6 Properties & Financially Free in Just 3 Years ($20K/Year from ONE Rental)

Ashley:
This is Real Estate Rookie episode 426 is Financial Freedom Possible for Rookie Investors. My name is Ashley Care and I’m here with Tony j Robinson.

Tony :
And welcome to the Real Estate Rookie podcast where every week, three times a week, we bring you the inspiration, motivation, and stories you need to hear to kickstart your investing journey. Now today’s guest, Jason Ebert, is an investor out of Colorado Springs. And after feeling stuck in the Army, he realized that he wanted to take control and just really change the trajectory of his own life by investing in real estate. And today we’re going to hear how he transitioned to a full-time real estate investor and how after three years of leaving the military, he reached his goal, financial Freedom with Real Estate Investing. Jason, welcome to the show.

Jayson :
Hey guys. Yeah, honored to be on the show. Definitely looking forward to the discussion.

Ashley:
So Jason, can you kind of paint the picture for us? What did life look like for you before you even knew what real estate investing was?

Jayson :
Yeah, yeah, good question. I would say to preface, I had a lack of passion or drive growing up, it seemed like everybody else knew what they wanted to do. They had a vision or some special skill or something like that, and I just kind of felt left out, could not find the thing that felt right for me. So I went to college essentially because I felt like I should, which I think a lot of people can relate to. I chose a couple different majors, went back and forth, didn’t really love any of them and since I didn’t have much direction, I decided to join Army ROTC, mostly due to my sister-in-Law, Annika who did it before me at the same school and I went and saw her graduation and such. So I did that for the four years, graduated from college, became a lieutenant in the army, got in the army, did that for six years, moved around a few places, South Carolina, Washington, upstate New York. So a couple spots there and still I was at the point where I’m like, I don’t know if I want to do this forever. In fact, I kind of knew I didn’t want to do this forever.
And don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely proud of my service and I’m definitely glad I did it. I learned a ton from it for sure. Met a ton of great people, but I just knew I didn’t want to do it forever. I saw the people above me, the officers above me who some of them had marriage issues, some of them just didn’t see their kids very much and they’re just striving for that good evaluation for the next 25 years of their life. And I didn’t really want to take that path, honestly.

Ashley:
Well Jason, first of all, thank you very much for your service. But what was that point in your life where you decided like, okay, I’m going to dive into real estate investing. You kind of knew that the army wasn’t what you want to do forever, but was there some kind of pivotal moment where it’s like, wow, real estate investing is the path for me?

Jayson :
That first duty station in Washington, it’s right next to Tacoma if you guys are familiar with it. I was living in a pretty expensive apartment by myself. I was single at the time and it was maybe 14 or $1,500 a month, which in 2020 is a pretty good amount of money, especially for a single person. And the thing is, that’s what all the lieutenants did. They’re stupid with their money and they party a lot. So I kind of got into that realm. But I also want to say, so my parents raised us for kids to learn and respect money in a really cool way that I’m really happy I had that opportunity. So I realized because of that I was spending too much money on that apartment. So I’m like, Jason, to be a little smarter here, let’s try to save some money. So naturally I moved in with two of my buddies.
We rented this big house. We were each saving, we each were getting about 1700 a month for a housing allowance from the army and we were paying about six or 700 for rent. So it was a huge win and we were excited about that and it was a great time. A few weeks, maybe a month in, I was sitting in that house looking around, I’m like, I love this place for seven money. And it just hit me that the landlord, the wonderful lady that owned it is the one who’s really doing well in this scenario. And I do want to say though, that it was a win-win though because she was doing well and we were also saving a lot more than other people were. But I was interested in what she was doing and I wanted to take the next step to get to something like that.
So I took that realized I think real estate is what I’m interested in. A few days later I left for a one month training event in California. I did have two books with me. I bought them right after I had that thought and I read them while I was there. It was still on my mind during that whole month and on the painfully long 20 hour bus ride home from Southern California to Washington State, I had the books read and I’m like, alright, I’m going to make a plan. I got plenty of time. There’s no excuse to not make a plan right now. Let’s do it. So I had a plan to buy small multifamily to help me exit the military smoothly. And on Zillow, on your phone, if you scroll to the bottom, it says there’s a little thing you can click. Well, I clicked it and before you know it, some agent was calling me and it’s ringing and I’m looking at it and I’m like, am I going to do this? I knew that was the transition from education and thinking about doing this to actually doing it. And I picked it up. We had a good conversation. She ended up being my agent and I bought my first property with her.

Tony :
Well Jason, congratulations man, on going from epiphany to education to taking action in a relatively short period of time. I dunno if you mentioned this Jason, but what were those two books you took on that road trip with you?

Jayson :
Yeah, rich Dad, poor Dad, which is funny that everyone reads that, but there’s got to be some common thing there to that which, and the thing for me was the cashflow quadrant, learning what a business owner is versus owning assets versus just trading your time for money. And the other one was Brandon Turner’s. I think it was just how to invest in real estate. I remember it had all the types of investing and I just liked the multifamily one the most and I thought it would work best for me.

Ashley:
Jason, we’re going to take a short break, but when we come back I want to talk about some of the unexpected hurdles that you encountered. But first let’s get to a word from our show sponsor. Thank you guys so much for taking the time to check out our show sponsors. We really appreciate it. They make the show happen just like you guys. So Jason, real quick, can you give us an overview of what your portfolio looks like today? You mentioned in that book you said multifamily. What intrigued you? What does your portfolio look like today? Did you stick with multifamily?

Jayson :
I did. I would say for the most part I did. So it’s six properties total spread between Washington, Minnesota, and Colorado, which is an interesting scenario in itself. They’re all duplexes, triplexes. And then one short-term rental, which is actually in this house here that we’re house hacking in Colorado Springs.

Tony :
Just one follow up question, Jason, I think it’s interesting. So you were stationed in Colorado so it makes sense why you invested there, but the other two markets, how and why did you feel that those are the right markets for you? Because I think a lot of new investors who are listening, maybe living in inexpensive market like Denver or California or wherever, and they would like to go somewhere like a Minnesota. So how did you land on those markets and how did you know they’re the right markets for

Jayson :
You? I ended up here after I got out of the army in New York, but I would say when I was in Washington, I just wanted to get started. I knew that the market was okay with the knowledge I had at that point, and my main goal was just to get into the game and to offset as much of my living costs as I could, which if the 2020 timeframe rates were really low, real estate was kind of going crazy. Everyone was asking well above and we just happened to get a solid duplex deal that had some value add potential and it ended up working out for the Minnesota place. My brother Justin lives there, so he wanted to get into real estate, so we bought it together as partners. He manages it himself there. So I pay him eight or 10% for that. Yeah, and that’s going well as well. And then here in Colorado, it just made sense. I just got married about a year ago coming this June.

Ashley:
Congratulations.

Jayson :
Thank you. And yeah, we knew we wanted to buy a house. We knew the market was strong here. There’s a ton of military here and it’s a popular place and a lot of tourism. So I was never massively focused on what is the best possible market I could invest in. I just wanted to start and get going. And I knew that was more important than getting the perfect deal with the perfect terms and the perfect market. I knew that probably would never happen.

Ashley:
So Jason, let’s go back to the beginning of that first deal. Why was it important to you? What are some of the things that you realized was this is what I need to do to be able to make this my full-time job when you bought that first property?

Jayson :
So that first deal was critical because like I said, the goal was to offset my living as much as I could. And to put in perspective, my mortgage was about 2000, unit B was covering 1300 and I took it a step further and I had a friend move in with me in unit A, so he was paying 700, so that’s about 2000 running that. So I was essentially living for free, which was a huge win and I just loved that and it catapulted my investing massively. So I

Tony :
Just want to make a quick comment, brother before you move on, because what you touched on, I think it’s a strategy that is known house hacking, but you kind of took it to the next level, which is something that people don’t realize they can even do. And I always go back to our friend Craig Op, who wrote the BiggerPockets book on house hacking, but if I recall correctly, now check me if I’m wrong here, but he said his first house hack, he a five bedroom house as a single guy and he rented out all the five bedrooms, and I’m pretty sure he said he was sleeping on the couch, right? Ash,

Ashley:
He did. He slept on the couch, yeah, he didn’t even have a bedroom.

Tony :
He didn’t even have a bedroom in his own house. But he was more than covering all of the expenses for that property. And what you did, Jason, you said, Hey, I’m going to rent out the other unit, but I’m also going to bring someone in to rent out a room inside of the unit that I’m living in. So even if maybe unit B didn’t cover all the costs, you asked that second person in unit A with you, now you’re living for nothing, which is the biggest expense for most people. So I wanted to highlight that, Jason, because you said a real nonchalant brother, but that’s a big deal and a big sacrifice and it worked out well for you.

Jayson :
And that’s a good point. It is a sacrifice. I could have just stayed there by myself and had my own place to myself, but I wanted to take it that step further. And the funny thing is it’s actually three bedrooms per side. I was very close to getting another roommate. It was one bathroom and I was weighing the quality of life and I was like, okay, I’m good.

Ashley:
Okay. So Jason, tell us about the transition from actually that first property to going full-time. When were you able to become a full-time real estate investor?

Jayson :
I was kind of touching on it. I just didn’t really finish the story. That first one I said I was saving a ton of money like six months or eight months down the road. I realized I had enough money to put 20% down on another duplex. It was I think $220,000. So not very expensive, but still 20% is a lot. So I bought that one. Then with the cashflow from the first one after I moved out, I was, gosh, cashflowing a couple hundred and it was just catapulting and the snowball effect was happening where I was getting cashflow at the same time of my cost of living being low. And I was still single at the time, so my expenses were low. I bought my car cash. So it was all working for me to be able to continue investing. And I mean it for sure helped that I had an income because if I didn’t have an income, there’s no way I could have bought any of that, which I think a lot of people forget to talk about. If you don’t have any money, it’s a lot harder to buy anything in life.

Ashley:
So after you’ve decided to go full time, how did your life change after that and what do you do every day now as a full-time investor? Give us a glimpse into maybe there’s somebody else listening right now who wants that as a full-time investor. What is life like for you now?

Jayson :
The switch was pretty huge. If you think about it, I moved, so I went from New York to Colorado. I got married that same year. We bought a house that same year. I switched careers. I was studying to my broker’s license here in Colorado. So it was a huge change. But going from the structure and getting paid twice a month with the army to the purely entrepreneurial side of real estate was, it was scary, I will admit. But it was also really rewarding because I woke up excited to figure out what I’m going to do, how am I going to make opportunities with certain deals? I’ve got clients too, so it’s fun helping them through my experience as well. So yeah, I really like being able to create my day, create my own schedule. We can, for the most part, travel when we want and we’re not living the most lavish lifestyle ever, but we have enough from the real estate where we feel good about that, covering basically all the expenses we have. And that’s just one of the best feelings ever. Honestly.

Tony :
Jason, I just want to go back to that moment though. When you went to college, went to the military, climbed the ladder there, you were doing all the things that the American dream says you were supposed to do, at what point did you realize or what happened for you to realize I actually can leave my job? And what was that decision making process like for you?

Jayson :
It changed over the years, but I had a cash flow goal. I wanted, I think it was $5,000 a month in cashflow to be able to smoothly and financially exit the military where I don’t have to jump right back into some corporate job because I’m scared and I don’t have enough money, which I think listeners can probably need to hear that you shouldn’t just quit your job today because you don’t want to do it anymore. You need to have a plan. You need to know how much you need in assets or cashflow or whatever type of investing it is. If you do that, you’re probably shooting yourself in the foot. You just have to have a good solid plan and know at this point, this is when I feel ready to be able to make the transition.

Ashley:
What have been some of the biggest lessons that you have learned throughout this time period? It couldn’t have been all roses going through this path and kind of looking back at it, what are the things that you learned that might’ve actually been mistakes and made along the way?

Jayson :
I’d say it’s less of a mistake, more of just a realistic life of being in real estate. And I’ll be pretty vulnerable here. This was about two years ago at that exact transition point I was telling you about with all those changes, moving marriage, paying for a new house, getting into a new career where I had no leads and I had no commissions, no more army income. On top of that, I had two vacancies, which I’ve never had with 12 units. That’s statistically a little high. So one of them was just a traditional vacancy, someone moving out and we’re renovating, fixing it up. But the second one was, first of all, it was my highest rent, so I got the most amount of money from this unit. They were there, but they were not paying. So not only was I not getting the income from that unit, I was beginning to pay a lawyer to start the potential eviction proceedings.
So this was just the perfect storm of bad luck and I’m a planner and I was like, I really kind of beat myself up over it because I thought I could prevent something like that and I learned that I couldn’t. So we got the budget back out, we started spending a little less, got a little smarter with what we’re doing with our money and the trips we take or just the extra things. And I focused on those two units, getting those figured out while we did the budget thing. And eventually that storm passed and we’re good. Now they’re all occupied. My personal real estate business is going well, the investing is going well, and we actually, Washington’s weird, we got a check for $9,000 in back due rent for that eviction scenario. So they ended up staying and the city ended up paying for all their back due rent.

Tony :
I got a big question there Jason, because I’ve never heard that before. So you’re saying that the city that the property is located in will reimburse a landlord for a non-paying tenant? I

Jayson :
Looked into what this program is about and if the title is something about avoiding homelessness, because if you think about it, the city is making the connection of tenant living here, tenant eviction, higher chance of someone being homeless in the city. So the thought from the, I don’t remember if it was the county or the state or the city or some association, but yeah, they paid us that rent in order for us to not evict this person. So they were officially no longer behind on rent. And the nice thing is that they did have good intentions, the tenant did. They’re still in that unit, they have paid on time and everything, so it’s worked out. But that was pretty surprising to me, but I definitely was happy we did it.

Ashley:
Actually they have that program in New York too in some of the counties and I’ve had that where somebody is going through an eviction and they file an application to get this money from the county to pay their rent. And once they file it, you cannot evict them. You have to wait for them to be approved or denied. And that can take some period of time where they’re still racking up money that’s owed to them. And then you have to agree that if they do accept this, you won’t evict them within a certain amount of time. And the program has changed right after Covid and during Covid, they just got that money for free. And I had somebody that lived in the apartment for two years that continuously adjusted this program. They would wait six months, they’d be six months behind, but we couldn’t evict them because of the program, put a halt on an eviction from them, then they would just go and reapply again and stop another eviction. So the county paid their rent for about two years and then finally they ran that program dry, they couldn’t get anymore. And then that’s where we had to actually go through and evict them. But now how they do it is actually the tenant actually has to pay the county back. They get put on a payment plan. So now it’s not just free money, but you’re paying the county back for the money that you received to stop the eviction too, which I think is a way better plan for the county to do it that way.

Jayson :
Yeah, while I liked that I got that money, I did not say that I support that program because

Ashley:
In a way it was enabling. Yeah.

Jayson :
And people will can and will abuse something like that, which is unfortunate.

Tony :
Well maybe just ballpark it for us, Jason, but how much money were we actually losing on a monthly basis before you got the reimbursement? What was it costing you to hold that property

Jayson :
If you add in that one? So the rent was 1900 a month and then the other vacancy just happened to be at the same time. That was around a thousand. So I was somewhere around 3000 a month of income that I did have that I no longer have anymore. So it was pretty painful, but like I said, it’s nothing that was going to ruin the portfolio. I didn’t have to sell anything off. We just had to take a step by step and weather through the storm.

Ashley:
What would you say were some of the reasons that you were able to weather the storm? Was it having reserves? Was it maybe budgeting your own personal finances so you weren’t spending as much those certain months? Give us an idea of if this happens to you, these are some of the things you should do or have in place to be proactive.

Jayson :
And I touched on that a little before, but definitely looking into now that I’m married, our finances, is there a way we can make a little more money or focus on other types of income at the same time, spending less on things that we don’t necessarily need. So those two together are pretty powerful. And then yeah, reserves. So having, I think we had five to close to 10,000 in an account just for real estate things, and that’s a turnover that we need to spend money on or an issue we’re having. Or this just happened a couple of weeks ago, a fridge, a washer and a stove top all in one unit had to get replaced at the same time. So that’s where having reserves is definitely nice. Then it doesn’t feel like you’re going in a negative to do those things. Plus as investors, we know that we’re going to have to pay for those things anyway.

Ashley:
Once you make that mental shift and have a healthy relationship with the money that that’s what the money is for, it becomes a lot less painful.

Tony :
And I think you touched on something important too, Jason. It’s like it’s good to have reserves for your properties, but it’s also good to have your life reserves when you’re thinking about making this transition to going full-time in real estate. And what allowed me to go full-time when I lost my job at the end of 2020 was that we not only did we have money set aside for the properties, but we also had just our own personal rainy day fund that was big enough to sustain us while we were continuing to build this business. So for all of my folks who are out there wanting to take that leap, I think Jason’s advice earlier of like, Hey, getting to your cashflow number yes, but then also making sure you’ve got a decent rainy day fund to hold you over personally in case things happen with the property. Now, something you said, Jason, you said, Hey, the fridge and some other appliance and a bunch of other things broke at the same time. That’s probably the management nightmare for a new Ricky investor. So how did you manage the, I guess how did you take care of the management for your portfolio?

Jayson :
It goes back to why I got started in the first place, which was I wanted a smooth exit of the military and I wanted passive income that was as most passive as it could be because it’s definitely not fully passive as I think most people understand because there’s issues and you have to deal with things. So since that was my why and how I wanted to do everything, I wanted people to manage all those deals. And if you think about it, if I have real estate in three different states at this point, and most of them are not in the state that I live in, I like how it is. I have to treat it like a business essentially. I don’t have even a choice to get a phone call and go over and fix a toilet. I mean, I could hop on the plane over to Seattle if I wanted to do that.
But yeah, it’s made me create the systems to manage the managers to have a portfolio that’s as passive as I can. And the Washington properties, I have a property manager for the one in Minnesota. My brother manages as I told you, and then the Airbnb here I do myself because it’s just like the first deal I had, I managed that first deal. It was me, a wall and then her unit. So I figured I’d just manage it right there and I learned a lot from it. So I’m kind of doing the same thing with this place. It’s a short-term rental in our basement, and I also know how much it would cost to have somebody manage a short-term rental. I know it can be upwards of 20, 25%. So it just made sense for us on this deal, and it made the numbers work and it helped us offset our mortgage pretty significantly.

Tony :
I think there’s a big benefit to focusing on building the right processes for your business because it does allow you to predictably respond to certain things as they pop up and you don’t have to try and reinvent the wheel every single time. And I think a lot of new real estate investors forget that they are building an actual business, that it’s not just I’m a landlord, but there’s a business behind all of this. And I think Ash and I both can attest to the power of standard operating procedures and plugging those things into your business and reviewing those and updating those because it does make the management a lot easier. I love that you’re talking about running this like a business, Jason, and I want to get into specifically how you’re doing that with the house hack that you just mentioned because I feel like there’s a lot to learn there. But first we’re going to take a quick break to hear a word from today’s show sponsors. Alright, so we’re back at Jason and I want to talk a little bit more about this house hack that you have going on. I guess what have you learned because you did the traditional house hack where you rented out and at this most recent house hack you’ve transitioned over to the short term. What are some of the lessons you’ve learned from doing it as a house hack slash short-term rental?

Jayson :
To put in perspective, first, like I said, we got married, we wanted a house that was nice in a nice neighborhood, but I couldn’t just buy a normal house, had to have some sort of income potential. So me and my wife, we sat down and discussed what that would look like and we determined it would be some sort of house with cottage or a DU or Mother-in-Law Suite. So that is what we found and it has been a lot different. I, as you know with my portfolio come from long-term rentals and this most recent one is a short-term rental. And the biggest lesson is that you are in the hospitality business now. And my wife even laughs because some of the messages I say when I message these guests, she’s like, would you actually say that in real life? I’m like, Hey, I’m just trying to be kind.
I got to get this good five star review. So it’s a lot more and it also takes a lot more time the messaging back and forth and you have to make getting onto the property and into it foolproof as possible. You have to have everything that somebody would need in the property to live and then more and amenities because you need to be able to be competitive, especially in a market like Colorado where there’s a lot of tourism, there’s also a lot of short-term rentals everywhere. So I’ve learned over the last two years, besides all those issues, I try to make the Airbnb 1% better every month, which is okay. How do you gauge that? Well, the answer is I don’t really, but I try to do something to make it slightly better. Maybe have a little dog like a pet bowl thing to have for the guests because a lot of people bring pets or a grill or we just made this little sign with our favorite places to visit and our favorite restaurants here. And it’s like, is that really critical to the short-term rental business? Probably not, but I have learned that it’s really competitive and you need to try to get that edge on some of the other rentals around you to be able to make a good profit on it.

Ashley:
Jason, let me ask you about the fact that this is in your home and you’re right next door. Do you make it known to your guests that you are right there and available, or do they think you’re just another tenant and the property? What do you think is the best way about going through that? If you’re going to short-term rental part of your house, you are on the property, is it better to make it known I’m right next door if you need anything? Or is it better just to say, just so you know, there’s somebody else that lives on the property and not disclose that? It’s actually,

Jayson :
I learned that you need to be so clear with everything, even the smallest things like a photo. If in one of your photos you have a blanket in the corner, you better have a blanket in the corner when they show up. But yeah, what we do is we make it very clear in the first line of the description, Hey, this is a one bedroom, one bath below a main house with a separate entrance and the only shared space is the backyard. So it’s really hard to read that and not understand what you’re getting into. But we still have one photo of the whole house just to show people what the front of the house looks like. Some people will just book it and think, oh, I’m getting this whole house. And I’m like, no, you’re not getting this whole house for $90 a night.

Tony :
I got a funny story to share about that exact thing. We have two houses, they’re called our seventies house and our nineties house, and they’re on the same lot, but they’re two separate listings. We made that super clear in the listing description on Airbnb as well. We had a guest who booked the seventies house and somehow, I don’t know if the cleaners out the door unlocked, I can’t remember what happened, but they ended up getting access to the other property next door as well. And the guests who actually booked that property, they show up a few hours later, they’re like, Hey, we think someone’s here already. So we ended up calling the guests who was at the other property, we saw the cameras and we saw them walk from their property through the shared yard over to the other property and drop their self off. I’m like, Hey, what is going on here? And they’re like, oh, we thought we booked both properties because X, y, and the same thing. We’re like, you spend a hundred bucks a night, there’s nowhere you’re going to get two properties on two acres for 90 bucks. So I just echoing what you said, you’ve got to be super clear and descriptive in the listing about what people are actually getting.

Jayson :
And then I could go on a tangent about physically getting into the property because if, here’s an example. So our code, it’s not this code anymore, so you can’t get into my house. It was 1 2, 0 3 and it’s one of those pin pads where the first button is one, two, and three. They thought it was 12 0 3 because they were on the, so they clicked this one once because they thought it was 12 and it’s one two. So I’m like, that’s never going to happen because I’m going to make the code where you don’t click the same button twice ever.

Tony :
Yeah, there’s a lot of little things like that and we could exchange horror stories all day, but this is for all of our rookies that are listening. What I found best is the giving your guests the clearest instructions works well in a written form, but it works even better if you can do it in video form. So for us, we give all of our guests a guidebook, like a house manual. And in that house manual, there’s a video of me standing at the front door showing them how to enter in the code for the keyless entry pad. There’s a code of me standing at the control panel for the hot tub showing ’em how to increase the heat or decrease the heat. So we try and make sure we give them all of that information in a video format because it’s way easier to digest and make sure they understand it correctly.

Jayson :
And it’s almost as foolproof as you can get, which you kind of need to do, especially if you have more, I can’t imagine having multiple short-term rentals that you manage.

Tony :
Keyword is almost, keyword is almost, well, every once in a while we get some people to slip through the cracks and still can’t figure it out. But yeah, most of the time I’d say it does work.

Ashley:
So Jason, tell us the numbers on this property. What did you purchase it for? What’s your mortgage? What are your expenses each month? And then what kind of income does a short-term rental generate?

Jayson :
Yeah, so we bought this, it’s 2,700 square feet. It’s a pretty big house, five bedroom, four bath. We bought this at the end of 2021, so rates were still high sixes, which is part of the reason why we needed to offset some of the mortgage costs. We bought it for 500,000 on the dot. Like I said, it’s a pretty big house and with, let’s see, we put 5% down, we’ve got a mortgage.

Ashley:
Did you use a VA loan or was this a conventional loan that you used then that you put 6% down?

Jayson :
This was conventional. Yep. So all the costs added up except for utilities, it’s about 3,500 a month, which is a lot of money. And I think most people will agree with that. And that was a little scary at first. But I did the research and I made the determination that we should make 14 to 1500 a month on the short-term rental, depending on seasonality. So last year, 2023, we made just under 20,000 gross from the short-term rental. And that’s awesome because it’s 600 square feet maybe out of a 2,700 square foot house. So it’s what, a quarter, a fifth of the whole house. But a 20,000 for the year equates to about 1700 a month. 1700 a month happens to be about 50% of the mortgage of 3,500. So the small portion of the Airbnb is covering more than half of the total mortgage, which is a huge win for us.

Ashley:
I have a question. What would it be if you rented it out as a long-term rental? What would be the monthly rent you could get for it?

Jayson :
Yeah, I’ve done some research on that. I think we would get 1300 to 1400 and this year, 2024, we’re going to do even better than last year. We’ve got the better reviews. I’ve been making things 1% better every month. So it for sure makes more sense financially. And there are a lot of people who are looking for just a small space by themself or a spouse, maybe a pet, and something that’s not going to break the bank because you think about a hotel, it’s really hard to get a hotel for less than a hundred dollars a night, and we sit around 80 to 110 a night, we use a pricing software. So that helps out a lot with the seasonality and all

Ashley:
That. Yeah, I like the option of doing a short-term rental for a house hack because you also have the option of not renting it out saying you have family coming into town, you can block up those days and have them stay in there or you have something going on. So I think that’s the really nice thing about doing it as short-term rental lifestyle wise, is that you’re not stuck with the same person living with you in case you don’t end up liking them. It’s a short term thing. And then we got it a couple days with the next people with Covid.

Jayson :
Yeah, we did that for our wedding. We had our wedding here up in the mountains, and we had some family stay down there. We blocked it off and they were like, oh, this is so cool. And it felt really nice to be able to host well, and they had their own space. So I definitely agree with you on that.

Tony :
Well, Jason, sounds like you absolutely crushed it on the numbers, and I’m excited to see how you do going into this next year of running this Airbnb as well. But just one last thing I want to circle back to you, because you mentioned this when we first started talking about this property was you realized that you were getting into the hospitality industry and it’s a different level of customer service. And I realized that early on as well. And there’s a book that I read, I was pulling up in my audible here as you were talking, but there was a book that I read that has nothing to do with real estate, but it’s all about customer service and it’s called Be Our Guest, perfecting the Art of Customer Service. And it was actually written by folks who work at the Disney Institute. And for those who haven’t heard, the Disney Institute is like Disney’s educational arm where they train other businesses on the art of customer service.
So be our guest. It was honestly one of the best books that I’ve read in the last year, and again, has nothing to do with real estate, but was just a really interesting read on all the things Disney does to create magic for their guests. So for you, Jason, for anyone that’s listening, if you’re looking for a good book on hospitality, I would recommend that one. There’s actually one other one that I read as well, and it was Unreasonable Hospitality, unreasonable Hospitality, and that book was written by a restaurant guy. He owns a bunch of super expensive restaurants in New York. With those two books be Our Guests in Unreasonable Hospitality to really good reasons trying to provide good service to your guests.

Ashley:
Well, Jason, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciated you taking the time to come on the show and to share your experience and the knowledge that you have learned along the way. If you’d like to learn more about Jason, we’ll link his information on the show notes and you can find [email protected]. Thank you guys so much for watching and listening. If you’re watching on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform, please make sure to leave us an honest rating and review and to subscribe. If you’re watching on YouTube, don’t forget to join the Real Estate Rookie Facebook group. If you enjoyed today’s show, please hit the follow button at the top of your podcast player as it supports us in making these shows possible. I’m Ashley. And he’s Tony. And we’ll see you guys next time.

Tony :
This BiggerPockets podcast is produced by Daniel ti, edited by Exodus Media Copywriting by Calico Content.

Ashley:
I’m Ashley. He’s Tony, and you have been listening to Real Estate Rookie.

Tony :
And if you want to be a guest on a BiggerPockets show, apply at biggerpockets.com/guest.