Isaac French built Live Oak Lake for $2.3M, sold for $7M

Quick Summary

Isaac found the five acres on Zillow one morning, five minutes down the road from where he grew up. What he put on it was the clean Scandinavian design he'd picked up in the Pacific Northwest and rarely saw in Texas.

He went about $600,000 over his own budget on that design, then a $900 giveaway with a Dallas travel account brought $40,000 of direct bookings in a week. Year one netted over $500,000, averaging 94% occupancy. If you're pricing a build instead of buying a house, start with what the market supports on rate and occupancy in BNBCalc Markets.

Key Points

• He found the five acres on Zillow one morning, five minutes down the road from where he grew up, and had an offer accepted that day. Seven Scandinavian cabins and a container pool went up in nine and a half months, opening in January 2022 at $2.3 million all in, about $600,000 over his own budget.
• His dad and brothers took 40% equity to co-guarantee the construction note, against roughly $50,000 of combined personal savings and a line of credit for the rest. He went to three banks before one agreed to an 80% LTV loan, though his friend Ben Wolff, who built Onera in Fredericksburg, had been told no by at least 20.
• Two weeks after opening, Airbnb suspended the account with no warning, which is when he paid $900 to a Dallas travel account to run a giveaway. It brought about 5,000 followers and $40,000 of direct bookings inside a week, and the brand's following passed 100,000 within the year.
• Year one grossed over $1 million and netted over $500,000, averaging 94% occupancy across all seven units, with about 80% of bookings coming direct. Their dynamic pricing ran from a $275 floor up to over $2,000 on certain nights.
• Four months after opening, the same appraiser who had valued the project at $1.5 million, maybe 1.6, came back with four months of NOI to look at and put it at $3.3 million. The refinance paid off the construction loan and the line of credit, returned every dollar invested, and left $400,000 on top.
• The first contract, at $6.5 million, fell apart the day before closing when the buyer's hard money lender fell through, and only $15,000 of their $30,000 earnest money was hard. The next group signed at $7 million with $200,000 hard, asked for three extensions, and closed in the final hour of the last day he gave them. Isaac frames that as $1 million per key on units of roughly 500 square feet.
• At the sale, seven units were producing about $80,000 of net income each on two part-time staff, a subcontracted cleaning crew and software, with the general manager putting in roughly 10 hours a week. Isaac says the cost segregation study produced almost $1 million of bonus depreciation, that he was the only partner materially participating, and that selling forced him to recapture part of it.

Full Transcript

Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.

Jeremy: We are live with the Short-Term Rental Pros Podcast, and today's episode has been one that I've honestly probably been most excited for. I've been following Isaac's story for years and just very, very intrigued on Live Oak Lake.

Isaac and I were talking before on exactly what to call his short-term rental hotel resort type situation, but I'm going to let him explain it to you guys because it is extremely unique. And he's a pioneer in the space. So today's episode is going to be super fun. Isaac, thank you so much for joining us.

Isaac: Jeremy, thanks for having me.

Jeremy: So give us your background. I know it because I've seen your YouTube videos. But what did you do before short-term rentals? Why did you get into short-term rentals? And where are you today and how did you get there?

Isaac: So I am 27. I think you're 27 too. Is that right?

Jeremy: Yes, sir.

Isaac: I grew up in a family with nine siblings. I was homeschooled. Very industrious family. Grew up on a farm in a Christian agrarian community. No TV in our house. Really, really amazing lifestyle.

Jeremy: You're not Amish, are you?

Isaac: No. It was similar to like Mennonite or Amish, but not Amish. We have cars and use technology, but primarily just for business purposes.

Anyway, that afforded me a lot of opportunities because my dad had a construction company. My grandparents were in the community, my parents. So multiple generations, and was homeschooled by my parents, which was amazing because it allowed me to explore a lot of different interests that I had. And that really just fostered this curiosity and entrepreneurial spirit inside of me.

So I started businesses from the time I was six years old on, and got into accounting bookkeeping when I was in high school, which gave me a strong business foundation. But I've also always been an artist. So my grandmother gave me art lessons when I was very, very young, and wanted to be an architect, actually study design. Always been a left and right brain kind of person.

So I ended up working in construction for my dad's general contracting company, starting at age 15 during summers in high school, and became a project manager when I was 19, running multimillion dollar projects. Again, another opportunity I would not have normally had. Learned the whole trade, started from the ground up as a general labor, learned the whole trade, got involved with a couple of real estate projects that my dad had going. We bought a fourplex, renovated that, increased all the rents, just made it more efficient.

Then my dad did a couple of Airbnb projects himself. We took an old train car. This was actually filmed on a TV show called Restoration Road. It's a Magnolia show. Took an old like hundred plus year old train car, totally gutted it, refurbished it. This is up in Idaho, and brought it back to its original glory. That was a really, really fun project and very successful, too. It's been booked out pretty much nonstop since we took it online.

Jeremy: I haven't seen that one. We're going to have to share the listing, because I have not.

Isaac: Yeah, you got to check it out. It's called the W.I.N.M. 306. Washington, Idaho and Montana was the name of the railway. So they found this old car literally infested with cats and just rotting to the ground, and we brought it back to life. It's pretty cool. He ended up doing another train, like a train depot, a caboose as well, like an old 1800s Dutch barn, hand hewn, took it down, restored it, a farmhouse, like this whole little village almost up there.

So I should back up. I grew up in Texas, but my family moved up to Idaho in 2009, so lived in Idaho for 10 years and then moved back down to Texas a few years ago. When I was up there in the Pacific Northwest, I was heavily influenced by the beauty of the landscape, but also the architecture and the designs. There's a lot more minimalism and I guess I would just call it Nordic, kind of like Scandinavian sharp lines, clean edges, natural finishes. And I noticed that there wasn't a lot of that design in Texas.

So when I moved back here, I was almost thinking from the construction perspective, maybe I should build a spec house or do something to capitalize on this because I really like it. I've always had an interest in design and I feel like this would resonate with other people. It just feels like we're stuck in boxes around here in Texas.

So the idea really wasn't very formulated as far as what Live Oak Lake became, but I did start to think about what would be the best way to monetize an investment in the long term, not just build a spec house. I ended up actually building a spec house as well, but how could I create, quote unquote, passive revenue for my future, which would allow me to pursue other things. And this idea eventually came to me of building this little village of cabins.

And I was looking for property diligently for a few years in 2020, couldn't find anything. Land prices were just skyrocketing around here. One morning in early 2021, I just opened up Zillow, and I was still in bed actually. It was really early in the morning. I just got up, opened up Zillow, and this place had just been listed like five minutes down the road from where I lived, from where I grew up. And it was five acres, complete jungle, but it had this little cow pond in the middle and had these gorgeous trees. I was like, hmm, that looks really interesting.

I drove out there. I'd literally driven by this place like 50 times. I mean, probably a hundred times actually. I've lived here all my life, never thought anything of it. But when I stepped on the property, I got chills. It was visceral how connected I felt to the land. And it just felt like this is the place. And I immediately was able to start envisioning really what Live Oak Lake became, all of these cabins nestled around the lake in these trees.

And so made an offer that day. It was accepted. Started scrambling to arrange some financing. Long story short, I got my dad and my brothers, who still owned this small general contracting firm in Idaho, on board. And in exchange, I gave them 40% equity. They agreed to co-guarantee the loan, the construction note, which I wouldn't have been able to get without them. And then also they had access to a line of credit to basically bring the equity portion. So we had maybe $50,000 between all of us of personal savings that we loaned or invested in the endeavor. But most of it, the equity portion, was actually through the line of credit. So high, high amount of leverage.

Talked to several local banks, got told no, and finally found one of them that was willing to take the risk. They agreed to an 80% LTV loan on the appraised value. Got the project, drew up some basic designs, and they appraised the project as worth like one and a half million. Maybe it was like 1.6. And so we had a pretty big shortfall, because then they only loaned 80% of that, because it ended up costing us 2.3 million all in.

Now I was the general contractor. I was the designer. We really didn't have any engineers, any costs like that. So we probably did it for, we definitely did it for below costs if it had just been a normal developer. Of course, learned tons of lessons, made mistakes as well. But long story short, in nine and a half months, designed, built, furnished, and then opened the doors to this property, which became Live Oak Lake.

So it's seven modern Scandinavian cabins, five acres, a commons area, container pool, really, really high-end finishes, little pathways for the trees, kayaking on the water. Very nature immersive and very experiential. And we opened the door in January of 2022.

And I realized when we were finishing up that punch list during the construction phase, oh my goodness, we're about to be ready to actually host people. I haven't done any marketing. And we have this note, which is not cheap. Interest rates were going up. It was just a temporary loan too. It was a construction loan. I hope this works out, basically.

So we got on Airbnb, and they prioritize your listing for the first month, so you get some added traction. Well, everything was going great, and like two weeks into it, all of a sudden, boom, one day without warning, I just checked my account and it's been suspended. And it was the worst feeling ever, because the whole thing was a huge risk.

And throughout the process, I had really gone above and beyond. We went about 600,000 over my own budget as well, because I was initially budgeting like 1.5, 1.6. But that was just the culmination of all these little details that I felt like we absolutely had to have to maintain the integrity of this overall experience, which was going to be so valuable to demanding the kind of rates and the kind of occupancy that I thought was possible. And people had been raising their eyebrows like, you're overspending on this, you're overspending on that. Just cut corners, cut corners, cut corners. Skim, skim, skim. And I didn't want to do that. But then I was sort of on the line like, well, this better work out.

And so I was feeling super desperate at that point. I called a friend of mine up, didn't know anything about social media really. Knew that direct bookings were something I wanted to explore later on, but really didn't know much about social media, period. And she was like, yeah, you should contact this travel blogger account in Dallas and see if they will run a giveaway on you. So I did. And sure enough, they said, yeah, we'll do a giveaway. Just send us photos. It costs 900 bucks.

And like three days later, while I think we were still suspended on Airbnb at this point, they ran the giveaway. We had our direct bookings website set up. I had programmed that out with our property management software. And we got $40,000 of direct bookings in one week and about 5,000 followers from scratch. And so I immediately knew, wow, this is absolutely incredible ROI on marketing dollars here. We've got to go all in with social media.

So again, long story short, fast forward a year, we grew our following to over 100,000. It's currently over 150,000 for the brand, for Live Oak Lake, and ended up grossing over a million dollars the first year, net over 500,000, average 94% occupancy overall across all units. Of that, about 80% of all bookings came direct through our own website. So we can dive into any number of those threads.

Jeremy: Yeah, that's a lot. You're giving me a lot to play with here. I'm taking my notes as we're going to the specific things to touch on.

But first thing I want to go on, because this is something that I'm very adamant about with regards to local banks, is you have to call a bunch of them. So you're saying that, how many did you go to before getting the one who agreed to give you the construction loan?

Isaac: I went to three. And so I was actually pretty lucky, because I have a friend of mine, Ben Wolff, who built a property called Onera. Are you familiar with that?

Jeremy: I am not, but I'll take my note on that one too.

Isaac: You got to check it out. It's in Fredericksburg in the Hill Country. It's 12 units. Spectacular. They actually sold to a REIT, a publicly traded REIT, about a year before we did. And he went to no less than 20 banks and was told no before he finally found somebody. That was slightly more than our project was, dollar for dollar.

But yeah, so I went to three, and he was like, look, the lesson here is you just have to get used to being told no. This is a brand new asset class. The lenders are totally unfamiliar with it. Even when they were appraising it, we didn't fall into any of the boxes like, okay, are you a glamping resort? They didn't even have a glamping resort. They said, are you a campsite? Are you a hotel? Are you a bed and breakfast? They have these really stupid kind of old, you know, 30 years behind categories.

And so yeah, that's hopefully changing. And I think Live Oak Lake and the whole sale and everything sets a really amazing precedent for all that too, or helps at least. But the hardest part of this entire thing is convincing institutional lenders of the value opportunity in creating a property like this.

Jeremy: Definitely. And it's just very relevant. One of my mentees, Kyle, he does luxury barndominiums. So 6,000, 5,000 square foot barns that get outfitted with pickleball courts and all these amenities. And he's under contract on a second and third right now, and he's having the financing issue at one of the properties.

And my only thing I say to him, and I say this to everybody, is when you're doing unique projects on a local level and you have to go through a local commercial bank, have backups, have backups to your backups. It's just going to be difficult. If you do a house, like a normal house, a single family residential loan, they're going to pull it off appraisal value of the houses around there. But if you do something unique and custom where there isn't anything you can just, like on a one-to-one basis, say is similar enough, you're going to have trouble. So talk to more.

Isaac: Here's the interesting thing. To jump ahead, four months after we opened, we wanted to refinance and lock in a long-term loan. Obviously rates were going crazy. This was like middle of 2022. So we had the exact same appraiser that had done the initial appraisal came out a second time, but now they had a property to actually walk. And most importantly, we had cashflow. We didn't even have a full year of history under our belt.

Jeremy: Net operating income.

Isaac: Yep. We had four months of really good NOI and then a bunch of future bookings too. They could see an amazing trajectory. They reappraised the property at double what the initial appraisal had been. So it was $3.3 million on the second go around, which, guess what, allowed us to refinance, pull out all of our cash, pay off construction loan, line of credit, everybody, and $400,000 on top of that, locked in a long-term, five and a half percent, which was great at the time.

And then on top of that, you get this tax benefit, which we can talk about, through cost segregation, by being able to write off like a million dollars, so the first two years of profit essentially, because there are so many high-end finishes that are eligible for bonus depreciation.

The only reason I bring that up is the financial net results of all of this is that six months after we open, I have zero dollars invested in this asset. I have $400,000 in my pocket at a 5% rate loan from the bank. And I have a million dollars of depreciation to write off against other income that I have, because I'm materially participating in the property. Those numbers are just wild. Where else can you find an investment that will offer that?

I'd love to talk more too, and we can get into this later if you want, but about DSCR loans and how they do value a property like that with cashflow. Because you're exactly right. It went from being a collection real estate that, you know, a bunch of structures on land, no matter how beautiful it is, to being a business with an incredibly high margin, i.e. 60%, that then qualifies for a DSCR, debt service coverage ratio, loan, which they're usually looking at a minimum of like one and a half times.

That basically means what is your net operating income able to service in terms of debt? And they want to see typically, as a rule of thumb, a minimum of one and a half times net operating income to the actual debt service amount. So if you have $20,000 a month of NOI, you could qualify for a loan, this is obviously extremely general, but using that rule for whatever, $10,000 to $15,000 a month of loan payment. And because the NOI was so incredible, it just blew up the valuation and created all this extra value, which was not fake, by the way. And I think our exit validates that.

Jeremy: And I love that. And Isaac and I were actually touching on it earlier. And this, again, one of the reasons I was so excited to have him on, is creating these businesses and selling at a multiple of revenue, or getting a loan at a multiple of net operating income, is something that is unique to what's deemed like a commercial property and is something that you can't do really in today, 2024. I hope at some point you can do this, because my paper net worth would go up a lot, but selling a residential property on an NOI basis, you can't do that today. But you can, again, you can do it for anything that's deemed a commercial property. So even if it's a collection of Airbnbs on one property, then you can't. If it's one single house on that property, then you can't, unless for whatever reason it's deemed a commercial project.

So I want to backtrack here. Before we get into the specifics, I want to kind of talk at a higher level. And it seems like with your story, your back was against the wall. And I see that with a lot of people I've talked to, and just whether it be short-term rentals or in general with business and entrepreneurship, when their back is against the wall and they need to succeed, they succeed. And it seems like with you, you did that.

The bank came to you initially and said, hey, this is only going to, we're only going to value this at what was like $1.6 million. You were using all sorts of credit, all the cash you personally had. You were using your dad's cash and credit. You were using your brother's cash and credit. You had leverage on top of leverage on top of a mosquito-infested five-acre plot in the middle of Texas.

How did you feel? How did you wake up at that time? Was it anxiety? Did you have anxiety and did that fuel you? Did you stay in bed until 2 p.m.? Walk me through a day in the life going through this, literally walking around with your boots through this swamp and making that happen.

Isaac: Oh, I mean, I'm a very self-motivated, independently driven person, to a fault actually. I spent 80 hours a week working during that nine-and-a-half-month period, because I told you I built a spec house. I built a spec house overlapping this. I built a $750,000 spec house at the same time in four months as I was doing this other project, which was actually huge, because I was able to sell that and make a very nice profit which rolled straight into the other project, which I absolutely needed that extra money.

But yeah, no, it was a totally crazy time. On top of all of that, several months into the project, one day I popped into one of the cabins that we were working on, and I was literally a jack of all trades. I was wearing all the hats. I was even doing some of the work myself. Somebody was installing a spiral staircase. He chose these really unique and beautiful spiral staircases, but they're a huge pain to assemble. He was working by himself, and so I jumped up on a ladder to help him hold something while I screwed it in. Well, my ladder fell out from underneath me and I fell and broke my pelvis, which was a big deal. I didn't realize how big of a deal it was until I was in the hospital.

So I then found myself flat on my back, completely incapacitated to do anything with the project for a week, multiple surgeries, all kinds of stuff, right in the middle of the project. And thankfully, I had an amazing team of friends and family that came alongside me and helped. I was on crutches for the rest of the project and was under severe limitations by my wife of what I could and could not do.

But yeah, it was a crazy season. I think that there's those seasons where you have to, there's times where you have to give a hundred and fifty percent, and I felt that inward, internal fuel just pushing me towards the finish line.

But then when we actually got there, so that was a certain level of stress, if you will, while we were building it and I was risking all of this family money and capital and my own and all this time, everything that went into that. But then when we actually got to that point where they suspended us, that was in some ways even more, a lot more stressful actually.

And it actually happened two times the first year we were open. So it happened two weeks after we opened, but then like six months later happened again, where we were suspended for between five and twelve days at a time, no warning and no explanation. And I don't want to vent about this, because I actually have a lot of appreciation for what Airbnb has done. They've created or catalyzed the industry by and large, but their customer service is horrific. Could not get through to anyone. Finally, the second go around, the only way we were able to get back online was because I actually ended up being connected with someone who's very high up at Airbnb. They were able to escalate it.

But the moral of the story is don't build your house on someone else's land. And I am very thankful that the first thing happened so soon, the first suspension, because that ended up, as in the story I told earlier, being this huge blessing in disguise when it enabled us to jumpstart this amazing following, grassroots following on social media, which we can talk about as well.

To be clear, the reason for the suspension was simply an algorithmic flagging, because they thought there was a false review. And so the whole system is very fragile. Now, I hope that my story is an exception. I've actually heard a lot of other stories that are similar. Maybe it's because I've told my story, and so obviously that's going to, and it's gone far and wide, so it attracts those.

But yeah, I think the moral of the story is you've got to build, just like you're talking about with the financing, you've got to have those at least contingencies in place for your bookings, for your revenue, for your PR. And launching your own social media campaign and growing that following, creating an email list, is so, so valuable. And that played in extremely prominently in the overall valuation when we sold as well.

Jeremy: And it's actually so funny you say that. I actually did a post the other week that was just talking about how I have three Airbnb accounts. I have my main account, Superhost status, really good reviews, most of my higher end, nicer properties on it. I have a second account that I just keep one nice property on, where I can maintain great reviews, Superhost status. And then I have one listing, or one account, where my not so nice listings are, where sometimes guests point out issues about the neighborhood, about safety, stuff like that.

Because I had an issue early on where someone pointed out a safety issue on just one of my properties. Again, I think I had like 17 on my account at that time, but they pointed out a safety issue on one of my properties, and because of that, they suspended my entire account. I was like, are you serious? I have 17. Like, yeah, this one over here, you're really going to just pause everything. But it was an algorithm. It just did it.

So yeah, that forced me to essentially be creative in the sense of, all right, I need three accounts and I need the ability just to toggle on an account, but you don't want to toggle on an account that isn't like Superhost. So it made me create like a three account system. And I did a post about that. And of course, anytime I post on social media, people are going to, oh, you're deceiving people. I'm like, no, I'm trying to survive as a business. I'm not going to let these algorithms just literally put my entire business offline one day and have no control over that.

But either way, it's pushed me towards direct bookings, which should be the way you do it, especially for something like you have. And because I think there's like a lot of talk in the industry about direct bookings. You need direct bookings, like yada, yada, yada. I would say if you have like one house on air, like Airbnb is great. Yes, you should get their emails. You should contact them. You should encourage them to like book back with you. But where it's especially valuable is where you have like a unique brand and you have more than supply of one, where that experience is like paralleled across the board.

So I'm going to keep Kyle's listening here, but I'm going to reference him. He has a luxury 6,000 square foot barndominium in Wisconsin. He's doing another one in Michigan. He's doing another one in Kentucky. It's all like a few hours from Chicago. That is an example of a similar experience. You should be marketing to people who went to the first one to then go to the second and third one.

Like you had seven properties that were pretty much identical. I've seen them. They are identical. It's the same experience along the board. So there's a consistency there. There is a brand there, and you should 100,000% lean into that and create a direct booking channel, as well as aggregate as many emails as humanly possible.

So I guess, yeah. What are your thoughts? Is it someone with one property? What should they be doing? Should they be putting as much emphasis on social media marketing and all this, or what do you think?

Isaac: I would actually, instead of emphasizing number of units, which is a very relevant factor to your point, I would put the emphasis personally on the level of experience, which you also talked about. So you could have a single unit, but it is literally a one of one, one of a kind kind of stay. And there's places like this. I mean, there's a famous place, and this is an extreme example, in Joshua Tree called the glass house, or the mirror house. A lot of people have probably seen that one.

Jeremy: Yep. Crazy.

Isaac: But again, you know, they've built a huge following around that, and for very good reason. So you can have literally one unit, but it's all about, and the whole kind of phrase that I've leaned into is experiential hospitality. So you've got to craft this experience for people.

Now that involves design, I would say first and foremost. So amazing design that's permeating both the branding, the structure, the architecture, the interior design, thoughtfulness and care that goes into all the details around it. And if you don't have that vision, and if you don't have that ability inside of you, then partner with someone or hire someone who does, because these details absolutely matter.

And I don't want to beat an old drum here, because a lot of people harp on design and you've got to have all these things, but there is so much power in creating a vibe or an atmosphere that is, what I like to say, transportive. When you go there, it feels like you're in a different world. That's the comment that so many people have made coming to Live Oak Lake. It's fenced, it's gated, but from the first impression when they pull up and they see the details, even in the front gate, it's like this minimalist wood. I encourage you to look it up online, and I think there's probably a picture of it somewhere in there. We're in Texas. They're going to be in Texas. Yeah. In Texas.

And people feel it when they come on site. They literally say, I feel like I'm entering a different world. I've never been to a Disney property, but I think there's a similar approach, reading about their entire ethos around this, of creating these, you could say, fantasies almost for people to go to. I wouldn't use that word because it's real life, but they feel this crazy feeling of, oh my goodness, this is like incredible. And so what is it? It's all these little details that have been thoughtfully planned out and cohesively integrated one with another, and it adds up to this magical experience for them.

So if you have that, there's also emphasis on certain perspectives on the property. So even the cabins themselves, they are almost identical. There are subtle differences, but each one frames a different view. That's actually the biggest differentiation between them on the property. There's these huge glass fronts, and we very carefully positioned them so that you have these incredible views around, and you're kind of fostering this village feel because they're nestled around the lake. And yet there's trees in between them, so there's a certain level of privacy and seclusion there as well.

What we call a landscape hotel or a micro resort. You have separate pods embedded in the landscape. Isaac was obsessed. I am obsessed with it. It adds up to this magical experience for people that they feel.

And so what I was saying is you want these Instagrammable moments. So the container pool is another aspect. It's a shipping container that's been painted black, has a 10 foot window in the side, and we positioned it right on the edge of the water. It's this spectacular, first of all, aesthetically integrates perfectly, because all the cabins are this black minimalist metal. But then people go up on the deck, and the way that we positioned it, look up pictures of it for yourself, it's just one of a kind. And so people then go take that picture of themselves there and they post on Instagram.

Since the influencer growth that we were able to piggyback with and supercharge our following that first six months, there was so much user generated content around it, because we were encouraging and, more than anything, by just offering these amazing views and experiences for people to capture Instagrammable moments, that again helped propel us into the stratosphere with direct bookings.

So yeah, I think it has more to do with, is this truly unique? Are you offering an experience? There's a spectrum of experiences. So that could go all the way. You could engineer some super complex, I don't know, spa slash horse riding, whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever. The list goes on and on. It could be themed around any number of activities.

The truth is, on our property, I think the lowest hanging fruit is find what your landscape is best suited for. In our case, a few walking trails, the kayaking, the container pool, and then most importantly, each cabin just being situated in these, nestled in these trees, a hammock outside, the fire pit, amazing views, and do everything thoughtfully. That's all the experience you need.

I'll make one more note and then I'll shut up on this. The welcome gift is super important, but you don't have to spend a ton of money on this. So I realized early on, just had like this epiphany, that people love to see their name handwritten. So I experimented, figured it out, and then trained the staff. Basically they handwrite a very simple card with the guest name on it, and then leave it there in the unit. In addition to that, we buy fresh baked cookies literally that day from a local artisan bakery. The cleaners pick it up. It's completely systematized. The cleaners have access to the PMS so they can, every guest reservation, they know how many guests are coming. We don't have to get involved. It's super efficient. And then they leave this little package of cookies with a handwritten card.

Literally that little thing, which costs a total of like nine bucks, has such a massive ROI, because it's thoughtful, it's personal, and we get tons and tons of comments. Read our guest book, read the Google reviews and such.

So thoughtfulness permeating the design, the detailing, the property, the little handwritten, whatever personalized touches throughout the property. That's what makes it eligible for amazing amount of direct bookings and a brand around it which will give it an immense amount of value if you're ever to sell it. And just for yourself, we have such a high repeat booking rate. We have guests coming back four times in one year because we've created these emotional connections with them through experiential hospitality. They come back, then they bring their friends, they bring their family, and yeah, being able to not have the middleman involved with an OTA really helps us with that.

Isaac: We can email them directly. We can communicate with them. We're developing these long-term relationships. And don't get me wrong, Airbnb still serves a purpose. In the case of the suspensions, they took it back. They reinstated us both times. But I'm super glad that all our eggs are not in their basket.

But they do still serve a purpose. They fill last minute openings very well, those orphan night vacancies, and they add up to about 20% of overall bookings. But we're making an additional 12 to 14% bottom line profit on all of the direct bookings because we cut out the host and guest fees, and then we increased the rates to have rate parity across channels with a slight discount on direct. So they're still incentivized to book directly, but we're making most of that money back in creating these long-term relationships.

Jeremy: And you're getting paid on the float, or I assume you are. When I say that, you're collecting the cash upfront. So we got 5% interest rates, and someone books a year from now, you're actually getting a 5% premium on just having that cash in your pocket.

Isaac: That's an extremely good point, Jeremy. A lot of people don't think about that. At any given time, we'll have $300,000 cash on hand in future bookings. Now, yeah, we just put it in a high-interest account, but that adds up. And it's also very nice to have that extra padding for any operational things. We're making such a high margin anyways, we don't have that. But yeah, it's pretty nice business.

The Airbnb business model, a lot of people say Airbnb as a company was one of the smartest, best business models ever conceived of, because they literally have baked in this exact concept you're talking about. They're the ones who are collecting all of these guest reservations in advance and just not paying it out until they obviously stay. So you can do the same with your own brand.

And that's what you're seeing. The OTAs are starting to try and do, like Hospitable, for example, have put a lot of emphasis on their direct booking channel, where they're actually the merchant of record, meaning the guest pays them, they withhold the money, and then they pay it out. In return, they provide damage insurance and stuff like that, that personally I find super valuable.

Jeremy: But actually, that point was something that I was fortunate that I stumbled on early. And it was actually through boat rentals. I don't know if you know my story, but in 2020 I started a boat rental business on a lake in North Carolina. And I was getting paid by the renters directly for the boats. And I used that cash being paid on the float to then fund my investments in properties. Which, great job for keeping that in a high interest, keeping that money where it should be and not using that money.

I was just like, oh, we really got to make sure that these boat rentals actually happen. Because if they don't actually happen, I'm screwed. But I needed to, that was like, I need to come up with the money. And that's what insurance companies do. And that's why Warren Buffett actually buys a bunch of insurance companies, because you get paid upfront, and then if something really bad happens, you have to pay off the money later. So he was able to recycle cash early on in his investing career quickly by buying insurance companies.

I digress. But yeah, getting paid on the float is an amazing thing, especially in a 5% interest rate environment. And that's one of the reasons I have a $15 auto invest a day in Airbnb stock, is honestly largely because of the concept of, they can get paid 10 months in advance and keep that money until the service actually occurs.

But all right, so much we can dive into here. I've literally so many notes written. But one thing I want to get into more like a human. So you're obviously obsessed about this property. So you really cared. Not only was your back against the wall, furthermore, your a*s was against the ground. You couldn't move, but you still had to figure out how to make it happen, make it work. And then you did make it work.

I follow Isaac on LinkedIn, Twitter, and he's kind of giving right now the high level, but he's broken down buying the mod pool, for example. What was the ROI on the mod pool? Every little detail of how he thought that was going to improve top, bottom line, he specked out. And pretty remarkably, I can see obviously the accounting background there.

So you're obsessed. You made it work. And then you sold it. I guess I'm curious, how's that feel now? Do you still live five minutes away? And how do you feel when you drive? First of all, how did the sale come to be? Did you go and seek a buyer? Did they come to you? Did you have an auction? And then now that you have sold it, what's up? How are you feeling?

Isaac: Yeah, when we built it, we certainly didn't intend as our first objective to sell it. But it was always in the back of my mind, an option that look, if we get just a crazy high offer, then why not? Now, that offer changed rapidly as our success kind of blew up. That number kept getting higher and higher.

And like a year into it, there were starting to [inaudible] in the economy at large, and I was thinking, well, everything's going so well, maybe we should list it. So we did list it with a commercial broker, and the number for me was like five million. I was like, look, we spent 2.3. If we could get five, that would be a pretty big win in a year and a half.

Jeremy: Two and a half million in value creation.

Isaac: Exactly. In 18 months, not shabby. And we got a bunch of interest. Actually, the most interest was from several different private equity shops. So institutional investors with very deep pockets that see the writing on the wall with commoditized short-term rental and see the problems with traditional hotels and are looking for what's the next generation of hospitality to look like.

But they all wanted to buy anywhere from 50 to 80%, retain me, sign a contract, and basically it was a talent play. I would build them a big portfolio, but not have to deal with banks. So it was very attractive, but I was just not willing to part ways with the kind of independence and autonomy that I had with the first project. I knew how important that was to make executive decisions, and I just felt like it wasn't going to be a good arrangement.

We said no, and then we took our listing, expired with the agent, we took it down. And then January of last year, 2023, I got an email from another broker who specializes in assets like this. He was like, look, this is my wheelhouse, let me list it for you. What number makes sense? And so I was like, okay, if we're going to list it again, we're going to go really high, because I don't want to fool with tire kickers. It's going to have to be really worth it. We listed for 7.3 million.

Everything was still going amazingly well, and frankly, still is going amazingly well with the property, so it wasn't like we had seen some slump in bookings or anything. And again, got a bunch of interest, had a group reach out, made an offer. We negotiated to 6.5 million, which was like amazing to me. I was like, okay, we're going to go ahead and take this. Signed a contract, due diligence checked out.

The day before we were set to close, got on a call, which was supposed to be like congratulatory, like we did it, next steps, wire comes in, sign this, sign the dotted line. Well, they actually were like, we're having a few hiccups with our hard money lender. We need a few extra days. And so we gave him a few extra days, and then it immediately fell apart. The entire thing fell apart. Turned out the hard money lender...

Jeremy: Hard money lender, what was your reaction to that?

Isaac: I was like, oh, well, I already knew these guys were a little shaky, because the way that they treated, they just didn't know anything. And to be honest, it was a very instructive learning experience for me as well. I'd never gone through a major real estate transaction like that, so I learned tons.

Actually, the biggest lesson I learned is we didn't require nearly enough earnest money. They only had 30,000 down and 15,000 of that, which was hard, on a 6.5 million dollar transaction. So we ended up, they backed out, we got $15,000, which basically barely covered my attorney's fees to get us to that point. And I was like, look, if it's meant to be, it'll be. Otherwise, I'm not going to push it. But I'd already invested so much in that whole process, it definitely didn't feel great.

Jeremy: You had to get your books in place, had to get up with your charts and your projections and your QuickBooks, P&L, blah, blah, blah.

Isaac: It was fun though, because on the one hand, like I said, it was educational. I learned about how these things work. But then like four or five days after that fell out, we get another LOI, letter of intent, from a new group that was for 7 million. So half a million dollars more. And on the face of it, they had like a $3 million seller carry note for a year. They had a few other things that I didn't really like. So we negotiated, got it down, signed a contract for $7 million. And again, due diligence checked out. This time we put $200,000 of earnest money in there in the contract. So they put all the money down. It became hard.

Closing came, closing went, and they couldn't close. So at that point, I was really tempted to just walk away with the $200,000 and say, see ya. But we were like, this is a pretty good offer. And I also didn't want to be a jerk to them because it was, whatever, it was an exceptional circumstance. One of their key investors backed out.

We gave them an extra like month. Again, they wanted to extend it again. It was like three major, three extensions. And I was just like, okay, I have had it. We're giving you one more day to close. If you can't do it, we're done. And sure enough, down to the hour, the last hour of the business day, they finally got it together. The bank came through, the investors came through, and they were able to close.

So $7 million exit. That's a really simple math, $1 million per key, which is just crazy. These are 500 square foot, approximately, units on a property. But again, a big part of that valuation was the social media following and the email list, primarily social media following, because they see the value of that to launch a new brand, to grow a new property. You're at such a huge advantage.

So yeah, that felt amazing. Huge win for me personally. I mean, a small but life-changing amount of money in terms of the value creation there. Basically, almost $5 million of overall value creation, plus the cash flow for the two, or almost two years that we owned it. And so my family did very well on that. I did very well. It feels surreal still.

Most of that money is in escrow, and I'm being very transparent with all these numbers, obviously, because I've tried to be that way throughout the whole process. I want other people to be as inspired as they can be and learn as much as they can, and I appreciate when others like yourself do the same. But I'm hoping at this point to eventually, I'm under certain time constraints because it's in a 1031 escrow fund, so I have six months to actually close on another piece of property, but I'm hoping to defer like $300,000 or $400,000 of capital gains on that, roll it right into another property as the market permits. And I think that there will be some opportunities just given the interest rate environment and everything.

So yeah, it's been a crazy ride. And in the meantime, I'm actually sitting in it now, but designed and built a home office studio at my house. So it's a 500 square foot structure. I went all out with it. So it's like above and beyond what Live Oak Lake was. It's an art studio, because I still paint. It's this amazing office, a little book area, kitchenette, sleeping loft, bathroom, everything. So that was really fun.

And I think this design actually, as a matter of fact, would do very well as a short-term rental. It's a movable structure. And so I'm hoping to actually sell those designs and eventually potentially turn this into a short-term rental, because again, I think it's got all the key ingredients. It's experiential. It's located literally in the forest behind my house. It's like 150 yards from where I live on the edge of a creek, and has been a really fun project to really just showcase my favorite architectural and hospitality features. So that's kind of what my life looks like now.

And in addition to that, I don't know how much of this we want to get into, but I'm also teaching a masterclass where I break down the entire process from start to finish, how to design, build, finance, operate, automate, and now sell a property like Live Oak Lake, and have built this community around that as well. So I'm able to interact with all these other killer operators around the country and around the world that I look up to, frankly, that are building properties similar to this in this new niche of experiential outdoor hospitality kind of properties. So all that has been super fun.

Jeremy: And you definitely influenced me. I went and looked at, there was a pond, I don't know, maybe 12 acre lot with a pond. And I saw a pop-up online and I was like, oh, maybe I go check this out. It looks like North Carolina and Texas, from a topographical perspective, look pretty similar. And then I got there and I heard the highway and I was like, all right, this isn't, I don't feel the Zen, I can hear trucks.

Isaac: Good call.

Jeremy: Yeah, but no, everybody should definitely, Isaac's Twitter, I think I follow him more so on LinkedIn, but he puts out absolute gems there. And I really appreciate you being with us here today. I have so many things written on my side that I'm going to dive into and research.

But yeah, I guess, so what's next? I mean, obviously your passion projects, like what you've got behind you, I see the floor-to-ceiling windows. That does not look like a movable trailer to me. I wouldn't have made that assumption. But yeah, is it creating custom ADUs? I actually have a buddy who, his business was ADUs, like build them in a factory. And he just sold that business like a month or two ago, of creating custom ADUs. Because there's a huge trend towards more density and more lax ADU rules. But not assuming that's what you're doing or thinking about, but what's next for you?

Isaac: Yeah, it's a great opportunity. I don't know if I'm going to compete in that space. It's a high barrier to entry, for sure, manufacturing. I actually have friends that have a business, they take shipping containers, it's called cargo homes, and turn them into really cool stays. Well, people use them for like home offices too, but primarily these kind of Airbnb, short term rental stays.

No, I definitely want to do another project like Live Oak Lake. I mean, I learned so much through all of that. I'm dying inside to apply all those learnings to the next project. So I definitely have my eyes out and looking for properties and envisioning the next dream. It's definitely going to be different in terms of the core experience probably. I'm going to iterate on what Live Oak Lake was, but bring in the main ingredients which made that successful, the design, the uniqueness, the social media.

And then one thing we didn't, well, we touched on this briefly, but another big opportunity just in the space, and a lot of people are doing this now, but I break this all down in the masterclass, automation. So Live Oak Lake, which brought in over a million, well, the trailing 12 P&L when we sold, it was on track to bring in over 1.1 million. So a high grossing property, seven units, $80,000 of net income per unit. We had basically two part-time employees running the whole place, and then a bunch of software. So between the PMS, the revenue management, the smart home automations, which are very robust, and then the cleaning team, which is subcontracted, we had a part-time general manager slash guest communications, and then a part-time maintenance crew, maintenance guy actually. So very, very efficiently run.

Jeremy: You had one part-time person doing all the guest communication?

Isaac: Oh yeah, it's, I mean...

Jeremy: How is that possible?

Isaac: Highly automated. And another thing I would say with that is, yeah, it took us a long time to refine all those automated sequences. There's always...

Jeremy: And we'll get back to you between nine and 3 p.m. Like, thank you for asking.

Isaac: I say part-time, and what I mean by that actually is they spend about 10 hours a week total with the property, but about five of that is guest communications. But that can happen at any time of the day and night. So we're very responsive, but they have a full-time flexible job actually elsewhere, and then can just tag this on because it's all mobile.

Jeremy: Google on their phone, oh, got a message, bing, bing, bing.

Isaac: Yeah, and in that sense, it's deceiving to say part-time, because it is kind of all-consuming when you know that at any time of the day or night you could get a message. But you can do so much of the heavy lifting with really good automated sequences.

And the main tip there is be super personal. So it's so easy to come across as, just because you're running this as a company, which you should, you should systematize it, you should put measures in place to make it as efficient as possible. But in the touch points with the guest, this is so core to just what fundamentally is hospitality, but you've got to be so personal and so caring. And so the way that we phrase everything, I give away this template as part of the course in the community, all of our guest communications, but you've got to be so personal with those. And there's a ton of ways to bring in their name.

And then another thing that could be sort of the next level of experiential hospitality that big hotel resort brands like Four Seasons do really well, is actually doing a little bit of guest research and figuring out, and especially this makes sense when you're charging 500 plus a night. And to give you a little perspective there, we use dynamic pricing. So we went all the way down to $275. That's the minimum, that's the threshold. Below that it doesn't make sense, because we get the wrong kind of guests. But we went all the way up to over $2,000 a night for certain nights, and regularly over like $1,000 for key weekends.

Jeremy: The Superbowl in Waco?

Isaac: Yeah, because we created a destination with social media. But the key there is, if you have a little bit of intel on who the guest is, you know what they like. Maybe we actually don't have TVs in our units because we're trying to encourage people to engage with each other and with the outdoors and everything. But, hey, your favorite TV show is on channel such and such, whatever. There's so many little ways.

Danny Meyer's book, Setting the Table, or Will Guidara's book, Unreasonable Hospitality, are two amazing resources for this. There's so many ways to delight your guests with these little, tiny, unexpected surprises that again add up to those magical moments, those emotional connections that you're creating.

So anyway, all that is to say there's so many learnings that I am eager to apply to the next project. And stay tuned, because I'm probably going to have some big news soon as to what that is. Either I find a place, everything comes together, or I'm going to end up having to pay the capital gains tax and then sit on the sidelines a little longer.

Jeremy: And no longer, next thing you know, the next time I have him on, he'll be doing this, if you guys are watching on video, from like a, I don't know, not as nice of a backdrop. You'll have to sell everything.

Isaac: A construction site.

Jeremy: Yeah. And also, one thing I do want to, or yeah, hopefully it's from a construction site, but I know we went a little bit over here. One thing that I want to touch on, I was actually talking to a broker who sells businesses, and he says when you sell a business, 20% capital gains, whereas ordinary income is taxed at, it could be 35, 40%.

So I know you have an accounting background, but I've been thinking about just the model of, you whip up a business, and I'm always thinking about what's next for me personally and where do I see value opportunity. But for me it was like both. I was like, d*mn, these houses are making a lot of money. I got to do some of these houses. And it was like, all right, these houses, sure, they're making money. Things have, you got to level up the houses a little bit. It's gotten a little bit more competitive, but they're still making money, frankly, if you do it right.

But what's the exit opportunity? You can't sell them. Really, the fact that they're an Airbnb, maybe you get a little bit of a premium. We don't really, frankly, get that much of a premium. But when you create a business, maybe it's a software business, maybe it's a commercial property, you sell them at a revenue multiple. So for you, it seems like you're at like a six X revenue multiple, which is tech, that's a tech revenue multiple right there, six X. That's like a growing tech company.

Isaac: 12 X net, six and a half net, six and a half X gross revenue.

Jeremy: And then so you get that high revenue multiple when you do it right. But then also 20%, 20% long-term capital gains. You're the accountant, hashtag non-accountant or no accounting background, generally speaking, yeah.

Isaac: 20, 23% with the Medicare tax, all the other things. But yeah, that's way, way better than 30, up to 37%.

So yeah, totally. Make this a commercial entity with a genuine brand and systems in place, and not only will it attract a much higher multiple, but massive tax savings and the cost segregation, which a lot of people are familiar with. If you're not, look it up. There's a lot of people that explain it better than I can. We don't have the time for that. But amazing benefits through bonus depreciation in the meantime, while you own it.

Jeremy: And yeah, the one thing I actually am curious there, and I know we've got a lot going on and whatnot, but you had partners in it. So were you the only one who was able to take, and this is actually just something I'm personally curious about, because I've had partnership properties where we haven't done the cost seg and all that. Only one person can claim the material participation and take that loss against their income, correct?

Isaac: Anyone who's materially participating, yes. So in our case, it was just me who could take that against other income.

Jeremy: So you're 60%. You could take that proportion, 60%, based on that.

Isaac: Exactly.

Jeremy: Okay.

Isaac: The other partners could take it up to the amount of the income respective to the entity. So basically it was a wash for them. So instead of having to pay ordinary income tax on the cashflow, net cashflow after debt service, which was like 375,000 a year for this place for their respective share, they paid zero. It was a wash. And you can carry it forward, so for the next year or two, five years, you could just net it out.

But because I was materially participating in it, there's seven tests you have to meet. I don't remember actually the rules. Seven rules you have to meet.

Jeremy: 300 hours, more hours than anybody else.

Isaac: Anyone else, exactly. But because I qualified for that, I was able to technically, though I didn't have a bunch of other income, but if I had had other income, I could have written all of that off up to that amount. But overall, we got almost a million dollars of bonus depreciation total with the property, because again, these kinds of units are perfectly suited for it. High-end finishes, landscaping, roads, a lot of things that qualify for bonus depreciation.

Jeremy: And so I'm assuming you're carrying that forward now that you're making, you know, whatever. You're carrying it forward? Because you don't need to show that massive loss, or would that help you?

Isaac: Actually, it's coming back to bite me a little bit because we sold. So you have to factor this in. You have to recapture the part that I took for the first year, and then I don't get to take it the second year. Now, we had such a big win with the sale that that's not a problem. But yeah, you should be aware of that.

If you plan to keep it, so here's the dream scenario. You bonus depreciate it and you keep it forever. And when you die, and this applies to any real estate actually that qualifies, but when you die, your children or whoever inherit it and they get a step-up in basis. So if I spent 2.3 million on this and we took that much depreciation over the lifetime, whatever, we took most of that in the first couple years, let's say I die, hopefully that's a long time from now, but my children or grandchildren, whoever inherits that, let's say it's worth $10 million at the time, their basis is going to reset to $10 million. So you saved millions of dollars in that case of taxes on the difference between those.

Jeremy: That's the dream, and then you just keep deferring it, kicking the can down the road all the way through generations. And that is how America is rigged to build generational wealth through real estate, along with the fact that an average person can do a leveraged buyout on something very easily, which purchasing a house effectively is the same fundamentals as a private equity leveraged buyout.

I digress. So yeah, one thing I like to ask everybody is, maybe someone who's starting, maybe someone who has several properties and is looking to level up, what is your pro tip?

Isaac: That's a hard one, because a lot of people want a Band-Aid fix for a lot of different things that are wrong with their portfolio. It's hard to give a sweeping piece of advice, but what I can say is it all does start with the product, or in this case the experience that you're creating.

So going back to those Instagrammable moments and creating that wow factor, try to look at your property through a new lens, or have somebody else analyze it for you. And if you're really serious enough about it and you see the opportunity here, maybe you actually need to sell your unit or sell some of your portfolio and rebuild with this foundation and this goal of experiential forward, design forward stays.

But look at it through the lens of, what can make this completely, not just a little bit different, but completely different, especially in my region, in my location, my state, from anything else out there? What is going to set this property apart? And most likely there's going to be some big themes, but those are going to translate down into a bunch of little tiny details. And unfortunately, there aren't many shortcuts to do the hard work of creating that.

However, I have to say that because the upside, as this story can show, is so high. If you can pull that off, it doesn't take rocket science. It's a lot of hard work, but it's very simple actually when it comes down to it. People crave meaningful experiences. They don't need more things thrown at them. That's like the new luxury, right? It's our generation and those that follow, we put a much higher priority on experiences than we do on luxury. And that's the new status even, that you're solving for.

So that's why I was saying with Instagram, it's so important to create these moments, because people want to be able to show that off. It's not how fancy necessarily it is, whatever the thing is that they have. It's what they're doing, where they are.

Jeremy: This is cool. Yeah, where are you? People like to take the photo. Dude, where the heck are you?

Isaac: Exactly, exactly. It creates this FOMO that people feel.

Jeremy: What? For only $275 on a low-demand night, I can go and capture that experience? Like, holy sh*t. Never in my life have I thought about the fact that I'm staying in a 500-square-foot property. Granted, floor-to-ceiling windows, really unique architecture, waterfront, very good things. They don't have to think about that. That's the details that they leave out in their head. It's the, holy crap, that moment is what I want.

Isaac: Yeah, and one last piece that ties into that is, ideally, I'm such a fan of buying and building in the country. So you're outside the city limits. You're avoiding tons of regulation, which make the building process so much easier and the operating process, where they're clamping down on so many urban areas. The land is cheaper, you're away, exactly like you said, you're away from the hustle and bustle, the noise, whatever.

Hopefully you're within, to me the sweet spot is like two hours. That's kind of the Goldilocks zone from a major metro area. In our case, we're in the middle of the Texas Triangle, or right outside of Waco, Texas, which is, we're within three hours driving distance of about 23 million people, which is just like the ideal setup.

On top of that, Texas isn't the most beautiful state, so if you can create this little oasis that's hidden, that's really charming, like Live Oak Lake is, all the more draw for people to come there for their two-day staycation versus taking a nine-hour trip to Colorado, or to get on a plane, to fly somewhere else, all of that, and they can do it cheaper. So get out of the city, create a nature-immersive experience. Nature's never going out of style. Ties in perfectly with the experiential theme.

Jeremy: How do you deal with the mosquitoes? I'm curious. I mean, they're fully immersed, and then they get out of Texas. What's your trick on the mosquitoes? Because I've got a lot of pond, lake properties, and yeah, that's something I'm uniquely curious about.

Isaac: We actually, I don't have a good answer for you, because strangely enough, we have not had mosquitoes. I don't know if we've ever received a complaint. I have noticed, in hundreds of times being over there, one time I think I actually was even aware of a mosquito. I should actually research that, because it's a good question, but for whatever reason we completely got lucky, I guess, because haven't seen anything.

Of course, if that was a problem, I suppose, and you knew it was going to be an issue, you could communicate that in advance. You could provide some kind of mosquito spray or whatever. But so far it has not been an issue here in Texas. There's obviously areas where it's worse. In East Texas, for example, it's even a lot more humid and you have a lot more problems with bugs and stuff like that. Places like Alaska, there's certain places that are worse than others. But thankfully that has not really come up ever on the radar for the guests. But that would be a key consideration when you're envisioning your experience, and something that you should address proactively.

Jeremy: Sounds like you really did have a, or you really a magical property. Let's just leave it at that. And yeah, so how can folk, if they want to follow your journey, you put out a lot of really valuable tidbits. How can they find you?

Isaac: Three ways. Twitter and Instagram, but Twitter's the primary channel where I communicate all the kind of tips, tricks, and strategies, at Isaac French underscore. And then I have a newsletter as well, which is linked there, where I'm starting to put out more in-depth content every week. And then if you want to learn more about the masterclass, go to experientialhospitality.com. I think it's probably one of the best resources out there. I'm biased, but we've had a lot of success with the students that have come through so far, and it's a ton of fun connecting with all these amazing folks as well, and just kind of helping drive each other to new heights in the space.

Really excited for the future. And I also just want to take a moment to say thank you for the opportunity to come on your show and chat with you. This was really fun.

Jeremy: My pleasure, Isaac. Thank you so much for coming. Everybody listening, stay tuned for the next episode of the Short-Term Rental Pros podcast.