Airbnb Guests Jumped Off Her Roof—Here’s What She Learned | Galyna Parker

Galyna Parker (00:00)
I guess I just wanted to share a tip for someone who wants to start in real estate, doesn’t want doesn’t have a lot of money, however, is willing to do some crave stuff. I would suggest to someone like that look into what it’s called house hacking. Yeah. Is basically when you buy a multi-unit property, you live in one part and you rent another.

And I think this is the easiest, although not the most glamorous way to for anyone to start in real estate.

Quentin Edmonds (02:03)
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I am excited to be here today. I have a fantastic guest. And listen, if you’re new to real estate, this is the person that you want to talk to. If you’re interested in maybe vacation rentals.

This is the person you want to talk to. She is an investor. She is a serial entrepreneur. And I am excited about her vision. I’m excited about the way she’s growing and the things and opportunities that’s on the horizon. So I’m so excited that we get to peek, peek through the lens of Miss Galyna Parker. Miss Galyna, how are you doing today, ma’am?

Galyna Parker (02:42)
Hey, thank you so much for the introduction and thank you for having me.

Quentin Edmonds (02:45)
Absolutely. I’m so glad you’re here, man. I’m so glad we get to do this together. And you’ll hear me say this probably a couple of times. I’m so glad you gave us your time. I think time is our most precious commodity. And so thank you for being here. Thank you that we can do this together. And and listen, I I am the type. I like to dive right in. So I would love for you to tell the people what’s your main focus these days.

And if you don’t mind, give us a little bit of a origin story, kind of how you got to where you are and what you’re involved in. And then let us know what markets you’re operating in. And so Ms. Galyna, you have the floor, ma’am.

Galyna Parker (03:19)
Thank you so much. Well, like you mentioned, I’m a serial entrepreneur. I manage several businesses and real estate is one of them. And right now I operate several vacation rental houses in South Florida. I started about six years ago, been Superhost for all this time. I also had a house which was vacation rental house and then later I sold it as a business.

Well, the first house that we bought, it was kind of by accident. We discovered that our neighbor was selling the house and I just really like the the fruit trees in that house. I don’t know, I didn’t have a plan to make rental property or anything that didn’t have previous experience. We even try to sell the house to people who wanted it, but they wanted the markup that they wanted to give us was like minuscule. So we decided not to. In retrospect, it was a good idea because

Later the market just a year later, the market went so much higher and still the price like the price that we bought it for, it was you cannot buy a house in South Florida, for this price. So that was a good decision. And then so later I just said, Okay, what we’re gonna do, you know, the house sits, we’re not selling it, so we gotta rent it. And then this is how I started learning about vacation rental, Airbnb and all the other platforms. Yeah.

And so being an serial entrepreneur, I am managing several businesses. My strength is managing businesses remotely and without my direct involvement day-to-day operations. So this is how I approached managing my first vacation rental. I started figuring out the processes, you know, how to communicate with guests easier, how to vet the guests, how to

create checklists for the cleaning crew, you know, make sure the house is in order. And little by little basically created the whole frame for myself for any other vacation rental properties I would I would decide to start it later. Yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (05:26)
Yeah, absolutely. And so mainly you’re the market that you’re doing business in, is it mainly Florida or do you do it all over?

Galyna Parker (06:20)
No, it’s only South Florida. I mean, honestly, I like to be close to the properties. I mean, not necessarily 24/7 every day of the year, but like I personally, if there is something goes down, I want to be able to come physically and and look at it, or even like have somebody that I know come look at it. Yeah. Everybody’s different. I know many people have properties in different places, but for me personally, I like to be involved when I have to be involved.

That I have this opportunity.

Quentin Edmonds (06:51)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Now I know you said you do things remotely, but you still will be close by. I definitely understand that. I get it for sure. Absolutely. So Ms. Galyna, I always say that destiny has no wasted moments, right? We are learning from every part and leg of our journey. And you are a serial entrepreneur, you got the real estate, you got other businesses. So I would love to know what has the moments in business, what has the moments in real estate.

reveal to you about yourself. Has it revealed discipline? Has it revealed, you know, being humble? Like tell me about the journey and what has it revealed to you about yourself.

Galyna Parker (07:30)
the real estate journey.

Quentin Edmonds (07:33)
Yeah.

Galyna Parker (07:35)
I guess it’s just I guess I just figure that it’s just like any other business. Basically, I mean there are different types of businesses and there are some that the owner pretty much has to be involved on a day-to-day basis. And well, vacation rental for me personally was not

one of those businesses, which is essentially what I’ve been striving for. I don’t wanna have a business which is my job that I’m basically bought myself a job and I’m working not forty hours a day but eighty hours a day and sometimes not getting paid and sometimes even losing money when something breaks. So like I I did I don’t wanna do that and real estate. I figured well that’s another business that could could be the business that could be run remotely. Yeah. Yeah. And I like it.

Quentin Edmonds (08:23)
No, absolutely, absolutely. So I love it. You you said you know you don’t want this to be a job. You’re not trying to work 80 hours a week, right? So obviously you’ve put some sh strategic systems in place that that’s kind of helping you out and things run smoothly. So I would love to know what’s one operational thing you’ve put into place, let’s say the last two years, that has really helped you be successful in the way you function.

Galyna Parker (08:48)
Right. So there are many different things, but for example, one of them in vacation rental business particularly is to create a set of rules for guests. And at first it might sound kinda wrong, like well, these g people they’re coming, they’re paying you money, and then you still give them some kind of rules to follow. But once you’re in the business for for even for a few months, you start understanding that

People do not take care of your property unless you tell them to. Yeah. So one of the suggestions that I would give to any vacation rental owner, especially to the new ones, is to start collecting the rules that you would like your guests to follow and to provide the rules to them in a very nice manner, not you know, approaching it from hostile perspective. But I have several

stories that I like to say rules are written in blood. And I had several stories happen. For example, one day my neighbor calls me and said, Hey, I’m seeing people climbing with the ladder on your roof and jump into the pool from your roof. And before you say that I’m not fun, there’s just several things that could go wrong with it. One of them is

Something could happen with the integrity of the roof. Second, the pool is not designed to for the impact from the it’s like it could it ex the water expands, it could damage the the the pool, I don’t know what you call it. Yeah. And third, third is simple is that these people could have breaking their neck and taken me through the lawsuit, which I didn’t even though I have insurance, it’s something that I don’t want to deal with.

Absolutely. So I had to one of the rules was born and many other things and like how the house operates, you’re not just Wi-Fi passwords, like one are where are the pool hours and what are the city ordinance noise hours. So those are all the rules that it is better to provide them to the guests in a nice manner than to be sorry about that

that we didn’t know we couldn’t touch your pool equipment and that’s twenty thousand dollar bill.

Quentin Edmonds (11:42)
Absolutely. No, absolutely. And yeah, you’re absolutely right. And I mean that’s just that’s just reckless. It may be quote unquote fun, but Lord, diving off the roof is, my goodness.

Galyna Parker (11:55)
Yeah, I had people asking me, so in South Florida we have a lot of wildlife. It’s a outdoor house. I mean outdoor pool and big backyard. So I had people asking me whether I can remove all the lizards and iguanas of the property before they come and and stay there. Yeah. So I had to politely explain, you know, that’s unfortunate not possible for me to remove the wildlife and many other different things, but this is just one of them.

Quentin Edmonds (12:22)
I understand absolutely. So what’s what’s next for you? What’s next for you in business? What are you looking to solve at scale next?

Galyna Parker (13:11)
I am curious. Well, first of all, I’m gonna be working on my realtor license. Managing real estate properties. Somehow I am not a realtor. So I’m thinking that could be a good knowledge to have, good skill. And with that I hope to learn many other different things about real estate. I’m curious about land.

I’m curious about auctions, how auctions work and this type of stuff, you know, foreclosure houses and stuff. Many other I think there is many other things that I don’t even know about yet in real estate. And also possibly looking for investors like if I I found a property that is worth investing into flipping or maybe f holding and selling later.

I would be interested in finding people who could invest with me in this property. So many different things.

Quentin Edmonds (14:12)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Now listen, all of us, we have our unique perspective when it comes to relationship in business and in real estate. So I always like to ask our guests their unique perspective. So what is your unique perspective on building relationships within business? And are there relationships that have helped you get to where you are when it comes to business and real estate?

Galyna Parker (14:36)
Well honestly a lot of stuff I had to figure out by myself.

It so relationships. So it’s basically the bottom line about relationships that everything is built in relationships. So before you go and ask someone for money to invest with you, they have to trust you. And that’s not easy, not because you’re not a a person of integrity, but just because a lot of money involved and economy is really bad. People are very reserved with their money.

And they have different opinion about something may compare to you. So and right now people like I had this conversation with my friend and he said, Well, I don’t think it’s a good idea to invest in real estate right now because it’s gonna go even further, you know. So that’s it’s kinda very hard to find people have the same vision as you are and the trust and the vision. Yeah. And that takes time and I guess sometimes luck.

Quentin Edmonds (15:35)
Yeah. Yeah. So my running definition of luck is when preparation meets opportunity. So you’re right, there’s a there’s all of us gotta get lucky at some point, but then there’s also that being prep prepared that when that opportunity comes, we’re ready to go. And so you’re right, luck is definitely a part of what we do and a part of how you know we are successful. And so Miss Galyna, I I appreciate I appreciate your comment the conversation. Is there anything that I have not brought up that you would like to talk about?

Like maybe you come you came in with something on your mind that you wanted our audience to know. If there’s something like that, I just want to create space so that you can land that message.

Galyna Parker (16:11)
I guess I just wanted to share a tip for someone who wants to start in real estate, doesn’t want doesn’t have a lot of money, however, is willing to do some crave stuff. I would suggest to someone like that look into what it’s called house hacking. Yeah. Is basically when you buy a multi-unit property, you live in one part and you rent another.

And I think this is the easiest, although not the most glamorous way to for anyone to start in real estate.

Because a lot of people they are talking about building their real estate or even like having something of their own as opposed to renting. However, they decide for years they’re gonna rent, you know, that beautiful condo on the beach and pay a few thousand dollars a month. I think if people are willing to lower their standards a little bit for the sake of the future.

they could use this creative techniques, maybe not live in such a nice house for a few years, however, building your your portfolio, building your assets in other way.

Quentin Edmonds (17:15)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, listen again, I appreciate this conversation. If someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you, man?

Galyna Parker (17:27)
I happen to also have a podcast for I interview interested entrepreneurs, not not real estate necessarily, but in different kind of different kind of entrepreneurs. And you can find it at daremastery.com but the easiest way to contact me would be through Instagram, which is @daremastery. D A R E Mastery and

People can send me a message and ask any questions they have about real estate or whatnot. I’m always open. My favorite topic to talk about is business. Sometimes it’s very hard to have conversations for me with regular people who are not in into business. So if you have something to talk to me about business, reach out to me. I’m very open.

Quentin Edmonds (18:10)
Yeah, yeah. Well listen, I want to say thank you again. Let me say three things to you. So thank you for your time, because like I said, time is our most precious commodity. So thank you for your time. Secondly, thank you for your story. Thank you for coming and planting seeds about your experience and your journey. And I believe seeds have a way they can take root at any given time. So thank you for for sprinkling some real seeds so people can grow, if not now, then later. And I just wanna thank you for your mindset. Thank you for the way you think, the way you process business and bring

bringing that mindset to this platform. I greatly appreciate you coming on today.

Galyna Parker (18:43)
Thank you so much for having me.

Quentin Edmonds (18:45)
Absolutely.

So listen, y’all heard Miss Galyna. Please get in contact with her. Please check out Dare Mastery. All the information that she gave, it is in the show notes. But definitely make sure you’re subscribed here because I promise you we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people, just like Miss Galyna. So thank you so much for being here and everyone else. Y’all have a fantastic day.