Mastering Midterm Rentals: 5 Essential Strategies for Success

John Harcar (00:02.234)
Okay. Hey guys, welcome back to our show. I’m your host John Harcar and I’m here today with Andora Marshall and what we’re going to talk about besides her journey in business and in real estate, which I’m excited to talk about that as well. But we’re also going to talk about midterm rentals. She has a passion for midterm rentals and she’s also going to talk about how to properly do your due diligence, vetting your tenants. We all know how important that is.

Andora Marshall (00:12.238)
you

John Harcar (00:28.474)
Remember, guys, at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers, I mean all real estate entrepreneurs, 2 5X their business. You know, we’re providing the tools, the resources in the community to help you level up and grow your business, which in turn helps you live the life that you’ve always dreamed of. So, Adora, welcome to our show.

Andora Marshall (00:48.307)
Thank you, John, for having me. I appreciate it.

John Harcar (00:50.736)
Yeah, I’m excited to talk about, which I think is going to be a few different topics from our pre-call. But I like the whole midterm thing. That’s something that I have interest in as well. I’ve kind of got over the short-term part. But before we get into the weeds on all that, why don’t you tell our audience a little bit about you, how you got into business and real estate, and what brought you to today?

Andora Marshall (01:13.448)
Okay, great. So I found you on Facebook and I thought, you know what, this is a great opportunity to share information. And as we talked, no one person knows everything. And so if we all kind of hang together and like-minded real estate investors and share our knowledge, just think how much we can learn from each other. So my real estate journey began in 1989. I inherited a single family home in a college town and my siblings and myself managed it and it was challenging.

John Harcar (01:43.569)
Mm-hmm.

Andora Marshall (01:43.632)
And so that was my first take of actually renting out rooms to college students. And I think now it’s been coined what shared housing. So it wasn’t.

John Harcar (01:54.994)
Co-Housing, Pad Split, mean there’s probably a couple different names. Student Housing, I mean there’s a couple different names for it by

Andora Marshall (01:58.707)
Yep.

Andora Marshall (02:03.568)
Yeah, sure. But back then it wasn’t that there wasn’t much really to kind of find, you know, how do you find how to do these types of things? So we just kind of dive right into it and made many, many mistakes, you know. So and then once we did that for a few years, we decided maybe it was best to sell that particular property because we lived about an hour and a half from it. And then I started buying single family homes.

John Harcar (02:10.694)
Mm-hmm.

Andora Marshall (02:30.32)
right next door to where I lived at in a small town called Care, Ohio. So I would buy the worst house on the block and start like literally gut it and start fixing it up. And this is when house prices were like in the early 90s, much cheaper then. So I kind of started with that. And then single family homes were kind of my thing for a long time. And then I thought, I would love to have a beach house. Let me do it.

John Harcar (02:45.5)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Andora Marshall (02:59.233)
short-term rental. So I went to St. Petersburg, Florida, found a great community and again the worst condo in the actual development and completely gutted it and started doing that. And then from there, know, very quickly I’ll say during the pandemic is when I started thinking about, you know, I need to find other people who are like-minded that can help me grow. So that’s kind when I started buying like Duplex.

commercial offices and midterms.

John Harcar (03:29.466)
Nice, very nice. If you’ve ever watched any of my podcasts, I like to go backwards, right? I like to find out the origin. think there’s a lot in that type of story. So before you inherited a property, was there anybody in your life that was an influence in real estate? Maybe an uncle, a grandfather, a father that was a landlord, flipper, whatever.

Andora Marshall (03:49.829)
Yes, that’s funny. He didn’t actually influence me that much, but I had a uncle who owned a lot of real estate around Ohio State University. So I’m sure you’ve heard of the Ohio State University. Yes. The Ohio State, yes. So he owned.

John Harcar (04:00.73)
Okay. The Ohio State University. We have one of your coats. I’m a Raider fan and we have Chip Kelly now as our coach. So yeah.

Andora Marshall (04:09.773)
Okay, nice. So yes, he owned a lot of apartment complexes and single family homes. And again, you know, I said I’m still working my full time job. He and I actually work together, but he never really encouraged me to say, well, I don’t know if a woman can do this type of work. So and he was old school, you know.

John Harcar (04:28.818)
But that still is a seed, it’s a subconscious seed that was planted. You had exposure to it.

Andora Marshall (04:34.535)
Well, somewhat exposure, I think more importantly, I had a mother and a father who said, hey, you can do anything you put your mind to as long as you do it. You know, you just, and it’s knowing the right people, right? So I think it’s that, that mindset. If you think you can’t, then you can’t. If you think you can, you can.

John Harcar (04:36.348)
Somewhere.

John Harcar (04:54.006)
It’s also not how, but who. Who can he help to figure things? So you guys got this rental and you mentioned many mistakes. I know what mistakes I’ve made in the past. What mistakes did you make?

Andora Marshall (04:57.255)
Absolutely.

Andora Marshall (05:08.657)
Well, when you’re doing like shared housing, there has to be rules, expectations set, and you know, a good contract, good vetting of tenants. You know, obviously a lot of times college students at 18 do not have credit, right? It’s learning, we need a co-signer. You know, all we need to let them, we need to find someone to mow the grass on a weekly basis. we need to set guidelines that strictly state these are the rules of shared housing.

you know, no parties, know, just there’s just so many things you can cover. You have processes in place, right? And expectations and everybody has to understand that to make it work well. But the contract, as you and I both know, is the Bible to that property, more or less.

John Harcar (05:54.534)
Yep. You’re in, I think you said IT and cybersecurity. Where did you learn these things of leases and flipping and rehabbing properties and how did you learn? I mean, YouTube U? Is that kind of you, was that your teacher?

Andora Marshall (06:11.55)
I would say as far as technology, I have an IT degree and I’m in cyber security and IT, so I’ve always had a natural interest even back in the 80s and 90s of computers. just realizing, making the technology work for you. And I love to read, so I’ll buy a lot of books off of Amazon. And then also trying to pick my uncle’s brain and trying to say, hey, what do you do for this? What do you do for that?

John Harcar (06:36.028)
Okay. Okay.

So you had a resource to go to.

Andora Marshall (06:43.337)
What I tried to join many, many years ago, the local area in Columbus, Ohio, and what I found, it was pretty much very male dominated and it was kind of hard. Now it’s in the early nineties and it was hard to kind of break into that, to be honest with you. So it was really, you know, just again, reading and talking to other. And then what I found is when I spoke to other landlords that were local, they didn’t want to share their contractors.

Because the mindset was, if I give you my contractor, when I need him or her, they’re not going to be available. then, yeah, there was this, can’t, you information is power and I’m not gonna give you my power, you’re my competitor, perhaps, right?

John Harcar (07:16.835)
available yeah

John Harcar (07:25.032)
Mm-hmm. So how did you overcome that? What did you do?

Andora Marshall (07:29.827)
I think just basically working with them and then sharing my contacts. Hey, I use this particular guy for my basement because many of the houses that I was buying in Carroll were built in the mid 1800s. I mean, I literally bought a log cabin for $20,000 in the 90s, gutted the entire thing, had it gutted and did some of the work myself. Now, when I say some of the work myself, let me be clear. I did not do plumbing.

John Harcar (07:47.943)
Wow.

Andora Marshall (07:56.877)
I did not do electrical wiring and putting the heating coil in. All that stuff had to be done. But I was great at just tearing things apart and tearing. There was like plaster and horse hair into the walls. I I can tear up things really great. I’m great at demoing. It’s a great stress reliever, right? It’s amazing what you can do.

John Harcar (08:02.055)
Yeah.

John Harcar (08:12.082)
So you’re great at demo. It is. It is. It is. We had a mastermind in Salt Lake and we went to a night. One night we went to a smash room. You know where you just break stuff? Yeah. So that’s the same kind of thing. Just perfect release. Well, that’s so awesome. So as you grew and you grew and you grew, you’re working a full-time job.

Andora Marshall (08:37.157)
correct. 40 hours plus and I’m also heavily involved in many of my community. I’m like on two boards for HOA, one in the subdivision which I live in and then where I own condos and offices I’m on that particular board and I’m also locally on the Pickerington Planting and Zooming. I try to tune into as much as I can with real estate. That’s huge but I have a passion for it.

John Harcar (09:01.682)
But no, but the normal thing people say, but I have a full-time job. I don’t have time to do any of this. How are you doing this at a high level?

Andora Marshall (09:13.981)
I think.

We do what we want to do, right? So it just really depends, you know, we all do what we want. And we all have the same hours and days of the week. It’s really what you want to do and where you want to put your time.

John Harcar (09:32.482)
Are there any, like mindset pieces or mindset, you know, tools or things that help you kind of keep focused on those important things for your business, you know, and then be able to cart, you know, put your life on this, you know, is there something that she’s, it helps you kind of wrinkle it all in.

Andora Marshall (09:51.743)
Absolutely. I know, talked a little bit about this, but I said your network network is your net worth It’s so important like if I could stress anything from this call is getting in via involved with like-minded real estate investors That’s the keys to the kingdom right there is finding out how do they do things? You know, have you encountered this problem? Who is your contractor? What did you do with this? I mean that is you have to have a great network like-minded people who were in real estate and

and you need to keep with that education because it continually changes. So that, I would say, is the primary thing, is getting involved in your local REA groups and masterminds. That’s where you learn the most.

John Harcar (10:35.058)
Yep, no, I 100 % agree. So let’s talk a little bit about the midterm rentals. Why did you wanna transition from your short terms? I know you said you mentioned you’re moving some to midterms or have moved some. Why are you making that switch?

Andora Marshall (10:50.27)
So I’m making this switch from, only had the one short term in St. Petersburg, Florida, but there was so many rules and regulations when I bought in that complex. You could rent by the week and then they changed it and you had to rent by the month. So I didn’t realize I was doing midterm, even from like 2014 to 2021. You know, I didn’t get that what it was coined because you couldn’t rent to more than one guest. Well, you can imagine it’s Florida, it’s hot. The only time people want to go to Florida in my mind is January.

John Harcar (10:54.001)
Okay.

John Harcar (11:08.892)
Right?

Andora Marshall (11:20.382)
through April or the key months, right? And then that darn condo would sit pretty much vacant from like May to like August, you know? And so I just thought, and it would be a lot of work. I mean, it’s constant turnover and you’ve got people in and out of your condo or your home and they’re, unfortunately things happen, know, things break when you have multiple people. You’ve got to work with cleaners and get the cleaners over there. And I feel like with the midterm, you are renting to a guest

John Harcar (11:22.514)
Mm-hmm.

Andora Marshall (11:49.982)
30 days or greater. And those people are typically coming into the community because they’re working, right? Working people don’t have oftentimes a lot of times to have wild parties and so forth. I’m just saying, I’m sure that they can. But you’ve got your digital nomads, you’ve got your traveling nurses, you’ve got anesthesiologists that are coming in, especially in Columbus, Ohio, you’ve got…

John Harcar (12:02.236)
Sure. No, you’re 100%. 100%.

John Harcar (12:08.124)
Traveling nurses.

Andora Marshall (12:15.975)
people that are getting their medical interns and they need to do some work at Ohio State or downtown. So my particular condo appeals to everyone and I was very strategic on what I chose. And let me repeat that. I was very strategic because I don’t want another full-time job. So I chose a condo because I don’t want to have to maintain the outside. I only want to maintain the four walls.

I also chose a condo that’s in a high-rise. So once you walk in the door, it’s one level. It appeals to everybody, right? Whether you’re old, you’re young, nobody has to worry about steps. I’ve got elevators in this particular location. I have a gym. I have 24-7 concierge service security right at the front desk. I’ve got free parking. I’ve got a park across the street, a beautiful metropolitan park. So location, location, location.

John Harcar (13:09.074)
It’s an occasion. yeah. Well, no, and that’s true because you’re, by, by not ignoring those things, you’re going to be able to better serve specific customers that people that you want, know, people that will appreciate that and enter and possibly stay longer, come back, whatever.

Andora Marshall (13:10.237)
I did that before, I’m sure, right?

Andora Marshall (13:29.821)
Absolutely, and there are people that where this is located maybe somebody retired and moved to I had a couple now that come from Phoenix, Arizona They used to live locally and they want to come back and visit their grandkids for a month You know and they want to be involved and or I’ve got somebody coming into the Columbus, Ohio area That’s working for Amazon or Google and they are gonna be here for six months Or I have somebody who had a fire at their house locally and they need a place to stay

or they’re getting divorced, they can’t live with their significant other and they need a place. So I’ll take everybody and it’s, you know.

John Harcar (14:01.234)
You

Yeah, no, no, no, no discretion here. That’s all good. I know. You know what I mean? So let me ask you this. When you look at people trying to do short term, midterm, long term, whatever it might be like, what are some of the mistakes you’re seeing people making when they’re trying to build this business model?

Andora Marshall (14:08.988)
Yes.

Andora Marshall (14:21.404)
I think be aware of who your target audience is, that’s Business 101. When I buy this property, look at the numbers. If the numbers don’t make sense, you don’t buy. And what I mean by that, if your property taxes, your insurance, what is it gonna cost to furnish this place? Can you really get that rent? Do your due diligence and make sure that you can afford all those things, your mortgage payment and whatever. And do you have the time to find…

to do the things that you need to do if you’re going to self-manage, know, make sure that you can vet the candidates because I use a furnish finder, which I love, and people are like, I don’t like furnish finder. If you don’t work the leads, and you’ll know if you go to furnish finder what I’m speaking of, if you don’t work the leads, then it won’t work for you. You have to do a little bit of work and you have to have a one-pager marketing advertisement, if you will, of your property.

John Harcar (14:52.156)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (15:16.156)
Mm-hmm.

Andora Marshall (15:16.954)
also advertise on Airbnb and Zillow, and then you also make sure that you build your own little CRM, your customer relationship management database. When you have previous guests, get that cell phone number, their telephone number, their email. Collect as much information so you’re not as dependent upon your Airbnb. I keep hearing people complain about that, and it’s a worry, right?

John Harcar (15:40.914)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you have a, you keep your database and you keep it up to date, I mean, you put them on a nice automation. mean, it’s, you know, it’s as simple as just keep it, keep in touch. You know I mean?

Andora Marshall (15:53.819)
Yes, and building those relationships when people are working at the Ohio State or whatever say, hey, do you know anybody else who might be interested when you leave and then an offering like, hey, you know, I’d love to, you know, if you can get bring me somebody that works and they pass the tenant screen and everything, I would love to send you a $50 gift certificate. Yeah. Yeah. Or Amazon who can’t use Amazon gift card for 50.

John Harcar (16:03.736)
Exactly.

John Harcar (16:13.458)
Yeah, or $50 off your next rental. don’t know whatever it might be, but no, yeah, incentive. That’s awesome.

Andora Marshall (16:23.173)
Who can’t find something on Amazon that they love, right?

John Harcar (16:26.284)
Exactly, for sure. what is your business? Where are your rentals? Are they all in downtown Ohio or in Ohio?

Andora Marshall (16:36.815)
They are now, everything’s in central Ohio and the reason for that, if they’re here, I have a buy box, so I like to, from where I live, I like it to be 30 minutes to any of these locations that way. I have quality control. If I hire a contractor to do something, I can go and see is he doing what he said he’s going to do. And that’s a whole other conversation when you’re hiring contractors, setting those expectations. So I like to be within 30 minutes, so I won’t buy anything anymore.

John Harcar (16:39.056)
Okay.

Andora Marshall (17:05.806)
that’s out of my buy box, unless it’s some incredible deal, you know?

John Harcar (17:08.818)
Okay, and just in case there people that are listening that are in that, in your area, what is your buy box?

Andora Marshall (17:16.111)
would say within just Central Ohio, Columbus, Ohio, I’m looking now potentially at apartment complexes, no more than 20 or even like Triplex, Quad. I’m really wanting to kind of get into that space. actually am a facilitator and quarry community real estate entrepreneurs where I volunteer for our commercial and apartment focus group. And so we talk about deals and how to…

to look at deals and what makes sense. So again, I’m more focused on central Ohio, Columbus, Ohio, because it’s booming.

John Harcar (17:52.742)
Right. Yeah. Yeah. You said that. Well, that’s awesome. before we go, is there any last advice or any words of wisdom, things you want to tell our audience that, you know, might set them up for success?

Andora Marshall (18:04.356)
Absolutely, you always want to have a good lease in place, right? Again, you want to make sure that your numbers, when you pick the property, you want to figure out if the rents are accurate, whether you’re doing long-term, short-term, or mid-term, just because the real estate agent tells you it so, doesn’t mean so. Do your due diligence. Get out there and look on Zillow, Renometer. Look around to see what the pricing in the area is, and know your limitations. Start building your team. And when I say a team,

your plumber, your electrician, you know, start building this Rolodex of people that are on your team and treat them well. If you say you’re going to pay somebody when the job’s done, pay them when it’s done. You know, set clear expectations, have processes in place, have a good lease in place, have a good attorney in place. He should be part of your team because if you ever have to evict somebody, you need that person. You know, understand most importantly, your local, you know, fair housing law.

you know what you can and can’t say, what you should be doing, know your business and you and I talked a little bit about this again is that you need to join a group, a group of like-minded investors who are handling similar investments. That’s really, if I could stress more than anything that and then reading, reading, listening to podcasts like this and staying connected. That’s it’s really what it’s about.

John Harcar (19:32.018)
It’s just keeping that that information coming in. And yeah, like you said, you know, get with get get with people that are where you are or where you want to go. Right. So they’re going to help you avoid pitfalls. They’re going to help you get there faster than you would do on your own. And Doris, thank you. So you came and dropped a ton of knowledge, guys. I hope you took notes, man. She dropped some press rewind. Go back. However you do it, go back 10 seconds and listen again. But thank you so much. I really enjoyed this time together. And guys, reach out.

Andora Marshall (19:45.677)
Yes.

Andora Marshall (19:49.881)
What?

John Harcar (20:01.965)
how do people get in touch if they want to maybe work with you at all?

Andora Marshall (20:06.539)
If they would like to reach out, I do have a website and it’s called sagepropertypartners.com. They can send a note in there. That’s the best way to get a hold of me is through that website. Just drop a line or something. I’m always happy to help people. I do not offer any consulting services or anything like that. I just really like to give back and I to help people. I don’t have any ulterior motive. Like I said, no, I don’t have any masterminds. don’t have anything like that, but I love to be a part of stuff like that and help.

develop and grow and help people learn from my mistakes because I’ve made many. Let me tell you.

John Harcar (20:42.29)
That’s awesome. I love that heart. And thank you so much for that. Guys, I hope you enjoyed the show and we will see you on the next one. Cheers.

Andora Marshall (20:51.97)
Thank you.