Welcome to The Landlord Diaries! In this episode, we sit down with Christine Xie and Katie French, two of the innovative founders behind IZEAL STAY, a modern, fully furnished corporate housing solution in Las Vegas. Operating over 40 properties for mid-term and short-term stays, IZEAL STAY is revolutionizing the rental market.
Episode Themes
1. Entrepreneurial Journey and Growth:
- Founding and rapid expansion of IZEAL STAY
- Scaling quickly with the right business partners
- Networking and relationship building as a catalyst for growth
2. Innovative Rental Strategies:
- Mid-term rental arbitrage
- Unique three-part business model
- Insights from the travel industry applied to mid-term rentals
3. Partnerships and Technology:
- Importance of partnerships with platforms like Furnished Finder and KeyCheck
- Leveraging data and technology for business growth and streamlined processes
4. Expertise and Specialization:
- Christine’s design and staging expertise
- Katie’s social media and relationship-building skills
- Eva’s financial management capabilities
5. Marketing and Tenant Engagement:
- Effective marketing strategies for mid-term rentals
- Utilizing social media and QR codes for enhanced visibility
- Addressing tenant needs and preferences, like single-story homes
6. Practical Tips and Best Practices:
- Best practices for furnishing and maintaining mid-term rentals
- Spot cleaning tips and tenant screening discussions
- Security deposit considerations for mid-term rentals
These themes provide a comprehensive overview of the episode, making it engaging and informative for real estate investors and professionals interested in mid-term rental strategies and business growth.
Episode Highlights:
0:00 Intro: Welcome to The Landlord Diaries
2:50 The Founding of IZEAL STAY: Discover the journey behind IZEAL STAY's inception.
4:20 Mid-Term Rental Arbitrage: Learn why this strategy is a game-changer in real estate investing.
6:25 The IZEAL STAY Portfolio: Explore their extensive and diverse property portfolio.
7:05 Three-Part Business Model: Uncover how their innovative approach attracts property owners.
8:55 Rapid Growth: How IZEAL STAY scaled impressively within the first 5 months.
10:10 Business Partnerships: Insights on scaling quickly with the right partners.
11:45 Social Media & Relationships: Katie French's expertise in social media and networking.
12:00 Financial Management: Eva's role as the finance guru and office manager.
12:10 Staging & Quality Assurance: Christine has designed over 120 furnished rentals!
12:55 Valuable Partnerships: How Furnished Finder and KeyCheck have been pivotal to IZEAL STAY's success.
15:25 Data Insights: Leveraging Furnished Finder data for business growth.
19:50 New Arbitrage Partners: The appeal of mid-term rental clients.
21:50 Marketing Hubs: IZEAL STAY's leading mid-term rental marketing strategies.
24:10 Streamlined Booking: KeyCheck's role in simplifying the booking process.
26:25 Tenant Screenings: A round table discussion on best practices.
33:15 Design Expertise: Christine's experience in designing over 120 furnished rentals.
34:15 Hotel Market Demands: Using hotel trends as a guide for rental designs.
36:50 High-Touch Furnishing Items: Best practices for furnishing mid-term rentals.
40:40 Cleaning Tips: Spot cleaner advice from Katie and Kelly.
41:55 Security Deposits: Differences in deposit standards for mid-term versus long-term rentals.
43:55 Travel Industry Insights: Katie’s travel industry experience and its impact on mid-term rentals.
45:15 Popular Requests: Single-story homes as a favorite among tenants.
48:15 Networking Strategies: How networking contributed to IZEAL STAY’s rapid growth.
50:35 In-Person Networking Tips: Enhance your Furnished Finder marketing with these tips.
53:15 Marketing Essentials: Using QR codes and profiles for effective marketing.
Tune in to gain valuable insights into mid-term rentals, rental arbitrage, and leveraging platforms like Furnished Finder and KeyCheck for optimal property management and growth.
Episode 106 Transcript
Welcome to The Landlord Diaries, where we talk about midterm rentals and the opportunities behind them. We'll share landlord 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 leader and largest online marketplace for midterm rental.
Remember to like and subscribe. If you enjoy our content, it's Kelly Bailey, your host of The Landlord Diaries coming to you from the Austin, Texas area with around eight doors at this time, all on Furnished Finder, and 95 to 99% of our bookings come from Furnished Finder and my co-host. Hey guys, my name is Katie Lyon.
I'm coming to you from the Denver area. We have nine midterm rentals. So we love this space as well. I love getting to be a landlord and getting to talk to other landlords on this podcast, and we hope you enjoy it as well. Today we get to talk to Katie and Christine and these two are like. So powerful together.
They both are very experienced in the real estate space and they've taken their superpowers and combined to make an MTR and corporate housing company in the Las Vegas area. They're doing incredible. They have such a great mindset and they're not afraid to use like old school tactics and new school tactics, and they use furnished finder really well, and they just they're just like, really go-getters, but they're also really smart.
And it was awesome to talk with them and we know you're gonna have some great takeaways and tips and tricks from today. So please enjoy and if you are in, if you are getting a lot of benefit out of this episode or others. Please let us know in the comments on YouTube. And here we go.
Today we talk with Christine Xie and Katie French, two of the founders of Izeal Stay, a modern, fully furnished corporate housing solution in Las Vegas. This team operates over 40 properties at the midterm and short term level. Thank you so much, ladies, for being with us today. How are you both? Hi. Good. How are you?
Good. Great. Thank you. Thank you for having us on your podcast. We feel honored. We are privileged to talk with all of our Furnished Finder hosts and just love hearing each one of your stories. And my wonderful co-host, Katie, we're gonna call you Lion today since we've got two Katie's. Make sure we don't get it messed up.
We gotta simplify somehow here. It's always a challenge when we have four people, but we don't wanna leave any doubt. 'cause you guys have such a great story and good insights. Definitely. All right, so you ladies have become business partners and have a third co-founder as well. How did all of you meet and start e stay?
Christine and I got together. Through a WhatsApp chat with local investors here in Las Vegas where we both have properties in a similar area. I was getting requests on some of my properties and I saw her with some property and some vacancies. So I would liaise with her and then she would put on this chat that she had a request in the area.
And I had a friend with some vacancies and we kept on going back and. I eventually said, let's meet for a coffee. We seem to be liaising over this WhatsApp chat so much. We're obviously looking into the same area of real estate. And we met for a coffee and we, it took off from there. And then we, we knew there was a need.
We both wanted to invest more in Las Vegas. We were both exploring the midterm corporate rental space and. We were getting so many requests on the property, our properties, and we had no vacancy. So we knew there was a need. And when we got together, we then went to arbitrage some properties together.
And why don't you take a minute and explain what arbitrage is for those that might not know. Hey, you know what? Maybe we'll do both. Explain Katy Lyon, you're up. Explain the midterm rental and what arbitrage is. Okay, so I always explain arbitrage as you're renting out properties that you don't technically own.
So you're finding a partner, a private landlord an ownership group, anything like that, and you're working with them. You've gotta be very transparent because it is a partnership and you're letting them know, Hey, I'm gonna take out. This unit, this apartment, this house, whatever as a lease. And then I'm gonna furnish it and I'm gonna re-rent it, essentially.
So you're providing a different level of value to a tenant and a traveler because they want it furnished, they want it for less than 12 months. All of those things that, that short and midterm travelers are looking for, but you're also able to help out. The property owner because through them or through you, they're getting a stable tenant who's gonna take really good care of the property pay rent on time.
So it's definitely a give and take relationship, but it can make it a much lower barrier to entry for anyone to get. A rental property because you don't have to have the money for a down payment or closing costs for closing costs or anything like that. So it's really great. There's some legwork to try to find the right partner, and you've gotta set that up.
But yeah, it can be hugely successful. I think six or seven of our properties right now are arbitrage and it's great. And midterm rentals easily summed up is any furnished rental, 30 plus days. So the nice thing about midterm rentals is you oftentimes skip short-term rental restrictions and short-term rental taxes, like hotel taxes in your city, and you don't have to apply for a license in your area because it operates very much like a month to month.
For a month to month apartment. All right, so let's keep going. You ladies met, you started a great company. So what does your portfolio look like prior to joining and what does it look like now as ideal stay? So our portfolio looks like we have over 40 properties mixed with long term and midterm short term.
Most likely we have around 21 or 22 of our own and we up charge for about another 22. So something about that. Yeah. And Katie, French, anything you'd like to add to that? Yeah, so there's three parts of our business model. We own. We long-term arbitrage. So we didn't only take on one arbitrage.
The person who we approached about arbitraging, their friend said, oh, hello. I'll have a bit of that as well. Would you like to arbitrage my property as well? So we took on that one and we also we were also liaising with another person about their property who actually lived lived away for some part of the year.
So there was three properties that we took on as a long-term arbitrage. And then about a month in, we homeowners were coming to us like, daily, can you help us fill our property? It's been set on the market vacant. Can you help us fill our property? The management company is something that's not working anymore, and we were helping owners fill their property and we would.
We would have the relationship with the client, we would place a tenant and we would short-term arbitrage for the duration that the tenant was in that property for. So we have, we own, we long-term arbitrage three and we also short-term arbitrage to help homeowners. Fill their vacancies. Are you rolling midterm in, up into short term as you're talking about it, or those are like nightly rentals?
Week weekly rentals, things like that. This is only midterm. We focus on midterm. And if you're listening, that's one thing. Short-term and midterm, get lost in translation sub time. 'cause a lot of people still call midterm rentals, short-term rentals. So just to clarify that a little bit there.
So as far as a company goes, let's talk some metrics. What numbers do y'all track? Track and how is your company doing? Whether you track it monthly or annually or quarterly. So numbers wise, we have, we only started five months ago and our company has skyrocketed to an unbelievable point to where we may have to, we'll have to take on some more people within our company in the coming months due to the clients that we've got and the demand that we are.
Working with at the moment. The numbers wasn't, they weren't so important to us to begin with. It was more about building relationships and making sure that we could provide the client with what they needed, so we weren't looking at the profit that we could make on every property. We were just making sure that the homeowner for one, got their costs covered and that we made sure that the clients that were viewing the property, if that property wasn't right for them, then meeting them we were able to gain a lot more insight into what they needed, why they needed it, and that gave us so a much better scope on how to provide them with the property that was right for them.
I love this. You guys have been able to do so much in such a little time. If you just started five months ago, how in the world have you guys been able to scale so quickly? 'cause I know everybody must be thinking in their head. Holy cow. That is a lot. Really quickly. So tell us a little bit about what that journey has been like for you.
I think the first thing, it got to be the mindset. And three of us have the same mindset. We have been in real estate for over 10 years. Even our third partner, Eva, she's been in here over 20 years also. So we always have the same mindset as like real estate investor. Entrepreneur, even business owner.
So this is the first thing. All three of us have it. And secondary, we have all kinds of, we want to do something, we set a goal and then we go for all kind of like education, like we join Pace Smallies. Group and then we join Jesse's group for MTR, and then we are going out for events and we just take action.
As long as we set a goal, we take action constantly. We go out to build business with local business, and then we just trying to create opportunities. We don't wanna sit there and wait. And I think the second thing it is build up a good team. Three of us, we are like a triangle. Everybody covers something differently than we are trying to cover every single corner.
We leverage up with each other. Like Katie, Katie is the queen of social media. She's always in the front and and she's going out to do relationship building. Eva is the lady in the back office. She always on those contact bookkeeping email or whatever she needs to do in the back office.
I am the one who go out to do staging meet client and walk through the property and make sure the maintenance of our housing quality and. Or maybe arrange some kind of maintenance or clinic. So three of us are all into different field. We are trying to build up our own system. Then keep. Practice on our business.
The main thing we, I think is like we do care. We provide our value and service to our client, our owner, and the others. So we are trying to help each other. That's why I think we grow fast. That's what that's like a few main reasons. That's such great feedback. Let's talk about how did your journey take you to Furnished Finder and how long have you been on Furnished Finder?
I think it's been about two years. Even though you've, you just started the company about five months ago, so maybe y'all each had properties on Furnished Finder separately first. So yeah, tell us about your Furnished Finder journey. Today's episode is proudly sponsored by Furnished Finder, the ultimate platform for hassle-free midterm rentals.
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Actually, before we formed our company, we already been on Furnished Finder, Eva. She has a few properties in Furnished Finder by her own, and then she told me that I put in my two years ago. And right now we just like trying to keep roading in our properties into Furnished Finder. We love Furnished Finder.
Because Furnished Finder, we are using that as like sign, research for what kind of trending of movement into Las Vegas. We can see a whole lots of leads coming in. We see what kind of clientele, how the trend of the movement of our local business. We got a whole lot of. Business move into Henderson from California, from New York.
So we see a lot of construction workers coming in, digital nomads, snowbirds, all kinds of clientele. So we love using Furnished Finder. And we got a, some dialect leads, inquiries from Find Finder. And we love using Key chatt as well, especially IFAs. She's the one who does all of these contracts.
She, every single one, she she used key chat to do application. Background check is just perfect for us. I wanna take a second and dive in there, because you said that you use Furnished Finder to learn more about the trends and the demand and the intake and about the market.
In Las Vegas, which is where you guys are located. And I think that's really smart 'cause so many times people are only looking at their furnish Schneider account or the site when they're actively looking for their next tenant. So I wanna dive in there a little bit more if you can because this is really good, and I know Kelly and I do this a lot of times too, like just always having your radar open to okay, what is the seasonality?
What kinds of properties are people looking for? What kind of new properties are popping up? Tell us a little bit more about how you use Furnished Finder to get those insights and how they help you. Yeah. So first of all, we we know Furnished Finder is tool for us to list our property. We just list some of our properties to the website.
Then we go to the section of inquiry. We just constantly keep looking at those inquiries in. Sometimes we go to unmatched leads. Sometimes we go to match leads. If it is match leads, they are going to match our price point, and then we will have a dialect email come into our email or maybe Dropbox or something like that message.
So I love that because I can see what kind of people, what kind of, sometimes we have have seen unmatched leads. I can reach out to them. I would say, oh, this might be one of my potential guess my potential client. I reach out to them and then I offer them and what we have, I notice what they need what location they're going to, and if I will go on Funds finder in that area to check around.
If I don't see anything, they would have something, what they want. I will send out my message to them directly and tell them, Hey, this is what I have and I have more in the other area. Let me know what you need, how we can help. Sometimes we can pick up. Clients and tenants, which is, I really like it.
And just to clarify what Christine is emphasizing is called under your Furnished Fund dashboard. It's called Tenant Leads and it's broken down into booking requests, matched leads or housing requests and unmatched housing requests. Katie, were you French, Katie? French. Were you going to add something?
Yeah, I was just gonna add we also use it a lot for research and we're asked all the time, how much can we get for our property? What would, what is the rental rates? So when we are looking at a new property or we have a property owner come to us, it is one of our go-to places where you can get a, i a great idea on the rental rates in that area.
You just zoom in on the area that you are wanting, the city that you're wanting, and you can see a range of the products. If it's a three bedroom type in three bedroom, and you can see the rental rates, again, you will have to. You have to look at how yours is furnished compared, or how you want to furnish yours or how this property owners is furnished compared to what it is on there.
Because that can change the rates quite considerably, but we use it as a great research tool. And I tell property owners to use it as a research tool for them as well to get a good idea on rates in their area. Sounds like a, like you're using the pricing on Furnished Finder as your advocate for acquiring new arbitrage properties whenever, like almost as a sales pitch, right?
It's Hey, why should I list my property with you? What are you guys gonna do with it? And that's one of your metrics that you provide to say, one, you've already, y'all have already communicated. We're passionate about people and we're gonna take care of you and the guests that stay in your home. Two, here's what, we think you'll be able to make based off of Furnished Finder stats and other metrics that you're looking at.
Yeah that's really great. Is there anything else when you're talking to new potential arbitrage clients that you add into that sales conversation to secure that booking or that that property? The I would just add that our clients, they want to make their place their home. So they're not here for vacation.
It's a completely different model in the short term rental market. Our clients wanna make it their home. They look after the place as if it's their home. They are mainly corporate clients. So corporate clients come, they're either relocating from out state. They may be relocated from as an in through insurance, so out of their own home to make this temporary home, their home.
Or it might be a temporary member, a contractor, or a temporary member of staff coming into Las Vegas. So they are, they're already screened. If it's a corporate client relocating it's.
It's an tenant to somebody in their property. For sure. You're right. Midterm rentals we have, there's professional tenants. And the other thing you said that I love to talk about is that. These tenants are living in the property. They're not visiting, they're not there to stay. It's not Enjoy your stay, enjoy your visit.
It's welcome home. They're living there, which they treat your property so differently and they communicate with you as a landlord so much differently when they're really. Moving in and that is their home, even if it's for one month, three months, six months, whatever. So I love that you were able to talk on that because it's such a peak for midterm rentals that gets overlooked too often I think.
This has been such a great conversation about a variety of different topics so far. I wanna hone in on, where all you market your properties. 'cause as a corporate housing specialist, it's in your client's best interest and with arbitrage as well to make sure your properties are posted everywhere.
Where all do you market your properties and what percentage of your bookings would you say come from Furnished Finder? So our marketing, I mean there's three main channels, three main platforms that we use. Furnished Finder, Airbnb, Zillow but honestly we. Building so many connections, corporate connections, either with the local businesses here, insurance companies, relocation companies locally and nationally, that a lot of our, a lot of our bookings are coming through our connections.
So as much as we use those platforms, and we do get some. Bookings through them, including Furnished Finder. The majority are coming through the connections and we they'll send us a request in what they need and we'll provide them with the availability that we get. Our general lead time from request to the client moving in is generally around two to three weeks.
That's pretty average, like midterm rental. Renters are looking for properties soon. But I love that and I love that you've been able to connect with those because Furnished Finder's a lead generation site, right? So you can start those. Relationships on there with something as simple as a lead or if you find a tenant on there, that can just be the step one of your relationship there.
And that's completely fine since we're not a direct booking site. Like we don't need you to keep all your bookings within us and never go off platform or anything. So it's nice that it, I think it gives you that freedom. 'cause midterm rentals, the relationships are so important and I'm really glad that you mentioned that.
I think on our intro, Cole, I think you said that it's probably around 20 to 40% of the bookings come from Furnished Finder. Does that sound about right? Yep. Okay. So rolling into that. Do y'all have a direct booking website or do you use Key Check? Once someone says, yes, we're ready to move in. What platforms do you use to book that client?
Even if it's not on Furnished Fund, is it still through Key Check? Or you take those through a DI Direct booking website?
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So I'll answer that because I, we have actually gone through three different booking sites in the last five months, and we've had to compromise on a number of areas with each booking site. So our, because our bookings come from our connections we. We take the booking and we've built out a CRM system at the moment, but one of our tenants.
In one of our properties, really liked our business model. Was really interested to speak more about it. And he has a rental application, stroke booking system that he uses in New York. Okay. With the majority of the apartment complexes there. And he wants to test the booking system, so he's custom building a booking system Nice.
Specifically for our business model. Excellent. So we're in the middle of doing that with him, and it should be up and running in the next kind of four to eight weeks. Okay, we hope. And as far as key check goes you'll use tenant screening through key check and a part that we don't talk about too much.
I love the fact that as a corporate housing provider, you gotta have your systems in order. Something that we don't talk about much is once you get that. Key check report that shows the criminal background, the credit check with employment history and eviction check. How do you actually look at the credit check?
Is that something you ladies can speak to or not necessarily the right conversation for this episode. I think we could talk a little bit of that, but mostly if I is the one who is professional on that, she's the one handling that most of the time. Basically every single tenant we do background check through key chat and everything so far comes back out.
It's pretty good. We don't do hard credit check. We only do soft background check as long as we see there is no crime or no eviction. That is good to go so far, we are doing great. We it doesn't matter. His credit score is 600 or 700 or 800. So as long as there is no eviction, no crime, we are good to go.
So that's all the simple question. Simple answer I can provide. This might actually be a really good round table discussion, and this is not legal advice for anyone listening. This is just advice for how you can stay consistent with the way that you're analyzing the key check tenant screenings.
For Dave and I, we look at the credit score. Of 700 or higher. We don't really ask anymore questions. If it's under 700, then it normally leads to Dave, 'cause we've nominated him as our confrontation specialist. So Dave's normally the one that picks up the phone and says, Hey, we noticed that your score is this.
Could you tell us more about that? And you know why it's at that. Score. And then depending on how the conversation goes, he either has confidence from there to move forward, which has been a majority of the Furnished Finder guests that we've connected with. Majority o are over 700, but those few that are under it doesn't really go much past that conversation.
Most of the time. Now, our next step would be. Reference checks going three properties back, asking for references that way. But oftentimes it might be a property owner that doesn't have any rental history because they've lived in their own property for the last three or four years. Katie Lyon, what do you, what's your way of analyzing tenant screenings?
I think this is also a good place to add that everybody needs to make sure that they're abiding by fair housing laws. So make sure, look into those everybody. Part of the great thing about Furnished Finder is you get to decide who you get to rent to and who you work with, but you obviously need to make sure that you're abiding by those fair housing laws because they're there for a reason and we don't, nobody wants to discriminate against anybody.
I, we, and I think it's also important for you to set your standards and keep them right, because then you can truly say as landlords or as property owners either a yes or a no. And just give that as a solid answer. And it sounds like Kelly, you guys have that. It's not necessarily defined, but, and then you go to your reference check.
So like you have it even in a little bit of a roundabout way. We are not. We don't rent to people that have evictions within the past five years. And we don't rent to people who have any type of criminal history. And I'm not counting, like if you ran a red light, if you saw me drive around town, I haven't gotten a ticket in a really long time.
But I'm talking more, like violent crimes, things like that. Like for me, that is beyond our comfort zone. Credits the credit number for us is much less important than if it is say, a lower credit number, like what is causing it? Are there a number of outstanding overdue high balance credit cards or something like that.
So think you just have to define it. But that being said, we have had, we have nine midterm rentals right now. We got our first midterm rental almost two years ago, and we have denied one tenant. It's so rare. It's so rare because you're not traveling to somewhere for 30 days and up, if you're not on a contract or you're not relocating or you don't have a really good professional reason.
And so there's always that just the fact that they're traveling for midterm purposes, I think is an added level of comfort. I don't think we've turned anyone away. So far out of those that have said, yes, I'm ready. Move to move forward with the tenant screening. It's just Furnished Finder and midterm rentals attracts a great clientele that want to take care of your property and it's really a great relationship.
They trust you to take care of them. You trust them to take care of your property. Ladies, anything else to add on this subject? I was just gonna add that I like that you guys still do the tenant screening, right? I think we hear from some people that they're like, oh, our midterm tenants are always so great.
We feel like we don't have to screen them. And I'm always like, you know what? Everybody needs to feel completely comfortable and so I like that you guys have kept that a part of your process so that you can really get to know those people that are at your properties. Definitely. Yeah. We look at it like if this is an upper charge, then we have to do the key check of soft background check. That way we will protect the tenant. We will protect the homeowner and protect our business. So it's just goes all the way. Yeah. One of my favorite things about tenant screenings, that last thing that I wanna add is the fact that it's a neighborhood tool.
When someone comes to you and says, Hey, we noticed. Quite a few people coming through your property. What do y'all do? You can confidently say that it's professionals traveling for work or families relocating, and that everyone over 18 in the home has been screened and is a great contribution to the neighborhood, so I love that.
All right, let's move on to, we're gonna change the gears a bit. And Christine, you have a large background in short-term rentals and you've actually designed over 120 short-term rentals in the last three years. So what are, what was your journey that led you to midterm rentals? And then let's get into some of that Desi design advice for our Furnished Finder hosts.
On how to make your properties stand out at the midterm level. So actually before we have a midterm rental company we, I was into design. I have another business partner. We buy houses together and he own a short-term rental business. So he is just hire me as his designer to furnish and stage all of those short-term rentals.
To us in Las Vegas market, we just, we need to look at the hotel as our model. So yeah, we need to design our properties into all different kind of style, modern, boho, contemporary glam, or whatever style we just need to pop up to be highlighted in that area. To attract all kinds of booking from short term market.
And, but since we, short term and midterm, they are similar, we both need to be in stylish and that's the way we can attract booking. But for short term, we only provide certain thing in the midterm. We will promi provide more details, whoever is going to be staying in your midterm, you are going to stay there at least a month, three months, six months, or even longer.
It depends on the situation. So we will provide everything like we are going to fulfill the kitchen with all kind of coat wear. And all like dishes. And we are going to provide some cleaning product blackout curtain. If it's for travelers, we need to have some song, machine. So all kinds of detail.
We need to put ourselves into somebody's shoes to see what kind of clientele we have and what kind of product we need to provide to fit our midterm rental business. Like even some, sometimes we have to have a vacuum in the house, a balloon, a broom in the house for cleaning, and we have to have iron board, iron, every, just feel just like you're gonna live there.
Yeah. We are living in our house. We need this. So we have to provide all of this detail to our midterm client. Yep. And if you want your home to stay in good condition, don't forget to provide cleaning supplies. Yes. Katie Lion even has a little small toolkit too, to tighten up things or change the light bulb or stuff like that.
So just think of it as. Someone is going to be living in this home, how can I make sure and set them up for success so that they're gonna take care of my property and have a convenience stay That doesn't require a lot of involvement from the property manager unless they, have a special request or something like that.
So I think the last piece on design I wanna touch is there are four high touch items. In a midterm rental, your beds, your couches, your dining table, and TVs, those are also your largest investments for the most part. Any recommendations on brands that you prefer or ways to about go about shopping for these high touch items?
And I'm gonna say my preference that I've learned over time is I try to avoid. Fabrics on my high touch items because they can get stained easily. We are a pet friendly home and fabrics just happen to be a pet hair collector. So I've gone to mainly leather couches and bed frames are either wooden or metal or ones that are not upholstered.
What have you ladies found successful? Mostly we go for ladder, also for for the living room area. We just go for, we try to get all but not all of those. Mostly we go for ladder or maybe fox Ladder. And we aiming to do a lot of wood. Also, it depends on what kind of rental properties we have.
Some of this we have vet. Those are really easy to get dirty or whatever with the pet's hairs, but we still have it. And, but up if after the tenant check out with pets, we just send in a whole cleaning team to do deep cleaning. Yeah, smart TV we always use, we love to go to Costco for Samsung or maybe we can just go to Walmart to grab some sort of like Raku tv.
Smart TV is the mask. Dave and I. Are typically present on our flip days. And I can't tell you how many little hairs I've picked off from pet hair. I'm like, you can do a thorough clean, and they're still gonna be pet hairs somewhere. So we always that's my final check is, okay, let's go pick off all those last hairs that might be on the couches or wherever they might be showing up.
Katie Lyon, anything add to this conversation before we move on? I don't think so. I was thinking as you guys were talking about that we actually have all fabric couches in all of our properties, but they're like, none of 'em are like white or beige. They're like a gray, or we have one blue velvet couch, but it's a really short velvet.
So even though it's not like wipeable, they're still pretty like cleaner, friendly. I think another thing to remind people is. If you're just getting started, you might hear, oh, leather couch, or, a higher end dining table. So it's more durable. And start seeing the cash signs go crazy in your head.
Like, how much is this gonna cost me? And if you're just getting started, you can start with something less durable. And as you start to get some cash flow, replace it. And that's totally okay. And what's cool is with these tenants, like you're gonna have access to the property every few months, right?
So you can use that and reinvest and there's just a lot of different ways you can go about it. I just wanna encourage people that these are things to absolutely think about and you wanna have, you don't want to put a white. Couch in there unless you're prepared to handle it.
There are things that you can get creative with solutions for as well. I also, one of my goals is to put like a spot cleaner in each unit. Even like a teeny tiny one. Oh. 'Cause I think that would help tenants just feel responsible. I do make sure that there's a vacuum in each unit and like basic cleaning supplies.
So I have a really good spot, cleaner tip. It has worked for me so many times in all my homes. When you know it's that flip day and you've got someone we oftentimes do same day flips or next day flips. So you gotta really be ready for those moments, right? So my, my little spot cleaning tip is dawn dish soap or whatever, like the normal hand washing dish soap is at your kitchen sink and a microfiber cloth.
Those two with water. Get almost anything out. It's very impressive. So I suggest trying it next time. You have a little spot. Love that. There's also a carpet cleaner called Fex, F-O-L-E-X. That stuff, I swear, is made of gold. Oh, so wow. There's my other hint of the day. You get it at Home Depot, you're not gonna get it at Walmart.
You're gonna get it at Home Depot. I'm gonna have to find that. Thanks for the kids. Try it out for the kids. Yes. All right, so now that we've talked about all of our high touch items and things that, of course need to be replaced over time. So we all love the fact that midterm rentals allow you to take a deposit and put ownership on both the guest staying there and peace of mind that your property, is covered for things that may come up.
We noticed that on Furnished Finder, you mainly have three bedroom, two bath homes. I, for ideal stay and you have a $2,000 deposit. So what led you ladies to decide on a $2,000 deposit? Actually we were setting our pricing around 4,000. We just go halfway. For a $2,000 deposit. It depends on what kind of clientele we get.
Sometimes we get those insurance claims. We would be able to lower the. Deposit. It depends on the family's need. 'cause insurance company they are going to secure the payment, which is we have no problem of. So we are really flexible. We are easy to work with. It depends on. Yeah, so the insurance usually cover the rent, but the tenant usually has to cover the deposit.
So in an insurance case, they're not always, it's happened last minute. They may not have three, 4,000 sat in the bank account. To put down on a rental so we can often negotiate with the insurance who are paying the rental cost. Maybe even, if our homeowner does require a higher deposit, we can maybe do a slightly higher rent and lower the deposit for the tenant.
That's always an option. Awesome. Okay, just one more question for this section in regards to one thing that I noticed in your marketing on Furnished Finder, which I really loved Katie French, you have 10 years of experience in the travel industry working with accessible travel, and we've got a previous episode number.
68 I think it's 67 and 68, that talks about less than 1% of furnished rental hosts are ready for travelers with accessibility needs. And what I really liked on one of your headline. For your properties is you honed into that without singling it out. You said in your headline, a single story, Southwest Home near Summerland, and I love that use of single story there because that is one of the main needs a lot of times for travelers with accessibility needs.
So what do you wanna give advice on or tell us? Just about that. Part of your background in history that could encourage other furnished finder landlords? Yeah I worked in the travel industry helping, assisting people with physical disabilities, but also mental disabilities. And I used to help them travel across the world, do all kinds of activities, and I just would never say no.
I would make it happen. I would. Source the best the right accommodation for their requirements. And, often that would be a walking, they wouldn't be able to walk stairs. They would need an accessible shower and. It's the same with homes really. And we need to build up our inventory with this as well, because we have come across this with a number of our clients already.
And actually my first client that I ever booked was through an insurance, was through insurance. And she had walking issues and she needed everything on the same floor. So she needed single story. So it, and we viewed a number of properties, but there would, there would be a step up there would be the bath would be too high.
So there's a real, there's a requirement for it and there's a need for it. I think in any city we find that a single story is our most popular request. That could be just because they don't like the stairs. It could also be because they have a walking, some kind of walking either disability or walking issue.
Or they have a young child that they don't, if they haven't had stairs in their primary home, they definitely don't want it in a temporary home. So I feel like. A single story is a really safe bet for an a really safe investment for a midterm rental. Also, in these really warm areas like Las Vegas, I think people know that if you get a two story house.
That second story is gonna be a sauna, right? Oh, good point. Yeah. With the AC circulation. That's true. And all of us typically paying for the utilities and bills for our clients. Isn't that funny? You don't think about that different stuff in different areas of the country. I know, I don't remember where I was visiting, but one time I was like, how come there's only ranches here?
And they were like. Can you imagine air conditioning if we had to pump it upstairs all the time? And I was like, okay, you're right, but you don't. That's such a good point. You don't think about that if you're not in that market. No, and I have mainly three bedroom, two bath homes as well. Currently a portfolio of around eight doors, and we attract a lot of families because of the size of the property.
So one thing I do is typically watch for where I think families would like. Baby gates for either their kids or their dogs. And that's very easy to add a baby gate to porches or to the interior of the home at the base of the stairs or at the top of the stairs. So just keep that in mind if you are put into a attract pets or families into your home with kids.
All right guys. I think we should wrap it up with one last question, which is that I know networking has been a huge part of your growth, especially your rapid growth and even just how you two connected, right? So just talk to us kind of high level about how that really has benefited you and maybe some encouragement for others who are a little nervous to get out there and put themselves out there and really network and and start discussing opportunities with other people in the midterm rental space.
I would say, you've got to get out there, you've gotta meet people who are doing the things that you want to do. You don't know who you're going to meet at a networking event. We've met some really key contact, and actually in the beginning, even though we had properties, but we were moving into the midterm space, some of what I, sometimes I felt.
Going to a networking event and sit and talking about the midterm rental space. I was talking a little bit of hot air because I, I had properties, but they were more long-term rentals. We were trying to move into the midterm rental space. But the more I spoke about and believed in myself about what I was saying, the more I you, I would be connecting with the right people in that space.
We never see anybody as a competitor in our market. We work with all the midterm operators. We work with all the midterm owners. And it, it's just really great to connect and understand. Understand their business. Understand how you can bring value to them. Understand maybe, or just keep a note of what they're looking for that you can come back to.
If you find something, someone else that is a good connection to them, then you're providing them with value. Ladies, I just have one more question and it's gonna be a zinger for the last question. Part of networking is a lot of people make those connections on Furnished Finder, but then you have to keep up with them, right?
You can't just have a property and then let that lead go. And one of the things that you ladies do really well on top of your online presence is that you've found the value in building local relationships. So I wanted to leave our listeners with some tips on. Once you've made those connections on Furnished Finder, you can also supplement it with going in person and building those relationships with local contractors or local businesses.
And you have created a flyer and, have that experience. So what are some quick tips? If you're gonna go in person, what do you say? What do you bring with you? We literally go out old school style and walk into businesses to introduce ourselves with our flyer that we made. And it's just really simple, but we've got some really good.
Contract this way, and we just introduce ourselves. Can we maybe, can we speak to the hr, somebody from hr? If we've done the LinkedIn search, we'll have a couple of names at hand. We mention the names. A few times we'll get somebody actually from hr. And we introduce ourselves. This is, we are a corporate housing company and we have some rentals in the area.
We work with a couple of the local clients and list some of the clients that we work with. Do you have any, do you have temporary employees or contractors that come into Vegas for longer than 31 days at time? And can we help support you? Very good. And so that flyer. With you guys having over 40 properties at the midterm and short term level, what do you put on that flyer to?
Not overwhelm. Is it? Is it Ooh, she's holding it up. Oh, are you, is it a packet or is it one page? Look at that. That's beautiful. One page. You can see it if you audio. Oh yes. It's very clean. It's got photos that demonstrate what type of properties that they have. I'm get show. Flip that. Flip that around for me, Christine.
It's got their contact information and it has, I'm assuming, 'cause I live in the land of marketing, it has exactly what you guys do and why you do it better than anybody else in the world. And you put the picture on that. 'cause we owe Mama style, we do this. Oh ma. Ma style. We walk business. Locally. I love that.
Can you guys make that your new tagline, old mama style?
Yeah, we can. We can just edit on right here. Old mama style, woman owned business, local manage, even make like a QR code. That go online to a QR code maker, which there's like a bajillion of them for free. And you could make a QR code that goes straight to your Furnished Finder landlord profile because that lists all of your properties.
That way it would all be live and if you ever updated the pictures or anything, you could just say, Hey, scan here and it's gonna show you to all my availability. Oh, great. Thanks for the information. Excellent. If anyone would like to connect with you ladies, how would you like them to do they can connect through Instagram and our Instagram handle is.
Ideal stay. All right I think that's a perfect way to wrap it up. Another great episode on The Landlord Diaries. If you're loving our show, don't forget to this episode. Share it with someone you think might find value from it. Check out our playlist on YouTube. If you love the corporate housing conversation or I've created like.
15 different playlists. So feel free to jump in on a specific topic if you'd like, and we would absolutely appreciate your five star reviews on Apple Podcasts or Spotify if you get a chance. Have a great week everyone, and we'll catch you next Monday. Bye. Thank you.