The Episode Every Short-Term Rental Investor Needs to Hear

Aviva (00:00)
This week's listener of the week is TripleNet Teen. TripleNet Teen, thank you so much 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, we have Andreea Murason.

Andreea is the CEO and founder of Reign and Company, a community for female investors. Andreea, thank you so much for being on the show today.

Andreea Muresan (00:34)
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Aviva (00:37)
Hey, I'm excited because we have never talked about short term rentals on the podcast before. And I think it's a hot topic for a lot of reasons. And I'm excited to learn about them. And I'm sure the listeners are too. Before we dive into that, will you tell us a bit about who you are, where you come from, your story, and what got you to where you are today?

Andreea Muresan (01:07)
Yeah, I would love to. So born in Romania originally, moved to the US when I was 11, came to the land of opportunity without speaking English, learned English, got married to a Canadian, so I hopped the border in 2008, right before the big recession. And my husband was an entrepreneur, I was a corporate finance girl, and we just fell in love with real estate, especially during that time in 2008 when everything was going down.

I remember one of the first properties we bought was a single family for $25 ,000. And I mean, it needed a little bit of work, but I was like, I can buy a brand new Honda Civic for probably more than $25 ,000. And here I am buying a home that I can rent out and get cashflow from. And it was a no brainer. And I think that's when my love with real estate really started.

Hahaha!

Aviva (01:57)
It's so crazy you think about home prices today. Where was that house out of curiosity?

Andreea Muresan (02:06)
That was in Windsor, Ontario, which is right across from Detroit.

Aviva (02:08)
Okay, do you still own it out of curiosity?

Andreea Muresan (02:12)
We sold it, I think it was like 2014, 2015. And we made $50 ,000 on it, which I mean, if we would have held on to it for a longer cycle, then we probably would have 2X, 3X that.

Aviva (02:16)
Okay, just curious.

Wow, hey, you still did well. You always can look back at the deals that you didn't do or take or buy or sold or hold or, you know, and as long as it did you well in the moment, that's all you can really control at this point. So what got you into short term, into, what's it called, the short term?

Andreea Muresan (02:30)
We did well.

That's right.

Short term rentals. Yes.

Aviva (02:55)
Short -term rentals. Sorry. I'm eight months pregnant and my brain is like, woo.

Andreea Muresan (03:00)
You're good. So like I said, we started doing real estate way back then. Eventually we were doing flips, long -term rentals, private money lending, but these were all very tiny homes. They were just average homes, I should say. And they were great. They helped us get to the point where I could retire from my corporate career. We were very successful, did very well.

And then we moved to the US. It was right after COVID when everything shut down in Canada. Well, everywhere, but in Canada, it felt like it was a two year shut down, not like here in the US where like it opened up pretty quickly. And so when we came to Arizona, I had met a friend. She was telling me about Las Vegas market and how it's booming. And I really, it piqued my interest from a real estate standpoint. And I never thought I would go into Airbnb's. I never thought I would go into vacation rental, short -term rentals.

But when she was telling me about this opportunity, I thought, hey, here's a way I can own really cool homes, homes that I would like to buy myself. Because the homes that we were flipping in Canada, I mean, they were great homes, but they were starter homes, right? At this point, I'd like to live in something a little bit nicer, a little bit more luxurious, because that's why we work so hard is so we can have those luxuries in life. And so when I was looking at these properties in Las Vegas, I thought I said, hey, this is a great opportunity to get in to get cash flow.

Although I'm not really in it for the cash flow, I'm in it for the long -term equity growth. Because just like I mentioned with that house, $25 ,000 had I held onto it for 15 years instead of seven years or eight years, whatever it was, I probably would have made more money on it. So I wanna be in it for the long -term. I don't wanna do renovations and force appreciate all my properties. I'd rather just get in that hockey stick when the Fed keeps printing money.

Aviva (04:41)
Yeah.

Andreea Muresan (04:41)
are purchasing powers going down, so why am I doing all this hard work to renovate and flip properties when I could literally just sit on them? And in the meantime, if I can cash flow and I can have these beautiful properties that attract people and create experiences for people, then I'm all about it.

Aviva (04:56)
Wow. So, so did you start buying the luxury short term rentals in Nevada or Arizona? Okay.

Andreea Muresan (05:05)
Correct. In Nevada, I live in Scottsdale. My partner is out in Nevada in Las Vegas and we bought there. It's actually interesting because for anybody who knows anything about short -term rentals, now the government, local governments are cracking down on licensing and on parties, right? Because how many people are just renting out their home and they're like, I'll cashflow, but they don't think about all the business aspect of being a host.

I would argue as an Airbnb owner or a short -term rental investor, you are actually more of a host than you are a real estate investor because it's really just hospitality. You're running a hotel, a very small boutique hotel out of your home. And so we tried to get into the Nevada market, the Las Vegas market, before they issued all that government regulation, which is in itself has been a wild ride. I'll say this. They came out with a regulation.

They did a lottery, so just because I applied and maybe I applied before my neighbor doesn't automatically give me a license. And it's now been over a year since they did the lottery. It's going to be two years this summer since they issued the rules and they still haven't issued licenses. So I'm in a little bit of a limbo with that right now, which is, again, part of being a real estate investor. You're taking on a risk because you believe in that outcome.

but you have to be able to sustain the property. You have to be able to wait for that timeframe, right? The higher the risk, the higher the reward is, you know, is the saying. So I'm in that waiting boat right now.

Aviva (06:40)
Holy smokes, I know Arizona also had some headline gripping.

news about short -term rentals and it really impacted the housing market there and is continuing to. Has that affected you at all?

Andreea Muresan (06:55)
It has not. I mean, I've been wanting to get into the Scottsdale market. I live in Scottsdale, so I was like, I would love to have a property or two here. But it's been hard and challenging because during the Super Bowl last year, we had all these properties that were expecting to make all this cash flow overnight. And over half the properties sat empty on Super Bowl weekend. So it goes to show that just because you have a property doesn't mean you're going to get all this cash from it because the market really did become.

oversaturated right before the Super Bowl.

Aviva (07:27)
Is there a world where you could just like.

go on Craigslist and post a house for, or do you know what I mean?

Andreea Muresan (07:36)
Yeah, there is. I don't recommend it.

Aviva (07:39)
Okay, okay, that's fair.

Andreea Muresan (07:41)
Here's my own personal experience with that. I think Craigslist is where you're going to find all the scammers. And I, you know, part of my story that I didn't talk about because we have, we don't have a long time to talk, but before settling in Arizona, after leaving Canada, we traveled for a year and a half. So we lived in hotels and Airbnb's for a year and a half between Florida, Texas, Arizona, California. That was our time to travel, which was amazing. And when I was in Florida, I was looking for a short -term rental.

Aviva (07:47)
Yeah.

Andreea Muresan (08:11)
and I couldn't find anything that was decent and for the time period we were looking for. So I was like, let me just check out Craigslist. So sure enough, they want you to send a deposit. They want you to do all these things. I'm like, I'm not doing any of that. Give me the property address. Let me see the property before I rent it from you. And sure enough, somebody's like, OK, I'll meet you at the property. I show up and he doesn't come. And he's like, I got stuck in the office. I can't make it. And I'm looking around. I'm like,

Aviva (08:28)
Sure.

Andreea Muresan (08:37)
Yeah, I just got scammed. I didn't send any money because I'm smarter than that. But I'm like, I just got scammed. This guy was never going to show up. This is a scam. And the thing is, people actually fall for that. They will send that deposit and then they show up thinking they're going on vacation and then they don't even have a place to stay. So do not rent on Craigslist. I do not recommend it. Rent from Airbnb, from Vrbo, from any reputable website. But please don't do it off of Craigslist.

Aviva (08:46)
Oof.

Andreea Muresan (09:05)
you have to verify that it's actually a true legit listing.

Aviva (09:09)
It's so funny because there is this pocket of real estate where we find so many tenants for our short term, sorry I'm a sneeze coming, for our, not for short term, for small bay industrial space off Craigslist. Craigslist is our bread and butter, I completely, I know with residential it's a different world, but it's just so funny because I'm like, Craigslist, I have.

Andreea Muresan (09:28)
Interesting.

Yeah.

Aviva (09:37)
great tenants from Craigslist and I can see why you would not have that same experience in the residential world. So I am humbled by your response. So before we started recording, you had mentioned that you were under contract on a property and you learned some intricacies and due diligence that killed the deal. Can you tell us that story?

Andreea Muresan (10:06)
Yeah, so like I mentioned in Las Vegas, you can't have a licensed property yet. So we've been doing midterm rentals while we're waiting for this process. But in Henderson County, which for those of you who are familiar with the Greater Las Vegas Market, it's right next door. It's 20 minutes to the strip. My partner found a property that we put under contract. The way that the city of Henderson works is they have a map online. Their regulations and their licensing process started in 2021, and that's when they started issuing the licenses.

Aviva (10:21)
wow.

Andreea Muresan (10:34)
And there's a map that you can go and see, okay, this property falls within an allowable area or this property does not. So you can basically verify based on that. So sure enough, we put in the address of the property we found. It's available. We can get a license on this property. Sweet. So we're doing our due diligence. We are talking to our lender, getting the financing. I'm talking to prospective investors to bring them in. And about a week after, a week and a half after we went under contract,

I was putting together actually a presentation for investors. I said, let me tell them how confident I am that we can get this license. So I go to the website. I take a screenshot. I'm like, hold on a second. Our property before, when we looked at this a week ago, our property, so they have these bubbles. It's like a radius. The reason for that is you can't be within 1 ,000 feet of another licensed STR. So our bubble before was not falling

Aviva (11:15)
Yeah.

Wow.

Andreea Muresan (11:31)
falling like it was not part of our lot. And the rule is like not any corner, nothing in your property can fall within that bubble from somebody else's license. So we're like, cool, we're good. When I check again for my presentation, all of a sudden the bubble moved. And I'm like, what happened? Because it wasn't like it's a brand new bubble. It's not like somebody new got a license and now it's on top of our property line. Rather, the city updated their maps because they found

They were inaccurate. The way you measure a thousand feet, when you calculate that radius, they were doing it off the center of the property, but they were supposed to do it off each corner, the property line. So they measured inaccurately and it was literally five feet that they were off. And when they updated that map, it automatically fell onto our property line, which made us ineligible for a license.

Aviva (12:11)
my gosh.

Andreea Muresan (12:27)
And I'm so grateful that this happened while we were under due diligence so we can get our money back, we can get the earnest money back. We're not, you know, we're good. Nothing happened. But imagine if this would have happened the week of my closing, at that point I'm out of due diligence, I can't walk away from this deal, or if I do, I lose my deposit. And all because of a silly government regulation and their...

inaccurate map, essentially. We are following the rules. So I thought about that. What would have happened? I probably would have sued the county or something. It's not my fault your map was inaccurate when I got this property under contract. And you correcting your mistake all of a sudden makes me liable to buy a property that I can no longer rent out. So that's the crazy thing when it comes to real estate. That can make or break a deal.

Aviva (13:20)
I have lots of expletives that I could say about government inaccuracies, regulations, but I think anybody who owns a property or deals with people who own properties could relate. So I'll tell a really quick story. We have a lot in a place called Commerce City. We get a notice from the city. You need to pave the lot.

Andreea Muresan (13:22)
Hehehehe

Aviva (13:49)
Okay, we get the, you know, we get permits, we get the city to approve all of the plans, all of the building permits, everything. City approves it, spend $400 ,000 repaving it. Once it's done, they send somebody out from the city, you use the wrong material. And it was like, no, you approve this material. You can't tell us it's the wrong material. And so, yeah.

Andreea Muresan (14:13)
No.

no.

Aviva (14:19)
Then it was another $20 ,000 in lawyer bills just fighting. And it's like a lot of the times with these government municipalities, one hand isn't talking to the other. Or like you said, they're wrong? Like what? This is real money. This is real money for real people that really matters. So do your due diligence, folks. You heard it first, and I'm glad.

Andreea Muresan (14:23)
goodness.

Yeah. They can be wrong. Yeah.

Yes.

Aviva (14:48)
It sounds like you almost stumbled upon it that second time. So I'm glad you did, because I get anxiety just thinking about that. So tell me about Reign and Co.

Andreea Muresan (14:55)
Yes, thank you.

Yeah, I love this community. So it's female accredited investors. I'm assuming your audience knows what an accredited investor is, but just in case, it's any woman who makes at least $200 ,000 or more, or if you're married with your spouse, $300 ,000, or you have a net worth of a million dollars, not including your personal residence. So that makes you an accredited investor. You don't have to fill out anything online to get into our community. If you were investing in a deal,

then yes, we would go through the proper channels of verifying that you are an accredited investor. And that's really why I'm going down our little rabbit hole here, but that's really why the community is for accredited investors specifically is because we bring in deals. And in some deals, if you're not accredited, you just wouldn't be able to participate. So it's a community where we talk about in different investment types, bring in investment opportunities. We brought in everything from land deals to apartments. I just presented my failed STR.

Actually, I was like, I was telling them about all these amazing things we can do with the property. And then at the end I said, actually, this is a fake deal because I just found out we can't do it. But it's a great learning opportunity. And that's what it's really all about is I want women to be exposed to this world. I've been in a lot of mastermind rooms with my husband where I was one of 10 women, or some cases maybe one of like five women. So I want women to be part of this conversation. And a lot of times in those rooms,

Aviva (16:10)
It's okay.

Andreea Muresan (16:29)
Guys just roll their eyes whenever they hear a question from a woman. So I want it to be a safe space for women where they can come in, ask their questions, learn, educate themselves, and start making money babies because that's what it's all about. Invest your money so your money can have money babies. That's what I was able to do. I know, I know it's so funny, but that's what I was able to do because Ben and I, my husband and I started with our property back in 2009, like I mentioned, our first single family. I...

Aviva (16:45)
Yeah.

Andreea Muresan (16:58)
Before that, we actually lived in a duplex. We were doing, what's it called, hacking. It wasn't called that back then. It was just, right? We were just like, hey, we can save money. So we've been doing this for so long, and I was able to achieve financial independence and leave my corporate career because my money was making money babies. So I want other women to participate in this and to understand the world of investing. It doesn't have to be a male -dominated world.

Aviva (17:02)
Yeah, house hacking.

This makes sense.

Andreea Muresan (17:26)
Like I said, we educate, we ask or we answer questions, we bring in deals and we want to expose you to as many deals as we can so that you can start to see the differences and also be exposed to different sponsors and how somebody might operate is different than somebody else. And we want you to be exposed to that because you might gravitate to one person over the other.

Aviva (17:47)
My husband and I worked together. I had been in the business for like eight or so years and he start, I swear to you, the first day he had ever worked with me, ever worked in real estate, we go to a showing, we're in a warehouse, we're showing it and the prospective tenant looks at us and goes, he looks at my husband and he goes, are you the owner? And it was just like, my God.

Andreea Muresan (18:13)
Yup, but seriously that happens all the time.

Aviva (18:17)
yeah, it's still happens more often than I'd like, but, it's okay because more and more women are learning and investing and the internet allows us to have these conversations and reach each other. And that is really cool. So I thank you for what you're doing for women because boy, do we need it.

Andreea Muresan (18:41)
Yes.

Aviva (18:43)
Andreea, what makes you happy in your day to day in real estate?

Andreea Muresan (18:49)
Honestly for me it's all about having a positive outcome for my investors. So when I'm winning, I don't want to win alone. I want to win with my investors. I like going to visit my luxury properties. It's fun. We actually had events where we brought in the investors and we let them just stay at the property and just had a good time, had a party for them. That's what it's all about. It's building community. And again, going back to Reign, I like the community aspect of it. I just want to build community and that's what makes me happy is when we can come together.

collaborate without ego and win together. I don't want to compete with other women. I don't want to compete with anyone, but especially with women. I want us to collaborate. I want us to work together. If I'm winning, I want other women to win with me.

Aviva (19:31)
There's enough real estate to go around for us all to win.

Andreea Muresan (19:33)
Yes, there is.

Aviva (19:37)
Awesome, Andreea, well, where can the listeners find you, follow you and contact you?

Andreea Muresan (19:44)
Yeah, the best place where I'm most active is on Instagram. So Andreea Muresan. And then my community page is reignand .co. It's R -E -I -G -N. So reign like a queen. And then that's also our website is reignand .co. That's our website. You can check us out there.

Aviva (20:03)
Andreea, thank you so much for being on the show today, sharing your knowledge on short -term rentals and doing what you do for women in the world. So thank you for being on the show and for everybody listening. We'll see you next week.

Andreea Muresan (20:11)
I appreciate it.