Mid-term Rentals, Branding, and Hospitality: A Conversation with Vivian Yip (mid-term rentals)

That's the foundation of my company. The reason why I've created the Hestia brand, so for your listeners that aren't familiar, is Hestia is the Greek goddess of hospitality. And I feel not enough investors are serious enough about their furnished rental business. They think it's just a cash machine, but no, there's actually, it's not a real estate vehicle anymore. It's actually a hospitality business. And so I named it Hestia so that I could really put a focus on delivering value to the guests. And our mission is to surprise and delight all of our guests that we host.

Welcome to the She's Got Assets Real Estate Investment Podcast. I'm the host, Shona Leppis. Follow along as we unpack and demystify real estate investment strategies through expert interviews and personal experience. From how to find off-market deals to creative financing to long-term and midterm rentals. We aim to educate and inspire others to gain financial freedom and generational wealth through real estate. And as always, please subscribe so you never miss an episode. We really appreciate reviews. It helps others find us and just helps us get found. I'm super excited to have another MTR guest on. I have Vivian Yip on. She's doing really cool, innovative stuff in the industry. Amazing entrepreneur. I'm going to dive into some really fun stuff today. So Vivian, thank you for taking the time to be on, and I'd love for you to just give us a little about your background and what you're up to.

Thank you very much for having me on. I'm so excited to be here because I know you are also an MTR expert. So it'll be really cool to be here just to share best practices and hopefully the listeners will be inspired by our journeys in midterm rentals. So my name is Vivian Yip and I am a real estate investor here in Austin, Texas. My first real estate investment was in 2004 at the ripe old age of 24. My parents, my mom was a realtor at the time and she found this property She's like, Vivian, you need to buy this. So I did, and I house hacked when I was 24. And it was great because my payment, I think, was $935 a month, including all taxes and insurance and whatnot. And the basement apartment paid $750. So I owned an asset with $50,000 down, I think it was, and someone paid the mortgage. And unfortunately, I only lived there for 9 months before I had to rent the whole thing out because I relocated to Chicago. Long story short, by the time I was 29, I think I made my first $100 grand in real estate. So real estate is super powerful. But long story short, now I am fully focused in the midterm rental space. I accidentally fell into this area when I was flipping properties with my husband and we found a property that would be great for a short-term rental and we did wonderfully, exceptionally doing well with it. And in March of 2020, our business came to a halt with the pandemic. I talked to a friend of mine in San Diego and he said, just try and pivot and do 30-day stays and see what happens. So I put my property on Furnished Finder at that time that like nobody had heard of it at that time. Put on Furnished Finder. I got a booking for 3 months. It was a 3-bedroom, 2-bath house. And then right after that, I got a booking for 7 months for a construction team from Dallas. And then I thought, I think I'm onto something. Why is this so easy? Right. And I'm sewing and I don't have to talk to the guests very often. And in fact, the law, the Dallas team, they even mowed the lawn for me cuz I cut them a deal and they're like, yeah, we'll even mow the lawn for me. Keep the guys busy. I was like, yes, let's do that. So it was like a perfect harmony and it really inspired me to I would look at my investments in a different way. And at that time I was losing my hair very rapidly, which was a sign that my job was killing me. And so then I sold that short-term rental, made a ton of money on it, and then I reinvested it in more midterm rentals. So here I am.

I love that. And thanks for just being so candid about your journey. I feel like I talk to a lot of investors and everyone, like they house hack or was called having roommates, right back when I did that too. But packing wasn't really a thing. There's a lot to unpack there. I love that story. And I think everyone has that light bulb moment with like first year renting, then you realize midterms, I, for all the reasons we always talk about, you're not dealing with high maintenance guests. There's not this constant turnover and dealing with just, it's so intense doing that in my experience. Yeah.

I have 3 midterm rentals right now and honestly, I almost cringe when there's something that comes up. It's just because You're, you've been spoiled with midterm rentals. Totally.

I know when I have a turnover, I'm, I'm like a kind of all gripey. I'm like, I have a turnover and I'm like, I haven't been in here in 6 months. Just shut up. Yeah. I think it's like when you realize you get the ca— the cash flow and just the, the management's much easier and the guests are appreciative. And I think, I know that you're on a bigger picture too. I feel like we are providing a really valuable service and I think that to me speaks to like mission and values and whatnot.

For sure. That's the foundation of my company. The reason why I've created the Hestia brand. So for your listeners that aren't familiar, is Hestia is the Greek goddess of hospitality. And I feel not enough investors are serious enough about their furnished rental business. They think it's just a cash machine, but no, there's actually, it's not a real estate vehicle anymore. It's actually a hospitality business. And so I named it Hestia so that I could really put a focus on delivering value to the guests. And our mission is to surprise and delight all of our guests that we host.

I, I love that cuz I think oftentimes you have travelers that are from outta state and, and again, it's like you really, that's makes their experience different. And I love that. I've heard you talk about The fact that you have a brand, I'd love to unpack that a little more because that is, it is a business, treating it like that, it's elevating it, it's all the things. So love to hear your kind of take on how you decided to do that and any tips for someone that's maybe starting out or has a couple units. Do they go through all that? Because it can feel a little overwhelming, right, to do that.

Yeah. I think it starts with the most important skill sets that I learned while I was working at Apple and I worked there for almost 7 years. There's one of the One of the foundations of the values in the company is being able to see around corners and seeing around corners means anticipating. And what that meant to me was I had 6 midterm rentals and I knew that Austin was becoming saturated. So what happens if it, the, the market becomes saturated? How do I differentiate myself? And I thought, maybe if I started branding. So I decided to create a brand that meant something to me. I really like green. I like zen things and I love plants, as you can see from my background. And that's a real background.

It's not, you're not like moving and it's fake.

No. And so it really resonated with me to, to, and I love Greek goddesses when I was younger. So the name Hestia seemed perfect for me. And then I put the, the crown on top of Hestia. That's the older logo. I need to update that. That's the older logo. And I wanted the crown to represent like the lotus, which is the Asian person that I am. And so that I, that was the first step. And then I thought, I'm getting enough requests from just knowing people in Austin. I've been real investing in real estate pretty heavily for like almost 6 years. And people know that I have midterm rentals and I would, we had this network of people that would always call each other back and forth. And I thought, instead of seeing each other as competition, why don't we start collaborating? At the end of the day, I'm a lazy landlord. My properties are 15 minutes of my house. And I do have, I have, I have two kids. They need me. They have sports, they have music lessons, they have different things that are going on in their life. And I, it's important to me to structure my boundaries a geographical way and from time. And instead of thinking that I'm gonna try and buy property all over Austin, why don't I just start collaborating with people in different places? And the existing platforms out there didn't, wasn't, were not sufficient for me. Like Furnished Finder, for instance, it's a great platform, but a lot of the properties there are designed for people with lower budgets because medical professionals don't have a lot to spend.

Mm-hmm.

Some of them do, but they're, it's in the form of a stipend, which means that if they don't spend it, they get to keep it. So of course, if you have the opportunity to save money on your housing, why wouldn't you pocket it instead? So a lot of them have lower budgets and Austin and Portland, for instance, for you, these are expensive markets. Not only are they expensive, but like Texas is very expensive for, for property taxes.

Mm-hmm.

Most of our property taxes are between 2.2 to 3.1% of the property value.

Mm-hmm.

And in addition, our property insurance is very expensive. Platform corporaterentalsusa.com to satisfy both the brand aspect, to collaborate with other people. And also to have a way to market our properties to more premium tastes.

Yeah, I love that. I feel like there's this kind of, there's so many platforms, but none of them are really the right one. I use Furnished Finder, but I get on there and it's, it is what it is, but it's very dated.

The interface is just really, you know, I wanted a way for someone to show up on my website and be like, you know what? It's like going to Hilton Hotel and see all the same kind of similar properties, same kind of pricing. You know what you're gonna get. If you go to expedia.com and you see a JW Marriott or you see a Ritz-Carlton, you know immediately that it's gonna be like a luxury brand.

Mm-hmm.

So then if you're going for a honeymoon, you immediately go towards those brands. Whereas for us, I'm not anywhere, I'm not anywhere like a luxury brand. We're a premium brand. And I thought it'd be nice for us to position ourselves alongside with companies like the Hilton or the Westin Hotel.

I think there is such a gamut too of what, like, I get the comment, oh, it looks like the pictures. I'm like, what, what is it normally like people are putting up? I just think there's the level of quality and consistency is oftentimes not consistent. And I think that's really huge as a differentiator, right? Like you said.

About the commodity of time. You're trying to look for something on Furnished Finder, you might have to go through a ton of different listings, good or bad, before you find what you need. And that's why people gravitate towards brands.

Yes. Yeah, I am a diehard Apple nerd geek.

Me too. You couldn't—

I got on a PC and I literally don't even know how to I'm just like, what is this thing? It's, it's so simple and it's, you just think it's just, it's the, the user experience is, and I think that's the same with like when you check in, what is the experience like? Just thinking through all those things. I think that's what, yeah. And I love that you bring it like that and differentiate yourself because it's been on my list forever. I've never taken the time to do it, but it's fun.

Oh my gosh. We're not, we're still in the beginning stages. Right? We're— there's still so many questions we're trying to answer. Like, how do we control quality that we don't own? How do we— and streamline everything? Like, one of the ideas was like, when we bring someone on board to the Hestia brand, I want everybody's listings to read the exact same way.

Yes.

So if you look at a—

you all—

like, say for instance, like on a menu at a restaurant, you always know that the appetizer starts with small plates. Yeah, the entrees and then desserts, and then there's a wine list and I want, but there's so much that goes into onboarding these experiences because when everything's set up and standardized in one way, shape, or form, it makes the experience really seamless. So there's tons of opportunity still.

Yeah.

And very slowly.

No, I love that. And I think it's just also making it, and there's also a craft to how you're listing it and what you're putting in front and what your menus are. And it's, it's definitely, I think. That is a huge thing because people oftentimes just dump out some copy or, and it's not thoughtful and it's not, it's almost too much information. So there's that balance of, um, correct.

Yeah.

So yeah, along with brands, the other thing I heard you say, like you have live plants and I love that live plants and style. And I think that's often a very big kind of, a lot of, there's a lot of unstylish products, if that's a word. So I'd love to hear your kind of philosophy on that. Cause I, that speaks to me as well.

Plants do two things. It creates an earth environment in your home.

Mm-hmm.

Um, especially if you have like wood floors and it just, I think the feeling of plants just brings the place alive for lack of words. Mm-hmm. It's really good for your air. So it's a double whammy there.

Yeah. And then in general, elevating, and like you said, not luxury, it's premium, but I think that really does. Elevate you and people gravitate. They want to stay in nice places. I don't want crappy places where you just got your used furniture and threw it together. Do you have, and I also like that you're bringing your own, like your personality. So it feels personal, right? You're not saying, oh, this is like a trendy vibe. So I'm going to do that. Cause I think people resonate when you put a little bit of your own flavor in it. And in my experience with design and stuff, um, sure.

And there's no standard design across the Hestia Homes where there's over 100 of us. Uh, but the thing is, is that it's really more about the amenities and the hospitality. Like every host, we review their reviews in depth on Airbnb and we look at how responses are towards an unfavorable outcome.

Mm-hmm. That's gonna happen.

But how you handle it is another way.

Mm-hmm.

It gives you the true visibility as to what the host is. Are they defensive or are they, uh, more responsive in a hospitality way. There's, it's definitely a little bit subjective, but we want to try and build that brand experience.

No, I think it's true. I think it is your response. You can turn it around. I used to waitress back in the day and I would comp a dessert and I, if I could turn this, someone missed something. And if you can turn it around, it almost engenders more of a loyalty. If you do the right thing versus just being defensive or saying, well, you didn't know how to use that appliance or something.

Absolutely. And I always think it helps to write out your response first, like how you really feel, then delete it.

If I just get it out and then, yeah, no, I've deleted. Yeah. You can't, I feel like with, I, I have long-term tenants, right? Sometimes they're a little bit grumpy and I just take a breath. And if I come back at them with an equally grumpy response, it doesn't do anything and it just escalates. So I really try and navigate that. Be responsive, but also, yeah, because it doesn't do any good. And you can also engender more, I think, loyalty if you're doing the right thing.

I think, yeah, my philosophy is mostly kill them with kindness. Things are gonna happen. So if you have the opportunity to kill it with kindness, that's, it's always a great thing. So for instance, I had an issue at one of my Airbnbs. It was a short-term rental. And I can't remember exactly what happened, but they were not none too happy, but I was trying to prevent a bad review, but they're mostly pretty cooperative. And in Texas, what we have here is something called Tiff's Treats. Do you guys have that in Portland?

No, I heard you talking about that.

I wish we did, but oh man, they need to be all over this country because, oh, Crumble's good too. I had Crumble recently.

Okay.

But Tiff's Treats, you can get a corporate account and it's like flat fee shi— or free shipping all year. And you can order cookies. It ranges from $25 to hundreds of dollars, but I'll send warm baked cookies to my guests. And it's easy because even if they're not there, it, it, they'll call them or send them a text message and prearrange a time that works for everybody.

Wow. That's—

and then the cookies show up and they're so sinful and they're warm and it comes with ice cold milk and a pint of ice cream. The best de-escalation opportunity, unless you're gluten-free and diabetic.

But it's such a simple thing, right? What does that cost you versus what the return and the just, hey, we made a mistake, here you go. Like it's just gonna melt away any of that animosity.

And it's, it's like at a restaurant when they screw up your order. Hey, that drink's on me for free. Same, same idea.

Yeah. No, I used to remember I was always like, I'm just gonna comp this cuz it just made everything okay. Like they were like, okay. Yeah. I, yeah, I love that idea. And it's so simple and anyone can do that. And you're not like exact, you're not doing it yourself, you're having it delivered. So that's really probably a couple clicks. And correct. I love that. God, there's so many things to unpack. So I'm curious with, so you clearly, are you, I, this brand is obviously your properties and are you managing or how is, how does that work on the backend with other properties as far as?

Yeah, so we're, I didn't and still don't have the capacity to do a lot of property management because even with my own, I have a total of 11 properties right now, 6 that I own myself. That a lot of boots on the ground work.

Mm-hmm.

And I didn't want to take— I didn't want to take on a company if I couldn't physically be there as I'm growing this company.

Mm-hmm.

But I have a solution for that. I'll eventually have a property management company, probably in the next, you know, few months.

Mm-hmm.

But for now, we are an open membership for people or hosts in the Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and Chicago markets. And our, we, we charge a fee. We're very comparable to the premium corporate housing by owner.

Mm-hmm.

And then as well, but it, it might seem like a lot of money for some people, but honestly, if you're a professional host, that money is nothing cuz we help you. We have a help desk. We help you propose the quotes. We'll. You, if you're in a meeting and you're in a W2 employee, you don't have time to hunt and filter and search for these people. It's, we're doing the work for you.

Mm-hmm.

And we're tracking you for it because it's a service. It is. So we're marketing it for you. We still give you full control of the property. Mm-hmm. We ask that you align with our onboarding process so that we can be part of a brand alliance.

Mm-hmm.

So it's like a franchise almost. It's like paying into a franchise fee for the year.

I love that. And the caliber of guests that you're attracting is, that's just the value in that. I would, yeah. You brought up, I wanted to unpack a little bit, just having, so clearly like you have, this is your business for someone that doesn't maybe has two. Do you think they should buy a domain and kind of build a site or what is your take on like where like that line is where you start building a business versus just kind of As far as, oh, I think it really depends on, I like to start with a 5-year goal. Mm-hmm.

And work backwards from there.

Mm-hmm.

So if in 5 years you see yourself owning more properties, mm-hmm, you should invest in the business that you want to be.

Mm-hmm.

Because right now with 2 properties, it's a lot easier to handle than 6 properties.

Mm-hmm.

And by the time you get to 6 properties and then you want to go backwards and brand, you're not gonna have that kind of time.

Exactly. True. You can't stop.

Right? Build your systems and processes early.

Mm-hmm.

That way you can just see grow and scale.

That is, that is really good advice. There was one other tidbit I just wanted to share that I thought was really brilliant. The domain name that you bought, I think people don't really think about the value in that. And so I'd love to hear you talk about that.

I literally, this is probably about a year ago, I woke up one morning and I thought, I wonder if corporaterentalsusa.com is available. And it was. So I bought it. Then I was like, wait, I think I'm going too far. I'm being very ambitious. Let's buy corporaterentalsaustin.com. So I did, and I started this business on corporaterentalsaustin.com because I wanted to test it. I wanted to proof of concept what I was doing here, and I was so excited. To sell my first few memberships with my peers that I know. And it was interesting because by the 6th month of being in, in, in the internet world, I was already on the first page of Google search for corporate rentals in Austin. So the perfect SEO play, cuz I've spent $0 on search engine optimization and the name in itself and the wording that I've chosen for my website naturally pushes it through the algorithm. Of course, I'm gonna have to invest the money later, but for now it's, I'm taking advantage of the free push from Google.

That is so brilliant. My background's in marketing and yeah, any, just for anyone that doesn't know, SEO is like search engines serving up relevant content. So if the keywords that you're searching for are in the, on the domain, that's just, that's magic. That is, that's That was like a stroke of brilliance.

Thank you.

Really smart. And especially you're getting like, 'cause Google ad, we're, our, that's not a cheap way to advertise. So the organic juice that you're getting is, that's amazing.

Thank you.

A little bit. I think we all love midterms because of the maximizing in the cash though. I think what I, I'm curious how you're structuring pricing, especially there's there's the end of the, you know, nurses versus displaced homeowner policy and there's no go-to site for pricing. So I'm curious what your strategy or if you have any tips on that when you—

Ooh, that's a good one. I think the pricing strategy really depends on the person's length of stay.

Mm-hmm.

So you could, if you want to, run a flat price all year round.

Mm-hmm.

Just to keep it easy.

Mm-hmm.

But you'd be doing a disservice to yourself because if you were to book a month at a hotel, you, you would be subject to seasonality as well. Try a month in December versus a month in February.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

For instance. So I, I do believe that the length of stay depends, like I start with a baseline price, but then I look at if it's March break, if If it's summer, if it's Thanksgiving, if it's Christmas, then I let PriceLab set my pricing and then I knock off a discount based on what I think the tolerance is for pricing in the market.

Okay.

So it takes a little bit of tweaking.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, there's clearly a seasonality to it and I, I think when I first got into midterms I thought, oh, people are traveling for work, but no, I'm there more There's, it's very seasonal, which is not as much as STR, I feel like, but there's definitely, there's a premium in the warmer months.

Yeah.

So when you say base, and I think I'm coming, I'm a, I've been a longtime landlord, so I had some STRs, but I wasn't using all the tools that, cuz it was a couple years ago. So is that nightly base price or monthly, or how are you landing on that? Nightly. Nightly.

Yeah. I took a nightly base price using PriceLabs. I use that tool to help you choose your base price. And then I set my ground number, my, my lowest number. I forget what that term is. And then, so I'll see how that looks like on a monthly basis. So then I'll go into my Airbnb and I'll search myself and see what does that pricing look like? And then I'll apply a discount on top of PriceLabs so that I can get to that midterm rental number. Because if you're pricing STR numbers for 30-day stays, you're not going to get any bookings. So you have to it's usually, at least my experience in Austin, you're usually at 30 to 35% discount.

Okay.

And I like to stay on top of what that number might be because there might be people coming on board and really low pricing it, or people that are like, it just depends on what your competition is, how many people are sitting vacant and how many people are, are booked. So it's a good idea to stay on top of that at least every 2 weeks. If not, okay.

I have a little bit of what's my, it's very, it's not very scientific. It's not that sophisticated. This is my base long-term rent. And then what, how much more could I get? And it's more of a gut thing. And I'm not, I'm more, I'm using software for iBuildium, which is for long-term rentals. So it doesn't really integrate with those tools, but I'm wondering if I should break off midterms and use some of the more tools to maximize those rates, right? Like with PriceLabs. So I have software, but it's really for long-term rentals. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. I have some free training on my, on my Facebook group. Yeah. On PriceLabs to maximize your occupancy and revenue.

That's really interesting. So I guess my other question is if you're, when you're maybe stepping back when you're buying a property, right? And you're looking at all your exits, is it a BRRRR? Is it a flip? Is it whatever? Is it a long-term, midterm? Do you use PriceLabs to figure out what your MTR cash flow would be monthly? Is that a tool that you use for that?

No, I don't do it for that way.

Okay. Yeah.

I'm super lucky though. I, I bought my properties way undervalued, even at the height of the market, cuz I have a flipping background.

Mm-hmm.

So we were able to buy the ugliest houses at the cheapest prices and then bring them back up to, to par.

That's the win. That's how to do it.

And I think people don't realize, like, you don't make money at the sale. You make money on how you buy.

So true. Yeah, that is, that's, yeah. And it's, I think there's also, we're in expensive markets, right? So it's, there are deals out there, but I think you have to be very, to really be conservative in my opinion. Mm-hmm. You brought up software. What do you, I'd love to hear like the tools that you're using to with all of the, the data and the kind of optimizing and stuff.

Yeah, my tool stack's pretty interesting, but from a midterm rental perspective, are you talking about that?

Yeah, from the midterm perspective. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

I'm a huge fan of OwnerRes. Mm-hmm. Before I decided to start figuring out how to scale, I was like, okay, there's so many different options out there. There's Lodgify, Hostfully, Guesty, OwnerRes, all these different kind of things. And I, and even hospitable. So I started with hospitable because it was really easy to implement, but I felt like I outgrew it by my fourth property.

Okay.

And maybe that's just me. When you sit in the midterm rental space, there are different risks involved than short-term rentals.

Mm-hmm.

So for me, it was important to make it really seamless for someone to sign a document.

Mm-hmm.

And I wanted to make sure, 'cause I'd seen it when I booked vacation rentals in the Caribbean where you book something and then automatically you get this link back and you have to sign a document and all that kind of stuff. I was like, who does that? So it's actually OwnerRes that does that. Okay. So I booked a call with OwnerRes and I actually, I booked a call with all of them just to get a, an apples to apples comparison. Mm-hmm. And what I liked about OwnerRes is that No matter what channel you book, Airbnb or Vrbo or direct, they will get— the guests will get a link to sign a rental agreement. And there's a default one that comes with Owneress, or you can upload your own. After they sign the rental agreement, and you can take the existing document and add things like— the one thing that I added was there's no phones in this property. I don't want someone to get sued me because, uh, they couldn't call 911 during an emergency.

Yeah.

I wanted them to acknowledge that there's no phones in this property.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, for instance, and that there might be bugs because we are in Texas, even though we do pest control, things like that. You can modify that document as you need to. So it takes them down this journey to sign a document. It records their IP address. Which from what I hear is exercisable in the court of law.

Mm-hmm.

And then on top of that, you can do different things to, you can use Simple Code to add other modifications. For me, I have iID upload, which I love. And then on top of that, even if they're Airbnb, they have to sign this rental agreement, but they input their full name, they put in their address, they put in their email. I get all that information for every single guest. And then on top of that, and this is one of my favorite, is that they have to put a credit card down.

That's a lot of security.

Yeah, it is because I could choose to do the Airbnb AirCover, but if you've ever had to do AirCover, you know that's a pain because they don't actually collect anything from Airbnb. I'm sorry, Airbnb doesn't actually collect anything from the client. And if you have to go after them for extra cleaning or pet fees or whatever it is, you have to ask them if it's okay to charge them. Whereas 2 weeks ago I had this guy come in with 6 construction people and I was excited. I was like, wow, they're taking off their shoes at the doorstep. Sometimes they glance at my cameras every now and then.

Yeah.

They must be really clean. I go in there and they wash their boots in my tub. And they left the place a wreck. They ruined some towels and my cleaner's like, sorry, I'm charging you deep cleaning. And I took a box off of his security deposit. So instead of releasing the full $500, I only released $400 and I submitted all the pictures in Airbnb and I don't have to just, I don't have to do anything else but keep that extra money.

Yeah, no, that's, I think people forget that ultimately with longer stays, we are in kind of landlord-tenant law too. Right. So we need to protect ourselves because And finding some random lease, like someone once was like, oh, I use ChatGPT to do lease. I'm like, don't do, please find your local tenant. It's just, it's really important because if it came to it, right, if you're not documented and it's— I do think there's less likelihood of, of, of landlord-tenant issues because people are there for a defined amount of time. But I do think you need to be really buttoned up. So I love that you thought through all that and figured out a way to do it through those standard platforms. Yeah.

And it's automated, so I don't have to worry so much about it.

Yeah. Like we, where I'm at, the landlord-tenant law is just, it's, it's really challenging. And I use software just for that because it's very up to date. Okay. So we talked about software. The other thing I'd love to, I think people often have questions about is amenities and clearly you have a premium brand. What, what are people in your experience looking for and how are you positioning that as far as Do you have, you have to have X things at the property to be part of Hestia? I'm just curious.

Uh, so we have a checklist, definitely at least 1.5 plates and serving ware and all that kind of stuff per person. Mm-hmm.

Okay.

So if your property is like 4 people, you need to have at least 6.

Okay.

Pieces. So simple things like that. We don't have a requirement. Yes, we do have a requirement, air fryer and a decent blender. The Ninja blenders are actually quite good.

Okay.

And I will say almost every single one of them use that. And for me personally, I've started upgrading to all Nespresso.

Mm-hmm.

Because I think the Nespresso drinker is the Hilton and Westin and Starbucks drinker.

Yeah.

So design the home for who you're trying to attract. Mm-hmm.

That's a really good point. Yeah. I think also just making the point of it's not. I think there is STR, that's a really luxury. This is like, it's functional, but there's amenities that people want that, but they're living there. They're not there for vacation. Right. So I, but I still think it still needs to be nice and functional and those amenities go a long way.

Yeah. And I get how hard it is to spend so much money upfront to make your midterm rental. So no one says you have to do it right away.

Yeah.

You can always just wait for someone to feedback and say, hey, by the way, Do you have a, a, a blender? And be like, actually I don't, but let me get one Amazon Prime dropped to your doorstep in 2 hours.

Yeah.

So my mom has this, my mom has this great saying. She says, if it can be solved with money, it's not a problem.

Right. And it's also that extra step, right? You're like, oh no, let me get that to you. And it just, it makes you look like you're going the extra mile and being really thoughtful. So yeah, totally. I love that. And I know I've heard you talk about mattresses. I'd love to hear your like mattresses kind of furniture and just in style in general. What is there an aesthetic or do, are you changing? Is each property have certain characters? Like this is your brand, they're all similar.

Cuz I sometimes wonder, you know, I, I didn't want to have all the properties look the same. Mm-hmm. I think when you come on our website, you'll see that they're all pretty modern looking, but the hosts are generally up to their creativity on how they want to decorate it. I don't think that they're— the variety is the spice of life. Yeah, but I do always encourage, spend more money on a gently used piece of furniture than to spend less money on a cheap Wayfair velvet foamy couch or something like that. Like I, ooh, I bought, I, I'm totally guilty of it. I bought a $250 couch, but that's for my studio.

Okay.

Then my studio is a low budget one and that thing is the most uncomfortable thing ever. So I, I do want to update that, but I would say for the most part, One of the benefits of being a Hestia member is a free HostGPO membership.

Mm-hmm.

So if you're familiar with HostGPO, which you were on my training for that one, or my introduction on that one.

Yeah.

You get access to like 30% off West Elm and an article and Crate and Barrel and all that kind of stuff. Not, and also the linens. I'm in the process of upgrading a lot of things as well since I got that membership. So yeah, that's. There's no real, real aesthetic, but we all are mostly pretty modern. Open up the magazine and it looks nice.

Yeah. From my, from the feedback I get, people really, they like, they wanna stay in stylish, nice places. So I think it's important and it does set you apart. Um, so yeah.

Well, you don't need to go over the top like some short-term rentals, right?

Like the game room and the hot tub and the fire pit. Like I, yeah, I was talking. Yeah. I don't think people are not there for vacation. So yeah. Yeah. HostGPO. Yeah. I've definitely heard of it for a while and I, but I love the fact that, cuz I think you get into buying linens and you have mismatched linens and you're like, is that a king size or a queen size? And that whole management of that stuff is, can be, it's in the weeds, but it's really annoying when you have to change out a sheet, you know? Yes.

And then, and then you throw away one sheet and then now you have a mismatch. You're like, oh. So many things.

Sheet management is like, at our house, it's just always, I'm always like shuffling sheets around. That's has a stain. And then I'm like, that's going to get, I just, yeah. So I, I like the idea of streamlining that and just knowing you also just the quality of that's better because that's what you're sleeping in. Right. And that's, you don't want to go with shitty, excuse me, crappy. They're all crinkly. Yeah. And that, and pillows I noticed are another thing that you wouldn't think about, but finding the right kind of pillow that's not too firm.

Yeah, you can't please everybody. So like with pillows, I try to offer a variety. So when I go to Costco, you'll have the more firm, the more soft, the back sleepers, the side sleepers. I just grab a little bit of variety. And then on your listing, you can say we have a pillow menu, right? That way, like they can switch with a different room if they don't like the pillow that they got in their room. And then in terms of mattresses. My favorite, and I have two of these, one at my lake house and one in my son's room, is the Helix Luxe Midnight. Have you ever tried it?

I haven't, no. I have my favorite one, but it's not a high-end one, so I have not. It sounds like amazing though.

Oh, it's really nice. Unfortunately, my last guest complained that it wasn't comfortable, but everybody else has said it's amazing. So I think you can't please everybody and yes. But I love it cuz it's medium firm. It feels a little bit pillow toppy, a little bit cloudy.

Mm-hmm.

And it is a spring mattress hybrid.

So it comes in a box kind of thing?

No, it comes delivered, I think. Okay. Um, I actually buy it from my friend who buys, she buys gently returned ones.

Ooh.

So everybody should know this secret. So you go on Facebook Marketplace. And you look up Helix Luxe Midnight or Helix Luxe, and there's going to be some person that has purchased a truckload of undeliverables. They're typically undelivered mattresses.

Okay.

They buy them by the truckloads and then they resell them. So I can get a king size for about $650.

Yeah. That's a deal.

Super good deal. It's an award-winning mattress. It's really nice.

That's so interesting. Yeah, no, I think, and I think that's not something you wanna skimp on, right? Like when you're doing your budget, don't skimp on that because that's where you're gonna get the reviews and it's really about being comfortable. So that's a really good tip. I like that. Yeah.

At least in the primary suite is where you should have the best mattress cuz they're gonna be writing the review. Yeah.

And are you going with a king-size bed in the primary or—

Whenever I can go with king, I go with king.

Yeah. I know queens feel small when you put them like, is that really a queen size?

I've been sleeping on a king for so many years now that when I see a queen, I'm like, ah, I didn't know what it's like to have a queen. Uh, nice to have a king.

Yeah, totally. Okay. Any other like decor tips or I always like to, I feel like you can do so much with some artwork and some adding color. Do you have any kind of style tips for someone that if you don't love style, clearly you have a great aesthetic, but if you don't, you Do you have any tips for someone to hire someone? Because I think that's— I don't— if you don't like it, then you should have someone help you.

I don't have a design background whatsoever, but I can Pinterest really well. So what I did was I took elements that I really liked and I would screenshot them and put them on a blank document and just see how they look side by side. And one of the things that I would do is look for different kinds of textures so you can vary the textures between the couch or, and mix woods and metals and all that kind of stuff and look through Pinterest and get ideas and inspiration, or even go on my website because there's some really great properties on my website and they did a really good job of doing that mixture of texture and wood and metals.

I love that. It's just like a mood board and then seeing that cohesiveness. You're going to know if that couch doesn't work before you get it in there and you're like, and you just know when it doesn't work. Have a vibe or just that doesn't feel right. At least that's how I don't, yeah, I'm not an interior designer, but I have to go with my like step back, check it out. Yeah, I was fluffing pillows the other day. I was thinking in the market, like arranging them. I'm like, 'cause I was doing a reshoot. I was, 'cause I had done photographs and the bedrooms didn't feel as inviting as I wanted them to. Right. But yeah, I did some pillows and a throw and it changed the vibe a little bit. So.

Yeah, 100%. Like just as simple as throwing a textured blanket on top of an already made bed can make a huge difference in how cozy it feels.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure. And that's a, it's, we're not always buying throws, so I think investing in that stuff and I think, I don't know how you feel. I always like to be, when a photographer comes, I'm there, I'm cleaning the clutter. I'm, cuz they're not gonna look at it the way you are. So I think it's important to style for those pictures.

Um, absolutely. And it gives you a chance to straighten up all the linens, make sure they're like lined up across. Correctly and cross— they chop down the middle on the cushions.

All those little details. Yeah. Because that— and those are pictures are— you reshoot them sometimes, but they're like permanent, right? For at least for a while.

So yeah, it could be a $350 mistake if your shakers, your salt and pepper shakers aren't lined up correctly.

But I, sometimes I go on listings and I'm like, did you even try? Like, I just, it boggles my mind seeing how people just they're like upside down and the toilet lid's open. I'm just like, I don't, I don't understand. Like, how do you not see that? That's not gonna sell. Who wants to stay in it? Because it, it, it, it shows the kind of the level of detail, right? That you're gonna, the whole experience will have.

Correct. I'm not perfect by any means, but I'm very thoughtful about these things. And I think it has to do with my training at Apple because that experience at Apple is like crazy. So you're a big Apple fan, right? Mm-hmm. Have you ever noticed the way you open a brand new MacBook or a brand new iPhone? There's that like slow vacuum seal that comes up. Yes. Yes. That's all part of the design experience.

Really?

So like for me, when I have someone coming through, I turn all the labels on the spices together. I get new bottles of olive oil. All my, all my forks are all forking the same way and all my spoons are spooning the same way. But when you do that, People are like, wow, this person really cares.

Yeah.

That's fine details.

That is. And it's not even like, you don't, you wouldn't even probably notice that, but your mind, when something is a little bit off, but it's just that experience that when everything is lined up and it's like a visual, like I used to be a graphic designer and you always were looking for alignment. That's really interesting. I don't even, people would probably wouldn't even realize that, but they would come in and feel this like experience. That's so interesting. That's fascinating. I love that. Yeah.

We're still trying to implement all this craziness into the brands. If you stay at ST Home today, please go easy on us if there's a spoon out of whack.

Yeah, I know.

Exactly. Like we're like, we're only 9 months old. We're only into our 9 months and we had a couple hiccups on a couple setbacks along the way. We're building this empire very slowly. We were trying to do it the right way.

But kudos to you. The entrepreneurial journey is sometimes you have to dive in and you figure out the kinks. If you wait for it to be perfect, then you're just, it's a process. Yeah.

Yeah.

So I have to ask, 'cause I, I love my cleaners, but I always go back and fuss after them because I'm just neurotic. So I love her. Do you have tips on how to like have checklists for cleaners or explain, okay, this has to be just right. And that's very detailed and I love that, but I, my cleaners don't always do that.

Yeah, I, I think it's really important to capture photos of what the perfect home looks like. And I'm also going through these pains. Okay. But it starts with having a process. So that means taking pictures of what your linen closets ideally should look like, what your cabinets ideally should look like. Actually, this is a really good one. You can buy these thermal printer. They're like these stickers. So you take a photo with your phone. And then you print these stickers and then you can add them to the inside of your cabinets.

Okay.

Okay. And it's not for your guests, it's for your cleaner. So they know if the Tupperware's missing or the cutting board's missing, right? Everything in its place.

Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. That's really, and then, cuz you don't want someone to check in and there's no colander, right? Cuz somehow it walked off or whatever. Correct. Yeah.

And if there's, if there's missing Saran Wrap or whatever, then they know what's missing. Because sometimes your regular cleaner is not gonna be able to make it. So you have to hire someone to come in and do the job.

Mm-hmm.

And they're not gonna be used to the property, but if you have little hints here and there of how things are supposed to be, then they can be like, oh, you know what? The kitchen scissors are missing. I can't find them.

Yeah, that is, and those little things where you're going to, I always say, stay in the place and make a meal. If you're missing the can opener or the wine opener, that's really annoying when you're about to have this nice meal, you're like missing a key thing. So I've heard the pictures thing, but I love putting that strategically so that it's just super clear. Okay, well here's the inventory, here's what we have. Yeah. Okay.

They're called visual cues.

Mm-hmm.

That's, that's training from being at Apple as well. When I used to be in charge of inventory control, I was in inventory control and we had to have these signs in our warehouses for how things should be so that you had a visual point of reference. You didn't have to read anything. You didn't have to open an app.

You didn't have to do anything.

It's just very, very quick glance and you can see, oh, okay. Because time wasted is time spent.

It's so true. And you forget, like I forget, I'll go into a different property and I'm like, I haven't been here in a year or 6 months. What did we, I don't remember all the things. Like on it, I try and document, but usually I'm on a rush trying to get it ready. And yeah. I love that. That is, that's, that's also why I self-manage because I am so uptight about those details. But I know it's also, there's a point where you can't grow because you are, your, their time is limited.

Yeah. I do have a friend of mine, he has almost 50 properties and he charges this ridiculous cleaning fee. But his process is on point. His client is corporations. So those corporate clients are, they're housing executives.

Mm-hmm.

So you wanna make sure that everything is really tight in the process. So not only does he send a cleaner in there not to clean just for 3 hours, they actually clean for 5 to 8 hours, he says, after a checkout. On top of that, after they clean, they have a quality person that goes in and walks through the entire house to make sure everything's in its place. And then finally they have a handyman that goes in and checks for things like doorknobs being loose or bugs up in the lights or different things like that. And I was like, wow, that is, that's the kind of quality I want to get to. But getting there is really hard because you need to have lots of properties to be able to get to that kind of scale.

To that scale. Yeah. But it's those details, right? Like the bugs and the lights, like the cleaner is not going to stop. And that's those little, I mean, that's why I go and I spend hours fussing around myself, but I'm like, that's It's not the best use of my time, but you, you, I don't wanna walk in and see sometimes a bug appears, right? But like the lights and, and the squeaky things. Yeah.

I've tried self-cleaning before. It's a disaster because, because of how thorough I am. Like I, yeah. Our little lake cabin is literally 640 square feet and it's 2 bedrooms with 2 sets of bunk beds and a king bed. I think I spent 7 and a half hours trying to turn the place over because I went through everything. I would find crumbs here or crumbs there or touch-up paint needed here. And it was just, I was like, I can't do this because I'm going to go crazy.

And then you're never done. I keep, the more I go, every time I go, and if I have a week turnover, I'm over there and I'm never done until, but if I have a tight window, I, but it's just, there's always more stuff. Stuff to do. Yeah. I had roommates and it was guys and then they were going to do their own cleaning and I was like, all right. And I had to get my, I'm like, you guys didn't do the baseboards. There's crumbs everywhere. Like you try visually, you walk in, but you start digging down and that's, it has to be hotel level clean.

So, yes.

Yes. God, I feel like there's so much more to talk about. I know we're at the hour here. Is there anything else like we didn't cover, like any tips or things that you'd wanna let people know about? Before we wrap up?

I think let's just touch on really quickly about what we talked about before we hit the record button is that midterm rentals are definitely super fulfilling from both from a financial perspective and also the hospitality aspect because bringing someone joy also brings you joy. We know that, but the, it's not an easy business. And I think a lot of people thought that short-term rentals would be easy because you just buy a property and it just, people check in and check out. Well, but midterm rentals, it is easier once someone's in there.

Mm-hmm.

But you and I both know it's a lot of work to get people in there. Mm-hmm. So as I mentioned, I have 5 properties going empty at once, so that's a little bit scary. You just have to be able to Bear with having some vacancies. And in my opinion, having that open calendar is what's gonna keep you booked. I know it sounds ironic, but do you feel the same way? Controlling your calendar?

Yeah, completely. I don't book. I don't, yeah, I'm pretty clear about knowing you have to book pretty, yeah, I block it out so I'm not keeping it open. I'm, I don't let someone book in the future cuz I don't know what will be happening. Yeah, if that's what you're, yeah. But people, like, I think we, we also talked about they book very last minute, so you have to just trust that it will, it'll happen and you just, I, I'm curious, one thing we didn't talk about was networking for more corporate kind of, uh, placements and whatnot. Do you have strategies behind that? I'm just curious what, when you're like, hey, I have a vacancy coming up, what are your go-to?

You know, um, with the. I don't know, are we considered a recession? I think so. With the amount of layoffs that we've seen in the Austin market and even all around Texas, um, in the last 8 months or so, I wanted to be sensitive to the fact that was happening in the employment world. So I didn't focus as much energy on recruiters or corporations. I focus a lot on building those connections with the insurance companies. Adjusters and building out that clientele.

Mm-hmm. And is that just calling, having relationships, like being top of mind with that strategy?

Yeah. It's a lot of work. I know there's a lot of gurus and coaches out there that, that tell you how to do it, which is great and they're great programs, but there's also that implementation time that, that takes. A lot of effort and a lot of organization.

Yeah. I feel like it's the deepest pockets, but it's also the most unpredictable. Like you don't know when someone's gonna need housing or have a flood or a fire, so you can't really, you cannot guarantee getting an insurance claim. Like a lot of people do. There's ways to put yourself in front of those people, but you can't really just hold your property open and wait for a great claim.

Yeah. You can't forecast the next flood. You can't forecast the next fire. Buyer, and most of the people that have been suddenly displaced from their properties, they wanna be close to their existing home base.

Yeah.

And that's, you have to be that perfect place in perfect time.

So you can't, I mean, it's like you, you put yourself positioned for it, but you can't just expect it. So I think that's something where I think people get a little hung up on that. I'm like, it's great, but you gotta underwrite for maybe a more average price or something.

Yeah. But I'm curious, Shana, how do you, like, when someone says, I wanna buy a midterm rental, what advice do you give to them? Like, where should I buy and how big should I buy?

Yeah, so I'm, there's, I think with investing there's the like in your backyard or there's out of state and there's those two schools of thought and I'm in your backyard mindset because I, I know my market and I think we're both in like expensive markets, but I think what you get with that, I was just talking to someone on this, you get like appreciation. You get all the tax benefits and you get that equity that, that's that building block, right? If you go to a cheaper market, you can buy a house. Oh, I bought a house for $100K, but your cash flow's not that great and you don't get the appreciation, which to me is the power of real estate. So I like in your own backyard, you know the market, what neighborhood's what, because something might look great on paper, but like you get there and it's, would you, is it, it's maybe it's a classy neighborhood. So that's My two cents on that. And I think as far as underwriting, I think you have to, I'd pull comps like you do with long-term, right? For getting your price and be a little on the conservative side as far as numbers. But ideally it pencils as a long-term, ideally, or I love the duplex. I've heard you say you've got the long-term and the midterm, so you're covering yourself. Oh yeah.

Love duplexes.

I know. By the way, am I an agent? Yeah. No, I've been on the fence about it for years and I, I get a lot of leads, right? Because I do marketing where they're more retail leads. So I'm on the fence. I like being in this creative area of real estate where I can do like owner carry and lease options and no. Are you an agent?

I just got my license, so I'm great. You did?

Yeah.

Ever looking in the Austin market?

Awesome.

Happy to find that perfect midterm rental.

That, and I love— here's the thing, I actually, my latest course is all about She's Got Assets. That's the name of it, about buying a property and finding an investor-friendly agent. I think someone like yourself that is in the business, you're gonna be able to coach someone and help analyze. And I think that's so important. And I think a lot of times people want like off-market deals, but like on-market is viable in my opinion.

In this market, there's tons of on-market deals. You just have to know how to find the golden nuggets. So Even before the market went crazy in 2021, 2022, my husband and I, we were finding great deals on the MLS.

Mm-hmm.

Because we know how to do that. Mm-hmm. And we also know how to renovate. So he's a general contractor. I, I can design. So we're sort of integrated.

Yes. That is so cool.

And we've been doing rentals as well, which we've done several times over.

That's so cool. I know we're time here? Is it days on market? Is that one of the things you're looking for? Like light fixers when you're like on market, kind of what are you looking for deal?

There's a whole process.

Yeah. Okay.

I'll stop it there.

Yeah. But I think that, but I think right as investors, like we get so hung up on like the 70% deal that's off market, that's a value add, that's owner carry. And then you might never buy anything because you're always, it's hard to find that. And it's a lot of negotiation, it's a lot of calls. And so I think people need to realize there is opportunity on, especially now on market. So. I'm really glad that you said that because all my properties were bought through agents. Right. And it was great. It was before I knew all the strategies I have now. So I just was like, oh, that pencils, right? I think it's overlooked.

Yeah.

But just really quick wrap up. This has been really fun. Couple of closing questions. I always like to ask, what business or life advice would you give someone to live life on their own terms?

I did not expect to lose my hair. So for your listeners, I lost my hair very suddenly in, I think, 8 to 10 weeks, something like that. And, but I'm so thankful that I always had real estate in my back pocket. I started investing in real estate really heavily starting in 2018, and by the end of 20— 20, I was losing my hair dramatically from alopecia universalis. Mm-hmm. And I'm 99.9% certain it was triggered by stress. It was my body telling me to stop what I was doing. I was launching the iPhone 12 during a pandemic. My kids were at home. It was a very stressful time. I, although I had always dreamed about living a life of never having to ask another day off, I had no idea it was gonna come that fast. Hmm. And so having real estate in my back pocket and always learning, and at that time I was just learning the midterm rental strategy and getting stronger at it. I always say that advice is to keep a hobby or a side hustle that could potentially earn you a lot of money. And for me, that was real estate.

Yeah, no, that is, that's That's really intense. Thank you for sharing that. I think there's a lot of, there's a lot of lessons there, right? Life is twisty and turny and that's real estate gives you that, right? And that's that love. It's really powerful, especially, and then you can't start soon enough. I think that's the other point you really made. Yeah.

I was literally ready to be able to quit my job, but I still had my income from my rental properties. That was of course not quite as lucrative as what I was making at Apple, but definitely enough for me to sustain my livelihood.

And it's that sense of freedom, right? Having that, knowing you have that cushion, right? Because it's scary otherwise if you have no, you know, everyone says passive income.

I don't think it's passive, but really, I mean, it's semi, semi-passive, but, but yeah.

Thank you for sharing that. It's really, um, inspiring. So I also like to ask, this is a little bit silly, like what your superpower is and how you've used it to build your business.

I think my superpower is two of them. It's my positivity. I think that if I didn't have my positivity, my whole experience with losing my hair would be completely different.

Mm-hmm.

And secondly, it's my love of connecting people.

Mm.

That's something that I've always been good at and something that I continue to be good at, and I wanna continue strengthening that.

I love that. And I think that real estate is a people business, right? It's totally, and you're, I just, you're really beautiful and you're owning that too. I think a lot of people would be, you just, I'm sure that wasn't easy, but you pull it off really well.

I did have dark days. I will tell you that, but I haven't cried over my hair loss in a long time.

That's, yeah, I think it's, yeah.

Looking on the, the silver lining, I think it's done more things than I ever imagined because now people remember me.

Right. Yeah. You're very distinct and you're beautiful, but yeah, it's also just, it's funny how you can take something that's really could have gone two ways, but you, that's, yeah, that's amazing.

Okay.

The last question I know, like how can people work with you, reach out to you? I know you've got a community and stuff and what, how do people reach you and work with you?

They can just join my Facebook group, Midterm Rental Wealth. As I mentioned, first of all, there's enough business to go around for everybody, right? Some people are DIYers and some people like the done-for-you model. We're more of a done-for-you model with the owner operators. We're currently only in Austin, Dallas, Houston, Texas, or Houston, San Antonio, and Chicago. And we're really trying to develop stronger systems before we do any expansion.

Mm-hmm.

That's gonna be a while before that happens. Um, but yeah, Facebook is a great place. They can join my Instagram, they can follow me on LinkedIn, they can visit me on my website, viviannyip.com. There's, I'm all over social media, so there's so many ways to find me.

Awesome. I'll put all that in the show notes. Thank you for taking the time. This was really fun. I clearly, I love your just, yeah, your philosophy and your mission and what you're up to. So it's really inspiring. So thank you.

Thank you so much for having me here and good luck on your Midterm Playbook journey. I'm so excited how that turns out.

Thanks.