Zero to Six Units in 2 Years: A Teachers STR Journey

Welcome back to the Boostly Podcast. This is a podcast that gives you the tools, the tactics, the training and most importantly the confidence so you can go out there and get yourself some direct bookings. Talking of direct bookings, I must bring your attention to the wonderful books that Mark Simpson has written. These are best sellers and if you don't know about the books, you can go check them out@boostly.co.uk forward/books, those you'll be able to look at. There's lots of great information and actually if you're on Kindle, you can get them as little as about 99 cents, 99 piece, something like that. This is as cheap as we could make the book, so you could go and find out about all things direct booking as cheap as possible. But if you're on Audible or if you like to just buy a hardback book, there's all those cool options out there. So go and check them out. Today we are shining the the host spotlight onto an interesting and successful host based in the Smoky Mountains in the usa. We've got Madeline Blum, the founder of Humble Roots Rest and I'm really excited to get to know her story, understand how she's gone from a humble teacher to an amazing kick ass Realtor, Realtor and host over there in the usa. So let's get started. Welcome along Madeline.

Thank you. Thank you. Welcome.

Would you mind sharing where you are in the world and what your business currently looks like at the moment?

Yes. So I live in Knoxville, Tennessee, originally from New York, been here seven years, was a teacher for 14 years. I served the special education population which I loved and when I, when I decided to move to Tennessee, I wanted to really focus my attention on raising my kids. So I did that for a few years and then decided that I really wanted to dive into real estate. So I am a an investor of short term rentals and I also sell real estate and my market, my specific niches selling short term rentals in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee.

Nice for those of our audience who don't know what the Smokies are as we got some in the uk, some in the us, some in Europe. What are the Smokies like? Why do people flock there?

Oh my goodness. It's just absolutely breathtaking. It is a range of a variety of different mountains and it covers from North Carolina to Tennessee. The Tennessee side and the Smokies consists of three awesome towns called Sevierville, Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. So the big mountain town you're going to find in in Gatlinburg and we've had over you know, the most visit. The most number of people we've had to visit the area has been about 14,000 in 21. And last year we had about 12 and a half million visitors. So great for hiking. Lots of just different attractions that bring people to the area. It's breathtaking. It's beautiful. Um, everybody just kind of left the mountains for the foliage season with changing leaves. Really just beautiful and breathtaking.

Nice. And I advise anyone who hasn't ever done so to just have a look on Instagram at the Smokies in general. They're just some amazing images. Especially like you say as we record this, it's just after the fall and yeah, it looks amazing across there.

Yeah. Year round, year round market, which is pretty awesome.

What sort of people travel there? Who's your guest Avatar and how many places did you look after? I don't know if I missed it. Yeah.

So I am in four different markets. Okay. I am an investor of properties in the North Carolina side of the Smokies, which is in Robbinsville. That's the one where I, you know, that's my first baby, as I call it, where we first started our journey. From there I went to the Florida to Florida to the beach in Panama City. From there I went to Kentucky. So I'm in four different markets, which is pretty interesting. I self manage, manage all of them myself. So I'm in the Bourbon Trail in Kentucky and I came back to the mountains on the Tennessee side and I'm actually in contract with my second one here.

Nice, nice. And those different markets that you mentioned, is that purposely done because you get the income from, from all those different markets?

Yeah. You know, it's really interesting that the first property that we bought in Robbinsville, North Carolina was more of a. It was more of an experimental kind of project. We love to drive through the roads, you know, the mountain, mountainous roads. There is a road called the Tale of the Dragon which consists of 318 curves and 11 miles. Super, super cool. If you're a car enthusiast or love motorcycles, it's definitely something to have on your bucket list. My husband owns a Porsche. We like speed living on the edge. So we went out for this really cool car rally that they had and we fell in love with this area called Fontana Village. And like I said, kind of like very similar to the Smokies on the Tennessee side. You know, we really just fell in love with the nature surrounding it. And so we thought, hey, people love to drive these roads. Let's try to find a place that we can cater to and, you know, make this our avatar. Because when we had stayed, we had stayed at this place called, you know, the Fontana Village Resort. And I have to say, their cabins were just awful. So I'm kind of a high maintenance girl, you know, this Long island, you know, chick who likes, you know, nice accommodations and not, not so much that I'm from New York and I'm the only one that, that may like that, but I want to be comfortable, nice, nice. So that was kind of like what made us think and say, hey, listen, we can totally do this. I mean, if people are hanging out and spending money to like stay in a dumpy place like this, we would totally kill it if we created something super unique and, you know, somewhat luxurious and comfortable and cater to these, you know, car enthusiasts. And let me tell you something, it was, it is a hit. You know, we are one of the most, we are priced, one of the most like highly priced places around us, but no one has anything like us. So what I teach my clients is like top 10%, you know, and Bill Faith says this too, you know, in your market, if you want to stand out, do something that's unique, do something that's different and provide an experience. And that's what we did. Not really knowing a whole lot, to be honest with you. So from there, from that journey, we started to dive, dive in hard.

What I really love about this, and this is a great place to start is, is your avatar. People always saying that, hey, I don't know who my avatar is. And the avatar, you know, the best is how you think about where you want to go on holiday and the things you enjoy. So you've already said, hey, I love this place, but the quality of the actual accommodation I'm staying in isn't up to my standard. So I'm going to create what I would love to come and stay in and then others will love to come stay in it too. What are some of those special sort of things that you do for your guests and some of those reasons that the guests come to, to your place or what they talk about in the reviews.

So the big thing that people love about our place is I think you have to also be, once you're diving and looking into buying a place, you know, for us was we wanted something again, unique, I, I want to stand out. We have a beautiful mountain view. So those are the kind of kinds of things that if you're going to be in the mountains, you're going to want to be really close to proximity to any attractions, or B, have, you know, be in the mountains and have this gorgeous mountain view. So that's the first thing we have for us. The other thing that was important was we needed a paved road. We are the avatars. We were the, you know, we were catering it to people like ourselves. People want smooth roads, especially if you have low, you know, kind of cars like us. We have a Porsche. And so one of the beauties of this property was, I mean, the driveway is about a mile long, all paved. Like, that was glorious to us. Okay. Mountain views. And overall, the house, the property had really good bones. I took everything out that was in the property because I just didn't feel that it gave it that, you know, feel that we were going for. So those are the two big things. The road conditions leading up to it and what kind of experience we would be able to provide, you know, as far as the mountain view. And then the bonus part of all of this is that this property had 11 acres.

Nice. So lots and lots of land around it.

That's lots of land.

8.

8 acres of, like, pure pasture. So what we did was we added, like, disc golf, and we added, like, a little golf, you know, little, you know, hitting section. We have a beautiful hot tub overlooking the mountains. We created trails throughout. I mean, we really got very creative. We have children, and so we wanted a place that our kids could also experience and enjoy.

Nice. And do you know, that's what I love about these amazing. Especially you guys over there in the U.S. i mean, you know, I've seen the big chess pieces. I've seen, like, you say, mini goals and all this stuff, and you've got the. The space in the land to do that. When somebody. When we talk to people often in the uk, they go, what's your special feature? You go, well, I've got Netflix on the telly. I mean, come on. Whereas, like, it's not quite as exciting as what you guys are doing across there. So I do love hearing about these wow. Kind of features that we don't always put in the properties across here in the uk sometimes due to space. But I think we can definitely take a leaf out of. Out of your book for that. Definitely.

Definitely. Just, you know, thinking outside the box and how you can really create something, you know, special and unique. I mean, that's the biggest takeaway from me when I look and analyze it, these properties that I look at.

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Looking back when you first discovered that property, we still teaching at the time?

No, no. So I had already been here a couple of years. Yeah, about a couple of years. I was always into long term rentals. So back home I was an educator. My husband is in a family business, but we always dabbled in real estate. And so what are we gonna say?

So with your. Was it much of a challenge getting the first one off the ground? What did you run into? What did you learn on this, on this first one?

You know, it wasn't challenging. I'll tell you a little bit of what was frustrating to me. And you know, in hindsight, now I think about it, I should have asked more questions when it came to lending because that was early 21. And I'm just thinking back, 21 had some really awesome interest rates, but because I hadn't really been, I hadn't been teaching, I really didn't have a job. I was selling real estate, but it was more residential. The banks were looking at me and saying, well, you know, we really can't lend you a lot of money. And so that was the biggest challenge for me, not really diving in and looking at the other options because I could have gotten a DSDR loan. Now I have banks just throwing, you know, their, their deals at me. And it's just incredible how I have come from that first property to now owning my sixth in, you know, two years.

Yeah, it's suddenly it's momentum, isn't it? And this is one of the things when, when I'm talking to especially people, then getting started, they go, this is so hard. And you go, honestly, your first one actually is probably your hardest because you're not only learning how to host and doing all that stuff, it's actually that, that stuff you need. The, the lending, the where do you get your furniture from? All those tough questions, which is why places like the hospital, hospitality, sorry, community on Facebook, you can come and ask questions. People like Bill Faith's group, you know, like, you know, there's some great Great resources out there. So how do you attract your current guests? Who, where do you market and what, what, what do you do to try and get seen on those marketing channels?

That's a great question. With all of the different properties I have, they're all a little different. But what I, what I, what I will tell you is that I love these little tertiary, smaller markets because I feel that I have completely dominated mine in North Carolina. And I may not want to share too much with my secrets. Just kidding. But I really utilized the community within that, you know, rally community of people, of drivers, you know, and so we started to advertise with a local, what do you want to call them, like, website that has, I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of different followers. And so we said, hey, listen, how do we connect and collaborate so that we can share our beautiful, you know, amazing property to your readers and to your, you know, followers? And it's been a great partnership. You know, I think I pay $600 a month. I'm sorry, $600 a year. And I get promoted four times a year. And I cannot tell you, Mark would be so proud of me because this has kind of been my way of getting direct bookings. My direct bookings at my place is at like 45%.

Nice.

Like, that is insane.

That's really good. It's good.

You look at my Airbnb listing and I have, you know, over 40 reviews. But the most of my guests in the past year and a half are coming through that website, which is so awesome.

I mean, it's great. And also for everybody listening to this, I mean, to go and look for these local community websites. Local community, yeah. And another tip that I'd share with that is that join the Facebook groups of the places where a lot of your clients come from. So we'll talk to our guests, you know, or we should be gathering that information of how far are they traveling, which markets are they traveling from? And you can join those Facebook groups locally for those towns, cities or states. And then you can actually, you often can't promote in those groups, but you can say, hey, guys, I'm just wondering, do you think my golf course is big enough, you know, on this short term rental? It's a genuine question, right? Do I need to add more to what I've already got? And of course that's going to inspire people to click the listing. If you've put it in the comments, don't put it in the main post. But. And that's going to bring people to you as well. So that's amazing to hear that. What kind of tech do you use for your business?

So, I mean, I'm using Owner as my, you know, property management software. I use rankbreeze to kind of see what page I'm on, you know, especially, you know, obviously on Airbnb. I mean, that's pretty. That's pretty much it. I need to do better with my automation. I don't get a ton of bookings from vrbo, which is kind of maybe where I would need them from, but I think everybody can kind of tighten up their business. My goal for 24 is to have a better system when it comes to the direct bookings. Right. Because I feel like a lot of it is easy to do on a platform like Airbnb, but the direct booking, because we're so. We're growing so much, I want it to be more systematic.

And that is one thing that we get asked often at Boostly is how do you systemize that back end of the stuff that airbnb would do? Do you know what? It's easier done than what Airbnb would like you to know, but it is just a case of, of finding that. And don't get me wrong, there's. There's work involved, but as you've just said that, you know, you're 40, 45% direct bookings. As that grows and as it increases, it starts to gain momentum. And once you've built those systems, once those systems are in place and you're able to just focus on increasing the marketing and that side of things. You mentioned Rank Breeze, and this is something which I want to bring people's attention to. So how do you use Rank Breeze and what does it do for you as a, as a business?

The Rank Reason is a website, and I'm not an expert in any way. My friends laugh at me because I'm always asking for advice from other people. And that's a great thing about our community. Right? Just find a group of people that you can really trust and, you know, people out there will help you. So it basically just helps you with the algorithm and to see what page you are landing on Airbnb. And I use. I. The, the way that I use it as a tool is it can kind of help you identify maybe key terms and words that you can use to change maybe in your listing. It also has data to kind of help you and look at, analyze other properties to see what they're doing to kind of push you to the next page. I have found it very Useful, you know, for example, in the Smokies, it's really hard. It's such a competitive market. You know, we have over like 17,000 different rentals. I mean that's, that's a huge number. So sometimes I'm anywhere between like 4 and 5, you know, 6 and 7. So I try to go in there and see how I can kind of maybe change some things, I change some of my pricing just because again, I feel like everyone in the industry is always, you know, if you're self managing, you're trying to find ways to bump yourself up and beat the algorithm. So I have found that changing tweaking some of the prices during the week has boosted me, has brought me all the way up to like page one and two lately I have found. So that's great. But that's how I've used Rank Rank Breeze in, in, in the past and every so often I'm going on there and checking.

Yeah, I love Rank Breeze. Just because, I mean especially if, if you're listening to this and you've never tried Rank Breeze, I think it's something like $7. It's something so low just to trial it for a week and it'll tell you exactly where your listings are. You know, is it, are they on page 10?

Exactly.

But, but what, what I absolutely love about it is the, the fact it'll tell you which page you're ranked on for the number of people.

A number of, of people. How many guests? Yeah, two guests, four, five, six. Yeah, yeah. And it does a lot more than I know how to use it for.

I will say that I would give a shout out to their help and always, you can always sort of message them and they'll give you advice on, on what you can do. But the, I was surprised when I was using it because one of our places, which we preferred sleep eight to 10 people, we were ranking page one for like 11 people. But it was just what could we do to rank higher for when we were just eight to 10 people? Because we don't always want to use the sofa bed and it was just interesting to see where we would rank high. So yeah, great piece of tech and really pleased to see you using it. And did you mention the other one was Owner As?

Yes, yeah. I use Owner as as my property management software. Yeah.

Nice, nice.

Not an expert in any of these. I'm not going to pretend like I am. I'm really good at selling real estate, communicating, getting really good pictures and you know, staging really well. That's what I, that's what I'm really good at. My husband, you know, he's a team player, and so he handles more of those other, like, nuances.

How has things changed since going from that very first one to where you are now at six, did you say?

Yep. I'm in contract with my six.

So how did you get. Are you feeling more confident every time you're getting more and.

Absolutely.

How are things changing? Is it. Is it still just as manageable with. With six as it was with one? Is there. Is there any things that. That you've noticed, kind of points that you'd like to either improve or learning curves?

I self manage all of my properties, and I think I'm. I'm a big communicator. So I think that the key to being successful is just having a really great team. You know, not all of them are easy. You know, for example, I find that the cleaners in the Smokies are very high maintenance, you know, which is kind of crazy. But I guess they just. They have so much business that, you know, and there's such a need for them that they're real quick to just drop you, you know, so I'm. I'm having a little bit of a struggle with that. On the Tennessee side, I'm on my third cleaning crew. But I also have very high expectations, and I think everybody that knows Madeline knows that my expectations are really high. But, you know, I love really hard, and so I feel like I work really hard for what I have, and I want to create an experience, and I just have this level of standard that I refuse to drop. I mean, so that, to me, has been the biggest challenge. But when it comes to, you know, the messaging, the messaging and the communication, that, to me is pretty easy. Staging, to me is one of the the most fun parts about it. I coordinated and built a really great relationship with a designer that really has helped me come in and create these really super, you know, properties that everybody just loves their eye catchers.

I mean, there's a couple of points I just want to draw back to on there, which is that the first one is don't compromise on your standards. I mean, there's so many people out there who go, well, that's okay. Now I'm at 10:15. You know, my standards can slip. Actually. That's the. That's a real killer because you want to keep them standards. Exactly what you mentioned, which is excited to go and stay somewhere and you're excited to host your guests because, you know, even though they're paying more than perhaps a property down the road that actually they're getting such a high level of experience because of the design, because of the cleaning, because of the touches and the, the special features that you've put into the places that actually that is what is going to get you that five star review and get them telling other people about it and then you get more of their friends and family back for the next next day direct, hopefully as well.

Absolutely, absolutely.

If you're struggling on how to get direct bookings and overwhelmed on where to start, then I recommend you go and book in a call with Boostly and our team right now. We can walk you through exactly what we're offering, how we can help you and give you a portfolio of websites that we have worked with that are matching not only your niche but could be in your location as well. Boostly has helped over 2000 hospitality businesses all over the world increase their direct bookings. And if you are interested then all you need to do is go to Boostly. B O o s t l y.co.uk call and book in an appointment with one of our sales team.

So what would you go back and tell yourself at the start or what tips would you share with other hosts?

You know, the biggest thing is do it right the first time. I have to say that I'm very lucky and blessed because I've been in real estate and I know what a really nice house looks like. I think going into it and investing in a design is super important. You know, I always tell my clients budget for a design because if you're looking to buy a property that's an investment, you want to do it right the first time. You know, everybody's goal is to maximize that cash on cash return. The other thing I say is make sure you invest in a really good photographer. You know, at first I didn't want to spend the money, the extra money. It's like what's the difference? Pictures of pictures, but they're not right. It's finding those like detailed shots, really getting those like, you know, light to be the light setting to be correct, the mood to say the mood to be staged accordingly. I mean it's all these little things that we don't really think about but they make a huge, huge difference. And then the other thing I would say is visit these properties. I find that so many people will buy properties and won't visit them. You have to also go so that you get a sense of what it is that you're looking to offer to your, to your guests. You Know to me, I take pride in all of my places and I love to hear all that feedback when people say, oh my goodness, I had like the best night when I slept in your bed or oh my God, I was not be sitting there. And the details, the little details that you've added really can tell that you care about your home. I mean that's what you want to hear because people are going to tend to want to take care better, take better care of your place is what I have found. So go to your places either beforehand, right, visit them, walk them or after the fact so you get to see what your guests are going to are going to get.

Thank you for dropping those gems. I mean that, those. I couldn't agree more with everything you just said because ultimately even now when I get a good review, it doesn't matter how many properties you look after, when you get a good review, it feels, feels good. It's great that you've helped them to create some memories that might last a lifetime and to ultimately you've achieved what you're looking to achieve and you've profited during that that as well. So they're happy you're happy and you know, that keeps the business coming in. What resources have you used or listened to? Books, podcasts, mentors, people who has helped you on your journey and who would you suggest others go and seek out?

There's a few, I have to say, some really, really good ones. I actually wrote all these down. So one of the first books after I bought my property and I said I'm going to become an investor, I decided to get Avery Carl's book Short Term Rental, Long Term wealth. And then from there, Mark Simpson, you know, which is an awesome book that really helped us kind of stage get, you know, set us, set us for the stage to start direct our direct platform. And then Stacy St. John, Stacy St. John has her her STR Sisterhood podcast, which is pretty awesome. You know, I mean it's a group of, it's a group of empowered women who are all mothers and business owners. And we're all selling real, not, not only selling real estate, but we are investing in real estate as STR Unfield. STR Unfiltered by Bill Faith is a really good one that I'm always listening to with Kenny Bigger Pocket, the STR Insiders podcast. I mean there's so many great ones out there. The community is pretty amazing today. I mean I, it has grown so much today than it was, let's say than where we were last year.

It's amazing. You've mentioned some titans of the industry, and I see your little one has joined the. During this. So introduce. Introduce this.

And Nico, Nico just turned four yesterday.

Hi, Nico. Everybody on the podcast, please say hi. We can't hear you saying it, but I'm sure people out there will be saying it. Nico. So this brings us on nicely to the kind of fun questions and the kind of section where we get to dive in and learn a little bit more about you. So where do you like to go away on holiday yourself? And who, who do you take with you? And I imagine Nico's going to feature.

You know, with having three small kids. We're always driving to one of our properties, which is another great tip to, you know, drive to your properties. Drive or fly to your properties quarterly, you know, kind of check how things are. So we're either going to the beach. We were at the beach last month for my birthday. We'll drive up to the mountains and go to North Carolina. We'll go up to Gatlinburg. I mean, we're so blessed to be able to just get in our car and just hit up one of our places. So that honestly, in the last two years, that's where our vacations have been, at one of our places, enjoying the fruits of our labor. Right?

Nice, nice. Bit of a random question, but if you had a lamp and a genie came out, what would be your three main wishes?

Three main wishes. Oh, my goodness. For peace in this world. There's so much craziness going on, you know, to have a monthlong trip in Greece. Never been over on that. In that part of the world. And continued health, health, you know, really big into mind, body and spirit, you know, making sure everybody. We're all. We're all healthy. I don't need a whole lot.

Nice. Well, I thank you so much for. For sharing those. And people on the podcast, you've shared some gems. People are going to want to find out where they can get in touch with you. So where. Where is the best place for people to come and follow you? Come and find out more about your business and of course, your book as well, because you're featuring in a book. I understand.

Yeah. So I have a couple of books coming. I'm drawing a blank right now with what the name of this book is.

Reputation Driven.

Is that the Reputation Driven? Yes. Is it? Or is that the one he had? People gonna think I'm nuts. But I'm also going to be an author in the Hospitable Host. But it's going to be in, in Spanish. I'm not quite sure. I'm not going to dive too much into that.

But yeah, that's going to be exciting.

Well happening.

We will share the links for your socials as well is how you can. I can find out and just to finish as I know obviously family and that call. So what would you say is a motto or a mantra which has resonated on you during your journey?

To me, work hard, play harder. Always resonates with my family. You know, we, when we're working, we're focused. We, we are working on our go goals but we love to go out and have fun, spend time on the lake, you know, enjoy our time with our kids because that's why we're doing it. And then another big one that I, that has resonated with me since I was in my early 20s and helped me during some hard times. You know, I feel like we all go through our, through our time where we can be a little dark and, and low is this one and I learned it from my therapist. If you always do what you've always done, you'll always be who you've always been. Right. So if you don't make that conscious decision to change, you never are, you're going to still be that same person.

I love that. I love that. Thank you so much for, for sharing your story and sharing your business and yeah, coming on to the Boostly podcast behind the host. Was there anything else to share before we bring things to a close?

No, that's it. I'm so thankful to be able to be on here and share my journey. You know, if I'm able to do it, anyone can do it. You know, I went into this thinking not knowing a whole lot of nothing and now I feel that I'm, you know, a wealth of knowledge. But I'm also an open book. So be open minded and if be intentional. If your goal is to buy short term rentals and be successful, set that intention and you will be. There's lots of resources out there for.

You and of course there's be people who might reach out if they want information on what to buy and stuff like that in the Smokies. Are you happy for them to get in touch?

Absolutely. Absolutely. So you can find me on Facebook, Madeline towards Blum or you can find me on Instagram same Madeline Tor. Madeline Blum I think is my name on there. Thank you so much for three kids. So you got to understand I'm all, I'm here and there. I can't remember what books. I mean, I mean, that's just to show you how humble I am. I'm just, I commit. Yeah. I'm doing it. Yeah.

This is, this is real life. We're hosts, families. Yeah. This is the reality of it. And you know what? And that's what I love about this. This is, this is real life. This is what we do. So thank you so much for, for coming on and for sharing your story. Thank you, too, for listening to this on the Boostly podcast. We know there's a lot of places you can spend your time and really thank you for putting it with. With us.

So I love you guys. I love you guys. Great. The energy is great, so just keep it moving forward.

Awesome. See you on the next one.

Thank you. Have a good night.