Michael Sjogren: How “AirBNB Guy” Leverages Data For Massive Rental & Occupancy Gains

Guests: Michael Sjogren, Daniel Ramsey
Recorded: July 18, 2019

Excerpt

Michael is an investor, entrepreneur, CPA, author, speaker, instructor, and iTunes podcast host. Michael brings a wealth of finance, business, and real estate experience. His career has spanned from working as a CPA to launching and running an architectural photography studio to purchase and develop real estate to run a short-term rental management and education company. He is passionate about helping others create financial independence to pursue their passions and leave their mark on the world.

After studying for years, getting his Accounting degree, his MBA, and his CPA license, Michael moved on from that world where he had to wait for about 20 years to get anywhere. Michael decided to go into Real Estate. However, he hit a rough patch when serious health issues with his son, which pushed him to seek ways to never be in a financial and time-consuming rut ever again. After many time studying, attending masterminds, and extensive research, Michael saw an opportunity in short-term rentals. He realized that if he started a property management company for short-term rentals where he would partner up with landlords and find ways to fill their units, he could make two to four times the revenue for each property.

Fast forward to today, where Michael has moved to larger, resort-style properties. He has found a way to leverage these short-term rentals and a system where he only has to work a few hours a week. He utilizes Air BnB data to compare the rates a short-term rental goes for in the area, shows them to the landlords, and tells them how to increase occupancy AND revenue.

Transcript

00:00:07:03 – 00:00:35:01
Daniel Ramsey
Everybody. Daniel Ramsey here at MyOutDesk. I’m really excited because did it today we have a special guest we’re going to be talking about the Airbnb market, how the market is transforming short term rentals. One stat that I looked at before this was that, you know, Airbnb and all the different kind of short term rental markets now have more rooms available than all of the other major hotels in the world.

00:00:35:01 – 00:00:53:15
Daniel Ramsey
So it’s kind of it blows your mind because it’s only been here, I don’t know, five, ten years. And so we’ve we’ve got a special guest. Michael So green on that’s how you say his name. So grin. He shared it with me. I was like, okay, good. And Michael, thanks for being here today.

00:00:54:03 – 00:00:55:15
Michael Sjogren
Yeah, thanks for having me. I’m excited.

00:00:56:01 – 00:01:15:05
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah. And so we’re going to dove deep into how this model is shifting the whole real estate landscape, how to make money at it, what are the you know, how to actually do it. Right. So he’s been doing it for a while now and we’ll dove into his story before we get going. You guys all know my out desk where real estate, virtual assistant company.

00:01:15:10 – 00:01:44:14
Daniel Ramsey
What we do is we help people get talent. Simple period. If you are an entrepreneur right now and you’re running around with your head on fire or you never get everything done, your team’s about to quit because they’re overworked. And we are the solution. We help people get talent and instantly scale businesses that are growing. Now for the show, Michael, share with us what everybody’s going to get if they stick around to the end.

00:01:44:14 – 00:02:08:14
Daniel Ramsey
And we’ve got lots of participants and we love interaction. So if you’re live right now, I’m in Tahoe, so I’m going to go ahead and type in. I’m in Tahoe right now and it is amazing up here. And so it’s go ahead type where you’re from, what the weather’s like. Michael, if everybody sticks around towards the end of this thing, what are they going to get from you?

00:02:09:05 – 00:02:30:10
Michael Sjogren
Yeah. So I’m going to give them this new book that I just wrote called the Airbnb Guys 13 must have items for your short term rental. And it’s a lot of the things that most people overlook and there’s a lot of key pieces of technology that you’re going to want to have in the units to help you manage them from wherever and to automate it as much as humanly possible.

00:02:30:10 – 00:02:31:03
Michael Sjogren
Right. So.

00:02:31:16 – 00:02:40:19
Daniel Ramsey
Okay, Michael’s from Boston. It’s beautiful there. Osprey from Florida. Oh, we got Florida. That’s where you have some of your properties, right, Michael?

00:02:41:13 – 00:02:46:09
Michael Sjogren
Yes. You got one up in Rosemary Beach. It’s between Destin and Panama City.

00:02:46:15 – 00:03:05:01
Daniel Ramsey
So here you go. There you go. Okay. So before we get going into the content, Michael, tell us your story. Like you’re married, you’ve got a daughter, you’re you’re a coach, entrepreneur, you own a bunch of properties and you’re helping other people do this. But let’s start at the beginning. Who is Michael?

00:03:05:19 – 00:03:27:05
Michael Sjogren
Sure. So like like a lot of people, right? I always heard the advice like go to school, get good grades, get a good job and put 10% in for one K and you’re going to be set someday. Right. And so I followed that path for a little while. I went to school, got an accounting degree and work for a CPA firm and I remember in my early twenties thinking, right, how can I make more income now?

00:03:27:05 – 00:03:41:08
Michael Sjogren
Like I’m kind of flatlining as a salary. And they were like, Just go back to school, get your MBA, you know, study your butt off. So I’m like, okay, cool. I went back, spent three years of my life studying, got this piece of paper that says, I’m smarter, I know how to take tests, I show it back to my boss.

00:03:41:08 – 00:03:56:00
Michael Sjogren
And I was like all right, here we go. And he was like, Cool, here’s a 20 $500 bonus and like a pat on the back. And I was like, Are you kidding me? And he’s like, No, no, but there’s one more thing. Just go back and get your CPA license and then you’re going to be set like just just do that and then you’re good.

00:03:56:00 – 00:04:15:03
Michael Sjogren
So I went back, spend another two years studying every day after after work, right nights and weekends passed CPA exam went back. I’m like, boom, show me the money, baby. And they were like, Here’s another 2500 bucks and a 5% raise. Just stick around for the next 20 years and you’re going to make partner at some point. And I was like, I’m out.

00:04:15:09 – 00:04:31:18
Michael Sjogren
This is ridiculous. I’m like, I need a better way, right? So that’s when I started reading a lot of these books like Rich Dad, Poor Dad and all these different things and studying real estate and, you know, started buying property. And I think 2025 we bought our first property and it was just a house that we were going to live in.

00:04:31:18 – 00:04:51:03
Michael Sjogren
We bought it right few years later, we sold that, made some money on it and, you know, rolled that and rolled that. And long story short, things changed a lot when my wife and I had our son, Caden, who’s an amazing three year old. And he was born with some health challenges, though. And he had a very rare lung disease.

00:04:51:21 – 00:05:09:24
Michael Sjogren
And we had we spent a lot of time at Boston Children’s Hospital. And fortunately, we’re close to one of the best kids hospitals on the planet. But we spent a lot of time there. And I remember we were there at one point for about three weeks straight. And I remember sitting there and this horrible feeling like, stab me in the gut.

00:05:09:24 – 00:05:27:13
Michael Sjogren
And I was like, I’ve been here for three weeks. I’m out of vacation time, I’m out of sick time. My paychecks are going to start coming in and all these medical bills are piling up. And it was the worst felt like at the point in time when my family needed me the most, I had to leave to go back to work.

00:05:28:06 – 00:05:46:05
Michael Sjogren
And I remember thinking to myself, I made a promise. I’m like, I am going to find a way to create enough passive income that I will never have to trade time for money again. I will never put myself in this situation again and so I started joining mastermind groups and learning as much I can about rental property and real estate and all these different things.

00:05:46:14 – 00:06:05:13
Michael Sjogren
And then I stumbled across short term rentals. And so right around that time, fortunately, you know, our son grew out of that disease and he was back to normal and everything was great. We’re like, All right, we’re going to celebrate and I’m going to buy a vacation rental for us. Like it’s been a long two years. It’s been crazy.

00:06:05:22 – 00:06:11:05
Michael Sjogren
And I was just learning about short term rentals. And so I’m like, All right, let’s do this like we mean, what.

00:06:11:05 – 00:06:12:19
Daniel Ramsey
Year was this? What year was this?

00:06:12:19 – 00:06:38:15
Michael Sjogren
This was in October of 2017. Okay, a couple of years ago ish. And so we bought that property and some folks were telling me how that if you bought a property like this and you rent it out short term instead of cashflow in 100 to 300 bucks a month, like a 12 month lease, you could cashflow 1000 to 2000 a month like after everything.

00:06:39:12 – 00:07:01:05
Michael Sjogren
And I was like, that sounds unbelievable, right? So sure enough, right, we, we buy this thing, we renovate it, get it ready to go, furnish it. We’re using it at least once a month. I’m actually heading up and probably 12 hours to go up there for the long weekend. But yeah, just like they said, it was 1200 to 1500 a month, consistently positive cash flow after all expenses.

00:07:01:19 – 00:07:20:03
Michael Sjogren
Just to put that in perspective, you know, it was about a 25, 30% cash on cash return for this is a vacation rental that I was using every month. So I was like, this is amazing, but I need to I need to scale this now. And I put most of my liquid cash into this. So it’s going to take me a while to save up for another property.

00:07:20:03 – 00:07:37:17
Michael Sjogren
So I’m like, well, what if I what if I started like a management company just for short term rentals and I could partner with landlords that were trying to fill their units? And I said, Hey, if you furnish it, I’ll manage it and I’ll 2 to 4 extra revenue on this property and you know, I got a lot of no’s at first.

00:07:37:17 – 00:07:56:03
Michael Sjogren
A lot of people were scared. And, you know, anytime there’s something new. Right, exactly. Who is this guy? Right. Yeah. But eventually I got a couple people to say yes. Right. And I started integrating all my systems in and getting them results. And it was kind of a snowball effect. Right. And went from one to 2 to 4 to 5 to 7.

00:07:56:13 – 00:08:18:15
Michael Sjogren
And now I’m working on a much larger like resort style acquisition with some of those people that I’ve been working with. So once you get the first couple and you’re shown results, it’s pretty easy to to snowball it because the cash flow is, is so good and quite frankly, on this model. And so, you know, from that point, I kind of hit that target of like, if I don’t want to work anymore, I really don’t have to.

00:08:19:07 – 00:08:36:17
Michael Sjogren
But I also implemented systems where I could do this business in less than 2 hours a week in multiple states. And so now I’m just like super passionate about like showing other people how to do this as I continue to grow. As you mentioned, I’ve got some coaching students now and it’s just I’m having a blast doing that, quite frankly.

00:08:38:02 – 00:08:57:06
Michael Sjogren
But it’s been such a cool ride and so it’s a new niche. I just came back from Puerto Rico yesterday with 20 other operators from all over the globe that, you know, are doing all sorts of crazy stuff, literally from Australia to South Africa to Israel to Canada, like it was really cool and just like seeing everybody else’s businesses and how they’re operating.

00:08:57:06 – 00:08:59:11
Michael Sjogren
So it’s been a blast, man. Like, I love it.

00:08:59:19 – 00:09:22:17
Daniel Ramsey
So not that out. I mean, if you’re listening right now and you’re a real estate broker, I used to tell, you know, so one of the cool things is the top thousand. We’ve served a ton of those real estate folks and they’re always looking for additional revenue sources. They’ll own title companies, they’ll mortgage companies, they’ll own property management companies.

00:09:22:17 – 00:09:55:17
Daniel Ramsey
And what’s crazy about property management is it’s really, really hard property management. It’s really hard to make money. You got to have 500 units or more in a traditional model. But that’s not the case here for Airbnb, for the short term rentals, that’s just not the case. So, Michael, what are some like if you can break down the model for people so that they can see this as an opportunity to reduce their returns, especially as we’re going through this ten year expansion, you know, you know, real estate people are worried is what’s going to happen.

00:09:55:17 – 00:10:06:04
Daniel Ramsey
You know, we have to have a correction at some point. And so we’re all looking for additional streams of income. So break down the model. So everybody that’s listening has a full understanding of how it works.

00:10:06:20 – 00:10:28:20
Michael Sjogren
Yeah, for sure. And just to kind of piggyback on what you just said, right, it also helps your you know, if you’re an agent or broker, it also helps your buyers feel comfortable, you know, maybe pushing their budget a little bit more to get that nicer property if they know in the back of their head, hey, when I when I’m traveling, I could put this up there for a week, two weeks, three weeks or whatever and generate some serious cash flow.

00:10:29:06 – 00:10:49:02
Michael Sjogren
Yeah, but as far as the model goes. Right, I’ll just give you an example. I at approach somebody locally not in Boston, I operate in Boston but about 30 minutes outside of the city. So it’s just a small town outside of the city. And I approached this gentleman and I said he was renting out this this one bedroom, one bath property for about 2000 a month.

00:10:49:20 – 00:11:09:01
Michael Sjogren
And so I said, tell you what, there’s some data points. Everybody write this website down if you’re watching, if you go to rDNA eco amazing website and it’s a website that pulls all the data from Airbnb and HomeAway, and you can plug in an address and it’ll show you all the comps and will give you an estimate on how much it’ll bring in and your occupancy.

00:11:09:15 – 00:11:29:07
Michael Sjogren
Wow. So, so I printed out this little report for this owner and I said, hey, based on this address and the way that it’s set up, I’m confident that this property could bring in 40,000 a year instead of 24 that you’re currently doing now, you’re going to need to spend about 10,000 to furnish it because I was converting it into more of like a quasi two bedroom.

00:11:29:15 – 00:11:53:19
Michael Sjogren
Right? But if you do that, I’m confident I could increase your revenue net net after my fees and everything by at least 500 a month. Right. So I’ll increase your revenue by 25%. You furnish it, I’ll handle all the operations. Right, I’ll handle the cleanings, I’ll handle the supplies, restocking, guests, communication, marketing, everything. I’ll handle all that. You make that investment and then we’ll go from there.

00:11:54:18 – 00:12:19:24
Michael Sjogren
And he was like, That sounds pretty interesting. He was open to the idea. And so for the last eight months with that property, I mean, he’s he’s been killing it. This past month, we had 5200 in revenue. He netted about 3200 this month for July. We’ve got $8,000 in bookings. It’s I mean, it’s unbelievable. Like and it has it ebbs every market has its ebbs and flows.

00:12:19:24 – 00:12:44:19
Michael Sjogren
But for a market like this, there’s it’s not like a touristy market. It’s not like it’s not your stereotypical market. And that’s the point that I’m always trying to convey to folks is you don’t have to be in Tahoe, you don’t have to be at a beach. You don’t even have to be in a major city. Right. It can work if and I don’t know if you want to get into it right away, but just some of the different traveler profiles that I was telling you about earlier.

00:12:44:19 – 00:12:45:24
Michael Sjogren
Right? Wait, wait, hold on.

00:12:45:24 – 00:12:59:09
Daniel Ramsey
Hold on. Because you’re you’re advanced. We’re all beginners. Let’s slow it down. So you’ve taken this guy at who is who is making two grand a month and you moved him to netting 30 $200 a month, is that right?

00:12:59:22 – 00:13:00:06
Michael Sjogren
Yes.

00:13:00:21 – 00:13:09:12
Daniel Ramsey
Okay. So his net on the two grand was probably 500 or 600 bucks a month. I’m just kind of if we could compare net to net. Yeah.

00:13:09:13 – 00:13:16:10
Michael Sjogren
So let’s when I say net, I mean, after paying my fees, cleaning fees, everything else, he brought in 3200 as opposed to okay.

00:13:16:23 – 00:13:41:22
Daniel Ramsey
Okay. So let’s I mean, here it is. You just increase the value of that property by 50%. And that, I think is the most important thing, is that rental properties, income properties, their valuation, it’s there’s definitely a market valuation piece, but it’s really about the amount of money that it can generate. So in that instance, you increase the valuation overnight by 50%.

00:13:43:08 – 00:13:43:17
Michael Sjogren
Yes.

00:13:44:02 – 00:13:46:14
Daniel Ramsey
And is that what does that owner think of you?

00:13:47:01 – 00:13:56:02
Michael Sjogren
I mean, he loves it. And that’s one of the ones that wants to partner with me on this resort deal because he’s like, this is unbelievable, right? So now he wants to ramp it up because the cash flow is just incredible.

00:13:56:09 – 00:14:19:14
Daniel Ramsey
Right? Okay, cool, man. So that’s the model. And let’s talk about this air in DNA eco. We’ve put the link in in the thing because here’s the next piece. We’ve just sold the concept, right? Helping somebody double their income or increase their valuation and and then maybe even have a property that they can use. So that’s a great idea.

00:14:19:20 – 00:14:38:13
Daniel Ramsey
But next step, let’s let’s talk about how you select like what are some of the pitfalls of picking a property of like where to buy and what, what kind of features matter? And I don’t know anything about that. So, Michael, can you help our audience understand how to buy right in this Airbnb world?

00:14:39:03 – 00:15:02:22
Michael Sjogren
Absolutely. So first and foremost, right. The cash flow from this is incredible. But I tell all my owners, because now they’re like, hey, where should I get the next one? And I always tell them this, make sure whatever you buy, if you had to rent it out on a 12 month lease, that it will still cash flow. Always make sure that it will still cash flow because if something crazy happens, some regulation changes down the line, whatever.

00:15:03:00 – 00:15:17:18
Michael Sjogren
I never want to put a partner investor of mine in a situation where they’re not going to cash flow because they only could make it work with the short term rental model. The way I look at it is this is just the icing, this is the juice where like you can squeeze out as much profit as possible, so buy it, right.

00:15:17:21 – 00:15:38:13
Michael Sjogren
That just put that out there first. Now from a criteria standpoint, I always like to ask the question, who do I want to serve? Right. So for my I like serving families and couples, right? Families of kids and couples, that’s kind of like my bread and butter at least for a portion of my portfolio. Right. I like serving myself, quite frankly.

00:15:38:13 – 00:15:59:12
Michael Sjogren
Right. So things that I think of that could help me stand out or when selecting a location is for my New Hampshire property. As an example, it’s about 3 minutes from a place called Story Land, which is like the Disneyland of New Hampshire. So it’s right there. And then in the winter, we’re in between four major ski resorts.

00:16:00:12 – 00:16:17:22
Michael Sjogren
There is a clubhouse that we have access to that our guests have access to with an indoor pool and all that stuff to keep the kiddos entertained in the winter. There’s all these different things. And then from an amenity standpoint, you know, I’ve got park and plays, high chairs, kids books, games like all that extra little stuff, right?

00:16:17:22 – 00:16:34:00
Michael Sjogren
And then for then for mom and dad, you know, we put out like a bottle of wine and some chocolates and stuff like that just to put a little icing on the cake. But if you think about location, if if you’re anywhere near, say, if you want to cater to business travelers, what does a business traveler care about?

00:16:34:00 – 00:17:00:19
Michael Sjogren
All right. Is there easy access to an Uber or a train to get wherever they need to go? Is it within walking distance to restaurants and things like that to make it easy when they’re traveling in the unit, make sure you get the highest Wi-Fi speed possible, right? I usually put a desk or a working station with a wi fi printer, a small little white board that they can write out notes and just think like I use when I travel.

00:17:00:19 – 00:17:19:10
Michael Sjogren
Now for work, I’ll standard, you know, short term rental and these are little things a britta put a water purifier. I stayed I was in New York a month or two ago and it sounds so little, but I didn’t get to there till about 11. I just start to relax. I go to grab a water. There’s nothing. I’m like, I’m not drinking this tap water.

00:17:19:10 – 00:17:51:18
Michael Sjogren
So I had to put all my stuff back on, go out to the 7-Eleven and buy water. It’s like that little stuff that’s like an annoyance that you don’t want to give a bad taste in the mouth. So, you know, anywhere near a university, a medical office or a specialty medical center, any any convention halls, any vocational schools, like a like a nursing school or some type of trade school where there’s like a 13 week program, we get a lot of those, right?

00:17:51:18 – 00:18:08:13
Michael Sjogren
So they’re in there for one or two months. They need a place to stay. This is a perfect, perfect property type for them. And then just in general, no matter what market you’re in, you’re going to have life events. Like as we were launching, I just got a text, somebody book my place because they’re coming in town for a wedding, right?

00:18:09:00 – 00:18:26:11
Michael Sjogren
There’s weddings, funerals, birthday parties, family reunions. No matter where you live, that stuff happens all the time. Yeah, so that’s kind of a given. And then I always try and pair it with at least being the deal that I was just telling you about. It’s 35, 40 minutes outside of Boston, but you can walk to the train station.

00:18:26:11 – 00:18:45:24
Michael Sjogren
That’s a 30 minute ride in the city. There’s a decent sized hospital, a decent size university, and he’s within walking distance to all the downtown restaurants, bar shops, all that stuff. So like all those little pieces together make it one of the best properties in that market. So anybody’s going to travel to that market. They want to stay at my place, right?

00:18:46:00 – 00:18:49:05
Michael Sjogren
It makes sense. So it comes down to location just like any any real estate.

00:18:49:17 – 00:19:14:17
Daniel Ramsey
Right. And and and also your ideal buyer. Right. Like who’s going to end up staying at your place? Okay. So now I bought this place. One of the I think one of the things that is different about Airbnbs, when I, when I jump in, I always jump in at the nicest place I can find because I think if the, you know, it’s just kind of because it’s cheaper than a hotel anyways.

00:19:14:17 – 00:19:43:20
Daniel Ramsey
So I’m looking at a hotel, it’s 300 bucks and I’m looking at Airbnb, it’s like 245 or you know, maybe 300. So I’m always looking for the nice to talk about what you need to do to prepare a place for Airbnb. Like how much money you think you need to spend, what quality of furniture. My guess is because I care about this, I want an awesome bed like everything else can suck, but an awesome bed matters to me more than if I stay at the Marriott everywhere I go.

00:19:43:20 – 00:19:51:22
Daniel Ramsey
So. And that’s the reason why, because their beds are phenomenal. But what do you need to do to prep a place for Airbnb?

00:19:53:00 – 00:20:11:01
Michael Sjogren
Perfect question. So the next key question you want to ask yourself is do I want to be the Walmart, the target, or the Nordstrom of my market? Or am I do I want to be the low price option, the kind of medium clean, upper middle option? Or do I want to be all out like top of the line everything.

00:20:11:05 – 00:20:40:05
Michael Sjogren
Right. So the I’m typically that upper target like I stay in that upper target so my rates could be anywhere from 120 to 400 a night depending on seasonality. Although that Florida property that we’re launching a couple of weeks, that’ll be more like a Nordstrom. That will be very high end like beachfront property. But for like a target property rate for a two bedroom I budget about 10,000 and furnish it that’s if you did everything right if you’re going to contract it out it’ll be more.

00:20:40:05 – 00:20:45:00
Michael Sjogren
But you nailed it with the band. People ask me all the time like, what should I put in it? I’m like, don’t cheap out on a bed.

00:20:45:07 – 00:20:48:15
Daniel Ramsey
For the loaded pillows better. So I was man boom.

00:20:49:05 – 00:21:10:20
Michael Sjogren
And I’ll I’ll throw out a reference for you guys because this mattress is the best bang for the buck and it’s so cheap. But it’s amazing that I swapped out my ridiculous, really expensive one at home for this mattress. Really? It’s by a company called Zenith’s Xian U.S. and you can find it on Amazon there. 12 inch green tea, memory foam mattress lights out.

00:21:10:20 – 00:21:19:08
Michael Sjogren
It’s like 380 bucks for a queen. And everybody asked me, where did you get that mattress? Wow. It’s amazing. Amazing mattress.

00:21:19:09 – 00:21:42:03
Daniel Ramsey
Wow. Yeah. I’ve been disappointed with I’m disappointed with our bed. We have one of those number. We have one of those number, you know, sleep by a number one. I had the $40,000 and it’s the worst bed I’ve ever had. And I’m like, I don’t know what to do now. Okay, so we pick a place, we renovate it.

00:21:42:24 – 00:22:07:10
Daniel Ramsey
I want to know because we’re in the leverage business. So we help real estate companies with admins of paperwork marketing, so a marketing coordinator and then we help them in sales support. So calling all of that, like talk to me about a team that I need to build to support an Airbnb and at what stage do I need to hire people and, and like, what does that look like?

00:22:07:10 – 00:22:20:13
Daniel Ramsey
And I know you have a management company and is that the route to go when I’m small? If I’m an investor or if I’m a real estate brokerage or team and I want to do this myself, what does that team look like? And and how would you build it?

00:22:21:06 – 00:22:41:18
Michael Sjogren
Yeah, perfect. So the question that I always ask first is, what is your time worth? Right. Because literally anybody could do this. But like some of the owners that I partner with now, like you, they’ve run their own businesses are very successful. They’re making good money. The opportunity cost for them to learn this system and do it themselves, it’s just not worth it for them.

00:22:41:18 – 00:23:00:01
Michael Sjogren
So they’re happy to pay me and I still make them more. But it’s total. I tell them all the time. I’m like, You could definitely do this. I’d be happy to teach them, right? But from a team perspective, the lifeblood of your business will revolve around your cleaners, right? So first off, you’re not allowed to clean your property.

00:23:00:01 – 00:23:25:02
Michael Sjogren
Anybody watching this? I catch you cleaning your own property. You’re in trouble. Okay? Your time is best spent in business development and acquisitions. Don’t ever clean your property. Right. And I’m happy to give out some resources for that if you want after on how to do that. But you’re going to want cleaners. So cleaners I rely on heavily not only to clean the property, but also to help me restock it.

00:23:25:02 – 00:23:45:06
Michael Sjogren
Right, because these properties aren’t close to me. So every time it’s just systems, right? So I’ve got a checklist of everything that I need in the property from a supply standpoint. After each clean, they fill it out, they text me the photo or they text my virtual assistant, the photo. That exactly. And then they let me know when do I need to reorder stuff?

00:23:45:06 – 00:24:06:24
Michael Sjogren
And I usually shoot to do one big supply run a month. I’ll order it, you know, to either from Amazon or even better, I’ll order it to the local Walmart, have them pick it up, bring it over to the property, restock it, send me the photos and rinse and repeat right? If you’re not, as I like to say, esthetically inclined from a design standpoint like myself.

00:24:07:08 – 00:24:23:15
Michael Sjogren
Luckily my beautiful wife is an interior designer, so I lucked out with that. But you’re going to want to have if you don’t, interior design can get expensive. But if you if you have somebody that’s got good taste, you know, give them a budget and have them, you know, look at the property, you know, what would you do?

00:24:24:00 – 00:24:33:06
Michael Sjogren
I always recommend whatever property you get. Put it. Put a sleeper sofa in the living room. The name of the game is Heads and Beds. Okay. You don’t want it to be 30 people with a one bedroom.

00:24:33:14 – 00:24:35:18
Daniel Ramsey
Heads in beds. Heads and beds.

00:24:35:18 – 00:25:00:18
Michael Sjogren
I love it, man. Right. So my two bed, two bath, New Hampshire chalet, that’ll sleep eight people comfortably because we’ve got bunks in the kids room with a queen bed. Then the master has a queen bed and then we’ve got a queen sleeper sofa and we’ve got two full bathrooms. So the more people that you can fit, the more income you can generate and the more affordable your property becomes for parties.

00:25:00:18 – 00:25:31:13
Michael Sjogren
Then obviously, just like any real estate, you’re going to want like a handyman and then all your trades, right? Like a plumber, electrician, anything like that. You can do it without a virtual assistant for a little while, but I after probably five properties, I got one just to help. But the technology now that that I leverage and you know I’ve got a free class that I can share out at the end where I walk everybody through all that you can automate honestly probably 90% of the business all the way from the locks that I use.

00:25:31:17 – 00:25:37:13
Michael Sjogren
You know, somebody books, books, my place, it integrates directly with Airbnb and it’ll send them.

00:25:38:00 – 00:25:38:10
Daniel Ramsey
All the.

00:25:38:13 – 00:25:47:12
Michael Sjogren
Email like everything. And that code is only valid from 4 p.m. on check in to 11 a.m. on checkout and then it automatically expires. So I don’t have to.

00:25:48:09 – 00:26:03:12
Daniel Ramsey
One question I was reading the Wall Street Journal the other day and a bunch of you guys are using Alexa now in your units. Are you one of those guys? Like do you have like a, you know, an Alexa that answers questions on the property? Like, I.

00:26:03:12 – 00:26:11:13
Michael Sjogren
Haven’t gotten I haven’t gone that far yet. I do have an Alexa hub in one of them to control a couple of things, but I have programed it to answer questions.

00:26:11:22 – 00:26:12:06
Daniel Ramsey
Okay.

00:26:12:12 – 00:26:33:05
Michael Sjogren
That you can definitely get fancy with it. Yeah. One thing though along that lines is having a detailed house manual virtual digitally that I send them in advance, but also a printed copy there is crucial. Otherwise they’re just going to be asking you a million questions when you could easily put it on paper and just let them know like Where do I park?

00:26:33:05 – 00:26:59:17
Michael Sjogren
Where do I, how do I use? We have a wood burning fireplace like, how do I use that? I want them to know exactly how to use that. I stuff like that. I use the nest smoke detectors. So if there’s ever an issue I know, I want to know immediately. A buddy of mine started a company called Noise Aware, Amazing Company and it looks it’s about the size of this like Apple Mouse.

00:26:59:17 – 00:27:22:02
Michael Sjogren
And it plugs into an outlet and it measures noise levels. So it doesn’t record conversations or anything like that, but it just measures decibels so I can set it. So my quiet hours of 10 p.m. to 8 a.m., if they start making some noise, I get a text message immediately and then I just text the guest and I’m like, Hey, I don’t want to be the party pooper, but I just got a noise complaint from one of my neighbors.

00:27:22:02 – 00:27:40:10
Michael Sjogren
As you agreed, our house manual, our our policies are quiet hours 10 p.m. to 8 a.m.. Please tone it down and right. And that’s only happen maybe 3 to 4 times over the last couple of years. And every time they’re like, Oh my God, I’m so sorry. Like, I didn’t realize it. You know, if you get somebody that’s crazy, then you just have somebody on your team or you just call the police and say you’re out of here.

00:27:40:10 – 00:28:06:12
Michael Sjogren
Like, I’m not dealing with that. So really, between the noise aware, the ring cameras, the doorbell cams, we put in all the properties, the wi fi locks, we use a special and insurance policy that’s just for short term rentals. So it’s like a blended homeowners with a commercial liability policy that’s for short term rental operators. Right, right. So that kind of system helps me keep my eyes on all my properties, no matter where they are.

00:28:06:24 – 00:28:21:15
Michael Sjogren
And it controls the access. Right. Because that’s from from my standpoint, that’s the most commonly question, I guess is like, okay, like I spent all this money, it sounds great. You can make a bunch cash flow, but like, I don’t want people trashing my place, man. And I’m like, neither do I trust me. I got a lot of money sunk into my place.

00:28:21:15 – 00:28:23:13
Michael Sjogren
I don’t want that either. And with the right system.

00:28:24:13 – 00:28:37:07
Daniel Ramsey
What do you do if somebody trashes your place? I know you have had this happen or you know somebody who has had that happen, like somebody rents it, they throw a stupid party and you’re like, there’s $10,000 worth of damages. What do you do?

00:28:37:07 – 00:28:42:20
Michael Sjogren
Michael Yep. So the reason I have all this tech now is because that happened one time, right?

00:28:42:20 – 00:28:44:08
Daniel Ramsey
So yeah.

00:28:44:14 – 00:29:07:04
Michael Sjogren
The what you do, it depends on the booking platform. But for Airbnb as an example, right, I rented to some younger college students at one point, like two weeks after I just finished this renovation on that first property right. So they got there. They like they just made a massive rip the ladder off the bunk bed. There was beer everywhere, the urine on the floor or whatever.

00:29:07:04 – 00:29:25:14
Michael Sjogren
It was just like ridiculous, right? So what you need to do is you need to have your cleaning team take photos of everything that was broken. You submit a claim through Airbnb, or you request money from the guests. They’re probably going to deny it. Then it escalated to Airbnb and then you just have to provide proof like images.

00:29:25:23 – 00:29:44:09
Michael Sjogren
And then I also provide either receipts or like an Amazon link to the actual towels that got ruined. Right? So then you justify that how much you’re asking for, and then you just submit that through and it goes through the review process and they’ll either, you know, award it in your favor or not, but you have to submit it before the next guest checks in.

00:29:45:04 – 00:29:53:09
Michael Sjogren
So if you’ve got somebody checking out at 11 and somebody else checking in at four, you have to get everything submitted in that five hour window.

00:29:54:06 – 00:30:04:19
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah, but okay. I’m a business guy and you’re a business guy and the person says pound sand and Airbnb says, Pound sand. What’s that? What do I do now?

00:30:06:03 – 00:30:27:10
Michael Sjogren
You got one or two options. You can either put it through the insurance company or you just eat it, quite frankly, because at the end of the day, if I can generate, there’s always going to be headaches that one incident that should never, ever happen again based on the systems that I just told everybody about, because if somebody is throwing a party, I’m going to know immediately and I’m going to go break it up.

00:30:27:10 – 00:30:32:24
Daniel Ramsey
Right? Right. You’re going to handle you’re going to handle business and protect your asset is what you’re talking about.

00:30:33:09 – 00:30:38:01
Michael Sjogren
Where I just waited till the next day and then it’s too late.

00:30:38:01 – 00:31:06:04
Daniel Ramsey
Let’s talk about the other thing that nobody likes to talk about that’s super prevalent in your world. All the counties and the cities are banning Airbnb, so I don’t want to buy a property and then have the little area say, Sorry, Daniel, you’re out, you can’t rent anymore and you can’t do even short term rentals, you know, on any platform or even through third parties.

00:31:06:04 – 00:31:08:04
Daniel Ramsey
And I’m like, Yep, now what?

00:31:09:01 – 00:31:33:15
Michael Sjogren
Yeah. So the majority of them are not banning them outright. What they’re trying to do is prevent guys like us from going in and buying an apartment complex and making the whole thing short term rentals. Right? So the most common regulations that I’ve seen are owner occupied or they’ll number they’ll issue so many permits in that zoning area or they’ll limit the number of days in that area.

00:31:33:24 – 00:31:57:21
Michael Sjogren
So if you’re an agent and your client is buying a property that they want to rent out themselves and they’re not using it, you can depending on the market that they should be in the clear. Quite frankly, like my vacation house, I’m not worried about that. I can I’m I own it. And it’s it’s different if you’re trying to go mass scale, that’s a little bit different then you get to pick your markets.

00:31:57:21 – 00:32:17:15
Michael Sjogren
But I will say it’s just a general rule of thumb. I avoided Boston because any city probably Sacramento’s the same way. I don’t know for sure. Right. But any city that has a lack of quote unquote affordable housing, they will smash down regulation because they look at us as taking inventory off the street from an investor standpoint. Right.

00:32:17:16 – 00:32:37:24
Michael Sjogren
Like if I go up and scoop up a 20 unit complex, they’re like, that was 20 units that could have housed people permanently or you know what I mean? So I typically stay about 30 to 45 minutes outside of those markets, and then I’ll look for landlords that have, you know, duplexes, maybe they live in one or people that house fact.

00:32:37:24 – 00:32:46:08
Michael Sjogren
This is the best house hacking strategy ever, quite frankly, because the amount of cash that you can generate off this is insane. But if we have like.

00:32:46:20 – 00:32:51:19
Daniel Ramsey
Wait, wait, wait, some of our audiences and that’s cool is you what is house hacking.

00:32:52:15 – 00:33:24:00
Michael Sjogren
Sure. So house hacking, basically, if you you buy a duplex or a33 family, you live in one unit and the other tenants pay. You rent every month and you basically live for free or very subsidized. If you’re living in a unit and you’re putting the other two on Airbnb or as a short term rental, you’re going to profit handsomely from those other two units, not just, you know, break even, or if you had, you know, a three or four bedroom house and you were renting it out by the bed, you could do that as a short term rental as well and definitely increase your cash flow.

00:33:25:04 – 00:33:29:16
Michael Sjogren
So that’s what, you know, house hacking is house hacking.

00:33:29:16 – 00:33:44:19
Daniel Ramsey
I love it. We’re learning all kinds of things, heads and beds and house hacking. Okay, so be careful with the regulation. Go outside of the major cities because they’re getting very regulatory on us.

00:33:45:12 – 00:34:07:11
Michael Sjogren
And the key term to to look for just as a rule of thumb, right. Just Google like short term rental ordinance, your city name. Right. And just kind of see where they see where they are. Some of them welcome it. Some of them are like, absolutely not. But even the ones that say absolutely not, it’s typically if you’re an owner occupant, you’re going to be fine.

00:34:08:14 – 00:34:33:17
Daniel Ramsey
You know what’s interesting, too, is even here, because we’re in Tahoe National Forest and it’s it’s the county is called Placer. And I’m supposed to if I lease out my my cabin, I’m supposed to pay a 10% tax, but nobody does that. And so I think the if you if you just follow the rules in the Airbnb space, I think you’ll be is my guess and just be smart about where.

00:34:34:02 – 00:35:02:06
Daniel Ramsey
Last question, because we’ve got to wrap up in about five, 10 minutes and then we’re going to if anybody has any questions, you can put them here. Michael is going to be I’m sure he’ll follow the Facebook stuff on our page. And if anybody wants any additional resources or support, this guy is awesome. He’ll do that. But here’s here’s the I, I know that a lot of people are doing it with no money down where they’re doing management companies.

00:35:03:03 – 00:35:14:10
Daniel Ramsey
And how do you finance I mean, can you go to a bank and say, hey, I’m buying a second home? My plan is Airbnb. Here’s my business model. Will they lend to you at this moment?

00:35:15:17 – 00:35:41:14
Michael Sjogren
It depends. That’s one of the industries that I’m really looking forward to. And there was a guest speaker at that event in Puerto Rico this week who started a company to do exactly that. And he got the former CFO of Airbnb on his company. So that that will that will be growing very soon. So for me, the way I did it with my property is I didn’t need the income to qualify for the loan, so I just bought it as a second home, but not a lot.

00:35:41:17 – 00:36:00:23
Michael Sjogren
But what you can do now is you could either use a site like DNA to like say, hey, this, these are all the comps in this exact market and this is the exact revenue they brought in last year. And it just depends, like if you’re working with a local lender, they might be a little more flexible than if you’re trying to go up to the Wells Fargo’s of the world.

00:36:01:20 – 00:36:21:05
Michael Sjogren
Right. Especially if they’re a portfolio lender, meaning they they hold the loans in house and they don’t try and sell it off to to Fannie Mae and Freddie and all that stuff. But it it’s still such a new thing that there’s really nobody doing it at that level right now from a financing standpoint. So how or to how.

00:36:21:05 – 00:36:27:14
Daniel Ramsey
New it how new is it, you know, in that adoption curve, where are we in the adoption curve right now?

00:36:28:17 – 00:36:53:01
Michael Sjogren
I think what we’re going to see over the next 3 to 5 years is you’re going to see a lot more big players coming in and trying to gobble up as much as they can. Right. So there’s a company called Lyriq that just raised like 170 million to basically go out and master lease complexes and then build complexes just for short term rentals.

00:36:53:21 – 00:37:09:03
Michael Sjogren
Marriott’s got this new Bonvoy program that they’re coming out and trying to partner with some different folks on that. Right. So I feel like you’re going to see a lot more of these bigger players coming into the space. So it’s going to be even more important to have your systems and everything dialed in so that you can continue to compete, right?

00:37:09:09 – 00:37:35:20
Michael Sjogren
So from a fun fact, though, just from is the question is, am I too late to the party? Right. As a fun fact, there’s added up here just a second ago. There are currently every single night there’s at least 2 million people staying at an Airbnb every night and then 1.4 million new people are signing up every week, which is ridiculous.

00:37:35:20 – 00:37:56:07
Michael Sjogren
I mean, that’s just massive every week. So it’s just ramping up. I feel like it’s it’s one of those things where the the cat’s out of the bag now, like, no matter what they try and do from a regulation standpoint, like it’s not going away because everybody loves it. So your point, like, why would I want to spend double at a hotel when I could stay at a beautiful house?

00:37:56:07 – 00:38:09:21
Michael Sjogren
Like there’s going to be way too much pushback and there’s a lot more a lot more groups that are starting to form that are going to be a lot more active on the lobbying front to compete against these huge hotel lobbyists, quite frankly. So, yeah, yeah.

00:38:09:22 – 00:38:32:04
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah. Okay. Well, Michael, we’re going to wrap up who how what are you going to give away? Because you’re going to give away a copy of your book. And also, let’s tell people or how to get a hold of you. The simple fact is you’ve got the I don’t I don’t know if everybody likes this analogy or not, but I’m a crawl, walk, run guy and you’re obviously running.

00:38:32:11 – 00:38:42:12
Daniel Ramsey
So in the Airbnb world, you’ve got your systems down. You’ve been doing this a while. How would somebody move forward or get connected with you and and learn more?

00:38:43:04 – 00:39:02:24
Michael Sjogren
Yeah, for sure. So you can follow me on Instagram and Facebook at the Airbnb guy. I put out a lot of free content. I’ve got a free 60 minute training that anybody can go and watch and I kind of break down the different systems that I use. I’ve got a full on coaching program for folks that are, you know, looking to get started in that.

00:39:02:24 – 00:39:22:07
Michael Sjogren
And I’m giving away the new book that I wrote. It’s a it’s a nice read. It reads more like a field manual. It’s the Airbnb guys 13 must have items for your short term rental. So it’s 13 different things that will help you create a better guest experience. And a lot of them, most people aren’t doing. So it’s a nice little nice little manual for you to help stand out.

00:39:22:17 – 00:39:38:22
Michael Sjogren
So if you go to USTR secrets dot com slash gift, you can get that that e-book and I think it will after you download it will probably share a link with you to the webinar, the free class that I have, but that’s just SDR Secrets dot com. If folks want to watch that, you can watch it with me live.

00:39:38:22 – 00:39:46:04
Michael Sjogren
America will actually be live tonight or if they’re impatient like me you can watch last week’s recording because I know for me I’m like, I want to watch it now.

00:39:46:04 – 00:40:13:15
Daniel Ramsey
So yeah, absolutely. Oh, Michael, this has been awesome, man. What’s the last piece of advice you would give somebody who is and remember, our audience are mega teams in the top ten. Five of them are currently clients and they all have some additional stream of revenue. Property management is a big one, but what advice would you give to real estate people who are thinking about adding this on to to their existing business?

00:40:14:21 – 00:40:33:02
Michael Sjogren
Yeah, I mean, I think the stat is the average millionaire has seven streams of income, right? So for me, I’m always looking to add streams that are kind of, you know, spokes on my hub. So if it’s around real estate or different things like it all plays in property management coaching, all these different things are all part of this wheel, right?

00:40:34:02 – 00:40:49:21
Michael Sjogren
So for you, I think it’s a huge value add for your clients and I’m not trying to say that to pitch it, but if you have clients that are even remotely interested in this, you being a resource for them is going to be huge. Or somebody on your team that really knows this stuff will be huge, right? I’m for that Florida property as an example.

00:40:49:21 – 00:41:16:24
Michael Sjogren
I’m relying heavily that agent to help me build my team down there right now. Sure. And then once once we get the right team in place, I’ll take it from there. But having that as a resource has been a massive help. So if you can be that for your for your clients and then if you want to take it a step further and offer the property management service, like I said, I’m not trying to push this on anybody, but if you watch the class, it’s I show you all the tools that I used to run it in less than 2 hours a week, a portfolio in three different states.

00:41:17:09 – 00:41:21:18
Michael Sjogren
So you easily add this is another revenue stream and a service for your clients for sure.

00:41:22:11 – 00:41:26:19
Daniel Ramsey
And it sounds like a virtual assistant could absolutely run 100% of that.

00:41:27:21 – 00:41:41:02
Michael Sjogren
Yeah, all the folks that I was with in Puerto Rico that have hundreds of units. Yes. They’re run by virtual assistants, the whole thing. Well, we did the cleaners and boots on the ground to help you restock. Everything else can be automated with virtual assistants.

00:41:41:09 – 00:42:06:09
Daniel Ramsey
All right, we just dropped the mike, Michael. So grim. I love it because. So grim. That’s how we know, Michael. The Airbnb guy. You’ve been awesome. Thanks for sharing and dropping some knowledge and love to our audience. Guys, if you. Yeah, Dolores wants to know what was the name of that mattress? Thanks, Dolores, because I also wanted to know what was the name of the where you can get that mattress because everybody wants a good night’s sleep.

00:42:07:05 – 00:42:21:24
Michael Sjogren
It’s the brand is called zenas Z I and U.S. and it’s their 12 inch green T memory foam mattress comes in a box. It’s all packed in sealed. And then you just let it air out for a day. And it’s sweet dreams, baby.

00:42:22:15 – 00:42:27:04
Daniel Ramsey
There you go, man. All right, Michael, again, thanks for your time. Thanks for being here. We appreciate you.

00:42:27:22 – 00:42:34:23
Michael Sjogren
Awesome. Thanks for having me, guys.