Tiny Homes, Huge Profits: $6,000 a Month from 1 Property!

Ashley:
This is Real Estate Rookie.

Josiah:
Yeah. And so that is the thing, a lot of people, they just see the end result and so they don’t see the work. It’s just like with my out-of-state rental, I did spend five months just researching different markets and digging in and making offers on properties before I finally found something that worked out. And when we started looking at the Airbnb, I mean it was about a year from the time we started looking at them to when we finally got it on our property and all set up and stuff.

Ashley:
My name is Ashley Kehr and I’m here with my co-host, Tony Robinson.

Tony:
And welcome to The Real Estate Rookie Podcast where every week, twice a week, we bring you the inspiration, information and stories you need to hear to kickstart your investing journey. And we oftentimes like to start the podcast with some reviews from folks in our Rookie audience.
And today’s review comes from Ashley Nichols and she says, “To give this podcast less than a five star review is pure insanity.” I appreciate that enthusiasm, Ashley. Ashley says, “I’ve listened to every single episode and every single one is full of so many gems. Tony and Ashley are literally out here giving out free game and changing people’s lives. If you’re a rookie investor, the information they’re exposing you to is exactly what you need to help master your mindset and take action to achieve your real estate investing goals.”
Ashley, we appreciate you for the kind words. And if you are listening and you haven’t left us an honest rating or review on whatever platform it is you’re listening to, do it right now. The more reviews we get, the more folks we reach, the more folks we reach, the more folks we can help. And that’s our goal here, isn’t that right, Ashley Kehr? We want to help people, right?

Ashley:
Tony, you are so ethical by saying an honest review when I say a five star review.

Tony:
Leave us a five star review. Five stars, we don’t need one. I think because I also get joy from reading the mean tweets about us too. So it’s like, if you guys want to say something mean, we can do that too.
But it’s so funny, every time that I get with people in person, we host our meetups here locally, we were just together in Denver, and every single time since I’ve started reading the mean reviews, people always come up to me and they’re so offended that people will write such mean things about us. And they’re like, “I couldn’t believe that person said that. Don’t listen to what they’re saying.” So even the bad reviews, I think they help bring the community together.

Ashley:
But they also hurt the podcast and my feelings. So next time, they should just slide into my DMs with their hurtful comments. And I will just leave it at that.

Tony:
There you go. Fair enough, fair enough.

Ashley:
So today on our episode we have Josiah, and this is really exciting because he talks about how he added a short-term rental into his property where he lives without having to get permits, without having to get utilities because they were already there, just all these different things and how he pieced it together to make this perfect short-term rental and also didn’t affect his property taxes, which we all love.

Tony:
People always ask me, “Tony, hey, how do you choose which market to invest in?” And a lot of times honestly it’s just having conversations with people. So listening to Josiah’s episode, he talks a lot about the success he’s had in this market that a lot of people wouldn’t think about investing in.
But the other thing that Josiah talks about is going out of state, one of his properties is out of state, and how he built that team and manages it remotely. So if you’re thinking about investing not in your backyard, you’ll definitely want to listen through to the end to hear how Josiah manages that part of his business as well.
Josiah, welcome to The Real Estate Rookie Podcast. We’re super excited to have you on. So if you wouldn’t mind just share with us, with the listeners a little bit about who you are and how you got started in real estate investing.

Josiah:
Okay. So my name is Josiah Hein. I’m 36 years old. And my wife and I are actually an investing team. And so we started real estate investing basically in 2020 right before COVID hit. But if you back up a little bit before that, I started really digging into real estate investing and learning about real estate investing in 2019. I actually got hit by a drunk driver while at work. They were going 100 miles an hour and rear ended me and it messed up my neck and back pretty bad.
And so I actually have a pool and spa cleaning and repair business and it’s a lot of upper body work and being bent over and stuff. And so for about two years after that I was able to do very little physically within my business, and so I really had to lean heavily on my employees at that point.
But because I was basically incapacitated, I got out on YouTube and started searching about real estate investing and found BiggerPockets and was just hooked. And so I would watch two to four podcasts a day literally just because I had a lot of spare time on my hands all of a sudden. So that’s what started with the whole education piece of it, and then from there it led in.

Ashley:
How did you even start thinking about real estate investing? Did someone talk to you about it? Did you come across a video? What even intrigued you to start searching?

Josiah:
Well, when I started my business, I learned everything online about business. And so watching YouTube videos primarily, everything from how to set up corporations and how to structure businesses to how to run systems and help manage everything.
And so I knew that my wife’s dad did real estate and so we knew real estate was something we wanted to do as a long term goal. We weren’t really looking to dive into it in depth, but after getting hit by the drunk driver and being all messed up, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to continue my business going forward.
And so I just got online and I was like, “What else can I do? What can I do in real estate especially to make money?” And just started digging in and learning about it because I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to keep going with my business.
And so it was her family and then it was just something we knew we wanted to do long term as a retirement strategy. But then I kind of got forced into it a lot sooner than I was planning and my shift focus for my business specifically to real estate because that’s what I felt like I could probably do at the time.

Ashley:
Okay. So you had something really, really crappy happen to you, something unexpected and instead of getting into the mindset of this sucks, pity me, you took advantage of your time by learning about real estate and researching. That right there just shows the type of person you are, that mindset, because it would be so easy to feel sorry for yourself and that my life sucks.
But instead you took that horrible thing and you somehow found one little tiny piece of advantage is that now you had time to research and watch those YouTube videos. And that is awesome that you did that because I’m sure that was not easy to do, to get into a mindset of, okay, I have to figure something else out, I have to do this. And to have that kind of endurance is really awesome.

Tony:
And Ash, it kind of reminds me of AJ Osborne’s story where it’s this really debilitating or discouraging thing happens and like you said, they use it. They use that additional time and just that epiphany to say, “Hey, real estate is the thing that I really want to invest in to be able to provide for my family in case I’m ever not able to myself.” So we all have those moments, Josiah, and I’m glad that moment turned out to be a positive one for you in the long run.

Josiah:
Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate that. And I mean, I have a wife and three kids now, but at the time I had two kids and when I got hit, it was just a week after my second daughter was born. And so it was traumatic, but I walked away from it, thank God. I was happy about that, but I was like, “I need to keep making money for my family and keep pushing forward if we want to be okay.”
My wife was working and stuff as well, but I really need to feel like I’m bringing value to the family and stuff and to our relationship. And I’ve always just been someone who’s really driven and motivated to keep going and going and going. And so it’s hard for me to just stop and give up or not do anything. It’s just not really in my DNA or who I am I guess.

Tony:
Josiah, can I ask one follow up question? You said you started investing in 2020, so this is in the middle of COVID. I think there was a lot of uncertainty in the world in general, but especially around just making big investments. Were you at all concerned about investing during such uncertain times? And if so, how did you work past that fear and uncertainty?

Josiah:
So that’s a good question. So basically it was February 2020 when we started, so right before COVID hit and it definitely was a big fear. I wasn’t sure if it was going to derail everything we were working on, but we had already started and we started by buying a new house for our family to live in.
Our family was growing. Our first house that we bought together, my wife and I, was getting a little cramped and stuff and I was starting to feel a little anxious. And so we ended up buying a second house and then we were able to keep our first house and turn that into a rental actually.
So we did a remodel on it, basically just a long-term BRRRR. We lived in it for a couple years, remodeled it, rented it out, and then refinanced it and repeat. But yeah, starting all that whole process in COVID, it definitely made us pretty anxious for sure.

Tony:
We recently interviewed another guest, Nick Troutman. He was on episode 223 I want to say it was. And he had this really beautiful, not even an analogy but just distinction between danger and fear. And his whole premise was that people oftentimes confuse danger and fear.
Danger is something that can hurt you. Danger is something that you should avoid, but fear is something that exists only within your mind. And sometimes it could represent danger, other times it could just represent you stepping outside of your comfort zone and being fearful of the unknown.
So it sounds like you were able to make the distinction between the two versus actual danger and what was just fear that might be holding you back.

Josiah:
Yeah, and so it was pretty crazy. As soon as COVID kicked off, it seemed like the whole world just paused because they didn’t know what was going to happen, and so we did the same as well. I mean we were still working on remodeling our previous house, but we didn’t know how any of that was going to look or any of the stuff with the eviction moratoriums or what the government was going to do, if they were going to start printing money like they did, trying to bail people out, keep things afloat.
And so we did pause a little bit, but we were already in the process also at the same time with our first house. So we got it remodeled and then rented out. And it took us a while to remodel it. We got it rented out basically in September of 2020. And so we were full in on COVID then and the rent moratoriums were getting put in place already.
And so I mean the main thing was we just made sure that we really vetted our prospective tenants and stuff and went through and checked that they were paying rent, taking care of the places they were in and had a good credit score still and was just staying on top of everything. And so basically just really the core fundamentals of real estate.
And so anyway, that was our first place. We got it rented out almost immediately. We live in southern Oregon and so it’s a really hot market, I mean pretty much anywhere on the West Coast is right now. And so had lots of applications and stuff, got it rented out.
And then did some work around our own house, meandered for a bit. And then finally got to the point where we could do that cash out refinance to pull our equity back out of it. And so we got to that point in the spring of 2021 and we were basically able to pull out $60,000 to go towards our next deal.

Tony:
60 grand? That-

Josiah:
Yeah.

Tony:
You say that so casually, Josiah, but that’s a big number, man. I mean that is the ultimate goal for every new investor, especially the ones that want to use the BRRRR strategy, is to be able to buy a property, put some love and a little bit of money, time and effort into it and then get back the majority if not all of what you put into it.
But before we keep going, Josiah, if you can just set the table for us, how big is your portfolio with your wife today and what markets are you guys invested in?

Josiah:
So it’s actually pretty small still. We’ve only done three deals so far. And so we started with our single family home that we lived in and then did a BRRRR, pulled out the 60,000 and then we also did a HELOC on our house because we remodeled it and then refinanced it and then we did a HELOC on it as well because we didn’t pull any money out when we refinanced. We wanted to keep something that was easier to stay liquid with so we could keep using that money in the future to invest with, and so we did a $60,000 HELOC as well.
And then pretty much other than refinance stuff in 2021, that was all we did. I did start searching in September for our next deal and after reading David Greene’s book on out-of-state real estate investing, I decided that that’s what I wanted to look at because Oregon is a really expensive market.
And so I spent about five months just going from market to market. I started in Ohio, like Akron area and stuff, looking in cheaper markets. And I’d get on Google Maps there and start looking around and see a bunch of boarded up windows and some houses half burnt down and that kind of scared me.
And so ended up getting some advice from our lender actually and she was investing in North Carolina. And so I started looking in North Carolina. After that, reached out, got on BiggerPockets, found a property management company and a realtor, reached out to them, started looking around. And that market was just so crazy and such a hot market that we made multiple offers, couldn’t get anything locked up and I was looking there for months.
And so it was getting around Christmas time or just before Christmas and my mom was telling me that I should look around Tulsa, Oklahoma, because they just moved there a couple years ago and she’s like, “Oh, it’s a good market. It’s seen good growth and the property prices are pretty affordable.” And so switched to my third market, Tulsa, Oklahoma.
And again I got on biggerpockets.com and I searched property management companies in Tulsa and I found this amazing one and they had a 4.7 star review on Google and 300 or 400 reviews that were … So lots of reviews to say that they were actually a good company.
And so I got online on Zillow and just started looking for deals and stuff and going through. And as before, I even reached out to the property management company and then I found our two bedroom, one and a half bath that we ended up purchasing there.
And so we bought that there and it was actually being listed by the property management company that I wanted to use and it had been recently remodeled by them and had a long-term tenant that was placed in six months before that was on a two year lease.
And so I called them up, the manager of the property management company that was also a listing agent, answered right away. And I just expressed to him, “Hey, I want to look at purchasing this property.” And I told him I wanted to continue working with the property management company and use him for the transaction for both me and the seller. And I think he really liked hearing that being a dual agent and stuff.
And so everything honestly went really easy. The purchase price on that property was $80,000. So we ended up buying in cash, doing a quick close and then we did a cash out refinance on that as well. And so because that tenant was in there already, we were able to just make that happen immediately after the purchase.

Tony:
So you guys have the one in Oregon, the one in Tulsa, and then where’s the third unit at?

Josiah:
So it’s actually on our property in Shady Cove, Oregon, and it’s an Airbnb. And so we set up a little tiny home that one of my clients that I met through my pool cleaning business makes. And it’s just a really high-end tiny home built on a trailer. And I had this concrete pad and I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with it. It already had utilities down there.
And so initially I was thinking I could put a shop down there and then do an apartment or something above it to rent out. And then one day I went to my client’s house to clean his pool and I saw him building it there and I was like, “Oh my gosh, what is this?” And he shows me it and I’m just like, “This is amazing. I have a perfect spot for one of these.” And so that was in the summer of 2021.
And so we knew we wanted to get another long-term rental just because we weren’t sure about the whole short-term rental thing yet, but we also knew we wanted to try it. And so we ended up staying in contact and going back and forth with him. He built a couple of them and we ended up, after we did the cash out refinance on the Oklahoma property, being able to make the timing happen to where we could purchase one from him. And so-

Tony:
That’s amazing.

Josiah:
And so we ended up … I watch Rob’s channel a lot, Robuilt, and I watch you in the Real Estate Robinsons as well. And so taking a little play from Rob, we ended up naming the tiny home Casita De Venado, which means tiny house of deer basically is how it translates because we have a bunch of deer all around the property.
And since we launched it, it’s just been doing phenomenal. It’s been probably 95 plus percent booked. We just launched it on May 18th and I mean it’s doing probably a $100 a night more than we ever thought it would also. So it’s been pretty phenomenal for us.

Ashley:
That’s awesome. Are you guys self-managing it then and do you want to talk about the operations of it? Because getting a short-term rental up and running, I’m currently sitting in one right now of getting everything ready to make it go live. But even once it’s live and it’s bringing money in, how are you handling the actual management of it?

Josiah:
So yeah, we are self-managing it and we do most of the stuff just through the Airbnb and Vrbo platform, but my wife handles that mostly. She actually ended up leaving her job that she was at back in May and so now she manages it full time, turns it over for us and runs everything from that aspect.
It was funny though because while we were getting it set up and started, we knew it would take a couple days for it to go live on Airbnb and Vrbo, and so we were just almost done with it and we go ahead and we go to post to get it live and stuff and a couple days goes by and then it goes live. And we didn’t know anything about the platforms or how they worked yet even really, and so we had instant booking on. And so we got a booking for the same day that it went live on Airbnb, an instant booking.

Tony:
That’s good news. That’s a good thing.

Ashley:
Yeah. So did you have to rush to get some things finished?

Josiah:
Oh yeah. So we were thinking, “Oh, it’s going to get booked out and then it’s going to be maybe worst case scenario a couple days before someone comes and stays in it, so we can get all the finishing touches done.” And no, it got the instant booking. My wife’s like, “Well, we might as well accept it and just see how this works out.”
And so I was at work and it was on a Friday and they said that they wanted to come. They were traveling from Seattle to the Bay Area and they wanted to stay the weekend when they came through. And so we were up until midnight just scrambling to get it done. I mean I was putting fake grass out in front of it because it was just a concrete pad in front of it and doing the final cleanup stuff.

Tony:
I mean, Josiah, these are the stories that you don’t usually hear. People see the Instagram flex of people, “Hey I got the keys from our first,” but they don’t see the staying up till midnight laying down some grass for your guests. They don’t see you recording podcasts in your new Airbnb unit because you got to stay there to get it set up. Or they don’t see you renting a U-haul and driving all the furniture and everything from your house to your Airbnb and staying there for three days.
So it’s easy to glamorize the idea of becoming an Airbnb host or a real estate investor in general, but there’s so much hard work that goes into it as well. So I’m glad you shared that battle story with us.

Josiah:
Yeah. And so that is the thing, like a lot of people, they just see the end result and so they don’t see the work. It’s just like with my out-of-state rental, I did spend five months just researching different markets and digging in and making offers on properties before I finally found something that worked out.
And when we started looking at the Airbnb, I mean it was about a year from the time we started looking at them to when we finally got it on our property and all set up and stuff. And I mean with our first house that we remodeled even, I did a lot of that myself with a messed up neck and back after getting hit by the drunk driver. And I demoed out all the old carpet and stuff and was repainting the house on the inside.
And it was really hard and that’s why it took so long. It took I think four months to get the whole thing done, start to finish. And it was because I didn’t have the money to just pay someone to get it done for me and I was having to grind out and do it on my own even though I was injured.
And it’s like there’s always struggles and stuff that people go through, and especially as real estate investors, people don’t see all the struggles. And it’s just the main thing you got to do is just keep going and keep on grinding and never give up. And so-

Ashley:
What was it like for you, Josiah, when you went from doing all that work into your first property to doing an out-of-state property where you did no work for it? How did that feel? Was it almost like you’ve lost control as you’re not doing it anymore? Or was it like, this is amazing, I never want to rehab a property again?

Josiah:
So I actually really did like the out-of-state investing and I do want to continue doing the out-state investing and long-term rentals in the future just because it is so passive. But it was a lot on my phone and a lot of communication back and forth with the realtor and the lenders and stuff.
And even, because the property has an HOA in Oklahoma and they take care of the outside. And so the inside was completely remodeled, but the outside really needed some repairs done and completely repainted.
And so when we were in the process of doing the refinance on the Oklahoma property, I was actually involved with managing, trying to help manage the HOA company or the people doing the remodel from the HOA, keep them going and on their toes. And so I was a property manager. So it wasn’t completely hands off in that sense, but ever since we did get it up and running, I mean it’s just been cash-flowing good for us and super smooth.
And so yeah, I definitely enjoy that aspect of it and so want to continue that. But also, I mean the cash flow of short-term rentals is just phenomenal. And so I think the goal is to just keep the short-term rentals building for now and then maybe in a couple years do some multi-family that’s out of state.

Ashley:
That’s awesome. With your short-term rental, the one behind your house there, the tiny home, how does that affect your property taxes? Since it is mobile, does it not count into the assessment on your property taxes at all? That’s something I’ve always wondered about.

Josiah:
Yeah. So the tiny home is actually built and certified as an RV. And so I plug it right into an RV outlet and it’s got the same hookups for sewage and because of that it’s just an RV trailer essentially. And so it is on the line in a gray area as far as codes go and stuff, but as long as no one’s staying in it more than two weeks, then it’s not really considered a rental, and so it works out really well because of that. But there wasn’t any heavy permitting to do. It is allowed within the county. And I mean it was really easy for the most part to get it all done.

Tony:
Josiah, one follow up question on the tiny home piece. I know you said it’s been booked like 95% of the time, but are you getting a lot of people that are coming to actually visit that area or is it more so people, like you mentioned, that are road tripping from one part of the country down and you’re just a stop in the middle? Have you noticed a trend there?

Josiah:
Because we’re so new with it, I couldn’t really … It’s been a mix of both, actually. A pretty decent mix of people traveling from northern California to the Bend area, that’s a big vacation area and then also just up and down the I-5 corridor.
But we’re also about, well, we’re exactly an hour from Crater Lake National Park. And so it’s the deepest lake in the world and it’s absolutely beautiful park. It’s up on top of an inactive volcano that erupted I think almost a quarter million years ago.
And then this area has tons of lakes. We’re a quarter mile from a boat ramp for a river that is huge for rafting and stuff in the summer and tons of waterfalls and hiking areas as well. It’s really just an ideal Pacific Northwest area.

Tony:
Crater Lake, I’ve actually never heard of Crater Lake before, so I’m going to look into that. Who knows, maybe we’ll be neighbors here in the future. I’m always looking for that next market to invest in. So Josiah, I mean first, congratulations to you and your wife on the success you guys have had. That’s awesome. But I want to talk a little bit about the funding aspect of these units that you’ve purchased.
What are you guys doing to be able to afford all of these properties? You’ve purchased three properties in about two years. Is it all money that you guys have saved up? Were you guys partnering with other investors? Just walk us through what that journey has been like.

Josiah:
Okay. Previously, I mean up to this point it’s just been my wife and I. And I’ve had my pool cleaning business and that’s done really well. I started that in 2016 and it pretty much just exploded. There’s a ton of pools in this area, a ton of demand.
And then my wife did accounting actually. Well, she was a bookkeeper at a school for about five years and then she worked for a payroll company for another five years. And so when we’re doing all these deals and taking things down, she’s been imperative because I am terrible on computers and that paperwork and keeping stuff organized and stuff.
And so she’s the backbone there with sending emails back and forth to the lender and stuff and I’m the one that finds the deals and tries to manage them and get them across the finish line in that sense.
But yeah, we’ve done it just working regular jobs, just regular people. Like I said, we did the cash out refinance on our first house and then the HELOC on our personal home. And so other than buying our first house and our second house just using conventional financing, we’ve used some fundamentals of real estate to get the rest of our cash.
And then moving forward though, I mean we did spend all of our money on the tiny home and stuff and that’s been going great, but I do think we’re going to try to partner with people.

Tony:
For the tiny home, so did you use your cash from your HELOC to fund that construction or did you get some kind of construction loan to fund that project?

Josiah:
Oh, okay. So yeah, we did all cash with that. And so it was $76,000 for the tiny home and then all in we’re about a $100,000 on it because we had some unexpected paving for the driveway. It was too steep for cars to get in and out of. And then we did a Trex deck. That was more expensive than we thought as well. Both of those things were about 6,000 each. And then we did a hot tub and a gazebo and a fire table and stuff. And so that’s all on the deck at the end of the tiny home. That’s all underneath the gazebo.
And then actually where it’s at, my property is shaped like an L and it’s only an acre, but you have your own private hillside where the tiny home’s at. And so because of that it makes it really private. You’re looking at mountaintops and tree tops and stuff when you’re sitting either at the fire table or in the hot tub and it really just gives you a feel that there’s no one else around even though there are a couple houses, a hundred yards behind you and then a couple hundred yards down the hill in front of you and stuff.
But yeah, in the future we definitely want to partner with some investors and I have a deal that I’m looking at putting together right now.

Ashley:
You said that the land is an acre that your house is on?

Josiah:
Yeah, that is correct.

Ashley:
Okay, so one acre, I mean, that’s not a huge amount of land, but you were able to put another unit on there, produce income off of that. So I’m super curious now, okay, so you’re a $100,000 in, what are you cash flowing off of this and what do your expenses look like on it? What are you actually paying for? You paid for the property in cash. Your utilities, are they separately metered or do they connect to your house utilities on the same meter, so you don’t really know how much is exactly going to that unit?

Josiah:
Yeah. So the gross on that property right now in the tiny home is about $6,000 a month.

Tony:
That’s great. That’s fantastic, Josiah.

Josiah:
Yeah.

Tony:
For a $100,000, I mean, that’s great.

Josiah:
Yeah, it’s pretty phenomenal. When I was running the numbers for it, I was estimating, I was being really conservative, but I was thinking it’d do at least $3,000 a month, which would still be a way better cash on cash return than anything else we did. But it’s been steady, 95% booked anywhere from 180 to I think to 240 a night with a $50 cleaning fee.
And so self-managing and doing the cleanings ourselves, we’ve been able to keep pretty much all of that. Even the hot tub running constantly and it’s got a mini split air conditioning unit in it, with it being 100 degrees almost every day, 95 to a 100, it’s only been about a $100 a month for power.
And so we clean all of the bedding ourselves and then we do provide just a couple water bottles for each person or couple that stays. We do a couple little snack bars and stuff and then we do a bottle of wine as well. And so it’s just a nice little welcome pack.
And then one thing we do actually for a little bit of extra income is we’ll do these special little setup packages where my wife will go in and decorate for anniversaries and stuff. And then she even had a college graduation a few months ago that she did. And so we’ll do little charcuterie boxes and stuff and some flowers and even flower petals up on the bed. And then get a couple …
Well, we did one that was an anniversary and then one that was actually for a honeymoon. And so it was a honeymoon that was delayed due to COVID. And so we just had congratulations and stuff hanging on the wall and really spruced it up a little bit.

Tony:
So Josiah, I mean, just congratulations again, man, to be doing that well on the tiny home. I’m super pumped for you guys. I actually have one follow up question. What city did you say your property is in?

Josiah:
It’s in Shady Cove, Oregon.

Tony:
Shady Cove.

Josiah:
So it’s a very small town.

Tony:
And how far is that from Crater Lake?

Josiah:
It’s literally an hour from the lake itself.

Tony:
Oh, it’s still an hour. Wow. That’s amazing. So to be that far from the main attraction, but still gather that much interest and demand to do six grand a month on a tiny home is super, super impressive.
I guess one last question for you. Do you know, in that area, is there a limit to how many short-term rentals you can have on your property? Because you’ve got some land, you could probably slap on a few more tiny homes with the acreage that you have, right?

Josiah:
I can’t because it’s a hillside and it’s pretty rough, it’s a lot of river rock and stuff being right up above the river. And so it would just be hard to keep it such a good experience for the customers of the tiny home right now, if you have multiple just units on it. I feel part of the thing that people really enjoy is just how secluded it feels and how private it feels. And so I don’t really want to take away from that.
As far as being by Crater Lake National Park, so there’s not much else any closer. It’s a lot of national Forest and stuff around it. And so there’s only one even smaller town that’s closer to it and there’s probably only a handful of short-term rentals there. And so this is a pretty prime spot to be for that.

Tony:
But from a permitting perspective, for example in Joshua Tree, we can only put two short-term rentals per parcel. Are you limited in that same way near Crater Lake in shady Cove?

Josiah:
Yeah, there is a law. And so the way I did it on the RV pad, you can’t have multiple RV pads and RVs on your property in Shady Cove, but there is no law saying how many short-term rentals you can actually have. And so they’re pretty relaxed. Shady Cove is primarily a tourist town, especially in the summer. And so that’s where most of its revenue comes from, is just people traveling in the spring, summer, and fall.

Tony:
Interesting. I’m sold. You sold me, Josiah. I’m going to Shady Cove. I’m writing it down. I’m booking my flight.

Ashley:
He just booked your Airbnb.

Josiah:
There we go. Do it.

Tony:
So I want to move on to our next segment, Josiah, which is our Rookie Request Line. So for those of you that are listening, if you guys would like to get your questions featured on the show, give us a call at 8885-rookie and we just might use your question on the show. So Josiah, are you ready for today’s question?

Josiah:
Yeah, I’ll do my best.

Tony:
All right. So here’s today’s question from Corey.

Corey Robinson:
Hey guys, my name is Corey Robinson. I just had a quick question for you guys. I was thinking about the turnkey rental route, but have you guys ever thought about doing turnkey rentals and using those rentals as short-term rentals for either travel nurse rentals or Airbnb? I’d just like to know your thoughts on that, if you guys think it’s a good route to go or if you think it’s not a good route to go. Thank you. Appreciate you guys. Later.

Josiah:
I think that’s a great route to go, honestly. It’s not something I’ve looked at a whole lot specifically with the travel nurses. I do know that’s a huge industry though, and a lot of people in my area that do the travel nurse short-term rentals, it’ll often be they’ll be making like 20, 25% more income off their property. And so I feel like that is a really good route to go just because you just have to buy some furniture and stuff, but other than that, do a little bit of decorating, it’s good to go.

Tony:
And Corey, I mean honestly it’s slightly a personal preference, but I mean if you don’t have the time or ability to find a good deal, find a good property manager, get it set up, then turnkey could be the route to go. But typically your returns on turnkey investment are going to be lower than what you get if you did that work yourself. So there’s some give and take.
But is it a good way to break into the world of real estate investing for someone that’s new? Absolutely. I think you just got to ask yourself if it’s worth it or not. So thank you for that awesome advice, Josiah.
I want to move on to our next segment, which is the Rookie Exam. These are the three most important questions that you will ever be asked in your entire life, Josiah. So are you ready for the exam?

Josiah:
I think so. We’ll have to wait and see.

Tony:
All right. So question number one, what’s one actionable thing a rookie should do after listening to your episode, Josiah?

Josiah:
One actionable thing? I would say the biggest thing is just learn to run numbers. And so learn the numbers on the type of deal you want to do, whether that’s short-term rentals or long term rentals or out-of-state rentals even. But if you can learn to run the numbers, that’s about 90% of it, I mean as far as having the confidence to know what you need to do.
And that’s what’s helped me so much. I’ve learned to run the numbers in different scenarios and because of that it’s given me the confidence to just keep moving forward even through uncertainty and the pandemic and stuff like that. And if you can do that, that’s number one that’s going to help you just get started in your career for real estate.

Ashley:
Josiah, what is one tool, software app or system in your business that you use?

Josiah:
So one that I use a lot to actually help me run the numbers is a rental calculator. And it is a long-term rental calculator, you could use it for short term as well, and it’s called CDS Rental Calculator. It was actually developed by Chandler David Smith who was on the main BiggerPockets podcast I think about a year ago.
And it’s really good for just going through quickly on your phone and analyzing deals. You can put in purchase price, percent down, taxes, insurance, I mean it has every single metric you can think of basically. And then you process it and it’ll go to a cash on cash return and a total return on investment and stuff.
And so that’s what I used with the out-of-state purchase and with the out-of-state property and it’s just been … I analyzed hundreds and hundreds of properties. So that was such a big key. And then when I go into the long term, once I find a deal that looks like it’s going to make sense, then I’ll get on BiggerPockets and use the BiggerPockets calculator for a more in depth analysis.

Tony:
Awesome. That’s great advice. Obviously we love the BiggerPockets calculators as well, but I’ve heard good things about Chandler David Smith as well. Awesome. Last question, Josiah, where do you plan on being in five years?

Josiah:
In five years? Hopefully on a beach somewhere, just taking it easy. No, seriously though, in five years I’m hoping to be able to spend a lot more time with my family and have a good portfolio of both short-term and long-term rentals.
And so like I said earlier, I would like to grow the short-term rental side of things pretty quick because it is so scalable and get the income up pretty quick, but then invest in multi-family out of state and do that using both partners and maybe even some private investors along the way.
So the ultimate goal would be to get to about $20,000 per month income from our real estate investments. And then at that point I feel like we could comfortably just do real estate full time and not have to worry about much else. I would want to keep doing deals and growing and stuff, but not feel like I have to push myself as hard as I can basically to keep going. I

Tony:
I mean, Josiah, you’ve already had success with your pool cleaning business, so obviously you’re a smart, savvy business person, so I’m sure you’ll be able to take a lot of those skills that you learned in that business and apply it to your real estate deal as well. So five years from now you’ll be on the Real Estate Podcast with Rob and David talking about all the great things you’ve done, man.
So we appreciate you answering those questions for us. And just a heads up, you passed the exam, your answers were phenomenal. So you’re in our good books, man. So before we wrap up, I just want to highlight our Rookie Rockstar for this week. So this week’s Rookie Rockstar is Andrew Reese.
And Andrew says, “Today my fiance and I closed on our first real estate deal. 35 days ago we went under agreements on a three family near Boston, but the story doesn’t start there. Two years ago, I lost my job and I literally couldn’t afford my own rent. Now I’m engaged, have a great job and achieved my goal of acquiring a three family in the town of our choice. I started working with my agent 18 months ago looking at houses before I became even preapproved. Then we got squeezed with the rising interest rates, but when this listing went live, we were ready.”
And Andrew finishes this by saying, “Let this be inspiration to all of you who think it’s too difficult to get your first rental in this market. It is possible and don’t lose hope. Don’t lose your vision of what you want and your dream of building towards your goals and becoming wealthy.”
So Andrew, major congratulations to both you and your fiance on taking this amazing first step in building your real estate business.

Ashley:
And great advice too, Andrew, at the end there. Josiah, thank you so much for all of your advice and your knowledge that you shared with us today. Can you let everyone know where they can find out some more information about you and reach out to you?

Josiah:
Yeah, so I’m just Alpha REI LLC on Instagram and then we also have Casita De Venado on Instagram. And then outside of that, we’re not really too active on any other platforms and so you can find our tiny home at just if you search Casita De Venado around Shady Cove, Oregon as well, if you want to book that out.

Ashley:
Well, thank you so much for joining us. I’m Ashley, @wealthfromrentals, and he’s Tony, @tonyjrobinson on Instagram. And we’ll be back on Saturday with a Rookie Reply. (singing)