[TRANSCRIPT]

0:00:00 - (Wyatt): Hi, I'm Wyatt and I'm Grace, and you're listening to our dad and your host of the Vacation Rental Revolution podcast.

0:00:12 - (Shawn Moore): What's up, guys? Welcome to another episode of the Vacation Rental Revolution Podcast. I'm your host, Sean Moore, and I'm really, really excited about our guest today. We've got Bill Faith from Build STR wealth joining us. And if there are OGs in the short term rental business, I would say that Bill qualifies as one of them. And so, Bill, thanks for joining. I'm really, really excited about this conversation today.

0:00:35 - (Bill Faeth): I am too. I think we have a lot of synergy and your approach, my approach to building wealth through real estate investing. So I'm very excited for this.

0:00:44 - (Shawn Moore): Yeah, I am too. And I think I'm excited for the listeners you guys are going to probably and kind of just listen in on a conversation because I'm really excited to just learn a little bit more about Bill. Bill and I have been in this game for a while, but just met recently, about a month ago. And so I've been very familiar from the sidelines of what Bill's doing and paying attention to some of the things that they're doing with their live events. And we'll talk about the STR wealth conference here shortly. But what you're doing to help investors get into this game and so very familiar from the outside looking in, but haven't really had a lot of chances to sit down and talk.

0:01:19 - (Shawn Moore): For me, this is a real pleasure. So hopefully you guys learn a lot from us kind of bantering back and forth about the short term rental game. So, Bill, could we just take them back a little bit? And I want to make a 30 minutes episode on your background, but I do think it's important for people to understand your background, where you've come from because I think it lends a lot of credibility to what you're really doing and building inside of Build STR wealth.

0:01:43 - (Bill Faeth): Yeah, I think really it all starts with my parents got divorced when I was five and I was raised by a mother who was a teacher in the early eighty S. No father figure. Got into the Big Brother program, got introduced to golf, which, and the reason that's super important, at least in my life, is it's an individual sport. So I had to learn self dedication, discipline to practice on my own. I got really good at golf.

0:02:08 - (Bill Faeth): My mom couldn't afford. She's probably making 30. Look, we weren't poor, not going to play that card by any means, but we were lower middle class. My mom probably made 30 grand a year as a teacher. And when I got really good, I started getting invites, playing these national championships and stuff, and we couldn't afford it. So my mom started teaching me the entrepreneurial components of. I started by selling T shirts out of the back of her 1984 tempo in high school to literally try to make $2,000 so we could go to Kentucky to play in my first national championship and kind of just kind of going through those things and then learning, being in an individual sport and excelling at that, going to UCLA. And then I made the life changing decision, which my parents or my mom thought my grandparents thought was the worst one at the time.

0:02:53 - (Bill Faeth): But I think looking back, it was the best decision I ever made. I dropped out of UCLA literally midway through my freshman year with a full ride golf scholarship to turn professional. And my grandparents, my mom, my great grandparents were all in education. Teachers, basketball coaches at high schools, principals, all that stuff. My grandmother was a 1984 National Teacher of the Year as a kindergarten teacher, and I was on my own. They said, hey, we love you. We'll support whatever decision, we hate it. We think you're wrong, but we're not giving you financial support.

0:03:24 - (Bill Faeth): And I'm literally 18 years old on my own. Had to get my own apartment and fend for myself, and that kind of changed everything for me. Sean, even though I've done 29 startups, I've built some massive companies, 50 million plus. I'm the grinder, I'm the hustler, I'm the guy that's just broken through walls, through brute force. But I was fortunate enough to learn early on that sales and marketing is the most important component to any business.

0:03:56 - (Bill Faeth): If I did have an average product, like a 75% or average product, but I have 100% sales and marketing, then I can dominate the 90% product that has the 75% on the sales and marketing. And really, I know we'll talk about this deeper into it, but that's what's led into my whole real estate career of building super properties. And as we talked about in kind of the pre discussion, it's not what people think they are by any means.

0:04:22 - (Bill Faeth): It's not about having the biggest portfolio, it's not about having the biggest house. It's not about having the biggest apartment complex converted into a 50 room boutique hotel. It's about other things that we'll talk about deeper into the podcast.

0:04:34 - (Shawn Moore): Yeah, love it. And I love that you hit on. It's one of my favorite parts about short term rentals versus other real estate is life in general is about sales and marketing. Right. Success in anything is about sales and marketing, whether it's our own self, whether it's a business. But short term rentals allow us to really tap into that. So we'll dive into that because I think it's a big reason why when we talk about super properties. But I also love the fact, like I always call, I always have got my Wranglers, my boots and my cowboy hat on.

0:05:07 - (Shawn Moore): A lot of it is that attitude. And I always tell people the cowboy is not about the hat and the boots. It's about this disciplined, rugged way of life that's deeply connected to personal responsibility and self reliance.

0:05:17 - (Bill Faeth): Right.

0:05:17 - (Shawn Moore): Nobody's coming to save us. You have to get back to the idea that personal character and individual responsibility are the ultimate keys to building that life that you don't want to take a vacation from. And I think that you learned that from an early age to say, hey, listen, you built some things, but you built it because you had that kind of, that ruggedness to you that, hey, I'm willing to roll up my sleeves. And it's one of the things that I'll be really honest with you that I've always liked and admired about you from the sidelines is you're much like me in saying this isn't always the easy button.

0:05:48 - (Shawn Moore): You're going to have to roll up your sleeves. You're going to have to put in the work. And if you do, the choices that you're going to have in the future, the life that you're going to build is going to be something that you can't even dream about. But we don't sit there and say, and I love that you don't. And you take the attitude of, hey, there's some work to be made. You're going to have to put some work in. You're going to have to be disciplined. You're going to have to do things today and give up some things so that you can have the life you want tomorrow. And so I love that that's where the, that's where that came from is the background that at a very early age, you had to learn that.

0:06:20 - (Shawn Moore): And you could have said, hey, listen, nobody's here to support me. I want to do this, and nobody's helping me out and played the victim. And you didn't. You said, no, nobody's here to save me. I've got to get back to the idea that this is on me. And I love that. I love that part of the story.

0:06:38 - (Bill Faeth): I think that every human being, regardless if you grew up in Nigeria with no electricity or Beverly Hills or wherever, I think we're all presented with maybe a handful of opportunities in our life that can be absolutely life changing. And I had one of those in 2015. I think I've had probably three or four of them. When I dropped out of UCLA, I went back to Bakersfield, California, where I grew up, the most redneck town in the country. I don't care what anybody says from where I live in Tennessee or Texas, it's the most redneck place in the country.

0:07:13 - (Bill Faeth): And I was fortunate enough because I was in the golf world. That's where all the rich, wealthy, older men lived. That's what the sport du jour was, if you will. And there was a gentleman named Buck Owens. If you are in the country music, you probably know that name. He was on Heeha. He's really like the godfather of country music with creating the Bakersfield sound and all that type of stuff. And I'll never forget, that was one of those momenTs.

0:07:38 - (Bill Faeth): I didn't have any money, and my mom was a teacher, my grandparents were teachers, and they weren't going to support me. I was sleeping on couches, and I was at this kind of tin know country club, if you will, really, a public golf course, but it was in the center of town and Buck was always out there and we played golf together. And he's all, what are you doing back home? It was like a Tuesday or a Wednesday.

0:07:59 - (Bill Faeth): And I'm like, I dropped out of school. And he kind of looks at me. He's all, why would you do something like that, Billy? And I said, I'm turning professional. He's all, how are you going to pay for that? I'm like, I don't know. Long story short, he gave me $25,000, no strings attached. In that world. Typically, I go, hey, Sean, will you buy a share for five grand? And hey, Bob, will you buy a share for five grand? He gave me $25,000. He's all, the only contingency is you can never come ask for more.

0:08:31 - (Bill Faeth): And I said, well, I didn't ask for this, Buck. And he's like, I know I'm going to help you. I don't want anything in return, but it's a one time deal. And I was able to parlay that into my golf career. And I believe that was the first time that I'd seen, really, the first one was my big brother taking me to that shitty country club, that driving range, and introducing me to golf and me falling in love with it. If I didn't fall in love with it, you and I wouldn't be sitting here, because that was the impetus, the lever that was pulled by me going all in. And for those of you that don't know me, I'm sure you're the same way, Sean, as we get to know each other.

0:09:06 - (Bill Faeth): I'm the all in entrepreneur. OCD, add everything. Nothing else fucking matters. I'm linearly focused on becoming the best at whatever I do. That's why I was the third ranked golfer in the world coming out of high school, full ride to UCLA, all those things because of the work ethic, because of that discipline that you talked about. And Buck gave me that opportunity, and I was able to level that up into the first couple of years. I made some decent money back then, early ninety s, two hundred thousand dollars playing golf.

0:09:36 - (Bill Faeth): And I created an ecommerce company and started drop shipping, literally using AOL chat rooms and Netscape. Back in the day, if anybody's old enough to remember that, to drop ship from a family I had met, that was handmaking Brazilian swimwear, sarongs, covers, that type of stuff. Just outside of Sao Paulo when I was playing the South American PGA Tour. And then I got acquired by Venus Swimwear about a year and a half, two years later. And then that was moment number two. My CPA, who was the best man in my wedding, I had the opportunity to take a multimillion dollar exit, or a royalty in perpetuity, in a small amount of cash. It was like 2.2 million versus, like, 300,004% on a royalty.

0:10:19 - (Bill Faeth): And which one do you think I was going to take when I was literally 22 years old? I'm like, Vegas, baby.

0:10:23 - (Shawn Moore): Let's take right.

0:10:24 - (Bill Faeth): Give me the one time payout, 100%. And that's not what I did, because I had good people surrounding me. And if I fast forward to today, there's a coach that lives about 30 minutes from me and some of your students, and you may know who he is. His name is Coach Michael Burt. And Michael Burt is a tremendous business and life coach. Been on the ten X stage, tremendous following and tremendous executor. He was the winningest coach in the history still to this day, of girls high school basketball.

0:10:58 - (Bill Faeth): And he took the principles of coaching young adolescent, young teenage girls and applied them to business and applied them to his life. And something that, even though we're friends, the one thing that always sticks to me, and he won't let me call him Mike. Nobody calls him Mike. They call him coach, because everybody needs a coach. And that's something that I believe that I needed from my mother. I didn't have a father figure. I needed from my big brother to help me. I needed from the Lowell manzer who took me under his ring to teach me how to play golf.

0:11:25 - (Bill Faeth): And I look at. I've done 29 startups. Everyone that's successful either had a partner that had more experience than I did going into it. Like my glow golf business. My partner, Reg Booth. My wife and I, we built over a $57 million company doing stupid glow in the dark miniature golf courses and shopping malls around the country. No chance I could have put that together on my own. That's why I do what I do today in trying to help people not make the mistakes that I made in real estate. And I share those mistakes. I sent out an email this morning with the second paragraph.

0:11:59 - (Bill Faeth): I lost $127,000 on my second short term rental that I invested into. I was experienced in LTR. I was experienced. I'd done commercial industry, but I made some fundamental mistakes in that second property that set me back almost a year and a half to two years. And that's why I love you. Call me the OG. You're a bigger OG than I am, but you're also fucking legit. And I'm legit because it's not the bullshit that everybody else is selling in their courses and all that other stuff. And that's what I think is the fundamental component. We all need a coach. I'm sure you have coaches. I still have coaches today.

0:12:37 - (Bill Faeth): Your community has you as a coach. My community has me and others as a coach. We just talked about a couple that we share, have shared over the last few years, and they're freaking amazing. And they needed you, and then at a time in their life, they needed me. And now, you know what? They need you again. Right? And those are the things, I think that become super important for me and those of you that are listening, if you're new to Sean's community or new to my community, everybody does need a coach, even us. When you think we don't, we do.

0:13:06 - (Bill Faeth): So sorry that you said not to talk too long, but I have a tendency to do that.

0:13:11 - (Shawn Moore): I love that. I love that the conversation led here because you and I agree on this 100%. Neither one of us are huge self promoters. We joked a little bit before that we even started this, that for as long as we've been in the game, we got some of the small social followings because we're not out there trying to self promote. We're out there trying to teach. We spend our time with the members in our masterminds in our communities and that stuff. But the point of that, we all need advice and coaches along the way. I spend multiple seven figures every single year on coaches. And to think that that would ever stop till the day I die, I can't even imagine not having coaches. I grew up in sports. I played Division one college basketball. I grew up with coaches.

0:13:57 - (Shawn Moore): The best in the world have their coaches. But whether it's mindset, whether it's business, and you always want to try to find that person that can help you walk into something with your eyes wide open. We don't hire coaches necessarily for the easy button. Right. We hire coaches that can tell us, hey, listen, you're going to be going up this mountain, and around the corner there's going to be a grizzly bear. And around the next corner there's a mountain lion. And they're not there to help you avoid the grizzly bear and the mountain lion. They're there to help you fight it and kill it and know that it's going to be there and walk into it with your eyes wide open because you're going to make mistakes, you're going to have challenges. It doesn't matter what it is in life, and it doesn't matter how much you think you've arrived. You mentioned your second short term rental. Losing money on it. I was the same way.

0:14:40 - (Shawn Moore): And I've been in real estate full time real estate investing for 23 years. I don't know. And I know you do, too, Bill. I talk to people all the time. It's like, oh, no, I know real estate. I get real estate and it's like, that's fine. I get it. But that's going to be what causes you to lose $123,000 on a deal. Because I've done it. I've let my ego get in the way to say, I know what I'm doing. I've been here, I've invested, I've developed, I've built. I've done all these things, and I've made a lot of money doing it. And then I go into another asset class and I get my face punched in because I let my ego tell me that I knew more than I knew. And the older we get, the more that we're able to say, okay, I don't know what I'm doing, and I want to help. And I feel like when I'm around a lot of really successful people, they're way more willing to take advice from somebody that has been there. Now, they're also very weary of somebody that gives them advice that's not doing it either. But we can see through that, right? We can see through when somebody is out there that doesn't have the experience or isn't where we want to be.

0:15:44 - (Shawn Moore): We're not going to take advice there, but we're very willing to take advice from somebody that's a few steps ahead of us when we're really young and cocky and thinking we've arrived. I went through that stage in my life. It was one of the biggest lessons I ever had to learn. I'd show up, I was 23 years old, making almost a million dollars a year in a real estate investment club meeting, and I showed up to show off, not to learn. I showed up to go show everybody, look at me what I'm doing. I don't have a job. I'm making more than most of you in here.

0:16:13 - (Shawn Moore): And I lost everything. That attitude, my ego got in the way. Right. And so I love that you bring that up and, and also a coach is going to push you. I think one of the biggest epidemics that we have in America today, for a lot of people talk about wanting something, but we're getting very comfortable sitting on the sidelines and making excuses, not moving forward.

0:16:37 - (Bill Faeth): I'll use the word soft.

0:16:38 - (Shawn Moore): Yeah, very soft.

0:16:41 - (Bill Faeth): I assume we're probably similar ages, or you might be younger than me. I'm 50.

0:16:45 - (Shawn Moore): Yeah, 47 in a month. So we're right there.

0:16:48 - (Bill Faeth): Where did you play basketball?

0:16:49 - (Shawn Moore): Weber State.

0:16:50 - (Bill Faeth): Weber State. How tough was your coach on a scale of one to ten compared to coaches today?

0:16:57 - (Shawn Moore): My coach would be run out of the gym today. We were just talking about that. My CEO, he was a division one player, played at St. Mary's, and we were just talking about that. Majeris from University of Utah, he was a majoris and he was a. And I mean, you want to talk about rough guys and coaches that would literally not be able to coach today?

0:17:20 - (Bill Faeth): Yeah. I was a college golf coach after I quit playing professional, kind of. I told my kids when I would recruit, I said, I'm the Bobby Knight of golf coaches. You will fucking run, you will work out, you will do all the things. And I was at Cal State, Bakersfield University, which at the time, TJ Kerr, legendary, one of the most legendary wrestling coaches in the history of collegiate wrestling. They were division one in the Pac ten. When we were a D two school, I used to make my golfers work out with the wrestling team, and they would get smashed, killed. They'd be doing monkey rolls, running 5 miles. But you know what? That's why we competed at a D one level and we're a top five program. You're right. You can't get that today.

0:18:03 - (Bill Faeth): And it's interesting because I think one of those other moments that I've never really thought about until we just had this conversation, you, memory jar me because I was a basketball player. My grandfather played it and coached at South Dakota State until I got ran by 52 points by Tracy Murray My junior year and a half. In the first half from playing Glendora, I was done. But my mom eked out enough money to send me when I was 13 years old, my freshman year in high school, when I was still playing basketball to the john Wooden basketball camp before he passed away in UC Santa Barbara.

0:18:35 - (Bill Faeth): And I still have the pyramid of success. I can't remember anything that happened on the court, Sean, at all. I don't remember three point contests or any drills, but I still have that pyramid of success. And now I look back, like those four or five things. I think that is something because I've always referred back to his pyramid of success, and I think he's the greatest coach of any sport of all time, at least in my world. And that's one of the reasons I wanted to go to UCLA, honestly, wasn't because of the golf team.

0:19:04 - (Bill Faeth): They weren't very good, but it was because of John Wooden. It was because of that mystique, that feeling, and that history of basketball when I wasn't good enough to be able to continue to play.

0:19:16 - (Shawn Moore): I love it. Yeah, one of the, I would 100% agree, probably the greatest coach of all time. And I love his book. I love the Pyramid of Success. I love when Bill Walton talks about when he was getting recruited. He's an all American. He's recruited by everybody in the world. And he talks about John Wooden bringing him and visiting him and his parents. He said, I'm not going to promise you a starting job. I'm not going to promise you all these things that everybody else is promising you. I'm going to promise you an opportunity to play on one of the greatest teams ever, but it's going to take a lot of work, it's going to take a lot of effort, and you're going to have to put that time in. And so if that's interesting to, you should come play for me. If not, if you want promises everywhere else, then go somewhere else. I love when he tells that story.

0:19:57 - (Bill Faeth): That's the segue right into what really investing into the number one asset class is. You have two choices. You either go down my path and you put in the work and you have to take those two extra steps that everybody else won't do, and it takes time and it takes effort, or you kind of have the easy button in how you teach your students. Right. You kind of have two distinct. You and I are at polar opposites, and that's 100% okay. Because we all get to choose our own path, right?

0:20:25 - (Shawn Moore): Yeah, absolutely. So let's dive it back in there. Because short term rentals, like any other asset class, there's pros and cons to it, right? I love them for so many different reasons. I love being able to maximize smaller portfolios. I love the personal use of them. I like to use my properties. A lot of people are like, no, I don't care about that. I like buying properties that I want to go visit and use and being able to make money on.

0:20:56 - (Shawn Moore): Here's what I'll say, too, Bill. Like you said, we all get to choose our own path. There's different ways to skin a cat and get to where you want to get. There's also what I really think is important for people to understand. Know Sean says one thing, Bill says another thing. But theRe's things that Sean and Bill say the same and we talk about that are very congruent. And you've got the STR wealth conference. You're going to have many different experts there, all with different opinions on different things, but there's going to be a handful of them that are very foundational that everybody agrees on.

0:21:24 - (Bill Faeth): I really center of that Venn diagram.

0:21:27 - (Shawn Moore): Yes. And that's what people need to pay attention to. Don't veer away from those things. And then the other things that there's different ways to do it. Management is one of them. Right. I don't manage my own properties. You have found a way to very efficiently manage your own properties. And so there's that you kind of choose what works the best for you in your portfolio. But there are certain things on maximizing assets, creating unique experiences. Some of the things how we underwrite, how important regulations and underwriting and areas that you will actually invest in. I don't give a shit what political party you're from, but you should be very wary of investing in blue Cities and blue states because of the rules and regulations.

0:22:05 - (Shawn Moore): Something that not a lot of people talk about on the front end, but something that is very important to us on the front end because I don't want to run into a problem two years from now when I have to get somebody out of my house if.

0:22:15 - (Bill Faeth): I don't invest where I live, because I live in the buckle of the Bible belt in Nashville, Tennessee. But it's probably a bluer city than San Francisco, California. And the volatility since 2013, regulatory wise, has been one of the worst in the country. So I just steered clear of it.

0:22:34 - (Shawn Moore): Right. And those are all different things that a lot of people, and this is a great example on the tail end of talking about coaching. Those are things that most people aren't talking about and thinking about, right, walking into the game. And our goal is for people to walk in with their eyes wide open. We want you to know the good, the bad, the ugly, and so that you make the best decisions when you're figuring out what your property goals, what your life goals are.

0:22:55 - (Shawn Moore): All of that on the very, very beginning stages. Bill and I's portfolios look totally different. We are both in love with the same asset class. And that asset class helps us build the lifestyle, financial freedom that we're after. But because we're very clear on our property goals and our life goals, our portfolio can still look very different. And that's what's really fun about understanding that front end piece of where do you want to go and what are you trying to build?

0:23:20 - (Bill Faeth): Couldn't agree more. I mean, defining your outcome is what allows you to architect your path in your life to be able to get there. If you don't do that, you're just kind of aimlessly running through life. And I would say that I'm an expert in that because I did it for probably the first 1718 years of my entrepreneurial career, I've done everything. Restaurants, drop shipping, Brazilian bikinis, every mobile auto detailing, glow in the dark miniature golf, whatever. I mean, I've done it all because I didn't have purpose. I made a lot of money.

0:23:54 - (Bill Faeth): But you know what? I didn't have the alignment with my spouse and I wasn't 100% focused once I got that clarity and really saw what we wanted together as a unit. And that outcome of what, for us older people, we use the word retirement. If you're in your 20s, you're talking financial freedom. Set a date, keep score, understand what you're trying to achieve so you can distill that information down to make more sound decisions. Today. When you do that, you have clarity, right? You have reason.

0:24:25 - (Bill Faeth): You're tying into that why, which is that end game. And you have the ability to become the architect and take control. That's happened to me, Sean, in 2015. That's when my life really fundamentally changed to where now the currency for me, more is time than it is money. And that's easy for people like us, that we're probably closer, have already achieved that financial freedom. Not going to bullshit anybody. Look, when I was poor, making $24,000 a year, married, living in California, where they take 70%, it feels like of every dollar you make, I probably couldn't have said that thing. But if you have the decisions made on what your outcome is going to be, it doesn't matter if you're 20 years old or 50 years old.

0:25:07 - (Bill Faeth): Just makes it so much easier to make really sound decisions on a daily basis.

0:25:13 - (Shawn Moore): Love it. And speaking of time and making some of those decisions, I don't know about you, there's a couple of things. We're going to go a little bit longer than normal. Usually we wrap up if you're okay. I want to hit on a few topics with you because I think it's important and I think it's really applicable. But one of the questions I get all the time, and I can tell it's somebody that is very inexperienced in investing.

0:25:36 - (Shawn Moore): When they ask it is, how many properties? Well, how many properties do you have? And they're always shocked at how small my portfolio actually is. I always somewhere between six and ten properties. And they're always like, what? You've been doing this for that long and you only have six properties? You only have eight properties? And I say, I usually fluctuate because I'm always upgrading and maximizing my portfolio at times as well. I'll maximize assets and trade them up.

0:26:01 - (Shawn Moore): So we do buy a lot more than that, but I usually hold between six and ten. Nobody asks, how much do you make from that portfolio, right? Which is fine.

0:26:13 - (Bill Faeth): You know why that is, right?

0:26:16 - (Shawn Moore): I actually don't know. Why do people ask that all the time? I always just think it's inexperienced. I'm like, you don't understand. The ultimate goal is how much am I?

0:26:24 - (Bill Faeth): You have an editor that bleeps stuff out on your podcast. Yeah, it's big BLEEP syndrome that almost every male has, right? Yes, it's exactly what it is. And that's why everybody refers to them as units as opposed to. I can answer your question for you. I feel like we've known each other for 50 years because we're in this for the exact same reason, we're doing the exact same thing. The only difference that sounds to me is I self manage and you use somebody else to manage your properties.

0:26:53 - (Bill Faeth): It's because I want to make the most amount of fucking money off the least amount of properties because it takes the least amount of time. Plain and simple, you're leveling up your properties. If you do a return on equity audit on your real estate, you go in, you say, oh, well, this one's making $50,000 a year net income. I've got $400,000 in equity. I need to sell that. I don't want to HELOC, I don't want to cash out ReFi because I don't want to add more.

0:27:16 - (Bill Faeth): I want to decrease the number of properties. But I can redeploy that cash and generate larger percentage. Well, maybe similar percentage of appreciation, but larger cash on that percentage of appreciation and larger cash flow. We do the same fucking thing.

0:27:30 - (Shawn Moore): Yeah, 100%. And nobody thinks that way, really, until you've been in it for a little while. It's very rare, yeah. That somebody has that thought process, but it's exactly right. I know that my most valuable asset is time, and it's a lot less time consuming to worry about six properties than it is 50. And I've also talked to a lot of people that have built these huge portfolios of, and you're right, they talk about units, two 3400 units.

0:27:57 - (Shawn Moore): And off camera they're like, man, it's too much. I've got to reduce it. I've got to do this. Can you help me do what you're doing?

0:28:04 - (Bill Faeth): Can you imagine?

0:28:05 - (Shawn Moore): I really can't.

0:28:07 - (Bill Faeth): I can't even imagine having 200 units if I don't manage them myself, if I'm like you and I have a property manager.

0:28:12 - (Shawn Moore): I totally agree. It's not the asset class that that makes sense in. Right. And so I can't imagine, and you're exactly right. Even if I wasn't managing them, I can't imagine that big of a portfolio.

0:28:24 - (Bill Faeth): I mean, I have a fund and I am invested into multifamily and that type of stuff, but that is long term. It is not short term. I can't even imagine just doing a tax return with 200 units. That's like a three month process.

0:28:39 - (Shawn Moore): And the turnovers that are happening, the wear and tear on that many properties that you're dealing with, just a lot of it. And that's what's really interesting. And I can always tell, like, okay, when somebody asks that question, okay, we need to back up a little bit and have you help really understand what the ultimate goal is, which is free up as much time as possible because that's our most valuable asset and we're not getting any of that back and put as much money in our pocket as possible at the end of the day, net, and that's lifestyle, financial freedom, that's what we're after. And if I can find an asset with short term rentals that allows me to do that.

0:29:16 - (Shawn Moore): We've got six property portfolio right now currently, and we won't hit a million dollars this year. We've hit millions in the past, over a million in the past, because I had a little bit larger portfolio. But we're right around that million dollar mark with six properties, we're really close to it. And that's a high producing portfolio, which that rolls into my next question. And I think that one of the things that you've really been kind of coining the term these super properties, and you're really being able to say, okay, I'm interested in building super properties and a portfolio of super properties. And a lot of I feel like the misconception on the front end, if you're not really experienced in what you're really talking about, is they think these are these big, massive properties you're talking about taking and getting the most out of whatever property you have operating. Whatever that property is in the asset class it is, whether it's a two bedroom or whether it's a ten bedroom is squeezing as much juice out of as possible and really maximizing that asset, is that right?

0:30:13 - (Bill Faeth): 1000%. The largest bedroom count that I currently have in my portfolio is six. The smallest is two. We were talking about. I bought a condo right at the entrance to Glacier National park with Joe and Amy. Right next door is my next door neighbors. That condo is a super property because it will outperform the nintieth percentile of Airdna. My portfolio, I outperform it by 52.8% right now. Track that every week.

0:30:39 - (Bill Faeth): And so let's just call it 53% of the nintieth percentile portfolio wide. So I've got just about double the amount of properties that you have, which is two more than I really want to have. But it's vanity right now, Sean, because I did $997,000 net last year on 2.38 million in gross. I got to get over that million dollar mark just for my own sanity, right? Yeah, missed it by three grand. That kind of pisses me off.

0:31:02 - (Shawn Moore): The true competitor, right? It's like, okay, I'm racing against this.

0:31:06 - (Bill Faeth): A super property is really a property that maxes out time and money. That's it. So I probably spend more time researching and underwriting a property. Look, everybody that follows me knows my dream property is the one that I own. 15 minutes outside of whitefish, Montana. Two and a half years every day. Two and a half years every day till I found the right property. Montana is a very challenging state to invest into.

0:31:33 - (Bill Faeth): To be able to turn a profit, I had to find the perfect location, the perfect views, the access to the river. Just everything finally fell in. What's interesting is if I show you the back of the house and the Aframe concept and the view of the river and the Canadian rockies up into Canada and the lake, it's amazing. If you drive in and you look at the front of the cabin, it's the ugliest house that I have.

0:31:55 - (Bill Faeth): So we talk about sales and marketing. Nobody will ever see the front of the house until they show up. And they're probably going to be, oh, my God, is this the right place? But once they walk in that front door and see the view and the inside, then it changes everything. So you've mentioned it a couple of times. Underwriting, identifying the right market, getting that down to bedroom count to maximize within that market, underwriting the property.

0:32:19 - (Bill Faeth): Most importantly, before you ever put an offer on it, if you really are going to be building a super property, you have to understand your buyer persona. That's your ideal guest. That's a fictitious representation of your ideal customer, your ideal guest. Because the location, views, proximity, interior design, amenities, color palettes, textures, everything has to be built for that buyer persona. I used to when I was young, Sean, in any business, I wanted everybody to come and buy from me.

0:32:48 - (Bill Faeth): In my short term rental space, I have one buyer persona, and that is wealthy Wendy. I do 71%. Bookings come through females. Now, the language is softer. You can tell me I'm a pretty aggressive, hardcore dude, but, man, that language. The copywriting is softer. My wife's design is softer. The textures are going after wealthy Wendy. Whether it's that two bedroom condo or my largest property is two and a half acres in the North Carolina mountains with six bedrooms, a guest house, a massive $300,000 fire pit, all these things. But it's still going after wealthy Wendy.

0:33:22 - (Bill Faeth): Because, really, even though you and I are two successful entrepreneurs, former athletes, whatever, we can talk about all that. We're really just a husband that listens to our wife.

0:33:30 - (Shawn Moore): Exactly. Yeah. 75% of the buying decisions are made by women. And so you better not ignore the women that are making the decisions on those vacation homes.

0:33:41 - (Bill Faeth): So when I look at a property, the first thing I'm thinking, I'm not thinking about bedcount. I'm not thinking about, does this need a hot tub? Amenities, wall murals, all the stuff everybody else talks about. It's like, how am I going to market this property? And what are the traffic drivers? You mentioned that earlier. That's why I love, like, hot Springs, Arkansas, right now, because, one, the market's closed, so you got to go outside or buy something. That's always permitted, but it's one of the few markets that has four major traffic drivers in it, right? So I look at the marketability and then what I call value stacking.

0:34:13 - (Bill Faeth): How many things do I have to be able to market in this property? Because if it's just an average 32 and an average or a good location, and I think I can just add a hot tub, and that's going to make it a super property that never works. You got to have, like, 1012 point checklist of location, proximity, views, attractions, traffic, drivers, interior design, privacy, multiple family areas, all these things that we're looking at to be able to turn that into a super property.

0:34:42 - (Bill Faeth): And it starts before you even make the offer.

0:34:45 - (Shawn Moore): Absolutely. And you're not guessing on that checklist, right? Like, people are like, well, you know exactly what you're looking for, right?

0:34:52 - (Bill Faeth): When I Montana property, we talked about your love of the Western mountains. When I walked inside that property, it was when the snowstorm, that blizzard was blowing through right before Christmas last year, and it was like five degrees, minus five degrees outside. I walked in, I took off my jacket, and I saw the windows of that river, and I just went and stood in front of it like this. And the next day, my wife and I were flying to Scottsdale, and we're on the flight, and she's like, hey, what do you think of the.

0:35:22 - (Bill Faeth): Oh, it was cool. She's like, you don't remember it, do you? No. She's like, you didn't even go upstairs. I said I didn't fucking have to, because I'm selling that view. That's the only thing that matters, right? You're an outdoorsman, right? When you can stand on your back deck and have the tri tip on the traeger and throw the fly rod into the river and actually catch fish, you can't replicate that. So I'm always looking for something that's unique, that's going to stand out that my competition cannot replicate. Now, that property, I added a hot tub and a barrel sauna. There's not a barrel sauna. In the entire market of whitefish. But I promise you there will be going into this summer because I've already got it. Like when you add stuff and they see it and they're going to add it, anybody can come and add a hot tub. Anybody can do wall murals. Anybody can do our house. Nice furniture. Anybody can pay to have great design.

0:36:11 - (Bill Faeth): What you can't do is replace the views, the location. And I believe everybody talks about views and location. I believe proximity is more important than all of those, to be honest with you. And that is the easy access we talked about Joe and Amy. We both love them dearly. They've got a great place in Hungry horse. They crush it. But you know what? They don't have to. The river access. They're 25ft up. You can't get to the river. So if I could find a place right next to them, I wouldn't even have to have as nice of a dwelling, as nice of a house. But if I had access, I could out market them.

0:36:42 - (Bill Faeth): Those are the things that we need to think about. I move into investor mode when I start the underwriting process, when I'm looking at a property on Zillow or in person. I did 10 hours of driving yesterday to go put my eyes on a potential super property and made an offer. When I look at it, I'm thinking of it as a marketer first. Once I get past that and I kind of build that list mentally, and I know, okay, I've got this. This is awesome. I've already done the enemy method. I've looked at the competitors before. I get there.

0:37:12 - (Bill Faeth): Now I move psychologically into underwriting mode.

0:37:16 - (Shawn Moore): Yeah, absolutely. And you're talking about, and here's the thing. You mentioned you're an entrepreneur, you built many businesses, exited a number of them, and you said you're kind of finding your way. One of the biggest takeaways that you probably, maybe consciously or unconsciously didn't know that you're bringing into the short term rental investing space is that these are little businesses. Every business has a guest or a customer avatar. Right? And we have a guest Avatar.

0:37:43 - (Shawn Moore): They have a target audience, a target customer. They're not trying to sell everything to everybody. And a lot of investors get into this space and they want to open their doors to everybody. It's one of the biggest mistakes that people make, in my opinion. And if you could just wrap your head around this concept that Bill has been talking about for the last few minutes of figuring out who your target Avatar is, who is that guest going to be who's your target audience and how are you going to create a great experience for them? Very specifically for them?

0:38:13 - (Shawn Moore): Bill's got wealthy Wendy, and that's the target Avatar. It Sounds like for most of your properties, right?

0:38:20 - (Bill Faeth): Every one of them, even the two bedroom condo, because it's such a high end build, right. And 100%, there's some tertiary components in that Ven diagram, right. But I also believe in a thing called the Genius zone. So I don't know how tall you are. I'm six. Six. And I played basketball. I played basketball through my sophomore year. I was Woody Harrelson. Man, I couldn't dunk. How many six basketball players do you know that can't dunk?

0:38:49 - (Shawn Moore): Right?

0:38:49 - (Bill Faeth): So you know what my jam was? Three point shooting. Averaged, like, seven a game my freshman and sophomore year. Free throw shooting, three point shooting, didn't have the handles, wasn't fast, couldn't dunk. I'm literally playing a two or a three at 6630 years ago when I should have been a four or a five. Right. So, same thing I look at. I want to live in my genius zone. So that's something for a lot of our students, a lot of our listeners that are out there. You better really understand what you're good at and what you're not.

0:39:22 - (Bill Faeth): And when you find something that you're not. Like, for me, I don't fuck around with bookkeeping and data entry and that type of just, I can do it. I hate it. That means I'm going to avoid it. So I'm sticking into the branding and the marketing and the hospitality side on this and the underwriting. That's where my genius zone is. So I live in that, and I'm looking for markets and properties like you talked about. I saw your Instagram post about, hey, you crushed cherry log and Blue Ridge.

0:39:51 - (Bill Faeth): I didn't even know it was in Blue Ridge. I just saw the Post and it said cherry log. And I'm not big on the Blue Ridge market either. For most people, I think there's a little bit of a difference for you and I. Right. And I've got a lot of people, a lot of students, a lot of friends, even from here, and they're trying to target here. They're targeting Chattanooga, Birmingham. Like, dude, go all fucking in on Atlanta, and if you're going to buy a property there, it's not just being about on the river and Lake Hiawasi or whatever.

0:40:16 - (Bill Faeth): I might look for the coolest property that's the closest to AtlanTa so I can market that hey, I'm not 2 hours away. I'm like 67 Minutes from North Point or whatever that is. Those are the Things that People, In My opinion, Need to be looking at when they're making these Investments. Forget about the House. The House is so Secondary, or the Cabin or the chalet, or the Condo, or Whatever it is. Think about all those Other Things that you think Are Ancillary, but that's where you're going to make your Money 100%.

0:40:47 - (Shawn Moore): And you're right. When I did cherry log, it was an Interesting, it was a case Study, and I actually have this Three hour case study Online. And In There I said, listen, this is me doing this kind of Putting my Money where my Mouth is on a Property. Like, I had to be at the very top of the market to make any money on this property. I had to cross every T, dot every I, and this property had to become A top Property in that market. It's going to be the number one Three Bedroom in Cherry log, and right now it's the number Three.

0:41:20 - (Shawn Moore): And I still have Two Months left of good Months coming up, and we'll blow out the number One market. But that's not what we teach people to go to, right. As an investor, you don't ever want to have to hit a High Watermark to make Money. And so I don't want to discount the fact that we do certain things. You and I Are Comfortable Doing certain ThiNgs that maybe is a little outside of. We're doing exactly what we teach.

0:41:45 - (Shawn Moore): But it might have been a little bit bigger risk for somebody to do on the front end to say, I have to hit a High Water market 1000%.

0:41:52 - (Bill Faeth): I do a good, better best scenario in my UnderWriting. When I'm building out performas and even myself, I always stay in the better. I never forecast on the best. The other thing is, I will always underestimate revenue 10% Overestimate Expenses. Smart. That's what I call back when I played professional golf, we all had these Yardage books, and There would be a YArdage from everything, every Tree, every bunker, all the different tHings.

0:42:18 - (Bill Faeth): On the PJ Tour, there was always this J-F-I-C-K-Y. It's like, just in case you fuck up yardage, right? Like, you blast. We shouldn't be hitting it 50 yards offline. You need to have the just in case you fuck up in your performer, too. So understand once again where that genius zone is. I believe that. I know you're a great marketer, you're a great salesperson. You're just like a stock picker, a property picker. I am too. All those things that gives us room for error where most people, especially if you're just beginning, you don't have that opportunity.

0:42:51 - (Bill Faeth): Great marketing in this business, great positioning inside of your properties, creates a lot of delta to where you can make some small mistakes and still be in really good position.

0:43:04 - (Shawn Moore): Yes.

0:43:04 - (Bill Faeth): If you are not a great marketer, if you've never marketed before, you need to understand that it's going to be more challenging for you to do what I do, then you probably need to go down the path of if you're thinking about self hosting, of what Sean does and what Sean teaches, and find a great property management company, but also make sure that they're really freaking good at marketing and revenue management as well.

0:43:27 - (Shawn Moore): Absolutely. And don't assume. Here's one thing that I think a lot of investors assume that they're going to be able to hand off, setting up a great experience, picking that target avatar. I think a lot of investors assume that I don't manage any of my own properties, but I don't hand my property off to a property manager until I've bought the right asset, until I have designed around a very specific customer avatar. I put together this crazy experience.

0:43:58 - (Shawn Moore): I want a property manager that can deliver that. They're not going to curate it. And I think that that is what gets a lot of people into where property management just, they operate in the middle of the market, right? A lot of self managers, they actually operate, I think, a little bit higher sometimes than some of the mainstream property managers because they're just in the middle of the market. But it's because investors handed the property off too early. They just assumed that they were going to give that manager a property and without any sort of experience, any sort of a customer avatar, nothing to really deliver other than a property. And that's where they fall short. And so you have to take responsibility as the actual investor to say buying the right property in the right area is one thing.

0:44:45 - (Shawn Moore): The next piece of that puzzle is curating this great experience for a target audience so that somebody else can deliver it, whether that's you or whether it's a property manager. And they've got to be really good at that, being in the hospitality space, 24/7 concierge and this five star experience of delivering that experience. And that's what I don't do very well. When you say live in your genius zone, I don't manage my own properties because I don't enjoy the delivery of it. I like putting it all together and being able to say, okay, now this is together.

0:45:19 - (Shawn Moore): And I love the end product, but I don't like the other stuff. And so because I'm not very good at it, I have to hire professionals that are right.

0:45:26 - (Bill Faeth): I'm with you a thousand percent.

0:45:29 - (Shawn Moore): And so awesome. Bill. Well, THis Is A GreAt CONveRsation. I think you and I can sit here for 3 hours and we can just keep going back and forth on stuff. But before we end, I really want to talk about, and I don't, I know that you're like, hey, listen, I don't want to be coming on and doing a lot of self promotion, everything else, I really think that this is, and I've seen it from the sidelines. I'm really excited to hopefully attend and be a participant at the STR Wealth Conference this year with you guys.

0:45:57 - (Shawn Moore): But what you've done, and I've been around for a long time, I'm saying I don't think, but I'm pretty sure I know that there's not a bigger short term rental type of a really focused with investors, be able to get together for a few days and mastermind and network and learn from some of the best experts in the business. And you guys have done a great job of this the last few years since you put this together. And I told you before we even hit play, live events are tough to put together and you guys do a really good job of this. And so let's talk a little bit about that when it's coming up. And I do want you to be a little bit of a self promoter here and tell us a little bit about STR wealth conference.

0:46:33 - (Bill Faeth): Yeah. Thank you. It's February 5 through the eigth in Nashville, Tennessee. We'll be right in downtown at the Music City Center. We are estimating 3000 attendees this year, but really creating an intimate type of an event. And what I mean by that is, I used to own a DMC, a destination management event company. I've taken a former president of Meeting Professionals International, MPI, who is an expert in creating these types of events. We've hired her, she's helping me and Chris, who have produced our last two events. So it's very intentional. The networking piece is one of the big things that people want when they come to a conference like this.

0:47:11 - (Bill Faeth): So it'll be very intentional. The vendors, the technology, everybody that's going to be here, that's going to be ten times bigger than last year. Bigger isn't always better. So one of the things that we've done is a single stage conference is we'll have 3000 people when Damon John's on stage or our keynotes or for our opening party. And the cool thing is I've designed our staging like literally after Taylor Swift and then Chris, my guy is going to the whole next level from an entertainment standpoint. So it is fun, it's entertainment with the focus on the education.

0:47:44 - (Bill Faeth): But we're going to have over 20 breakouts this year and that's something that's completely different. So if you want to learn MTR, if you want to really focus on revenue management, the boutique hotel side, we've got all these breakouts where it's not just the speakers, the influencers, that type of stuff on the main stage. Here's the biggest thing. It's a no pitch zone. I don't allow selling from stage. That's number one. That's really important to me as the owner of the conference. Number twO, this is very similar takes on my personality and how I teach to where this is a teaching conference. This is not a pie in the sky blue ocean.

0:48:22 - (Bill Faeth): If you change mindset and walk on fire then look, there's nothing wrong with Tony Robbins. He had 14 people and I've been to all of his programs before and I love them. But this is a tactical teach you to where if you really sit in the front row and you raise your hand and you pay attention, you're going to learn and we're going to challenge you to execute that day and the next day and as soon as you get home.

0:48:44 - (Bill Faeth): This is not just networking. Have some beers, go see Broadway in downtown Nashville and have fun. There's plenty of that stuff. But we want you to be able to get 1020 times the money that you're going to invest here for your time over these three or four days. And it's just the lineup is incredible. We've expanded from 1000 person venue. We could do 4000, but we're going to cap at 3000. We don't want any more than that.

0:49:11 - (Bill Faeth): And it's freaking amazing if anybody's been to VRMA or I'm not discounting what they do, but they're regular conferences. You want to have high energy, you want to have music, you want that Nashville flavor. You want to have fun while focusing on your education, while learning from the best, while networking. That's the place to be. There's no question.

0:49:33 - (Shawn Moore): And learning from some of the best in the business. And I think that's the key. There is not just a whole bunch of. Because motivation fades, right? And we can all be motivated at times, and it is motivational to hear different stories and being able to look at somebody that is a few steps ahead of you and say, man, I could do that. But you're going to be surrounded by other people that are operating at a really high level. And like you mentioned, just very tactical advice. I love that it's a no sell zone where it doesn't feel like everybody's just pitching their stuff.

0:50:05 - (Shawn Moore): Real people don't need to pitch their stuff, right? Most likely there's a lot of people that will work with. You're going to be attracted to some of these when we talked about coaches, right? And that's a byproduct of being able to get really connect with somebody live. And there's nothing that beats a live event. And you can really tell who knows what they're doing. And Bill does a good job, Michael does a good job. I met Michael about a year ago and Michael Chogrin, and they do a good job of being able to bring people who really do know what they're talking about and really do have different takes on this industry, different paths that you can run down to make and build that lifestyle and financial freedom that you're looking for. And so I'm really excited to really, this year, finally be really promoting this and telling people about it because I've been looking into it a little bit more and kind of watching it from the sidelines in the past and really congratulate you guys on putting it together. And I'm excited for this year and be a part of it and be attending there and just rubbing shoulders with some of the best in the business.

0:51:09 - (Bill Faeth): I appreciate that. If those of you that are listening out there in Vodyssey land, use the coupon code more Moore to get the best available pricing when you get your tickets. The one thing I will tell you that I think is super important is really, so it doesn't matter if you're just getting ready to dip your toe into the water. And I think it's the most important time, honestly. And a lot of people, I think you see this, too, Sean. Well, I'm going to start doing that, meaning going to conferences, getting in programs, consuming podcasts, YouTube, whatever, after I get my first property. That's the wrong time to do it.

0:51:44 - (Bill Faeth): Do it at ground level before you make your first offer. So if you're in that boat, come to the conference, you're going to learn from Sean, you're going to learn from me, you're going to learn from other people. But I want you to understand that everybody's broken out by portfolio size and experience. And that's a good thing because we have stuff. We have a women's only. Angie Wisdom is going to Just be insane keynote. And then she's doing a women's only.

0:52:09 - (Bill Faeth): I'm doing a rookie workshop on you know what. And Sean, I'm going to invite you right now on air. You're coming to the conference. You help me with the rookie workshop on Monday before we even start the conference. How does that sound?

0:52:21 - (Shawn Moore): Love it. Love it.

0:52:22 - (Bill Faeth): And so I'm going to bring Sean in. We'll do the rookie together. Use his code if you're coming. His last name, M-O-O-R-E. But here's the deal. And then the networking is done geographically, so you don't have to go around and search for everybody in broken Bow or Blue Ridge or Chicago or whatever it is. We're going to make that easy for you to be able know, seek out your tribe. So those things, those details, just like Sean and I put into our education and we walk that walk in our investing same thing is going into the conference.

0:52:49 - (Shawn Moore): Love it.

0:52:50 - (Bill Faeth): Awesome.

0:52:50 - (Shawn Moore): Well, I'm excited. That'll be really the walking into this with your eyes wide open, working with those people. And you're so right. I hear so often that, well, I think I'll look into this stuff. I'll get some training. I'll get some coaching after I get a property. It's like, whoa, man, talk about a mistake. You want to do all this way before you buy that first property because you can't make a lot of adjustments after you have a property, right?

0:53:16 - (Shawn Moore): Buy the wrong one. That's an expensive thing to go back, Bill. And we'll put all of this in the show notes. But where should we send people? I want people that want to know more about what you guys are doing just at STR build wealth. All of those different things. The STR Wealth Conference, everything else. Where do we want to point people and how can they get more of this? Sign up for the conference. All those different things.

0:53:41 - (Bill Faeth): Yeah. Conference. Strwealthconference.com Strwealthconference.com if you want to connect with me, you can see my Instagram down there. Bill. Phase 73. Build. Short term rental wealth.

0:53:52 - (Shawn Moore): Build. Yeah.

0:53:53 - (Bill Faeth): 30,000 people in a Facebook group. Websites. Build. Strwealth.com. YouTube channel. I'm on TikTok. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm everywhere, just like Sean is. You can Google my name, Bill Faith. And just find all the assets, but really, the two big ones, I think know really strwealthconference.com I would like to see you guys there. Sean's going to be there. And then build STR wealth if you want to go down the self hosting path.

0:54:19 - (Bill Faeth): Awesome.

0:54:19 - (Shawn Moore): Well, Bill, I appreciate your time, man. This has been a pleasure. And those of you that have been listening, we know how valuable your time is. We always appreciate you spending with us. And you know that I leave you with two challenges at the end of every episode, and that is the first one. If you got any value out of this, and I hope you did, because I know I sure did, having this conversation, share it with somebody, you know, share it with somebody that might have gained some value and point them in the direction of a conference, a live conference that they can get. Rub shoulders with some of the best experts in the business.

0:54:48 - (Shawn Moore): And then if you have more than 30 seconds, subscribe. Leave us a review. Tell us what you think about the show. Those things help us grow the show. And then the most important in what I believe and challenge you should be doing every single day is to go pick that one thing. Pick one thing that you can do today to start building that life that you don't want to take a vacation from. Cheers, my friends.

0:55:15 - (Wyatt): Thanks for joining us on this episode of the Vacation Rental Revolution Podcast. Share this with other people using need to hear about it. And don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. Hey Grace, is there a website? Yes. For more amazing content and expert advice, visit vodyssey.com. Thanks for listening and we'll see you on the next episode.