Mastering Co-Hosting: Tips for Midterm and Short-Term Rentals with Shona Lepis & Branden Hendrick

thinking. Hey everyone, this is Shona from She's Got Assets. I have a really special guest on, Brandon Turner. We're gonna push a few buttons here, so just bear with us. As usual, let us know where you're calling in. If you can see us, that would be awesome.

And I know she said Brandon Turner, but I'm not related to that person.

Oh, I'm sorry. I thought Brandon Hendrick. I don't know where I was. I really like people's names. Yeah.

Yeah. You, yeah. You've been hanging out on BiggerPockets too much. Yeah. Different brands, but almost as awesome. That's—

yeah, it's a good association. All right. I'm going to assume everyone can see us, but thanks for joining us again. I'm Shauna, the founder of She's Got Assets. I help students set up and run their midterm rentals. I just got into co-hosting. Brandon is in Portland, Oregon. We exchange like horror stories about being a landlord and we're like, it's always fun. He's a fun person to chat with. So Brandon, yeah, just give a little intro about yourself.

Yeah, my name is Brandon Hendrick. So I have some long-term rentals myself. So I am a le— a long-term landlord personally. And I just recently, and I say recently about in the last 6 months, I've been working with fellow investors co-hosting their properties for them. So basically what we're here to talk about for short-term rentals And I know Shona obviously knows a lot about midterm rentals, so hopefully we can answer some questions for you guys. But when it comes down to it, there's a lot, there's a lot involved with co-hosting and it's, yeah, it's anything from trash to hot tubs to gas to calling. In fact, I told you yesterday I was calling Clackamas County Code Enforcement to figure out a solution to a trash issue that a neighbor's having with one of our short-term rentals. So it, it runs the gamut, but yeah, I own properties myself. I'm an investor. I actually spent most of today working at a flip that I'm working on. So I'm also doing a flip as well. So doing a lot and I've done multiple virtual tours for Shona's Midterm Rentals. So if you're here in the Portland, Oregon area and you need a 3D virtual tour for a property you're listing or, or hosting as a short-term or midterm rental. I can help you out with that as well. I think Shona would agree that you need to have your hands in a lot of different things. Real estate is, there's a lot of ways to be profitable. And then I like to be well-versed in a lot of them.

Yes. Yeah. What many hats, right? Yeah. You gotta be really, you gotta be a good operator too, right? That's so important. You can't, I don't think you can dabble anymore. The bar has gone up with Short-term things happening. Yeah. People are getting into midterm, even short-terms I think are getting a lot more competitive. Yeah. You really just need to know your stuff. So that being said, thank you, Brandon. Yeah. For anyone that's local, Brandon's my go-to virtual tour guy. I always like to have photo professional photos. Everyone's heard me say that 5 million times. I can't say it enough. Right, Brandon?

So important. So important. Yeah. It's, I even as a long-term landlord, I see other operators, right? Other landlords on Zillow with just the cell phone pictures. It just, it do that anymore. That doesn't work. You're immediately outclassed if you're not paying a professional photographer.

And it's just, it's painful. People are scrolling and if you don't stop that, yeah, it's shocking. The stuff or leaving clutter out and not just, yeah. So really important. So have that hands down, super important. I've been doing professional videos. I think they're really important. Virtual tours. And oftentimes people book sight unseen depending on your avatar, right? For short-term, no one ever sees it. Yep. But for midterm, so it's really important. Don't skimp on that. But tonight we're gonna chat about, there's a lot of hats, right? And I think that midterm, short-term, there's different levels of work and there's this co-hosting is something if you just want to have this great rental, but don't want to be really hands-on with it. Co-hosting is a great option. So we're going to really unpack that pros and cons. I'm going to start with just explaining how co-hosting— there's a lot of ways to interpret it, Brandon. We can jump in and talk about STR, MTR, but essentially a co-host comes from the short-term rental side of things. Like when I first got started in STR, I found a co-host in Airbnb. It was not very common and it was amazing. They took care of me cleaning and all that. Coming over to midterm, that basically there were helping you run the property. We are not property managers, very important. We're not property managers.

Mm-hmm.

We help you advertise it, do guest communications, turnover. We draft leases that are like highly, um, localized to your county and state. A lot of people don't do that. It's my big pet peeve. So that's what we do. We're on the sidelines. We do charge a premium for that cuz it's more work, right? But the benefits are you get to get this great property going, you're not dealing with day-to-day, especially in short-term. The midterm, but I, there's a lot of nuance to putting your site out there. If you throw it up on one site and you don't get bookings, you're not, there's a lot of other things that go into like properly marketing that I teach or can do for you. So Brendan, with that being said, we wanna talk about the short-term co-hosting funness that you do.

Yeah. So on a day-to-day. I respond to guests, right? Inquiries, bookings, making sure that they have the Wi-Fi password, making sure that they— a lot of the properties are that I co-host are a little bit more remote, a little bit more vacationy, on a, on a river, on a lake, a kind of a destination type location. So they're harder to find. So I've had guests say, hey, we're lost. So I've actually gone to each property and taking pictures of landmarks that I have saved in a Slack channel. So I can immediately just like copy paste and say, you're looking for this, you're looking for that. And then you, and this is the road. Very important to make sure, and you need to respond quickly because these people, hey, I'm locked out of the house. Hey, I don't have Wi-Fi. Hey, I can't find the place. These are things that you need to solve quickly. If not, you're gonna have a very bad experience with those guests because they're not gonna be happy. I've already driven out twice on Sunday evenings to one time to take down a beeping smoke detector at 10 o'clock at night. And on a Sunday, yeah, no, Sunday at 10 o'clock at night, they took a picture. They said, we were standing on a chair and we're too short to reach it. And they took a picture of them reaching for the smoke detector. And so I had to drive, I had to drive about 45 minutes each way to go get a beeping smoke detector Sunday at 10 o'clock at night. And then just a couple Sundays ago, some guests pressed the code too many times and locked themselves out. So I had to go reset it and get them inside. And that was luckily only Sunday at 6:00 PM. So basically you're just constantly solving problems. It doesn't matter day or night, whether it's beeping smoke alarm, being locked out, being lost, asking— I can't tell you, I'd say probably once or twice a week we have people reaching out to us looking to host events and ceremonies, which is a big no-no in the STR world. Neighbors don't like that, noise complaints, excess trash. Professional or commercial photography, like all of those things aren't meant for a residence. These are vacation homes. So I get those requests all the time. Actually, just, I think 24 hours ago, I had somebody say, we are a very respectful group of no more than 60 people. 6-0. They wanted to host an event with at least 60 people. And if they say 60, it's probably closer to 75. Uh, so we had to politely decline that. You gotta respectfully and graciously and, hey, that sounds like an amazing event. We hope you find a better venue. This just isn't it. But yeah, there's a lot of communicating with guests. There's a lot of communicating with owners when it comes to maintenance needs. Every time we have a chance, I try to send in a contractor or handyman to work on these properties, which is really tough during the summertime. That's really busy. And when things like, hey, a ceiling fan's not working, did you check the batteries before we rip it out of the ceiling? Are the batteries good? Right? So you gotta problem solve things with guests and sometimes you just have to send somebody over to put eyes on it. And I've done that multiple times. Yeah. What was it? Tuesday? Saturday, I made this really cool montage. I shared it with Shoda because she understands how difficult co-hosting can be. One of our cleaners who we don't use anymore had been piling trash bags in a shed on site instead of taking the trash out where it was supposed to go to be picked up. Because that's what I told her. I said, put it in the shed where the trash cans were. And she'd been letting that pile up for 3 weeks. So guess who had to go deal with that? Me. As much as I would've loved to hire a junk hauling or a trash company, I am the co-host. I, I am in control of the cleaners. I'm in control of so many different things. And I really felt responsible for taking care of that. The owners were very gracious. They offered to pay me extra for my time. And I just told them like, hey, I had to rent a truck to handle that. So just cover that. But that's what I did on my Saturday morning. It runs the gambit. Sometimes you can be on site, sometimes you can't. I don't know, Shona, I don't know if you've dealt with that, but it definitely, when it comes to vacation homes, people generate a lot of garbage. They have a lot of questions. They want to know how the grill works. They want to know how the hot tub works. I've heard it all.

Brandon, all the reasons you just said so elegantly are the reasons why I'm— but, but, but MTR, he has pretty much sold everyone.

Yeah.

But right. But there is, right there, it's higher profit. There is this hybrid strategy for anyone listening. Maximize it, do short-term in the busy season and long-term MTR in the slower season. And for anyone just tuning in, we're talking about co-hosting and it, The, it's a little bit of a gray area. We are not property managers. We're like consultants. We do not collect the money. Like Airbnb actually lets you tag someone as an actual co-host. Other platforms don't play as nicely, but we're basically consulting for you, helping you with things. We are not property managers, right? We are technically co-hosts and we do everything that a property manager kind of does without, we're not dealing with money. We are also the other very big differentiation, right? With short-term, not so much with midterm, right? If we're doing a direct booking, we're gonna draft the lease for, for that homeowner. And that will be between the landlord and the guest. We are not as co-hosts on the lease. That's a very big difference too, just to call out. I think Brandon called out a lot of things like you need to be a professional operator if you're an MTR or an STR. And you might, it's not, this is not for dabbling. So either learn it and take a course, figure it out, do the, or hire someone, right? We're either way you can do it, but it's just not something you problem, especially short-term. Garbage is a major issue.

Yeah, I would.

Yeah.

Yeah. I would, I would say if you come into a short-term rental situation thinking that you're just gonna do it on your nights and weekends, I'll, I'll be expecting a call from you quickly because that's not at all. I get, you know, I, I wouldn't be surprised even during this, during our stream here that I'll probably come back and have 2 or 3 questions from different people. Questions from the cleaners, updates on supplies. Yeah, there's just a lot of things that go into it. If you're a host that offers the, the cleaning supplies to get a better deal on the cleaning, then you gotta track that as well. So there's a lot of things that go into it. I would not consider it dabbling at all unless you were like on site. And this was your like ADU. So yeah, I would say that's probably, that's probably, yeah. Unless, so unless you're living on site, be expected, be ready. You're, you're definitely going to be going over there way more than you think you will.

But I just want to say too, like you don't need a co-host. You can totally self-manage and there's tons of software and tools we're going to cover. Right. But it's just knowing what you're getting into and putting systems in place. Like it's very doable, but it's just not something that you're not going to have to put the effort in and get your systems down. So there's a couple of questions I just want to get to. Ashley's asking average MTR vacancy rate. I can speak to that. Like I stay pretty booked. It is a little bit seasonal. I would say if you're gonna be really conservative and underwrite, I go 20 to 25%. I don't think it's ever gonna be that high, but when I'm underwriting or looking at something, I always wanna be super sure. And there's like a lot of levers to pull, right? If you're in a place where you can do the hybrid, you can fill in your gaps with STR. In Portland, Oregon, we're not so friendly towards landlords, but that's a strategy. Conservative, I don't know, Brandon, with short-term, it probably varies, right, on the location and a lot of metrics, but what do you, is there an average that you see?

Yeah.

For vacancy?

Right now, yeah, right now it really depends on the property. It really depends on the location. I would say during the summertime it's really travel intensive, so a lot of people are booking vacations. So I would say it's pretty seasonal as well. Just, I think anybody here who's been any type of landlord or property manager understands that trying to get a tenant or a guest in December is much more difficult than it is during any time during the summer. So that holds true whether it's short-term, midterm, or long-term. And yes, I have booked, I have had a tenant move in, I think January 1st. I've done that before and it's not fun. You have to adjust your standards a little bit if you're having people book in on non-ideal times, whether it's for long-term, short-term, or midterm. But I would think it just depends on the location, right? A big house, a big beautiful A-frame house on the river is definitely going to be doing a lot different numbers than a condo in downtown Vancouver.

Totally. Yeah. So it's, there's a lot of variables, right? But I think always just in general being out, and there's a lot of tools out there like AirDNA, PriceLabs, right? That can give you that data to a certain extent, but just be conservative. Okay. So I have Ashley—

and always just look at your competition.

Yeah.

Yeah. And always look at your competition. Just coming from the, the long-term landlord, when I try to set rents, And I think even with midterm, you look at your competition, you go to Furnished Finders, you go to Zillow, okay, what's around me that I'm competing with?

Totally. I always like to try high though when I go down, because if you don't ask, you don't get. And sometimes you can test things out and you might get a little higher rent and then you adjust it. But it's okay.

If dynamic pricing didn't exist, Shona would be the one to invent it.

I interviewed the guy from, from PriceLabs and he comes from the airline industry and that's, yes, that's how he developed the software, which is interesting because they do that. It's based on demand. It makes total sense. It's a tool you can use in MTR. I think it's a lot more common in short-term rentals and basically it's just looking at the data and it's adjusting the prices. So it's a really great tool so that you're optimizing for the premium, right? And you're getting those bookings. It lowers your price if there's no demand, right? Or less demand. Very smart.

Cool.

Okay. Jas is asking you, is there a co-host paid 5% adjusted? I charge 20%. I don't know, Brandon, what you charge. It's always a negotiation, but it's higher cuz it's more work and we're really providing, we're in the hospitality business. It's very hands-on. That's why it's higher.

Yeah. I would say from what I've seen from co-hosts, anywhere from 15, uh, at the very minimum. And remember, you get what you pay for. So 15% all the way to 25%. I think even Vacasa out on the coast, the Oregon coast, they do it with a lot of vacation rentals. I think they even charge 30%.

Yeah, definitely. And the higher your pay, the more they might take care of linens, like the services will be more. So it's definitely something, but that cuts in your profit, right? So if you're like, I want to make all the, keep all your pennies, then self-manage, right? And there's tools and I teach students how to do that. Especially with midterm. All right. Colton is asking, how do you determine if your property is a good candidate for MTR, STR? I'll speak to the MTR. There's definitely a lot of places to check demand, like Furnished Finder, Airbnb long-term stays. I think if you're in any kind of urban area, like a 3/2 is great because it's going to appeal to a pretty wide audience, at least the 2/1. If you want to do the hybrid, then you're probably looking for bigger properties, more beds. So it just depends on who you're marketing to, to, it's very nuanced.

Yeah. I think that, yeah, I'd have to agree. It's hard, but I think, I think properties where people have ADUs in their backyards are maybe struggling more than vacation destinations. I think there was a lot of pushback recently with all the extra cleaning fees and all the for short-term rentals, at least. I was watching a lot of news, following a lot of this stuff where a lot of people were just upset at owners and managers and co-hosts of short-term rentals, cuz they were just getting fee'd to death with all the fees. And people are just like, shoot, I might as well just go to a hotel. So it, it really depends. I think if you're looking for a property specifically to do short-term rentals, I would personally advocate looking for a, a vacation destination type thing around water, around shopping, something that people come to do.

Totally. I think, again, it comes down to like location. If it's in a desirable area, if it's somewhat walkable and with midterms, it does not need to be across the street from the hospital. I don't know how many times I need to say, but it does not need to be across Most of mine are not, as long as they're 20 minutes and people, they want safety. They want, for me, let's talk amenities, right? The most common ones I get for traveling, okay, traveling Matt Avatar, they want a fenced yard, pet friendly. You have got to be pet friendly. There's strategies that I can teach you, but you have, you're missing out on half your audience. So just pet friendly, fenced yard, off street parking, safe, convenience, right? Those are the key metrics. It's more of like a home. It's not, you don't have to be luxury, but design matters. STRs, hot tubs, right? Brendan, let us know what you—

Yeah, you do have to, you do have to put a little bit more into the design, right? You have to create an experience for people, right? And you want to have the hot tubs and you want to have a hotel-like experience in a really nice house, in a really nice location, right? Safety, Wi-Fi. Hot tubs, responsiveness. Yeah. So a lot of those things are important. But yeah, I think with any real estate investment, whether it's long-term, short-term, or midterm, if you are buying a piece of real estate, location is the first thing that you think of. And depending on where that location is, then you can derive what strategy you'll use and what makes the most sense.

Totally. And there's, you can have multiple exits, right? There's so, so many. Yeah. You can do long-term, you can do midterm, you can do short, you can test it out. You're not sticking to one, but as long as you have options. And I always like, in my mind, ideally you can like live with a long-term, right? Like worst case, like you can cover yourself. That's ideal. It's not always the case, but you just don't wanna be underwater or dealing with high vacancy and just freaking out. Cause that's the reality. That's the horror.

And yeah.

Okay. And people keep asking questions as we go along here. So I, there's different software, right? With midterm where I'm using Buildium, right? With short-term, you're definitely using like a channel manager to help really manage. So Brandon, you wanna speak to that? To that, like the tools that you're using to kind of—

Yeah, sure. Of course. Yeah. So the investor that I first started working with was using Guestly. We've had some pros and cons with that. I think if we were to switch to something else, we might cho— choose Hostaway. So I would look at those two if those are something you're looking for. And this is only necessary if you have multiple properties, right? If you're just doing one of your properties and you only got one, you don't really need a channel manager. But I co-host 7 different properties. So I really need to be looking at all the cleaning schedules. I need to coordinate with the cleaners. I need to have easy access, right? I don't want to be running around between 3 different Airbnb accounts and 2 VR— VRBO accounts. And you just need all of it in one space. That's mandatory if you're going to be managing multiple properties. So if you want to be a co-host yourself, or if you already have a bunch of long-term rentals and want to try to, to, to, to do a couple of them, you might be able to get away with one or two. But eventually when you have them all spread out against different things, Furnished Finders, if you're doing Airbnb, you're doing VRBO, you're doing Booking.com, you have stuff on Zillow, right? It can get really complicated. So you want to make sure that you do all of those integrations. Uh, which is something that I had to learn. I am not a software engineer, but when I had to figure out all the integrations for the calendars and the automated messaging and all the different platforms, I almost wanted to call a software engineer because I was like, what do I do? So it, yeah, it, yeah, so it can get difficult, but channel manager is really important if you're going to be co-hosting or managing a lot of spaces. We obviously use in the short-term area, you have to use PriceLabs for dynamic pricing. Before the owners were using Wheelhouse, which I've heard we had a little bit of success with it, but it was a lot easier to just use PriceLabs. Shona says it's great. A lot of other people says it's great. And when we transitioned to that for all the properties, it was significantly more helpful. Yeah. Once you got it set up again, a learning curve for sure. Uh, but, uh, once you get everything set up, it's definitely worth it. It makes life a lot easier. Um, so that, and then we, I alluded to, we use a Slack channel as well to communicate with the owners, to communicate with cleaners, um, you know, just to put things down. It's really important. I have a video of how to work every single hot tub. I have a video of how to use the thermostats. I now know for certain that one of our properties has a can opener because I had one sent there because some guest was really upset that we didn't have a can opener. So I made that happen. I've had guests ask me what type of coffee machine we have, and I said, I don't know, but we have two, so choose the one you like the most. So yeah, there's so much, and especially being a co-host, right? Like I haven't lived at any of these properties, so there's a lot to learn about each individual property. Even one of the guests said, hey, how do I turn on the outside lights? And I was like, with a light switch? What do you mean? So I had to, after that guest left, I went over to the property and I said, okay, I need to figure out what light switch turns on the outside string lights over the hot tub. Very magical setting, very nice with the river in the back. The background and I found the light switch. I took a picture of it and I circled it and now it's in Slack forever in case somebody else can't find the light switch to turn on the lights. Slack is another good one just as a reminder for everything that you have to do that needs to be done. And I do also use Google Sheets. I know that's a little old school, but that's more for maintenance items. So as we need them, I add, okay, here's maintenance things. I have it shared with the owners and say, what's your priority level for these things?

The other thing that Google Sheets is amazing for is what kind of batteries are in your smart lock, because they're all different and you can drive yourself bonkers. What the batteries, Brandon, the batteries. So leave extras. And the other thing I track now is the size of your filters because they are all different and you can go over there and they don't have the right size filter. So that's All amazing. Yeah. Track everything.

Yeah. Yep. HVAC filters, filters for the hot tubs, the different type of chemicals, the way that you do it. We have test strips. We have all the different type of cleaning products for the cleaners. I've had to order vacuums. I've had to order mops. Uh, I do have all of that stuff now on a master list. I worked with, uh, one of the owners because they plan on acquiring more properties. And I said, hey, we need to sit down and we need to have a system. We need to. What vacuum are we ordering? What towels are we ordering? What sponges are we ordering? So we, we now all have that set up. Uh, it's all about systematizing things that will really save you a lot of time and headache.

It really is. I remember the first couple of furnishings, I just winged it and then I put together a very detailed list down to soap and like the little things for cotton balls. And that's in the course cuz that step is missing, it really affects the guest experience. And we are like in the hospitality business, MTR, STR, it's about experience. It's about good communications going above and beyond. Right? So if you don't want to deal, like we're all in this, I think for a lot of reasons, but it is, we are ultimately providing a great experience, whether it's a family that's displaced or someone on vacation, but those details. And thank God for overnight delivery or all the other services we have. Because a couple years ago you'd have to huffle over to a store and pick it up, right?

How many mattresses have you had to move yourself, Shona?

Yeah. When I'm furnishing a place in 3 days, I will hustle. But yeah, if anyone can relate to this stuff, drop a comment. 'Cause yeah, all these little things. Like the thing is though, once it's set up, maybe you're restocking, you're not always doing this. But again, as Brandon's saying, systems are great. Spreadsheets are great. Find your tools. And as co-hosts we help with that. You don't need that, but it's especially with STR, unless you're gonna have an ADU in your backyard, it's, that's why I went to MTR because, and the other thing is that—

Shona's not a believer. She's not a believer.

They're awesome, but it's all just more work, right? It's all of these things. I think personally, I think it's a little easier to self-manage an STR. MTR versus an MTR. I think it's just, it's not as high touch. 100%.

100%.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I think, yeah. Long-term, midterm, short-term, it, it's the less money it generates, the less hands-on you have to be. The more money you want, if that's your goal, the more money that you want, the more involved you're gonna have to be in the asset.

Exactly. Yeah. On the flip side, I think the benefit of STR and MTR is that we get access to our properties. We're always doing maintenance. We don't have tenants in there for years. We're not locking ourselves into a lower rent price. You know, when it comes to loans and stuff, right? The more rent, the higher the value. So yeah.

Yeah. No, hey, that's a very good— yeah. And, and, and that's one of my pitches when I talk to tired landlords is like, hey, I'm sure you're tired of ripping up your kitchen floor for the 7th time. How about we just have it cleaned? 4 times a week. What do you think of that? Like, what if we get to do inspections 4 times a week? And I'm actually working with the cleaners that I have. I have cleaners working basically under me so I can send them out to wherever we need. I'm basically trying to create a system for the cleaners where they take pictures and video before and after in case we have any claims that we need to make through Airbnb or Vrbo. So that's another system that we're implementing. And another thing as a co-host that I think is important to the owners where we can handle those things. We have photographic evidence. And I think it also, it helps me ask for more money when it comes to the cleaner saying, hey, I was here the whole time and I had to bring my cousin and nephew and sister over to get it done in time because we have 4 o'clock check-ins. We have 10 o'clock checkout or 10:00 AM checkouts and 4:00 PM check-ins. So that's all the time they have to get it ready for the next person. So if the person before them left it in not great condition, sometimes we have to pay the cleaners a little more.

Yeah, that, that's all. It's always a bit of a, a range, right? Yeah. No, I usually do the same for MTRs. I'm always like 4:00 PM, even if there's a vacancy, I'm usually fussing. Over there, I wanna give myself that window. So even if it's empty, just say 4 o'clock.

Yes.

That's just like pretty universal, I think at this point, right? Yeah. I'm curious about quality control cuz I, I have my cleaners, they know my style, but I'm usually in after them, like welcome gifts. I haven't done that. I do that with MTRs. I think it's nice. Are you doing that with STRs too? Bottle of wine, chocolate or whatnot? Or how, what's your stance on that?

Yeah. That's a good question. So I have talked to that about the owners, because that would be something that either my hosting company can provide for an extra cost, or if they're interested in doing that to create a more tailored guest experience. Right now, the investors I'm speaking with or working with are really cost-conscious. We haven't really been doing that just because, can you imagine a bottle of wine every guest, 4 guests a week. I mean, that, that could actually really add up over time. So that's not something they're doing right now, but we have been talking about implementing a coffee stand type thing where we offer coffees and teas and, and different things like that. Kind of something that you'd see like a hotel lobby, but in each property. So yeah, we're working on that. Yeah. Again, that's a part of the optimization, right? As the co-host, I have to push dealers a little bit and say, hey, if you want better reviews, more reviews, if you want more bookings, if you want people to rave about your place, you have to go a little bit above and beyond what other people are doing.

100%. And I, what I think it, it's an instant kind of like good like if they check in and there's some, something there and something is amiss, it just buys you a little bit of credibility. Like you're not a jerk, you're trying your best. Yeah. That's, and that is to me that STR, MTR welcome experience. I think they should be the same. I think if you're checking into an MTR, it should be exactly like an Airbnb, very clear instructions, extremely clear house notes, like all those little details. I don't want a guest to have to ask me anything. So that's where the experience is very similar, I think. And that's what I coach students on. Like you wanna walk in and feel like you're an Airbnb, you're just gonna stay for a couple months. That's right. That's the thing.

So yeah.

Yeah.

I'm glad you said that, Shona, because yeah, we are working on frequently asked questions, right? Like we have a little booklet, but we are revamping those for each property, making them a little bit nicer. And we're actually thinking about instead of switching, just sticking with kind of the paper laminated booklets that I think a lot of people have, we're thinking about maybe like mounting some type of smart tablet photo thing to like digitalizing it and where people can swipe like, hey, here's everything you need to know in a video about the hot tub. Here's everything you need to know about the AC. Here's some local restaurants. And just like creating a higher level of, hey, we understand what your needs are. We understand that everything's digital. So that's another thing that we'll probably be implementing. With at least a few of the owners I work with here in the coming months.

Yeah. And the other thing I like about that, reading just a QR code you can scan, is that the notes always end up— there's always nuance. And so I have find myself reprinting them and I get, I'm like, I wish I just had— I have my master, but if it's digital and not hard copy with some kind of code, then you're not always— it's always like very up to date. Every little thing that someone asks about garbage is in Portland, like every other Friday, and it's very particular. And if you miss that, you are screwed. Right.

Yeah. Hey, not them. You, the co-host. You, the owner, are screwed here.

Yeah.

That, yeah. They could just, they can just, at least for, uh, short-term, people are just like, oh sure, we'll just let the cleaners deal with it. Right. So we try to deal with that more as much as possible, but yeah, it definitely will fall on you if they're, if Have you ever gotten the text like, oh, sorry, we missed the trash person, Shona, what do we do?

Well, I'm over there fussing around and I see it and I've loaded garbage into my car multiple times. Like I've driven around and I'm like, I cannot believe I'm driving around with garbage, but I want the experience.

Even for a long term.

But that's the thing. And I've had some, and they long term, they leave the cans full so the Nest person can't put the garbage in there. So I have to get them down to a level that's like acceptable. Garbage is, it's strangely a thing. Like I, yeah, I, I appreciate somebody's gonna pick it up for you. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. No. And yeah, she's definitely not wrong. If anybody here is like a, a long, long, a long time landlord, I'm sure at some point you've had a tenant move out and they've just absolutely filled the trash or recycling. They have stuff next to it. They have their bed frame. And all kinds of stuff, right? And yeah, that's either on you or you need to hire a co-host or a manager or somebody to deal with that because that is a real thing and it happens not occasionally. It happens frequently when you have turnover, when you have either long-term, short-term, or midterm. People make trash.

They do and they like to leave it. My last turnover was, it was so heavy and full of rocks. It was very suspicious. I don't know what we're like, what is in here? We had to. Unearth it for, 'cause it was so heavy.

I remember you telling me that you were trying to wheel it down the driveway and it was so heavy you couldn't. Yeah. That's crazy. Who puts rocks in a trash can? That's just so—

I know. And it was just like, is there a body in here? Like what? It's, this is really odd. What are we covering up in the trash can? Yeah. All the things. Yeah. So I think the takeaway here is I teach students how to self-manage. I think it's doable. I think it's more with midterm, but if you're doing the hybrid, just know your stuff. There's a lot that goes into it and you do not want to dabble. And I think if you don't want to do this and you just really, because we go into this for passive income, not so passive when you're dealing with all of this stuff on an everyday basis. No. Right. Especially with short terms if you're doing that. Yeah. Like hybrid. So yeah. Um, yeah.

The least passive thing I can think of for sure.

Well, hauling garbage. It's not always sexy, right? This life of ours. But what are the most, are there any common questions you get about co-hosting? I think we covered a lot of them, right? I think the main thing is we're not collecting the rent, right? That's going directly to the owners. You get paid quicker, which is like my mind, like a very big bonus, right? You're not getting paid on the 15th of the month, like a long-term rental. So that's one thing I really like.

Yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah, we talked about some of the technologies, we talked about some of the struggles. Yeah. I think you have a little bit more chance to quality control your midterm tenants versus guests for short-term. Obviously we check reviews and we, we do what we can to make sure that we're approving people that are reasonable. But actually, one of the owners said this to me and it actually really makes sense. You are catching really wonderful people at their worst because they're on vacation. And I was like, wow, that actually really resonates with me as, and I think we've all been on vacation. I think we all have that mode of, okay, I'm just gonna have a good time and it's somebody else's problem. That somebody else could be you. So just be ready for it.

So true. Yeah. Again, this is why I love midterm cuz people are in there to work. But again, the hybrid thing, I think that's like the ultimate, right? Ultimate maximizing. Rake it in during the high season destination. And then if you can go midterm and there's some certain strategies, but yeah, no, it's very true. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Any other questions? We've covered a lot. I think we've changed some fun stories. But yeah, I think there's lots of—

bring them on. You bring them on, you guys.

Yeah.

You have experts here. You have, we, we do long-term, short-term, midterm. Bring it on.

We're seasoned.

This is your chance.

We've seen it all. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, yeah, we've, we've run the numbers.

Yeah. I also wanna say, I think everyone hears, they hear the horror stories of long-term rentals. They hear the horror stories of short-term and even midterm and squatters and the, the every, the worst case scenario. Doesn't usually happen. And if it does, you figure it out. So don't listen to all the horror stories. If you run a well-oiled operation,