Mark Lumpkin prices out the STR amenities arms race

Quick Summary

Mark calls it the amenities arms race. What worked in 2020 doesn't work now, he says, and an air mattress with a Walmart set of pots won't cut it. He works in all 48 states, though, so he won't quote one number for a pickleball court. What a court costs in Clearwater isn't what it costs in Hudson, New York.

Which market you're in decides most of it. You won't compete in the Smokies without a hot tub, he says, though nobody in Florida cares, so check whether an amenity is already standard where you own before you spend. BNBCalc Markets shows which amenities your comps already have.

Key Points

• A client in Florida had an $85,000 quote in hand for a sand volleyball court. Mark's team got the same court installed for $15,000, which is why he won't let a single bid stand. Call three contractors and you'll get three drastically different quotes for the same scope of work.
• Jeremy asks why not just buy $500 bunk beds. The built-ins with a slide run 10 to 15 grand, Mark says. They're not cheap, in his words, and he thinks they're worth it anyway.
• At the cheap end he keeps coming back to a full-length mirror at two or three hundred dollars. He puts the want for one at 99.9% of women guests and about 80% of men, and reckons a thousand or two on a rug, a couple of USB lamps, wallpaper and local decor changes how a room reads. Scale up from there and a pickleball or basketball court is 30, 40, 50 grand.
• Turn up wanting to spend 30 grand to completely redo and furnish a 3,000 square foot five bedroom five bath and he'll tell you STR Cribs isn't the right fit. He'd rather sort budgets out during inspection, when he can also flag the roof with two or three years left that you should replace now instead of mid peak season.
• A Florida client wanted to add a bathroom. Between permits, plumbing, electrical, moving walls and cutting concrete, Mark priced it at $20,000 and two extra months, then told them a third bathroom wouldn't generate any more revenue in that market. His question back to Jeremy is how many contractors talk a client out of a bathroom.
• Pools where he lives in Florida started around 40 grand at the time, while one he was putting in at a Scottsdale mansion ran about 120 grand. Permitting alone takes at least 90 days, so some owners discount the nightly rate, disclose the dig in the listing, and keep taking bookings through it.
• The clearest case for spending comes from Jeremy, second hand. A mentee's Smoky Mountains cabin took what Jeremy describes as a $30,000, 30% decline after about 15 new builds went up in the neighborhood, all of them with indoor pools. He can't dig a basement pool to match, so he's looking at the two flat acres he owns and room for a 60 by 30 pickleball pad.

Full Transcript

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Jeremy: We are live with the Short Term Rental Pros Podcast. Today I am joined by Mark, who has set up hundreds of short-term rental properties. He works for STR Cribs, which honestly might be one of the coolest names I have ever heard in this space, and is a company that I've been hearing about for a while through some of the folk who have been on the podcast actually themselves.

So I'm super excited to really hear the magic behind the madness in terms of how to set up killer short-term rental properties in 2024. So Mark, man, thanks so much for joining.

Mark: Yeah, definitely. Thanks for having me on, Jeremy. I'm super excited to chat with you today, just kind of share some of our collective knowledge and what we've learned after setting up hundreds of homes. Our whole team is really passionate about what we do, which is design and renovation for short-term rental properties.

Like you said, you've talked to some previous people on your podcast before that are clients of ours and have used our service. So yeah, really excited to chat with you today.

Jeremy: Yeah, man. So first of all, tell me about yourself. How did you get into short-term rentals? How many years ago? First of all, where are you? You got like a cabin in your background. So where the heck are you, man? Are you at a short-term rental? That looks like a Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, Western NC STR if I've ever seen one. So where are you?

Mark: Yeah, definitely. I am at a short-term rental. I am in Blue Ridge, Georgia. I'm based out of Northwest Florida in the Emerald Coast, and me and my wife decided we wanted to get away, spend a little time in the mountains. So we got a short-term rental up here and we're super excited about that.

I'm thinking we might actually head over to like Asheville and then make our way to Myrtle Beach in a couple of weeks as well. So we're going to be doing some traveling over the next few weeks, staying at short-term rentals. So it'll be fun. You want me to go through that? Let me give you a little background on myself.

Jeremy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's get into it. How'd you pimp out or cryptize 200 properties? What led you to doing that?

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So just like anything, and just like probably everybody who's listening to this, we all kind of seem to just fall into things. I was in the PropTech real estate space about four years ago and I bumped into one of the founders of another design company that's in the short-term rental space. We became friends. I came on board to help kind of grow that program. And so we put together, probably I would say, 200, 300 properties with them over the last three or four years.

And then I've been with STR Cribs as a new addition to their team in the last couple months, and they alone have done a couple hundred properties as well. And so kind of our collective knowledge is we've done over about 500 short-term rentals in the last three or four years. So it's been fun.

Jeremy: Wow, 500. And how are you doing as many people? Airbnb bust, nobody's doing Airbnb anymore. Are people still doing it? Do you have less projects, more projects?

Mark: Yeah, I would say the demand is sky high and it's probably higher than I've ever seen it in the last three or four years. I like to call it the amenities arms race, right?

Jeremy: I like that. I might use that.

Mark: Yeah, I'm going to give myself a selfless shout out here, but I'm actually writing a book called The Amenities Arms Race. We'll get some copies to you here in about a month once we're done.

But what used to work in short-term rentals just doesn't really work anymore. And so when I hear Airbnb bust, or our properties are not doing well, people complaining, well, when you look at their home, there's a reason that they're not doing well. And I think that's really...

Jeremy: Pretty obvious, I would say.

Mark: Yeah, it's obvious, man. And I think it's a hard pill for some people to swallow, right? Because they're like, I've always done this. It's always worked. It doesn't work anymore.

And so guests are looking for a heightened experience. They're looking for amenities and nicer accommodations. And if you're not willing to go out on your house and set up a great property, I think you're better off staying on the sidelines. And yeah, I would say that for those people that don't want to invest in the home and create an experience, it is an Airbnb bust. They're not going to be able to put an air mattress on the floor and get a Walmart set of pots and pans and think that they're going to make a bunch of money with a short-term rental.

Jeremy: So we're talking, I love it. This conversation just got interesting. We're talking about the amenities arms race today. And I love that.

And I look at some of your clients' properties. And frankly, I use, and I didn't know this until recently, but I use their properties as my like, all right, I see what they're doing in X location. I'm going to take the amenities here and I'm going to copy and paste and do them here. So I think I'm in America and they're the Soviets, you know, so to speak. And I'm going to try to level up what they're doing. But honestly, your clients have kept leveling up everything where I might think I'm catching up and then I see a new property and I'm like, d*mn, like, all right, I got work to do.

So yeah, tell me, when did this amenities, when did it become very apparent that you just need to really amenitize your properties? And then how have you guys really jumped on that?

Mark: Yeah. Well, I would say you're right. We like to think of ourselves as, our properties are the North Star, kind of the gold standard. And we get a lot of people that are...

Jeremy: Mine. They are my goal. I look at thousands of people's listings that are your clients and aren't your clients. And frankly, the ones I use, and I even tell people I work with, I'm like, hey guys, this is how you succeed nowadays. Look at this portfolio here. It is frankly, I'm tooting your guys' horn. I've said that on the podcast about your clients, not knowing that it was you guys behind it. So you guys are the North Star there.

Mark: Yeah. And so then I would like to circle back to those clients, right? I think that how this started and how we proved the concept was a couple of clients took a chance and said, hey, we want to go really heavy into the design and the amenities piece and see how this works out for us. Like we're going to take a property in Scottsdale and instead of just putting some furniture, I mean, did you see the skit on Saturday Night Live the other night?

Jeremy: Yeah. That was so perfect, man. Because it's like, that was like succeeding in 2020 Airbnb.

Mark: Yeah. Those designers had a great business in 2020. They don't have one in 2023, 2024, wherever the heck we are now. They don't have a track record, at least of success.

Jeremy: For sure.

Mark: And so those kinds of designs used to work. And we had a client that said, hey, I want to do something different. I want to go all out on this. I want to spare no expense, do the wallpaper, get a local muralist, put all the amenities in the backyard, convert the garage into a game room, add built-in bunk beds. Don't buy cheap IKEA bunk beds, build these really cool bunk beds with built-in slides.

Jeremy: I love your guys' bunk beds with built-in slides.

Mark: Our bunk beds are awesome, man. My daughter is four years old and every time she sees me on my computer, just sitting kind of doing some late night work or something, she comes up and she wants to see our houses. And she always talks about the bunk beds. And whenever we go to travel, she says, is there going to be bunk beds? Are there going to be bunk beds? And she's always disappointed when we don't stay in one of our homes because their bunk beds suck compared to ours.

So but yeah, man, so they took a chance. The client took a chance. They went all out on the property and they saw a huge return in their revenue. So they doubled their projections and they immediately had proof of concept and they said, hey, this is a blueprint we have to do over and over again. And as a construction and design company, we were happy to oblige. Like if you want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars renovating this home, of course we're going to be happy to do that work for you.

What's cool now is we have data to back that design. And we can say with certainty, if you do these certain things to your home and you invest into the property, you're going to see a return on it. And I think that has really driven the conversation and given credibility to the amenities arms race, which is, it's not just an idea. It doesn't just look cool in pictures, but it actually works in real life and generates revenue for you. That's what we're all about, generating revenue.

Jeremy: So do you have, what I'm curious about is, do you have the math on these different amenities? I'll start with the amenities that I'm currently infatuated with. One, pickleball court, looking about adding those to my portfolio. How much does a pickleball court normally run? And then how much, I mean, I know that, again, obviously each property is going to be different, but what do you think an ROI on a pickleball court is?

Mark: Yeah, that's a great question. It's one that's difficult to answer because we work in all 48 states and every market is so unique.

And so I think about hot tubs, right? I'm staying obviously at a property in Blue Ridge. If you don't have a hot tub, you're not going to compete in the Smoky Mountains, right? But if you put a hot tub in a Florida property, well, no one really cares. I live in Florida. I don't have a hot tub because you just have to walk out your back door and you're in a hot tub eight months out of the year, right?

And so specific amenities have higher rates of returns in certain markets. And then the same thing goes for the cost of it, right? What it costs to install a pickleball court in Clearwater, Florida versus Hudson, New York, where you and me were talking about properties earlier, is going to be very different.

What I would say is I don't want to be a politician and dance around the question. I just don't want to put my foot in my mouth. And so what I would say is every market's unique. One of the advantages to using us is that before we let you put an amenity into a property, we're going to make sure that there's data to support it. And then we're going to get you the best pricing on the labor and the cost of goods to get that amenity installed, right? Call three contractors. You're going to get three different, drastically different quotes for the same scope of work. And what's cool about using us is that we're after the best pricing and the best quality. And people can't bullsh*t us. We know what it costs to do the work.

Jeremy: Yeah. You've done it a few times.

Mark: Yeah. I got a great example. We have a client that wanted to do a sand volleyball court in Florida, and they got a quote for $85,000. We got the sand volleyball court installed for $15,000. And they couldn't believe it. They were ready to pay this subcontractor $85,000 to install the volleyball court because they thought that's what it cost. Well, we were able to look at that and go, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. That doesn't make sense. You're way overpaying for this amenity. It should cost this. And then we got it done for that.

Jeremy: Do you guys do like, so for instance, the most recent house I got, a lot of the heavy lifting at first was essentially like preventative maintenance. The house had a lot of cement in the back and there was no drainage for that. So is that something you guys look at? Because that's the first thing I do is like, all right, heavy rain, where does the water go? If we're going to finish out a workshop and turn it into a bedroom, we got to make sure that there's a sump pump and whatever, all that stuff, so water is not an issue. So is that something you guys care about?

Mark: Definitely, man. That's a huge reason that people like to get us involved early in the inspection process when looking at a home or going under contract on a home, because we'll look at everything that needs to be done on that home, price out those repairs, let you know what's going to become an issue or not an issue, and then look at your long-term plan.

And so we have some clients that want to hold assets for at least eight years. They say, this asset has to perform for the next eight years to make sense for our portfolio. And if a roof only has two to three years left, well, gosh, we're going to get that thing replaced now. Because why would you wait for that roof to fail? You could be in the middle of your peak season, three years down the road, and have to close down bookings and cost yourself 10, 20 grand in revenue when you could just get that thing done now, knowing that it's going to become a problem in the future.

So we're a big fan of preventative maintenance on repairs on the house, getting things done today that will become problems in the future. And then being kind of that advocate for you as you're in the buying and inspection phase process to let you know, like, hey, this is going to become a problem for you in the near future. You should call this out right now, try to get a credit, maybe try to find a different asset. And so yeah, I definitely think we can help on both of those fronts.

Jeremy: Yeah, it's kind of funny. I'm literally getting texted by my local project manager for the most recent project. Not only do we have water kind of coming into the house, and we had cement there where it just wasn't draining and kind of bleeding into the backyard, but then at the back of the pool there's a hill and the water was coming down the hill. And we have like an outdoor fireplace wall and that wall was starting to crack and water was undermining the cement back there. So he's sending me photos of like riprap was put in, in order to make sure that the wall, whatever. We're doing preventative maintenance as we speak.

So that's interesting. I'm glad to hear that you guys, because I know some other services in the space really just kind of, like I like to say, is like they put lipstick on a pig, you know, and they don't, that's not their priority, or they don't care, frankly, or that's just not what they deal with. And they're honest with that. They don't say, oh, we're going to do it, and they don't do it. But that's good to know that that's really the first step, right? You guys think like, all right, what are the preventative maintenance issues here?

I guess when you guys, so how early? So let's say I'm, well, I sent you a property earlier. So what's the process look like? I just sent you one. Are you going to tell me how I pimp this out or how I privatize it? What the potential would be, or what's this going to look like?

Mark: Yeah, definitely, man. I think like any contractor, we're going to start with a discovery phase and find out what you're trying to accomplish with the property.

Jeremy: Dollars, man.

Mark: What's your competition look like? What's your budget look like? And then make sure that we're in the same, like, we're in the same room having the same conversation. If you want to spend 30 grand to completely redo and furnish a 3000 square foot, five bedroom, five bath, we're going to tell you we're not the right fit for you. But if you've got a healthy budget and you're willing to invest in the property and we can sink our teeth into it, I like to make sure that we're relatively on the same page, right?

Like this is a good example. I got a roof put on a property and the roofer said, hey man, the range is 12 to 16 grand. I said, well, what's the range difference? Well, I don't know what the sheet rock, I don't know what the plywood looks like underneath the roof today. Same thing with us, right? Until we actually dive into a project, we don't know all the things we don't know. So we like to make sure that we're in the same range as far as a budget goes, subject to change. If we get into a home and we tear up floors and there's a bunch of dry rot and you got to fix it, well, we're going to let you know, and then things are going to change.

But yes, we have that initial conversation, get on the same page, come up with a game plan. And if you think we're the right team to help you, you hire us. And then we dive in and start ripping up floors, right?

Jeremy: So that's the first thing you do. And you guys do the renovations too. So you'll say, hey, we need new floors here, we need to paint the walls. You guys come with that general scope of work. And then after that's all done, this place needs to be furnished.

Mark: Definitely. Yeah, get all the renovations done. We like to think of them as happening simultaneously. And that's really how we stay super efficient and can get things done faster than most folks. Because you'll have a construction manager that's dealing with all the construction, bidding things out, getting people there to do the work, pulling permits. And then at the same time, you have a designer who's working simultaneously with them to come up with a beautiful design, pick out furniture, make sure you have all the amenities and essentials. And so we do those at the same time. And then when it works in perfect harmony, they all come together at the end and you've got a completed project.

Jeremy: So how do you guys deal with, I mean, you are operating 48 different states, or I don't know, you gave a big number there. How do you deal with so many different permitting processes?

Mark: Yeah, it's a lot of work, man. We have a project manager. You'd mentioned a guy that we know mutually earlier.

Jeremy: I didn't even know he worked for you guys. This is, I'm learning that you guys have been hiding in plain sight this whole time.

Mark: Yeah. Somebody told me the other day we're the industry's best kept secret. And quite frankly, I feel like we are, because we've primarily worked just for a handful of clients over the last couple of years and we have not been available for everyday investors. And so we've just started over the last few months to take on, build our team, bolster our team and take on work for other investors. But yeah, you all heard it here first.

Jeremy: You heard it here first.

Mark: Definitely. But yeah, our buddy that we both know, he's one of our great project managers, and we really lean heavily on their experience and their know-how to do the research, make sure that we're compliant with the local city county rules, make sure that we're compliant with the HOA, and getting those permits pulled and inspections.

So there's a lot involved to this. Like I know when I talk about it, it just sounds easy and it's like, oh, this is great, they're going to handle everything. But then when I hand it off to my team, there's a lot of work that goes involved into it. And it's really labor intensive and making sure that you have good people. And when you have good people, things seem to work out, and we have good people.

Jeremy: Yeah, for sure. I can attest, at least the one, the guy I know. I guess maybe I can attest to you now. We'll see by the end of the podcast.

Mark: I'm not sure. I don't have your privileges yet.

Jeremy: Yeah, we're a tough, I'm a tough critic, man.

Mark: Come on.

Jeremy: No, I'm just kidding. You're doing great.

So, all right, so we've got through. So you guys preventative maintenance too, which again, this might be the only podcast someone talks about preventative maintenance. I don't really hear that much. But that's first, then renovations. In the meantime, you guys are designing. Do you guys like come up with like mood boards or offer three options? Or you're just like, guys, we know what to do here. Just let the chefs do their thing.

Mark: Yeah, I would say that, let the chefs do their thing. We're obviously open to a little bit of input and insight and ideas that the client have, but we really believe we're the experts. And so let us come up with the design. We do 3D renderings.

Jeremy: Y'all Matterport? Y'all Matterport, like at the beginning?

Mark: Yeah, we start with a Matterport on every project. And then our designers come up with mood boards and 3D renderings and furniture floor plan layouts. And so you're actually able to see like, hey, here's my house from a bird's eye view. And here's where the bed's going. Here's where the nightstand's going. Here's the measurements on those items. There's a mural on this wall. There's a TV on this wall.

And so we go very in-depth into our designs so that prior to ordering all your products, you get a beautiful picture of what that house and property is gonna look like when it's all done. And so yeah, I'm really proud of our design team. They're really one of the best in the industry.

Jeremy: And I will say, I know you've just started working with the retail, kind of the retail investors, so to speak. That will be an annoying part with some people. And that will be the way, like early on, you're gonna have to do some sort of expectation leveling with them because, yeah, if they're like, oh, but actually I wanna buy this furniture here.

Jeremy: That's just like, that's gonna be, they're gonna have to understand to let you, to trust you on that.

Mark: Definitely, yeah, to lean on our expertise. The reason you're hiring us is because we know what we're talking about and we know what kind of furniture is the right quality, what's gonna last, how to best accommodate your occupancy, your desired occupancy. Really all those things, we hope, if you hire us, you need to lean on us for that.

Jeremy: They're like, we can spend $500 and buy bunk beds. Why don't we just do that?

Mark: Yeah, and I would say to...

Jeremy: How much does that built-in with the slide?

Mark: Those things cost 10 to 15 grand, man. They are not cheap. But they are worth it. They are absolutely worth it.

And I would say to those, like the investors that are very DIY, wanna do it themselves, wanna be really hands-on, we're obviously not the best fit, but that doesn't mean that we don't want you to be inspired by what we're doing. And something as simple as like a full-length mirror in a room, those cost two or $300 and it completely changes how the entire room looks and feels. And 99.9% of all women want a full-length mirror in a property, and probably about 80% of all guys want a full-length mirror in the bedrooms as well.

And so you can still learn from us and take some tips and ideas, and hopefully they can, I like to say a rising tide lifts all ships. And if they increase the quality of their properties, it benefits the whole industry and we all do better because of it.

Jeremy: Yeah, totally. And maybe this is someone who's working with a client, and a client's property, and they're trying to convince their client to add an extra amenity here or there. And not just like people listening here, they come from all ranges of the spectrum, people who own two houses, the people who manage houses for third party, people looking into managing houses. I mean, I've had people in my mastermind who have helped someone else design and set up a house from nothing, like from scratch.

So it's not even only people thinking about their own home purchases here. This is an entire landscape, and regardless of where you are in the landscape and where you are on your journey, you've got something to learn from those who are doing it the best. And I mean, there's probably not many folk out there who are setting up more houses than you, like ever in the history of short-term rentals, or currently. Or are there, I don't know. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Mark: Yeah, I mean, I don't know really anybody who's doing it at the scale and at the quality that we're doing it at. So that's really exciting for us, at least to have a headstart on the competition.

I do see a lot of great houses out there. There's a lot of great designers that do really good quality work and create beautiful spaces. I think that our distinct advantage, like you said, is the preventative maintenance, that we are licensed contractors and we can do renovations and we can really tie it all together versus just doing designs. And so yeah, I like to get from...

Jeremy: When you guys get permits, gee, pardon me, that's my biggest personal annoyance or pain point is the permitting process, but y'all have probably done it a thousand times.

Mark: And then what it is, is it's our problem, not your problem, right?

Jeremy: Yeah, exactly. You have clients who like, you guys try to permit something and then it takes three months because whatever it might be, just takes a while, and then they get frustrated with that, or what's that?

Mark: I think our goal is, and that's why we like to look at a scope of work prior to you hiring us and kind of have that initial discovery and to find out. We've got a client that wanted to add a bathroom to a property in Florida. They have a four bedroom, they wanted to add a bathroom bedroom and go from a four, two to a five, three.

And we had the candid conversation, which was, hey, in order to do this bathroom, you've got to permit it, you've got to do plumbing, you've got to do electrical, it's a lot of work. You got to move walls, you got to cut concrete. And that bathroom adds two months to the renovation time and adds $20,000 to the overall budget cost. Is it really worth it? Does a five bedroom, three bath really make that much more money over a five bedroom, two bath in that market? Our conclusion was, no, it doesn't. And having that extra bathroom really doesn't generate any more revenue for you from the number standpoint.

And so we were able to talk that client, like, how many contractors do you know talk clients out of adding bathrooms to houses? None of them. They all say, great, you want to do a bathroom? It's 25 grand, write me a check, we'll get it going. We didn't do that. We had that hard conversation that said, you don't need a bathroom. You don't need a third bathroom for this to be a great short-term rental. Save yourself the money, save yourself the time. And we were able to launch that project way ahead of schedule. And the client was thrilled and the property is doing really well, so.

Jeremy: Gotcha. So yeah, you guys aren't incentivized by cost. And I think like the US government, the cost-plus programs are very, where you take a percentage of the cost, and if costs go higher than they're supposed to be, you get compensated. That's not your incentive structure?

Mark: It's not, but you know what our incentive structure is, Jeremy? Our incentive structure is your success as a real estate investor in your home as a short-term rental. Because we're not in this to do one project for you. Like, Jeremy, we don't just want to do one project for you. We want to do every project for you.

And so we want to exceed your expectations on the first one, set you up for success, and you to make a bunch of money on these properties, get a great return and say, guys, that's performing so well, let's go buy a second one, a third one. And I mean, that's why we've done, what, 150 projects for one of our clients? Because they've been able to find success with what we've done. And then we've reciprocated that success with a lot more projects.

Jeremy: And then what do you guys, so, no, this is all very, very informative today. And just to kind of go back, we've talked about what specific amenities drive success. We've talked about the pickleball court specifically. We've talked about the bar or the slides. I see that you guys have been starting to add play structures, like within the last, I don't know, six months, or give me a wink, wink, nod, nod. Is that something that makes money there?

Mark: Yeah, yeah, the play structures, the kid cities have been really, really unique. It definitely separates those properties. So, yeah.

Jeremy: I guess anything else, any other quick one? Could be something that's zero and it'll cost $200, or something that costs $100,000. What makes you crush it?

Mark: I would say that definitely invest in some nice interior design pieces. So have full-length mirrors. Those are really inexpensive. They make a room pop. They're a nice amenity for people to have. Have a splash of color. If your property looks like every other property with the black IKEA metal bed frame, a white bed, and a painting from Ross that doesn't make any sense and is out of place, what would it look like, that room, if you just invested maybe $1,000 or $2,000 and had a really nice rug, a couple nice USB lamps, an accent with wallpaper on it, and some nice local decor pieces? A couple grand can really bolster the way a room looks, and then give you a great return. And so those are some small things that you can do, really, to the interior to just add some quick value.

And then on the outside, can you add some inexpensive games, some amenities? Cornhole's a fun game to play. Can you do a fire pit? Can you do giant Jenga, Connect Four? Like, what are some inexpensive games you can add outside that click those amenity boxes when you're building out your listing? And then give people, when they're looking at your photos, a vision of them playing games and having fun and enjoying that outside space. That's really what you wanna do, is create spaces that people are gonna make memories in.

And then, like you said, then you can scale that up and you can spend 30, 40, 50 grand on a pickleball basketball court. Well, pickleball's the fastest growing sport in America. I was just looking at a property in Melbourne, Florida, and they wanted to do it. And I said, okay, let's look at pickleball courts for rent. And so we went online. There's only two places that have pickleball courts for rent. They're booked out like three or four weeks before you can even grab a time on a pickleball court. And maybe that's our new business today, pickleball courts for rent. Let's go, at the local YMCA.

And so I'm thinking, well, gosh, if people in your market can't even rent one to go play at, who's to say that people will pay, whatever it is, more, however we quantify that, more to come stay in your home just because it has a pickleball court. So you capture all those guests who are looking at your property because it has the pickleball court. You'll get people to pay more on a nightly rate who might have booked your property before, but now that it has that extra amenity, they see some additional value in it.

And so yeah, you can go really inexpensive and spend a few hundred dollars on some nice amenities like outside games and full-length mirrors. You can spend tens of thousands of dollars on really setting your property apart with some amenities that no one else has, and even the YMCA down the street doesn't have it, and really separate yourself. It's up to you and what you want to do. We're happy to help with both.

Jeremy: Okay, and then, all right, well, that's, and then do you guys have, so I've seen, we talk about, now we're talking, we're calling it the amenities arms race. Before we had a different name for it. I like this one more. Both of them are, I guess, kind of negative, but arms race, I don't know, I've come from a military family, so maybe, I don't know, feels more fitting.

So do people come to you with underperforming properties and say, hey, what do we do here? Have you predominantly been doing, because I know the company that you've done 150 with, those are all new, or maybe some of them were existing Airbnbs, but they didn't own them, at least. Do people come to you with ones that they have purchased, they have set up, and then say, hey, we need some help here, what can you do? Yeah, we want to pimp my crib.

Mark: Yeah.

Jeremy: Pimp my STR.

Mark: Yeah, man.

Jeremy: Privatize.

Mark: Privatize.

Jeremy: Yeah, you remember that old show, Pimp My Ride, with Xzibit? That was a great show.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah, we definitely do that. We call those refreshes, and so we're looking at an existing short-term rental and looking at what you can do to level it up, level up your listing. I think the Level Up Your Listing summit's going on right now, and I hope people are getting a lot of value out of that, but same thing for us. How can you level up your listing?

It really comes down to what the property owner is willing to invest in the home, and then what you can do, right? And so it's just like anything, if you want to see a good return and you want great results, you have to be willing to invest in it. You can't go cheap, and so that would really be my message. We'd love to help you. Make sure that you come with a healthy budget and you're ready to invest in the home. And if you don't have that, then just take some of the tips that we gave you today, and follow some of our work, and steal some of our ideas, and do it kind of on your own until you're ready. But there's lots of ways to level up your property.

Jeremy: Yeah, and when I set up properties, I generally, I think a lot of people, or probably these big, the institutional players we talk about, they want to do everything at the beginning. They don't want to have to come back a year down the line and do additional work. For me, I'm with a fixed budget. I try to make all my dollars go as far as possible.

Sometimes I'll launch a property. For example, I launched a property in August of last year. I think I bought it in July, and I was like, look, I gotta get this up, it's the summer, this house has a pool, I know that the high season here is like the next three months. I'm not gonna add my hot tub in July, August. Like, I'm gonna wait, get those bookings, put some cash in that bank account, and then in December, I'm gonna add the hot tub.

Do people, I guess my question is, do you recommend kind of that tiered approach, or is it better to just get it all done with from the get-go?

Mark: Yeah, like phases, we talk about it in phases. And it really just depends on who you are. Like you said, there's some clients that want to do it all up front, but there's others where, like you said, there's situations where it just doesn't make sense to have your property closed for three months while you're doing renovations.

And so on those, we're happy to stagger it and do things in phases. Maybe we can get furniture in, and some wallpaper, and some decor, and a couple outside amenities now, let you run through the busy season, make a bunch of money, and then as things start to slow down, we'll schedule that additional work, those hot tubs to be delivered, pools to be dug, things like that. And so yes, we're definitely happy to help people.

Jeremy: Pools to be dug. You guys will help schedule pools to be dug. I love it.

Mark: Yeah, man.

Jeremy: Y'all add pools.

Mark: We add pools, we do everything. I mean, other than new construction, we'll do new roofs, we do pools, we do anything that you need from a renovation or amenity standpoint, we got you.

Jeremy: How much does a pool cost, by the way?

Mark: Yeah, it just depends on where you are. I think where I live in Florida, they start about 40 grand, and then there's a pool we're putting in that's like 120 grand at a Scottsdale mansion. So there's a big range on pools, but yeah, they're not cheap.

Jeremy: And then how long does a permitting process take on a pool?

Mark: Yeah, pools take a while. Pools are at least 90 days. Could be a little longer. And so what a lot of folks will do too is they will potentially discount their nightly rate, and they'll put in there as a disclosure, like, hey, the backyard is actively having a pool being put in, sorry about that, but still try to make some money while they're doing that.

Jeremy: And then, okay, so, interesting. So I guess all the Florida houses you guys buy, that's not, I like to say there's like checkbox amenities and standout amenities. In certain places such as Florida, a pool is a checkbox amenity. Gotta have it. In certain places like where you are right now, I mean, there's a house, you're staying in, does it have a hot tub?

Mark: Right below me.

Jeremy: D*mn right, because it's a checkbox.

Mark: You wouldn't, yeah, exactly, exactly.

Jeremy: So the question is, is like, the standout amenities. And I do think, at least for the time being right now, and I think the reason this is, because I looked at my entire portfolio and said, all right, how can I, okay, the Level Up the Listing Summit is happening right now, so we'll use that terminology. I was gonna just say Krippitize. How do we further Krippitize our property? How do we level it up?

Yeah, and the thing that I've seen with pickleball courts, so like, I have a mentee, I talk about him because he's an absolute baller on his own, right? He has like luxury barndominiums, and before doing those, those are very unique. There's not a lot of them. They do well. Prior to that, he had a cabin in the Smoky Mountains, and it was doing well, I think his first year, 2021, and then 2022, it had like a $30,000, 30% decline. And he reasoned out that there was like 15 brand new builds in his neighborhood, and they all have indoor pools. So at that point, he can't really...

Mark: I've seen that floor plan a dozen times. It's the same floor plan with that little mini pool downstairs.

Jeremy: Exactly, exactly. So they all have that. You can't really compete with that if you don't have that. You can't build, you can't put, you're not gonna dig a basement and put in an indoor pool.

However, he thought, what do I have that these properties don't have? And the answer was that was two acres and a portion of my property that's relatively flat, and I can build a 60 by 30 pad. I'm actually curious, what are the dimensions you guys normally do for a pickleball pad?

Mark: That's a great question, man. I wish I knew off the top of my head, but I don't.

Jeremy: Because I look at all your guys' different properties, and sometimes they're a little different. Sometimes they're just the court with like a foot on the side.

Mark: Yeah, it comes down to the egress. It comes down to what the county will let you do. A lot of times there's only a certain amount of your yard space you're allowed to use, because you've got to keep some of it for rainfall. So yeah, I mean, sometimes they're tight and we squeeze them in, and sometimes they're almost double courts and they're massive.

Jeremy: Yeah, the permeability requirements is something I've learned about in Florida.

Okay, so with that being said, he was like, I have space for a pickleball court. Like, nobody in the Smoky Mountains has a pickleball court. Because think about it, they're all mountain houses. They don't really have flat property. And people, again, they've been building those like kind of off the side of the mountain, four bedroom homes with views. That's been the thing. If you look two years ago, when you were getting plans to build a new property, you were like, that's what I need, because those are what are crushing it today. But then 30 houses in your neighborhood came in with the same exact thing.

So it's like, what is something, and that's what I was like, what is something that I can add to my properties that I just know other people can't add? And I can't add pickleball courts to every single one of my listings. I just can't, because I don't have enough space. I might have a septic field, and I can't put it on top of that. But there are a few I can add them to. So I'm like, that's definitely something I want to do.

And then honestly, when I look for houses from now on, if I'm concerned about defensibility, pickleball courts, like that's, I don't know if you agree or disagree with that, or am I preaching to the choir here, or is it something you're seeing?

Mark: I mean, definitely, it's like, the more you put into the property, the harder you are, the more distance you separate yourself from your competition, the bigger of a moat you dig.

Jeremy: Well, but it's also thinking about what's a checkmark amenity and what's a standout. So for instance, I actually got engaged in Joshua Tree. My friend, Patrick, he actually, we had a podcast that we filmed right before my engagement shoot. So you guys should check that one out. And the reason we did that was like, hey, we have a cameraman here, or I told my fiance, hey, we're going to have a cameraman. Like, we're in the middle of the desert. So if we have a cameraman for no reason, there's probably a giveaway. What's going to happen next? So we filmed the podcast and then we got engaged. But that's a side story.

But prior to that, we checked out all of the properties that, some of the ones he owns and a lot of the ones he manages, earlier that day. And what I realized is like, d*mn, in Joshua Tree, a pickleball court's becoming a checkbox amenity, because they all have that flat backyard. They all have like pretty big, I don't know, one acre plots with a flat backyard.

So I guess my point is like, is that something you think about? Is like, what's something that just I can do here that no one else can do?

Mark: Yeah, definitely. I think the problem with that though is [inaudible]