Latest / Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights / How This Nurse Manages 20 Rentals While Still Working

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How This Nurse Manages 20 Rentals While Still Working · Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights

0:00
Welcome to the Host Planet Playbook, your go to guide for
0:03
mastering short term rentals. In this special series, we're
0:07
sitting down with 30 of the world's top property managers to
0:11
uncover what really drives success in the vacation rental
0:15
industry. You'll hear their stories, learn
0:17
the key lessons they've picked up along the way, and discover
0:20
the game changing tech they use to deliver 5 star guest
0:24
experiences. If you're serious about growing
0:27
your STR business, you're in the right place.
0:31
We've also developed an ebook featuring the stories of every
0:34
manager in this series and you can download it for free.
0:38
It's a house planet dot club. To find out more, in today's
0:42
episode we're chatting to Jeremy Rosen from San Antonio in Texas.
0:46
Jeremy's a full time nurse who also manages 20 properties.
0:50
Stand by for a deep dive into building a great team, robust
0:54
processors and always going the extra mile to achieve that all
0:58
important five star review. This special series is brought
1:06
to you by House Planets and Hospitable, the smart AI powered
1:10
property management software trusted by hosts worldwide.
1:14
With Hospitable, you can automate guest messaging, sync
1:18
calendars across platforms and manage your rentals with ease,
1:22
all from one powerful, easy to use platform.
1:25
If you're keen to run your short term rental on autopilot, try
1:29
Hospitable today. Visit hospitable.com/host Planet
1:34
to see how the platform can save you time, reduce stress, and
1:37
maximize your earnings. Jeremy, thank you for being part
1:41
of the Host Planet Playbook. Let's start with you.
1:44
Where are you located and how many rentals do you manage?
1:48
Yeah, great. James, thanks for for having me
1:50
on the on the podcast. I'm here in San Antonio, TX,
1:54
bright and sunny right now. I'm currently managing about 20
1:58
properties here in the downtown San Antonio area.
2:01
So tell us, how did you get started in short term rentals?
2:05
Yeah. So a little back story about me.
2:08
I'm still a full time nurse. I work in the Veterans
2:11
Administration still. And right around the turn of the
2:15
pandemic, that was obviously a difficult time to be working in
2:19
healthcare. It was not fun, to say the
2:22
least. And I'd already been thinking,
2:24
you know, just with financial management and, and everything
2:27
of ways to kind of improve and make more money and have some
2:32
different forms of, of income. And real estate was always
2:35
something you hear about, You know, all the millionaires and
2:37
billionaires, they're all invested in real estate.
2:40
So figured out, you know, there's got to be a way for me
2:43
to do something with this too and get into this game as well.
2:46
So joined a couple masterminds, was mentored by some great
2:51
people, and ultimately decided that purchasing real estate
2:55
wasn't in the cards for me at that moment.
2:58
Just purchased my personal home. But what could I do, you know,
3:02
And I being in healthcare, it's kind of hospitality, except your
3:06
guests are sick and they're patients.
3:09
So a lot of transferable skills there.
3:11
My mentor kind of urged me to go into short term rentals and kind
3:15
of manage that. So that's kind of where things
3:17
got started. Started managing a property for
3:21
my mentor just to kind of get the reps and everything.
3:24
And, and that's kind of how I got into the game and realized
3:27
that I loved it, enjoyed getting the five star reviews and, and,
3:31
and hearing how much fun everyone's having at our
3:33
properties. Amazing.
3:35
So how do you balance the two? How do you balance nursing and
3:39
hosting? Yeah, You know, some people will
3:41
say that there really is no balance, but I've worked really
3:44
hard to create a balance. I've got my family, I've got a
3:47
son. You know, we, I didn't want this
3:50
to become something that was going to, you know, take up all
3:53
of my time. So really focused on when the
3:55
time was right, building a team. You know, now I'm up to two full
4:00
time local assistants that are doing pretty much 95% of the
4:06
day-to-day boots on the ground type of things.
4:09
You know, I joked that there's there's still one property that
4:11
I've never actually visited and it's very close to my house.
4:15
I just don't need to be the one visiting.
4:17
And then I do have two virtual assistants as well.
4:20
So I've worked really hard to make it so that problems that
4:25
only I can solve are what come to me and that I've empowered my
4:29
team and trained my team to kind of take on all the other
4:32
day-to-day things that that they can can do for me.
4:36
Just because I knew that it wasn't going to be sustainable
4:39
for me to be a one man show. There's inevitably going to be
4:43
something that I couldn't do because I was at the hospital.
4:45
So needed to have some people that could do that for me.
4:48
Talk to us about scaling. How did you grow so quickly to
4:52
20 properties? Yeah, I was really stuck at 4
4:57
properties for the longest time. It was only after I put some
5:04
pieces together that I had worked on separately that things
5:08
started to really blow up. Being a full time nurse, having
5:12
a family, I really haven't done a lot of outbound to go after
5:18
certain properties. But a couple years ago I joined
5:22
the short term Rental secrets mastermind, Mike Shogren's
5:25
mastermind, and it really helped me see all the different pieces
5:30
that I had already. You know, I had a website, I
5:33
had, you know, systems in some properties, but I didn't have
5:38
kind of the glue that put it all together.
5:40
So really quickly I created a Google My Business page, linked
5:45
it up to my website and started getting lots of organic leads.
5:49
Really spent a lot of time working on getting some good
5:52
five star reviews on my Google page.
5:55
And that ultimately I believe is what really kind of got people
5:58
to see me and did that. But of course, doing great
6:02
service for my clients has really helped because they've
6:05
referred 3 or 4 different properties to me.
6:08
And obviously providing value to the community with Facebook
6:12
groups and what not has really been great too because people
6:15
have been referring other people to me.
6:17
Like when they've decided to close shop, they're like, well
6:20
here's a great operator that you should go with.
6:22
So you know, being seen and being known as a expert in the
6:27
field locally has really been helpful.
6:29
But also being able to be seen with Google and organic search
6:34
has really been helpful too. I'm sure you'll be an
6:38
inspiration to so many people out there who have got full time
6:41
jobs but want to get involved in hosting.
6:43
So if somebody comes to you and says, Jeremy, I basically want
6:47
to do what you're doing, what would your tips be to them?
6:51
Yeah, I mean, honestly, it's obviously about learning, just
6:56
learning everything you can at first.
6:58
But really just, you know, I started off to be honest with
7:01
arbitrage. So I was trying to find a way to
7:04
get, you know, the reps in and to show that I could do this to
7:09
have some, you know, proof of concept for when I went after
7:12
other people. So I did go with arbitrage.
7:15
It's obviously not the best for the average person.
7:19
You really have to know your numbers.
7:21
You really have to know, you know, the market and and not
7:24
just take anything that comes your way.
7:26
So you really have to be knowledgeable about that.
7:28
But you know, that's what I did. I did a great job.
7:31
You know, I had a three-year lease.
7:33
I just finished it up and it really I was able to do it my
7:37
way in the right way so I could show future clients like this is
7:42
what it takes to be successful. You have to have this quality of
7:45
design, furnishing, things like that, you know, and have a
7:48
proven concept of just what I was able to do.
7:52
Other than that, you know, I recommend, you know, meeting a
7:54
mentor, finding someone that can kind of teach you the ropes,
7:58
teach you the day-to-day, kind of help you stumble a little bit
8:01
faster, you know, fail forward so that you can, you know, make
8:05
fewer mistakes because you've learned kind of from them.
8:07
So I've been blessed that I had, you know, those opportunities
8:10
and some great mentors that that saw potential in me without
8:14
having any experience and took me on.
8:17
And they're still great friends and I'm in business with, I'm
8:20
still kind of working on some things in.
8:22
So you find the right people and put those in your circle and
8:26
it'll it'll bear fruit for your whole career.
8:29
Fantastic advice, yeah. So tell us about San Antonio in
8:33
Texas. What are the unique challenges
8:35
in your market? San Antonio is a great market,
8:39
much like most large cities. It's the 7th largest city in the
8:43
country. So much like most large cities,
8:46
there's a lot of competition. People see that, you know, a big
8:50
city must be, you know, a great place to invest, but you have to
8:54
still do a great job. You know, I tell, I tell my
8:57
clients, you know that come to me, you know, that aren't
9:00
interested in doing too much to their home.
9:02
I'm like, well, we're not going to be a fit because the masses
9:06
in San Antonio are average and all they can compete on is
9:10
price. So it's a race to the bottom.
9:12
So, you know, you really have to know the market here is pretty
9:17
mature as far as a vacation market goes.
9:20
I personally wouldn't view San Antonio as a vacation market,
9:23
but there are plenty of people that do.
9:26
We obviously have the Alamo, we have lots of history, we have
9:30
SeaWorld, Six Flags, like a lot of different reasons that people
9:33
would come, but also huge Convention Center people come
9:36
for conventions all over the country.
9:40
So there's a lot to come to San Antonio for and it's been a
9:43
great market and we've been doing really, really well,
9:46
especially having higher end properties that people want to
9:49
spend a little bit more money for and you get those higher
9:53
quality guests that way as well. So everything's been working out
9:57
well here. I mean, honestly, the biggest
10:00
things here are much, you know, not unlike a lot of other
10:04
places, there's pool issues. You got to keep the pools clean.
10:07
You know, there's air conditioning issues.
10:09
If the air conditioning goes out in San Antonio, it's a problem.
10:12
So, you know, we really do a lot to see problems and think about
10:18
what problems could pop up ahead of time so that we're prepared
10:21
for those. So we do regular maintenance on
10:24
the HVAC's. We have our pool people come and
10:27
they're available pretty much if we need them, You know, around
10:31
the clock if we have a background thing though.
10:34
So how does your hosting style help you stand out?
10:38
What are your kind of like unique offering to your clients?
10:43
Yeah, we really put a lot of emphasis on automation.
10:48
So one of the most important things that we've done recently
10:52
is we've integrated with a system called Happy Guest.
10:56
One of the things that most owners are going to be worried
11:00
about our parties damage, you know, maintenance, things like
11:04
that. So one of the things that we
11:07
really wanted to focus on was making sure that we could show
11:09
them that we were taking all of those things seriously.
11:12
Happy Guest, it's a free tool for hosts.
11:16
It allows us to collect IDs, have a damage waiver paid for
11:23
either with a damage waiver that they guest purchases or a
11:26
security deposit or a credit card hold, excuse me, and a
11:30
signed rental agreement. We have all those things.
11:32
A guest doesn't even get the checking instructions until
11:36
those things have been satisfied.
11:38
So we've implemented that and it's gone really, really well
11:41
for us because the owners know that we have all these things,
11:46
we're protected in the case of damage.
11:48
We don't have to rely on Airbnb air cover and we have, you know,
11:53
a great way to get things replaced and not have it come
11:57
out of the owner's pocket. So that's one of the things that
12:00
we really focus on is just making sure that the owner knows
12:03
that we take their home and owning it as seriously as they
12:06
do, but also just focusing on the pricing strategy, because a
12:12
good pricing strategy will ensure that you're getting
12:15
higher quality guests. It's it's counterintuitive, but
12:19
it seems to me that the better of a price that somebody gets,
12:23
the more expectations they have. So if they paid and got, you
12:27
know, dirt cheap rental, they generally a little bit more
12:32
price conscious. And so if one thing goes wrong,
12:35
it's like this, this was a terrible stay and it wasn't
12:37
worth anything. Whereas people that can afford a
12:40
little bit more, they're a little bit more able to let
12:43
things slide if, if a small minor thing goes wrong.
12:45
As long as, and this is one of the things that we're really
12:48
good at, we provide from the time the guest checks in
12:53
excellent support. You know, we, it's not like OOP
12:56
got your money. Sorry about it.
12:58
We go above and beyond. That's one of our core values is
13:01
a plus effort. If a guest has any issue, it's
13:05
like the world is falling apart to us.
13:07
Like we want to take care of it. We want them to know that we're
13:10
willing to bend over backwards to take care of it even for the
13:13
slightest thing, you know, and a lot of times we'll be able to
13:17
save a bad review and still get a five star review because we
13:20
did that. One example is we recently had
13:24
to move a guest because suddenly there was a leak in the ceiling.
13:27
Like we were awake. They called us in the middle of
13:30
the night, we took care of it. We moved them to a new property
13:33
and they were ecstatic. I mean, they got a little bit of
13:35
an upgrade as well, but glowing 5 star review from them and for
13:40
my Google page as well, just because they knew that we cared
13:44
and it wasn't just going to, you know, put them out to dry at
13:46
that point. Yeah, one of our guests recently
13:49
said never waste a good crisis and I think this is a good
13:52
example in the short term rental world you can, you can really
13:55
turn things around and and secure that that glowing review
13:58
and repeat Booker. So you mentioned the the amazing
14:02
service there. How else do you deliver a
14:06
outstanding guest experience? So we try to learn a little bit
14:11
about what the guests are coming for.
14:14
Back before Abraham B changed their their system, we used to
14:18
have a Google form that we would have guests fill out.
14:21
And one of the questions was what are you coming for?
14:24
So you know, if we ever hear that someone's coming for
14:27
something, especially here in San Antonio, it's it's military
14:30
city, USA. We have multiple military bases
14:33
and every week there's a graduation at one of the bases
14:36
for the Air Force. So we have a few properties that
14:39
we know people generally you're coming for because they're
14:41
midweek stays. So we, we tailor our messaging.
14:45
We even provide a, a document that gives them some insider
14:49
knowledge about how to make the most of their experience there,
14:53
because getting onto a base is difficult and tedious and
14:57
knowing which gate to go through and where to be and where to
14:59
sit. So guests really love that we
15:01
can give them that insider knowledge because one of my
15:04
staff members is, is former Air Force.
15:07
But if we ever hear of another reason, you know, that people
15:09
are coming for, we try to really tailor the messaging to that and
15:13
it shows that we care and that we're actually paying attention.
15:16
On extreme cases, we'll go ahead and actually leave a gift for
15:19
them. Generally, data shows that that
15:22
doesn't really improve your chances of getting a five star
15:24
review. But in some cases, you know, we
15:26
want to go above and beyond for for special occasions.
15:30
You mentioned there like a lot of your processes are very
15:32
automated and you've obviously got the staff who are
15:35
delivering, you know, most of the interaction with guests and
15:39
the virtual assistants and stuff.
15:40
How did you go about training your staff and making sure that
15:44
everybody's aligned in the way that you want to do business?
15:48
Yeah, that was a big fear of mine.
15:50
You know when when you're used to doing it your way and, and
15:54
you know how you want it done, It's, it's, it's a leap of faith
15:59
when you're hiring somebody to do that.
16:01
But ultimately it's about showing them the cadence of our
16:06
messages and explaining to them that the most important thing is
16:11
the guest experience and how important their job is to
16:15
accomplishing that. It's important even though, you
16:20
know, these people are in the Philippines, that they know that
16:23
they're important to me here in Texas, They're important to our
16:26
guests here in Texas and that they're not just some faceless
16:30
person that I'm paying every two weeks.
16:32
You know what I mean? Like they're, they're part of
16:34
the team just like if they live next door, you know, and came
16:37
into an office to see me. So, you know, making sure that
16:40
they understand what the end goal is has been really
16:43
important to me. One of the things I obsess over
16:46
is my staff's experience working with me, you know, working with
16:52
us, you know, the guest experience, my owner's
16:54
experience and my staff's experience.
16:56
Those are the three things that I as the owner obsessed over
16:59
because those are the things that I feel like are a high
17:02
level that I can really handle and, and take care of for my for
17:06
my people. So, you know, ultimately, if
17:08
they believe and they believe in our core values and they focus
17:11
on our core values with everything that they do,
17:14
ultimately that's going to going to lead to, you know, a great
17:17
experience for our guests. And if not, then there's a
17:20
system or a process that we can look at and change.
17:23
You know, another one of our core values is correct the
17:26
process, not the person, you know, it's not the person's
17:28
fault. There's some system or process
17:30
that we can improve to fix it and make it better and, and make
17:34
it work out, you know, for our, for our guests.
17:36
So ultimately making sure that they understand the goal and
17:40
that they're a very integral part of it.
17:43
And just making sure that they understand that or make sure
17:46
that I know that 80% done like me is better than like 100% me
17:53
going crazy and and feeling like I'm failing everything I.
17:56
Think that's a brilliant approach?
17:59
What's your biggest lesson learned since becoming a
18:02
property manager? I think quickly it was the, the
18:07
concept of who, not how, knowing that I'm only one person and I'm
18:13
trying to grow a business and quickly when it got, you know,
18:17
when I went from 4:00 to I think 8 or 9 almost overnight, it
18:22
quickly was a who not how thing because I couldn't do it on my
18:26
own. I couldn't on board these
18:27
properties. There's only so many websites
18:31
I'm allowed to visit at work because it's a government
18:33
facility. So, I mean, there's only so many
18:36
things you can do from your phone.
18:37
So, you know, it quickly became a who, not how, who can I use
18:42
here locally to help get these processes.
18:45
And that then led to other me developing other systems.
18:49
So actually building out an onboarding process that, you
18:53
know, my local team can take on and know the steps.
18:57
OK, we're we've got the signed contract.
18:59
What's next, you know, and they can follow that process.
19:02
So ultimately, who, not how, was one of the most important things
19:06
I learned. Because if you want to go far,
19:08
you can't do it alone. What do you love most about your
19:12
work? You know, it still is the guest
19:16
experience. You know, I've talked to a lot
19:18
of hosts that they quickly become kind of disenchanted with
19:22
the guest side of things and they just want to grow the
19:24
business. But I still really love, you
19:26
know, hearing that they're having a great experience and I
19:29
get really jazzed up when we 6A problem for a guest and get that
19:34
five star review because you're you're nervous.
19:36
Like, did we do it all right? Did we did we solve their
19:39
problem? You know, to their, you know,
19:41
how much they wanted us to solve it and and what not.
19:43
And ultimately, when we hear how pleased they were with our
19:47
service and our attention to them, it really is is very
19:52
satisfying. But but also hearing the wins
19:54
every week from my team on our weekly call, you know, hearing
19:57
how working for me. Has enabled them to accomplish
20:02
some of their personal goals or accomplish some of their, you
20:05
know, professional goals even because I mean, I don't I don't
20:09
ever want to say we're a family because that's totally a cliche
20:12
and not true. But while they're working for
20:15
me, like they're as close to being family as possible, you
20:18
know, I want to see them succeed personally, professionally, you
20:23
know, we're working and talking about, you know, goals that they
20:25
want to achieve that are even outside of this business that
20:29
potentially I could help them with if it's financially, if
20:32
it's through time, extra time off or whatnot.
20:35
So, you know, I really, you know, put that emphasis on on
20:40
the team and and making sure that, you know, they're happy
20:43
with everything. Fulfilling experience all
20:46
around. OK then Jeremy, we've got a few
20:48
quick fire questions now. So which PMS do you use?
20:53
Hospitable from day one and going forward.
20:56
You've talked actually quite a lot about running your rentals
21:00
on autopilot and I know this is what hospitable focus on, so it
21:03
sounds like they've probably helped you a lot by being a full
21:06
time nurse and still still running the rentals.
21:09
Hospitable has been great. Which dynamic pricing tool do
21:12
you use? I use Price labs and I have a
21:16
dedicated revenue manager who is the nerd and does all that
21:21
because again who not how? I do not have the time for that.
21:25
Which piece of tech couldn't you live without?
21:30
Hospitable. Yeah, it's the engine.
21:33
Allowing pets yes or no? It really is an owner designated
21:40
thing. If they don't want it, I'm not
21:42
going to push it. But there are some cases where
21:45
the revenue speaks for itself and I'm able to to share that
21:48
with them and they can make a decision based on that.
21:51
Ideally a hot tub, Yes or no? Yes, yes, you can have a hot tub
21:58
in San Antonio. It doesn't really move the
22:00
needle as much as having a pool, also because it is hot.
22:04
But a hot tub is still a nice amenity that people like.
22:07
Ideally from you a self check in or a personal welcome.
22:12
Oh, self check in. Yeah, self check in.
22:15
A telephone call or an AI response?
22:21
I'm working on AI response. I've been diving into that a
22:25
lot, but for the sake of quick fire I'll say AI because I don't
22:28
want to be getting the phone calls and I'm working on getting
22:30
my team taking phone calls. And your most memorable hosting
22:35
moment? The most memorable hosting
22:39
moment. You know, honestly, I'll take it
22:45
back to the very beginning. It's a series of things that
22:50
kind of came together to get me to where I am today.
22:55
The first being hearing a podcast with the person who
22:58
became my mentor from the very beginning and just picking up
23:01
the phone and calling him and just telling him what I want to
23:05
do and how I felt like we were aligned and how I felt like he
23:08
could help me. So ultimately it was that and
23:12
then him taking me on and then me just going and believing in
23:17
myself and going forward and, and, and making things happen
23:20
for myself. So, you know, I think going back
23:24
to the beginning and the realization that I could do this
23:26
and and it coming together now has really been great.
23:30
Taking that first step, making that phone call and getting on
23:33
with it. Shout out then.
23:35
Is there an individual in the STR industry who's helped you
23:38
that you'd like to give a shout out to?
23:40
Yeah, first and foremost, Lucas Piper, my mentor from the
23:44
beginning, he does has a great shop up in Austin, TX and does
23:47
great here in San Antonio as well.
23:49
But also Mike Shogren, his mastermind, the short term
23:52
Rental Secrets mastermind has been super important to getting
23:55
me to where I am today and just learning the things I didn't
23:58
know. So shout out to them.
24:01
Awesome shout outs there. Questions finished then.
24:04
Ultimate goal for your STR business.
24:07
Yeah, ultimate goal is to keep growing, keep growing into large
24:11
homes, pools and and experiential amenities.
24:15
Here in San Antonio. It's very much so driven by
24:19
those experiential amenities. We have some properties that
24:22
have bowling alleys, putt putt and of course we can charge more
24:25
for those which then brings more business into the the company as
24:29
well. So growing, growing with the
24:31
right properties, growing with the right owners as well,
24:35
because not every owner is a fit and also continuing to provide
24:38
value to the community because you know, ultimately you can
24:42
only go so far with the knowledge you're able to get.
24:45
But if someone is helping you along answering simple questions
24:48
or deeper questions, you're, you're able to kind of grow and
24:53
do better in your own business, which helps the the overall
24:56
market here in San Antonio. So continuing to provide value
25:00
and do what I can to help. Superb.
25:03
Jeremy, thank you so much for sharing your story and for being
25:06
part of the Host Planet Playbook.
25:09
Absolutely. Thanks, James.
25:10
Appreciate it. All right, that's it for today's
25:11
episode. My thanks to Jeremy for sharing
25:14
his journey and for being part of the host Planet playbook.
25:18
Remember, this series is brought to you in partnership with
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Hospitable, the all in one property management software
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designed to save you time and help your business thrive.
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Head to hospitable.com/host Planet to claim your offer and
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start running your rentals on autopilot.
26:00
For more free education for vacation rental house, head to
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House Planet dot Club where you can sign up for our newsletter,
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listen to our podcasts, and download our suite of ebooks.
26:10
Until next time, happy hosting.