Back

How to Scale a Co-hosting Business With EasyBreezy BNB

Jeremy Werden

Written by:

Jeremy Werden

December 23, 2024

⚡️
Reveal any property's Airbnb and Long-Term rental profitability

Buy this property and list it on Airbnb.

Quick Summary

Sean, Vanessa, and Tim outlines strategies and insights from their EasyBreezy BNB brand for scaling a co-hosting business in the short-term rental (STR) industry. It emphasizes the importance of personalized service, building relationships, leveraging local expertise, and systemizing operations to grow and manage a portfolio efficiently.

Key Points

  1. Establish strong relationships with Realtors, investors, and local stakeholders to create referral networks and gain clients.
  2. Attend open houses, networking events, and meetups to connect with potential clients and establish your reputation as an STR expert.
  3. Understand local regulations, inspection processes, and market nuances to provide value and differentiate your services from large national management firms.
  4. Maintain strong relationships with inspectors, contractors, and other service providers to streamline operations.
  5. Develop standardized systems for onboarding, guest communication, and property management to streamline operations.
  6. Build a reliable team, including virtual assistants, cleaning crews, and local property managers, to scale efficiently while maintaining service quality.
  7. Expand your value by offering design and setup services for clients, especially for out-of-state investors. Charge fees for additional services, like property setup, to ensure scalability and profitability.

Full Transcript

Check out full episodes on:

  1. YouTube
  2. Spotify
  3. Apple Podcasts

Jeremy: What's up, guys? We are live with the Short-Term Rental Pros Podcast today. I'm here with a trifecta of co-host property managers based out of South Florida. We've got Sean, Vanessa, and Tim from Easy Breezy B&B.

Sean: Easy Breezy B&B, that's us!

Jeremy: Easy breezy, let's go! So, we got Easy Breezy B&B in the house. They have scaled a co-host, as well as an ownership portfolio, over the last several years in sunny South Florida.

Sean and Vanessa are actually a husband-and-wife duo, so super excited to have a great conversation today.

We're going to talk about TPG moving into—uh, you know—a private equity firm moving into South Florida and kind of talk about what happened there, as well as, you know, some of the challenges they're facing and how they are reacting to them.

Sean, Vanessa, Tim—thank you guys so much for coming today!

Sean: Thanks for having us.

Vanessa: Definitely, thank you.

Tim: Thank you!

So, guys, let's hear a little bit about your background. How did you get your portfolio to where it is today?

Sean: Yeah, definitely. So, just kind of like a little preface or whatever—I had been involved in real estate investing beforehand. One of the things we were doing was, I had a duplex. Vanessa and I were living on one side, and we had the other side rented out to a tenant.

Long story short, the tenant moved out. I renovated the place, and I was getting ready to re-rent it. Then Vanessa kind of had this crazy idea. She was like, "Hey, let's do Airbnb or whatever."

Vanessa: And he was not for it.

Sean: I was not about it at all. I thought, "That's a lot of work. I don't want to deal with the headache, the parties, and all this and that." But she convinced me to do it. It took a lot of convincing, but I was like, "Okay."

Vanessa: I basically had to tell him I was going to do the entire thing for him—that he wouldn't have to lift a finger. I’d handle all the furnishing, all the guest communication, everything. Then he finally agreed.

Sean: So, the deal was, she would take over everything. She would decorate it, run the whole show, do everything. I was like, "Okay, that's cool. We'll just see how it goes."

She started running it, and I started to notice something. Unlike a tenant, where you get the rent once a month, the money was coming in every time a guest checked in. I was like, "Oh, I kind of like this."

Jeremy: He saw the “Airbnb payout was sent!” He saw that notification.

Sean: Right and then it hit the bank account, and I was like, "Oh, okay, that’s kind of nice." So, after that, I started to get a little more interested. I was like, "Okay, how are you pricing this?" I began asking a couple of questions, started doing more research, and yeah.

Basically, from there, I got into it. I had just purchased another property, so we moved into that property and put both sides of the duplex on Airbnb. Both units were doing well. We were like, "Okay, we like this Airbnb thing. We want to grow this business, but how can we grow it?"

Obviously, you can’t keep buying properties—you’ll run out of money quickly. So, we thought, "There are probably other owners out there like me, who are interested in Airbnb but have no desire to run the business side of it." That’s when the management company was born.

Jeremy: At first, you wanted to do nothing. You were like, "Vanessa, all right, if you do this, you’ve got it." Then that first payout hit your bank account, and you were like, "Wait a minute here. I didn’t have to do anything, and this money is coming in? Let’s see if we can do a little more of this."

And then you were like, "We can only buy so many properties." But you wanted to keep going, so you thought of other strategies or ways to grow the portfolio. That’s kind of how you stumbled into co-hosting?

Sean: Yeah. Funny story, actually. Yeah, so that’s how we stumbled into co-hosting. We were looking at different ways people were getting involved. For a very, very small period, we looked into rental arbitrage.

We started calling up Realtors and landlords of rental properties to try and do the whole "rent it out and sublet it" thing. But for us, we discovered fairly quickly it wasn’t ideal. With the upfront costs and everything, it seemed like a better play to partner with owners and co-host instead.

Vanessa: Especially with rent in South Florida being so high, there's just—it doesn't really make a lot of sense, you know what I mean, for the type of unit that we were wanting to go for. There wasn’t a lot of meat left on the bone after you paid rent and stuff like that.

Jeremy: Yeah, definitely. And I think that’s the thing. So, you know, for folks listening, co-hosting—if you don’t know already—is when you just manage a property for someone else. So generally, what co-host fee do you guys charge?

Sean: 25%.

Jeremy: So, they take a quarter—one quarter of gross revenue. If the house makes $10,000 a month, that’s $2,500. If the house makes $5,000 a month, that’s $1,250.

By doing that, you might not have—you know, with Arbitrage, you’ve got potentially higher upside but also potentially a lot higher downside. With co-hosting, you don’t really have a downside. I mean, the downside is if the co-host client decides not to go with you anymore.

So then, you know, maybe you wasted a little bit of time talking to them and setting things up, but you’re not wasting your money. You didn’t—you didn’t, you know—it’s a 3,000-square-foot house, you didn’t just spend $35,000 furnishing it.

So, I guess, did you guys look at co-hosting as a way to just minimize risk?

Vanessa: For sure. I think Arbitrage is a good—I always say, like, I don’t want to knock Arbitrage because, if you don’t have a portfolio or any, like, so to speak, it’s really hard to get somebody to agree to let you manage their property without any experience.

So, I think Arbitrage can be a great way to get your foot in the door. Luckily, we had our own properties that we were able to show off that we were managing, but for sure, co-hosting was what we felt was the safest and the smartest bet for our business specifically. For sure.

Sean: Definitely, definitely.

Jeremy:: Yeah, what I tell people is, you have to either show people your own listings—whether you buy or Arbitrage—or you have to creatively lend someone else’s listings. So, you know, like, I have a portfolio of whatever—25 listings. If someone wants to work with me, we can figure out how to present that in a way that makes them look legit. But also, you know, I obviously have to vet and make sure they are legit.

But I digress. So, you guys were able to build your own portfolio initially.

Vanessa: I did have to do a lot of free labor in the beginning to get my first client to let me manage his property, but it’s all right.

Jeremy: First client—how did you find that first client? Walk me through that deal and that relationship.

Vanessa: That was actually a really interesting situation. Sean made us a website, and we randomly get a call from somebody who somehow found our website. I don’t even know how it was on…

Sean: Okay, so this is a little, little, little pro tip for anybody who’s starting out: Get your—get a website, and then get your business or your company…

Jeremy: on Google?

Sean: Google Maps. You know Google Maps—when they search the business, it comes up with the phone numbers or whatever. Get a couple of your friends to give you little five-star reviews, a couple of them there, and then—that’s how he found us. So, he called us up, and we go over to it…

Vanessa: We go over there the same day.

Sean: Oh, I mean, like, I—I was like, "Oh, you want—you want—okay, we can come check it out now. You ready now?"

Vanessa: And it was in a great neighborhood. It was a really nice house. And, like, when we got there, honestly, I was so nervous. Thankfully, Sean—he’s like, "Fake it till you make it." He just—he has so much balls, so to speak, because I was shaking in my boots.

When we got there, the owner himself was an Airbnb property manager in, like, I think North Carolina but had a portfolio. So, I was even more nervous when he said that because I’m like, "He’s totally going to smell our funk and know we’re lying.”

Sean: luckily, luckily, we had just enough experience. Cuz he was asking us—he was asking us questions that normal clients, like regular clients, don’t really ask.

So, luckily, we knew just enough to, like, "Oh, okay, they seem like they know what they’re doing," or whatever. But, you know, I don’t know if he knew or not, but he ended up taking a chance on us.

Vanessa: He hired us on the spot.

Jeremy: And, and, and I think that that just shows—and I tell people this—meet people in person, you know? That’s a huge advantage.

I think, like, sitting at that 20–25 property mark is a very comfortable place to be in short-term rentals because once you get up to, like, 100–200, you really can’t allocate time to building the relationships or meeting folks in person.

But you have a unique advantage starting out because you do have that time. You can get up and go, and that’s why they’re going to pick you. People say, "Oh, why are they going to go with someone new versus Vacasa or one of these massive property managers?" It’s because you just went over there.

Vanessa: That’s been huge for us. And we’ve had so many of our clients tell us, actually, that one of the main reasons why they chose us is:

  • We picked up the phone and were available.
  • We showed up right away, when we said we would, and did what we said we were going to do.

So, that has been huge—just being there, showing face, shaking their hand, and walking through their property with them to address their concerns.

Jeremy: Got it. So, you got that co-host client literally from making a website and a Google business profile. How did you further scale from there?

Sean: So, from there—okay, yeah—so we had the Google business profile, and we were getting a couple leads here and there. From that, I think we got, like, a couple more.

Vanessa: The secret sauce. The secret—

Sean: Oh, I forgot about that. Oh, man. So, so, when we first started, one of the things that I would do was—I would…

Vanessa: He’s giving you trade secrets right now because we never tell anybody this. It was our secret sauce forever.

Jeremy: I completely forgot about this. So, what I would do is, I would make these revenue reports for how much a house could make in the area, right? Like, I would go on Zillow or Redfin or something like that, and I would pull up all the houses that looked like something we would want to manage.

I would find the ones that were for sale, create a revenue report, and then email the Realtors this revenue report.

But I wouldn’t just email them—I would then show up to the open house and say, "Hey, I’m the guy that emailed you," so they knew it wasn’t spam, like I was an actual person. From there…

Vanessa: We would bring a stack of the revenue reports and say, "Here, leave this on your open house table to show your potential buyers what the property could make."

Sean: Realtors got to know who I was, and they started referring me out. Especially because, the thing is, with anything, right—you’re consistent.

I would do this every single day, right? So, eventually, it’s the same Realtors that are kind of doing most of the volume in the area. They start seeing your email enough, and then you show up to a house a couple of times, and they’re like, "Oh, okay."

And then also, too, having that stack of the revenue reports—it’s just extra information that helps them sell the house. Right, so now people are, like, looking at this. They’re like, "Oh, this is interesting. They have a potential Airbnb buyer," and then the guy's like, "Oh, I have this for you."

And then it has my phone number, our company logo, all nice and neat right there, and all of a sudden,

Vanessa: It was branded, like the actual revenue reports. So that was good too because, like, the buyers would come in and take them, and even if they didn’t buy that house specifically, they would call us for other properties that they would consider.

Sean: Yeah, they would call us, "Oh, what do you think this property can make?" And then, all of a sudden, now we’re starting to get calls. So that was how we got our, like, initial lead flow.

Jeremy: I love this, and part of the reason I love this is because it kind of validates something that I’ve been working on. I don’t know—are you guys familiar with BNBCalc? Uh Software?

Sean: Vaguely, vaguely.

Jeremy: All right, I guess our ads haven’t been going to the right people.

Vanessa: Is it like AirDNA?

Jeremy: No. So essentially, what BNBCalc is—it’s essentially a spreadsheet, you know, so an analysis digitized on a web application. And we have a lot of Realtors who will analyze a property, run the numbers, and then send it, share it to their clients.

But what I want to also work on is branded reports for vacation rental managers, co-hosts. So you can analyze a property, you can show, you know, you can show how much it would make as a short-term rental, how much as a long-term rental potentially.

It’ll have your phone number, it’ll have your email there, and just kind of, like, you know, export to PDF if you want to print it out. Export to PDF if you don’t—if you want to just send it, click the share link, and send it.

So, kind of—is that kind of, like, the concept? I’m sure you guys manually built out these reports.

Sean: Yeah, for sure. So basically, what I did was—I did a report, and then I figured out, like, "Okay, this looks nice, this is nice," and then I just kind of used that as a template and then just swapped out the numbers and the pictures and stuff.

Jeremy:: You built your own template and then kind of, like, took stuff and put it into Excel to do everything and then brought it back into the report?

Sean: Well, yeah. So, it was—I mean, it was very simple. Honestly, it’s probably—it’s not like software or anything like that. I literally had, like, a Word document, right, that had, like, you know, the address, the picture, the information, whatever.

And what I would do is, I would manually, like, go to, you know, all these property listings, and I would copy the picture, paste it in, you know, and swap it out. But I’m getting all the numbers from, like, AirDNA or whatever. So, you know, you get the numbers from AirDNA, and you just change the number out, and then save as PDF, and done. So it was, you know, probably a rudimentary version of what you have going on.

Jeremy: But, yeah, you guys are obviously, you know, figure-it-outers, make-it-workers. You know, I’m not saying other people aren’t, but definitely, we’re just trying to make that process as easy as possible so, you know, folks don’t have to, like, recreate the wheel.

I just love hearing you guys say that, and I would love to show you guys what we’re doing and get your feedback. We can do that. We can do that offline here. But let’s keep going.

So, you were—so let me just get this straight. Google Business was the first—the first, first client. Clients after that were going to open houses, dropping your stack, and essentially, I want to say, building relationships with referral partners?

Sean: 100%.

Vanessa: Realtors were big.

Jeremy:: And these Realtors—would they connect you with other potential clients?

Vanessa: All the time.

Sean: All the time.

Vanessa: They loved it so much because, a lot of the times, Realtors have a hard time accurately, like, deciding how much an Airbnb can make.

Jeremy: They have no idea.

Vanessa: They have no idea, and a lot of times, they’re completely off. So, for them, it was almost like a sigh of relief to have a partner that they could rely on that would give numbers that, like, we would back, you know what I mean?

Like, if we give you a number, like, we’re going to back this number. This is what your property is going to make. So, they were referring us to their other Realtor friends, like, all their clients—it just became, like, an actual thing. And, like, the name Easy Breezy really started to go around Fort Lauderdale. That and also, we have a Meetup that we’ve been doing for, like, two years now with our friends that started it and asked us to co-host it. That’s been huge too.

Sean: Yeah, the Meetup and just getting to know a bunch of the investors in the area. So, in the beginning also, too, in addition to that, we had our own meetup that we were kind of helping with, but we would also go to a bunch of the other meetups in the area.

Once you do that—again, it’s not a huge pool of people that are going to these things regularly—so you start to get to know other people, and people start to associate you with short-term rentals.

And then they start coming to you, asking you questions, and then, you know, all of a sudden, you’re starting to get phone calls from, like, we were starting to get phone calls from people that had heard about us from somebody else, and I—I had never met or heard of them, you know what I mean.

Jeremy: Yeah.

Sean: So, referral—that, you know, like word of mouth.

Vanessa: We wanted to be like a beacon for short-term rentals—that was what we said from the beginning. Like, we want to be a beacon for short-term rentals. As the short-term rental specialists in Fort Lauderdale, like, you have a question, Easy Breezy are the people that you're going to call to get an answer for it.

Jeremy: And you guys are just giving value to people. Essentially, you just focused on providing value, providing information. And what I'd say is, like, the more you give, the more you get, and you became the experts.

So, and that obviously translated. So tell me, when did you guys start scaling, by the way?

Sean: Started scaling? 2021 is when we kind of started growing.

Vanessa: Yeah, honestly, like, as soon as we started that first unit up, like, we—we were like, "Oh, this is it." And once Sean—he's like the brains behind everything—once he puts his mind on something, the machine starts going, and we just, like, were out the door. He started figuring out how are we going to get these leads in.

So, yeah, 2021 we started, and it went pretty quickly. I think by that first year, we had hit 11 or 12. And then by our second year, we were at, like, 20. And then we're, what, four or five months out from our second year, and we're at, like, 25 now.

Jeremy: Gotcha, you guys have been able to scale this. And at what point did you guys have jobs prior to this, and was there a point where you guys said, "F this, we’re going full-time?"

Vanessa: Yeah, for sure. So, I'm a flight attendant—or I was a flight attendant. But actually, COVID hit, and my flying decreased significantly. So that was actually why I was, like, home, so bored.

And I’m like, "Babe, let me turn next door into an Airbnb." Like, I had nothing to do.

Jeremy: “Let me play, Sean, let me play!”

Vanessa: Yeah! And he's like, "No, I’m not dealing with this, absolutely not." But yeah, so that started there. And then, honestly, the environment in aviation had changed so much after COVID, and I just hated working there.

And then everything with Easy Breezy started scaling so much, so I was just like, "Oh no, like, this is done for me. I'm just never going back there again. I want to go full throttle with Easy Breezy, and this is my baby, so let's grow it."

Jeremy: Excellent. Sean, for you?

Sean: Yeah, so I was actually—I’m actually a pharmacist. Yeah, so I’m a pharmacist, but I had stopped working as a pharmacist years ago—maybe, like, seven.

Jeremy: Took me—I took you as, like, a quant. Thought Sean was the numbers guy, but I guess—

Sean: Yeah, I—to be honest with you, I do kind of have, like, a little bit of an affinity for numbers. Science is—yeah, you know.

But you know, my parents are both pharmacists, so they kind of pushed me into that field. I didn’t really like it too much, and so I actually left pharmacy a while back and started investing in real estate and that sort of thing.

And I actually started with Tim over there. We—we—we decided to jump into flipping houses and stuff like that. So I had some, like, investing prior, like real estate investing stuff, and that's—that's what I was doing.

So I went from pharmacy to just real estate investing—flipping houses, flipping land. And then that's when, at the time, she wanted to do the Airbnb, and I was busy doing the other stuff. So I was like, "Eh, you know," that’s why I was kind of hesitant.

Vanessa: But he agreed to appease me. He was tired of hearing me beg all day about it, so he finally gave up.

Sean: Yeah, but I mean, it was—it, I mean, you know. Now this is—this is what we both do full-time.

Jeremy: See, it seems like Vanessa's the one who pushes you out of your comfort zone, but then you end up, in hindsight, being like, "I'm thankful that you did that."

Sean: For sure.

Vanessa: I could not have done it without him because I had no entrepreneurial background whatsoever. Like, being a business owner was nothing that had ever crossed my mind. So, like, the skill set that he brought to the table—there’s just nothing that could value what he brought to the table.

I would have never been able to build it as quickly as I did without having him, you know, help me out.

Jeremy: So let’s not sell—so I feel like the thing that's cool about short-term rentals, or that I've seen, is, like, the husband-wife combo can’t crush it. And generally—I don’t want to generalize—we’re not going to generalize here, but what I've seen is, oftentimes, you know, the wife or, you know, the partner designs.

Like, they’re good about the design eye. The man, more the numbers, you know, more the kind of, like, operations.

Sean: Yes.

Jeremy: Is that an appropriate characterization here?

Vanessa: 100%. I definitely do all the design stuff. I said I did my first three properties for free—aka Mr. How's properties—but it was very necessary for us because that was, like, our portfolio, and that's what we used, you know what I mean, to go out and say, "Look what I can do."

And that, in itself, ended up becoming its own little side business because most of our clients are out-of-state investors. So, they don’t have the time, nor do they want to be involved in any of that. As full-service, it was really great for us to be able to offer that extra added service.

Sean: And she’s talking about—just by the way—she’s talking about, like, designing and décor.

Jeremy: Yeah, yeah—design and then also the setup. Like, the furniture—like helping with the furniture assembly, coordinating with contractors. Which—I’m gonna give a story from me, like, setting up. So, one of my—so I started with co-hosting.

Just for a little background by myself, I initially started with co-hosting. Then owners would come to me and just say, "Hey, do you want to lease this?" Like, instead of doing the whole property management thing.

And that's how I got into Arbitrage. I didn’t even know it was called Arbitrage. I didn’t even know it was called co-hosting, you know, at the beginning. Like, wasn’t on TikTok enough back then to know all the lingo.

But one of my early property management clients—they just moved out of the house, and they had, like, taken a lot of the furniture with them. So, I spent three or four days, like, literally sleeping on their floor. Like, assembling furniture, going to Sam's Club, going to Costco, assembling furniture.

And then two months into the engagement, they said, "We’re gonna do this ourselves." And I was like, "Are you serious? Like, I literally just slept on your floor, you know? Like, you had a landscaper get there at 4:00 AM, like, two days in a row. Like, I was scared."

But then from there, I was like, "All right, if I’m gonna do this again, I’m charging a setup fee." So, is that something you guys started doing?

Vanessa: 100%. Listen, after I did my first, like, two projects and just saw the pure mountain of trash alone that I had to figure out how to dispose of, I was like, "This is—" And also, like, it does really take a significant amount of time. And that’s time that’s taking me away from being able to go out and chase other leads down. So, like, it’s got to be worth my time.

And then you also get to a space where, like, if I have to run a few projects at one time, like, I need a team, and I need to be able to pay this team to help me set this up. So, yeah, for sure, now we definitely charge for those projects. Like, there’s just no way that I can do them for free. Like, it’s just—it’s not going to happen.

Jeremy: Gotcha. But that first client—this is something I often, you know, tell folks—it only takes, like, one. People say, you know, think, "Well, how am I gonna get to five houses?"

Like, yeah, you can get to five houses with five different clients. Like, that’s possible. But oftentimes, what you see is one landlord or one client might bring you three of them, four of them, five of them.

So, it sounds like you were able to go deep with this early investor, and that really helped cascade everything.

Vanessa: Yeah, for sure. We have a few investors, actually, that have given us more than one property.

Jeremy: Got it. Which, again, it’s also just relationship management. It’s easier, you know, when they can call you and talk to you versus, you know, talking to you about one little condo here and there.

So, okay, so you guys were able to scale creatively through relationships with Realtors. And I’m curious—did you guys do a referral fee with the Realtors, or not?

Sean: So, like, we—we kind of, like, toyed around with it for a little bit. But, to be honest with you, our main value proposition to them was just being—kind of, like…

Jeremy: Helping them sell the house.

Sean: Yeah, I’m helping you sell the house. Those numbers and giving them the numbers and being a resource.

Because, especially at that time—not as much now, but especially at that time—a lot of people, you know, everybody was trying to buy an Airbnb, and they just didn’t have the information to give to them often.

So, you know, just having somebody that they can reliably call and be like, "Hey, can you help me close this client? Can you help me find this client a good property that's going to work for them?" You know, that was oftentimes enough of a—

Vanessa: That’s really big, a really big point to make. And that was one of the things I think that we were offering that. And I guess I can't speak for other management companies, but I know that, like, because Sean was already an investor, he wasn't just like a management company that wanted to, like, manage your property.

He was able to analyze a deal for you from an investor standpoint—like, does this make sense? There have been times that we've told clients, "No, just put a long-term tenant in there. It's going to make more sense for you."

And I think that added so much value because it allowed our clients to trust us so much more. He wasn't just making these numbers up, and a lot of times they would say, "Oh, well, I spoke to this management company, and they gave me this number." And Sean's like, "Yeah, but now you have to factor in all your expenses. You have to factor in your platform fees and blah, blah, blah."

And it's just like, after you do all that with what your mortgage is, it doesn't make sense. So, I think that was a huge piece of why we were so successful too—because we were investors as well, and we were able to analyze it from that standpoint.

Sean: Yeah, and also, just a quick add—also, too, like, a lot of the times, sometimes the houses that the Realtors would have them, sometimes even under contract already, then they would ask me for the numbers.

And I'm like, "You shouldn't buy that house. I mean, it's not going to work. You should not buy that house."

Vanessa: That's happened a few times, but they're thankful. And then guess what? When they find another house, guess who they come back to, to help them analyze and manage that property? Us, you know?

Jeremy: So, know your numbers, essentially, and just be an asset. Be the domain expert, provide value, and you shall receive. So, you guys were able to grow to 25 properties. Obviously, I have two properties in Florida. Things were gangbusters during COVID, especially.

I don't know about y'all, but all these Canadians coming down because of the super strict COVID regulations and requirements there—people were coming, "Oh, let me rent this place three, four, five months."

It was hot. And now, you know, things have reverted kind of to the mean. And at the same time, people are moving and moving and moving to Florida. So, the demand—I mean, home prices have shot up, the demand for long-term rentals has gone up.

So, yeah, what have you guys seen kind of since that COVID craziness over the last, you know, down here?

Vanessa: Since COVID really shook up a lot for us down here, especially like that rise in home prices definitely came from that COVID Airbnb bubble. The numbers that we were doing on Airbnb during COVID were like unicorn numbers, you know what I mean? They were just insane.

So now, all these people that are coming from out of town—from places like New York, where houses are so much more expensive at the time—they're like, "What? I could buy this house here for this much and then put it on Airbnb and make this much?"

And then that's when you were seeing all those people coming down here, buying houses without even seeing them, for like $50,000–$60,000 over asking. And then, all of a sudden, COVID is done, that bubble pops, and those numbers are reverting back to what they were before.

And people are like, “OH”, excuse my language, “sht, now I have this huge mortgage, but I'm not making what I thought I was going to make." So, I think that had a huge impact on our market down here, for sure.

Sean: And then during that—so during that time—you could pretty much—it was to a point where there was, like, a window of time where Airbnb was so lucrative down here. You could literally go on the MLS, pick any house with a pool, and you’re gonna do 20%–25% cash-on-cash after paying a manager.

So obviously, investors flocked here like crazy and bought every single pool home. And then, when they weren’t—when they weren’t meeting them exactly, like, "I can get 25% after paying a manager," they were like, "What? What? You know?"

So, they were just buying, buying, buying, buying, buying. And, uh, they were paying more and more and more because they’re like, "Well, I don’t need 25%. I’m good with 20%. I’m good with 18%. I’m good with 15%."

And the margins kept shrinking and shrinking and shrinking. It was—it was kind of crazy because back before this whole Airbnb craze, the difference in price between a non-pool home and a pool home—neighboring houses—was maybe, like, $40,000. After, the difference in price—the gap—widened to, like, $200,000–$300,000.

Jeremy: You need the pool. It’s not even an option now.

Vanessa: We don’t even want to take a property if it doesn’t have a pool, to be honest.

Like, it’s got to be a very unique and special property if it doesn’t have a pool for us to take it on because it’s just.

Sean: It’s just not gonna—it’s not gonna—it’s—it’s going to be tough for it to perform in the way that the owner likely needs it to perform. And, you know, the thing is, we always like to work in, like, a win-win situation, right?

Like, I don’t want to be managing—I don’t want to be in a situation where I’m managing a property for you, you’re not making your numbers that you need, and now you’re coming back to me, right, because it’s not performing the way that you need it to perform or whatever.

So, you know, I’m always kind of—now we’re a lot more picky, and I try to inform owners that come to us now, like, "Hey, this is the realistic situation. If you don’t have a pool, it’s going to be kind of tough."

Jeremy: Got it. And has your guys' strategy changed?

So, initially during COVID, it was helping new investors access South Florida. Now, has it become more of investors who already own a house—who maybe they didn’t see or think about how much work it might be to manage it—or maybe they went with Vasa or one of these, like, massive property managers, and they’re like, "We’re just not getting the service we need. We’re looking for someone else"?

Vanessa: Yeah, I think—to be completely transparent—I think we’re still working on that shift, for sure. We have had a little bit of success recently with, you know, some of the national brands that just don’t really live up to their expectations, like you said.

And then us, having such a great portfolio and, like, I guess, rep in South Florida—we’ve gotten a few clients like that. We’ve been trying to chase down those leads, but yeah, we’ve definitely talked a lot about—and that’s kind of where Tim has really jumped in as a team member with us, and, like, helping us kind of chase down new leads and different avenues.

We’ve talked a lot about marketing to people who already, like you said, have existing vacation homes, or people that have owned the home for a while and maybe had a long-term tenant, so their mortgage is probably really low.

Maybe they even paid the house off. It’s definitely something that we’re kind of looking into.

Sean: It’s—it’s a lot of—right now, it’s a lot more, like, less investors, because the investors aren’t really investing right now, and more second homeowners, right? Vacation homeowners.

People that—people that have a reason to not want to put a tenant in there. Right, like, they want to use their home as a vacation or an escape from the Northeast or wherever they're coming from, right? So it's a mix of that, and then, like you were saying—and Vanessa was saying—you know, some of the national brands that aren't taking the best care of some of the homes, you know, unhappy customers or whatever, are switching over.

They already have a short-term rental; they're just kind of switching over somewhere else.

Jeremy: Got it. So, what do you guys see moving forward? And—and I love that you guys are in Florida because—we’ve got two properties there, and frankly, you know, most of my portfolio is in North Carolina. Like, it's in different cities in North Carolina.

But, like, generally speaking, I would say that, like, the people who work at the cities are, like, kind of the same, you know—pretty normal folk. I have had the experience in Florida where it just seems like—I don't know—people are... I mean, you guys live there, but it's just, people—there's some characters, characters there.

And navigating South Florida is a challenge. So, have you guys just kind of been able—like, are you guys in one city? Are you guys in a bunch of cities? And how—I’m just curious personally—how do you navigate, like, each city and all their, you know, different requirements?

Because I’ve even had, like, you talk to two people in the same city, and they say different things. So, what’s your experience?

Vanessa: Where are you properties inFlorida?

Jeremy: They're in Palm Beach County—West Palm, Lake Worth areas.

Vanessa: Cool, cool.

Jeremy: So, where—where are yours guys?

Sean: We're in Fort Lauderdale, so all of our properties are pretty much in, like, the greater East Fort Lauderdale area.

Jeremy: It's one city, essentially?

Vanessa: No, I mean, yes and no.

Sean: I mean, yes, yes. I mean, like, if you take Fort Lauderdale, like, within Fort Lauderdale, there’s, like, you know, the different neighborhoods—like Wilton Manors, Oakland Park—and then we go one city north and one city south. So, Pompano and then Dania South.

Vanessa: But each of those little cities in Fort Lauderdale has different rules and regulations.

Jeremy: Exactly.

Vanessa: There are general things that are the same, but they all have, like, little nuances. So now we're familiar with them—like, now we know all the inspectors. They know who we are at this point.

But, I mean, in the beginning, it’s definitely tough to navigate because you think you’ve got it, like, nailed down, and then you move to a new city. Like, we went to Oakland Park, Fort Lauderdale, and we were like, "Oh my God, the inspection list is so different. Like, we have to completely redo what we did," you know?

Jeremy: Yeah.

Sean: So it was—Go ahead.

Jeremy: I’m getting hit with my Florida learning curve.

Sean: Oh, yeah, yeah. We had to make systems, kind of like—or not systems, but, like, I had to make, like, a checklist, basically, for each city. So, you know, on our—we have, like, a Playbook or whatever that basically is, like, a reference sheet that has a bunch of links and information that we need frequently, right?

So we can always go back to this one sheet, and it has a bunch of information.

So, we have, like, each city's regulations and their inspection requirements there. That way, we don’t have to go looking for it every single time. I can just go to my reference sheet, click on it, "Okay, I need XYZ," and that’s kind of been the best way to organize it.

But you’re right—I mean, South Florida is kind of a crazy place.

Vanessa: It’s a mess. People don’t answer their phones, nobody actually knows what’s going on—like, it’s a mess, for sure. And I think that’s why it’s so important that you do have kind of somebody on the ground to, like, help you navigate that—especially if you’re out of state.

Because most of the time, investors have their own jobs that are, like, full-time jobs, and they don’t have the time to be chasing down the inspector to come check out their property.

So, for sure, it’s—it’s a mess down here.

Jeremy: Yeah. They come in, and they say, "Oh, what is this? You got a Tiki hut here? Tiki huts aren’t allowed." "Oh, wait—they’re only allowed if you get them built by Native Americans.”

Vanessa: “or if they’re, like, six feet off the fence." But there’s always some weird thing, for sure.

Jeremy: Yeah, yeah, we've been dealing with Tiki Hut situations, and man, you say you don't need a permit—like, by federal law, you don't need a permit—but then the city says you need a permit.

But then you tell them, "This is federal law. Here, can you read? Am I reading this wrong?" And then they go, "Okay, you're right, but this is our process." And then you have a second property and another Tiki Hut, and then that's a different process than the one you did at the first property.

All right, I could complain about Florida all day—I'm triggered here—but obviously, you guys have figured it out. And that's why just having domain expertise on a localized level is such a value add to investors and homeowners.

So, this being said, I—I want—I know we touched on this before the show, but TPG—there was a big article the other day. It was kind of funny. TPG posted that—sorry, I think Wall Street Journal posted that TPG was starting to buy a bunch of homes in South Florida to do short-term rentals.

And I posted on my Instagram story, "It'll be interesting to see how the suits perform at the STR game." Because, you know, this game's a hospitality business. You have to craft experiences, you know.

I think a lot of times, private equity investors think that, like, you just buy the asset and, like, it's done. You know, they don't understand the—the, like, you know, design—how important and valuable design is.

And they don't really want to get in the nitty-gritty of all these little things—the, you know, maybe local regulations of calling this inspector to figure out, you know, all that Florida-specific stuff. But, that being said, the article came out that they were coming in, and then the article came out two days later that they were going out.

So, what was your—or did you guys not pick up on that article? And I guess, like, what's your reaction?

Vanessa: I didn't see that article, but you know what's really funny about that? We've had a few, like, bigger brands from, like, out of state call us with offers to, like, buy the company.

And that's been, like, a common thing that they say—that, like, "We've been trying to get into that market in Fort Lauderdale, and we just haven't been able to, like, tap into it. So now we're just trying to buy, like, other management companies that are kind of, like, already built out and stuff that have a portfolio to see if, like, that will help us break into the market there."

So, I mean, that definitely sounds kind of on-brand for Fort Lauderdale or South Florida right now.

Jeremy: Yeah. And—and I think—it’s something I say: vacation rental management companies can be acquired.

Co-host businesses can get bought. Arbitrage businesses cannot get bought because you've got a lease, you know. And that lease—it’s not trans—as much as everyone says, "Oh, my leases are transferable," like, it’s really not.

There's not a lot of mergers and acquisitions in the Arbitrage space. But for co-hosting, vacation rental management—there is. It was gangbusters during COVID. Vacasa was buying anybody, writing out their checkbook, and giving anybody, you know, really good terms.

Now it's, like, died down a little bit, but you guys are telling me you're still getting hit up for, like, conversations about acquisitions?

Sean: Yeah, I mean, not—not like crazy. We've gotten a couple of phone calls or whatever, but—but yeah, it’s just kind of funny to hear that. I mean, I’m not surprised that, especially if they're coming in now and trying to buy properties in South Florida, I’m not surprised that they made an exit very quickly.

Because it doesn’t take—it doesn’t take very long to see that the numbers aren’t, like, spectacular. I mean, depending on how they’re buying the properties too—like, I don’t know if they’re buying these properties cash or if they’re using a bank.

You guys know the interest rates are pretty high right now, so you have kind of high—and the price of the homes hasn't really dropped too much.

Jeremy: And they're not going to because you've got people just moving into Florida, and that trend has not decreased.

Sean: Yeah, so, I mean, you have, like—where a 3/2 with a pool, for example, right? You used to be able to pick one up for, like, I don't know, $500,000 at a 3% interest rate or whatever, and your payment's, like, you know, your payment's, like, two grand, $2,000–$2,200 or whatever.

But now, it's like—versus now—the 3/2 with the pool's, like, $650,000, and the interest rate's 8%, and your mortgage is, like, $6,000.

Vanessa: I mean, it doesn't even make sense. How can you—yeah, you know? Like, even if you want to put a long-term tenant in there, like, you're not going to get $6,500 with a long-term tenant. Like, it's just—it's really hard to make the numbers work right now.

Jeremy: And I think the thing in Florida—because, I mean, I hear it talked about all the time, you know—oh, short-term rentals, like, housing crisis.

I'm like, the issue with Florida is you've got people, you know, from the Northeast—and I'm pointing up, but I mean, technically, I'm in New York City right now, so I don't know where I'm pointing. Maybe I'll point—I'll point down.

You've got—you've got people who, you know, they just—they don't want to pay New York taxes, Massachusetts taxes, Connecticut taxes, so they're gonna buy a house in Florida with cash.

They've got so much money, and they're not going to live there. Like, they might say they live there for, you know, they might—oh, I live in Florida, quote-unquote. Maybe they'll stay there one year for, like, six months and a day, get the residency—they're out. They are out.

So that house is unoccupied. Like, people bought that in order to evade taxes.

So, you're telling me that a house that is occupied by renters on a—like, like, you know, a lot of times, you know, for us, like, multiple families, like, staying, like, sometimes for extended periods, like—versus a rich guy from New York just bought a house in cash to never go there?

You know, like—I don't know. I don’t—maybe I'm not in charge, but I would look at things differently, maybe. So, you—you guys have seen that firsthand, where, like, Northeast folks just buying houses in South Florida?

Vanessa: Yeah, most New Yorkers took over. I'm not even gonna lie. They took over South Florida. Like, straight up took over.

Jeremy: And a lot of times, they're buying, and—kind of—just to play the tax game.

Vanessa: Yeah, definitely to play the tax game, but even just, again, like, just because they want a vacation house down here. And, like, why not, right? So—which, again, is a great client resource for us because they're not so much worried about it making money. They just want it to cover its expenses.

So that's kind of a win-win for us, especially in today's market because, you know, it's hard to kind of cash flow right now.

Jeremy: Is there a lot of the six-month-and-a-day people, you know, where they'll stay just half the year?

Sean: Got—we got, like, a couple of those, but it's a lot—a lot more, more so, second homeowners.

Jeremy: Got it. So how are you guys—so what is your guys' tangible pro tip for anyone listening to get clients?

Sean: Oooh, tangible pro tip? Okay, uh, meet people. And—and I know that's so general, but, like, really, like, I'm telling you, when I—when we were first starting, going to those open houses—not just—not just sending the email with the report, but actually going to those open houses, shaking hands with the Realtor, talking with them a little bit.

Right now, maybe—I don't know if in other markets that's still as viable of a strategy. I don't know how people are buying in other markets.

But going to your local meetups and showing up consistently, getting to know people, and letting them know what you do and who you are—and as you go more consistently, right, people get to know you.

They start talking to you, you start learning more about them as people, and they learn more about you as a person. And people like to do business with people that they like, right?

So, you know, next time that something comes up, they're going to think, "Oh, hey, by the way, like, you know, I think Sean does that—that short-term. Let me—here, give him a call. He knows what he's doing." You know…

Vanessa: I think that—and also educating yourself in what you're doing because I think it's extremely unethical to kind of just say, "Oh, I want to get into short-term rentals, so I'm just going to manage anybody's property." But if you don't know what you're doing, if you don't know how to run your number like, you're dealing with somebody's hard-earned investment property, and you can really screw somebody over if you don't know what you're doing. You know, they could lose their investment…

Jeremy: Especially if they're getting into a new investment.

Vanessa: Exactly. So, like, we did so many mentorships with people that were way more advanced than us. You know, we did a lot of courses, we did a lot of learning, and there's so—like, you don't have to reinvent the wheel.

There's people that are happy to teach you how to analyze a deal and stuff. So, definitely spend time doing that to make sure that you are actually capable of managing somebody's property in the right way.

Sean: That's actually a very tangible pro tip that I think should be highlighted. Because our second really big stage of growth came after we did a mentorship with Julie George. I'm not sure if you're familiar with her—this, like, it was this company called Legends X.

And, you know, we did a mentorship with Eric Mohler. I think Jasper and Julie George were kind of running it there. Anyways, long story short, through them and through that, we learned not only how to systemize our business and build the Playbook, but also, they taught us their methods for finding new clients as well.

Right, so, like you say, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. You can learn from people more experienced than you. And a lot of times, like, you know, mentorships and stuff—like, it's going to pay for itself ten times over, you know. So, invest in yourself. Invest in the education—that has also been really, really, really big for us.

Jeremy: Absolutely. And I—I—I could not, as someone who invests heavily in mentorships and coaching on, at this point, so many different topics—like, anything that I'm even thinking about potentially doing—if I can't have the Playbook on how to do it, I'll probably stay away.

Because I just know the amount of time and energy to recreate a wheel is just not worth it. So, I couldn't agree more. So, how could folks, you know, who enjoyed your story today and want to get to know you guys better—how can they stay current?

Vanessa: Check out our Instagram—Easy Breezy BNB, @EasyBreezyBNB. And then, you can also check out our website and reach out to us there—easybreezybnb.com.

Jeremy: Got it. And then, one more question. I know Tim—you guys have brought him to help with growth, so I'm assuming part of the operations—virtual assistance component there—to build out that process?

Vanessa: We actually just recently got our first VA a few months ago, but that was actually huge. It took a lot off my plate, from, like, messaging guests and stuff. We've got a really big and great cleaning team that are crucial—we can't do it without them.

Then, we also have what we call a "boots-on-the-ground manager" that is basically doing just that—boots on the ground. If there's maintenance that's going on, he's going to check that out. He's checking behind cleaners, just making sure that the overall property is staying in good condition.

And then, Tim—he's on board not only just to help us find leads, but we really needed help organizing and getting our finances in control. Because between just me and Sean, with the growth that we're doing, it was just really difficult to kind of keep all that organized and run the entire business at the same time.

And they've done real estate together. Tim is also a numbers guy, so he's really been helping us kind of, like, organize that side and analyze, like, you know, how much we're making and stuff like that.

So that way, we can make some bigger moves moving forward. So, that team is also going to be crucial, but be prepared to just wear a lot of hats in the beginning. You know, that's the name of the game when you start a business. But actively keep in your mind how you can get these roles off your plate, for sure.

Jeremy: Absolutely. Automate, automate, and scale. Name of the game. Well, guys, thank y'all so much for joining today. And everybody who's listening, stay tuned for the next episode of the Short-Term Rental Pros Podcast.

Sean: Thanks for having us, man.

Vanessa: Appreciate it.

Tim: Thank you.

⚡️
Reveal any property's Airbnb and Long-Term rental profitability

Buy this property and list it on Airbnb.