any, any or all of those.

Good news is, Chris, you're invited.

Thank you. No, it's, it's. What's cool is this is really what real estate's about, right? It's just a vehicle to form. You know, it's, it's the journey. Forming partnerships, forming connections, forming those relationships and also those experiences, which is, which is really cool. Now, Sarah, tell us, like, how did you, how did you get to this point? Have you always been a real estate investor? When, when did you start? What were you doing before that?

Absolutely. So I bought my first property knowing that it was going to be an investment property. I used the house hacking strategy, but very much knew it was going to be a rental. And, and that was at age 27. So bought my first at 27. And then I think it's really important for everyone to hear that I bought another one two years later. So I was in no rush because I was so focused on my lifestyle, my career. I worked 100% remotely. This was back in 2017. And so way before COVID way before a lot of people were doing it. And I moved to Brazil. So that's actually how I knew that. Street artists or no other. That street artist, I wish I knew him personally, that would be cool. But that's how I know of him and his really cool painting of Albert Einstein because it's in, it's in Brazil. And, and so I think it's important that people realize that to be a real estate investor, you don't have to like, run out and go, like, you know, change your entire life and buy a bunch of properties. I just bought one and then a couple years later I bought another. And then a couple years later I bought 12 units and then the next year I bought four units and now I own 19 units in four different states.

That's awesome. That's awesome. Now let's get, let's like get a little bit more into the strategy here, Sarah, because we've talked about short term rentals on this podcast. I'm a big fan. I think that's, you know, kind of a subset of what I would call operational real estate. And I think there's a lot of opportunity in real estate where there's kind of a business component. You know, we short term rentals, senior housing or assisted living facilities. We do car washes. That's a Big part of our portfolio. And these are all real estate plays, but they have really a business behind it. But. And tell me, is it midterm or medium term rentals? What would you.

Either one is fine. I tend to say medium term rentals midterm. Makes me think of midterm elections or like my college midterms term. But no one's wrong when they say midterm. But I, I say medium term.

I like it. So, okay, so a medium term rental. Let's define that for the audience here for those that haven't read your book yet.

Absolutely. So, so the book that he's referencing is my book, 30 Day Mastering the Medium Term Rental. And it's a great question, what is a medium term rental? Like a short term rental? It's a furnished rental. So what makes it medium instead of short is just the length of stay. So why is that important? Well, I have decided to allow my guests to stay for a minimum of 30 days. Most of mine stay one to three months, which I love, because it's less turnover, less communication, and less admin time. Even if you have admin taking care of it, meaning you have a property manager who, you know, manages your short term rental. It's taking up. For me, it was taking up mind space. So while I was traveling in, you know, Guatemala or Mexico City or Portugal, I just didn't want to be thinking about, oh, did that turnover go okay? Or oh, the cleaner needs more toilet paper or just all of these little nuances that happen with short term rentals. They still happen with medium term rentals, but they happen every 90 days on average. And so there's just a lot less admin time.

Yeah, no, that makes sense. Yeah. Because I mean, our average stay in our, in our short term rentals is probably three days. So, you know. Yeah, you're looking at 30 times the turnover. 20, 30 times the turnover in that same period of time. You know, costs and that sort of thing. And so how did you, how did you, you know, get into, stumble into, decide to get into this, this space versus, you know, just like short term rentals, for instance.

Yeah. So for me, I, I always knew that I wanted to own furnished rentals. Like once I got into real estate because I was a, I was a guest myself. I have been fully nomadic for four years and traveling pretty extensively for eight years. So I've stayed in Airbnbs, you know, all over the world. And I've always kind of romanticized the idea of, oh, I'd love to like own these Airbnbs. And then when I bought my first four plex, it was the perfect opportunity to furnish one of the four units because the mortgage was already paid by two of the. Of the four units. And so I. Or sorry, three of the four units. So I, I had some wiggle room and some stability, like if this worked, great. If it didn't work, that's fine. And some of my very first guests were people who were coming into town for 30 days or more, whether it was travel medical professionals, like travel nurses. I had a few people come in for an internship that was three months long. I even had someone come in. This was like still in the time of COVID I had someone come from California because they just wanted to get out of San Francisco and all the lockdowns. And so. Yeah, and their mom lived here in Omaha. This is in Omaha, Nebraska, in case I didn't say that. And their mom lived here. And so they just thought it would be a good opportunity to be close to their mom. And they had the ability to work remotely. And so more or less I stumbled into it. To be completely fair, I had known about travel nurses for years because as avid traveler, I meet travel nurses all the time, especially abroad. And they're not necessarily working abroad, but I would meet them during. They would take little gaps. Yeah, exactly. And I was like, wow, these girls are the coolest people. They like have a real, you know, job or, or like occupation, and they love what they do. And then they take two to three months off in between contracts and they go backpack South America. I'm like, these girls are so cool. And I remember thinking that in 2016, during a three month visit to Columbia in South America. And so it's so wild how life turns out because now, I mean, fast forward years later, I now have nine units that primarily I rent to travel nurses.

Yeah. The alternative wealth building virtual summit is just around the corner. As a reminder, this virtual event will be taking place on Thursday, May 4th. I'll be speaking on creating six figures of passive income. This is definitely an event you won't want to miss. Use the link below and receive an additional 15% off your ticket price. And yes, keynote presentations will be recorded and included with each ticket. Hope to see you at the event. Yeah, that's awesome. Now, do you go into strategies like how to advertise, how to find tenants for this? Because this is a little different. So Airbnb has a platform, right? That's where you know Airbnb, we know vrbo. It's pretty easy to advertise for long term rentals or you can go to a management company. What are some of the nuances, what are some of the differences between, you know, those and these medium term rentals?

Yeah. So the, the audience should know that I do list on Airbnb. And so right now, about 60% of those nine units are rented with Airbnb guests as of this week. It ebbs and flows. And so then the next question is, well, where did the other 40% come from? Often they're coming from a website called furnish finder.com so I list on, Yep, I list on Furnish Finder. And this, this is where the time consuming part comes in. So I'll be the first to say mtrs medium term rentals are not entirely passive. You are having to what I call lead generate for these tenants. And so I go on to Furnish Finder and I start messaging leads. People see my advertisement, so they see my listing just like they would on Airbnb, but they can't book it through Furnish Finder. Furnish Finder is not a booking site. It's just a listing site. And so there is some admin or administrative tasks that are involved. So you reach out to the tenant that way. I have been fully booked using those two websites, Airbnb and Furnish Finder. There are other places that you can list, like Facebook groups. There's a lot of travel, medical, professional Facebook groups. You can list on Zillow, you can list on Craigslist. You could list on Facebook Marketplace. You can contact hospitals directly, you can contact recruiters. I could go on and on about all of the different ways that you could get tenants. And I think it's really important that everyone hears me. I just list on Airbnb and Furnish Finder.

Well, I'm glad you said that because that's what we've been doing. And it seems to be, it seems to be working well. And we live a half a mile from the hospital here, the busiest hospital in Asheville. So that works out. That works out nicely. And that's, that's really where we get our attendants or our traveling nurses. It's all been females at this point, but we also have a really safe kind of accommodating property, which is probably a big part of it. And I mean, the demographic, I don't even know what percentage of traveling nurses are female, but it's a high percentage.

So, yeah, I think, I think, I haven't, I haven't tracked it perfectly. But right now I can tell you, out of my nine Two are male and seven are female. And they are all travel nurses right now.

Yeah, There we go. I love it. Wonderful. And you're in. That book is already available because I just ordered it, so I know it is. Which can also be found on your website. So outside of your medium term rental, Sarah, what are all your properties? Medium term rental or what comprises the rest of your portfolio?

Yeah, the rest are long term rentals. So I own 19 units. There are mostly small, multifamily owned, one single family. The rest are duplexes and fourplexes, and they are in Kansas City, Des Moines, Iowa, and Omaha, Nebraska. And half of my portfolio are long term rentals, and half of my portfolio is medium term.

Now, do you stay in any of your properties while you're traveling or how does that work?

Yeah, you know, I should probably start buying them in, like, what I consider cool places like Mexico City, San Diego. Those are some places that I'm traveling to, but typically I don't. You're catching me on an interesting week. I am actually sitting in one of my units today. My 2023 started out with a bang. I fell and broke every bone in my left arm.

Oh, no.

Yep. Oh, no is right. And I had to fly to Omaha, Nebraska, to have emergency surgery. I now have a prosthetic elbow. And I have been doing physical therapy and occupational therapy every week since. And next week is like my celebration because I'm finally leaving.

Oh, good. Well, I'm glad. I'm glad. It sounds like your therapy's gone. Well, how. Do you mind if I asked how that happened?

Yeah, it was saving children from a burning building, of course.

Are you gonna leave it at that?

I'm gonna leave it at that. In Guatemala, of course. You know, I gotcha.

I gotcha. All right. Yeah, I actually used to sell orthopedic implants and that. That was one of our. We didn't do a lot of elbows. That's.

I have a radial head replacement.

Wow. Wow. Yeah, that's. That's interesting. You're. You're bionic now, so there you go.

And I actually. And I. I should also have a plate and six pens in my other arm, so. I live a really adventurous life, Chris.

Oh, boy. You could be an adventurer, but you just stay on your two feet. And in cycling, we used to say rubber side down. Like, you know, keep the rubber side down. Keep the rubber side down so you can use the same thing. We got rubber sold shoes. Right. Well, we talked a little bit about investing adventures. You also have two other businesses. Let's talk a little bit about those and what you do for your clients in those businesses here.

Absolutely. So one of my greatest passions is showing people that they can live a really big life. So whether it be coming on an adventure with invested adventures or just buying real estate, because for me, I love how you worded it. You said it's our vehicle. And that's exactly how I see real estate investing. The moment I started investing in real estate, just opportunities came to me. And one of those is to teach people how to do this. So how to invest out of state, how to, how to build a team anywhere in the country. So if any of you listening live in an expensive market or interest rates are making it impossible to cash flow in your specific market, you can invest out of state. And I do that by showing people how to invest out of state through my mentorship program. So it's a 12 month program. We meet more or less. We meet every Tuesday via Zoom, and I'm bringing in experts. But it's not what I call a live podcast. You know, some mentorships or masterminds they call them, are just bringing in guests to talk about this strategy. And this strategy, my goal with the mentorship, my similar goal with invested ventures, is I really want to get to know you. So I get to know my mentees and figure out like, what do you need? And Chris, I would say at least seven times out of 10, what they need has a lot more to do with mindset than it actually does. Any content first or education. While we provide a lot of content and education, I focus a lot on mindset because for me, having a strong mindset was exactly how I've created this life by design.

I love that. I'm so glad you said that. And that really seems to be a common theme that we've seen over episode and episode and week and month and year is the mindset. Because things change. You know, I talked, I often talk about, you know, my first rental that I bought and how I sold it and did a 1031 and bought an office and then invested in the syndication, did a refinance and did all these different things, all these, they're all different strategies. Everybody's like, well, what's the one strategy? Like, what strategy should I use? And it's not always a single strategy. You have to evolve, you have to change. I think if you have the right mindset and you surround yourself, as you said, with you have the right connections, you have the right community, then you can figure out what strategy to use at the right time. Because real estate, it's a, it's like chess. You have different players, you have different strategies. You're not always making the same move, you're not always using the same piece. But you have to know at the, at the right time what move to make, what strategy to use at the right time to do that. And then you just keep doing it over time and over time and over time. And it's amazing. You're very young to have achieved the success with that, but you keep going and it just keeps growing and changing. If you stick to your principles.

Yes. And I think your principles is something that not enough people are reminded to do because it's like, oh, let's talk about creative financing. That's really trendy right now. Or let's talk about supported living. That's really trendy right now. I love what you said, that this woman in Costa Rica, well, what do you want? What are your goals? Or even what you said, like, do your kids want the property? Because sometimes it's like, oh yeah, like I don't want another job. While I love the medium term rental strategy, it's why I, you know, dedicated so much time and energy into becoming an expert, publishing a book on the subject. If you want to be a passive investor, this isn't the right strategy for you.

Um, good point, good point.

And, and if you're not willing to be a business owner, like, one thing that I really like about some of the investors that I'm friends with is that they treat their real estate investing like a business. And when you do that, that's when you have like, systems and processes that make it less time consuming. So how else do you think I'm able to travel full time and not only own property, but continue to buy property? It's because I put together systems and, and all of these things that we're talking about. I teach all of that inside of the mentorship program.

That's perfect. Mindset, Systems, team, community. All wonderful points. Sarah, you began, you started the podcast by saying it's a really exciting time in real estate. And a lot of people are thinking the opposite right now. They're like, man, it's a really crazy time. I'm nervous, I'm anxious. I would love to finish the podcast with you sharing a little bit why, why you think it's so exciting right now and what, what you're excited about in the future here.

Yeah, I think a lot of people are feeling that way. Nerves and anxiety is felt throughout the investing community and something that I teach and talk about often is what I call functioning in the fear. I'm just as. I'm probably just as nervous as the next person. And I'm analyzing deals. I'm building relationships with local banks. I'm doing business lines of credit, I'm doing lines of cred. I'm improving my systems. I'm still functioning, meaning I'm putting one foot in front of the other every day, even though I'm scared.

Love it. My coach says action beats anxiety. Work beats worry. And you just said it. Functioning in the fear. And that's what you have to do, whether you're an athlete, whether you're an investor. I mean, shoot. Whether you're a parent, you know, whatever it is in life, you know, you have to have these moments where you have to look. Look your fears in the face, you know, face, you know, face down the anxiety and move forward and take massive action. And that's, you know, that's always been. Whether it's been sitting there. I'll still never forget picking up my phone the first time I was calling an investor in 2015. I just stared at the phone. I was like, I don't want to make this phone call. Like, I gotta do it. I gotta do it. And.

Then, and then look at where you are today because you did it anyway. And, and I, and I'm. We're not telling anyone to buy bad deals. So never take, Never take my places. Sarah said do it anyway. No, no, no, no. However, However, I think that this is an exciting time in real estate because so many people will be paralyzed by their fears and anxiety and their worry. And I encourage you listening to take action in this time instead of sitting on the sidelines.

Love that we're going to end there, Sarah. That is perfect advice if you want to learn more. We've talked a little bit about your website here, Sarah. It's Sarah dweaver.com. we're going to have that in the show notes. Anywhere else that they should check out to learn more about invested adventures and all the other stuff you have going on, including your book.

Yeah. If they have any questions about anything that I talked about, if they want to come to my next event, then follow me on Instagram Sarah D. Weaver or my website, Sarah dweaver.com.

Perfect. Sarah, thanks so much for sharing your story with our audience today.

Thank you so much.

Hey, Chris, here again. I hope you found this episode valuable. Now I have one more thing to give to you. We have a page for my coaching clients where you can get a free copy of My book as well as much more from previous guests on the show. Just check out nextlevelincome.com coaching to get a free copy of my book, audiobook and much more. I'll send you a copy of the My Book and cover all the shipping costs as a thank you for listening to the podcast. Also, please like share and take just 90 seconds to give us a rating on Apple Podcasts.