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Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Micah Johnson interviews Chris from Country Glamping, who shares insights into the growing niche of glamping and eco-luxury short-term rentals. Chris discusses the increasing demand for smaller, more sustainable vacation options, the impact of the pandemic on the industry, and the potential for passive income through glamping. He explains the customer demographics, the importance of booking companies, and how to get started in the glamping business, emphasizing the financial benefits and tax advantages. Chris also highlights the future trends in glamping and how Country Glamping is positioned to lead in this market.
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Chris Mitic (00:00)
So let’s just say, you know, Chris and his wife goes to country glamping and we say, yeah, you know what? We like that five acres. We like it on Tennessee river. And we want to be able to get a cabin for us and the 13 grandchildren we have. And we want to be able to spend the weekends and stuff, but we only spending one or two months out of the year. What do we do with the other 11, 10 months out of the year? Well, we booked that out.We generate revenue. Now country glamping comes in
you’re booking out at 85 to 90 percent and now the revenue goes through the roof. Do the math. Then what happens in 24 to 36 to 48 months? All that is paid off. Now you own a dynamo. You own passive income that makes you money that’s never heard of in a real estate business.
Micah Johnson (02:26)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host, Micah Johnson. And today I am joined by a unique expert in my opinion. His name is Chris with Country Glamping and he is in a unique niche of glamping, eco luxury, short-term rental, vacation and island business. Chris, welcome in man. It’s great to have you.Chris Mitic (02:46)
How you doing, buddy?Micah Johnson (02:47)
I’m doing well, how’s it going today?Chris Mitic (02:48)
we’re busy. We’re slammed.Micah Johnson (02:50)
Tell me about it. What’s going on in your world? Tell me what’s happening.Chris Mitic (02:53)
So people are actually trying to go smaller. They got some land, they need some land. Everybody wants to own or finance land. Everybody wants to build their cabin, their getaway, their retreat. That second home for you and your girlfriend or for you and your wife and maybe 10, 20 kids or whatever it is. You all want to go down to the woods. You want to be able to go ahead and glamp.You want to be able to go ahead and stay in tents or tiny homes or cabins or dome homes or a frames container homes. mean, we got 50 different structures. We can build on your property or we can build on our property for you. But the bottom line is everybody wants to glamp. Everybody wants that stars, the s’mores, ⁓ the fire pit.
Okay. The jacuzzi out on the deck, you know, the howling coyotes. Yeah. You want all the amenities to go with your structure. You want to be able to sit there and go fishing, hunting, boating, skiing. You want to do all these things and you want to do them now, but you only want to use what you want to use for a limited time. That Friday, Saturday, Sunday weekend. That’s when you go ahead and get on a booking site.
Micah Johnson (03:47)
Yeah, that postcard.Chris Mitic (04:10)
in your book out country glamping.Micah Johnson (04:12)
Interesting. Okay, so let’s dig in there. Country glamping. You’re saying that people are wanting to go smaller and they’re wanting to use this, but there’s more that they can do with the land than just use it themselves, correct? Dig in there.Chris Mitic (04:23)
Yeah. So, yeah.So let’s just say, you know, Chris and his wife goes to country glamping and we say, yeah, you know what? We like that five acres. We like it on Tennessee river. And we want to be able to get a cabin for us and the 13 grandchildren we have. And we want to be able to spend the weekends and stuff, but we only spending one or two months out of the year. What do we do with the other 11, 10 months out of the year? Well, we booked that out.
We generate revenue. But now you got five acres, you’re only using a half an acre. What do do with the other four and a half acres? Now country glamping comes in and what we do is we start building all those soft and hard structures on that four and a half acres. Usually the norm is 11 to 17 structures per acre. So it means you can put 10, 20, 30 structures on there.
Nicely done with all the amenities and now you’re booking out at 85 to 90 percent and now the revenue goes through the roof. Do the math. Then what happens in 24 to 36 to 48 months? All that is paid off. Now you own a dynamo. You own passive income that makes you money that’s never heard of in a real estate business.
Micah Johnson (06:32)
Well, this, don’t think many people have heard of this niche to begin with in the real estate business. And a lot of people that get in it or actually they own land and don’t even use it for much, most likely have never heard of this. So what really got you into it and has you making it bigger like you’re doing right now?Chris Mitic (06:49)
The same thing. I actually turned around. mean, I’m, you know, 66 year old retired Navy started buying up property when I was young. Got a ton of property all over the United States and ended up finding out that, wait a minute. I got a guy who calls me up and says, Hey, I got two or three acres. I’m making $150,000 a year. How are you doing that? Oh, I’m putting tents on my, I go, what do mean tents? Yeah. I’m putting tents on my property. Thus, hence the word.Glamping glorified camping. I said, well, wait a minute. Yeah, I’ve got three or four acres, but I’m not going to put some tents on there. I want to put some cabinets. I want to put some dome homes. I want to put some a frames. I want to put some container homes on there. But if I do that and I’ve got hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in my property and those structures, but I need, you know, I need services like excavation work.
and easements and landings and utilities and foundation and permitting and all that stuff. So I looked into it. The rest was history, baby. I focused myself a hundred percent on the glamping short-term rental eco-luxury vacay and then the island business. That’s a whole different story all by itself. To own an island and to turn it into eco-luxury where you and your wife
gets jetted, helicoptered, and speedboat right to your own oasis. Not only do you can use it, but now you own it with us and you’re able to go ahead and book that out at 80, 90 % at a thousand to $5,000 a night. Do the math. It’s off the charts. Best investment I’ve ever been into.
Micah Johnson (08:30)
did.blown away by the access that it sounds like you’re able to give. You’re really taking what used to just be sitting there not doing much because folks didn’t know what to do with it. Or even if they, even if they wanted to do it, had no idea where to get started, had no like didn’t even like, it would just be this big problem in their mind. And you’re here saying that we’ve solved this. I got into it, took a look at and said, there’s a real opportunity. So if
Chris Mitic (08:43)
They couldn’t. They can’t.Micah Johnson (08:56)
Who is your normal customer? Do they already own the property? Are they trying to buy the property? Who do you normally work with?Chris Mitic (09:03)
Well, that’s a good question. So we go after and look at more of the qualified. That’s the boomers one and two. That’s that 50 year old and above. They already have the credit. They already have the house. They’re looking for the second home. They already have property or want to look at property. They need someone to take them by the hand and pretty much develop, design, build.and make all those services available to them because who wants to spend a hundred to 200 to $300,000 and not make any money off that? That’s why I got into business because there’s nothing I can spend a half a million to a million dollars in and turn around and make all my money back in 36 to 48 months. That’s unheard of. But the customers
Micah Johnson (09:50)
That isn’t it.Chris Mitic (09:51)
Or the Gen Z, Gen X and half the new millennium, they’re like, Hey, you know what? Me and my boys, we’re going fishing. We’re going hunting. We’re going skiing. We’re going, we’re doing all these amenities over at country glamping site or at Tennessee river or somebody’s property that we booked out because there are a ton of booking companies. They do millions upon millions of bookings already in the industry.but they’re now pivoting over to this business. And him and his dude sit there and say, hey man, let’s get this dome home and we’ll have the s’mores and the fire pit and the four wheeler and the boats and the girls and all that partying we want to do for Friday starting Sunday. You can’t get that downtown. You can’t get that at a beach. You can get that in the glamping short-term rental eco-luxury business, but it’s inexpensive.
Four or five of your dudes share a two or three thousand dollar bill for the weekend and you just partied your ass off.
Micah Johnson (11:28)
It’s, think it’s interesting how you have your, your group that will definitely use it. When did you notice this shift towards this more outdoor experience that people are looking for in that market rising for it?Chris Mitic (11:28)
It’s a bit.Well, you remember when everybody was locked up for two years? Yeah.
Remember the, remember the pandemic that the government lied about, but anyway, so anyway, when we started this eight years ago, we were really looking at just, know, really nice structures out in the woods because there’s nowhere else to build. And then we ended up finding out when everybody was locked down for two years, y’all poured gas on our industry.
And we went, everyone crazy. mean, we had people sitting there and going, while the pandemic was going on, when the pandemic was over with, can you turn around and get me a cab and get me a getaway, get me a bug out, get me a retreat. And I was like, yes, yeah, but we want to make money on it. And then we ended up finding out that it was so much of it that people not only wanted that, but they also, of course, as we’re all humans, we want to make money on our money. And we ended up finding out.
that the baby boomers one and two that age group literally had the wherewithal to make that happen. Well, let’s be honest. I’m 66 years old. I don’t want to be out in a bell tent. Okay. I mean, I want to be in a $500,000 RV or a million dollar boat or something like that. But that Gen Z Gen X new millennium boy, they want to camp. They want to glam. They want to party. They want to do all that stuff.
And that’s where those customers book into the booking industry. By the way, there’s over 648 million bookings going on every year right now. That’s a lot of bookings. Evolve is one of our top bookers. They did 16 million bookings last year and they’re all pivoting over to our industry because they don’t want to do any more multifamily homes and apartments.
Micah Johnson (13:15)
Whoa.Chris Mitic (13:30)
hotel rooms. Everybody in that industry is now going over to the glamping industry. And now everybody wants to book out all the soft and hard structures. The revenue is great. The boomers one and two are investing in it and making their money back very quickly. The Gen Z and Gen X and new and have new millenniums. They’re like, Hey, guess what? If I make six figures, can you can I get involved? So now we’re turning that newer generationinto that passive income generation that we are actually financing, which we’ll get to here in a minute. And what ends up happening is everybody gets to share into that property and make that traction and generate that passive income. It’s also very nice to go ahead. We call, we literally go ahead and make a check every single month called mailbox money.
So that stuff happens for everybody, especially when you’re the glamping business.
Micah Johnson (14:22)
Heck yeah. Everybody loves that mailbox button.Okay, so you have somebody that wants to either get into it or they have that property. Where do they start? Like what is that process for them to work with you? How do they, if they’re listening to this and they’re thinking, I either want to be a part of that or I may have some property, like what do they need to think about? What’s going to be happening and they need to expect?
Chris Mitic (15:27)
Yeah. Well, what I tell people is first do your homework. Okay. Don’t trust in what we’re saying. You have to be really, really on the ball and understand what we’re trying to do. I would tell people, people that own property, you can go the agriculture way. You can go the growing way. You can go the field way. You can go into just leaving it the way it is, glamping and building assets on your property.just makes you worth more money. That’s all it does. Okay. Number two, be it that property is just an actual piece of land. Let’s say five acres and it’s all woods. You know, you need roads, easements, landings, utilities. You can call up your own area and ask them about it. You can try to find guys to do that for you, which they’re not going to know what to do because they’re not in that business. Country glamping does all that. And then number three,
You’re like the wife wants a dome. The man in the house wants a cabin. The kids, they want little tents they can go party in, okay, away from the… So everybody wants their own little structure. And that’s where Country Glamping sits down and finds out all the stuff that you need. We lay all that out in an estimate. We look at your property. We get involved with you. And then on top of that, it’s all about the money.
What ends up happening is everybody’s like, well, wait a minute. I don’t have, right. We know you don’t have all the money for that because it is an expensive adventure, but at the same time, it makes you a lot of money back. now country glamping literally owner finances the project or we came up with zero down and a hundred percent financing. And that’s all you have to do is let us do our job.
And we’ll be more than happy to build you passive income that will pay itself off that property, that project. I mean, all the way down to the booking down to clean the place after it gets booked out down to maintenance. We do everything inclusive. Okay. And in return a zero down a hundred percent financing and we’ll take care of everything. So you can have that all paid off in 36 to 48 months.
Micah Johnson (17:44)
That’s fascinating because what you touched on is it sounds like there’s multiple sides to this coin. It’s not just get your property ready. There’s this other side too of the business of actually getting it booked and turning it over and all these things. Dig into that for me a little bit.Chris Mitic (17:58)
Right. So usually what we recommend is someone, let’s just say Chris and Micah turns out and gets five acres. And we turn around and decide we want our own structure on there, but we want now other structures on there. And at the same time, how do we do this business wise? If country glamping is bringing everything to the table, including the funding. Now you’re an LLC.We recommend, and by the way, I’m not an attorney and I’m not going to be a financial advisor for anybody, but we are. And we do recommend, cause we do this for everybody. If you’re going to be in that business, be a business and LLC. Talk to your CPA, talk to your accountant, talk to your attorney. It’s a very good way to start a business. It’s a very good way to have it to where it’s built out for you. You like it, you use it.
We’re able to book it out. do all the services and then return. You’re able to not only make money. Do you know what the benefits in 2025, 2026 and 2027 is in a short-term rental business? It’s a hundred percent tax write-off. It costs you nothing to do this. It’s crazy. That’s why I do it. Every time I build, I write it all off.
Everything from the land, which everybody says, wait a minute, yeah, you can, because of the big, beautiful bill, Donald Trump, now we’re able to 100 % tax write off that land, the infrastructure, the utilities, the foundation, the structures, the napkins, the forks, the plates, the booking, everything. You’re able to tax write that off.
Micah Johnson (19:32)
That’s huge benefit right there. Huge benefit to be able to do that.Chris Mitic (19:35)
I love it myself.mean, I do it all the time. I’m trying to buy up every piece of property and build every single glamping spot I can get my hands on.
Micah Johnson (19:44)
Let me think. What do you?Chris Mitic (19:45)
YouMicah Johnson (19:46)
The key to it all is it running smoothly. What is that for y’all that you found that it seems like you’re passing on to others that just makes that click for you?Chris Mitic (19:54)
Well, what’s really funny is that the industry kind of built itself backwards. You know, the cart in front of the horse versus the horse in front of the cart, the booking business, of course, that Airbnb and, all those booking companies you see that advertised on your streaming TV a hundred times a day. Okay. Booking.com Airbnb and all of them. Well, they were so good at booking out all those multifamily, single family and all that stuff.They’re now pivoting over to our business and they collect the money. They vet the customer. They actually turn around and make sure there’s money for the cleaning fees. They make sure everything is done. And when that comes to us, we already have the money for the cleaning company, the maintenance company. It’s our business. And of course you can check with your tax accountant. If you put a hundred hours or more into your facility in a year,
You get all the tax credits. A hundred hours a year? That ain’t nothing. That’s like 10 hours a week, if you’re lucky. Okay. The booking company takes care of the hard spot. Do what?
Micah Johnson (20:57)
That’s like a chore.That’s like a chore. That’s not work. That’s just a chore.
Chris Mitic (21:01)
Yeah, exactly. And you love it. Youlove it because you’re to go to your place that you just had built that looks like the Taj Mahal that you and your wife, wink, wink, can stay in, okay, for the weekend. Your family could stay in. You can go ahead and go to the booking company and say, Hey, this month for the year is all ours. It’s for the family. The rest of the month is to book it out. What about all those other structures we built for you? So the booking company will hand it for you.
Country Glamping will build it for you. Together, we’ll turn around and be able to go ahead and build what you like and what you want, show you the numbers because we have other projects that are already taken off, already being booked, already making money. And you keep on doing that because remember, we’re 1,100 structure short in the industry right now. That means if we stopped everything, didn’t book nothing, which
These projects are being booked one, two, three, six months in advance, especially for the event center, the wedding business, all those other industries are still around the glamping business. A hundred and 10,000 actual structure short.
That means everybody stopped right now. You’d have to go out and find 110,000 bookings. Okay. Structures to handle those bookings and evolved a 16 million. There’s not enough structures. There’s not enough property. There’s not enough equipment and supplies to do all that for everybody. So as we build and as we book, we build, we advertise, we educate, and we show people what they can do.
on either end.
Micah Johnson (22:42)
powerful. Now, how long you think this trend is going to last?Chris Mitic (22:45)
Um, we’ve been in it for two years. There’s a company by the name of Picasso. They’ve been in it for two years. They’re on the NASDAQ. They’re in the vacation home business. They’re evaluated at $1.7 trillion. So I’d say, um, there’s a lot of room. Okay. I say over the next 10, 15 years. Okay. And now country glamping is bringing in AI.Micah Johnson (23:03)
Yeah.Chris Mitic (23:09)
Can you imagine going on an actual booking site and you’re not talking to Chris and you’re not talking to Micah and you’re not talking to a human and that AI does everything absolutely flawlessly in 140 different languages. Now you can customer service everybody.Micah Johnson (23:27)
So that’s bigger than a trend in my opinion. That has some sticking power.Chris Mitic (23:29)
yeah, yeah, this is this. Yeah, this ain’t going anywhere.Yeah. A million, what? Million, million, one million, 125,000 houses short in America with the homeless and the people out on the streets and everything else living in RVs and campers. And now we’re coming in with smaller structures. I mean, if you don’t realize it, go out to social media, go out to the internet. There is huge communities of tiny homes. There’s huge communities of tents.
There’s huge communities of campers and RVs. The only problem is, is that people are trying to survive. We’re talking about not surviving. We’re talking about making revenue and getting traction and making money off property. And there is tons of land and property out there.
Micah Johnson (24:16)
Man, that’s fascinating stuff. So to tie it up here, if someone is interested in learning more that wants to connect with you to see if they have land or can even talk about helping, y’all helping them buy the land, what’s the best way for them to get ahold of you?Chris Mitic (24:29)
Well, of course we have two websites, countryglampingontheriver.com. That pretty much tells you and shows you videos and pictures. And I even have an avatar on the bottom right hand corner. She’ll answer all your questions. She’s not even a human. She’s AI. She’ll answer any question that you have, give you all the information that you want. Totally transparent. They don’t lie. Okay.Book an appointment for you. You come on down to one of our facilities. Of course, ⁓ in Lubaville, Tennessee, we have 776 acres on the Tennessee River. We’ll put you in a four-wheeler. We’ll drive you around. We’ll show you projects that are started, projects in the middle, projects that are finished. We’ll be able to go ahead and literally take you by the hand and show you the do’s and don’ts of this business.
just by looking at countryglampingontherriver.com, go to the bottom page. Jamie Mayhew, she’s the CEO of the company. We as owners directly deal with every single customer. We do not go ahead and push you onto a secretary or some sales rep. We literally by hand take care of each customer. Now, if you go to countryglampingusa.com, ⁓
That is our development company that shows you structures that shows you actual avatars that will explain every phase to you. Eight different levels, how you get land, why is it coded? Why is it actually got utilities? How country glamming can go ahead and design and make everything for you. And those two sites right there will get you very educated. The best thing that I recommend is on both of those sites.
We actually have a tab on the top of our page. Okay. That actually is called the glamping report. 54 pages of nothing, but every stat, every number, every single analytics of content there is possible to educate you. If you learned and memorized half of that, you’d have a PhD in glamping. Okay.
Yeah, this is not by us. This is by a third party at $1.7 million census report that was built for the industry in 2023. And they have busted and gone beyond in the stratosphere on every number. The report is very strong. We actually recommend that you go ahead and look at that report, dissect that, understand that as much as possible.
Because when you come to us, you need to be as educated as possible. What I can say is this, I tell people, the more educated you are about this industry, the more money you’ll make, the better decision you’ll make, and you’ll be dangerous. Cause that’s what we do. We go ahead and take property, develop it, build glamping, short-term rental, eco luxury, vacation, and then the island business.
Guess what? It’s just the beginning.
Micah Johnson (27:33)
Man, Launchpad. Well, Perfect Chris, well listen, I appreciate your time, your story, your perspective. This is a fascinating niche that I’ve really enjoyed learning more about. And for those of you tuning in, if you’ve got value from this, please hit that subscribe button, follow along. We’ve got more conversations coming up with other operators like Chris and the business who are out there building real businesses in the industry. Thank you so much. We’ll see you on the next episode.
