Transcript
Speaker: Everyone dreams about living an uncommon life, but how we define that dream is very different for each of us. And for most, it's a lifelong pursuit. Welcome to the Uncommon Life Project podcast. We're going to introduce you to people who are living that life or enjoying the journey to get there. We're going to also give you some tools, tricks, and tips for starting or accelerating your own efforts to live an uncommon life.
Speaker: A life worth celebrating and savoring. Please welcome your hosts, Brian Dewhurst and Philip Ramsey.
Speaker: Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Uncommon Life Project. I am Philip Ramsey. And I am Brian Dewhurst. Thanks for tuning in to yet another episode. We are so grateful you are here. Thank you for rating and subscribing to our podcast. You have no idea how much that means to us. We are over. We're on our way to 100 reviews. We are getting 100 reviews whether you like it or not. By Christmas.
Speaker: Let's go. Let's go. So this episode, we've been getting a lot of questions and this is kind of an experiment, this whole episode in that I have Airbnb'd my house. Many of you probably know this. We've probably referenced this in past episodes, but we thought it would be interesting. My wife and I, and I think Brian too, just kind of in the,
Speaker: on the side of like, is this going to work or not? So we are going to talk about my personal experience, Airbnb, my personal home. So very excited to get into this. And as a teaser, you have built a pretty phenomenal ebook that we're going to be giving away for free at the end of the show. So if you want more of the goods, there is more.
Speaker: and hang on for those instructions. Yeah. So that's a good point. And Brian's pushed me really hard to just kind of write some more of our experience out on a piece of paper. And he also has helped with that. So it's kind of like a joint effort, I'd say, and an ebook. Hopefully you find that valuable. And yeah, stay tuned to hear how to get that.
Speaker: So I want to set this up for our listeners. I'm going to be interviewing you predominantly today, and we're going to try to keep this to 25 minutes. So I got to start. Let's jump into it.
Speaker: I'll start the timer. Cause if we don't have the timer, let's be honest. So I'll preface this while you're setting the timer is that you really kind of jumped into this twofold. One, you bought a bigger home. It's a little more expensive and you're interested in, in the idea of some extra income. But I think predominantly it was like we were talking about this with lots of clients and you're just like, I want to do this. Like I want to do something else outside of just our business. I could do this. My wife and I could do this.
Speaker: I wanna try this.
Speaker: historically move an asset that is just on the negative, a liability on their like network statement to an asset. And this was an opportunity to do so. And I was kind of like, okay, let's see what this looks like. And so I think the real premise of this whole thing was my family and I were going to go to Tennessee for a trip. Um, it was my wife and then my three kids, my sister and her husband and their three kids and then my parents. So we had 12 people.
Speaker: and we were looking at hotels and i also looked at airbnbs and there was one specific airbnb that was big enough for us to be there and so i clicked on availability and there was only one week out of the whole year that it was available.
Speaker: And right away, I knew exactly what they were doing. And they were, Airbnb -ing, renting out their primary residence while they were on vacation. Right. And I thought to myself, like, that's brilliant. I didn't even know you could do that. And so that was kind of like the genesis. And I think the seed was planted there of like, oh, that'd be interesting. So after Brian and I kind of talked about it, Brian's like, I don't know why everybody doesn't do this. And then, like you said, we moved into a little bit bigger home.
Speaker: And to me, that was where I wanted to have my differentiating piece. I wanted a little bit bigger house with many places to sleep because then you can host more people. So yeah. So I want to start with kind of like, I wouldn't call it a mistake, but just hindsight. Yeah. And I've heard you say this to lots of clients and I think it's really important when you, if you're going to do this,
Speaker: And it's something that you guys maybe didn't necessarily do on the front end, but you've done since. And so what would be that biggest kind of not mistake, but piece of advice you would say to someone before they start this.
Speaker: Yeah. So you got to kind of know what you want out of this. Um, and for my wife and I, and I think Brian too, it was kind of a big experiment. So we wanted to see how many times we could book this thing out. And also the price that we started with was obviously not the price that we probably should have been at. We probably should have been a little higher, but we were just wanting to prove the concept. Um, so I wish you would have done a little bit more and I would say moving forward, we're going to be very strategic on what we want out of this.
Speaker: Um, but for us, and I think for an experiment, it was super fun to just be like, just keep booking them and see what happens and see how much money we can generate. And I mean, we can even talk about specific numbers at the end of the year, uh, of what kind of our experience has been because there's also some expenses that we've had to incur because of this, just like any business you would. Yeah. So if you're doing this with a spouse or you have kids just again, I think it's super important that you really frame in why are you doing this?
Speaker: how much you want to get out of it, how much time you're willing to displace your family if you're doing your primary residence. And so just getting some of those things squared away on the front end so you don't book 10 things and like, Oh geez, this is brutal. I don't want to do this anymore. Yeah, you're totally right.
Speaker: Yeah. So you mentioned it. Let's go there next. Cause I think that's super important. There is an expense to do this. Absolutely. And it kind of, depending on how you want your home to, you know, show that type of thing and the amenities you want to provide, that's kind of the beauty of Airbnb. I mean, you could do it bare bones and not spend, you know, really any additional money preparing your house for these guests. But you guys did. And I think,
Speaker: the style of your home and what you're trying to capture in terms of people staying at your home on Airbnb, it was worth the investment. Yeah. So my wife, early on, she said, if we're going to do this, and she was very on board with doing it, she said, I want to do it up to the caliper that I want to do it. I don't want to
Speaker: which is what I would want if I was staying. Exactly, which meant it's gonna get a little bit expensive. We're gonna buy all new linens, we're gonna get the nicest hotel towels, or the nicest towels we can get. So I knew right away it was gonna be kind of expensive. But, I mean, as a compromise for my wife, I thought, well, this is her home, and for her to show it the way that she wants to, I'm gonna totally do that. And so we went out, actually, to kind of price these things out,
Speaker: And found that it was gonna be an astronomical amount of money and so right away I was like, okay great I want to do this the way that you want to do it, but I don't want to spend that money yet Like let's just put it on Airbnb. Yeah, and let's see if we get anybody Yeah, exactly, let's throw let's throw a hook in the lake before we do all this. Yeah. Yeah, and I think I think we talked about that too with people is
Speaker: in doing this, this kind of does afford you the ability to buy some of those nicer things that you want in your home because it's like, well, I want a couple of sets of these things. Um, and somebody else is kind of paying for it. Right. Yeah. So let's go to the next, I think the next biggest question we get, uh, whenever we talk about this, especially with your situation is like,
Speaker: Well, what do you do with your stuff? Yeah. Yeah. So we, we kind of clear out closet space for every one of our guests. We make sure that they have their own hangers, I think eight to a closet and our master, we have like 16.
Speaker: But we, we leave all of our stuff predominantly in the closet, except it's, it's, it's more organized, I would say. Yeah. They have their own space. They have their own space. And I think this is, this is interesting because this really will weed out a lot of people. Picture you trying to list your house to sell it. That's how nice we wanted it every time we left.
Speaker: So, if you think about going on a vacation and then you think about also on top of that getting your house to that caliper or that level of clean cleanliness, like that could immediately wipe out a lot of people.
Speaker: Yeah. Because it's a lot of work and time and organization and flipping. We call it flipping. Flipping. Yep. And so each one of the beds has its own like storage sack that we have the... The other sort of bedding.
Speaker: Yeah, like from the sheets to the down comforters to the pillows. Like we don't ever lay on the stuff that our guests lay on. And then all the towels, we don't use any of the towels that has its own storage little sack that we use that in. And we went and splurged and got to the storage unit place or the storage. The container store. Thank you. The container store. And we, yeah.
Speaker: Very well and we bought some some special bags for it so they can be nice and we ended up buying some like scented stuff So when we pull it out of that idea, it is ready to go But to flip it. I mean we're sleeping in at the night before we leave and
Speaker: And so when we leave, I mean, one of the kids will get up, we'll grab that bag, we'll put it in the night before, we'll grab that stuff out of it, we'll put all their stuff. Either my wife will start washing the sheets for them so they'll have it clean when we flip it back. But we do all that and then we put it in the storage sack and then we put it in the basement. And the only places that I would say that we lock in our whole house, this kind of goes back to your previous question, is our office, our home office.
Speaker: And we have a video camera in there just in case that ever happened. Like if they ever try to get in, which no one has ever tried. Uh, and then our storage unit, which has like more of our like safes and stuff like that. So all that is locked. Um, so yeah, like a storage closet. Yep, exactly. But everything else they have access to. And then I think you have a, it's cool. You have like the, uh, electronic door, you know, so each guest gets kind of like a code that they could remember.
Speaker: You don't have to mess with keys. Nope. Yeah. So we have a Yale front door locking system. We have like a echo B thermostat and we have some nest fire detectors. We have a ring doorbell. So it's fairly automated. And that was, I'd say twofold. It was for me for Airbnb, but it was also nice to have this just to use. Yeah.
Speaker: So I think that we definitely went over the top on that stuff, but it's so nice. We had some guests stay over the polar vortex in Iowa. It got down to like negative 60 degrees. It was crazy.
Speaker: They called me and I got an alert on my phone that the furnace couldn't keep up and it was like something was failing Well, what was happening is they were trying to heat up the house But the house just couldn't handle getting Warmer and so it would just stay at I think it was like 70 degrees, which is pretty warm
Speaker: And they wanted it to be 74. Well, the house isn't doing it. And so I got an immediate alert saying something's wrong with the firm or the furnace, but it wasn't wrong. It was just, but anyway, to have that knowledge is very helpful. Yeah. Uh, so one of the things that I think we talk about with Airbnb, especially like doing this is it's just that it's one of the easiest ways to dip your toe into real estate without buying another property, taking a bunch of risk.
Speaker: you're already in your home. So it should be pretty livable the way you want it and comfortable for other people. And it's, it's one of the fastest ways to get additional cashflow. So I want to talk about how, you know, you book, let's just say you book your home Friday, Saturday, Sunday or something three nights. Yeah. You, you know, the person is contacting you directly. You get to say, no, you're not staying at my house or yeah, you can stay at my house, right? Highly recommend doing some research.
Speaker: little Facebook stocking or something. Yeah, it's happened once or twice. So let's say you book it, you're good to go. They book, walk the listener through like when they get there, how and when you get paid. Yeah. All that kind of works. And then how they leave.
Speaker: Yeah, you've touched on a lot of stuff there, but I will say from the risk standpoint, I want to just speak to that because I think a lot of people were like, well, what if you don't book out your house? That was not the risks to me. The risk to me was if I booked it out too much. Because if you think about no one wanted your house, no one, okay, but I'm still going to pay my mortgage next month, just like I was paying at this month.
Speaker: Yeah, so that wasn't the risk. The risk was, what if we keep getting requests, a lot of requests, which happened. Which happened to you, yeah. Yeah, and so in that case, my wife, praise the Lord, she's ruthless this way, kept jacking up our price.
Speaker: and kept making it harder and harder to book it like, oh, you need to stay here three nights and it's $500 a night or whatever it was. But she kind of kept messing with that. So we got the initial influx and then she started just moving up the price of per night. So yeah, so let's walk through somebody books it. We get a request and it's usually three months out. So we have some time and that's what happened to the first time we got a request was, um,
Speaker: We'll call her Janet, let's just say. We got a request from Janet. It was our first request we ever got. We were super excited. It actually worked. The hook in the lake just got a nibble. So we actually approved that. And we'll talk later. I don't think we should have. But we were just so excited that it actually worked. So we approved it. It was in May. We come back. And then the next day, two more requests came. And so we knew the price was a little low.
Speaker: Um, but the biggest thing that happened in that first couple of days was everything was so ethereal in three months from now, but then we got a request for that weekend and everything changed for us. Like my wife kind of just kind of vapor locked as I did too, but she was better to verbalize it. And she was like, I don't know if I want to do this.
Speaker: It's real now. Because if you remember, we haven't bought a thing. She wants to make sure it's like Ritz Carlton. That's probably an exaggeration, but she wants it like El Primo. Yeah. So we go, she kind of like just deer in the headlights like, oh no, like we just basically accepted somebody that's going to be here in three days. And we've never even done this once. And so we had to get the welcome packet that just tells the guests, you know, what they can and can't do.
Speaker: and kind of what you want them to do in the cleaning area. You did the supermarket sweep. Yeah. Not the supermarket, but...
Speaker: Yeah. So then we went straight to Target and just bought as many things as we can. And I think we had three or four carts full of down comforter sheets and all the towels that we possibly could get. And all of them are white, by the way, because my wife wanted all white. And when you're doing hospitality, that's the color you want. Yeah. I think that that initial wave was I'm looking at my spreadsheet. It was $1 ,700. So of towels and initial investment.
Speaker: yep yep and that didn't account like any furniture that we bought at this point it was just like hey let's just get this thing up and going so we did it we flipped the house we get it to like perfect condition we walk out and we close the door and that's a weird feeling like
Speaker: You're driving away and the next thing I remember is getting in a notification and like people are coming into my house with the front door and through the electronic lock and I'm looking at them through our ring doorbell and I mean it's just interesting.
Speaker: It was interesting until the next day and I got the check or it deposited into my bank account. And I think it was like, let's say $800. And I was like, holy cow. Like this is real. This is real. So then we came back and then coming back to your house, you just never know what state it's going to be in. And for us, it was just like we left it. It was immaculate.
Speaker: And I don't know if this might just be my personality, but normally when we go on a little vacation or a weekend getaway, it's just chaotic mess before we leave. And so you might have some towels everywhere. There's dishes everywhere. You just got done with breakfast and you had to just run out. But it wasn't that way. It was like, holy cow, the houses. Did they stay here? Yes. And the only thing we had to do is then just strip off the sheets and wash them, which took some time, and then flip our beds back. And then we had our house back.
Speaker: So right then I thought, man, we've got something here that we can do. Um, and so we just kind of kept going, but I'd say, you know, it's normally they send you an email a day after that your guests have arrived and they tell you that they've sent the money to your bank. Um, which is kind of fun. Yeah. I think of another big question that we get a lot is just like, I think people are kind of like, well, who would even be staying, you know, who would even want your house? And I think this is one where,
Speaker: You know, I worked at a hotel for a couple of years. And so to me, you're running a mini hotel and how much you want to customize it is obviously up to you, but you've got Airbnb marketing it for you around the world. And you've had international guests already in your first year. So, um, so that's real. I mean, just people are coming and going. And, um, so you got to think about it in terms of like, well, what, what's going on in your community. And, uh, there's weddings and funerals and.
Speaker: you know, business conferences. I mean, there's all sorts of things going on and that's why there's hotels. And for the same price that somebody could get a hotel, they could get an entire house. That's valuable to a lot of people, especially, you know, with kids, kind of your situation that you were talking about with your family, three families trying to stay at one place. And it is tough at a hotel when you have multiple families and multiple kids, you know, it's almost like you got to get the obligatory extra room because you wanted to put all the kids in one room.
Speaker: And you have very little space in amenities, truthfully. So I think that's just the big way we kind of answer that. And you're only just trying to get that one family in. Yeah. Trying to book your whole hotel, you just have one thing. And the difference between yours and that hotel is that you can hang out in your PJs in the living room, and that hotel you can't. So you really do have a competitive advantage, I believe, in a house.
Speaker: And just yeah, in the kitchen and all that. And so you have three little kids. How has it been with them? I mean, you have rented your house out several times. And can you talk to the listeners about what it's afforded? I guess you as a parent in terms of them taking responsibility and then also just the adventures you've been able to go on because of this.
Speaker: Yeah, I'd say the adventures are things that I'd probably focus on more than, cause I don't know if they actually love it. Let's just be honest. When you have to take out your kids as Lego table and move it downstairs, you know, it's kind of like, wait, what's going on here? But anyway, they, they embrace it. And we always try to figure out something fun that we're going to do when we have Airbnb guests at our house. So it's not like, Hey, we got to be out of our house. It's Hey, we got to go do, we got to go to the bad lands. We got to go to,
Speaker: mount rushmore this week this weekend and we've only had i'd say two accounts where they stayed over you know five days it's usually over a weekend is primarily what we rent but uh the first i think the second time we rented out there was uh sorry from the uk who said hey we're in for the business trip we need your house for
Speaker: or we'd like to request it for 14 days." Immediately, I was like, there's no way because Brian and I office out of our house. My wife emailed him back so that if my husband can work in his at -home office during the day, you guys can have it. He wrote back, yeah, no problem.
Speaker: I think we got four grand for those two weeks. It was just crazy. That's real money. That's real money. But for the kids, we really have to be intentional about what we do when we do have Airbnb guests.
Speaker: And it's probably super annoying to them, but they've loved and we've never traveled as much as we have this year and just doing fun things like even one time we stayed in Ankeny, which is where I live the town I live in and we just rented a hotel and we swam and they thought it was the best thing in the world so Very cool I'm trying to think what else how much time do we have left? We have four and a half minutes doing good on time. Okay
Speaker: What other... Well, I think what I would say, no one's ever trashed my... Well, let's just go to the nightmare story because I think... Yeah, let's go to the worst case. Let's just do it. So, the first guest that we okayed to stay at our house, they asked if they could have a party there or here. And Erin and I, this is my wife, when we think about a party, we think about how we party, which is having people over and we stay up late and we laugh and we have a good time.
Speaker: And then they leave. This is something completely different. People party, I guess, different than we do. And this one was a 40th birthday party. Party bus. And yeah, they wanted a party bus. And immediately Aaron and I should have said, no, this is not what it's for. Our neighborhood can't take it. But because it was our first one, we were like pretty excited. Like, let's try it.
Speaker: Okay. Fucking go wrong. Yeah. Before that, I think we had like five other Airbnbers that stayed in our house that were amazing. And as this one got closer, we got more and more anxious. Like, dang it, we did a bad thing. And the way that Airbnb kind of rates you is you don't ever want to cancel on a guest, which rightfully so. Like you don't want to do that. You're going to do it.
Speaker: Yeah. And then you really get docked in your ratings. And since my wife and I really didn't know what the future was for this house, we didn't want any bad ratings. So we went along with it. So the party bus and the party is coming.
Speaker: So we clean the whole house and this time normally, let me just say what normal happens is I send a text or an email out to the guests that are going to stay over the weekend or stay at our house and I ask them what their favorite four digit code is. They give it to me and then I put that in the front door code. So that's their key to get in and out.
Speaker: For this example, I just wanted to be here. So I'm never part of, I'm never on the property when they get here. It's their house, you know, enjoy it. But for this one, I was, I'm going to be here. Yeah, I'm going to, yeah, exactly. And there was three ladies that came and you could tell when they got into the house, two things happened. One, I think it was a little bit bigger than they thought. Um, and two, they were Facebook live -ing
Speaker: like instant round instantly so warning signs and so that not to go to too much detail but that morning somebody shows up at a party bus at 10 o 'clock in the morning 10 30 sorry knocks on our door and we're like what's going on like we knew there's a party bus but like that's a big party bus and why are you here at 10 30 in the morning well
Speaker: Something happened and the communication was mixed and they thought it was 10 30 a .m When it actually should have been 10 30 p .m And so we kind of had an indication of what we were dealing with and so flash forward checking in at 3 or something, right? Yeah, so fast forward back to 3 o 'clock. I'm kind of giving them Kind of got some you're privy to some information. They didn't know that you had exactly exactly and so I'm like, how many guests are we thinking here and
Speaker: And they were like, well, probably like 12 to maybe 15. And I'm like, okay, that party bus was for more than that. So like you said, I'm privy to some information that you don't have. Good football team on that bus.
Speaker: Literally a football thing. And so as they're Facebooking and live -ing, I'm realizing like we should have canceled this. We got a problem. So now 10 30 at night, we'll just pretend. And as we're doing this, like my ring doorbell thing is going off like mad. Okay. And I'm counting at this point, at least 25 to 30 people at my house before 10 30.
Speaker: And so the party bus gets there at 1030. They don't leave until 1145, the party bus. And our neighborhood doesn't have the widest streets. So like, I mean, there is a huge neon sign in front of our house. And we've tried to been pretty like low key about this with our neighbors, because like, we don't want to freak them out. And after this, we don't have to. But this point, like something's going on. And Aaron gets a text from one of our neighbors like, hey, are you guys like doing an outreach? Like, what's going on?
Speaker: And so I was like, I got a, I got a head back. Um, and so I ended up going back to my house at 11 45 and telling like, Hey, this has got to stop. Like you gotta leave. This has got to go. And when I said leave, I just meant like, get the party bus out of here. Well, they obeyed and they all got in and the party, the bus driver of the party bus comes out. He's like, this will only take 35 people.
Speaker: And there's at least 37 if not more in there and I thought oh dear. So two people walk out and they're hot and heavy and they get in the car kind of drive off to wherever they're going to the 40th birthday party bash. And then they drive away and I remember thinking like son of a gun. At some point they're coming back to my house.
Speaker: And I was like, oh no. So I called my wife and I was like, listen, we've screwed up. And the last thing I would ever want to tell my neighbors is one, we screwed up. And then two, I didn't do anything about it. So I was like, I got to stay here. Like I'm going to stay in my car, sleep in my car and stay here.
Speaker: And then at two fifteen the party bus comes back and i'm telling you what it was like an MTV movie bash at my house like they were flocking and from all corners of the neighborhood by the way. And i was like i can't believe this is happening but i wasn't frustrated i was more frustrated myself i. We told make a party so i was trying to be cool about it.
Speaker: Until about three thirty and then I was like maybe it's not as bad as I think it is because I think I can hear music from inside my car outside my house so I walk around with kind of a parking a park behind my house and I could hear what song was playing. Literally a block and a half away.
Speaker: And it was Pitbull. So then I was like, okay, I got two options here. I can go and call the cops. And honestly, that was my thought process too. I know a lot of some police officers in our little city. My fear was that somebody calls the cops, which they absolutely could have. They show up to my door, know it's my house, and we're nowhere to be found.
Speaker: So I wanted to stay there for that. So at this point, I was like, I got to go in and I got to shut this thing down. And because I have it all electronics, I just unlocked my door because they couldn't hear my ring, the doorbell. It was way past that. And I came in and I found the guests that rented it. I was like, you got to shut this down. So at 4 .15, they shut it down. And then I went home.
Speaker: uh where we were staying at the time and i fell asleep and at nine o 'clock the next morning i texted the guests that stayed there and and i just said hey like unfortunately we can't host you another night like our neighborhood can't handle that and i don't want to ruin another party and
Speaker: It's just not going to work. And I remember she was pretty frustrated. She called, actually one of her friends called and she was actually pretty understanding like, yeah, I know it kind of got out of hand. I kept reminding them. They said they had 15. There was over 40.
Speaker: And so there's a difference there. And so they were like, that's fine. And then one of the friends asked, well, can she get her money back? And can we get cash from it for the time we didn't stay? So I wasn't going to ever reimburse for the for the hell night I had out in front of my front yard sleeping in my car.
Speaker: It was only like the night that I kind of told them that they couldn't stay. And I said, absolutely, I'll give you cash. Because at this point, they're now in my house. Right. And we got to have some kind of lever to pull back. And so I come back and they wanted to stay till 6 30 or something at night. And I was like, listen, I'll give you till three o 'clock.
Speaker: I ended up helping them get all their stuff out at like four o 'clock. So fairly close. Gave them cash and I actually took a picture with them holding the cash just in case anything went down. And so that was kind of the nightmare. But honestly, all said and done, the house wasn't in horrible shape. I know they had huge like club speakers in my basement. I think they scratched the wall a little bit. But like all in all, not bad. And like to have a memory like that, like totally worth it.
Speaker: So that was like the only horror story we've ever had from Airbnb. And honestly, I totally take responsibility from that because we said that she could do it. Yeah.
Speaker: And the way that the pictures are, it kind of looks like it could be out in a remote area. And if it would have been like in its own special place, you know, kind of like an old farm, like, I want to let it happen. Like it's okay, but it's not my poor neighbors. So that's probably the nightmare story that I think is kind of fun to talk about. Yeah. Yeah. Well, very good. I feel like that's a pretty thorough synopsis of Airbnb. I mean,
Speaker: Like I said in the beginning of the show, the ebook that you've put together is super jam packed with really tangible information, how to set your price, some of the welcome kit stuff that you have. I mean, it's just very tangible, great information on if you want to enter into Airbnb or for your house. And so that is going to be available.
Speaker: to download at www .uncommonwealth .com backslash gift for that. That is only available to our podcast listeners. We hope you enjoy that and we hope that you enjoyed this podcast. So thank you for listening. You've listened to the Uncommon Life Project. I am Philip Ramsey. And I am Brian Dewhurst. Thank you for listening. Goodbye.
Speaker: That's all for this episode of The Uncommon Life Project, brought to you by Uncommon Wealth Partners. Be sure to visit uncommonwealth .com to learn more about our services. Don't miss an episode as we introduce you to inspiring people who are actively pursuing an uncommon life.
