Everyone is Sleeping on the Hidden Goldmine of Midterm Rental Properties with Jesse Vasquez

Transcript

[Mattias]
Welcome to the REI Agent, a holistic approach to life through real estate. I’m Mattias, an agent and investor.

[Erica]
And I’m Erica, a licensed therapist.

[Mattias]
Join us as we interview guests that also strive to live bold and fulfilled lives through business and real estate investing.

[Erica]
Tune in every week for interviews with real estate agents and investors.

[Mattias]
Ready to level up?

[Erica]
Let’s do it.

[Mattias]
Welcome back to the REI Agent. Today, we have a unique and special and fun episode for you. We have Jesse Vasquez.

Jesse is in the midterm rental space. He is a mentor to people wanting to get into that space. He’s been doing it for a while, has gotten really good at it.

And we, I was like, hey man, I have a property that I’ve been thinking about doing this with. You wanna do a live, like, figuring out if it’ll work. Let’s run some numbers, let’s crunch some numbers.

So basically, he did that. He walks through the process of how he turns a property into, or analyzes a market, analyzes a property to see if it would be suitable to get a rough idea for how much you could expect for a monthly income. Talks about strategies for booking these in relation to my local market.

But it could be, it applies to anybody. So I think it’s a really fun way of hearing, A, first the story of how he kinda got into it and what he loves about the space. But then B, hearing about how he actually goes through the process of figuring out if midterm rentals could be a good option for a property.

So selfishly, I’m stoked and I wanna now make this into a midterm rental. He sold me on it. But aside from that, I wanted to talk a little bit more about just kind of the way or the importance of kinda continuing that education process in being a real estate agent.

So the more you understand about unique things in real estate, the better you’re gonna be able to serve your clients. He gives an example of a couple people that he mentored that were agents that then started understanding how midterm rentals functioned in their area and they were able to then build a really good business with investor clients in that kind of niched space that maybe other people didn’t understand in their market. And if you look around your market, there probably are some midterm rentals.

People are probably very familiar with short-term rentals and understand what midterm rentals are. But what he gets into is very nuanced as far as how to find a reoccurring business and not just putting it on Airbnb and hoping that people book it or furnished finders. So definitely stay tuned for that.

But I wanted to get into that knowledge piece. I, when I first started to get fascinated into real estate, well, let’s just start from the beginning. I bought a house and had a lot of fun with the agent and had a lot of fun in the process and thought, man, this could be something that I could really see myself getting into.

This has a lot of my skill sets. I could be a real estate agent. I could do this.

And this was gonna be a side hustle that I really wanted to make into a full-time hustle, but we were paying off debt at the time, so we wanted to do anything we could to keep the money as high as possible so we could pay off as much as possible. Wasn’t ready to just jump full into that, into real estate sales, especially since it was in 2014 and the market was a lot slower. So anyway, got into real estate then, and then as I was teaching, trying to teach people with my blog to try to get some traction in my sales business, I would get into real estate investing, and that kind of started understanding what the terms were.

I would have a blog post about what cash flow is, what cash-on-cash return is, things like that. And it was a way of, honestly, learning at the time, some of those things, some of them I was familiar with, but others, we were starting to learn. And as far as, from there, I created a local real estate club where we just kind of hung out and had a guest speaker talk.

My first idea was just let’s all have a beer at a brewery, hear a seasoned person talk about their experience, and we can ask some questions, and we can all learn from it. And then I met another guy that made it a little bit more formal. He was familiar with kind of the traditional model of REI’s, real estate investment groups, and so we made it a little more formalized.

We had kind of a mix of how we both operated and had some bigger guests come in because of his connections, et cetera, which was really great. But the reason I’m saying all this is that this fascination was a little bit selfish because I wanted to learn about real estate investing. I wanted to invest in real estate, and I wanted to build up my portfolio.

But it also then started really benefiting my clients. The first people that were in my real estate group were really just people that were also my clients, that were also my friends, that were also in this kind of journey of wanting to build up their rental portfolio. And I think through this process, we have become close and, or just kind of share that bond over this.

And I feel like I have a good, they’re gonna ask me questions that I don’t necessarily need to get a paycheck every time they have a question about real estate investing. We keep up. Otherwise, we just have this good relationship, which is good for business, right?

And then when I started getting into flipping houses, that kind of stuff, I started understanding houses in a more intimate way, seeing the guts of it, if you will, and kind of understanding also the cost related to some of the renovations. And I started getting good connections with contractors and kind of seeing the transformation of a house was all just really, really good information that I could help give to my clients as well. Not related to investing, but just going to home inspections, seeing if you are new, going to every home inspection you can, even going to other people’s home inspections.

If you can ask a really busy agent, hey, do you mind if I go to your home inspection for you? Or can I just tag along if you’re gonna be there too? I don’t care.

It’s really, really informative, especially if you find a home inspector that is kind of more of an educator that likes to kind of share their knowledge about houses. Sometimes they talk about things that aren’t really things that are gonna be on the report, but just the best way to maintain a house, good tips and tricks. That stuff is really, really informative and good for you to have this base so that you can build up yourself as more and more and more and more and more of an expert.

That whenever somebody comes to you with a question, you have a really good experience, really good insight to whatever question they have about their house, or you can help them see what the house could be if you put in $20,000, that kind of thing. So I think the more knowledge you have, the better. And with this midterm rental angle, I think it’s a really, really interesting piece of the puzzle that you could bring a lot of value to your clients.

So this is a really fun episode for me. I hope it’s really fun for everybody else. I think it’s really informative, but if you’re an agent, listen to this podcast.

I think it is so good to hear all these different avenues and some of the things you’re gonna relate to more when we get into the investing side of things, because we do investings and sales episodes. But some of the investing stuff you might feel more drawn to than others, but having a good understanding of it all is super important and I don’t think a lot of agents focus on the sales and real estate investing can be just kind of this other world altogether. And I think that understanding them and how you can kind of marry them, this is kind of the bridge between the two worlds, if you will, that’s what one of the goals of this podcast is just kind of makes you a more well-rounded professional that can give really, really good advice.

If you’re working, if you’re investing in your own marketplace, you’re gonna build connections, you’re gonna have contractors, you’re gonna have that local knowledge, you’re gonna really understand things that are just gonna be really helpful for your clients. Okay, I’m done rambling, but without further ado, we have Jesse Vazquez, this is a really fun one, so make sure you leave a beautiful review on my platforms and also Jesse’s, because he did a really good job explaining this stuff for our audience. Welcome back to the REI Agent, we are here with Jesse Vazquez.

Jesse, first of all, did I say your last name right?

[Jesse Vasquez]
Vazquez, yeah, you got it, you said it right.

[Mattias]
I usually try to ask just to make sure before we go on air, but we’ll do it here live for you and see you behind the scenes.

[Jesse Vasquez]
You’re good, man. I actually pronounced my last name wrong for the first 17 years of my life, so if you do, it’s not gonna hurt my feelings.

[Mattias]
Yeah, Jesse, thanks so much for being on here, it’s a lot of fun. We actually have a really kind of a unique show in store for you guys today. I asked Jesse if he’d be willing to, so Jesse is a midterm rental expert and I actually have been chewing on a property that I’m working on now as to potentially being a going between long-term and midterm rental options, thinking that maybe midterm rentals would make it pencil out a little bit better.

The property just doesn’t cash flow super well with my projections, so the third option is to sell it. But our city does not allow short-term rentals, midterm rentals, 30 days and longer are allowed. So we’re gonna get into that in a little bit, but before that, Jesse, tell me about what got you into this space, what got you into real estate in general.

Tell me a little bit about your story.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Yeah, man, first off, thanks for having me here, man. I really, really appreciate it. Yeah, so basically back in 2015, I worked in healthcare for 17 years, back started back in 2000, I don’t know, four, right around there, in the sales side of healthcare.

So business development where basically I would go into hospitals and I would talk to what were considered case managers. And they basically, if somebody fell and broke their hip or had some kind of medical emergency and needed to go home and have nursing or therapy, like a nurse actually going to the house, my job was to go become friends with the case managers who are the nurses that discharge these patients to go home. So as I was doing that one day, I was actually in Modesto, Modesto, California, and I was in a hospital called Doctors Medical Center.

And I was walking down the hall and it was one of these dimly lit hospital hallways, it’s like an older fluorescent light, you know what I’m talking about? Almost kind of looks like a yellow tint. And I was standing at this nursing station and there was this light that was flickering up top and it was just kind of like the surreal scenario.

And this woman came up and she had this incredible accent and she was saying things like, tell me if you know what this accent is. She was saying like, don’t you know, and isn’t he a doll? And do you know what accent that is?

Is that like Minnesota, Michigan? Yeah, yeah, there you go. She was from Fargo, North Dakota.

And I was instantly drawn to that because everybody says dude and bro and man, just like what I say all the time. Even the women and ladies do here in California. And so I was just drawn to her because of her accent and I talked to her, her name was Barbara, she’s at that nursing station.

And we were just talking and she said, I asked her what are you doing here with that accent? And she said, I’m on assignment, I’m a travel nurse. And I was like, oh, that’s cool.

I was like, well, where are you staying? And she told me she was staying at the crappiest motel, but she didn’t say that. She said, I’m staying at the Motel Six on Ninth Street.

And for those of you that are familiar with Modesto, that is the worst, it’s the worst frickin’ hotel to stay at in the Central Valley. Prostitutes, drugs, it’s bad. And to think about a travel care clinician that’s actually serving the community, staying in a place like that, I’m just like, what is going on?

And I asked her, why are you staying there? And she said, because there’s nowhere to stay here. There’s not really any hotels.

And at that time, there really wasn’t. The nicest hotel was a Red Lion Hotel, which was like 250 bucks a night. There’s no way a nurse is gonna pay that.

So I asked her, that was the next question. I was like, well, how much are you paying for that? She said she’s paying almost $3,000 a month to stay at Motel Six, which puts it right around 100 bucks a night, if you think about it, like 90-something bucks right around there.

And she said that with fees and all that stuff, she just says that’s what it equals out to. And at that time, man, I was able to buy, I wasn’t thinking about real estate. At that time, I realized that I could buy a property for 250,000 and have a 1,300 or 1,400-month payment, mortgage payment.

And I basically thought, that was the first thing that I thought. I didn’t think about real estate. So I asked her, what are you doing here?

How long are you on assignment? And she just said, there’s not enough housing. And I said, how do I find out, how do I actually connect with, to get people like you to stay at properties?

And she said, go down and talk to, there was a woman down in the HR department, go talk to her and see if you can connect with her. So I go downstairs, and if you’ve ever been in a hospital before, you have to have a badge to get in everywhere. Like I didn’t actually work as official part of the hospital.

So I sat there by the HR department door for like 10 minutes before a nurse came in. And it’s Mattias, right, am I saying it right?

[Erica]
Mattias.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Mattias, so, Mattias, basically what happened is this nurse put her badge up to a little kiosk kind of thing, and beep, it beeped in. She opened the door, and it was one of those doors that’s like a quiet close. You know how like in hospitals help, these doors will open right away, right away.

And then they’ll just like, kind of start to slowly close so that it’s not a loud noise. I sat there for a second, I’m like, should I do it? One decision right here, I wouldn’t actually be talking to you if I didn’t do this.

And this is what I want everybody to realize, like full circle. Door was getting ready to close. I jammed over to it, I stuck my foot in the door, like probably five inches before it shut.

And I opened it, and I walked in, and there was a woman sitting right in front, and her name was Misty. Remember, she had these big giant letters that said Misty as her name, like as people put it on their desks. And I was like, Misty, hey, I just talked to Barbara up on the third floor on the telemetry floor, and she told me that you actually help with housing clinicians.

And she’s like, well, what are you doing in here? And I was like, well, I work in the whole thing. Anyway, we ended up talking, and she said that they had so much difficulty finding housing for people that they were actually thinking about renting a house so they can have clinicians stay at these properties, or doctors stay on rotation at this property while they were doing these things.

In fact, that hospital used to actually own a bunch of doors back in the day, and they ended up selling them like, I don’t know, 20 years prior to this whole situation. So that right there opened up the door for me to start to have a contract with an actual hospital, with an actual company called AMN Healthcare, which was a recruiting agency for that Barbara who was a clinician. And I worked in all these different hospitals from LA all the way up to San Francisco.

I actually worked in the Bay Area a lot, too. And I just saw a bunch of Barbaras everywhere. It started to come to fruition where, you know how when you’re gonna go buy a new car, you’re like, I wanna get a Tesla or whatever?

You start to see them literally everywhere, right? Because your brain’s looking for that pattern, that recognition, and that’s exactly what started to happen with me. It’s like I started to see these clinicians everywhere.

I started to see, because I was looking for it. And I realized the more people that I talked to that they needed housing. And that’s essentially what opened the door for me is that, you know, be putting my foot in the door, going and asking questions.

I had no business going in that room at all or asking Barbara what she was doing or how long she was on assignment. And that’s what it took. Right after that, I went and bought a property within the next 60 days.

I already had a contract. They already were like, yeah, you get a house, we’ll work with you. So that was it.

I just was off to the races, and that’s how I got started.

[Mattias]
That’s awesome. I mean, what a great metaphor. You know, you literally were seeing the door, the opportunity closing in front of you.

And you decided to act.

[Jesse Vasquez]
The other reason I brought that up too, Mattias, is because I think there’s so many little small instances that people have in their life. And it’s just if they didn’t take that one little action of what you think might be super small, which in grand scheme of things is the pivotal moment of where you actually, where you were, and then where you moved to, like where I’m at now. If that didn’t happen, I wouldn’t be here with you.

[Mattias]
Yeah. And it’s kind of beautiful too that you probably didn’t have a time to really overthink at that stage, right? I think there’s definitely times where people might be able to convince themselves that it’s not smart, I could get arrested, I’m breaking and entering, or whatever, right?

If they had more time. But I think just go ahead and taking that action and trusting you’ll figure it out. I mean, that’s a cool metaphor, I love it.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Yeah, yeah, man. Yeah, and I had no real estate experience. I saw the opportunity and I was like, okay, cool, how do I house these folks that are coming into these markets?

And that’s where it started. Have you done any arbitrage in this journey or do you always buy? Nope, I’ve done plenty of arbitrage.

I think it’s a great way to get involved in this type of environment without committing yourself to like 50, 60, 70, $100,000 to buy a property and things like that. So I think it’s a great way, especially if you get a contract ahead of time, which is pretty cool. If you get a contract like I did, you get a contract, then you get the door, that’s a totally different feeling than going in blind and then just being like, okay, the numbers look like they might work and then we’ll try it.

Because as everybody knows, when we go through this today with your property, running the numbers is the most important thing and there’s no software or anything out there that actually can show us how much the property can make. We have to do a little bit of research and a little bit of work to figure that out.

[Mattias]
Yeah, no, that’s why I’m excited. This is a very selfish podcast, guys. I am here just to take advantage of Jesse’s knowledge.

We had somebody else on that I think primarily did arbitrage and he went the same route. He kind of had those contracts lined up and then it was just a matter of connecting the dots. He was facilitating the need, right?

But he got into buying as well and obviously I think long-term buying is gonna be great. I think if you have a property that could pencil out with a long-term rental, I mean, I think that’s like a grand slam. That might be a lot harder, especially I would imagine in Southern California that’s probably a very difficult prospect these days especially.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Yeah, and you know what’s crazy? I’ve been talking about this a lot now and I should probably coin this phrase. I see this rise, Mattias, about these modern investors that are coming into real estate where it’s like interest rates are too high for us to use traditional long-term rental investing techniques which, where’s the 1% rule now?

Like honestly, anybody out there, please put it in the chat box. Let us know where these 1% rule places still exist and I’m sure they do somewhere in Kansas and maybe in Ohio somewhere and all that stuff. I’d rather invest for appreciation but man, there’s investors now that are looking at businesses that are attached to their actual tangible real estate.

So like you’re seeing a lot of residential care facilities that are turning from single family homes. You’re seeing the sober living facilities or communities that are coming from single family homes. You’re seeing midterm rental operators that are now turning their properties into businesses that are attached and they’re helping their communities by connecting with different referral sources in certain markets.

So it’s like I’ve been seeing this kind of evolution of a modern investor that’s doing short, mid, looking at these different types of modes of different types of real estate that necessarily wasn’t mainstream before but the reason why is because we’re living in a different time. There’s a modern era of investing and I’m seeing that happen right now in real time. It’s pretty cool to be a part of it.

[Mattias]
Yeah, it’s a different time for sure. I think like when we were looking at 2.5% interest rates or whatever crazy rates people were getting, it was, you know, you could kind of like throw a dart onto a map and like, you know, just make the numbers work. It wasn’t, you didn’t have to quite be as creative but now, I mean, I think we’re really needing to.

We have to kind of have a broad knowledge and to really understand, you know, lending products. That’s a huge one, you know, different DSCR loans. I mean, there’s all sorts of different things that you can get into that you may not have had to think about before but having a broad knowledge of loan products, having a broad knowledge of, you know, how to make a property actually profitable for its unique situation and, you know, that’s exactly what I’m facing here with this property.

You know, two years ago, three years ago, I would have, you know, no question, jumped on this property to keep long term. Now, I’m just, you know, not sure. I could reinvest that cash that I would get from selling it into something that would return much better but then I might not have the appreciation, tax benefits, et cetera, depending on what I invest in.

So, it’s, yeah, it’s an interesting time and I think that, you know, it’s good to know these kind of strategies and to have an idea of how to look into them and so, yeah. Again, thank you for letting me pick your brain.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Yeah, you know, this right here, what you’re talking about right now, in 2020, probably two, a lot of investors were at the point where their hard money loans were like coming up and they had to keep stuff and they had to, they couldn’t sell it because they weren’t gonna make profit on it. So, all these flippers were like, what the hell am I gonna do? A lot of them called me and were just like, Jess, I need to turn this into a midterm rental.

I need to figure stuff out with this. I need to, I can’t sell it. I’m gonna be selling it at a loss.

It’s been sitting on the market. So, we’re seeing a lot of that. It’s even harder to flip now than it was before in the past.

So, you gotta get creative and you’re right. I think the number one thing for anybody, if they’re getting involved with real estate today, like you gotta know what exit strategies you’re gonna be potentially having to do before you even get involved with real estate. So, like what we’re gonna show today, like this is just one piece of an exit strategy of multiple different types of exit strategies that you should have in your tool belt as you’re getting ready to invest in anything.

Or if, again, just like you, where you have something and you’re just like, all right, well, what’s my exit gonna be? It’s way better to know ahead of time than like wait to the moment where you’re just like, oh my God, I gotta figure this stuff out. It’s been three months already.

You know, I paid in mortgage for three months and I see people that have that happen where it’s like they’re living paycheck to paycheck and then like all of a sudden now they’re like having to pay that extra mortgage or that hard money loan that’s continuing to add up and they’re just like, I don’t know what to do with it. My property’s not selling. All right, well, here’s an exit.

It’s better to know it up front. So, that’s what we’re gonna be teaching everybody today.

[Mattias]
Yeah, that’s cool. And yeah, I love it because when I bought this place, it was, you know, I had three different ideas in my head, selling it, but exactly what we just talked about, selling it midterm rental and long-term rental if it could pencil out. But yeah, do you want me to go ahead and share the screen?

We can dive into it. Jump into it.

[Jesse Vasquez]
So, I’m not gonna give the full address here, but maybe it might. I don’t know if you guys can block that out, but this is going to be in, what is the city? Harrisburg, right?

Harrisonburg, Virginia, yeah. Harrisonburg, Virginia. Okay, cool.

So, long-term rental rates, it’s saying 2232. Is that about average, about 2,300 bucks?

[Mattias]
That would probably be pushing it a little bit. That’s not too far off. With the finishes that we’re doing, I think that is possible, but it might be a little bit.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Oh, here we go. $1,800. So, you see how it says long-term and then long-term, 18?

So, 18 to 22, is that down a little bit more accurate? Yeah, yeah, 18 is probably pretty safe. Okay, cool.

So, here’s the thing. I’m using a website called Mashvisor right now. Mashvisor does not, it doesn’t actually give us mid-term rental rates.

So, what we’re doing is we’re actually having to go in and see comps. That’s how you do it with the mid-term space. Already, what I’m looking at, you can’t use this as a short-term rental, right?

This market doesn’t allow you to short-term rent? Correct, yeah, it’s not allowed unless it’s a primary residency. Okay, so even people now, their occupancy is 60% through Airbnb.

So, people that are listing their properties for 30 days at a time are 60% occupied. That’s actually really good. And if you go back and looked at what I just saw earlier, if somebody was to list their property on Airbnb, they’re looking about $183 a night, or excuse me, yeah, $183 a night, which is going to equal around 3,078 bucks, which would be pretty close to your mid-term numbers.

Now, this is where we have to go in and do a little bit of the comps. We’re going to be looking at what is the, how many properties are out there. See, there’s not very many three bedrooms.

You see this right here? So, we’re looking at occupancy rate by rental, but you also see how this, the occupancy rate goes down. You have a three, three bedroom.

Goes up, you have a four. It’s highest with the one bedroom. So, this is always something that I pay attention to.

This is another thing you have to pay attention to. Ask me questions as we’re moving along so that you can get a better understanding.

[Mattias]
Yeah, so I guess it’s kind of, if it is a three bedroom technically, but lives very well as a one bedroom, is that, do you think that plays into, we talked a little bit. So, what I did with this property was, there was kind of a foyer room that didn’t make a lot of sense. It was too big for it to be a foyer.

And I think it’s technically the third bedroom they’re talking about. I created that into a third bedroom, added a closet, added another front door, left the door there just in case somebody wanted to use it as a front door, depending on their purposes. Could make a great office.

But I turned one of the bedrooms into, I added a huge walk-in closet. It’s right across from the one bathroom. Big enough for a king-size bed, and just, it’s set up really well to be a great one bedroom kind of house with a guest room and an office.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Okay, so technically it’s a three one, but it’s set up to be a one bedroom. Let’s dive into that for a minute. So, just for everybody listening out there, the more bedrooms you have, the higher your income is going to be.

That’s just usually how it is. If one bedroom, this is what we’re gonna look at here. Rental size, distribution.

You see how there’s a lot of studios and a lot of one bedrooms? You see that right here? There’s only 38 listings in this market.

Like, that for me is like, I would dominate a market that had only 38 listings. So, when I look at this, I’m just like, I would own this all day.

[Mattias]
I do have another clarifying question, if I’m not to interrupt. This would show all the Airbnbs listed, right? Because some of them will be like apartments of people’s houses.

That’s allowed. That can be a short-term rental. So, I don’t know a ton of midterms that are out there, honestly.

Those might be mostly that kind of scenario where it’s like two bedrooms in their basement, they’re running out.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Yeah. See, I’m looking at rental stats right now. Maybe you could tell me if I’m wrong on here, but now it’s showing me a totally different thing about long-term rentals.

It’s showing about $1,300 to $1,400 for long-term rentals. And again, this is just Mashvisor. It’s not like TotalGear or anything.

So, you have to go back and look at that. So, this is where we go in and we do the comps. The average property that you have that’s in the 80th percentile or higher, this is what I’m looking at.

When I get into a market, I’m gonna have one of the better design properties. Yeah. So, I’m looking at, I wanna be in the 90th to 95th percentile.

Okay. Nine out of 10 times, I can do that. So, with that alone, that says it’s gonna put us around 4K.

Now, this is where we have to go in and do a lot of work. What I love about Mashvisor, and keep in mind for everybody out there that’s listening to this, Mashvisor’s expensive as heck. It is not cheap, but it allows me to see the entire year of what people are earning.

You see that here, Mattias, where it shows our entire year of a property. So, I’m gonna wanna look for a three-bedroom, two-bath. And as you saw earlier, there’s not a whole lot of them.

But we’ll take a look. So, this is saying somewhere downtown. We’ll see what size bedroom this is.

This is a two-bedroom, three-bath. But what we’re trying to do here is we’re trying to find something that A, is gonna look like an actual comp, something that’s comparable to what our units are gonna look like after they’re refurbished. But the design, this is a pretty clean little design this person did in this property right here.

It looks like it’s downtown. It’s got a cute little backyard area. And you can see the map here.

I know that property, yeah. You know this property? Yeah.

Okay, so this property alone right here, and we’re gonna be calling out the numbers of whoever owns this. So, hopefully they’re not listening here. And if they are, it’s all good.

It’s all good. But yeah, so we can see already what this, what was that property called? Spacious Downtown Home.

All right, Spacious Downtown Home. Okay, so we can see right here what they’re earning per month. It’s a little bit small on my screen, so.

Yeah, so what I would do normally is I’d put all these numbers in here. So it goes from February of 2024 all the way up to January of 2025. The numbers are, if we were to average these out, it probably would put us, the highest month is $3,180, which was last month in December.

Okay. And the lowest month earnings were about $2,300, or excuse me, $2,200 back in July, which isn’t very much money. I mean, I guess that is, it could be all right.

But anyway, if we average these things out, it’d probably be right around about $2,800, $2,900 a month, I would assume. So this one right here, we’re gonna be looking for three comps that are same and similar. I would actually take this one, even though it is only a two bedroom.

It’s got three beds, it sleeps six guests, and it’s got one bath. So this is pretty comparable to where you’re at. But if you look, guest favorite, it’s 4.99 reviews. I’m trying to figure out why they are able to short-term rent in this place. It’s a duplex.

[Mattias]
Oh, is that a duplex? And they live, I think they live in the other half, I would imagine.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Dude, that’s some pretty good money for a duplex in there. Right? Yeah.

[Mattias]
It’s a cool property. It’s a nice one.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Got you. Okay, here’s another one. This one is doing over 4,000.

So this is a three bedroom right here. And this is a guest suite. It’s exactly what you’re talking about.

The entire guest suite, three bedroom. You’re right. It’s hosted by David.

Another set of good reviews. The place looks pretty cool. Like it has like a serene backyard for those of you that cannot see it.

It looks a little dark inside. This is cluttered for me. Like I would not be here.

I agree. It just looks like a grandma’s like place. You just, the outside’s cool.

The serene area. But the inside just looks, just for everybody watching, it kind of, or listening, it looks like a vintage, and not a cool vintage, like a 1930s dark kind of set up.

[Mattias]
It’s also not professional photography. So that doesn’t give it any favors. Like they’re not using a flash or they don’t have HDR. It’s not highlighted.

[Jesse Vasquez]
But let’s go back and look at how crazy these numbers are on this place. So Friendly City Garden Sanctuary, three bedroom. Can you see these numbers, dude?

Not really. Not really? Okay, we’re looking at $2,400 a month for February, all the way up to $3,500 a month in October.

Keep in mind, these are people, this is somebody renting part of their property, which is pretty awesome to think about. So I mean, if we were to average these properties out, I mean, these numbers, and again, this would be just ballparking it, you’re probably looking at $2,700, $2,800 a month for this place. So I would take that as a comp too.

Sure. So we’ll take those two. And let’s find one more that we can say is a comp.

Here’s another two bedroom. Let’s see if we can find a three. You know this market pretty well?

[Mattias]
Yeah, oh yeah. It’s not a huge market, so. You know this place?

There’s even an address right here. That one I’m not familiar with, no. Got you, okay.

But I’m also wondering if that is maybe technically in the county, as opposed to in the city. Got you, yeah, it could be. They would be allowed to.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Yeah, regulations. I’m gonna put this one aside right now, and then let’s go back and see if we can find one more that might be.

[Mattias]
Anything that says downtown definitely is a similar area to where mine is.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Okay, this one right here. Two bedroom, two bath, or one and a half bath. Hosted by Sarah.

That’s probably a good comp, yeah. Yeah, this one right here. This kind of looks like it still has that old school look to it, but I like how clean.

They’re not professional photos. Like this is, this could be way better.

[Mattias]
But it’s cool. That would be a good comp.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Yeah, you think so?

[Mattias]
Yeah, we have an older house that we’re, it’s an older house, so it would have some of that old charm. I love this right here. Yeah, that’s great.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Let’s go look at this. So just for reference, this is like basically a 19, what would you say, Mattias? Like a 1940s home?

Yeah, something like that. Original hardwood floors, probably redone kitchen. Countertops are, what is that stuff called?

Is that a butcher block?

[Mattias]
It looks like a butcher block.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Yeah, yeah, so it looks like modern and kind of boho and kind of cool looking, you know, like people like that kind of stuff now. So we’ll go back and we’ll use this one as a historic downtown home.

[Mattias]
And I’m wondering if that is something that they live in and then actually leave when they rent it out.

[Jesse Vasquez]
That could be, man. I mean, it looks like. I’ve seen some people do.

It looks like, you’re probably right. It looks like somebody definitely lives here. I think it does.

But again, again, there’s no professional photography, none of that stuff on there. Historic downtown home. Let’s find this again on here.

Where the heck was that? Historic downtown, okay, here we go. All right, this one right here is freaking killing it, dude.

Look at this, $5,800, $5,600. This is rented. This is what I would consider midterm rental numbers.

You see how they’re consistent, 50, 58, or excuse me, 5,600, 5,600, 6,000, 62, 6,000, 5,600, 6,200, 6,000, 5,800. This property right here is doing over $5,500 a month.

[Mattias]
That’s, okay, that’s blowing my mind more because I wonder if they have an apartment somewhere on the property that they live in because to skirt the rules, man, that.

[Jesse Vasquez]
This doesn’t look like there’s, this back unit back here or something, and even then, dude, I don’t know, the front of this place looks kind of busted up, but the inside looks, it looks nice inside. They don’t lead with the front shot. That’s true, but when you go inside, it has that vintage charm that we were talking about right now that I think is really cool with homes.

So this right here, dude, this would be a comp that I’d be like, okay, I love this. We’re gonna try to get there. Yeah, $5,600 a month.

We go back and we look at the place that was the five minutes to shops downtown. That was still around, what’d we say, around 3,000. So that’s a big disparity between 3,000 and $5,600.

I still think this might be the better comp that you have, but for the sake of this, we’re just gonna say this place, if you were to list it, because again, this is a two-bedroom, two-bath, sleeps only three guests, that’s freaking wild.

[Mattias]
They must live in one of the rooms then. That must be what it is. That’s crazy.

[Jesse Vasquez]
I don’t think so, man. Century Located Home, less than five minutes downtown, 15 to 20 minute walk to JMU. This home features two bedrooms, one and a half baths, gorgeous indoor, outdoor spaces, fully stocked kitchen, absolutely no pet smoking parties on premises.

I don’t think so, man.

[Mattias]
Does it have an entire house? Don’t they often say that, if it’s the entire house?

[Jesse Vasquez]
Yeah, it should. Somewhere. Yeah, entire home right here.

I’m confused then. Yeah. Oh, okay, anyway.

Maybe they got it listed anyway. And they’ve had this for a while now, a couple years. So I would look at this, again, regardless of the availability isn’t here.

[Mattias]
I mean, again, they could be doing the, if it’s a midterm, that would be another possibility, right?

[Jesse Vasquez]
Yeah, and that’s where I’d be leaning right now. The only reason why I’m leaning that way is because if we go back and look at the yearly numbers, they’re so consistent, 56, 58, 58, 6,000, 66,000. When you see random numbers that skew real hard, or then you’ll have a zero right there.

When I see zeros in months, that means that they’re doing exactly what you just said. Maybe living in it, and then renting it out. Look at this.

Renting it out, living in the home during that time. So that could be what’s happening with this historic downtown home, is that July, they jammed out, September, they jammed out, November, they jammed out. Or the other option of that is that they’re renting it direct to a person rather than through Airbnb.

And again, this is the problem with, there’s no software out right now that can actually show us how much people are renting and all that stuff. So that’s what I’m doing right now. And after we looked at this, if we wanna even be conservative and put all those three things together, I would say this house, if you were to midterm rent it, even with 60% occupancy, you’re probably able to rent for $3,500 a month.

And that’s us being generous. Okay.

[Mattias]
And the numbers at 3,000 a month become a lot more appealing to me. So like it’s, I love the property, the location, and I was basically trying to justify a way to keep it. And so, even 22, 2,500 a month, I’m getting a lot more interested.

So you tell me 3,000 to 3,500, that makes it a lot better for sure.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Yeah, let’s go in and look at Furnish Finder too and see what is going on there. Harrisonburg. Yeah, Virginia.

Virginia, there we go. All right, cool. We’re gonna check in.

Let’s go out some months. So the first, our budget, we’re gonna wanna go, you know what, let’s just say 2,000. Let’s see what we got coming up here.

So this is what else I do. I’ll go on Furnish Finder and look to see what, see how it shows us a map right here? Yeah.

So I’ll go in here and look at what properties are same and similar on these markets. We’re just doing a budget from 500 to 2,000. I would actually stretch this out a little bit.

Let’s just go to 5,000. Okay. Like we saw with the other place.

Maybe we’ll see it on here. What did we say traditional rent is in there? About 1,700 bucks?

Is that still?

[Mattias]
I would say 18. Yeah, 18 would be pretty.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Well, let’s just go 18 and then.

[Mattias]
Cheaper ones you’re seeing are probably townhouses that are like 13, 1,400 kind of not yet renovated.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Got you. So we’re going back to search again. Where are you located on this map here?

Like if you were to say, all right, Jess, your place or my place.

[Mattias]
Right around where you’re up a little bit to the left. Where that 3,000, is that 3,000? Yeah.

Roughly around there.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Yeah. Okay, cool. So these would be perfect constants.

So we’re gonna go to this guy. A little bit further north, but that’s pretty close. Yeah.

So both of these places are right around 3,000. So this is what we’re gonna do too. Exactly like what we did a minute ago from, we’re fine.

This place looks really cool. That’s cool, yeah. 3,000 a month.

This place is, it looks really appealing from the outside. For those of you that are, got an orange door. It’s kind of like that new school plank siding.

It’s gray with an orange door. So it really pops. This place looks cool.

I would actually like to stay at this place.

[Mattias]
Yeah, that’s a really nice one. How big was it?

[Jesse Vasquez]
Three, two. It doesn’t tell us.

[Mattias]
1,000 square feet.

[Jesse Vasquez]
How much is it? 1,000? Yeah, that’s what it says.

Pretty tiny. That’s pretty small then. Yours is what?

How many square feet is your place?

[Mattias]
It says, the tax record says around 1,000, but I’m pretty sure it’s bigger. Or at least I saw that on the, on whatever the records just showed.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Got it. And what we’re doing right now, you guys, for everybody watching or listening to this, we’re on Furnished Finder. We’re just trying to find, again, we’re comping out a same and similar property.

Exact same thing. We’re verifying numbers from Mashvisor, which shows us exactly what these short-term rentals are doing in that market. Then we’re going back to Furnished Finder to see what people have them listed for.

So that place that we just looked at is 3K a month, which is exactly what we talked about the numbers earlier. Here’s another place for $3,500. It seems to be really close to where your property’s at.

This place looks pretty cool. This is a two bedroom. Yeah, two and a half bath, four guests.

This is 3,200 square feet, so it’s a pretty big-ass two bedroom, two and a half.

[Mattias]
Is that an entire house?

[Jesse Vasquez]
It’s an entire house, yeah.

[Mattias]
Only two bedrooms for that one? I remember when that one’s for sale.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Really? That’s crazy, okay. Two bedroom, yeah, two bedroom, two bath.

This place looks cool. Like, they did a really, like, that looks cool. That looks super dope.

So for those of you that are listening to this, it’s a vintage house that has its complete vintage charm and they just kind of cleaned it up a lot. It’s got a really cool design in it. And the kitchen, that’s really cool.

Yeah, the kitchen looks like it was redone. It looks like it has quartz countertops. I mean, it looks like they did a pretty cool job with this house.

So then we’re looking at, you know, it still has, is that wallpaper? It is. Yeah, it is, yeah.

[Mattias]
I think it’s updated wallpaper, though.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Yeah, it doesn’t have that charm to it. It’s kind of like a Joanna Gaines-ish style, like, modern homes kind of thing. But this place right here is another comp.

Like, you know, I would look at it and be like, okay, we looked at the numbers here. We looked on MashRiser. We can now justify that our property at a three, two, coming in at something similar to what this is gonna look like is going to put us in that category of the 3,000 a month.

That alone right there, is that gives me enough confidence to be like, okay, cool, I feel comfortable with that. So now what I do, what I’ll also do, what’s in this market that’s favorable? Like, tell me about this market right here so we can talk about it a little bit.

[Mattias]
Absolutely, so we, biggest driver of the whole economy, it’s James Madison University. So we have a university that is close to downtown, which this property is. So we would be biking distance, that kind of stuff from it.

I mean, you could walk, but it’s a little bit further, depending where you’re going, which makes the downtown area be vibrant as well with restaurants and bars because of the students. And we have a unique downtown where they really focus in on local stuff and they don’t have chains so that it becomes organically really good to be able to make it. All that to say is that’s where we’re close to and that’s helpful.

We also have, we have Sentara Hospital that is not downtown anymore. It’s a little bit further out, but a lot of nurses, traveling nurses and stuff could be coming from that hospital. We have a few plants.

We have a Walmart distribution center. We have Merck and we have Coors Plant. There are some other bigger industry stuff as well around, but those are kind of the bigger players.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Got it. And the reason why I’m asking you that is because just like traditional long-term renting, that’s exactly what we’re gonna be looking for in a market that’s growing, that has good schools, that has a hospital. And another thing about hospitals is like, you’ll have level one, level two hospitals, which are like your ER, Grey’s Anatomy kind of stuff where you have like all these surgeons that can come in, a brain surgeon that’s available right away.

And I’m thinking this is probably a little bit more rural. We have a stage three, stage four, stage five hospital, which are, excuse me, level three, level four, level five. They’re more of like a more rural type hospitals, but you’ll still have flying in nurses and travel nurses that will come to these markets.

But that’s where we have to like, we have to do what I did, right? Either you can go in there yourself and knock on the HR department door and say, hey, do you guys have clinicians that are coming in here? Or what you do is you start just calling the hospital and saying, hey, I actually have housing for travel clinicians.

Do you, can you tell me what agency you guys are working with right now that is recruiting these types of folks to this market? So then I would go on LinkedIn and I would message those companies. If they’re like AMN Healthcare is who we work with, I’d go on LinkedIn, I would type in recruiter, I would type in Virginia.

I would start to message the people or even more importantly, I would find out who the HR representative is in that hospital and then just look them up on LinkedIn or call them. And say, hey, I have available housing. The same play that I did, right?

How I went in and did all, you could do that on the phone or you could go in in person. I believe going in in person the old school way is a little bit better. But now at least we get a good real life understanding.

What’s your mortgage on this place right now? There is none currently. I would be having to do a refinance.

A refinance, okay, cool. So I mean, even at that, like if you, I mean, if you’re able to do 3K a month and you refi on that, you know, hopefully your payments, I don’t know, 2000 bucks or something like that.

[Mattias]
I’d probably be around 16, maybe even less if you’re just looking at the, you know, not the vacancy and all the other things you’re supposed to factor in.

[Jesse Vasquez]
No brainer for me then. Yeah, so I would be looking at this like, okay, cool, well, here’s the other part of this where the problem starts to come in. You gotta furnish these properties too.

I think people don’t realize like once you buy these things, you have to furnish them. So you can go, there’s a couple different ways. I always usually average $10 a square foot for a property.

So if you got 1,000 square feet, you’re $10 a square foot, that’s gonna put you at $10,000 to furnish that property. So you’re gonna add that into your costs, right? You’re gonna add that into your overall expenses.

But even then, if I’m making $1,000 a month cashflow from one freaking door, which is totally possible, I think, maybe even more than that with this property, you’re gonna make that back in 10 months, you know? But in the first year, you’re already in the positive when it comes to that. So for me, my brain, again, does it cover these three things?

Do I have job growth? Do I have assets that are community-based that are gonna be bringing people in, which is a hospital, education, a college, those types of things? Is there job growth or any type of infrastructure that’s happening in this market where there’s people that are coming from outside the market to my specific city?

Do we have a lot of hotels in my market? Do we have, how often are they occupied? Those are things I’d be looking at.

The people that are staying in those hotels right now, those are your potential clients. And I do crazy stuff like this, Mattias. I’ll go drive by those extended stay hotels and take a picture of the work trucks that are out there.

And I’ll call and say, hey, I saw a work truck out there. Are you guys on assignment? How long are you staying at these properties?

Would you be willing to, if I’m willing to save you thousands of dollars a month, would you be willing to work with me? And then I’ll start talking to them about, I’ll find out about, real quick story on this. There was a Dave & Buster’s that was being built in my market.

Trucks were parked out front, and this was from the ground up. Louisiana trucks, Louisiana plates. I called the company and I said, hey, I see there’s a work truck out.

I know they’re building a Dave & Buster’s here. Do you mind telling me a little bit more about where your folks are staying? And the lady on the other end of the line, her name was Pam.

She was like, oh, this is kind of weird for you calling me. And I’m just like, yeah, I know it’s weird, but this is what I do. I actually reach out to the city to get their employees to save money and stay in a property that might be closer to the job site.

In fact, my property is 0.2 miles away from the job site. I have a garage. I see there’s work trucks.

There’s a space in the backyard where they can park through an alleyway in the back so the trucks would be safe. And I started asking her, where are your guys staying? There was five engineers.

They were staying in each in their own rooms at a Holiday Inn Express in my market. It was $165 a night for each one of those guys to stay, equaled out almost $200 a night. You know, $200 a night times five, that’s $1,000 a day times 30.

That’s $30,000. They were actually paying 26,000, 25,000 with the discount. And I was like, I would not mind renting my five bedroom house to you guys.

Three of the guys are gonna have bathrooms. The two of your least favorite guys are gonna have to go to the hallway down the, yeah, at the end of the hall and share that bathroom. But, you know, I’d be willing to rent this to you guys for 10K.

And she was just like, you know, sat there quiet on the phone. And she’s like, well, let me get back to you. I’m gonna reach out to the guys.

She wanted to see if they were all willing to stay in the place. We ended up getting that place booked for three months, saving that company $20,000 every month. Like, that’s crazy to think about.

But again, this is like the outside of the box, you know, modern investor, that’s got more of a hustler mentality. Like, I’m gonna go find these clients rather than list on Airbnb and wait for somebody to book. And that’s how you get these kind of, you know, relationships starting to build.

You start to think differently in different ways. How can I actually get these clients to come work with me? Frito-Lay, like we have those in my market.

There’s these folks that come work on conveyor belts. They come from all over the US. Guess what?

They’re in these markets for 30, 60 days at a time. I connected with Frito-Lay, found out about those guys that come and they actually work on the conveyor belts. They stay there usually for 45 days at a time while they’re working on new stuff.

We house them. And we’re charging 2X long-term rental rates. So again, there’s ways to make things happen.

A lot of us have a lot of opportunities in our own backyard, which after this conversation and this podcast, people are able to see things in a different light. And there is ways to actually be a little operator, but still do corporate housing, which is exactly what a small operator like myself is doing and many other people across the US. They’re connecting with companies and doing these exact same things right now in their own markets, getting higher rents, but they’re just doing things a little bit different.

I think again, in that framework of just how we talked about the car earlier, right? When you start to see things, you start to see that car because you want to buy it. After this conversation, after this podcast, I hope people start to frame the way they look at their markets, what the actual potential is there.

And most of the time, people aren’t paying attention to this stuff. And that’s where I believe, like I said earlier, when I looked at this market and there was only 38 listings in there, I’m just like, oh my God, I would dominate this market. Because I know that I’d be able to come in there with a different mindset.

I want to be the 1% that comes in thinking like a business, not just listing on a platform. And that’s where you start to really start to build that foundation of being a business owner, not just an employee of Brian Chesky who lists their property on Airbnb and waits for a booking. Like I’m actually creating my own house on my own land by going after these companies rather than waiting for somebody to book.

And Airbnb is great because it gives you the ability to reach mass amount of people, but it’s just a marketing platform that allows you to book too. And we’re paying fees for that. So if you could do that on your own without having to necessarily rely on Airbnb solely and you’re able to create your own book of business, that puts you in a totally different class of investing in my mindset.

[Mattias]
I don’t, man, I’m over here speechless. I’ve got like a million ideas. We have a Buc-ee’s coming in right now.

We have, you know, I know of the university put millions and millions and millions of dollars into infrastructure here recently. So we had a ton of out-of-state construction people coming through. There are definitely opportunities like you’re talking about.

It’s really, really fun. I guess one really other quick question, because now I’m sold, is where do you buy your furniture?

[Jesse Vasquez]
Yeah, furniture. Do you have an Ikea anywhere nearby? It’s like two hours from me.

Okay, don’t go there. So I was gonna say, don’t buy anything from Ikea because you’ll buy it like four times. I like Wayfair, man.

It gives you reviews. A lot of people buy stuff off there. They source stuff from different places.

I even like, if I was just starting right now on this market, I’d be going on Facebook Marketplace and looking for quality staple pieces like sofas, credenzas, stuff that you don’t have to spend an arm and a leg on. It’s still really good quality. Ikea is a great place to buy silverware and essentials that the properties need.

But yeah, I would go on Wayfair. I’d be sourcing on those kinds of things. I’d be looking at Facebook Marketplace or OfferUp or something like that for staple pieces.

And I’d be focusing really on the core spaces where people are gonna be living. So living room and bedrooms, really good beds, really cool living spaces, living room. A quality couch that actually feels good.

Not necessarily, doesn’t have to look the best, but actually is like a comfy couch. A lot of these Airbnbs will have really cool looking couches. In fact, the ones that we were looking at earlier, that brown couch, I have this.

It’s right behind me right there. It looks really freaking cool, but it’s not comfortable. And that’s the difference is that people are living in these properties, so they need to feel that comfort that you would have in your own home.

And not necessarily just like this super aesthetic house. And the cool thing about midterm rentals too is you don’t have to go crazy with pickleball courts and freaking saunas and cold plungers and all this stuff that people are doing now to make money on the short-term side. You have to have a place that looks like this.

It’s comfortable, it’s inviting, that has a full stock kitchen that has everything in it, because people are gonna be cooking and living in this property as if they were actually living there, because they are. And yeah, so it’s just different, you know what I mean? It’s just a totally different type of mentality.

This looks like a cool little town, man.

[Mattias]
Yeah, we like it, and I think that’s actually one of our major growth areas too, or one of a focus is people that come here for the university and don’t leave. Because it’s a smaller town, it’s near mountains, it doesn’t have the hustle and bustle, the traffic that you experience. But then we have really cool things from the university, like sporting theater.

And then we have a really vibrant downtown with amazing food culture, breweries, that kind of stuff. So I think that’s one of the areas where we definitely get some of the growth, is just people kind of fall in love with the life here. Yeah.

One of the reasons I haven’t left.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Yeah. Yeah, man, I mean, it looks like, what’s the average price point of a property there?

[Mattias]
We’re around $350, with the median sales price. Gotcha, okay, cool, that’s not too bad. And we could get a little bit more, depending on where and how big, of course.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Yeah, so again, going back and looking at these numbers right here, I mean, there’s a place doing $10,000 a month in this market. We’ll look at this for the heck of it. Yeah, this place is doing 10K a month right now.

Harrisonburg, Virginia. 10K a month, man. Trying to figure out where that is.

And this is not even that cool. Like, this is really bad. Oh my goodness.

[Mattias]
That’s bright colors, if people are listening. I definitely recommend, guys, go to YouTube or Spotify, you’ll see the video.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Yeah, watch the video on this. This is in the, what is that, how do you say that pronounced? You know this market?

[Mattias]
Shenandoah Valley.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Yeah, you know that place?

[Mattias]
Yeah, I mean, Shenandoah Valley is where we’re at. John Denver sang a little bit about it, the Shenandoah River. Some people argue that West Virginia was not West Virginia, but Western Virginia, because Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River is all where we’re at.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Dude, look at these numbers of this place. This is insane. 10,000, 10,000, 11,000, 12,000 in May of 2024.

That property is just insane on fire. I don’t understand why. I feel like we’re gonna have Jesse come buy houses here.

I think he might have a four bedroom, two and a half bath. I would be arbitraging a house out there, just giving a year to see what happens and see if it ends up, that’s crazy.

[Mattias]
That property is probably like $450 into, probably not up to $600 or anything, but that’s probably a minimum of $450 if it was on the market.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Yeah, they’re short-term renting this. Look, $530 for two nights.

[Mattias]
I’m curious about the exact location, if it is actually in the city. I don’t recognize the street. Yeah, it’s.

It says Harrisonburg, but people often say that.

[Jesse Vasquez]
One mile from the heart of downtown. It looks like it might be.

[Mattias]
I wonder if people are getting away with this. I wonder if that’s what it is, that people are just not getting reported or something.

[Jesse Vasquez]
It could be, man. Yeah, no smoking, 25 years old, the book, photo ID upon check-in. Yeah, they’re super strict about people staying here.

So maybe the neighbors, they don’t want neighbors to get pissed off and that’s typically what happens. Yeah, but it doesn’t mean they’re gonna get reported. Yeah, family trips to James Madison University.

So that’s who they’re catering to, it looks like, is families coming into the university out there.

[Mattias]
That’s a huge, for a short-term rental, it’s huge because there’s always parents’ weekends, that kind of stuff, where we’re gonna have people coming in to see graduation, to homecoming, all that kind of stuff.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Yeah, dude, 10K, are you serious? I’m looking at this now.

[Mattias]
Hey, I’m a realtor, so I can hook you up.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Dude, this right here, this is where I think realtors, if you learn how to do this and now you connect with investors, and you’re like, this is, I have a student, her name’s Rebecca Lynn. She was an agent, or still is an agent, and she came in to work with me in 2021, 2022, trying to work with real estate. She was having a good year, 2021.

2022, she started sucking. 2023, she really sucked. Then she started actually doing, running numbers and kind of doing this whole stuff.

She started working with investor clients and totally changed her entire thing. So yeah, I think there’s a lot to learn with investors, or excuse me, agents that learn how to run these numbers and actually can help their clients find cash-flowing properties in certain markets. Man, there’s a lot to do there.

[Mattias]
That’s what we’re all about here, man. We’re kind of bridging the gap between real estate sales agents and investors. And yeah, you’re totally right.

Bread and butter for, not bread and butter, but I had a pretty big short-term rental. We have a resort close by, so there’s a really hot spot for typical Airbnbs. But yeah, dude, this has been awesome. Guests loved staying at my place, and I quickly learned the little details—like providing extra towels and local recommendations—made a big difference. Between managing bookings and keeping up with maintenance, it sometimes felt like juggling dietary hairnets and rental success all at once. Still, the experience has been rewarding, and I’m already thinking about expanding to another property.

This has been super fascinating. I think, I’m glad I had the idea. I’m super thankful that you were agreeable to actually show us your process, because this has been really interesting.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Yeah, yeah, man, no problem. Again, I think it’s one thing to do it. It’s another thing to consistently do it and then get results from it.

But I’ve done this long enough where I can piggyback off of different things and kind of get a good understanding, because that’s what you really need to have. And then you got to put your chips on the table. But again, what are three things that are most important?

Is it going to work as a long-term rental? If it doesn’t work as a long-term rental, am I going to want to take a property that potentially I might have to fall back to that? That’s the thing to think about.

I personally would be okay investing two or $300 a month on something that was a long-term. Some people can’t do that, right? Short-term, you can’t do that, so that’s already out the window.

Renting by the room, that’s another exit strategy. We look at how much a rental by the room costs. Mid-term rentals, that’s another exit strategy.

So again, I think it’s so important to have these different tools in the toolbox as you’re connecting and trying to buy a property and seeing where you can go, where you can move things around. If I need to fall back to traditional lending or traditional long-term, is it going to work for me? And again, for most people, with even 20% down, it doesn’t necessarily always work unless you get a killer deal or a BRRRR or something like that.

That’s what this is.

[Mattias]
It’s a BRRRR, and so that helps. That helps a lot, because I wouldn’t be able to buy this property market value, especially what we put into it, and make it make a lot of sense, probably. But this is a BRRRR, so I have a little bit more flexibility.

And when we’re talking about exit strategies, too, one of my fallbacks is if this falls on its face and I have this furnished house now, I’ve spent 10K on furniture, well, now I just invested in my staging, you know, my staging furniture for listings and stuff going forward, if I can’t get rid of it or whatever. But, so that’s been my mindset, and if I were to explore this route, and I mean, you’re kind of convincing me to do it.

[Jesse Vasquez]
So. Yeah, well, I think, again, it’s like, what I would be doing is reaching out to some of the people that are in the markets that are actually doing it, too. But again, just looking at that from just this quick general, I feel like it’s a pretty strong market.

Like, it’ll probably do well. You have 30 people that you’re competing with there. Dude, I think for me, it’s just a no-brainer.

And then, you just said you’re an agent. I didn’t realize that until now, which obviously the podcast represents that. But, go to staging companies and say, hey, what’s been, what do you guys have from last year that you’re gonna get rid of?

Like, I’ll buy that stuff from you. Go check it out. Now you can actually stage your house for, instead of $10 a square foot, it’s probably like five.

You know, now you’re actually coming in for $5,000, you’re testing the market, you’re dipping your toe in, and you’re seeing if it’s gonna work or not. And then, you’re actually like, you know, you can invest a little bit more later on once you start to see the return come through. But, that’s another little hack that you could do.

Just connect with the staging company that might have some stuff that’s left over that usually will work.

[Mattias]
Yeah, man, this has been super fascinating. Yeah, thank you so much. Let’s get quickly into that book question.

I mean, I feel like there’s so many more questions we could have about this process, and I’m all fired up. But, for the sake of time, I know you’re a busy person. What is your favorite book, or a fundamental book that you’ve read that you think everybody should read, or just one that you’re really currently enjoying?

[Jesse Vasquez]
I think one of my favorite books of all time is probably Atomic Habits by James Clear. It’s pretty practical advice on forming habits, and I think those habits that people have on a daily basis are what’s gonna allow you to propel and move forward. Like, we’re just talking about midterm rentals.

If you created a habit of running numbers literally every day for yourself, for other people, those are habits that are gonna allow you to have exponential growth in the specific professional field that you’re wanting to get into. So, I think habits are so important, man. So, for me, Atomic Habits, it’s not too long of a read.

Download it on Spotify, check it out for anybody out there.

[Mattias]
It’s got a lot of different strategies in it. I think it’s good, too. And one of the things I’ve been thinking about a lot is how everybody’s a little bit different with how they actually set goals, or track, or whatever.

They have different personalities, they have different things they bring to the table, and you kind of gotta figure out what works well for you. But one of the things I like about Atomic Habits is it kind of outlines different strategies, and that you can kind of apply. It’s not necessarily, and maybe I’m not remembering it perfectly right, but I don’t feel like it’s like, this is a strict formula that only, step one, two, three, four, five, six will work, and no other way around it.

It’s like strategies to make your habits more atomic, or automatic, and yeah. Yeah.

[Jesse Vasquez]
You know, one more, can I give one more? Because this one actually makes me think about it. This book really reshaped the way I thought about business.

It’s called The E-Myth. It’s an older book. It’s by a guy named, I think, Michael Gerber.

Check it out. I think they redid it. It’s called E-Myth Revisited now.

But basically he talks about removing yourself from your day-to-day operational aspects, and only doing the things you’re uniquely qualified to do. Kind of like Dan Martell’s Buy Back Your Time principle, if you guys are familiar with Dan Martell. But The E-Myth was kind of like that first book that really had that mindset of like, it talks about a baker, and this woman used to go in at like 4 a.m., bake bread for the day. She would leave at fricking seven, eight o’clock at night, putting all these hours into her business, and didn’t realize she just needed to invest into people so that she could get more time back. But that alone, that book really helped me understand a little bit more on business, especially if you’re doing stuff on your own. It feels daunting to hire somebody because you think you could do it better, and that’s one of the most difficult things it was for me, to hire somebody, and relinquish control to somebody else.

I still struggle with it, but I think it’s a powerful book if there’s people out there that are looking to grow or scale, or do more than they’re doing now, or get some help. I think it’s an important book to check out, for sure.

[Mattias]
I agree completely. It is definitely a trap for a lot of entrepreneurs, and a lot of real estate agents, definitely. They might be in a market, or in a, yeah, they might just be a solo agent that thinks they have to do everything, and have to be good at everything, and they’re not gonna be good at everything.

They’re gonna have strengths, and so play into your strengths. I love it. Cool.

Now, if people are interested, you mentioned you coach, is that correct?

[Jesse Vasquez]
Yeah, I have a mentorship. I don’t call myself a coach. Yeah, coaches are way too rigid.

I feel like more of a mentor. I’m more of like, hey, this is how we do stuff. This is how we put things together.

Yeah, you can check me out. Is it cool if I give my Instagrams?

[Mattias]
Everything, yeah, whatever you want.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Yeah, you guys can find me on Instagram, at therealjessevazquez, because I’m Hispanic, and there’s like a billion other Jesse Vazquez’s, so I had to be the real one. And then you can find me on YouTube, if you just type in jessevazquez. What we did today, I share a ton of midterm rental tips, ideas, tactics, all for free on YouTube.

Go check it out. Or therealjessevazquez.com. You can check that out.

All the stuff’s on there as well. So, Mattias, I appreciate you, man, for allowing me to be here, sharing with your audience, and hopefully you have some insight now on your property, if you’re gonna move forward with it as a midterm rental. And if you are, please keep me updated.

It’s pretty cool.

[Mattias]
Yeah, awesome. I think you opened a door for me, so I really appreciate it, Jesse. Thank you so much for being on here.

[Jesse Vasquez]
Yeah, no problem, man.

[Erica]
Thanks for listening to the REI Agent.

[Mattias]
If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe to catch new shows every week.

[Erica]
Visit reiagent.com for more content.

[Mattias]
Until next time, keep building the life you want.

[Erica]
All content in this show is not investment advice or mental health therapy. It is intended for entertainment purposes only.