Before Brandi Jones had a thriving business of mid-term rentals, none of which she actually owns, she learned early on that she didn’t like long term rentals thanks to her parents being landlords. She thought short term rentals would suit her personality better, but as her hometown of Nashville, along with so many other cities, began implementing restrictions on short term rentals, she realized mid-term rentals were a better fit for her.
Her approach to mid-term rentals (MTR) is a little different than most. She doesn't purchase any properties; she doesn't have to deal with mortgage applications, escrow, etc.; she simply rents apartments. This real estate business strategy is known as "rental arbitrage" and essentially involves profiting from the difference between her cost of securing the rental property lease, furnishing it, and subleasing it to her own tenants; though, these "subleases" are more accurately referred to as a "master lease" or "corporate lease." These special types of leases are almost exclusively for corporate housing and are generally only available to business entities (LLCs or corporations), not individuals. Corporate housing refers to furnished, temporary housing that is leased to businesses for the use of their employees, or in this case, re-rented, typically for stays of 30 days or longer.
How to Find Apartments Willing to Do Corporate Housing
Brandi explains how to locate apartment buildings that provide corporate housing on Apartments.com. Armed with this knowledge, she contacts the apartments in question and asks for a corporate housing application in order to rent a number of their units. She explains that when speaking with apartment buildings, there is no special script to employ. Simply explain what you're looking for to the leasing agents and speak to them as you normally would rather than as someone reading from a script. Brandi gets about 10 to 15 leads per day on Furnished Finder, which she then sends to her website to secure the booking.
Furnishing Strategy
All of Brandi's apartments are furnished and decorated to a "House for Now" standard. Wi-Fi, electricity, water, trash removal, and access to community facilities like a pool and gym are all included. All of her apartments are furnished by CORT Furniture Rental (opens in new tab). She adores CORT because they will set up everything for you in about an hour and deliver every piece of furniture you require.
By using CORT, she typically spends under $200 per month on items like couches, chairs, bed frames, box springs, mattresses, headboards, rugs, side tables, lamps, and TVs. She usually spends an additional $400 at Target on small items like kitchenware and houseplants to finish the apartment.
Formula For Success
To succeed in the world of rental arbitrage, Brandi simply doubles the rent. She knows she can rent the apartment furnished for $2,800 if the rent is $1,400 per month for the apartment she'll be renting. In addition, she bills $295 for all utilities per month.
Ask for a discount when you speak with the leasing manager, says Brandi. Since you are calling a business rather than a consumer, it is appropriate and expected that you will request discounts or concessions. One month free, no deposits, and no additional fees are frequent inclusions in discounts. In order to begin the negotiation, she first inquires about the "move-in special" or other promotion that the apartment is currently running.
Brandi's business makes a whopping 40% profit after all costs and salaries are covered, which is exceptional for the real estate industry. She exclaims, "Thanks to Furnished Finder, it lets us live our real estate dreams. "No other industry can beat those kinds of margins."
Landlord Logistics
To handle a large portion of her business, Brandi works with virtual assistants, many of whom are from the Philippines. In the Philippines, virtual assistants typically make $4 per hour, but she pays them more because they deliver excellent work. Brandi used www.OnlineJobs.ph to find her VAs.
Due to the time difference, she adores having VAs in the Philippines. Someone from her team is able to respond to a lead that comes in at 2 a.m. within 10 minutes, creating a fantastic first impression with potential tenants and increasing the likelihood that she will be able to secure them as a tenant.
Brandi is aware that people looking for accommodations frequently message several properties during the same online browsing sessions. Brandi has a very high chance of turning those leads into tenants because her team can respond to those leads so quickly.
Securing 5 Star Reviews
While the majority of tenants think reviews should only be left at the end of a rental, Brandi says that asking for one early on, frequently in the first week, is a great way to get a favorable review. Since they are generally eager to explore their new surroundings, the tenants are usually in a good mood when they first move in. She can also inquire about the tenant's opinion of the mattress because CORT furnishes the majority of her apartments. Thanks to CORT, she can easily have the current mattress replaced with a more comfortable one if it's too soft or firm. Her renters are often impressed by the fact that she can replace the mattress at no extra charge.
Additionally, the tenant is questioned about any items that might be missing from the apartment and suggestions for improvements. By doing this, Brandi is able to address any issues right away that might otherwise persist in the tenant's mind and result in a bad review.
Brandi’s Preferred Apartment Size
Brandi only works with studios and one-bedroom apartments. Studios are typically the least expensive in an apartment building, and they are convenient for quick cleaning and tenant turnover.
How to Manage Over 60 Units
As you can imagine, managing over 60 units entails a lot of moving parts, something Brandi uses rental management software for. Landlords and property managers use property rental management software as a tool to simplify the rental process for their properties. These software packages typically provide a number of features, such as the capacity to market available properties, manage lease agreements, screen tenant applications, plan maintenance and repairs, and gather rent payments. Additional features in some property rental management software include tenant screening, budgeting tools, and the capability to monitor occupancy rates and financial results. Brandi's preferred management software is Yardi (opens in new tab).
Negotiating with Tenants
With her tenants, Brandi never bargains on the rent. The white sheets, white pillowcases, rugs, and other extras she adds to her units are sometimes not appreciated by tenants who like to negotiate on pricing, and as a result, the unit doesn't receive the respect she would expect. Her astounding 96% occupancy rate suggests you don't need to settle or give in when asked by an applicant for a lower rental price.
How to handle check-in with over 60 units
Brandi adores using the Latch electronic door lock, which enables cell phone entry into apartments. If she is unable to install her electronic door lock, most of the time, the apartment complex's front desk is happy to assist by holding onto the new tenant's key. Brandi also has a welcome basket of Champagne and small snacks waiting for her new tenant's key.
Pets
Most landlords believe that allowing pets results in shredded furniture and damaged rugs and carpets. Brandi adores renters who have pets or service animals. She starts by asking about the pet's weight and breed. She requests that they send a copy of the animal's vaccination record, which tells Brandi that this pet owner is responsible for their animal and probably won't cause her any problems.
Rather than a refundable pet deposit, Brandi charges a $300 pet privilege fee. She does this with the knowledge that the comforter will almost certainly need to be replaced because pet fur will unavoidably get inside of it. Additionally, it compensates for the deep cleaning fee she will have to pay her housekeepers, who will undoubtedly have to put in more effort to get the apartment back to "move-in ready" condition.
Favorite Aspects of Furnished Finder
For leads, Furnished Finder asks the perfect questions. Brandi appreciates that the lead informs her and her staff of the guests' requested length of stay and any additional requests. She also values the fact that anyone who contacts Brandi has already qualified themselves as a good fit for her properties because her Furnished Finder listings are so thorough in terms of fees, amenities, and policies.
Master Lease Requirements
Typically, you cannot sign a master lease with an apartment complex unless you're a business entity, such as an LLC or corporation. Simply creating a business entity is often not enough, however. Your business needs to establish a business credit rating.
Any small business owner seeking to establish credibility and gain access to financing must first establish a business credit rating through Dunn and Bradstreet (opens in new tab). As a top provider of credit risk analysis, Dunn and Bradstreet's Paydex score is frequently used by suppliers and lenders to determine a company's creditworthiness. A high Paydex score (their name for a business' credit score) can help a business qualify for lower interest rates and better terms on loans and lines of credit.
You'll first need to obtain a free DUNS (Data Universal Numbering System) number, which is a distinctive nine-digit identification for businesses. It serves as the fundamental foundation for a business credit rating.
Small businesses can establish a good credit history and raise their credit score by establishing business credit under Net30 and Net60 terms. Net30 and Net60 are examples of payment terms that outline how long a company has to pay its invoices. Paying within 30 or 60 days of the invoice date is referred to as "net 30" and "net 60," respectively. Businesses can show their financial responsibility and establish credit by paying invoices on time and maintaining a good payment history with suppliers and vendors.
Businesses can better manage their cash flow by giving themselves more time to pay their bills by using Net30 and Net60 terms. The use of these terms, however, can also have a negative impact on a company's credit score if payments are not made on time. It's essential to establish and maintain a consistent track record of on-time payments if you want to establish business credit using Net30 and Net60 terms. In the eyes of lenders and suppliers, this can help a business show that its finances are stable and increase its creditworthiness.
Insurance for Rental Arbitrage
If you are renting an apartment under a master lease and then re-renting it, you should have a commercial insurance policy; in fact, the apartment complex will most likely require it. This is due to the fact that a commercial insurance policy is created especially to safeguard businesses and commercial properties.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Brandi Jones has achieved success in the world of mid-term rentals by utilizing a novel business strategy known as "rental arbitrage." She has grown her business to over 60 units and makes $180,000 per month in revenue without owning a single piece of real estate. She does this by obtaining a master lease or corporate lease on apartments and subleasing them to her own tenants. Brandi has been able to make impressive profits and realize her real estate dreams by maintaining a strong team and furnishing her apartments to a high standard. Others might have the same kind of success in the world of mid-term rentals if they take her advice on how to negotiate with apartment buildings and use the tools that Furnished Finder offers.
Episode 1 Transcript
Welcome to Landlord Diaries where we talk about midterm rentals and the opportunities behind them we'll share landlords stories talk about maximizing investment potential and discuss how to live the very best landlord life this podcast is proudly brought to you by furnished finder the place for everything midterm rentals remember to like and subscribe if you enjoy our content hello our wonderful audience thank you so much for tuning in this is kelly bailey your podcast host and property owner with Furnished Finder my hubby and i have a handful of midterm rentals in the austin texas area and i am so happy to be here with you today and i am katie lyon i am uh in marketing at Furnished Finder and i also own a few properties myself so it's so great to be here today today we get to talk to brandy and brandy is just i can't i could not stop smiling when we were talking to her she is this amazing mix of like happiness and joy and thoughtfulness mixed with like some hustle not some hustle a lot of hustle like you can tell like she has worked for exactly where she is today and she has shown it because she her company brings in 180 000 of revenue per month so she is just a gift and it was so amazing to talk to her so please enjoy this episode um quickly also remember that our podcast and all of the episodes are sponsored by furnished finder furnished finder is the go-to website for mid-term rentals for property owners to list your property is only 99 per year no matter how many rentals how many leases you have and for travelers there's absolutely no booking fees um there's no fees for anyone it's very it's very simple and straight to the point so we hope you enjoy this episode and we hope you have a chance to check out Furnished Finder [Music] let's jump into this week's episode um with a really special guest her name is brandi jones and she is a breath of fresh air and puts a super fun unique twist on midterm rentals uh brandi lists exclusively with Furnished Finder and has scaled her business to 60 plus units producing 100 and k 180 k monthly in revenue and doesn't own a single property if you'd like to connect with brandy her website is Home hello brandy how are you hello hi katie thank you guys so much for having me oh it's such a pleasure we're looking forward to some fun conversation today wait that's right well uh let's jump into the first question wow is all i've got to say 60 plus units and you don't own any of them so that's kind of mind-blowing to me so how does it work how does it work a good team right like i can't do any of this without a good team so from the installers to the movers to the decorators um a really good team and of course the complexes can do this without good property managers and good partners uh when it comes to the complex itself the partners we call our partners the complexes um the the large apartment complexes we partner with them um so those are our partners so don't want to get confused some people you know have partners where they um invest but our partners are our apartment complexes so we use Apartments.com: Apartments and Homes for Rent i use Apartments.com: Apartments and Homes for Rent and i mostly filter so Apartments.com: Apartments and Homes for Rent is great as well as furniture because it lets you filter um and so you kind of look for at the top there's a part where you can look for corporate housing all of those apartment complexes come up and i pick up the phone and i give them a ring and it typically goes like hey this is brand new from house for now could we have a corporate application you know looking to pick up a few units oh that's awesome so what is corporate housing yeah so corporate housing is 30 day stays or longer for business travelers um nurses um very people who come to Furnished Finder for a place to stay okay and so you have you connect uh through Apartments.com: Apartments and Homes for Rent you look for corporate housing and uh then you call up these complexes and say i want to rent some units so is it a sub lease or what is it you know in the corporate housing world we try not to call it a sublease but we we do call it a master lease right or um a corporate lease all these different names but i guess you could from a landlord point of view you could look at it as subleasing just with a different name how do they do a like what's the norma application process since you're not an individual is it yeah so they run our duns number so each corporation has a special guns number which is a lot like a company's um social security number right but since we're company and we can't have a social is that like an ein yes it's a lot like an ein okay but more like a social because you can build it and you can i mean um more like a credit score you can build it and you can it can go bad it can go up the points can go up things like that okay all right so thank you i have to i gotta it's like clear that you are like way smarter than me but like you know you know what you're doing and you're this is not your your first rodeo right so like but i just like want to back up tell us like okay tell us your story and your journey like how did you start all this how did you figure this all out what brought you to this path right because it's like you're doing amazing and i'm like i know a lot of listeners out there are probably like okay that's incredible but like how did you get to step 12 yes yeah so i was my parents were landlords and so i've always loved real estate and i've always tagged along on those 2 a.m broken um bathroom calls you know broken toilet calls so i've just always really loved real estate and um so about five years ago i got the chance to transition to just kind of a ceo but we were small so you know we didn't have as many units and so it ceo just you know didn't take that with the greatest or did you start by working at the company yep so i started um this part of the company okay it was a mom and pop before it didn't even have the same name the it didn't we didn't have a guns number you know we were we were mom and pop my parents were mom and pop landlords okay so i guess you can say yes i started the company this is a family business and yeah it was a family business but i really wanted to transition away from long terms okay um i thought that we could just i thought that we could do better than that we still there's still an element there but house for now stands on its own with the 60 units and those long terms are not part of the 60 number okay does that make sense that makes sense so tell us how you got involved in that what you liked about midterm and how you you know how you jumped in and what kind of how did you get to where you are today well in the beginning i didn't know that i liked midterm i just knew that i didn't like long term okay i actually thought that i would prefer i actually thought that i would prefer short term you know i think a lot of people think like airbnb or they think surely i'll prefer short term but i learned very quickly that short term was not for me as an owner um it wasn't for my personality because of the amount of turnover because of the um the need to party you know nashville you know as you mentioned kelly nashville is huge with bachelorettes and so we you know it's just i learned really quickly that um we didn't want any bachelorettes we didn't want we didn't want you know the noise and and all that good stuff so then nashville came down with rules that our stays could only be 30 days and it just it just solidified what i already was transitioning to which was that mid-term 30-day minimum stay so that was all that all kind of happened nashville came down like an iron fist really quickly and i and that all kind of happened really fast um and so i didn't know i didn't know that i liked midterms um but here we are awesome answer your question that answers my question so how do what kind of resources did you use what kind of resources did you use to to learn the ropes and to learn like okay if i'm gonna call an apartment complex like what do i say how do i get these units and um i use the school of hard knock i looked um on a lot of youtube a lot of facebook groups um you know just but they still kind of were selling the script and i felt like if everyone is selling the same script then they're going to know that i'm reading a script right i just didn't feel connected connected to a script right so i just decided to pick up the phone and try my charm at it and the first one worked we went to the gulch which is a really great area of town here in nashville just a lot of fun a lot of those bachelorettes come through there and i was shaking i remember i was shaking um katy the leasing agent picked up the phone and i was like hi i have a new company my name is brandi and i don't know i just kind of spilled it all out to her and she said calm down she said calm down she said what unit are you looking for and i had to run and i ran to the website and i'm like a1 you know because they were caught it was that particular complex calls it you know an a1 right so i said an a1 and they went and she said what length would you like and i said 12 months you know and the more questions that she was asking the more i knew that this was maybe a possibility right that's so cool and then when she mentioned then when she mentioned the duns number and all the things that we kept you know those corporate credit scores and all of those things that we needed um i'm the type of person i would stay up all night and so that's what i did i went right i got a guns number i registered i did all the things that she needed and she was very patient her name is tia she was very patient and she came back and i came back to her and i was like here please you know let me know and in 12 hours she said you guys are approved when do you want to move in and i thought here we go that's right that's how it started i wish i had a more professional way of starting but no you know what i don't feel i feel like i feel like any good company at the very very beginning that's what it's about right it's about putting yourself out there it's about educating yourself and it's about like stepping stepping into the ring before you're ready because you're never going to be ready right you're never going to be ready never and just trusting you know to the landlords who are listening just trusting that the person on the other end was ready to meet me right you know they were ready even though i didn't have the answers and i didn't even really know now we try not to do 12 month leases because 12 months comes around so very quickly right so now i know to say give me your longest lease right but i still trusted that whoever answered that phone was was ready for me right that's really good feedback because you're honing in on something that's so valuable and it's expecting the best out of people and in a business like landlording at times you're taught to expect the worst so that you have all your ducks in a row in case someone decides you know that they wanted to go after you for something but really we can expect the best in people and just have the right practices in place so that's great feeling right i think that's also another another secret to making progress and achieving things is being okay with telling someone like okay i'm not sure let me get back to you and as soon as you show that right as soon as you show that vulnerability anyone's natural response is to get on your side and help you out right and if you're the right person with the right character they're going to go out of their way to to help you cross that finish line because you're not you're being humble and you're showing that you want to learn you want to progress and i think that i think that's huge you know saying saying i don't know or i'm not sure is an okay answer that's awesome so brandy you said you have 60 plus um lists are units and you advertise exclusively on Furnished Finder but i did my homework and on furnished finder you only have five listings marketed so how does that work well we cannot handle the demand that fresh finder brings us here in nashville um everybody wants to come to the city right whether they're a business traveler especially the nurses everyone wants to come here um or even the people the everyday person who maybe um their help excuse me their home is not ready and you know they have two more months before they move into their new home um if we had more listings we would not be able to handle the demand you know from the calls one what i love about that's a good problem yeah i guess so what i love about first finder is they can call they can text they can email we get tenant leads housing requests so you can imagine if we're getting i think we're averaging maybe 10 or 15 leads a day that's quite big times five you know the whole point is is to drive them to the website right to drive them to the website and i think with 60 units five listings does that right right nice that's great so i mean my first thought as if i'm a traveler and i see go ahead and i i followed through i said oh this this one looks nice and then on the back end i know that you actually have 60 units not just the one that i'm looking at so do you furnish all of them the same so that you can easily move them to whichever units available or how does that work we try to we try to have a house for now standard right so each unit is fully furnished and we like to say that it's going to be that wi-fi electric water valet trash plus all the community communities like the pool you know each guest is welcome to use all of the community amenities just as if they were a resident but inside the unit it's going to come with everything you need all you need is your suitcase and maybe your shoes um but it's going to go with maybe it's going to come with the spoons the forks down to the toilet paper the pillow protectors the mattresses all of those things we've already taken care of the pots and pans and the carrot machines and coffee makers everything is there um so that's kind of how that works awesome and you have a from our uh intro call i think you told me so that you can keep them pretty uh pretty similar uh that you have a furniture partner why don't you tell us yeah so we're kind of moving away from our financial partner but we were using court yeah we were using court and what i loved about court was they can come in one hour and you have a whole new unit so landlords really landlords use court um and if you go on their website they all they also have um codes and i mean you can just get a business account that's the tip is that you can get a business account with court on a net 60 so a net 60 is going to mean that you don't pay for it up front you're going to pay after 60 days which really gives you some wiggle room um when you have the furniture okay you have to furnish that unit so why are you moving away from courtney well i shouldn't say i'm moving completely away from court but court in nashville in the outskirts of nashville has an outlet center so [Music] the furniture that was previously rental furniture is in their outlet center and so it just makes more sense at this point with revenue it just makes more sense to buy right and well it's it's the exact same furniture right now we're running and they just pivoting and we love what i love about it is um they can they discount the furniture based on how used it is right so yeah so they have 40 inch tvs for 90. um queen headboards for 99 bed frames for 35 so it just makes sense so how much how much does it cost you to furnish your average apartment kind of like for renting the furniture or buying the furniture like what's kind of your range there yeah so with court it is 129 and that's gonna be everything like the couch the chairs um you can add on rugs you can i mean you can add on pots and pans court has a white glove service well they'll bring everything to you um so we've never done the white glove service but we've done the basic 129 and they'll bring in the couches chairs the bed the frame the box spring the mattress the side table the lamp so and all of that for 129 yeah so with that we were scoring yeah yeah it really oh god court saved us in the beginning right in the beginning we were spending maybe another four hundred dollars um accessories from target right um and when i say accessories i mean the bath mats the rugs um things for the wall and things like that right but now we bring that number down just because of the volume that i'm that i'm buying yeah all right so brandi i have a question for you and because a lot of our listeners are investors of all different sizes right we have we have investors with portfolios like yours right where that are huge we have mom and pops who are renting an extra room in their house and they may not consider themselves investors but they definitely are so to the level that you're comfortable sharing tell us you know 180 k of revenue per month what does that look like at the finish line right like what is happening for expenses are you getting these properties at a discount how much are you able to mark them up because they are furnished well and they're available for monthly rent for these travelers right give us kind of a breakdown from from from a business perspective sure well anyone who knows me knows i love talking money and i love talking the bottom line and i'm so glad that this podcast is going to reach even you know everyone you know the mom and pop all the way up um because this is what i needed to see so i'm just and no one talked about money when i was shaking on the phone calling that complex right um so what are those what does those numbers look like so there's a formula um that we use that i've learned from my mentor and that is whatever you get the apartment at whatever price you get the apartment at then you mark it up by 50 so all of our units are marked up at 50 the apartment that i'm sitting in today rents for a 1409 okay right and so i know that the minimum that we can lease the unit to a nurse or business traveler is going to be 28 18 right that is our minimum we also charge for utilities you'll see if you kind of look at our listings the utilities are not included and so we charge 295 for utilities so we're not we're not taking on those extra burdens right but with that though guests have a utility cap so we don't want you to just walk away and leave the water running we still have a utility cap based on the amount of travelers in the unit for the length of stay okay so the 30-day stay we expect our light bill to be 85 we expect the water bill to be about 13 or 14 for one person if that makes any sense yeah numbers as far as um so that's the formula you're going to want to double you're going to want to double what you get it at okay so if you if you lease the property from for a thousand dollars no you're good i just want to i just want to clarify so everything's clear if you lease the property for a thousand dollars you're gonna rent it out for two thousand minimum that is correct okay so you're you're doubling your cost okay now are you getting that apartment at a discount at all yes you are okay so one thing that i had to learn very quickly on that first day was ask for a discount you can't you can you can only be told no and the beautiful thing about representing a corporation um at the time that i had just started was when you talk when one corporation talks to another corporation don't forget you're calling b2b you're not calling b to c and so as b to b businesses talk to other businesses in ways that maybe to be the business to the consumer the consumer to the business doesn't always have the privilege of talking right and so it is no it is normal it is no harm it is expected for the business to ask for a discount so how much of an average discount do you typically get we typically get one whatever their special is so that's going to be one month free that's going to be no fees to move in so a lot of times when you move in you can have those um gosh amenity fees and moving fees and all the fees also we hate deposits deposits can eat up a chunk of our budget to move in because we hate deposits so we're going to start negotiating with no deposits that's the first thing we do um or i take care of their parts so i'm gonna say i do and then i negotiate no fees and i negotiate um whatever their special is i always try to start it where the complex is already offered and the good thing about it is if you look on the complexes website they'll tell you what they're offering right so we just start there so i start with i'm looking at a complex mail that that's really wanting people to get in and they're doing eight weeks free okay so we'll start that's a given wow right they really want people in right really excuse me that's a given so our eight weeks free is a given but now we need no moving fees and no deposit and that really really saves the day and do you have to do anything special with these complexes to be allowed to use them as corporate housing or sublease them are there some are there some properties that just say no we don't do that or is has that not been as much of a roadblock for you yep so if you go back to the beginning the way i get around that we don't even call the ones i don't even call the ones who don't offer subleasing or who don't offer um those master leases if you remember if we go back to Apartments.com: Apartments and Homes for Rent i filter it by corporate leasing corporate housing and i'm only calling the complexes that identify as corporate housing accepted or acceptable and so that's how we get rid of the ones who don't even don't even offer it and that really saves me a lot of time during the day right um well now i'm actually now actually i try not to call anymore now i have a virtual assistant who calls and she's amazing she lives in the philippines and she calls awesome based on the criteria that she's given right and so yeah i was just going to say anything else you want to add as far as kind of like the investment perspective or like revenue at the at the end of the day because i interrupted you a little bit there um yeah so we get to take home about 40 after everyone is paid and so i mean in real estate who else can beat those margins right that's pretty awesome yeah yeah i sure wouldn't mind being there right you're inspiring i'm you know in many ways brandi that's what i love about first thank you kelly that's what i love about Furnished Finder is it it lets it lets us live our real estate dreams what other industry is beating those type of margins i don't know any that's great i just think that that is such great feedback brandy and i think it's a great opportunity for us to jump into our section that we call landlord logistics and sometimes i highlight it sometimes i don't but a lot of the landlord logistics questions are built from uh what uh Furnished Finder provides in an e-book called landlord tips so just a reminder landlords if you are looking for how to uh like get up get set up with your furnished rental and you're starting from square one go to Furnished Finder.com go to the resource tab for uh property owners and uh there's a landlord ebook and it's gold it's really good so you mentioned brandy that you have a virtual assistant in the philippines and i remember from our intro call that you have a pretty great well-oiled machine that i want to dive into uh you have a couple virtual assistants and i love what you highlighted on our intro call about how it doesn't matter what time of the day the lead comes in you're ready for it so tell us how that works uh for uh when someone inquires about your property we were i was able to get virtual assistants at four dollars an hour starting out and so now i have given them a raise just because of you know how amazing they are but a virtual assistant is a really great option um and four dollars let me just say four dollars is the standard in the philippines so we're still you know they're able to do quite a bit with it they're awesome people they have um their english skills are really good and it's just that's an option that you may want to consider and how did you find those so i used the website called Hire the best Filipino employees and virtual assistants the Philippines has to offer! okay and i put in a what i was looking for and i got so many inquiries and luckily i was able to pick one that that has really worked for me for the last few years that's fantastic um that is so cool thank you so Hire the best Filipino employees and virtual assistants the Philippines has to offer! is the one what was the question i'm sorry you answered it girl that's that's great okay but so um a lead comes in at 2 a.m uh your time what happened elite comes in at 2 a.m and someone on the va philippine team you know filipino team they are able to smash that lead and we'd like to get back to the guests in 10 minutes and so it comes in at 2 a.m by 2 a.m by 2 10 um i'd like to see oh you know that it was answered in some form so if it's a text message then we respond by text message if it's an email the the thing another thing that i love about Furnished Finder is that it asks the guest what they prefer what method of communication they prefer and that is gold because we never want to contact a guest by phone and they prefer email or by some of them prefer text messaging and you you know you gotta realize we're dealing with the nurses who are night nurses who are on the floor they can't always just grab their phones and so we like to so if it comes in at 2 a.m by 2 10 we've responded and they always have the same basic question i saw the least thing on Furnished Finder what do i need to do next we're able to drive that traffic to the website um we don't take any bookings by text or by phone drive it to the website and then if they need any more help they can pick up the phone and give us a call um once we you know once we open right but someone is responding to them at two o'clock that's fantastic awesome um so that you led me to another question of website that's pretty valuable and most um property owners probably would prefer to have a website but not everyone knows where to start so how much does it cost you to have them operate a booking service on your website monthly and how like how did you set your website up well we're still working on our site as well we would love to always yes that's never done oh my gosh so thank you for saying that everybody that's that's another goal even for um a company with you know 60 units which we don't consider large anymore but um we're still working on that website so but in the beginning go daddy go daddy was okay 20 bucks it was awful but it was 20 bucks and it just gave it was a landing page it just gave the nurse or whoever was inquiring the feeling that we really were real um and so a lot back then we did a lot of phone calls so that you could hear you know our voice here the location of the units you know in retrospect to which hospital you were going to so that that really made a difference but it was 20 bucks on godaddy and i've i've been to your website it's beautiful very well done so do you pick the style do they pick the style how did you come up with the details no i didn't that was a launch kit by sparrow that i found on twitter so shout out to sparrow websites and it was just a kit that they put together and built for us on website on uh wordpress i think it was a thousand dollars maybe and then to host it's about 50 50 bucks a month um so not expensive it works you know what i'm hearing from you brandi i'm hearing that you are an excellent researcher that you know how to strategically pick your team and when you want to improve something you just go to town researching it and make it happen and that is a really that's a really great quality thank you kelly thank you i don't know another way if you have a better way it's good no i think you're right i mean it's researching it's learning and it's forming these processes right that you can repeat it and then just like with your va right you repeat it and you master it and then you send it off so you can keep moving the boat forward okay so with that because i noticed the beautiful thing oh i'm sorry i don't know you're good the beautiful about Furnished Finder is if they if they can um message you they're messaging everyone else right so we want to capture that lead in 10 minutes let them know we see you we heard you we're here but it's two o'clock in the morning right we'll get back with you as soon as we open right that's all i gotta say no i love that okay so your reviews are outstanding tell us a little bit about some of the logistical things you do to get those reviews and maintain those like uh kelly mentioned some things about your check-in and checkout process that literally sounds like you have it down to such a science like it's oh crazy well we're still working i'm still researching right and thank god great mentor who helps me but um i'm asking we're asking yeah for those reviews right people are so busy and people are um they're just relieved to get a place to live that looks great that matches the pictures right some people just forget and a lot of times people think that they're not supposed to leave a review until they leave right and we need a review at the beginning of your stay right and sometimes at the end we'll work through right um and so we're getting a phone call i did you know was everything to your liking is there anything that you need did we forget something um how was the bed right i want to know how the bed was and you know why i can i can ask about the bed because if it's not comfortable i can send it back to court right i care about the bed there's no sweat or you know money off my back but um and so with that though i try to check in or try to have someone check in um on the onboarding team within 24 hours of their stay and so if they say you know jasmine everything was who's on our own boarding team jasmine everything went great thank you for those shaking instructions we found it perfectly we're gonna hit him with could you leave us a review right did you tell the world you know how you liked it or how easy or right you know so just asking right not being afraid to say and then sometimes they'll say you know we really couldn't find it it was around the corner and we really couldn't um then you say you know how can we make that right right love it so that assistant is that the virtual assistant again or who's your onboarding team no that's going to be someone in the all in the actual office um just because if they do say something that was amiss we want to get to it right then in there we want to say hey okay we're going to send someone from from from instacart were you shipped a lot shipped in instacart you know we're going to get someone over if our housekeeping team [Music] didn't leave out enough um what is it guys tan towels or whatever we're gonna get someone over right right whereas there may be a delay with our filipino team right so there's going to be a house team yeah an onboarding team in the office with me and we're going to send someone over so those reviews mean so so much um yes and you just gotta care about people you just have to care right i would you know i'm here in one of our units and i stayed here last night it's the first time staying in this unit and you know i feel comfortable i would live here so that makes a difference landlords if you're listening and i know you guys do you just gotta care that everything is the way you would like it right awesome so you have all these teams in place and it seems like you have such a valuable uh uh group that you're working with uh one thing that from our intro call you mentioned is how you streamline the the move-in and the move-out process so tell me yes uh how is that set up so you get it right every time to set yourself up for those five star reviews checklist right pictures checklist so each unit has its own checklist inventory checklist right and so someone from inspections right is so this is different from onboarding someone in in you know i call it inspections they're gonna go in after the guest has left and they're going to make sure that the guests didn't accidentally pack up the iron mm-hmm if they did it's it's not a problem you know we're going to go to the storage we have storage units we're going to go back to the warehouse we're going to grab an iron we're just going to put it back into its place yep right so that way we can deliver on our promise right right because when because before the guests come we send an e we send an email with a checklist of hey this is what you're getting right you're gonna get those white sheets that white bedding this is what you're getting and so when they get there and the iron isn't there it can really it kind of turns a switch it makes the guests think they don't do what they say they're gonna do right now they don't they don't really they don't really you know if we don't want any of those things to kind of be like in the back of your head we want you to know we're going to do what we say we're going to do right so let's take the iron into account uh and the white beautiful sheets so if a guest ends up accidentally staining a white sheet or it does walk off with iron do you have a system in place of how you communicate that to them or do you do you take any you know money other deposit uh how does that work yeah so you're gonna have three days and we tell you that upfront right you're gonna have three days to respond to us and say oh my goodness i accidentally took it i'll mail it back to you no problem after those three days we kind of figured that maybe you don't have time to return it um and so that's gonna either come out of the deposit or be charged an additional and we keep all cards on file through the website and so it's no your card is on file and so most of the time things don't walk away things don't accidentally get packed up people are very careful and you're dealing with business travelers not vacationers right mid-termers are very there's a different mindset of a mid-termer right they know that they're not there alone they know that the card is on file they know where sometimes a vacationer might have used their dad's card or right someone else's right but a movie permanent it's their card right um very often it's there turn or something like that and so it doesn't it doesn't happen a lot but when it does we just reach out and say hey would you that back to us we'll cover shipping right and if not we'll just take it from the card on file so what have you found to be the best mix of of unit sizes as far as performance goes do you have one bed two bed three bed what's what do you find best studios hmm studios one bedrooms really studios we are almost exclusively studios when i was doing shorts when i was on short term um we had these big houses and you can kind of see the in my face just the exhaustion right um because they took i mean they gobbled up resources right you know those big we call them here in nashville we call them the tall and skinnies right so we have these big talling skinnies they gobbled up resources now studios studios are easy to turn over we can negotiate a lot better they often are the cheapest units or the most affordable units at the complex so it's just a win-win right we're able to get a good price on them with our cleaning crew they're able to be turned over quickly right so checkout is at 11 check in is it two i can't have such a tight window on check-in right if i don't have a smaller unit so studios one bedrooms and what's your minimum rental period 13 weeks ah oh minimum 30 days minimum is 30 days sorry i got too excited minimum of 30 days average is 13 weeks wow and how do how do you keep track of everyone do you use a software do you use a spreadsheet like how are you managing so many moving pieces i would not trust my own brain to do software software so yardy is a software system that we use that's pretty expensive um let me try to think of another one this i used to use yardy in my days in commercial real estate oh hi so you know how much it costs i know how much it costs and i me and yardy did not click really too many moving parts no i just you know what like i'm in marketing so my brain whatever side left or right that is yardy is the opposite it's a great software it's fantastic it was like oil and water i was like i don't like this i don't like this i don't like this definitely it looks so good you already definitely took some getting used to right um but if i say i'd say i'm in a group of other owners and i say to them it is only good for us right do not try to share yardy with anyone else it just gives you a bird's eye right you know synopsis so that way when kelly emailed and said how much money are you making yardy right you know i can go right you have to have something i mean um yeah yeah on a small mom and pop level what was i using i was using pen and paper i mean i started out with five with five units so it's much easier to excel i was using excel um once i got past five i knew i needed to find something quickly yeah i tried hopefully and i tried what was the other one hopefully logify those websites but they didn't work for me because you oftentimes have to connect your airbnb profile right and i'm a mid-termer right i'm not a short-termer right so i knew quickly that i would have to have a big a big system software system that makes sense nice so if a traveler reaches out and they say hey you know i see that this uh apartment is i can't remember what you said yours average so i'm gonna throw out a random number i see that this apartment is 1500 monthly um is there any room for negotiation uh what is your answer no you know sometimes apartments go on specials right um but that's predetermined by me um if so in the winter an apartment will definitely go on a special um a lot of times we can so i'm learning right because i used to i used to say sure you know but i'm learning that the people who may not afford it may not see the value in our hard work right and so they may not see the value of the white sheets and the white pillar protectors and the rugs that that you know are 18 inches out on the bed from the floor they may not see the value in that and so sometimes things are mistreated or destroyed when you bring the price point down um because you you know you're dealing with type of person who may not see the value and so they do go on special um they do go on special in the winter um also if a person is sometimes i'll take a call and or call and get transferred to me and it's an intern situation and the parents are footing the bill and i get this a lot we want to pay for the two months up front but you know we just don't want to pay the taxes brandy or we don't want to pay we also charge for parking right so parking may be 75 or 150 a complex randy we just don't want to pay so you're paying seven thousand dollars for the two months right we can throw in parking right you know to not move the sale um okay we prefer people who understand the value of all of the work we put into the unit right so what's your occupancy rate according to yardy 96 nice girl to be high right thank you i would like for it to be higher um but you know it just it's just the way it goes right sounds pretty that's an a plus in school you know we got people once people get fair you know people don't a lot of we get you know a lot of things we get is is this too good to be true right you know is this real is this too good to be true you know so that's why that unborn team onboarding team you know we really do a lot of personality tests i want to make sure that onboarding team is warm and caring it really can feel my heart right because we're not big enough where i won't get on the phone right or we're not big enough to where i won't overhear a conversation i want to make sure that that onboarding team is just as warm as caring as i try to be right um and i think that that that the heart of that makes a difference yeah and you are so genuine that's what that's what i've enjoyed about our conversations is you know so many times you think of someone that is super successful and you have that thought of like are they going to understand or should i talk to them and you just have this down to earth personality that makes you want to have a conversation with you just like your best friends is so cool yes so i appreciate that you know we hear that from the guests and then when they say something like as sweet as you yeah when they say something sweet as you just say kelly i say can we have a review that's right good timing it's great timing so um i'm gonna i'm gonna move on with 60 doors i can't help but think how does someone enter the property well so do you set up keyless entries for each or how do you give them their keys each complex um some complexes will allow some things that other complexes won't so for the mom and pop landlord we were using something called key nest or key cafe which is in so many different cities you could leave your key at a cafe or at a restaurant oh that's cool and the guests can do it yeah the guests go to the restaurant to pick up the key and they gave a unique code and they went on about their way we took that the extra mile though and we would give five dollar gift cards to the barista or you know to the pastry maker we were at a coffee shop and we were at a pastry a french pastry shop and so we would tell the guests you know here's our code tell them that you're with house for now and grab you a pastry before you go to the unit oh that worked wasn't that cute that's awesome yes that worked that worked really well until the baristas got too busy you know it was in a really popular it was downtown it was they just were too busy and accidentally handed off our keys to the wrong person so [Laughter] so we kind of pulled away from that but it could it could definitely work so what do you do now now we we're asking complexes to use a system called latch um and latch is where the front facing of the door looks the same but on the back it's a keyless um you know a keyless entry and so you put your phone up to the front of it and it kind of goes right the door and unlocks it oh that's cool that some complexes say yes to that and some complexes say no you know you may have to we don't want our holes to be drilled bigger or you know there's some there's some logistics there right um some complexes allow lock boxes some here this complex that i'm in now they allow lock boxes and so we just say hey um you know here's the location of our lock boxes with pictures with detailed instructions and someone on standby just in case their phone dies and they can't you know um let's see lock boxes latch um a lot of times where you and this is why our partnerships is so important because a lot of times we'll send the guests to the front desk and we'll say hey grab your key from the front desk we've got a complex that i can think of now that is just amazing and they give welcome baskets to our guests and so they know them by you know they try to know them by name which i don't know how they do it i don't even know their names all of the time um but they call and say hey would you send us you know move-ins for the month so that we can prepare their they have like a little champagne in the two little glasses it wasn't like cute i don't want some champagne that's amazing so i hope that answers your question it's i love the feedback because it sounds like there's so many different ways to accomplish keyless entries whether it's a lockbox or some code or your phone so that's really good advice for our landlords thank you yes yes all right brandi pets pets we love pets if you're coming to nashville stay with us at house for now and bring your pets all right tell us how that works because i know a lot of i know a lot of landlords when they think pets they instantly think of like a picture with everything shredded or you know dog pee everywhere or like gerbils hanging from the ceiling like tell me how you because i feel like i know you well enough at this point to know that you have a process i know you do i know you do tell me about it so you make sure that that person is not the next tiger king rabi like you know having like chimpanzees and stuff in the apartment well the first question is when when we get you on the phone right so you've called our office at eight o'clock you've reached out to us Furnished Finder has told us if you're traveling with pets so we kind of know based on the answers that you've given we kind of know yes or no right but one of our enter prospect questions is are you traveling with any pets or service animals right because we are ada compliant and never want to discriminate if you're traveling with a pet however then we just ask simple questions the weight of the dog or the the weight of the pet and what kind of petty right um people say hey i'm traveling with two golden doodles um typically they'll send over like some sort of shock record or health record because again they're moving into a complex with other residents and we don't want our guests to bring in a massive we do have we do have to have um restricted breeds right based on the complex right and there's you know mo every complex has a list of restricted breeds right and so we just kind of have to go by that right um and so that right that's our process we asked them are you could you send us over you know just to make sure you take good care of your pick could you send us over their health record or their shot record or and every good pet owner has one of you know the last time they've been to the bed or their shot record or just whatever right um once they send it over the second part of this process is a good housekeeping team right so we you know if we go back to that money part katie you know i like talking about money our we're averaging ten thousand dollars per guest right right nine thousand dollars per list you know we welcome guests we're not we're not just gonna lose a listing or lose a booking right over you know a hundred dollar white comforter right right we encourage our guests to treat the home you know treat all of our properties the same and treat it like you would your home but things just happen right the way we get the way we're able to kind of give and take though we're going to charge a pet fee right right the pet fee is non-refundable so it's not a pet deposit right it is a pet privilege fee which excuse me which another good thing that i love about Furnished Finder is when you're setting up your listing it asks you are there other fees that we haven't included that you would like to add yep and you just put in other yep and then we just type in pet privilege fee and most pet owners know exactly what they mean that means the privilege of bringing your pet we're going to trust you right we're going to because there is extra wear and tear on a property with a pet whether it's the best saved pet in the world absolutely right it's just it's y'all want to hear something funny yes yes so funny uh in austin texas uh when we uh for whatever reason have chosen to mainly do three bedroom two baths so we get a lot of families i've gotten to where i love kids but i like dogs better it's like wear and tear dogs can give wear and tear but i feel like the kids spend a lot more wear and tear a lot of time but we love them kids are great and that's right i can absolutely vouch from that from a personal perspective [Laughter] when i was doing short terms with those big towels and skinnies children were worse than pets [Music] but we're gonna charge a 300 pet feed per pet um and that's just just in we know that we're gonna have to replace those comforters we know that we may wash that comforter and the dog hair may not come out and typically the 300 replaces plus you know it kind of gives that wiggle room right also we use that three hundred dollar pay privilege fee um to pay our cleaners extra because she's gonna have to that is a pet um a pet property right a pet unit which all of our units are pet friendly it's an automatic deep clean right and so we're going to pay her extra because she's going to have to stay in a unit a little bit longer she's going to have to um you know have a magnifying glass almost on those comforters and those sheets and those blankets and things like that so yeah we we realized that and so that 300 typically covers that per state per pet you just make me rethink all of my landlording styles when i talk to you i'm like do i want to continue doing the things the way i do or i like brandy's ideas maybe i should start incorporating those isn't there's so many different ways you can do this there's so many different ways yes so yes so many i've got friends in austin and they talk a lot about how it's very family friendly and they've all got houses and trying to buy more houses and um so i think this way works really well for one of the popular cities on Furnished Finder and it says on you can kind of put your city in and see how many hits your city has right and so if you've got a if you've got a really popular city like this consider it yeah that's pretty awesome not that austin not that austin or colorado is not popular that's not what i'm saying i'm sure denver is very popular amber is very popular and and it's grown so much the real estate market here is i'm sure it's insane but all right brandi so tell us hang on okay speaking oh it's all good we got extra music ellie right hey all right brandi tell us some of your favorite aspects of furnished finder my favorite i have so many um definitely the tenant the housing request and the tenant leads it asks all the right questions that's awesome so i don't have to get on the phone and re-ask you those things i'm just confirming right with what you already put in on the tenant on the lead right housing request right you're coming it tells me how many days you're coming it even has notes for me so i can know some people prefer a higher unit for safety or a ground unit for you know handicapped or ada compliance i mean it just the the quicker i can get you booked and comfortable the quicker the less anxiety right the guest head right and so yeah i want to reduce that anxiety um you guys know that right you guys know about that guest anxiety can you we're coming tomorrow can you do something yep sure do oh and i also know what it's like to like you know you send out requests or you think you find the perfect property or the perfect house whatever it is right and you're like okay this is it i found it you send a contact right crickets like it's like it's like telling your crush that you love them and then like they never they never get back to you like it's devastating you have to go find another one right um another thing that i love is that you can filter right so on the front side of Furnished Finder you can filter by price you can filter by hotel or filter by all sorts of things and i just love that there's not we i don't know if we we we hardly ever get guests who are on the wrong side or who weren't meant for us right they've already filtered they've already furnished finder just puts it all out there right they you know it has the price it has the minimum stay it has the pictures it has our utilities included it has the fees right everything is right there and so we don't we don't it just reduces the time you know when we have someone that calls right the office we know that they're ready to book right and that makes a huge difference in our bottom line and then our you know just couldn't do it without a furnished finder not that that's so special well i think that's a good wrap uh brandi we are just so i feel so honored to have you as a guest on the show and we um we i'm sure landlords are going to learn so much from your feedback and all the details that you gave us and just a quick reminder guys if you liked this episode if you like the show make sure and subscribe like or comment on whichever platform you enjoy so thank you brandy and until next time bye thank you bye [Music] you know who made it