A Podcast | Robert Gilstrap

Pete Neubig: [00:00:15] Welcome back everybody. Uh, we got Robert Gilstrap here. Robert, thank you so much for joining us today. I appreciate you, brother.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:00:23] Yeah. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Pete Neubig: [00:00:25] All right, man. So whether you like it or not, you have become the short term guru in NARPM. In the NARPM circles, you are now the short term guy. So just before we get into short term, why don't we start everybody with a little bit about, you know, your journey. I know you had sold your business and then you flipped something else. You flipped a new business off. So tell us just kind of, like, quickly about your journey.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:00:50] Yeah. I mean, I've been with NARPM now for like, gosh, I want to say 15, 16, maybe 17 years. I'm not sure, but been a long time. And, I started originally Title One Management, and I was in that long term management, and I sold that to Pure about a little bit over two years ago.

Pete Neubig: [00:01:11] And how long did you run Title One?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:01:15] Uh, I think I started that in, uh, 2003 maybe, I think.

Pete Neubig: [00:01:20] Okay.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:01:21] So but I had that was just a, the name Title One. I actually had done it for many years prior to that, under a couple of different names. And then I had some partners and stuff too. So.

Pete Neubig: [00:01:31] You know that was interesting. When you sold to Pure, you sold kind of a portion of your business to Pure, Right? Didn't you keep a couple or didn't you keep a division? So talk a little bit about that real quick.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:01:41] Yeah. Well, Title One was always kind of that. You know, I've always been that guy who wanted to have multiple streams of income. So and everything kind of feeds into the center. So Title One was the long term management company, but also had a maintenance company and an inspections company, and a short term rental company and insurance company. And a couple other things. And they kind of all fed off of that same customer base. But whenever I sold to Pure, I sold the long term management contracts. So.

Pete Neubig: [00:02:13] And then did you keep everything else or did you just keep the short? I know you kept the short term because we're gonna talk about that today.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:02:18] Did you kept everything else? Yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:02:20] Everything else. Okay. Done. Very nice. And so now you are running those 4 or 5 other businesses. You're no longer with Pure as of this recording here in August.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:02:31] Correct. Yeah. But I've kind of shut down everything except for, I mean, I still have to do maintenance, so I still have, you know, a maintenance company, but in general, I'm just trying to focus only on short and mid-term rentals and trying to pare everything down, so.

Pete Neubig: [00:02:51] So what? So, yeah, I would I could talk to you for hours about all your other stuff, all your other ventures. But let's dive deep into the short term. So what is short term versus mid-term? I haven't heard the term mid-term before.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:03:02] Yeah. Well, I mean, short term is what everybody looks at is like Airbnb, right? Somebody's staying a weekend or a week. And a lot of times if they're like, what I was, we were all thinking, well, gosh, that's people staying at the beach or in the mountains and on vacation. And I was like, well, that sucks, because, you know, I live in Cartersville, Georgia, you know, an hour outside of Atlanta. Who the hell comes to, you know, to Atlanta for vacation, right?

Pete Neubig: [00:03:27] Right.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:03:27] So I was like, there's no way I can go into that business. But then I discovered that, um, people do come into that business for all manner of things. And then that kind of morphs into mid-term rentals, which I would say that's the people who are staying, you know, six weeks, six months.

Pete Neubig: [00:03:45] Almost like some snowbirds back. I know Florida probably had that for a while. Right? Like people would move from New York to Florida for six months for the winter and then come back. That's kind of a midterm thing.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:03:54] That would be a midterm as well. And I think the majority of midterm stuff that I see is, is job related travel. I mean, we kind of focus our business on real estate sales, job relocations, insurance claims, those type of things. And, and it's worked out really well. And then I kind of sprinkle in shorter term things if we don't, you know, if our calendar is not completely full then I'll sprinkle in the guy who wants to stay for a weekend. But in general, I don't I'm not really looking for the people staying for a few days or a week.

Pete Neubig: [00:04:32] All right. So if I'm listening to this and I'm, I'm a PM company, I own a PM firm or I'm running a PM firm. Give me the benefits and the negatives, I guess, or the detractors, the detractors of starting a short term division because you did it successfully. I've known other people who have not done it successfully. So tell. Tell us what? Why I would take that pain to build another division in my company.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:04:59] Yeah. No, it's not as though I jumped in it. Uh, you know, I think we all gravitate towards things many times out of money or whatever, but I was just kind of burnt out, right? I was burnt out on long. I've done long term management for 30 years, and, uh, I guess I'm dating myself there, but the... It's and it's not as though I knew everything that there was to know about long term because I don't. But but I know a fair amount. You know, there's not a whole lot that that's new to me in the long term space. And I wanted to change. I mean, that's one of the reasons why I sold the long term stuff to Pure, and I wanted to change. And short term was a change, but it wasn't too big of a change. It's still management at its core. Right? And I figured, hey, you know, it's still, instead of one tenant every five years on average, which is about what we did at Title One. You know, this is one tenant every I don't know, five months? Four months.

Pete Neubig: [00:05:55] That sounds like. That sounds like so much stress to me because the turn is like the worst part. Right. So so I mean, you weren't really looking for the short term, but it kind of just kind of fell into your lap. Is that?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:06:07] Yeah. A buddy, a buddy of mine had introduced me to it and said, hey, you should look into this. There's there's good money in it. And I was like, dude, you're an idiot. I mean, think about it. I mean, I'm I was making good money in the long term business, but I was like, why in God's name would I want to? I mean, and even that, you know, I've already been doing it for so long. I can't stand people now because of having to deal with tenants and, you know, owners for so many years. But, um, and I was like, and I'm keeping these people for a long time. Why in God's name would I want to have 50 tenants a year? And because of my brain, I just couldn't see, you know, it seemed to me like it was identical to long term management, just with a lot more work. And true, it is quite a bit more work, but you also get compensated for that, right?

Pete Neubig: [00:06:54] Let's talk about the numbers. On average, if you have a property that you're managing and I want to talk a little bit about what you did with your master leases here in a second.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:07:05] Sure.

Pete Neubig: [00:07:05] But let's say you have a client that you're managing a property for, and they have a short term rental and they have a long term rental.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:07:13] Yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:07:13] As a management company what like what's the big what's the difference in how much money you would make on the short term versus the long term?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:07:19] Well, you know the numbers. You know, everything's different across the United States. And it varies upon what kind, whether it's a vacation rental market or, you know, the beach and the mountains are different than the suburbs,  but, you know, it's not uncommon. I would say nationwide, we see anywhere from, what, 8 to like 12% in long term management. I see that swath over the time I've been in the management fee, and I bet it goes a little bit lower than that, but in short term and mid-term rentals, I mean, it's 20, 25, 30, 35% management fee and it kind of... 

Pete Neubig: [00:07:53] Big difference, yeah?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:07:54] Yeah. Especially vacation rental markets is more the 30, 35%. And then...

Pete Neubig: [00:08:02] Would you say like for every 100, let's say you have 100 vacation rentals. I know it's a lot, but let's just say at 100, would that be equal to then, 300 long term rentals, as far as, like revenue?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:08:17] Well, that'd be equal to...

Pete Neubig: [00:08:18] Around, I mean.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:08:18] That'd be equal to probably 400 or 500.

Pete Neubig: [00:08:22] Wow.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:08:23] Yeah. So it would be. And it would take more staff than a 500 unit operation. Um, so I had paired my business down to like 300 and something by the time I sold it Pure and I sold them 300 and something. I can't remember how many now, but, um, but I have way more staff right now at 60 units than I did than I did back then, because it just takes more. I mean, it takes a lot more staff.

Pete Neubig: [00:08:52] But you can afford that also make more money.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:08:54] Yeah, but I also make more revenue too. With 60 units that I did with.

Pete Neubig: [00:08:58] So does it end up being about the same profit margin because you have higher costs on the back end.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:09:04] And I mean.

Pete Neubig: [00:09:06] I guess you changing one problem for the other instead of having similar to others.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:09:09] Yeah you are. Yeah. I'm not making it out. I certainly, you know, maybe back in just right at COVID and right at post COVID, right. Back then it was like a license to print money. And because think about it, the government was, you know, printing money every five seconds and handing it to everybody, and everybody was spending it. Short term rentals were kind of coming into their day. And it would, it being popular...

Pete Neubig: [00:09:37] Especially with COVID, you could go live anywhere. Like all of a sudden Cartersville, Georgia sounded much better than downtown Atlanta.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:09:44] Exactly, right. And I think a lot of people kind of got into the space I promoted the heck out of it myself.

Pete Neubig: [00:09:52] When you say got into it meaning purchased and...

Robert Gilstrap: [00:09:54] Yeah, yeah, people you know got into the management space, they got into, you know, doing I don't want to say Airbnb because it's almost like saying Kleenex. Right.

Pete Neubig: [00:10:04] Short term.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:10:04] But sometimes I say Airbnb instead of short term rentals. But, everybody was doing it and it was just very super popular. So it made it it made good sense. And maybe that was probably the wrong time to get in. But, you know, that's what I got in. So.

Pete Neubig: [00:10:20] Well, it was a tailwind. So you got in at the right time, but you're still in it. Are you seeing are you seeing a lot of manager companies fold that were managing short term.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:10:29] Oh yeah. Yeah we've seen a lot of people get out. I mean in 2024 is probably like what 2019 or 18 was. And it's kind of back to the pre-COVID days. Right. And the problem, of course, is, is that you had everybody and their brother getting into the business there.

Pete Neubig: [00:10:50] There was an oversupply.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:10:52] Right. And and they're still that. Right. There's still a ton load of people who are in. But a lot of those people have just exited and kind of vanished out.

Pete Neubig: [00:11:01] So knowing what you know now, um, is this a headwind? Like, are we are we seeing kind of a dip, like, would you if you ran a short term, like if I, if I'm listening to this and and you would you would you say, man, I would still go into short term at this time in 2024.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:11:20] I think if you've got the strategy that I have, which is not just short term but mid term and not just I mean, there's always money in a vacation market, right? So if you're in an area where there are travelers for vacation, you know, the beach, the mountains, you...

Pete Neubig: [00:11:37] You should be in it already. Yeah. Yeah.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:11:40] You're not you're not going to have a problem there. I mean, there'll always be competition, but where I see the opportunity in today's world is that job related travel and those mid-term stays. There's just so much more travel than people ever, including me, ever imagined.

Pete Neubig: [00:11:57] I gotta tell you, I keep hearing we're in a recession. Every time I go to the damn airport. It is like packed to the gills every single. So. Yeah.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:12:05] Yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:12:05] So all right. So tell us, tell the audience your master lease thing, because this is like, to me, is this, like, secret sauce? Am I giving up here, or can we. Can we talk about it?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:12:16] I mean, it kind of started because at the very beginning, it started because I was too chicken.

Pete Neubig: [00:12:24] To buy a property.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:12:25] Yeah. With my long term owner when I was still, you know, when I still had Title One, and I was kind of dipping my foot in the short term rental.

Pete Neubig: [00:12:33] So tell everybody what you did, man. This is...

Robert Gilstrap: [00:12:35] I was just like, I didn't want to take one of my owner's properties and try and convert it because I didn't know what the hell I was doing. So I just went and said, I'll tell you what, to kind of safeguard this owner. Um, we had just finished evicting a tenant and out of a condo in Buckhead, which is a pretty nice area of Atlanta. And I just told the owner, like, hey, I'll. I'll rent the property myself. And that way if it screws up or something goes wrong, you know, I'll be the one at fault. And so I rented that property for, I think, $1,200 a month, and which was a little bit less than that was about what he was going to net anyway, if I had been, uh, you know, charging my long term management fee. And he just saw me still as his property manager, although technically I was his tenant.

Pete Neubig: [00:13:23] Right.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:13:23] And then I promptly put that on Airbnb and a bunch of other platforms, and I made about $44,500 a month, and and I just.

Pete Neubig: [00:13:33] You had to put money into it. Right. You had to you had to change the locks. Like, did you do the actual...

Robert Gilstrap: [00:13:36] I had to furnish it. But it was a it was a studio. It was a one bedroom studio. It cost me like five grand to furnish it. So. And I did it nice. It could have cost much less than that. But I mean, knowing what I know now, it would cost a fraction of that by the square foot. I didn't know what I was doing then. So, but yeah, it made incredible money and stayed booked all the time.

Pete Neubig: [00:13:57] And so you're paying 1200 in rent and I know there's people out there like that was their whole business model, right? They would actually long term rent properties. And then they...

Robert Gilstrap: [00:14:07] That's called rental arbitrage. And there's a whole section of people who did it. Now there's a lot of companies that went bankrupt doing that too.

Pete Neubig: [00:14:16] A hundred percent. Because it just kind of happened. You're on the hook for the rent, right? If you don't get at leased short term, you you got to pay the 1200 bucks.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:14:22] That's exactly right and, um...

Pete Neubig: [00:14:25] How would that work honestly, let's say you had to evict yourself. How does that work?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:14:29] Well, what I did was let me, you know, that's what I pitched. And I still tell people this, if they're a long term manager and they want to do that, you just pitch it as free management, right? To your to your client. And essentially you're not going to charge them a management fee, but you're going to make sure that the net rent that you're paying this particular owner is about what he would get anyway after your management fee. So you're getting less than market rent, which is good because that gives you a little bit, you know, as the tenant and he's getting the same money he would have gotten anyway by hiring a manager.

Pete Neubig: [00:15:03] So he cut the middle man out. You cut yourself out, you cut the you cut your...

Robert Gilstrap: [00:15:06] I'm still getting the benefit though, right?

Pete Neubig: [00:15:08] You're right.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:15:08] I mean, either way, you're still getting the benefit. I'm getting below market rent.

Pete Neubig: [00:15:12] By the way does the PMA change on this on this type of...

Robert Gilstrap: [00:15:16] Well, absolutely. Yeah. Because now I was going to say the benefit to doing that way is the owner can't fire you because you're a principal. Think about it. You're a tenant, you've got rights. And not that, you know, you'd have to decide how you how you're going to do that. But it works out really well.

Pete Neubig: [00:15:33] The defendant is Robert Gilstrap. The plaintiff is Robert Gilstrap Enterprises.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:15:41] Well, we never did that but trust me, none of the owners ever wanted to do that. And whenever I did it with that first guy, it worked out so well. I went out and did it another half dozen times immediately, and it worked out fantastic every time. And I'm still doing them today.

Pete Neubig: [00:15:54] And how long has it been now?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:15:56] Well, I started right at the tail end of 2019, so not very long.

Pete Neubig: [00:16:01] Yeah.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:16:01] I still feel like kind of a newbie.

Pete Neubig: [00:16:02] 4 or 5 Years. So you've shown this is great proof.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:16:07] Yeah. No. It works. I mean, clearly, anybody who knows me knows that I won't do stuff unless I make money at it. So I'm not in this for, you know, altruism. I'm in this to make money.

Pete Neubig: [00:16:18] Right. So you ran the numbers and you knew that you're going to put money up fronton all these houses. How many houses are you doing this, this with now, like this, this type of deal where you have this, I'll call it a master lease.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:16:30] Yeah. And it technically is like a master lease, right. Like so. And by the way, you know, I wish I could say I invented it. I thought I was super smart. I didn't know, you know, kind of what I was doing.

Pete Neubig: [00:16:40] And then you realize the whole industry.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:16:40] People in NARPM who have been doing this for decades, you know, Jan Leasure out in California or, you know, she spends half her time in Hawaii, I believe. But, you know, Jan's been doing this, you know, for decades. And I didn't realize it. You know, I never knew, but.

Pete Neubig: [00:16:56] Yeah because they're actually early adopters because they're in California. You're in Hawaii. They're not in Cartersville or Houston.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:17:03] Yeah, yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:17:04] So that's when people come and visit Houston.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:17:07] You know. I don't know how many I have right now. There's probably 5 or 6 that I'm down to on just arbitrage where I'm doing that because it's just a different we're in a different economic environment now. And as rents were going crazy, it was much harder for me to negotiate, you know, really good market rents. But I've had very good luck with owners. And, uh, as long as you negotiate a good lease with an out clause, it can work. It can work for you.

Pete Neubig: [00:17:36] Are you seeing the short term rate come down or basically it has it has a kind of like evened out since, uh, since the 2020?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:17:49] When you say rate, you're talking about management fee or are you talking about.

Pete Neubig: [00:17:52] No sorry. The rental rate. Like so when you rent it out now. Right. In 2020 I'm sure we got top dollar.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:17:58] You're talking about your nightly rate.

Pete Neubig: [00:18:00] Yeah. Yeah. The nightly rate coming down or is about is it about is it steady.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:18:05] Let's say it's gotten more competitive. It's gotten more competitive. Oddly enough, our revenue is actually up over even the slowest times during COVID, but our revenue is actually up. So, you know, as all these other guys are going out of business because it's all it's saturated, blah, blah, blah. Our revenue is up, but our nightly rate might be slightly down. And it's just because due to competition. Right. And but we we saw that coming early on and we just knew and remember a lot of the units that I managed. You know, I own I own like 50 some odd units myself, 53 or 58. And, so a lot of these short term rentals are mine too. You know, that I own and I saw it coming in. I mean, I'm not going to put out a garbage product. So we produce a really nice, high quality unit. You know, it's not like the long term rental business where you can have crappy carpet with stains on it and laminate countertops that are chipped. I mean, you can't do that. You can't get away with that anymore. You could do that in 2021 and 22, but you can't do that in today's short term rental market. The market is.

Pete Neubig: [00:19:15] Why is that? They'll give you a negative review, and then it just kind of just kills you from there.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:19:19] Yeah, you'll be out of business. And you know.

Pete Neubig: [00:19:21] The review is so powerful, right? I mean, it's like they got you kind of by the cojones, don't they?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:19:25] If it's horrible actually, because, um, you know, Airbnb is really powerful. They still account, in my estimation, for about 75% of the market, Um, of the market available.

Pete Neubig: [00:19:39] Yeah, but the VRBOs and all the other tech companies, they just followed the same thing. Right. So it's it's all based on reviews. And when did the four star review become a bad thing? You know what I mean?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:19:49] Isn't that incredible. But my reviews right now are like 4.6 or something like that's horrible. It only goes to five. I mean, you know, but but that's way worse than I want it to be. I mean, I'm mad if we don't have 4.8 stars or better. And you know, Airbnb, we're constantly getting super hosts and losing super hosts and getting super host and losing. And the reason is because you have to be at 4.8 stars. Well, the bigger you get.

Pete Neubig: [00:20:17] The harder it is, the.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:20:18] More the harder it is to maintain. Right. That 4.8 and and there are some things you can do, but it's really tough and you get a lot of.

Pete Neubig: [00:20:28] Do you see people I know getting a little off topic here, but do you see people that use that as a way to get something from you? Like, hey, if you don't give me this free or you don't give me the the late stay out. I'm going to give you a negative review. Like stuff like that.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:20:42] That's what I was about to say. I don't know if you've noticed this, but since. And I don't want to blame it on COVID, but that's just when I noticed it. It's like Americans have become pieces of crap, right? Like they they go to the airport in their pajamas, they go out in public in, like it's disgusting. People just didn't do what they they didn't used to act the way that they act. And there was much more formality and decorum and whatever. And it's like people have no shame anymore.

Pete Neubig: [00:21:13] They have they walk around. A lot of people walk around with a victim mentality like, I'm a victim. I need to be catered to. I, I agree with you.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:21:21] But to your point. Yes, that's exactly what we see at the Airbnb's we've had. Dude, you wouldn't believe the stuff that we've had. I mean, we've had people bring in Ziploc bags full of dead bugs, dump them out, take a picture of them with their phone call. Airbnb. This is after they've stayed for a week now and get Airbnb to give them all their money back. And um, yeah. So or we have people who will, you know, as soon as they get to a unit, they'll stay there for a week and then go pull out the refrigerator and pull it out from the wall and the stove and the oven. And so there's a dust bunny on the floor right there, we're calling Airbnb. We want our money back.

Pete Neubig: [00:21:59] And Airbnb will give them their money back every time.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:22:01] Sometimes. Yeah, sometimes they will.

Pete Neubig: [00:22:03] And can you fight that? Like, because you give me all the reasons not to get into short term.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:22:09] I mean, I'm not trying to make it sound like it's horrible. No, it's.

Pete Neubig: [00:22:11] It's I mean, it's like what like ten. 5% of time. 3%, it's small.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:22:16] Yeah. It's like I want to say it's the 80/20 rule. It's even smaller than that.

Pete Neubig: [00:22:19] It's the exact same.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:22:20] Thing that you got.

Pete Neubig: [00:22:21] In long term. For long term. Yeah.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:22:22] In long term management. Think about how many piece of crap tenants that you hate their guts. It's that same percentage in in short term. There's just a lot more tenants in short term. Right. Instead of one tenant every three or 4 or 5, whatever you have in your business. You know you've got one tenant every week and it's so you think that it's more often. I mean, it is obviously statistically, but, um, I don't know. It's, uh, but it's nothing you can't overcome once you learn the system and you kind of learn the game, just like you had to do in long term management, then it's much easier. And you get you get systems in place. Like I would tell anybody if you were thinking about going in this business, I mean, long term is like a walk in the park in my opinion.

Pete Neubig: [00:23:10] Wow.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:23:11] Compared to this. But but again, I'm coming at it from having 30 years of knowledge and long term. So.

Pete Neubig: [00:23:19] Yeah, it's still new to you. You're still figuring this thing out.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:23:21] Yeah. Which is sad. Though. I mean, even after what for? For almost five years in, uh, I feel like we're still just figuring it out. But, you know, oddly enough, it's funny. Even at 60 doors. Dude, we are literally like one of the largest operators in. Well, I am the largest operator in my entire county.

Pete Neubig: [00:23:42] Wow.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:23:42] In fact, I am in the in. I'm the like the third or fourth largest operator in 4 or 5 counties around me. Even at that tiny amount of doors.

Pete Neubig: [00:23:51] So, so it's it's more fragmented and more mom and pop than even it.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:23:54] It is so fragmented. You wouldn't believe it.

Pete Neubig: [00:23:57] so there's a lot of opportunity there.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:23:59] Yeah, there really is. I mean, the number of companies that have, you know, hundreds and hundreds of units. Dude, that is like 0.001%. I mean, it's very, very tiny. And so there is room to compete.

Pete Neubig: [00:24:13] So if I'm listening to this and, and I'm on the fence of like, okay, I want to do short term. Uh, do real high level. Like, what would be the first thing that you, that you did or you would do or you would tell them to do? Like if you were coaching them. Let's do a coaching session right now. Okay. So let's coach somebody on okay I want to go short term I know it seems to be hard, but there's a lot of money there. What what would be the first thing that you would say? Hey, this is how you get into it.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:24:38] Get some systems. I mean, you know, you can kind of fake it till you make it in long term, right? And and we all know that because most of us did that when we first started out. But. And you're not going to go bankrupt if you lose 1 or 2 tenants in, you know, in the long term space. But in the short term space, the money is moving much faster, right? Things are moving a lot faster, and other people are at play with power, like Airbnb has power and the platforms have power, and bad reviews actually mean something. You know, no short term, you know, Title One was never going to go out of business if somebody gave us a bad review. If you get a bunch of bad reviews in this business, you could go out of business literally. And, you know, in a couple of months. And I mean, they will literally just de-platform you. And, um, so if I'm telling somebody I want, they've got to have a system and they've got to have software, this is not something that you can do on a, you know, on a yellow pad.

Pete Neubig: [00:25:33] You are management softwares. Do they support short term or do you actually have to get a second system like can I do short term with AppFolio or Rentvine or anything like that?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:25:42] You could for a couple of units, I could show you how to do it for 2 or 3 units, but when you get much more than that, you really need specialized software. And and the reason is, is there are, you know, I don't know how many data points we track in long term, you know, maybe 50 or 100, but it's ten times that in short term. And yeah, you're just tracking so many more things. And don't forget it's like every property is a fully furnished property. So now things that you've never considered as a long term manager, like how many forks and plates are there, you know, and you know, how many pillows are there and the sheets and the laundry and, you know, don't get me started.

Pete Neubig: [00:26:25] So, when you say systems give me like the top 2 or 3 systems that come to your mind that you have to like, but like, I'm guessing you have to have a turn. Like you have to have a cleaning staff. You have to have a clean system.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:26:35] Yeah, I was going to say, you gotta have cleaners. And you the two biggest things, in my opinion, that that can wreck your business is the cleaning, the cleaning and the cleaners. And because think about it, it's like running a whole separate maintenance company that just does cleaners or think about it. If your whole job was to hire painters for a living, right? Sometimes not the most reliable people. Nothing on painters out there. But you know what I mean. If you've been in the business, you know what I mean. And cleaners are kind of the same way. And, so you run into problems with that and then you've got laundry. And those two things are the big dude. I got so big, it got so bad with me at about ten or I think we're probably 12 to 15 units where I was doing the laundry out of my house, and then I was doing it. You know something else, dude? I had to go by a laundromat. That's how bad it got.

Pete Neubig: [00:27:25] And you bought a laundromat?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:27:28] I went and bought a laundromat because we had so much laundry that, I mean, I ruined a whole set of washer dryer at my house, and I had like ten feet of sheets and towels in my kitchen, you know? And it was insane, man. It was insane. And then I went and got a house.

Pete Neubig: [00:27:46] So now your your cleaning team has to, like, take the strip of laundry and they have to drive to, like, the your laundromat like.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:27:55] No, no, we know we. Well that's what I'm saying. You you have to learn. You've got to learn quickly. Right. The way that you manage it kind of like long term, the way you manage it 3 or 4 doors is vastly different than how you manage it. You know, 30 or 40 doors or 50. And so, no, we're we're showing up with bags of fresh, clean laundry. We're stripping everything, put it in the, you know, and then remaking everything and then taking the old with us. And then it goes, it cycles back to the laundry. And the reason is there's just no time because a lot of people are thinking, well, that's stupid. You're an idiot. You should just. There's a washer dryer right there in the unit. Why don't you just wash it there? There's no time. Right. There's no time. You've only got about four hours between checkout and check in for the next guest. And even if you could do the laundry in the unit, the cleaners don't want to do it in the unit because they're ready to move on to the next unit. Right? So they can get paid.

Pete Neubig: [00:28:48] Because if they knock out in two hours, the next one, because that's how they make money.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:28:53] Right. And so there's other ways to do it. I'm certainly not saying that ours is the correct way or the best way, but I'm just telling you.

Pete Neubig: [00:29:00] It's stuff like you said. It's stuff you don't even think about. Like long term. You never think about laundry.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:29:05] No. You never. And you know, you don't know you, in long term, what do we have to buy in long term? Great. We're buying property. We're AppFolio paying a buck or two a month for software per door. You know, try going in and spending a quarter million bucks on a laundromat or, you know, where one machine is 24,000 bucks and it's insane, dude.

Pete Neubig: [00:29:28] When I think of short term, I just, I think hotel. I think you have to like, have like if again you said if you get a bad review with with long term doesn't hurt you. So if I don't answer the phone long term doesn't hurt me. Is that another system? Like, like people call you, like, all hours of the night, right?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:29:48] Yeah. You. Well, and that's why I said that. You've really got to think. Like, at first my phone, you know, was being they were blowing my phone up at, you know, three in the morning.

Pete Neubig: [00:29:59] Yeah. Can't get in. Right. Yeah, yeah.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:30:01] We're on it's a 365 day a year, 24 hour a day business. And you've really got to get that through your head. The biggest probably shift is mindset, right? I mean, I'm not really embarrassed to say, but anybody who knows me like I can't stand tenants, you know, and I've been calling, tell me to pay. my air conditioning is out. And I was like, well, that sucks. We'll be over there whenever I get to it, because what are they going to do? Right? And I get it. That makes me a bad long term manager. Maybe sometimes. But in the short term business, it's like, yeah, you know, we'll be over there in 30 minutes. Not whenever we feel like it. We'll be there today in just a few minutes. And that's the way it has to work seven days a week. Three, you know, 24 hours a day.

Pete Neubig: [00:30:46] So did you hire a third party company to answer your phones, or do you have, like round the clock VAs or what what what does that look like?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:30:54] Yeah, round the clock VAs for the phones. And, uh, I will say that it's a business that is perfectly suited for remote team members, uh, which I think you you would like and.

Pete Neubig: [00:31:06] VPM Solutions.com, shout out.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:31:09] Shout out to the best. But, yeah, it's, you really have to.

Pete Neubig: [00:31:14] All right? You've been in this business for a little bit, and knowing what you know and all the, you know, you had to pay learning tax, right? You had to pay your dues. If somebody's thinking about doing this, would you tell them. Yeah. This is this is the way to go. Is this the future? Is this the future is long term? Kind of like, Did we did we hit our peak long term? And this is kind of the future or?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:31:36] You know, I don't know. I don't know if this is the future. I can I can tell you that we that we legit. No no joke. There are people who live in Airbnbs and they do not rent a long term place. They do not own a home. And we have them that cycle through our units every now and then, and they will stay somewhere for three months and move on to the next property.

Pete Neubig: [00:31:58] Dude, I have a neighbor selling his house, and for the next two years he plans to live in Airbnbs.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:32:04] Well, that's what I'm telling you. It's it's a real thing. I have no clue how people could afford to do this, because let me tell you, you know, 15 I'm, I'm saying low numbers here because it's like Cartersville, Georgia, right? Cartersville, Georgia 1500 a month might get you a, you know, a one bedroom, a two bedroom. Dude, that's 5 or 6000 a month as a short term.

Pete Neubig: [00:32:28] Even if they do 30 days or 60 days. Does the price come down or no?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:32:31] Absolutely. Well, think about it. You got to furnish it. You got to provide the internet, all the utilities. You got to cut the grass.

Pete Neubig: [00:32:37] Can't come down that much.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:32:38] Clean the gutters, provide the linens, the you know, everything.

Pete Neubig: [00:32:41] Gotta do that laundry.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:32:41] I mean, there's a lot to it. Yeah. So. And to be honest with you, there's a lot of work. Remember, you're still on 365, right?

Pete Neubig: [00:32:50] Yup.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:32:50] So you can't afford to come down to, like, double the rent. I mean, that would be insane. Now I see people doing it, but those are the people that are going out of business, so.

Pete Neubig: [00:32:58] Got it. So. All right, so are you are you coaching or consulting on this stuff yet? I know people have been asking you, and I know you've been very reluctant to building your own thing, so.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:33:07] I've never been a guy who was like, hey, buy my course. I mean, I could probably teach one, but, you know, I just tell people if they need help, I'll help them.

Pete Neubig: [00:33:15] All right. So we're going to we're going to take a quick commercial break and I'm going to come back to the lightning round. I'm going gonna put you on the hot seat. Lightning round. Um. And we'll be right back after this message, everybody.

Pete Neubig: [00:33:29] All right. Welcome back. Robert Gilstrap from Cartersville, Georgia. Is that where you're from originally?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:33:35] I am actually, yeah. I was born in Atlanta, but, you know.

Pete Neubig: [00:33:38] All right, you're on the hot seat. All right. Uh, when you own a PM firm, what property management software did you use?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:33:45] Uh, Propertyware.

Pete Neubig: [00:33:46] Propertyware. Oh, yeah. That's right, we were Propertyware, guys. What was your organizational structure before you sold the business? Was it pod or was it departmental?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:33:58] We were a hybrid, but it was more, it leaned more to departmental. Uh, is the way that. And that's the way that I think it scales the bigger you get.

Pete Neubig: [00:34:08] Did you use virtual assistants back then?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:34:10] My entire company. That's what my one claim to fame is, right? I ran, in fact, you. I think that you for it because...

Pete Neubig: [00:34:19] I told you that I sat you down at a RealPage conference. That's why I remember talking you guys.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:34:23] You were the OG in the. And people don't really even give you and Steve Rosenberg good credit for that, man. You guys were the OGs for. Nobody was doing VAs back then. Nobody. And.

Pete Neubig: [00:34:35] Well, I'll tell you.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:34:36] Todd. Todd was.

Pete Neubig: [00:34:38] Todd was doing a different way, and Gwen, uh, was doing it as well. Yeah, but we took it to the next level as far as, like, not task based, but, like, full job role based. Yeah. So thank you for that shout I appreciate that.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:34:50] Yeah. You were the OG and you're the one who got me started. And I then took that to the level of and I don't know that it I think I do it a little bit different than others. My entire company ran off of VAs. Everything, all leasing, maintenance, you know, renewals, all my property managers, even though they're not property managers legally. Um, but.

Pete Neubig: [00:35:11] Right. But they were still managing the property.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:35:13] Yeah. My my whole company ran virtually and it ran very profitably. And I love it and I'll never go back. And by the way, now my new company runs that same way.

Pete Neubig: [00:35:24] I'm still waiting for my residual check to on all the savings I got you. All right. What is one piece of advice you would give someone just starting out in the PM business? Uh, let's change this to, say, starting out in the short term PM business.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:35:39] I think the answer is the same is get some. Spend a little bit of time up front to get some systems put into place, or else you're going to work yourself to death. And man, if I had have just done that up front because, you know, once you get going, man, you're so busy, it's like you never have time to stop and sharpen the saw. But you've got to.

Pete Neubig: [00:35:59] Do you know of any organizations like NARPM for short term? And I know NARPM's kind of pivoting that way and adding more...

Robert Gilstrap: [00:36:07] Quasi. There's the Vacation Rental Managers Association, which is VRMA, and but I can just tell you they are nothing like NARPM as far as the camaraderie, the, uh. They're just not the same.

Pete Neubig: [00:36:19] Back and just the helping each other.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:36:22] Yeah, and they're very vacation centric, right? Beach. You know, condos and mountain stuff. The stuff I do, they really don't really have a whole lot to offer me, so. But I still love them and I'm on the a couple of boards with them. So.

Pete Neubig: [00:36:38] Okay. Does pineapple belong on pizza.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:36:41] Does what?

Pete Neubig: [00:36:42] Pineapple belong on pizza?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:36:44] Oh God. No no I don't I don't like pineapple on pizza.

Pete Neubig: [00:36:47] All right. Um, I know you don't eat fast food very often, but when you do, what's your go to?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:36:53] Dude. Chick fil A? Well, yeah. That's. Yeah, that's like the only fast food I would eat. Jesus chicken, man. Jesus chicken is the best chicken on earth.

Pete Neubig: [00:37:00] Is it?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:37:01] Yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:37:02] Jesus.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:37:02] They got they got crazy. They got great service.

Pete Neubig: [00:37:05] They do? Yeah. My pleasure. Uh, what was your first job?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:37:09] My very first job. I was a paper boy. Um, but I worked.

Pete Neubig: [00:37:14] Oh yeah.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:37:15] Yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:37:16] Nice.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:37:17] Paperboy Empire. I ran like, six routes.

Pete Neubig: [00:37:20] Did you do it in the mornings or in the afternoons?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:37:23] Uh, well, in the afternoons. Yeah, that was the only way I could do it, but, um.

Pete Neubig: [00:37:27] Yeah, that was my first job, too, man. The New York Daily News in the Bronx. And I was not a business owner yet, but I was a systems guy. I had all the ways that people could pay me. Like, they would leave their envelopes out in the morning at their in their.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:37:40] Yeah. That's how we did it. The envelopes. And I had to do collections. I had to be like.

Pete Neubig: [00:37:44] Oh yeah, man.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:37:45] Because you got people that won't even pay for a damn newspaper. It was ridiculous from a kid, but for God's sake. So the kid they won't even pay.

Pete Neubig: [00:37:52] Man, I got yelled at. I'm 12 years old. I'm asking this lady for three weeks. She just had the weekend paper. So you knew she was cheap. And she's yelling from the top of her steps. I don't owe you three weeks your snow jobbing me. I didn't, I had to go. My dad. Dad, what's a snow job?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:38:08] Oh yeah, we have people that wouldn't pay because it went in the yard and it got wet, or they wouldn't pay because it didn't land right on the front stoop.

Pete Neubig: [00:38:16] And yeah. And they don't realize that comes out of your salary like you pay.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:38:19] Yeah. You have to pay for those papers.

Pete Neubig: [00:38:20] Yeah. Those papers. Yeah. Absolutely.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:38:23] I did good. And it taught me a lot of lessons.

Pete Neubig: [00:38:26] Uh, what is one thing that most people don't know about you or something that most people don't know about you?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:38:31] I don't know, I'm a federal firearms dealer. That's kind of odd.

Pete Neubig: [00:38:37] Yeah, I didn't know that. All right. Um, what is one book that you, uh, that's impacted your life for business and that you would recommend?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:38:46] Uh, my favorite book is. And it's on real estate. I'm a huge real estate investor, and I love real estate. And A.D. Kessler wrote a book called A Fortune at Your Feet decades ago. You probably don't even nobody's probably even heard of it. But it was incredible for me. And and I love that book.

Pete Neubig: [00:39:02] That's a nice find. Uh, you're a dog or cat guy?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:39:07] Uh, well, I have two step cats that live at my ex-wife's house, but, uh, and I travel too much to have dogs, but I like them both.

Pete Neubig: [00:39:14] Alright. Fair enough. Robert. If somebody wants to reach out to you, what's the best way they can connect with you?

Robert Gilstrap: [00:39:21] Robert@suitestaysatlanta.com. Or call my mobile (770) 480-7301.

Pete Neubig: [00:39:29] You know, we get tons of downloads. Man, that mobile is going to ring at least once now.

lighting

Robert Gilstrap: [00:39:34] My phone rings a lot anyway, so.

Pete Neubig: [00:39:36] Uh, if you're listening to this and you're not, part of NARPM it really, truly is one of the best organizations out there as far as giving and just the amount of knowledge that's walking around those rooms. Uh, go to NARPM, narpm.org, or give them a call at (800) 782-3452. And if you want to be cool like Robert and have a bunch of virtual assistants VPMsolutions.com, it's free for you to use. The way we make money is you find them on our platform, you hire them through our platform, they put in time, you pay them through our platform, and we get 10% of what the VA makes. Robert, thanks so much for being here. Uh, everybody, we'll see you next time.

Robert Gilstrap: [00:40:12] Awesome. Thanks, Pete.