Insider Secrets to Maximizing Your Short-Term Rental Profits

Aviva (00:00)
This week's Listener of the Week is Ron Koenigsberg. Ron, thank you for leaving us a five star review. And for those of you listening, if you leave us a five star review below, you might be next week's Listener of the Week. Week, week. This week on Commercial Real Estate Secrets, have Jacki Tait. Jacki is the queen of relational real estate.

Coming out of Flagstaff, Arizona, Jacki, thank you for being on the show today.

Jacki Semerau Tait (00:30)
Thank you for having me.

Aviva (00:32)
Jacki, tell the listeners, you have a really impressive lineup of achievements. Tell the listeners who you are, what you do, and how we got here today.

Jacki Semerau Tait (00:45)
that's like, how deep you want me to go. But hey, so I really appreciate that question. I'm a top producing agent in Flagstaff, Arizona, team leader of team 323 with Realty One Group Mountain Desert. And we cover not just the Flagstaff area, but also Williams, Muns Park, Sedona, Verde Valley, pretty much all over Northern Arizona, we can help you out. I mean, that's like the.

byline really, but I got into real estate back in I was only well, we won't say how old I was but it was in 2002 and we I decided to get into real estate because my ex-husband and I at the time were looking to buy our first investment property and the agent we were working with just didn't really get it and I said, you know what? Why don't I go to real estate school? I'll get my license. We can I can represent our own interests and that puts me in the driver's seat.

And I just fell in love with it. I fell in love with real estate by the time I was done with school, which for any of you who've gone to real estate school, you know that's like the worst part of real estate. But I was fascinated. by the time I was done, I was like, I want to do this. I want to do this for real. And so, yeah, I jumped into the real estate industry in 2002. And here I am.

Aviva (01:50)
Yeah.

Impressive. So you lead a top producing team of brokers. What does that look like for somebody who might want to jump into the real estate brokerage game on the residential side? What does a day in the life of a residential top producer look like?

Jacki Semerau Tait (02:21)
You know, the best part about it is it's different every day. And that's my favorite thing about real estate is that there is no typical day. That being said, within any given day, we're definitely making phone calls, connecting with prospective people, making sure we're keeping an eye on the market and specific properties for the people that we're working with.

It's also taking phone calls, answering texts and emails for the agents that work on my team when they have questions or they need some assistance, things like that. So there's a lot of those moving pieces that are happening. And then it's being out in the field. It's being out looking at houses, showing houses, taking listing appointments, that type of thing. And all of that and somehow inside of that, I fit in, you know, hobbies and family and personal life too.

Aviva (03:14)
I'm glad you have hobbies, because I don't.

Jacki Semerau Tait (03:16)
Well, I think one of my favorite hobbies is cooking. So it's a little bit of a dual thing because you're going to have dinner anyway. So I love to cook. At the end of the day, it's actually part of how I kind of decompress and then feed my family. So it's Exactly.

Aviva (03:32)
Okay, okay. Two birds, one stone. Jacki, tell me about the state of the residential market today, October 10th, 2024.

Jacki Semerau Tait (03:43)
So interestingly enough, if you listen to the national news, you're going to just get that fly overview and it's really not how our Northern Arizona market is hitting. And even that being said, the micro markets within the Northern Arizona territory that I personally cover are all different as well. For instance, right now in Flagstaff, we still are having such low inventory and

Truly, if you price your house right and you prepare it to sell, it's going to go. We're still seeing multiple offers. It's the people who are still swinging for the fences and not actually pricing for today's market that you're going to sit. You're going to chase the market down. And so people are looking at that statistic and going, the market's really slowing. No, it's not. Because if you price it right and it's a good property, there are way more buyers.

that are out there looking for exactly that property and they will come out of the woodwork as soon as you hit the market. So there's a lot of that going on whereas down in the Verde Valley we're seeing things that are sitting a little bit longer. It's less of a tourist area. Of course Sedona is a huge tourist area so that's got its own little micro market. So honestly here's what I will say. I've been in this business for 22 years and

The answer is always, it a good time to sell? Yes. Is it a good time to buy? Yes. That's always the answer. But you just have to have the proper expectations as to what that looks like in the time that you need to. The biggest disservice you can do yourself is trying to quote unquote time the market. That's a whole thing that, you know, people tell me, well, I don't know about this timing. Honestly, like

put a pin in it with this story, there was somebody that I was working with right when the COVID shutdowns happened. And when the COVID shutdowns very first hit, we were all standing there wide-eyed going, my God, this is going to be a repeat of 2008. We don't know what's going to happen with prices. We don't know what's going to happen with the market. Well, this person sort of

came up and said they wanted to purchase an investment property in Flagstaff in May of 2020. This is right when we were starting to go, we don't think the sky is quite falling. And so we're just making that adjustment. And I'm trying to tell this person jump on this right now. This townhouse you're looking at, it was under 400,000. It was four bedroom. It was three bath. It had a two car garage. Like, my gosh, jump on this now. He didn't listen to me.

He backed out three months later, came back and purchased and ended up spending 30 % more than he would have just three months earlier. So, you know, it was one of those things where he was trying to time the market and instead of just jumping in, he was ready, willing and able to buy. Instead, he kind of got like, I'm gonna wait and time it. Nope, don't do it.

Aviva (06:54)
I think about these, you look, if you play the game of real estate, if you're a buyer, if you're a broker, if you're a developer, anything, you will make mistakes and they will be costly. And I always joke that somebody, you know, I didn't have a formal college education in commercial real estate, but I have paid for a formal college education in mistakes. And that's

and everybody has, right? We just, we learn on the streets generally instead of in a classroom, but we still pay for it because...

Jacki Semerau Tait (07:30)
You still pay for it. That's true. But you also look at it like take that same time frame. My husband and I were selling in one of our investment properties. We had it on the market. We went to contract right before all the shutdowns. And so, of course, when it when it went under, the shutdowns happen, we said, my gosh, we have to hold on to this buyer. We cannot lose this buyer at all costs.

hindsight being 20-20, we would have been like, please, buyer, go away because we could have made so much. It was a short-term rental property. Short-term rental properties went crazy. So was that a little bit costly? If you want to look at it that way. But what it did do is it freed up funds for us. We went into another marketplace. We ended up buying a couple of homes in Rockport, Texas. I always wanted a beach house.

We went and bought a couple of beach houses and so that money parlayed into that. We still were able to take advantage of that marketplace and then sell out of there and you know, enjoy that appreciation. So honestly, like you can parlay a mistake into a win in real estate. If like you said, if you're playing the game.

Aviva (08:43)
Yeah, if you're positive and optimistic, you try hard, you come out ahead every time if you want to, if you're patient enough to stay in the game. So tell me, you have, we're talking short-term rentals here. A lot has changed with short-term rentals since the pandemic. Can you dive into that for me?

Jacki Semerau Tait (09:07)
Oh my gosh, I could go on and on and I know this podcast isn't long enough. So I will say to anybody listening, you're going to get my contact information at the end. if you have questions about short term rentals, am, it's my favorite topic. But what I will tell you is that obviously when the pandemic happened, money was so cheap and people could

leverage themselves into a property very easily. So and then you have the perfect storm of people not being able to jump on a plane and travel to Europe or wherever their favorite vacation destination was. And so people were really staying more localized. So short term rentals, excuse me, short term rentals really went on a boom. If you come into it thinking that you're going to recreate that perfect storm is not like no.

That's not going to happen. That was kind of a once in a lifetime thing. People with short term rentals were lucky enough to take advantage of it. Fantastic. However, it's still a very viable business today. And so when you're looking at a short term rental, I work with a lot of people who are either investors in short term rental specifically, or they invest in multiple different types of properties. And that's just one leg of their journey.

Or a lot of times it's people who just want to buy a vacation home but make it make sense. So, okay, it's not just sitting there vacant as a liability. Let's turn it into an asset when we're not in residence. So no matter what strategy you're going at it, there are a lot of ways that you can make a big splash in that marketplace. It's just not going to be that those crazy numbers we were seeing during the pandemic.

So it's still a viable industry and I'm a huge fan of it. The thing I love about short term rentals is the exit strategy can literally be just to turn it into a long term rental. If you're done, you don't want to do it anymore. It's a vacation home that you're not going to use. You don't necessarily have to sell it on the back end. You can just flip it into a long term rental. You can do midterm rentals. I like I said, I can go on and on about this topic, but I'm a huge fan of

the strategy of using a short-term rental. And also the other thing we're seeing right now, especially in my vacation home marketplaces like Sedona and Flagstaff, are people came, saw and conquered. Now they're done. So they're putting their vacation rentals that have already, they're already in existence. They've got the marketing machine behind them. They've got the reviews behind them.

They've got the furniture. They're putting these on the market and saying, listen, if you want, we'll sell it as a package and you can take over listings and you can buy it fully furnished with all the things. So if this is you're looking to get into the game, this is a really good opportunity for you right now because you really can jump into that with a ready made rental ready to go.

Aviva (12:09)
It's so interesting. So, you know, I feel like with short-term rentals, there was a pendulum swing, right? We're kind of talking about it swung this way. It was like Airbnb, Airbnb, my gosh. And then I feel like it started swinging a little bit back with the fees and the plus plus plus. And people started realizing I could stay at a Hyatt and they could wash my towels for me instead of staying in a short-term rental.

Can you speak on that and why someone would still stay in a short-term rental if the pricing is pretty similar to the hospitality sector?

Jacki Semerau Tait (12:45)
It's all about experience. So what experience is your guest looking for? I agree with you wholeheartedly. If somebody's traveling for a couple of nights, it's just them or them and one other person, get a hotel. I am not really a fan of the one bedroom condo solution because they can stay in a hotel. Don't even bother with that. But you can make your

vacation rental into a true experience and it takes minimal effort to give your guests a maximum enjoyable experience. So it's a matter of number one, knowing who's traveling to where you are. Number two, it's accommodating people in the way that they're looking for. The number one reason somebody would choose a vacation rental home over staying in a hotel is they're traveling with multiple people.

Example, my husband and I, we took a trip recently with our two adult kids and one of them had a boyfriend at the time. We brought them all down to Florida. We went and hung out and it was fantastic. We rented a three-bedroom condo that all three bedrooms were en suite. So everybody had their own bathroom space, bedroom space. And then we went, we were there for five days. We went to the grocery store first night out and we bought a ton of groceries.

ended up having such a great experience because we had that gathering space of the dining room kitchen. We were able to make most of our meals there without dining out. So you have to kind of look at that type of an experience. Why are people traveling and using a home instead of a hotel? So if you set it up to be more of an experience, less about just, I'm going to lay my head on a bed and take a shower the next day and be done with it.

then you're going to really be able to thrive with that vacation rental business.

Aviva (14:42)
That's the answer I've been looking for. I've been thinking about that for years. Well, it's fascinating. And yeah, we're as a society that's becoming more of an experience seeking society that makes a ton of sense. Jacki, tell me you're the queen of relational real estate. What does that mean to you?

Jacki Semerau Tait (15:05)
That just means my PR team came up with that and I was like, I guess that does describe me. What that means is I have built my business by creating relationships. To me, I am not a strictly transactional realtor. I really genuinely care what's happening with you once you're in the house and I'm going to stay in touch with you and we're going to maintain that relationship.

Aviva (15:09)
Yeah

Jacki Semerau Tait (15:29)
I want to be your real estate resource for the entire time you need anybody in real estate, even if it's not in my Northern Arizona marketplace, because I have a network of agents all across the country that I can plug you in with who are like-minded, who have similar work ethic that I do, who have similar ways of looking at things that I do. So for me, it really is about building that relationship.

And as we know in any business, it is less expensive and less effort to keep an existing client than it is to go after new business. That's no different in real estate. And the best way to do that is by creating those relationships and really caring. for me, I, for example, I'm working with somebody who wants to buy a short-term rental, I am not just gonna be, you know, okay, high five, we found the right property, here's the keys, see you next time.

I am actually going to give you resources as to, here are some best practices that you can use. Here are some local resources I can connect you with, local cleaners, local handy people, local repair, things like that. And stay in touch in that way. And so that actually is how I'm able to just create my business by relationship. I think at this point, my business is 92 % either.

sphere of influence or agent to agent referral based or past client.

Aviva (16:55)
Impressive. That leads into my final question. What makes you happy about your day to day in real estate?

Jacki Semerau Tait (17:04)
The thing that makes me happiest about my day to day in real estate is I look at my position as an opportunity to help people's dreams come true. And my goal when I work with clients, tell them buyer or seller, investor, it doesn't matter. My goal is to take as much of the stress off of your plate as I possibly can. And then there's certain moments when I can't take all the stress, but I can help manage and minimize it as much as possible.

because you should be focused on picking out curtains for your new home or dreaming about your next destination if you're selling your house instead of getting wrapped up in all of the minutiae. It's my job to make sure. I mean, there's 25 people who touch your deal typically in any given residential transaction. I manage all those 25 people so you don't necessarily have to worry about it. I let you know, hey, this person's going to be calling you. Here's what they're going to want. Make sure you're ready.

that type of thing. So for me, that's what I really enjoy. I get to use my skills, my expertise, my negotiations, all of that to help other people with this bigger picture dream.

Aviva (18:15)
Jacki, speaking of your bigger picture, everybody's bigger picture dream, for the listeners, where can they find you, follow you, contact you, or get in touch?

Jacki Semerau Tait (18:28)
There are many ways to get in touch with me, but really I just kind of point everybody, if you go to stepstostrength.com, you're gonna find all the things. You'll be able to connect with me with my real estate business, my, I coach other realtors, our new realtors within our brokerage. My husband and I do a YouTube channel. It is all there on stepstostrength.com.

Aviva (18:53)
StepsToStrength.com. Jacki, thank you so much for being on Commercial Real Estate Secrets, today Residential Real Estate Secrets, and for everybody listening, we'll see you next week.