Short Term Rental Success Story with Lauren Keen Aumond

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This is the no Closer show where you get the latest developments in distressed note investing and learn the secrets of how you can control millions of dollars worth of property for panties on the dollar. Get educated and entertained by someone who has closed thousands of deals and lives to support you in achieving the same. Now here's your host, CEO of We Close Nodes, Scott Carson.

Good morning, good afternoon and good evening everybody. Welcome to this episode of the Nook Show. As always, Scott Carson jacked up to have you on. Today we've got a very special guest who's going to probably have all your answers. One of the most frequently asked questions I get outside of investing in notes. What am I talking about as I pull the mic out of my ear here really fast? That was really great. I am talking about one of the co hosts here. She is a rock star in God's waiting room or we didn't know Florida. She one of the one of the folks from the House Money podcast. She's also known as Adulting is Easy. I'm talking about the short term rental expert, Ms. Lauren Keen Allman. What is going on? Lauren, how you doing today?

Hey Scott. I am doing well. It is November here in Florida and it is Sunny and gorgeous, mid-70s. Went for a bike ride this morning. So God's waiting room? I don't think so.

I will fight you on that. I've had, you know, it is a beautiful place. I love Florida. It was like my, it's been like my second home for years. But I have to laugh because I spent a lot of time down in south southwest Florida, you know, Fort Myers, Cape Coral, where oxygen tanks and Cadillacs out, you know, rule out everything else for you for the most part. But glad to have you. Now. We met originally at, at fincon, one of our fincon friends and we're doing a series with folks that we met there. But you have, you really are doing a great job with the STR business because we get so many folks ask ask us about that. I mean, yes, we spend a lot of time on note investing but folks like taking the real estate back aspect of it and converting it into it and you know, SDRs are kind of a hot topic right now, aren't they?

Definitely they are. I think there was a little bit of a product of prices going up so quickly and now interest rates and that just makes the payment so much higher. And so you're looking at what the long term rental rates are versus what you can get with short term rentals. And in some cases I think it's the only way people can make these properties work is investments.

Yeah. You've got to definitely evaluate it. And that's the thing. Markets are always constantly changing. Now, are you got. Are you just doing STRs there in the Tampa area? You're doing them in other areas, too, around Florida or other. Other states.

The west coast of Florida. So here in Pinellas county, up until what we call the big bend. But if you guys don't know what that is, it's the armpit looking part of Florida.

Good stuff. Now, how'd you get into that? I mean, I don't think anybody just falls into strs. But talk a little bit about your investing background. Kind of what led you to where you're at today.

Sure. I started the way a lot of people do. I think I bought just like a starter home. I did get a roommate. I had a guy live with me that I had roomed with in college, and he paid me 550amonth, and my payment was 725. And I was making 28 grand. I was working at Toys R us. I was 23 years old. And I was like, this is pretty sweet. But that was kind of it for a while until I got into sales. Really raised my income significantly from like $28,000 to 150, $200,000.

And.

And even after maxing out your Roth IRA and your 401K, you're like, all right, I have some more money. What am I going to do? So I bought another investment property. No, I didn't. I bought the primary home, got the BMW golf course, community dream home, baby. But the one thing I did right was I kept that first house. And so then I went down the path of reading all these books, listen to all these podcasts, trying to learn about real estate, and realized I had F. D up. I should not have stopped what we.

You can drop an F bomb on here. Okay, that's totally a. Okay.

But I appreciate that.

But now, yes.

Okay. So I fucked up. And I was like, I totally should have kept house hacking, which is when you buy a property, live in part of it, rent the rest of it out. That's what I was doing with a roommate, of course. Didn't know that's what it was called in 2012, but hey. And then that's when I went to my husband and I said, hey, I think we should house hack again. And one thing led to another. You're thinking, I'm going to house hack. I'm going to buy a single family home, maybe with an above Garage apartment, rent the above garage apartment out. Long term, Maybe my payment's two grand, maybe I'm collecting 1200. But a Bing, bada boom. Saving some money. In Florida though, you don't have to go too far before you start thinking, I'm not going to long term rent that thing, I'm going to short term rent that thing. And people want to be here, especially some of the older folks from the colder areas in January to maybe. And so that's really how the short term rental thing happened. We wanted to house act. That was the primary objective we wanted to get on. There's a really long bike trail here. There's, you can walk to restaurants, walk to bars, all of that. But you know, basically once you decide to house hack, you're like, I can make more money if I do short term rentals.

Now what did you do to decide that made sense? I mean, I guess the numbers make sense, but what kind of due diligence websites, what kind of stuff do you look at to identify a property that makes sense for that?

Yeah, that's a good question. We bought a bed and breakfast and so that plants the seed in and of itself. And so in buying this bed and breakfast, we were actually, we live in the home. That's where I'm sitting for anybody that can see this on video, if they can. And then there's two little, what are called ADUs, aka accessory dwelling units in the backyard. They, they're little one's, 500 square feet, one's 200. One is a full kitchen. One doesn't, no washers and dryers. And that I, I wish I could tell you it was some brilliant thing, like some analysis that I did, but I was like, I don't, I really need a washer dryer if I'm going to live there, but not if I'm going to stay there for a short time. So that's what did it. And then we basically knew that they would do better as short term rentals. They were already short term rentals because it was a bed and breakfast. And so we looked at, you know, what are people getting. You pull up, what's Airbnb, vrbo, what are things listed for, what's the cleaning fee? I, you can double check things on. There's something called Raboo which you can check things, price labs, you can get dashboards, air DNA, there's things like that you can look at. I also posted on a Facebook group and a lady who was doing, had a, had an Adu about 500 square feet same kind of thing. I think a converted two car garage, so same size. She's like, I'm doing it, come over and let's walk through it. And so me and my husband went to this stranger's house and she just told us everything and that's how he got going.

That's awesome. I mean that's, that's, that's really great. Not all, not everybody always letting strangers in the houses. You know, stranger danger can often be a thing. But that's, that's awesome. Now, how many STRs do you have now? How long, how much have you grown it into?

Yeah, so we bought that, we bought this bed and breakfast in 2020, took six months to remodel. And so we launched officially with those two ADUs in January 2021. It's now 2023. We have eight short term rentals and four long term rentals.

Now. How do you like the two? I mean, obviously it's a little bit different asset class location there for you. But are you more passionate about the STRs or you like the rentals? I mean, you and I were talking last week, you're like, I got to go over and rehab this property. I got to finish this out. Are you converting your long terms into short terms more or how's that working for you?

Honestly, the numbers tell you which I like more. It's 8 to 4. STRs are winning big time. And there's, there's a lot of different reasons for that. My skill set is better for that. I, I don't know. I, I can't really put my finger on what it is. I think it's because it's a, they're both businesses. But strs, it's a little bit more active of a business and I love thinking about how can I increase revenue, how can I decrease expenses, how can I look at the competitive landscape? It's a little bit more active, a little more fun than long term rentals. Frankly, guests way happier than tenants. I sometimes talk to people, they're telling me I'm awesome, my property is awesome. Thank you for what you're doing. I've never ever had a tenant say that to me. Right. So, you know, and you get like, you get to keep properties, you get to make them beautiful. I mean, really beautiful. Work on. We're really big on like landscaping and you, you really get to add these extra touches that you're never rewarded for in long term rentals. I do see the value in both asset classes. That's why I do, I do hold both until recently every property has been a mix of long and short term. But now I have one long term duplex that's just long term. I have one short term duplex that's just short term. My six unit apartment building is four and two and it will go to five and one here. I probably will keep my, one of my long term tenants there because he's just, he, he's really good. Like he helps guests with stuff and he helps me with stuff and he's kind of this retired guy and he kind of likes being there and he pays, you know, good rent and his unit's the least desirable. So I'll probably keep him there.

But yeah, management there for you there.

On, yeah, just some BO on the ground. You know we had a hurricane in that, in that exact island and that island got 7ft of water and our building's at 15. So there were no issues. We actually had, actually had meteorologists as Airbnb guest there. But he was, you know, power's out, water's out and he's the one calling me and telling me what's up. So I, I kind of like having him. But overall just, I, I really prefer short term rentals. I've also systematized that much more in terms of I have the backend systems, the communications, the collecting payments, renters agreements, security deposits, the locks set themselves and change themselves and all of those things. And I haven't figured out all of that for my long term rentals.

You would think it'd be easier for the long term. I do it like once every year, right. In a lot of cases.

So why systematize it rather than like once a day or whatever?

Right. 1. And then the thing that pops in my mind a little bit is does that create another job for you? Does that require you to be present there versus being a passive investor more so being able to get up and leave if you want to. Do you run in any of those issues or you outsource that and delegate that to team or BAs thing like that.

I don't, I don't really feel the need to be present. I do have to communicate with guests. So my typical, on a weekly basis, Tuesday mornings is when I sit down, I pay my cleaners for the prior week. I write reviews, I respond to reviews, I manually import some data into my property management software and I like, you know, pay the cleaners and what else do you use? And yeah, I think that's it. So then I do that every Tuesday morning every day around like check in time. So like say sometime between 11 and 4. I just go through my list of everybody that's checking in the day to make sure they have everything that they need. Did they fill out their renters agreement, did they fill out their security deposit, did the lock set, do they have the welcome email and are we ready to go? And that doesn't take very long. So from, you know, from a. Things I do on a recurring basis it's you know, 30 minutes on Tuesdays and five minutes a day the rest of the time. Now did somebody say like hey, can I have some more coffee? And I am here. So I did give them more coffee. But what I usually say in those situations if I'm not here is hey, as, as per our welcome information, it's a starter pack that's just to get you through to when you go to Walmart or whatever. And then I just would leave it on them. So I don't, I really don't have to be. I don't clean any, I don't clean anything. I don't stock anything. I, you know, one of my, my six year apartment building is two and a half hours away. So my cleaner today, one of the remotes is bad, say hey, I'm sending a remote. She's like, cool, I just cleaned all the rugs because she's cleaning all the rugs in preparation for season. And you know, it's just, it's really running pretty smoothly on like 15 or 15 minutes a day right now during January to May. I will tell you, I do burn out by May. It's like, it's, it's, it's pure insanity. Just peak season, people coming and going and stuff breaking and things happening. So. But overall, yeah, it's, I mean it's a little bit of a job. But you know, we, we gross around $250,000. And you know, we net, we're not really, we haven't netted anything yet because we've been expanding. We've been using all of the business money to go back into it. But you know, at steady state it should be netting $75,000 and I'll work 15, 20 minutes a day for that.

Sure. Now that brings us. Is that, what are you seeing per. If you compare it apples to apples, okay, your long term rentals is making 800amonth and your cash flow and what, you know, 200, whatever that is. How's that? If you can give some insight to the difference in that between the cash flow between short term and long term, obviously there's more maintenance in the short Term. But if it's renting more at a premium, there's obviously some increase in that.

Yeah. So let's take my studio for example. In it does 40,000 a year. Top line, what it would do. Top line is a long term rental is about a thousand dollars a month. So just say 12,000, big difference there. There's obviously more cost. So let's say, actually let's say it would be 1200 times 12, 14, 4. Let's say it would be 14,400 because you know, utilities would be included in that. There's not that much more expenses. I mean we have the cleaners, you have the linens. But I would be paying utilities either way because it's not separately metered. So you can see that it's instead of really, you know, a few hundred bucks a month cash flow, it's, you know, thousands.

That is good. Definitely good for you. Now there's been a lot of talk. I've had folks that have STRs, they're like, oh, we see the bacon or the vacancy factor is less. I mean it's still, we still see me book, but the cost is going down. Do you, are you seeing a saturation or more competition in some of your markets?

Yes, definitely in some of my markets. As I was talking, you can tell though, I have, I don't have a property where I have one str. I have two, two and four. And for those reasons we have kind of a lower cost basis than a lot of people do. Lower interest rates, a lot of people do. Lower insurance than a lot of people do. There's, there's economies of scale and we have one team, for example, in this area. So if it's very rare that I have to pay my handyman, who, let's say my six year apartment building handyman's my uncle. I haven't, I have like a, this is an example. I have a tow away sign that needs to go in our empty lot. I'm not sending him over there with that. Right. I'm sending him the refrigerator handle that needs replaced. I'm sending him some light bulbs that need to be replaced. And he goes and does all four units and puts up the sign all at the same time. So because of that we've really gone for nice, clean, budget friendly accommodations. So we haven't seen really too much of a drop. Our cost basis is just so much lower than everybody. And our vacancy has stayed pretty consistent. Consistent. It depends per property. But you know, in the, the 30 to 40% vacancy for the year, obviously during the peak season, it's like nothing.

Right, right. But then also your income's going up because it's peak season compared to off season in a little bit of cases. Right?

Yes. And if we were really good, we would stop adding and we would just bank all that cash. But what we seem to do every summer is buy another place with that money from the previous years.

Well, but are you using what like DSCR loans to purchase new stuff or all cash or how are you.

We've done them all. We've done three. We have four properties. That's how, that's where how the doors break down. Three of them are in our name and one is a seller. Finance.

Okay, very nice. Now that brings a good question on the seller financing side. Was it a tired landlord? Was it somebody that was moving on that owned the property? It was a distressed. How, how did that work out?

There was nothing wrong with this property. So we bought this. It's, this is the six unit apartment building. It's was owned by a contractor. The contractor on the island, he owns the marina, he owns the hardware store. He, he's like the guy like fourth generation old Florida. And so it was completely remodeled. I mean what it's going to need are acs because it was remodeled like eight years ago and it's across the street from, you know, saltwater. So they aren't going to last that much longer. But in terms of it doesn't need kitchens, doesn't need bathrooms, doesn't need a roof, doesn't need floors. I mean he really put this thing together nicely and he did own that in an llc and that partner was getting older and I guess wanting to get out, we did put 30% down. So they did get like a little chunk of change. But I think both of these gentlemen in this, they really have, I mean they're set. I think they have. This was a very small part of their real estate portfolio so it wasn't life changing for them. And so when they, when we said hey, will you sell or finance it? They were like, okay. I mean they didn't really need the money.

And well, but it also helped them avoid capital gains and tax implications. If they're savvy investors, they understand that works well in their favor too.

For a lot of people. Yes, I'm sure they have good accountants for that stuff. But that was at the end of 2021 and that was a 5, that's a 5% interest rate which was like holy crap, that's so high. But now we really like it.

I laugh Being in, being in the mortgage business for so long. I think back to the, you know, 2007, 2008, when interest rates normal for a good loan for an investor was like 6, 7% back then, you know, and people were getting, you know, cash out refinances and all days were like 10, 11, 12% from a bank. I'm like, oh, that cash flows barely. And now people are like, oh my God, 8% all the way. You know, I'm like, it's, it's. I mean, yes, real estate's more expensive than it was 15 years ago, but still rents have gone up. Things have gone up definitely. It's just, it's all, it's all interesting seeing how markets change and people, what they get about. How are you finding, is it all through like airbnb.com are you doing your own marketing through other websites or word of mouth? What's been your biggest attraction?

We're definitely starting to get a lot of return people at this point being multiple seasons in. And I don't want to like stereotype. A lot of people that we have are retired folks, a lot of retired couples. Our units are all two bedroom, one bedroom or studios by design. We didn't want to, we. I didn't want to deal with parties. I mean, I spent two years in this business with a full time job and I just, I didn't, I've been trying to remove myself as much as possible and not have any headaches that I have to drop everything and deal with. And so we have these smaller units. That means a lot of couples, a lot of older couples and maybe maybe two of them sometime two couples. So maybe four people. But they, you know, man, I forgot where I was going with that fact that they're probably.

You said repeat an older.

Well, they, yeah, so I don't want to stereotype this generation, but I think they're, they really want to repeat what they like. I think the idea of an un going to an unknown unit is scary for them. So if they really like the place, they want to come back to that exact place. They want to go to the same restaurant they went to, they want to go the same brewery they went to, they want to take the same walk, go to the same beach, all of those things. And so we're, we're getting some of those repeat customers. January and February are booked two whole months in my studio cottage by some folks that were here last year. They booked it last year. They paid eight grand for two months. And so I've had half their money since then. So. But yeah, that's. So we're seeing a lot of that. We have Airbnb. We have Vrbo. I probably get 20% from Vrbo. We've tried Florida Rentals, which didn't do well. We've tried furnish finders, which didn't do well. We have an Instagram or members of the chamber. We have a website, so we get some bookings. That way it's on our radar to take because we, we have a property management software owner res. So we have everybody's emails, really get them into like a mailchimp, start doing some kind of email marketing campaign and things like that. I'm big enough now that I have a VRBO rep, and so I've talked to her about. Can you email the people? I mean, this would be good for vrbo. Why aren't you asking people, hey, next winter, where are you going? Do you want to go back to the same place? And so I'm trying to see if she can do that to some of our customers through vrbo. I said, because I told her, I was like, I could do it, but why don't you guys do it? Get a piece of that pie. So there's, you know, there's a lot of different ways we can, we can go with it. Airbnb has never actually pissed me off. Like, there has some pretty bad raps online, but I think some of it is taking the renter's agreement, taking the security deposit. Scammers read that fine print because they need to know how to scam you. And so I just think generally they don't book my place. And so I am not like, Airbnb is never really in a situation where they have to choose between me and the guest.

Right. Well, but it's also, I think you see a lot of scammers is that big, the bigger houses, the bigger places that lend itself better for a big family or a big party. In a lot of cases.

In some cases, I mean, what they, you know, they do a lot of crazy things. I mean, I've heard of them, you know, messing with the plumbing to say there was a leak. I've heard of them bringing in a roach to say there was a, you know, there's just terrible things. And my renters agreement, like, there could probably be an alligator in there and you wouldn't get a refund. The way it's written.

That'S what is Florida. Yep, it is Florida. I love that. That's awesome. Now, where in your area you plan on just keeping saturating in the area that you're at that. You know that. That way it keeps your cost down. Or are you thinking about going some other places as well?

I think we'll probably diversify a little bit. One of our properties really has appreciated. I mean, insanely, we had a hundred thousand dollars into it in 2021. That's like what we put down. And then what we put into it. We've put I guess 40 into it since then, but there's $350,000 of equity there now. Like, it's kind of insane, like what's happened with this particular property. I would like to unlock some of that, maybe do a 1031 exchange out of state, diversify away from the hurricanes and stuff like that. My husband slash business partner in, in life, he does not want to do that. So we're at a little bit of. We're at a little bit of an impasse there. He really likes the appreciation that Florida has offered us. And so I don't know. And in terms of like expanding, we just bought one of one of the duplexes this year. And I said this on the House Money podcast recently. We just used our emergency fund to. Our emergency fund for some of the stuff that we've been doing. Like, we had an absolute hailstor storm of like, I can't even go into it how extensive it was. One of them was our boat motor. Had to repower the boat. Right. But so, and there's been some real estate stuff and I left my job in June and you know, we've just, we've blown through all of that. It's. It's November. We're about to like. And we're just, we're starting to get bookings, which means for VRBO and direct bookings, we're getting half of the cash now. So we're all good. Like, everything's fine. But I really, I really don't want to acquire anything next year. Like, my plan is the. And I say this, said this multiple times, but my plan is get the emergency fund and the emergency fund to the emergency fund, get that all back strong, maybe do some Cap X to kind of shore things up for the future and just chill because it's been a really wild three years for us.

Well, yeah, when you think about COVID and then you saying you were doing a full time job, what were you doing before you left in June?

I forgot. Nine years, 10 years was in the training space and for nine of those 10 years I was selling training. For seven of it, it was business Finance training to the bottom half of the Fortune 1000. Then I sold custom training, then safety training.

Good stuff. You're in. You basically enjoying retirement then? A little bit, kind of. Huh.

It's. It's been weird. Like, I think the week after I quit, we went to Vegas and like, that's not normal. And then I. Like when we went to Columbia for my friend's wedding and I rolled my ankle, so I was in. I was in a boot for two months. And then. And then, you know, we had a bunch of travel and then we had this unit unexpectedly. Turnover. That's one that you're talking about. That we just remodeled and launched and so literally, like, as of yesterday, I think. I think I'm heading for steady state since I left my job in June. Like, I think I'm gonna hit some kind of equilibrium here, Scott, just about.

The time that Thanksgiving rolls around and then it gets all crazy and busy. Now, how's the. You said you had the six unit or was up by. Had seven feet of water hit it at. Have you seen such an. In a big increase in insurance there for property?

Oh, yeah, all over. It's. It's more than doubled in the last three years. Yeah.

Yeah. We've done some rehab, some big flips down the neck of the woods, and the insurance cost has just gotten crazy. It's difficult to find somebody, especially with some of the bigger names going out there. Have you seen that? Or you've been able to keep your existing insurers for you?

I mean. Yeah, we've. We've had. We've. We've switched insurance every year.

Okay. Okay, that's good enough. Any type of increased cost you got put on it with it being STRs now?

Yeah. Oh, yeah, There's. I mean, I. I think most hosts don't. I think most hosts. I think most owners, I think they. I think they buy into the BS of the Airbnb covers you for 1 million and VRBO. And that's. I would like. If anybody is listening that is doing that, like, immediately stop and cover your ass. Like, get the insurance in place. Get a big, huge umbrella. Just do not rely on somebody else to protect your assets. But yeah, we definitely were. We're very insured. You know, loss of revenue and obviously all of the liability. And also, like, you know, the assault and battery stuff. Like, they'll be. Want to be like, hey, yeah, Johnson Johnson will cover you, but they want to exclude assault and battery. And I'm like, so if my guest, like, shoots someone, they're. I'M not covered. They're like, yeah. I'm like, well, that doesn't work for me. But. So, I mean, there's, there's a lot of situations where I think if. And not that I'm an insurance pro or anything, I mean, I took the CFP course or whatever on insurance, and I have an insurance broker that I, you know, I talk to a lot. But, you know, double check your coverages because there's, there's holes. There's holes everywhere. And we do have one property where we don't have loss of revenue if it's a wind event, but it's in a flood zone, so we figure the water will get it before.

There you go. Yeah, exactly. Right.

But who knows? Like, they might not cover it, but we just can't find it. We just can't find it.

Yeah, it makes it difficult out there. That's the thing, too. I was talking about insurance and people relying on Airbnb to cover. There's. I was cracking up watching a series of Airbnb nightmares of folks going on about trying, you know, fighting Airbnb to get the coverage or to get reimbursed for lost stuff or artwork that's been stolen and stuff like that. And I'm like, you need to definitely take care of the insurance yourself.

Well, like, also the artwork. I told Tom this, my business partner at House Money Media, known as the frugal gay 11. I was staying at his place with him and I was like, like, do you like this picture? It's like, I love it. I'm like, take it with you. Like, do not, like, do not leave anything there. I mean, unless it's maybe like super luxury where the people that are staying are so wealthy that they think your thousand dollar piece of art is garbage. But anything outside of that, like, I just, I would not, I wouldn't risk it. But that said, this is coming from a, you know, this, this, the Florida mentality, but I'm like, I can throw up. Just pictures of palm trees everywhere and people are stoked about it.

Right? Right. Well, that's the, that's the big thing is if it's not tied down, it can walk off on you. But that's the thing. If you look at it and it's decorated like it is like it is down there, you know, sand, seashells and palm trees and beach. Pretty easy to find that and very generic aspect of.

I do, I will say, just so nobody thinks I'm, like, terrible at decorating. My units do all have names and so, like, the six unit, they're all birds. So each unit has like the big picture of the bird it's named after and then other birds. And then I have one that's named after palms, one that's named after acorns because it's very, very small. And then we have, based on the property itself, we have the lookout because it's got a high deck, and then we have the hideout because it's kind of secluded. So I just want to say, like, I. I'm not that basic. Like, it's not.

No, but that makes sense. That adds a little. That adds. Gotta add some personality to it. It adds the creativity of it. Right.

It makes it a lot easier when my cleaners and I talk about which one we're talking about when they bill me or talking to the accountants. And we're. It's. Yeah, I definitely am. I'm. This is a side note, but I am pro. Name your units.

Yeah, that definitely makes sense a lot. Now you've also just recently put a class together too, right? For helping folks that are new to SDRs and stuff like that.

Yeah. So adulting is easy. I started the podcast. It's a personal finance podcast. So there's some real estate to it. I started in 2019 and I knew I was going to leave my job this year in 2023. And I'm like, all right, now I gotta like, take this seriously. I gotta like get an email list and create a newsletter and maybe like write a book and do this, that. And then I came together and I was talking to Tom the Frugal Gay and Alan real estate maxi. And Alan was like, I want to write newsletters and blogs and books. Was like, perfect, because I do not. I like podcasting. He's like, cool, we can have a podcast. And Tom's like, I like the social media aspect. I don't really want to do a newsletter. Great, let's join forces and not all reinvent the wheel. So the three of us formed House Money Media. So we've got the free stuff, you know, the social media, the newsletter, the podcast, like I mentioned. But we did just launch courses in a discord community. I'm in. I'm in charge of the short term rentals. Tom does the long distance investing. He lives in Dallas. There's a lot of investing in Ohio and Allen has a lot of these like larger apartment unit syndication type deals. So not only do we want to do different things in the content creation space, we have different real estate knowledge, portfolio and location. So it's a really great partnership. Really enjoyed launching that just basically in October.

Well, but that's so smart to delegate your weaknesses and focus on your strengths. And when you find other folks that have that strength that you don't want to do, it makes it really easy to get more stuff done. And what do they say if they, if you want to go fast, go by yourself, but if you want to go far, go with a team?

Well, yeah, that's the thing. I think a lot of people, they don't want to break up the pie, but I'm like, I just want a bigger pie. And I do believe that the sum of the three of us is greater than anything that I would do. And let's be real, my real estate pays my bills. I don't have to do this. So why make it harder than it needs to be?

Keep it simple. Stupid, right?

Yeah, exactly. Make it easy.

Exactly. Building is easy. What was your big, what's one or two of your biggest nuggets from fincon?

Fincon. Let me think. You know, I think, I think the content creator space and I don't know that it's like this and others, other, other genres if you will. I only know really about personal finance. But I think we all take for granted a little bit that maybe you're not my customer, Scott. Like maybe you're not going to buy my training course and maybe you're also not going to sponsor my podcast. But that doesn't mean that you and I shouldn't have relationship, right? That it's not rising tide floats all boats. We need to get together that we need. There's, you have to have an abundance mindset with this thing and it's good to know people and have good relationships and be respected and respect others. And I think that's what always hits me at fincon. I know there are some people out there that kind of aren't nice and are like, I don't need anybody in the space. And I just, I mean, I don't know where I would be if I hadn't been doing this networking and kind of of, you know, really culminating in the in person, you know, meeting that, that fincon is. I also learned like something kind of funny. We, we did our, we did our talk and it was growth minded, which is like a Saturday talk. So next year I'm gonna make a, I'm gonna make a pitch for something that's not growth minded so I can talk earlier in the week. So I'm not like the second to last speaking session of the, of the conference. So that was kind of a funny thing that I learned.

That is hilarious. But you're right about not the, the networking. It's not. And that's the great thing I love about fincon, which is different than other places. I mean, like, I've been to Podcast Movement, spoken there and PodFest and new media Summit and a bunch of other conferences. From speaking at the National Association Realtors Conference or National RIA or all these expos is great, but there's always. There's What I love so much about fincon is the coop petition aspect of it. You know what I mean? We even use that word to know business. Everybody's out is trying to, you know, better themselves, grow their audience, grow their network, you know, make more money, whatever it might be. But it's a great place that you can learn from everybody that you're sitting next to. And, you know, I've, you know, from personal finance experts to budgeting to accounting to insurance to real estate, so many people there are really invested in expanding their, their knowledge and their network and learning from everybody else, which is unheard of in a lot of other places. A lot of it's cutthroat or, you know, I gotta hoard every, every little bit of advantage I have. And fincon's not like that at all.

No. And there, there's overlap, but if you're doing this right, there's a reason people will listen to you versus somebody else. There's something that you like about it and you can make yourself unique, even if you are well connected in the space and have a bunch of friends and do a lot of networking.

Exactly. And that's the thing is you learn, you're never. It's all about networking. It may not be a fit for my audience, but hey, you need to talk to LA or talk to Scott, talk to Tom, or talk to everybody else out there. Because that's the biggest thing is it really feels like a family reunion. I've only been going, it's my third fincon and it was just. I've been talking about it for six months and you know, my, my spouse, she's like, why are you so excited? I mean, New Orleans is fun to go to, but why are you so excited about this thing? Because, like, it just feels like family. It's just going to be a great way where I can. Money nerds. You know what I mean?

Yep. Yeah, exactly. And it's nice to see my business partners in person. That was the third time this year that we've gotten together and I think like you need that. Like, you know, there's, there's a lot of growing pains or forming founding pains maybe. I don't know if I can call it growing just yet, but there's a lot of tough conversations that need to happen in any sort of relationship and business is of course that way. And it's just nice to have a meal and hang out and joke around and you know, not have a computer in between us.

Yeah, exactly. Put the social media away. Let's actually be involved in where we're at, be present in a lot of cases and take away the distractions soon. That's what's so great about getting away from the house and business and going somewhere and traveling. So I have a question for you. You've been busy talking about you got a trip or anything planned in the next six or 12 months for you? Something fun?

My parents pay for a cruise every year and so that's usually between Christmas and New Year's. So that is booked. So we're doing a week long cruise to out of. I think it's out of Tampa. I don't know if it's out of Tampa or Port Canaveral, but just to the eastern. We're doing the Eastern Caribbean. We always do west because it's short but so we have that. We're going skiing in March and we're doing a European cruise in the summer. So that's.

We're at. In Europe.

We don't know yet. It's not booked. But we wanna, we're big. My husband and I are big winos. So whatever it is, it's gonna include a Italy wine country a few days before. So I don't know if it'll go out of Rome or maybe we'll go to Barcelona and go out of there, but we want hit Greece. So we'll, we'll see. But he owns his own engineering firm. It's going to be kind of a stretch. I don't think he's ever left for this long. But you know, I'm like, hey, start laying the groundwork now because, because we, we got to do it.

You will love it if you've never been over there. I, we, we love cruising too, but that's the Mediterranean aspect of like going to Barcelona or there's a Portugal cruise or even a transatlantic one. So much fun to hit around there. So when you do hit me up, I'll be glad to give you some more my pointers.

Thank you. Yeah, we're looking forward to it. My brother has a one year old And a three year old. And so they can't do the European cruise, which is why we're doing the Caribbean with them. And then I guess my dad's gonna take the kids to Disney beforehand is like, hey, I'm sorry, you can't come to here.

Hey, that solves that. That solves that. They'll be happy with that.

Anyway, you know what? I'm still living the child free life, so there's some benefits. That's. I know, I know I'm not as rewarded. It's not like I'm not doing the most rewarding thing a human being can do. Okay, I get it. But I can go to Europe whenever.

You want and drink whatever you want and have a little bit more fun. Exactly. Amen to that. We're in the same position. So, Lauren, what's the best way for our listeners to reach out to you to take you up on, you know, checking out your class and other things and connect with you?

Yeah, absolutely. I am most active on Twitter Slash X at Adulting is easy if you're an Instagram person. I'm at Adultingiseasy Real. I check DMS for both of those if emails were your thing. Laurenous moneymedia.com and if you want to know more about House Money media, sign up for the newsletter. Listen to the podcast. It's all@housemoneymedia.com and the courses too.

Awesome. Good stuff there. Well, Lauren, thanks so much for joining us here on the knuckles. You're sharing your insight and feedback on on strs and we look forward to maybe we may have a little bit more from Lauren here in the near future we've been talking about. Right?

Yep, yep. Thanks, Scott.

No problem. Thank you so much. All right, guys and gals, go out there, take advantage of check it out, follow Lauren. She's got some great tips at the STRS is something you're looking for more information on. Definitely check it out. And check out our upcoming class as well too for it. But go out, take some action and we'll see you all at the top.