Anyone have experience with the Short Term Shop?

[Joshua Myers]

Does anyone have experience with The Short Term Shop? We're looking to buy our first STR in Destin. We read Avery Carl's book, listened to her BP episodes, did the group consultation with the Short Term Shop and got pre-approved for a loan through the Mortgage Shop. We were sold and ready to start. Then we got connected to the realtor and were ghosted. The voicemail didn't have a message, our calls weren't answered or returned. Eventually we got a text from the realtor saying they'd be calling in an hour. That was 2 days ago.

We're still hoping to work with them, but I wanted to know if anyone has had a similar experience or if this should be a red flag. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Joshua Myers]

Quote from @Lauren Salvani:

@Joshua Myers was this matter ever resolved?  I am looking at working with the Short Term Shop as well and see raving reviews everywhere, but it seems too good to be true.  I'd like to know if you went through with a purchase with them and how it is going.

 @Lauren Salvani after a lot of frustration we ended up going with another realtor with great success. The Short Term Shop set us up with a realtor from their team that was never available, didn't return calls or respond to messages for days, and was dishonest when relaying our criteria and communication back to Luke and Avery.

To be fair, when we posted on BP and interacted with Luke or Avery, they responded immediately with curtesy and the realtor from their team got in contact with us right afterwards. Apparently he was just about to contact us after ghosting us for several days. After that we were unable to get in touch with him again. When we requested a new realtor from the team, Avery set us up with a realtor located several hours away from our target market of Destin, Fl.

We were looking for a 2 bedroom unit within walking distance of the beach for under 500k. When we connected with another real estate team we found on BP that specialized in STRs in the area, we were able to get a great unit with a 3 minute walk to a private beach for 485k. We initially continued with the lender connected to the Short Term Shop. After a month of fiascos the new realtor connected us to a local lender that was able to close in 2 weeks with a lower rate and less than 1/2 the lender fees.

My takeaway is that Luke and Avery are incredibly successful and intelligent, but I wouldn't use them unless you're a big fish and can get the VIP treatment. The team underneath them seemed less than stellar and I would definitely use a different lender. 

I will also note that over dozen people wrote me privately after my initial post advising me to stay away. Some of them were big names or regular contributors on BP. Most said that they didn't want to post anything publicly. Take that with the grain of salt though, because I won't name names publicly or privately.