Traveling the World Thanks to One $6,500/Month Rental Property

Ashley:
This is Real Estate Rookie, Episode 297.

Tony:
What are you usually making on the side of the duplex that you’re renting out?

Olivia:
During the summer months about $2,400, $2500. During the high season, anywhere from $4,000 to $6,500.

Tony:
You’re literally covering all of your living expenses and then some.

Olivia:
Yeah. Now I’m traveling, for example, for the next five months, and I’m midterm renting out my side of my duplex as well for another $2,400.

Ashley:
My name is Ashley Kehr, and I’m here with my co-host Tony Robinson.

Tony:
Welcome to the Real Estate Rookie Podcast, where every week, twice a week, we bring you the inspiration, motivation, and stories you need to hear to kickstart your investing journey. As always, we’re back with an amazing story from an amazing guest. This is actually someone that I know personally outside of the BiggerPockets world. Her name’s Olivia Tati, and I actually met her initially at my event and then she joined one of my coaching programs. She’s just an amazing bubble of energy and optimism, and she’s got a story where she quit her job and just so many good nuggets throughout Olivia’s entire story. But I really enjoyed this conversation today.

Ashley:
She has definitely some bravery in her. She attended Tony’s conference and put her two weeks’ notice in at her stable, reliable, W-2, high-paying job. Olivia’s story goes into talking about her experience with house hacking, short-term rentals, long-term rentals, and medium-term rentals. She also talks about different side hustles that she has done in one of them, which is pretty, pretty passive for her. She is bringing in around 6K a month doing this little side hustle for income, assuming she listened for how she’s doing that.

Tony:
Just overall a really good episode. What I hope you guys get from Olivia’s story more than anything is the bravery, I guess, or the courage to pursue the life that you want. She’s really doing a good job of lifestyle design. She did this podcast near to Zion National Park, and she talked about how she’s about to go to Portugal, and she wants to live in Europe for half of the year. If that’s the life that you want to live, real estate and the businesses around real estate really can give you the freedom and flexibility to live that life. But I feel like so many people get stuck in what’s safe and what society expects of us as people. There’s more to life than just getting up and going to work every day. If there’s anything that you guys take from this episode, I hope it’s that. All right, I want to give a shout-out to someone who left us a five-star review on our podcast. They go by the username name, Born and Raised SF.
This person says, “Better than all the rest, feel like they nailed the format and content really well for rookies just like me, I started listening to current episodes and now I’m going back and listening to ones that pertain to my strategy. It’s all so incredibly helpful and the hosts seem like two of the friendliest, most empathetic people, which I want in a podcast host. They also ask their guests insightful questions, and I appreciate how they ask guests to explain concepts and spell out acronyms for the benefits of the audience. Truly couldn’t recommend more for the real estate investing people that are curious.” That’s probably one of the nicest reviews we’ve got in a while. I like that one.

Ashley:
The only thing I would say different is we’re nosy, we’re not curious. We just want to know how to do something.

Tony:
Yeah. We’re asking those questions for our own self-interest, trying to figure out how we make it happen. But two of the friendliest and most empathetic people, that’s probably one of the nicest compliments we’ve got as hosts of this podcast. For all of our rookies that are listening, if you haven’t yet, please do take a few minutes, leave us an honest rating review on whatever platform it is you’re listening to. Reviews really do help us reach more people and the more folks we can reach, the more folks we can help. That is the entire purpose of the Real Estate Rookie Podcast.

Ashley:
Well, before we bring Olivia onto the show, I want to let you guys know that Tony and I, this evening, are headed to meet up somewhere in the world. You may have seen it on our Instagram stories since this will air at a later date, but listen to some podcast episodes that we record later on because they may just be live and in person so that they’ll be full of shenanigans. That’s cool word. Well, Olivia, welcome to the Real Estate Rookie Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. Why don’t you start off with telling everyone a little bit about yourself and how you got started in real estate?

Olivia:
Yes. Thanks so much. Super excited to be here. I started investing in real estate about a 1.5-year ago. I recently… Well, I say recently now, but it’s been about seven months since November that I quit my job. I heard this once at a conference, but I am a recovering engineer, so not an engineer anymore. Now I fully invest in real estate, I do a lot of social media. Now I have a YouTube channel and trying to grow my social media presence just in general. I got started investing in real estate by buying a duplex in New Orleans, which is technically my primary residence, and started by house hacking.

Ashley:
Before we go any further into the episode, for anyone watching on YouTube, I think you need to tell us where your beautiful background is. It looks like a beautiful sunny day.

Olivia:
It is. It’s gorgeous. I’m in Utah right now at this place called AutoCamp. It’s pretty large-scale, glamping type, upscale glamping. There’s 81 Airstreams on the property, which is pretty insane, but I’m using it as market research because I want to get into boutique hotels and glamping in this next years. I also get to feature on my YouTube channel, so those great work trips.

Tony:
Olivia, you talked a little bit about this, but I think you’ve got some nuances in your story that I feel are worth getting into. For our rookie audience, just like disclaimer, the way that I know Olivia, she’s one of my students in our coaching program, but she’s just got such an amazing journey. I felt that it was beneficial to share what she’s done since I’ve met her with folks in the rookie audience. Olivia, when I met you, you were still working your day job as an engineer, and for so many people in the country, you had already achieved a piece of the American dream. You went to college, you got a technical degree, you had a very healthy salary, you had this position that probably you would’ve been employed for the rest of your life, and you would’ve been able to retire and do all things the right way. What was the impetus for you or the motivation for you to leave this very comfortable lifestyle you had built for yourself?

Olivia:
In February of last year, we had the return to office. I guess there’s a lot of background that goes into it. But basically, when we started the return to office, my soul just died. I had basically spent the last two years during COVID being able to work from home. I got my real estate license as well, so I was already selling real estate on the side and my life just felt enjoyable and I had more control over my time in my life until the second we started going back into the office, I was commuting an hour each way to work, which was not fun. I just started getting so angry and frustrated.
If you know me, I’m not a very angry person. It was funny because one of my best friend and she’s also my business partner, she was like, “I’m going to need you to stop complaining because it’s starting to affect me mentally.” That’s when I was like, “Okay, I need to get out of it. This is not good for my soul.” It’s funny because I ended up going to the short-term rental summit. Tony, your conference. But before that, I was actually selected for a… It’s like top performers retreat type of thing, people who are supposed to be in leadership in the company and are up and coming. I went to that retreat and I was like, “No, this is not where I want to be. This is just not it.” I think it’s having that taste of freedom really just skyrocketed it for me. That’s when all the gears started changing. Then I actually won tickets to Tony’s conference and went to the conference and came out and put in my two weeks’ notice.

Ashley:
Oh, my gosh. Wow. That’s incredible. Let’s start right there. At the conference you decide you putting in your two weeks’ notice, what were the safety nets you had that you could go ahead and make that decision?

Olivia:
Buying my duplex was honestly step number one. I didn’t realize how much of a safety net it really was because especially if… I still don’t really take any money from it, but I was just building up this little nest egg. But the cool thing about my duplex is it covered all of my living expenses. I knew that even if push came to shove… It’s literally me and my dog. That is my family right now. I’m the only people I have to take care of. I knew that if push came to shove, I would be able to survive off of ramen for the next few months and still be totally okay. That was the first step.
My duplex also cash flows too, so I have extra money coming in from that. But then I also have lots of other side gigs, my social media stuff, and I knew I was going to be okay, I just needed the push. Then that’s also when I started our short-term rental business too. I say our because literally, after that conference, I was on the flight home and I text my best friend who we just literally talk every day, do everything together. She’s heard me talk about real estate for years. I’m like, “I think I’m going to start this business. Do you want to join me?” That’s how everything just almost started.

Tony:
Olivia, if we can… I just want to drill down a little bit on this a bit more. At that moment, you said that you were angry, you were upset about the idea of going back into the office. But I mean, it has to be a really strong emotional reaction to say, “This is a big enough of an issue for me to want to leave my job.” I guess just walk us through just not only the logical side of, “I want to leave,” but just mentally, emotionally, what was going on for you to say, “This is enough, I’m going to leave because of this”?

Olivia:
Yeah. I mean, it was really hard because at first… I had already started looking to leave a few months earlier, so I started applying to some tech jobs, but my whole background is in oil and gas. I’ve been a chemical engineer since I first started college that because you were supposed to figure out your major freshman year, and I was like, “Sure, whatever.” Literally, my entire formal background is in chemical engineering and oil and gas, but I didn’t want to be in oil and gas or chemical engineering anymore. I’m like, “It’s fine, I’ll just apply to tech jobs.” But this is also when tech jobs stop hiring. It’s just all of these things started happening. I was like, “I’m not getting a job as quickly as I thought I would be.” Now I just feel stuck. I was just getting really down and depressed. I remember I told my parents I was planning on leaving and that was a whole thing because they were like, “What are you doing with your life?” Et cetera. I really went through this emotional and mental break breakthrough.
It was like an identity change because for the last 10 years, I’ve been an engineer and I’ve been advocating for women in engineering, Black people in engineering, and all of that stuff. Suddenly, I was just letting it go. That was really hard just personally to work through because it felt like I was letting a part of my identity go, but then I just saw how much upside there was to it. I was so much happier when I got to do real estate things and when I was setting up properties and when I was doing all of this stuff. That just pushed me over the edge.
But also, the way I won tickets to Tony’s conference is I don’t even actually remember signing up for this giveaway. Because Tony was doing a social media giveaway, and I was depressed basically on the couch and a little bit inebriated, but I don’t remember actually signing up. But I was in such a bad mental space. Then three days later, I get this notification on Instagram from Tony being like, “Congratulations, Olivia, you have won tickets.” I’m like, “Wait, what?” I remember I was supposed to go offshore during the conference in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, and I was like, “Nope, I am putting in vacation days. I am going to this conference. This is a sign.” So that just spearheaded everything. Then I went offshore the next day when I got back.

Tony:
Asha, I just want to point out, me, you, and Olivia all have that same identity crisis type thing after college. I initially went to school to be an engineer. I was actually working at Chevron. Isn’t that where you work too, Olivia, at Chevron?

Olivia:
Yep.

Tony:
Yeah. I was also working at Chevron as an engineer. Ashley, I know you went the accounting route, and it is difficult because you go to school for all these years and you pour into this identity of who you are and to come to this realization that it’s not who you want to be anymore. It is a difficult pill for a lot of people to swallow. But I think we should all give ourselves some, I don’t know, we should be proud of ourselves for, A, being so young and making that decision. But second, just having the courage to do that because there are people who feel that feeling inside of them for years, decades, for their entire life sometimes, but they’re never able to really pull that trigger and make that change happen.
One of the things that I always thought and fall back on, it’s like, “If I make this decision and say things don’t work out, I always know I can go back out and get another job doing exactly what everyone else is doing.” I would think for you, Olivia, with your degree, with your skillset, say that your business and real estate just completely crashed. It didn’t perform in the way that you wanted it to. You could probably go out and get another job being an engineer and just continue down that same path. Was that at all part of what made you feel comfortable moving forward?

Olivia:
Completely. I actually remember I wrote this down. I think it was at Real Estate Rookie Podcast. But you said this Tony, it’s like, “If the worst case scenario is doing what everyone else is doing,” I think it was something along that lines, “Then you’re doing pretty well, you’re doing pretty okay.” I was like, “Yeah, that’s so true. If that’s my worst-case scenario, that’s not a terrible worst-case scenario.”

Ashley:
Let’s go into your house hack. First, the duplex house hack. Let’s go over how you were able to purchase that and what that deal looked like.

Olivia:
For sure. Yeah. I guess I’ll start with the thing that got me into real estate, in general, was during COVID after the first few months where everyone was overruled the Zoom calls and all of that, I just got bored. I remember I was doing Whole30, so was really healthy and wasn’t drinking and doing the Zoom happy hours or anything like that. I was like, “You know what? I’m going to get my real estate license.” Because at the time I was actually $25,000 in credit card debt because… There’s a whole other story around that.
I was like, “Okay, how am I going to make some money on this side to help pay for this credit card debt?” So I started studying for my real estate license, and I’m a big podcaster, so I started looking up real estate podcasts, fell onto BiggerPockets, a lot of people do, and became obsessed. I made a goal of paying all of my credit card debt off within the next 12 months, and I ended up paying it off in eight months and that’s when I started looking for duplexes. But being in the real estate community, I think is what really helped me find that first duplex because it was a friend of mine…
I told everyone that I was looking for a duplex basically. A friend of mine who was also a realtor, she’d sent this to me, and it was a new construction, and I was actually in Nashville during that time, and she sent it to me. I put an offer in, sight unseen that day. Didn’t end up getting that one because I was doing FHA and someone else beat out, but since it was a new construction, I knew it was a builder and that they usually have other projects coming on. I ended up reaching out to the builder and being like, “Hey, do you have any new projects? I would love to get something under contract before it actually hits the market because I’m going FHA, and I know I’m not super competitive, and it’s 2021, and the real estate market’s insane.” So they did, and I got under contract on it a week after seeing that first one that same day when I went to go see the lot. They were about two months out from finishing out that project.

Ashley:
What a unique strategy of going direct to the builder because, obviously, it’s saving them the time and convenience and maybe even commission to a realtor by not even having to market the property for rent.

Tony:
Olivia, I’m curious, how did you get that builder’s contact info?

Olivia:
I reached out to the selling realtor and she gave me her contact, his contact. Yeah.

Tony:
It’s funny you mentioned that because we’ve used that same strategy to help build our short-term rental portfolio. You’ve seen our tiny homes in Joshua Tree and the majority, all of those came from one builder, and it was the same thing. He had one property listed, we reached out to him and said, “Hey, we’re looking to buy more.” He had a lot more in the pipeline, and we ended up buying the majority of those properties from him. I think going direct to builder is, honestly, one of the most underrated strategies that enough people don’t talk about. Ash, we had one guest, I want to say he was in Texas somewhere, but if you remember, he kept buying-

Ashley:
Austin, I think.

Tony:
Yeah, he was in Austin, right?

Ashley:
He was in Austin, Texas. Yeah.

Tony:
Yeah. Where he would go and buy… He was house-hacking new construction. He’d buy new construction, live in it for a year, sell it, go buy another new construction. He just kept doing the same thing over and over again. It was a great way to build capital.

Ashley:
He was going and he was putting a deposit down almost a year in advance to get into phase one. By the time his house was complete and he would move in, they had already started phase two, phase three, and people were already paying way over what he purchased in phase one that they’re already built in appreciation on those properties. Yeah, that was a super unique strategy that he was doing is going and putting, I think, it was $1,000 deposit, even something really low.

Tony:
Super small.

Olivia:
Well, that’s even for this duplex, I think, I only put $1,000 deposit, which was-

Tony:
That’s insane.

Olivia:
Because usually, you’re putting at least $3,000 to $5,000 at a minimum.

Tony:
I want to go back to the house hacking before we do, Olivia. You also mentioned that you paid off $25,000 in eight months. You glossed over that, but that is an amazing accomplishment, and we’ve recently done some episodes about side hustles and how people can use side hustles to fuel their real estate business. I mean, you didn’t necessarily use the 25K to buy your real estate deal, but you did use it to pay off a lot of debt, which helps you get your real estate deal. Was all of that 25K earned through your real estate commissions as an agent? Or was there other things you were doing?

Olivia:
Yeah. But part of it was I just doubled down. Because I made it… I know Dave Ramsey with real estate investors, yada, yada, yada. But Dave Ramsey’s fantastic for paying off debt and making it a game. I think I used either the snowball method or whatever it was. It’s like each time where I could actually see that balance come because I’d been sitting on that $25,000 worth of credit card debt for about a year. I joined my company the year before that, and I was like, “It’s going to be great.” Because I finished grad school, started my job, and I was like, “Oh, my gosh, I’m going to have a six-figure job, I’m going to be able to pay this off in no time.” Then a year later I was like, “Did that go up?”

Tony:
Yeah.

Olivia:
Yeah, just doubling down and making it a game. Each month I would pay more and more and more off.

Tony:
This episode isn’t necessarily about you being an agent, but I’m just curious, once you got your license, what steps did you take to actually start finding clients as a new agent? Because I think it’s easy for a lot of folks to get their license but to actually start earning commissions is a bit more difficult for people. As a new agent, what steps did you take to find your first few clients?

Olivia:
I mean, social media was always my big thing. Every Wednesday in New Orleans they have open houses, so I would do weekly quizzes on how much houses were in New Orleans and do property tours and stuff all over my social media. I think it was on Thursdays, and I called it Tours with Tati or something, and everyone would comment on it, and all of that. They’d be like, “Oh, I have a friend who’s actually looking for a house.”
They would send them over to me and just talking to a lot… I told all of my friends, even at work, I told everyone at work. I was like, “By the way, I got my real estate license.” I sold to a lot of my coworkers as well that were at my same age or a little bit older than me. I mean, it’s one of those situations where if you just get your license, you’re not going to automatically start making commission. It’s definitely a grind. I knew that I didn’t want to necessarily be a realtor full-time. It was more like a venue to get into real estate and learn more about it, and then also make income and be a part of that community.

Ashley:
What would you say were maybe the top three things that you learned or were large advantages of being a licensed real estate agent to help you towards your investing career? What are three things you could think of off the top of your head that you think of like, “These are the reasons you should get your license, this is what I learned”?

Olivia:
For sure. Spec that out. I don’t think everyone needs to get their license, but I actually really like my… Even though I don’t sell actively right now, I still have my license and still make money off of it from referrals. That’s maybe number one. It’s like even if you don’t sell actively, you can make money through referrals. Literally, I’ll just refer out my friends or people that I know to other agents, and I’ll just make income from that. This last month I made $6,000 just from referrals, which is a pretty solid extra income. The other thing is just being around the people, people who know real estate, people who understand real estate and understanding the transaction process.
I was my own agent for my [inaudible 00:22:58]. Any property that’s in Louisiana and even properties in other states, I know the process. Sometimes, which is something I probably need to be better at is I end up taking the agent role because I know what needs to be done and getting things done and doing. You just know the process super well. Another thing that I would say was great about becoming a real estate agent is it’s a way for people to know you. It’s a way for people to know you as the real estate person. I think people are confused as to how people will reach out to me, and it’s because… Even though I just became a real estate investor over the last 1.5-year, I’ve been plugging myself as the real estate person since I got my license. That was 2.5 years ago. I’ve been the real estate person in my community for a while now.

Tony:
There’s a couple of things I want to talk about, but first, I want to talk about the 6K in referral income. For folks who don’t understand what that means, can you break down exactly how are you generating 6K last month without selling any homes as a real estate agent?

Olivia:
Yeah. Basically, I’ll have friends that will either tell me that they’re looking to buy new property, and it doesn’t even have to be in my market. I think one of them was for this last month was in Colorado, another one was in New Orleans, just all over the place. But especially, if you’re in the real estate investing community, if you’re a realtor, what you can do is refer them to another realtor in a different state in that area that they’re looking to buy and then you negotiate with the realtor referral fee. Usually, for me, it’s 20% to 25% of the other realtor’s commission. If they close with that realtor, then you receive that income just connecting the two, which is honestly… I’m like, “I need to do more of those,” because that was too easy.

Ashley:
Yeah, I saw Tony make a little note, get real estate license when you were talking, when mentioned the 6K.

Tony:
Well, Sarah’s actually been working on her real estate license here in California for that reason because we have so many people that reach out to us asking for agent referrals. Obviously, we send people who we feel is a good match, but if we’re able to monetize that relationship as well, it makes sense for us. But the other thing you mentioned, Olivia, and this is something that Ash and I talk about a lot on the podcast also is you positioned yourself as the person, the real estate person in your circle.
I think so many rookies struggle with that when they’re new because they feel that they don’t necessarily have, I don’t know, maybe value to add, but for everyone that’s listening, I think all of you should be actively talking about this journey that you’re going on. It could be just telling your coworkers like, “Hey, guys, I’m looking at buying my first real estate investment this year.” Or your church group, wherever, just like if you can start communicating and sharing with people that you are now a real estate investor, even if you don’t have your first deal yet, just like you said, people start to think of you in that way and when opportunities come up, they’re going to give that opportunity to you because they’ve associated you with real estate. I think so many people just missed that opportunity, Olivia, so I appreciate you sharing that, that it’s worked well for you.

Olivia:
Yeah, it’s definitely the move.

Tony:
I want to go back to the house hack because we started talking about it and we got sidetracked a little bit. You’re house-hacking this duplex, right? You’re living in one half and you’re renting out the other half. I guess talk to us, Olivia, about what that process has been? Now that you’re a landlord, you’re renting out this other half, are you long-term renting, short-term renting, medium-term renting? What are you doing with this other part of the duplex?

Olivia:
For sure, I do want to touch on one thing. For this duplex too, I came out of pocket cash in the bank, $0, which was dope. There were three different strategies that I use, basically. First one was FHA loan. Low down payment. It was only $399,000, so about a 15K down payment. Then with closing costs and everything, it was supposed to be about $2,500 to close, but because I was a realtor, I could roll my commissions into my closing costs. That reduced my closing costs to about $15,000. Then on top of that I used a 401(k) loan to actually fund it. Basically, I had money sitting in my 401(k) that I was doing fine.
It wasn’t doing great, and I was like, “I know that I can put this to better use.” But I didn’t want to pay the extra 10% penalty on top of it. I was like, “Let me see if I can take a 401(k) loan out.” At least for my 401(k), if you’re buying a primary residence, you can take out a 401(k) loan that’s either half of what’s in your 401(k) or up to $50,000. It was a 3%, 30-year fixed loan, and I still have it, and it’s just chilling, and I pay $100 a month off of it, which is great. Then became a landlord, which… I ran the numbers on it three different ways because it’s in New Orleans and New Orleans… If you look at my YouTube channel, I’ve been posting all about the change in regulations in New Orleans, but it’s in the city.
As we know with short-term rentals, the regulations are constantly changing, especially in cities. I made sure to run it as a long-term rental, medium-term rental, short-term rental with the intention of short-term renting it out, but then if needed, I could convert it into a medium-term rental. I started off fully short-term renting it out. This year, I’ve been playing around with medium-term rentals and short-term rentals, a mix of it since we’re having to reapply for our short-term rental licenses this summer. Also, just in the summer, in general, the numbers are par and par with a short-term rental and a medium-term rental. For the summer in general, in New Orleans now I’m just doing medium-term rentals. It doesn’t even make sense to short-term rent them out.

Ashley:
Olivia, I love that you are going in and looking at what are your different strategies for the property and making sure that it could work multiple ways. Even if you are purchasing a property, and you know like, “I’m doing short-term rental on this,” it doesn’t hurt anything to run the numbers as the property as a long-term rental or a midterm rental just to see, “Okay, worst case scenario I have to transition to another strategy. This is what the numbers would look like for me.” I’ve been doing the same too as I turned one short-term rental into a medium-term rental. Then the other one we go back and forth. When we get interest on the medium-term rental, and we don’t have it available. We’ve been trying to put people into the short-term rental to block off large chunks at a time. It’s been really interesting, and over the summer month, we saw the same thing too where there was so much demand for medium-term rentals than we were seeing as to people booking as short-term rentals.
We had large openings that we were able to fill with medium-term rentals because just there’s been such a lag in people booking trips. Our one short-term rental, it’s a little A-frame property, and our booking lead time on average right now is two weeks before it actually happens. We’ll start the month with maybe the weekends booked, but then all the weekdays fill in within that month as they come up. It’s been super interesting to have that security of the other short-term rentals turning medium-term rentals where for the other two that we turn medium-term rentals, they are completely booked for the whole summer, and it’s like the A-frame property. It’s like, “Okay, holding our breath, making sure we’re getting on them.” We have been getting them it’s just that lead time is just really… That window is really decreasing. Tony, what are you seeing as far as that over the summer?

Tony:
Yeah, it varies by the market. In Joshua Tree, our booking lead times always decreased during the summer months because not as many people are traveling. The inverse is true in the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee where our booking lead times typically increase because we see a spike in travel in the Smoky Mountains during the summer months. But I’d say, in general, post-COVID, or I’d say post-2021, just across the country, you’ve seen booking lead times come down a little bit. We had booking lead times at certain points in 2021, there were 90 days out, and we would be filled. It’s not because we were under price, just the entire market was moving at that pace. But I think what you’ve seen across the entire industry is that late 2022, early 2023, you’re seeing booking lead times just across the industry come down a little bit.

Ashley:
Tony, out of curiosity, have you looked into turning any of your short-term rentals into medium-term rentals? I’m curious as to what that would look like in markets like Joshua Tree and the Smoky Mountains that are so heavy on short-term rentals.

Tony:
We actually tried it with one of our properties that had a really long delay on getting its permit approved. We said, “Okay, if we can’t short-term rent it, we don’t want to keep paying this…” It was a $4,000 mortgage, let’s try medium-term rent it, and we got no interest. We put it on Furnished Finder, we put it on Airbnb, on Vrbo. I think for a lot of the true vacation destinations where there’s not a lot of business travel or maybe family visiting people, or nurses, whatever the case is, the ability to medium-term rent is a lot smaller. But if you’re in a metro like New Orleans or you’re in somewhat of a more suburban or urban setting or even where you’re at, Ash, you’ve got Niagara Falls isn’t too far from where your short-term rentals at. If there’s some other things that might draw people in to stay for a while, I think you have a better shot. But in a pure vacation destination, someone booking 30, 60 days in those markets just isn’t as common.

Olivia:
I will say also for medium-term rentals it’s less… I feel like with short-term rentals, it’s passive in terms of bookings because people just come to you, whereas with medium-term rentals, a lot of the times you’ll be seeking other people out. Furnished Finder, people aren’t usually actually the ones reaching out to you. You a lot of the times have to go. I’ll go in and I’ll send emails out to everyone, I’ll contact them by text and through Furnished Finder to make sure that people know that the property is available. It’s less of a just-listed and people book. You have to go and seek people out a little bit more.

Ashley:
For our medium-term rentals right now, we have two engineers that are in each of them. There’s a lot of gas line construction work that is going on. Then over the summer, we actually have in both short-term rentals, we have family that is coming in for the summer to visit family. Instead of staying with family, they just wanted their own place. That’s the same for both of them. Olivia, I’m curious as far as in New Orleans how you’re getting guests for your midterm rental. Is it traveling nurses, or are you seeing a specific clientele for that market?

Olivia:
Yeah. I get nurses, I get people doing fellowship because we have a lot of universities here too, so either people doing research or fellowship. I have someone who’s doing… He’s a lawyer and he’s doing a law internship. A lot of people come to work here for a couple of months. Then I know other people, especially if you have more of a luxury short-term rental, there’s a big movie industry in New Orleans as well. You’ll get a lot of actors that are coming in or producers or photographers or things like that.

Tony:
All right. Olivia, I just want to recap the numbers on your house hack, and then we can move into some of the other projects you got going on here. But for that other unit, I guess, just give us the full numbers. You said you paid $399,000 for it, so what’s your mortgage on that duplex?

Olivia:
It’s about a little under $2,400.

Tony:
Does that also include the monthly payment to pay back your 401(k) loan?

Olivia:
Yeah.

Tony:
Okay. All in about $2,400?

Olivia:
Yeah. Then with utilities and everything, probably like $2,600.

Tony:
Okay. Then what are you usually making on the other side, on the side of the duplex that you’re renting out?

Olivia:
The summer months are the low months, so during the summer months about $2,400, $2,500, during the high season, which is October to about May, anywhere from $4,000 to $6,500.

Tony:
Wow.

Olivia:
Depending on the month. Because we’ve got Mardi Gras, we’ve got Jazz Fest, we’ve got French Quarter… There are festivals every week. Everyone always asks me, when’s the best time to come to New Orleans. I’m like, “Literally, anytime, except the summer, but even in the summer you can have fun.”

Tony:
You’re literally covering all of your living expenses with the other side of the duplex and then some.

Olivia:
Yeah. Now I am nomading because I don’t have to be in New Orleans for work anymore. I can be wherever I want, so I’m traveling, for example, for the next five months, and I’m midterm renting out my side of my duplex as well for another $2,400.

Ashley:
That’s awesome. That’s super cool. Thank you so much for sharing that with us, Olivia. Are there any other income streams that you have going on? We talked about your rental income, your referral income. Is there anything else that you are currently doing to bring in income?

Olivia:
I have a few. I do social media. That’s through brand partnerships as well as affiliate links, so I’ll get some income from that. I did also get a part-time… When I quit, I quit with no part-time job or anything, but then two weeks later someone reached out because they were looking for a project manager, so I was like, “Sure, I’ll do that a little bit on the side.” I don’t really do much of it anymore. I think I work three hours a week, but it’s some extra income, and they pay super well. It’s just a nice little extra stability. But I think I’m probably going to end that here this summer. Then now we also have a short-term rental business, and we started a design company. How did I forget that? That’s one of the big ones. We started a real estate design company for short-term rentals. We’ll occasionally do personal homes, but generally focused on short-term rentals, and that brings in a good amount of income as well.

Ashley:
That’s a great business. I think that there is so much that goes into the design. I was watching on social media the other day, somebody that… It was a husband and wife team and they were putting together their short-term rental, and I looked at it, and I was just like, it’s really cool things they’re putting in there, but it’s just not that wow factor. It’s like there really is… If you look at some of these places like Tony and Sarah, all these little pieces, and it all just fits together, and it’s like stands out, and it’s like wow. I was thinking what a big difference that makes is.
You can tell when it’s professionally done compared to it’s just one person or husband and wife couple, it’s maybe their first Airbnb and they’re just going and they’re like, “Let’s do a beach theme” or whatever, and it’s just random stuff thrown over and not well put together. One of my friends I saw, they did a short-term rental where they have a karaoke stage and stuff in it, and all these things and it’s just very cool. That’s awesome about your design because I think that definitely adds a lot of value to someone’s listing is when the design is well worth it.

Tony:
Let me ask one follow-up question to you, Olivia. What do you feel are some mistakes? This ties into what you just said, Ashley. What do you feel are some mistakes you’ve seen short-term rental hosts make when it comes to designing their Airbnbs?

Olivia:
Not putting curtains in and sticking to regular blinds, that just kills my soul. Another big one is light fixtures are a very… Not even just light fixtures, but the receptacles, electrical receptacles. Just changing those out makes such a big difference in terms when you walk into a space, if you see an old school gross electrical receptacle, that’s beige versus a clean white one or one that’s painted so that it actually fits in and flushes perfectly with the wall. Those are just small little details that people don’t know to do. Not changing plumbing fixtures. Another thing that I do notice too is trying to cram too many people into a space and not being able to actually fit that many people in that space. That’s something we have to do, especially, when we are working with clients, is sometimes they’ll want to fit in 14 people into a 1,600-square-foot home. It’s just like, “I don’t think that’s true.”

Ashley:
But then there’s only seating for six at the table. That’s the one thing that I’ve noticed before. It’s like, “Oh, it sleeps 14, but there’s only a four-person table to eat at.”

Tony:
The other thing to consider when you’re doing that too is there’s this saying in the Airbnb industry about heads and beds. You make more revenue when you can get more heads and beds, but a lot of cities, counties, ordinances, whatever that have recently passed, they’ve started to limit the number of people that you can even legally put inside of your property. Sure, everyone that’s listening as you’re designing your short-term rental, not only do you want to think about it from a design and comfort perspective for your guests, but also just think legally if you can actually fit more than a certain number of people into a specific listing.

Olivia:
Yeah, totally. That’s just exactly what happened in New Orleans actually. They’ve capped it to six people total in a short-term rental.

Ashley:
Wow. Interesting. Great tip, you guys, for someone to check that out. Okay, Olivia, I am going to take us to our rookie exam. I hope you’re ready. The first question is, what is one actionable thing rookie should do after listening to this episode?

Olivia:
Yeah, I’ve got a few if that’s okay. I’ll try and start with the first one is post on social media. Tell everyone. When people know that you’re in the industry, so many opportunities come your way. I feel like even just me being here right now, so much of it is just because I tell everyone what I’m doing. I think that’s just a super easy way, and I know that everyone is self-conscious and stuff like that. But you just have to get over it. I’m sorry. Just you can start small. You can start just by telling your close friends and then you post one thing on social media a week. Social media is such an easy way to do it because you can reach so many more people than just your close-knit group of friends or the people that you know.

Tony:
Olivia, I think you didn’t say this, but I think the other thing that you do phenomenally well, and what I would hope people take away from this is just getting in the rights… Surrounding yourself with the right group of people. Because you’re in my coaching program, I know you’re also in Heather Blankenship’s coaching program. I see you’re every single real estate conference that happens, you’re always networking and meeting new people and you just do this phenomenal job of building your network and not in a self-serving way, but in a very focused about just trying to provide value to other people as well.

Ashley:
Genuine.

Tony:
Yeah, a very genuine way of connecting with people. You may not even know it, but I really do feel that that’s led to a lot of your success as well.

Olivia:
Thanks.

Tony:
All right, question number two. What’s one tool, software, app, or system that you use in your business?

Olivia:
Okay. For a lot, all of my businesses, Canva is freaking amazing. I love Canva. I’m actually going to do a YouTube video, and I was like… Even for our design business, I design everything in Canva, and it’s such a cheap tool to use for how powerful it is. I even did a crash course on how to use Canva for some folks in another mastermind group. But it’s just such a good, easy tool to use, especially for anyone that’s just getting started. I used it in my real estate agent business, and I used it in my real estate investor business, and my design business, and for social media posts and everything. But then on the real estate side, I recently just started using Turno, which is a cleaning app to manage your cleaners and stuff. I have been obsessed with it. It’s changed my life. I started using it a month ago and it’s been super great.

Ashley:
Tony, is that the same one you use, or is yours a different one?

Tony:
We don’t use Turno. We use a company called Breezeway for ours, but they all function pretty similarly.

Ashley:
Yeah, just to give everyone a couple options. Okay. Olivia, last question. Where do you plan on being in five years?

Olivia:
I am a big traveler. I’ve been to 52 countries, probably hitting 53 at some point this year. I plan on traveling for the next few months. I’m even bringing my dog to Portugal with me, so that will be fun. But in the next five years, my big goal is to be able to spend at least half of the year in Europe. I want to buy a place in Italy. That’s my big goal there. But from a real estate standpoint, I really want to start getting into the boutique hotel side of things just because I’ve recently purchased single-family homes with investors, but I just love my duplex because there are multiple income streams coming from one property. I want to buy more of those type of things and still do the short-term rental things because I love the short-term rental side of things. I love hospitality and I love creating cool, different, fun, unique experiences, but doing it on a larger scale by having one or two or three or four boutique hotels around the country and potentially even going internationally for it. Boutique hotel in Italy, how fun would that be?

Ashley:
Yeah. Well, that’s awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that, Olivia. My kids are going to be jealous that your dog is going to Portugal, and I’m really taking them to Orlando. Well, Olivia, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciated having you come on and share your knowledge with everyone, and congratulations on all your success thus far. Can you let everyone know where they can reach out to you and find out some more information about you?

Olivia:
Yes, I am super active on social media, so Instagram. It’s going to be @theoliviatati, T-H-E Olivia Tati. Instagram’s going to be my main one. You can also follow me or subscribe to my channel on YouTube. I’m growing. But it’s also @Theoliviatati, Olivia Tati – The Wanderlust Host is my name on there. Pretty much post about real estate investing, short-term rentals, and also all of the cool short-term rentals that I go to around the world like this place that I’m at right now is going to be on there. The place that I was just at as well, and just interviewing hosts and their stories and everything about life and travel too.

Ashley:
Well, that’s awesome. Thanks again for coming on. Thank you, guys, so much for joining us. I’m Ashley at Wealth from Rentals, and he is Tony at Tony J. Robinson, and we will be back on Saturday with a rookie reply.