Leveraging finance tools to kickstart your business

Okay. Welcome to the booster podcast. This is the podcast that gives hosts all over the world the tools, the tactics, the training and most importantly, the confidence to go out there and get more direct bookings. My name is Liam Carolan and today we are going behind the host with another interesting and successful short term rental host. We're going to learn about their hospitality business, what has inspired them to get into hospitality, but also some of the things that you may be able to take advice from and put into action within your own business. So today I'm pleased to be joined by two very special guests. Guests, we've got Olivia, Tati and we've got Anita Nagel and they are from Tati and Co Rental. So welcome along. Thanks for joining us today.

Thanks for having us.

So let's get started. And if we start with yourself first, Olivia, if you can give an introduction to yourself and the business in general.

Yes, for sure. So we actually started Tati & Co. In about October 2022. So pretty recently. We currently have one short term rental under the business. Hoping to get under contract on our next one here this week. So, yeah, and I guess a little bit of background about me, I used to be a chemical engineer in the oil and gas industry. Was in the industry working full time for about three years, but quit my job right when we started this business. I actually have my own duplex as well in New Orleans and that's how I kind of started off. Off with the short term rentals. I short house hacked short term, rented out one side, lived on the other side and now I'm midterm rent out my.

Side. So yeah, nice, I like it. And coming across to yourself, Anita, if you could give yourself introduction and also what your role is within the.

Business. Yeah. So Olivia became obsessed with real estate like two or three years ago and I was kind of her sounding board. I'd wake up to like 50 texts just about real estate. And then in October she was like, you know, I'm ready to do this. You want to partner with me? I said, yeah. I mean after all that I've heard from you, like I'm ready to go. I still, you know, have a day job. I work in marketing as my day job, but hoping to go full time eventually with Tatian Co. My role here, Olivia does a lot of the growth and then I'm kind of more on the operations marketing.

Side. So when it comes down to the business is quite newly formed. So what we're going to be doing today is diving into why short term rentals and Also the model that you use at the moment. So is this property that you've got, your first one, is this arbitrage, is this owned? How does, what's the model look.

Like? Yeah, so we own it, but we bring in private money to fund the deals or we partner partner with other folks to fund the deal. So we do all the work where the boots on the ground, we're the ones finding the properties, we're the ones managing it, we're the ones rehabbing it and we DIY a lot of it ourselves. But then we find partners or investors to bring in the capital. Basically.

That'S. That's good, that's good. And we can dive into that. Certainly that's more the real estate side of things, which I know you're very strong on. So you've formed this business and you've decided to go all in. So the two questions I've got for you, let's start off with why short term rental? What was it that about short term rental? Which was.

Attractive. Yeah, I mean, I think I can go first on that. So I, as Anita said, have been obsessed with real estate since basically the pandemic. Right. I think a lot of people kind of reevaluated their lives. And for me, you know, I was listening to bigger pockets obsessively for. And I still do always. But the long term rental side of it didn't get me as excited. Short term rentals, we love decor and design. I don't think that's ever going to be something we actually hire out because we really enjoy it. And you can just get so much more creative with short term rentals. And then we're also both like, we love to host, right. And not even just like hosting people, but hosting events, hosting whatever it may be. And we always have visitors too. So I think like that side of things and being travelers and knowing kind of what people are looking for in the hosting and vacation rental business, that kind of like really appealed to our.

Strengths. So this first one you mentioned was you kind of house hacked. So talk me through for people listening who may not know what house hacking is, Talk me through how that came about.

Olivia. Yeah, so basically house hacking is when you buy a property, it could be a single family home, it could be a duplex. So the thing that I guess is most common is people will try and buy either a duplex, triplex or fourplex. So a small multifamily property. The cool thing about that, at least in the US is you can use an FHA loan where you put 3.5% down, which is awesome because it's not that much money. And then you rent out the other units or you rent out other parts of your house, and then you live in part of it to decrease your living costs. So I was actually able to get all of my living costs and cash flow off of it with my short term renting out the other side, which is pretty awesome. And then I also came out of pocket with it. $0. Cause I was just able to leverage a bunch of different things. Like, I was a realtor. So I rolled my commission into closing costs. And then I also got a 401k loan. And then also using the FHA loan, it just wasn't really that much cash. So it's like, I had the cash, but I was like, how can I take it further so I can put money into the next property and build a business and.

Everything? Was there a scary moment before you both went into business together? And how did you know this would work together as business partners? And I've gone slightly off script.

Here, so, yeah, you.

Can. You can go.

First. I mean, I think whenever you're starting any new venture, it's definitely scary. I think for me, it was when we finally got under contract and we were, like, using, like, you know, partners. I was like, wait, are we doing the right thing? Like, do these numbers work? And I think it's just like, remembering that you understand the fundamentals and you understand the basics. And then I think I also. I probably have just, you know, the utmost confidence in myself, like, delusional confidence that I'll figure anything out. So I think that helped. But I guess. What about.

You? Honestly, I feel like it might have been scarier for you at first because Olivia had more of the experience. And, you know, she was bringing me in, and I'm like, I trust Olivia with my life. Like, sure. So it's kind of all on, you know, her. I feel like the confidence portion, but I feel like there wasn't ever really a moment of doubt. Like, as soon as she asked me if I wanted a partner, I was like, yeah, let's go. How do we make this work? We're both very, like, we can figure out anything type people. When we got our first property, we were sleeping on air mattresses on the floor with no plumbing, no heating for a few days, and, like, so generally cheery dispositions. And I was like, if we got through that together without even snapping at each other once, like, we can. We can get through.

Anything. How did you know this location was Going to work. Was there any kind of softwares or anything that you used or is it more of a experience based thing or was it a hit and hope? How, how did you find this.

Location? Yeah, so it's a little bit of everything. So this location, we was never really on our radars. I like were always kind of scouring different markets and there was one property, it was like a cute little a frame kind of close by to here that popped up and I like subscribed to this one email list called the offer Sheet or something like that. I actually don't remember. I don't really use it too much anymore. But when we were originally just trying to figure out our market and we decided to look into that property and then we looked into the area and we're like, wait, it's right next to a national park and. And then kind of just started looking into the returns. So we use Price Labs and Airdina just to kind and str Insights just to kind of figure out our markets to see which one is the best to go into or not necessarily the best to go into, but a decent one based off of our price point to go into. Just because we were also raising private money. Right. For the first time. So it's not like we had hundreds of thousands of dollars to work with. You know, we're like scrounging just to find investors. So within that framework, we landed in the Shenandoah Valley. And yeah, it's been great. It's an awesome.

Market. Yeah, it's definitely good to.

Hear. It's good to hear. Thank you so much for sharing your journey with us today on behind the Host Podcast. And thanks again. Any closing comments just before we close.

It? No, just thank you so much. Seriously appreciate.

It. Thank you both. Speak to you again soon. Bye for.

Now.

Bye. Having a blast. Gonna get it on the Bruce Lee podcast. Bruce Lee, like Bruce Lee? Cause it's so hard and the tea is loose leaf Making up those rhymes don't write it, just do it loosely.