Finding Your Passion in Real Estate Investing

Mike Hambright (00:01.848)
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Today I’m here with Gene Martin. We’re going to be talking about how to find your passion inside of real estate investing. So Gene, welcome to the show. Thanks, Mike. Thanks for having me. I’m glad I was able to make the flight out here to Dallas and hang out in person. Felt important to me to be here in person versus appreciate that. We haven’t talked for a little while here, so good to see you. And I always appreciate folks that are traveling in for the show. Honestly, we do a lot of shows now, and so I love in-person ones the best just because we get to hang out a little bit.

beforehand and catch up and the conversations are just better in person than Online, but there’s convenience with doing the online one. So anyway, glad you’re here Yeah, yeah, man. I’m glad like I said glad to be here as well and I can definitely see that so yeah, know It’s kind of like in our business, know, there’s the whole belly to belly sales or there’s phone sales. That’s right Which one’s the right answer? Who knows but sometimes a little bit of both. Yeah, sometimes a little bit of both. Yeah, I enjoy the in-person stuff but yeah, man, so

Glad to be out here and want to talk to you about all that. It has been a while since I’ve seen you. Met you for the first time when I first got into real estate, actually. So what year was that? That was 2018. OK. Kind of got started at the end of 2017, like sitting in on some meetings and kind of getting the grasp of it, but didn’t actually start working in the industry until 2018. OK. And that’s when I met you all at Investor Fueled In.

Yeah, yeah. Probably should not have been in the room, but that’s a whole different conversation. That’s another story. Yeah. I’m sorry. Well, tell us some more about your background. you got in, maybe even, what did you do before real estate? Yeah, absolutely. So for me, I’ll go even tiny bit before that, just because for people, grew up in a little small lake town. What hospital were you born in? Let’s go back. Oh, let’s go all the way back. You’re right. But I grew up in a little small lake town in South Carolina. So.

country like boy then lived in Charleston for quite a few years, which is where I did start the real estate thing. But I was in the food and bed industry for 15 years. Before I got into real estate, I did it from 15 to 30. So that’s where kind of the passion of serving others helping others and doing all that came from 2017 rolled around, I had gone back to college and graduated with a finance and business degree.

Mike Hambright (02:26.414)
And I was deciding what I was doing next was looking at finance jobs in Charlotte, North Carolina. And a buddy of mine just looked at me and was like, hey, I’m doing this off-market real estate thing. And I think you would be really good at it, and you’d really like it. He goes, give me six months. He goes, if you hate it, then what’s the worst-case scenario? You still move to Charlotte and do that. So that’s what led me into it. That’s how you got into it, Didn’t end up loving that wholesale company.

Overall, that’s just not my style. But I will never take anything away from them. They taught me so much. They put me in rooms. I mean, that’s the reason I met you in the first place was because of that company. They put us in the right rooms. They paid for education. So I can never thank them enough for that piece of the puzzle. Yeah, that’s great. Yeah, a lot of my background, I really talk about my kind of, but growing up, I was always in retail.

And even when I got out of college and even out of grad school, I still kept finding my way back into retail. Different types of retail, I mean, you know, like more at the management level, obviously out of grad school and out of college and stuff, but work for retail companies. So customer service has always been something that I think a lot about because I served customers for so long, right? just, and as a consumer and I, you know, I always think about like that experience, like it just frustrates you. Obviously a lot of.

a lot of people provide shitty service these days. So it pisses you off because that’s not how I did it. I that’s not how you did it, right? But yeah, I think real estate was a natural fit just because you kind of have that customer service angle or you’re just thinking of the customer more so than yourself, right? It kind of gives you that experience. Yep, absolutely. I think that everybody should have some type of customer service job in their life, whether it be in the food industry or retail, something of that sort. It just kind of gives you a glimpse of that other side.

I guess the only, like you said, the only downside is, especially if you’re in it for a long time and you’re good at it, you start seeing the service you’re getting as a consumer later down the road and you’re just like, what is wrong with you? Like, why can’t you just do this one extra step? Yeah. So you’ve been in real estate for a little while now. I’ve done a lot of deals and I think we were talking ahead of time and this has come up on our show many times. I talk about this all the time that real estate just ends up, I used to be in love with real estate and now it’s just the vehicle that gets you whatever it is that you want.

Mike Hambright (04:49.87)
think you feel that way too. Absolutely. So when I first got into it, obviously houses excited me. The deals excited me. I mean, thinking about like, you know, there’s money in houses is what excited me from the beginning. It was like, holy crap, I can make this money and I can buy these houses and these houses are cool and all that. A few years of that, it was good as it’s grown and as we’ve done 50 plus deals a year for, I don’t know.

I ramped up pretty quick, so that’s the cool part for me. So I’ve only been doing this a little over seven years, but for six years straight, I’ve done 50-plus deals a year. And it got to that point where there’s definitely pieces of the houses that I still like. Some of our high-end stuff, some of our Airbnb stuff, but just the regular houses that we’re putting out for first-time home buyers or that mid-level price point out.

It stops being passion there. It’s just a widget. Yeah, it is. It’s just something to help you then provide back for your passion, your why in life, for your why for your employees. Yeah, yeah. What are some of your whys? Like, why do you do this? What are some things that it enables you to do, I guess? Yeah, so mine are a teeny bit different because you hear a lot, I’m not married.

do not have any kids. So a lot of people’s passion becomes providing for their kids and a lifestyle and that. So mine’s a teeny bit different. Still along the same lines to be completely honest though. Mine is to give my friends and family just epic things to do in life. I wanna bring fun experiences and joy to everyone that’s around me. We’re friends, right?

Yes, absolutely. What are we doing? What are we doing? What are we doing later? It’s a huge thing for me, My brother specifically is the top one, but then it trickles down from there. But my brother’s married, three kids, all that lives back towards my parents’ house. I take him on two, sometimes three trips a year. We’re just always doing stuff like that and just things that he wouldn’t otherwise be able to do.

Mike Hambright (07:15.478)
taking my dad to baseball games. Things of that sort just matter a lot to me. And then just recently with the Masters, was a thing that was huge for me. I was able to take an old friend from high school that hadn’t been there in 25 years and is like a golf nerd. And he was just like, he was so stoked. being able to do that for people really, really does it for me. Yeah, that’s great. No, it’s all about experiences. I’m doing some of that with a

My family, my mom passed away a couple years ago. And my wife’s side of the family, we travel together. We do a lot of cool things. And my side of the family is just my mom was the glue keeping us all together. I like, oh, I got to step up into that role. then started saying, why don’t we have a family reunion every year? Why don’t we go do something? So it’s only been a couple of years, but I rented a big house in Lake of the Ozarks and brought everybody together. It’s like somebody’s got to pull everybody together, otherwise nobody’s going to do it. I took everybody to Cabo last year. bringing them all to my ranch here next month.

For the first time and so yeah, just experience all about experiences, right? It really is I mean, that’s what and that’s what this can give us Give us that freedom and then the ability to provide those experiences. Yeah. Yeah, so you Provide experiences for your family. I know you’re passionate about your team. they work with as well. Absolutely So those kind of pieces there for us are So for a good example for us is like so we have two crews that

work in house for us to only work for us. One of them is a Hispanic team and for example, we bought the house that they live in and owner financed it back to them. So like that was huge for us. We wanted them to feel like they had a home. Right now I’m actually in search right this second for one for our second crew because him and his wife have three kids and

or living in a rental home that’s only three bedrooms. Oldest kid is ready for their own bedroom and he’s been giving his dad crap for it for a few months now. And I’m like, you know what? I’m gonna find you a four bedroom house in this area and we’ll probably do the same for them. We’ll buy them a house and then just owner finance it back to them. So that’s huge for us. And then like for like our acquisition guy and stuff like that, like he really wants to build a rental portfolio.

Mike Hambright (09:40.11)
So that’s big for us to be able to provide those kind of things, because as they can build wealth, then first off, they’re going to perform better for you. I mean, if you want to be just frank about it. And then also on top of that, you’re never going to out give what you’re going to get back. You just can’t. You literally can’t out give what the world’s going to bring back to you and what God’s going to bring back to you.

That’s passionate for me. It’s providing the homes for those construction crews. It’s helping build wealth for the rest of the team. Yeah. Yeah. You get to a point to where if you’re not serving those around you, they’ll either go out and compete against you or leave you. Once you build up relationships, you don’t want to lose good people, for sure. You don’t. Yeah. We were talking about that the other day. It’s like you do. You build it to a point where you just don’t want to

you don’t want to lose those people that you’ve built that with. But if you’re being good to them and you’ve built the right culture, then you can keep them around. So that’s definitely a big thing for me. I was joking the other day. I say joking, I mean, it’s being serious. But just messed around with someone the other day. I was like, I don’t care if I make any more money. We want to grow the business where it’s making more money, which means that we can make a bigger impact elsewhere.

give more money to more employees we can help them build more things we can give more money back to charity we can buy more Airbnb’s mm-hmm but my actual personal salary does not have to go up and I could care less yeah yeah that’s great yeah I talk about that stuff a lot I mean I you think you get to a point to where I mean I always I always say I always want more money I always want to make more money but your goal

moves beyond just, need more money. Because you get to a point where you don’t need more money. But it allows you to do cool things, like I bought a ranch. I take nice trips and stuff like that. it’s like, if your goals aren’t around impact, or impacting more people, leaving a bigger footprint on the world in positive way, then you get a little, in my experience, get a little complacent. Because it’s not just about having money in a bank account, right? It’s being able to provide experiences for people, or being able to do nice things for people that.

Mike Hambright (11:56.652)
Nobody in your family or friend circle could do, right? Yep, absolutely. And that’s the big thing. And then, of course, like I said, there is the caveat of, I just mean my personal salary. Obviously, the more money we make as a company, the more houses we can buy, the more Airbnbs I can buy, the more wealth I can build. yeah, you’re right. Yeah. Yeah. So let’s talk a little bit about Airbnbs. I know that’s something you’re passionate about. And I know that.

I think it’s probably very market specific, obviously, right? But in some areas, like the Airbnb market, has not done well. mean, more markets like Phoenix and stuff like that, where there was just a glut of that, and then the market takes a downturn. And you’re in a very unique, you’re mostly all around Augusta, right? So very unique kind of area that’s probably, I don’t know, does it feel like there’s a ton of Airbnbs there, or is it? So it definitely has grown a lot in the last few years. We’ve seen it.

But for two things that are different for us, yeah, two. One is it’s still not as saturated as like a huge market’s gonna be, like a Phoenix is gonna be, or like a huge destination travel place is gonna be. Lake Tahoe or Big Bear or something like that. So there’s no saturation to that extent. We obviously have had more people get into it, but not near to that extent.

We also don’t have to deal with, mean, not saying that it’s never gonna happen, but we have no regulations on that kind of stuff. Like we don’t have the local municipalities trying to like close things down and stuff. So like a good example for me is Charleston, since I lived there for years and still close by is, it’s the hotels that are lobbying against it and stuff. Like they have tiny little areas like.

It’s the only place you can have an Airbnb in downtown Charleston. It’s like these couple streets and things like that. And we don’t have any of that regulation there in Augusta. And I don’t see it any time coming. And the biggest thing for that is the Augusta National being there. I feel like if anybody was going to shut it down, might be them because they want to provide the housing. But they just know they can’t house enough people that are coming for the tournament anyways. So what is the population?

Mike Hambright (14:15.758)
I don’t know you know this answer, but what does it go to during the term? Because that’s the biggest draw of the year, right? Yeah, it so the question is, could that area really even support more hotel space year round? Maybe that’s one of the benefits you have is they can’t really support hotel space, so it opens up an opportunity for It sure can. Airbnbs, yeah. Yeah, it really can’t. And we don’t have any super nice hotels either. It’s all just your mid-level hotels.

Just your fairfield ends comfort suite like things. Yeah, there’s no high-end hotels around anyways Yeah, so people like they can’t because they can’t support it year-round. So they can’t support it year-round Also the kind of people that are coming for the national like at least half of them They’re not the kind of people that are staying in a hotel room. Mm-hmm They want nice stuff, right? They want a pool

hang out with they want to be able to have twelve friends at the house. Yeah, they’re looking to party and spend some money. Spend some money and hang out. mean, for example, our biggest Airbnb had a guy come in from Oregon with his three sons and they they bought these special tickets to the to the national for all seven days or whatever. We did quick math. Guy was in for like a hundred and ten thousand dollars before he even booked his flights and before he even stepped foot on the golf course. Wow. So,

People are coming to experience and spend money. So. And there’s a lot of corporate events there too, right? Obviously. Yeah. Yeah. Huge corporate stuff comes in. I would be curious to know exactly how many extra people come in for that. Because it’s not a ton of patrons, per se, that get on the course. But there are still a lot of people that come in town just to be with those companies. be in the area. That and be in the area. Yeah. There really are. And then Lord knows the amount of,

chefs and all the hospitality workers that come along with it. We ran one of our houses to chefs last year. So there’s a lot of that, all the support staff that comes in. So I know you’re really passionate about the Airbnbs. And I think that’s some of the customer service coming back around. It’s interesting because I think we talk about Airbnbs. I mean, they’re obviously real estate. But it’s really the hospitality business. It’s a very different business model.

Mike Hambright (16:37.64)
Yes, and it’s funny you say that. did not, I knew that it was, it’s like logically I knew that it was different, but I’m still like, it’s fine. We’ll just do a bunch of Airbnbs. We bought four at one time one year and a half ago. And we’re just like, yeah, it’s fine. Like, I mean, we already flip houses. It’ll be easy to renovate, get it furnished and like just throw it on Airbnb. It is a whole different business. mean, it is a full separate sector and we had to hire somebody on.

to help run that whole thing. We did not want to go with third party management. So we hired someone in house that runs them all, because it’s important to us. It goes back to that customer service piece. We really want to make sure that people feel happy being at our houses. And for both reasons, we make them nicer than the normal Airbnb. There’s so many people.

that just have their house, they’re moving out of it, they just leave their furniture in it and then throw it on Airbnb. We make sure we provide extra amenities and we renovate these things to the nines. We over renovate them, to be completely honest. Do crazy stuff like turn bedrooms into bathrooms and create these spa-like experiences and things of that sort. And we took some big risks and they’ve paid off.

Yeah, they booked incredibly better than like the next one down the street. Yeah, that’s great. I will say I’ve rented some Airbnbs that looked really good in the pictures that I got there. I was like, wait a minute. Let me like, yeah, I guess if you look at this angle, these are clearly Photoshopped, know, kind of sucks. But yeah, it does. And I mean, that’s where the reviews come back. You know, sometimes I’ve been guilty of like renting. They don’t have very many reviews yet. And it’s like, OK.

Now I’m like, OK, only want to run in places that have a bunch of reviews, and I don’t want to be getting any bigger. Yes, I agree with that. I think it’s very smart to do so. And that’s a big thing for us, too, is when we first put one online, making sure, getting creative in different ways, whether it be sending. We’re not trying to get any kind of fake reviews, but we literally want to push the traffic there so that more people stay so that we

Mike Hambright (19:01.922)
get reviews in the first place because you’re right. should be, if you want to be safe, you should be staying at a place that has at least 10 plus reviews, you know, knowing that it’s going to, that it at least looks like what it says in the pictures and what it says in the description. Yep. So you talk about having in-house management. So, and I think you said you have about six now. I know you’re growing, but how many, can you support a full-time person doing all the, what do they do? Leasing and customer support and like, what are the typical?

roles I guess. Obviously in a property management you’ve got like a leasing agent and you got maintenance and you’ve got a few kind of intuitive departments but what’s the difference about Airbnbs from the management side? Yeah so a lot of it’s the cleaning. Managing all the cleanings because there’s a lot of turnover. So that’s one of the biggest difference makers there. There’s that piece, the personal touch that we want to have that matters to us.

And then, yeah, there’s actually more maintenance, of course, because you’re trying to keep it in tip-top condition for the next guest. Plus, it’s not just maintenance on the house. There’s maintenance on the furniture and stuff, too. So there is a lot of that. To be completely honest, probably, this girl also does some other help with us on the flips, like procuring fixtures and things of that sort and helps with some design stuff. So.

We can support her with just the six right now. But if she was only running the Airbnbs, she’d probably have to do something else. It’s not like it’s some crazy lucrative drive with just the six. But we plan to grow to 25 or more. That’s the goal. I we just started buying them at the end of 23. And we’re working on number seven right now. And with you.

flip in 50, 60 houses a year, what makes you decide that you’re going to keep one as an Airbnb versus just fix and flip it or something like that? Sometimes it’s cash flow issues. Sometimes it’s clearly location. Sometimes it’s obviously you need to have a different size or the layout has to be good or whatever. But what’s your kind of buy box to say? Are you always looking for like, any of these could become an Airbnb if it fits this model? Or is it just?

Mike Hambright (21:23.414)
something else that drives your decision? Yeah, so that’s a good question because we’re refining it more and more every month, quite frankly. But what it really came down to was location. That was the determining factor to start with. Do we have the money to keep this? And is it in this location, which is within a mile of Augusta National? OK. And then, like you pointed out, the cash flow piece of it, can we physically keep it?

which we can usually work around that piece to be, I mean, let’s be real. We have the connections and if you’ve been doing this long enough, you can find the people. So like if you absolutely needed that and you can make it happen. So we try not to let any go in that certain specific area. But now as we do it more and more, we start, we’re starting to look for bigger houses for us, the smaller houses, just they’re just not our style. They don’t work good for us.

We know people that are very successful with the smaller houses, but I think it’s because they bought them so long ago That they have low enough notes on them to make them work because we do have a good bit of travel nursing and things like that come into town Yeah But we have leaned very heavily into at least a three bed two bath. We actually want them bigger than that And everyone we buy we want to be a little bit nicer in some way whether it be because we can

have it more bedrooms and bathrooms or whether it be because it has a pool, things of that sort. So that’s So you’re looking to separate yourself more and more from the hotel side. It’s not a hotel replacement. This is a true luxury experience. Exactly. So that’s what I was about to say. So that’s the long story of it. But the short is we’re trying to buy bigger, nicer houses with amenities. So in a place like around Augusta, obviously there’s a couple of weeks a year where there’s a population just kind of

pops up. What is it like? Who travels there during the rest of the year to kind of keep keep these occupied? So we get that question a good bit because especially people that live around there, they’re just like, well, why are people coming here? But it’s it’s pretty crazy how money just life events there is. mean, anything from weddings to funerals to people being in the hospital to just a quick trip. We’ve actually

Mike Hambright (23:50.348)
had quite a few people stay with us that are doing staycations because these houses, we do do them really nice. And then there’s actually a lot more corporations around there that people give it credit for. Yeah, I don’t know. Yeah, have a couple. I mean, we have two nuclear plants within like 30, 45 minutes south. Cybersecurity has moved from D.C. towards Augusta area.

We have Club Car there. What else? A couple other big ones. So there’s more than people think. And then just the fort. I mean, we have huge army base there. OK. So there’s people that are doing that kind of stuff too. there, and I don’t know the answer to this, during, are there people that want to, are the things going on at Augusta National throughout the year? Like there are other events that draw people in that just aren’t as big as the Masters or not really? No. No. So.

Yeah, they don’t do anything the whole rest of the year. It’s kind of crazy. mean, obviously, members come in here and there and go play it. outside of that, yeah, they don’t do anything else there. It’s crazy that they generate that kind of money in that week and a half span. Blows my mind. So what do you think, what helps you with your background in hospitality or food and bed, like hospitality type stuff?

that maybe the average person doesn’t have, like the eye for the experience or whatever, like what? And then how can other people learn that if they don’t have that background? Because I think a lot of people get into it for the real estate, but they don’t realize that it’s a different business model. Yeah, it’s a people business. The acquisition guy we just hired on, that was one of his biggest worries. Like, I don’t know anything about houses yet. I’m just like, don’t worry about that.

This is a people business, way before it’s a house business. We can figure out the house part. But yeah, so my customer service background, like, it honestly started from just how my mother is in general. She’s selfless, serving person. So that always resonated with me. And then my first job was at 15, was already serving tables. And just being able to help people smile and…

Mike Hambright (26:09.716)
and have a good time has always really, really resonated with me. And then the only other thing there is, so from a customer service standpoint,

It’s just being able to connect with people is a big portion of it and I think you have to…

Mike Hambright (26:35.03)
It just really helps open your eyes to the needs of other people. Just being in that role. What makes a good experience in your eyes from an Airbnb? it just some little thoughtful things that are at the house that people didn’t expect that? Or like I’ve stated somewhere, they leave a basket with wine and a couple of other things. Or I’ve stated places before where there’s just like no frills. Is it the…

It’s a lot of little things really, right? It’s better communication. If you have a question, you don’t have to go through 16 portals to get to somebody. It’s just like little things, right? Yeah, so those are the biggest things I think is communication is the biggest one. Communication is key and that goes back to the customer service piece. That’s the piece I missed about saying it teaches you communication skills and soft skills to talk to people. But on the Airbnb side, yeah, the communication is a big one.

Small little tiny things like you said leaving little things there making sure the coffee is stocked up right making sure those things are good So the people aren’t having to ask you questions Yeah, like that’s what makes really good customer service is that you’re always available and there for those people if they need anything But you’ve already taken care of it all where they don’t have to be yeah, they can’t the Wi-Fi code or something else Yeah, and it’s all already there for them. Yeah, and then the other level of that even though

I guess this technically is more on the house side itself than customer service. But I really believe putting your heart into making the crazy spa-like bathroom or having the pool area for the kids or whatever, that in itself provides awesome service for people too and an awesome experience, quite honestly. Which is going to help you in a rating and help you drive your business. in so many ways. And I mean, it flows through from my why too.

wanting to have epic experiences for people. So it’s pretty cool to see like, you know, we have people around like our big house for parties and things like that to be able to have their kids out there and be able to be able to enjoy it. So my guess is during Augusta, like all the Airbnbs are full, like you can’t you just can’t lose, right? But during the rest of the year, like what do you do differently to keep your occupancy up?

Mike Hambright (29:00.246)
where other ones might struggle with that? Like what do you do differently from a marketing standpoint to stand out from the rest of the pack? Yeah, so from a marketing standpoint, it is the renovation itself. It is making sure you are, the pictures are actually a big deal. Of course, I think, or at least I hope that everybody knows to take professional pictures of your Airbnb. Not everybody knows that, Sadly, you’re right. Even like listings on the MLS where like somebody just took them with their phone.

Not everybody knows that somehow. So not even, yeah, so we do the pro ones first off, but then there’s a whole nother level of how you do them when they’re Airbnb shots with, it’s another level past the pro photos that you would take on a flip. Like you’re taking pictures of things to highlight things, and then making sure that the pictures are in the correct order. One of our best performing ones is actually probably,

I don’t know, number three or number four on overall like niceness and how many people it sleeps and stuff like that. But we did this really cool bookcase Murphy door opening into a hidden bathroom. It’s all color drenched and it’s beautiful. And that’s some of the first pictures and that thing gets viewed so ridiculously.

So it’s so it’s picture order and things like that. That first picture, like sometimes, yeah. First impression. even see it on MLS listings where somebody is like, you know, it usually would be probably the front of the house. But if they’re like, if they’re taking a picture of like the AC unit as the first picture, you’re like, what are you hiding from me? I just, I can’t understand it. And I guess that it’s probably from the customer service background, maybe, or just the experience thought from my side. the first impression. But we’ll see it on the MLS all the time.

people or even if they think they’re doing it in the correct order by having outside or whatever, they will have five photos of the exterior that are all showing about the same thing and then they’ll just walk through the house and then like it’ll be picture 42 and you finally got to the master bathroom and the master bathroom is gorgeous. And you’re like, you didn’t necessarily have to lead with that picture, I get it. You wanted to show some exterior first but that should be way sooner.

Mike Hambright (31:22.766)
But it’s even 10 times more important in Airbnb to put those things on the front side. So that’s one big one. The other is just monitoring the pricing. And seeing what we can do to get it booked. Sometimes it’s reducing price, sometimes it’s going down to less nights that are needed for a stay. Like maybe we had it set on seven day minimum as it gets.

into that month if something’s not booked, we drop it down to a two night minimum. So it’s playing with the minimum stays, playing with the price point. Yeah, and then just putting your best foot forward with the pictures and things like that. I think those are the main things that operate for us. And then good ratings and being good on the experience so you actually get repeat customers. what are some things, and we talked about some of them here, that people, because I think

This market, I mean, not in your market, but the Airbnb market, short-term rental market has really gotten hammered in some markets, right? Either the saturation or the city or the county changes in the laws or whatever. Where do you see the Airbnb kind of short-term rental market going forward? I guess kind of nationally, just like where do you see that going? And then also in your market. So from what I’ve seen nationally, I could at least understand the worry from people, especially getting into it.

I don’t panic in any direction is kind of silly to me. In most cases, if you already have something that’s working, like I would not be crazily worried about it. I mean, of course there’s exceptions. But yeah, getting into it in a huge market that already has crackdowns on things already, it’s not even the saturation piece to me because I think that if you’re good at what you do,

and you provide the experience you’re supposed to provide, that, I mean, competition’s a good thing. So I don’t worry about saturation whatsoever, but of course you have to be smart and worry about the laws themselves. mean, you’re not gonna buy something in a municipality where they only allow this and it can’t be in this area. You gotta do your homework. Make sure you’re not buying something that…

Mike Hambright (33:48.268)
you turn around and you literally can’t put it on Airbnb. So that’s the biggest thing there. For our market, not worried about it as much per se, but we’re still smart about the fact that just in case, I mean, there’s no telling. They could all of a sudden next year be like, hey, we’re going to start trying to pass this bill. We buy ours in our area. First off, they’ll never shut down the whole like.

the couple weeks a year thing. They’re never ever going to stop us from renting from Masters. There’s not enough supply for it. Yeah. It’s just, it’s literally not Because even before Airbnb, I’m sure that in areas like that, people were renting out their houses for decades now, right? Decades, decades. It wasn’t as formal as a short-term rental on Airbnb or ERBO. Correct. I mean, it still happens for Masters week. It’s funny to see Airbnb, like when you look at our market and

just pull it up in July and then pull it up for Masters week, when it’s leading towards Masters week. mean, there’s at least two times, if not three times as many Airbnbs. So I’m not worried about it in that aspect. We’ll still always get that little bit of extra money regardless, but we underwrite our deals to where they still work as a furnished long-term rental. So. I think that’s where a lot of people are struggling or have struggled is that they

were convinced when the market was hot that it’s okay to pay retail for it, basically pay full price for it because you’re getting more rents overall and they just didn’t buy. mean, obviously as real estate investors, we’re used to not paying retail for anything. So just get, you gotta buy it right. Yeah, I think it’s people got thrown off and they were buying retail, which is never a good idea from the investment side. So that’s the first piece, buying right.

And then I’ve seen it a lot. And again, we’re insulated from this a little bit because of our price points and why they do work for us. But yeah, if you’re in a California or even some of these big Texas markets and things like that, like you’re into these houses for such a high price point that it is impossible if they don’t, if they shut down Airbnb. Paying cash for them. It might work as an Airbnb maybe, but it doesn’t work as a long-term.

Mike Hambright (36:12.654)
Yeah, mean, if you’ve got a $800,000 house, the chances that you’re going to be able to cover that mortgage with a long-term tenant are pretty slim. Whereas in our market, our Airbnbs range, the ARV ranges from like 3 to 450, the ones that we hold right now, we’re only into them between 200 and 300. So a $200,000 note, we can easily put a

Especially if we keep it furnished. A long-term furnished rental is still going to easily cash flow for us. Nothing crazy, nothing amazing, but it’ll cash flow. So you said your goal is to go from about six or so now up to 25 short-term rentals? That is the goal. We’re going to try to. And how long? Quick. Sign up for it. Quick. And then the next thing? 1.25. 1 1.25 here right now, and then we’re going to ramp up from there. next few years.

goal would be, because it’ll slowly ramp up from there, I will say that by the end of 27. There we go. I’m going write it down. Do it. Two and a half years will be plenty of time. Yeah. Awesome. To get there. that only restraint is from specific on where we buy them. You want to find the right houses, yeah. And probably the closer to Augusta, the harder, the less frequent those become available.

Especially as we’re trying to get the bigger ones with the more amenities. Yeah, absolutely Any is there an ability there to build or like add on to? Houses or do things or is it you pretty much trying to not do that? So no, we don’t mind doing that at all actually So that’s that’s definitely a big point Is adding on to some things I will say that pools not only between the expense and just how long our pool companies are

That’s been a thing that I’m really eyeing. It’s trying to find stuff that already has pools. I could care less if the pool is decrepit and I have to fully bring it back to life, but just the cost point and the time point of putting in a pool is so outrageous. It doesn’t make sense, but if we can buy one with one, they make a lot more money a year. I 15, 20 grand more.

Mike Hambright (38:38.558)
year. Yeah, that’s great. That’s what probably pulls people in the off season is just the more of the staycation type stuff like exactly. Yeah. That’s cool. Awesome. So that’s good. Well, thanks for thanks for flying in. Thanks for spending some time with us today. Yeah, absolutely. The Airbnb stuff is exciting. It’s very exciting, man. I’m I’m I’m excited about it. You know, we we love doing our high end flips too. But of course, only so many of them are close to the national and so many of those we can keep. But, you know,

Being able to do these fun bathrooms, fun kitchens, and then provide that experience in these Airbnbs, it just really gets me going. That’s great. That’s great. Well, you’ve got to have something that drives that passion and keeps you moving forward. Right. Yeah. I’m sure you’ve seen it too, but you can go through lulls of like, wait, why am I doing this again? Yeah, no doubt. So it’s really awesome to find that passion. Yeah.

So Gene, folks want to connect with you or rent one of your Airbnbs or learn more about what you’ve got going on, where do they go? Absolutely. So I’m just Gene Martin on Facebook if you don’t want to pop there. But Instagram is probably the easiest thing. It is TheInvestorGene. A little play on words there. And then we do have a site now for the Airbnbs, Augustabnbs.com. So if anybody wants to check out our.

Airbnbs and what we got coming up. Definitely reach out there. We’re going to try to brand that a little bit better here upcoming with that show we’re going to be on next week. then, yeah, the newest Airbnbs also going to have a golf simulator in it. So nice. So, you know, I might have to prelaunch that one on the site so that people can start booking it. Yeah, that sounds awesome. Yeah, that would be very fitting, right? Very fitting. It’s a people can I actually parked at this one to go to the Masters this year.

That’s how close it is. I walked from the house. Wow, that’s awesome. Yeah, cool. Thanks again. Yep, thank you. Yeah. Everybody, hope you got some good insights from today, whether you’re looking at Airbnbs or, at end of the day, real estate is the thing that can get us the thing. But if you lose your passion for what you’re doing and it just turns into another transaction, that’s not fun. So find out what your passions are, whether it’s giving back or helping other people or an exit strategy or some part of the business that you really kind of fall in love with. So hope you enjoyed today’s show. We’ll see you on the next episode.