Hi, I'm Frank Spaulding. This is Daniel Martinez and our guest today, Mark Marcellus on the hive with us hive mind podcast. Welcome, welcome. Welcome, everybody. We're glad you're here. As you'll notice, we are on Zoom and that restream unfortunately, we're having some technical difficulties with the video today. So, once again, we're with Mark Marcellus, one Airbnb at a time with a new upcoming program, three Airbnb, three houses to financial success. Just because, you know, several years of experience and several of his clients have proven within three houses, you can be financially free using Airbnb, and the various other platforms. Mark does like to say Airbnb, you know, it's getting kinda like synonymous, you know, similar to Q tips, you know, for all of the cotton swabs, you know, on the tips and stuff like that, because he argued with me about I thought it shouldn't be STRS but it makes sense and everybody seems to agree. So Mark, why don't you introduce yourself and tell us about yourself a little. Okay, well, my name is Mark, Marcellus, Jacksonville, Florida. Airbnb consultant, which means I help people set up and run their Airbnb s. And we, you know, as an example, and the Jacksonville area we collected $2.8 million in rent. In the last 12 months, spread out over 104 Airbnb ease. That's quite impressive. Wow, that is impressive. All you've been doing Airbnb mark. I've been doing Airbnb since 2017. And I've been investing in real estate since 1995. Wow. Okay. I 25 How did you end up in real estate anyway, back in 95. That's a long time. Yeah. Well, I was born into it. It actually dates before that. When I was 12 years old, my I was typing up contracts, real estate contracts for my mother, in the real estate office that my grandmother had. And my dad walked in and put a paintbrush in my hand and said, Come on, man. We're gonna go paint this house. And I'm pretty much been in real estate ever since then. But in 1995, I bought my first house I was in my early 20s. I actually bought two houses subject to I subsequently sold one and lived in the other and I still have that one. And yes, it is a current Airbnb. Wow. You're a longtime Airbnb holder. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's cool, man. It's cool. It's cool. You've been in the game a long time. You've kind of accelerated were you doing a lot of flips and stuff? And are you kind of evolved of course through through the years but Airbnb is a newer thing. Since you've been in real estate because you've been in real estate a long time? Is this the only thing you're doing now? Is Airbnb are still doing other stuff aside? Well, yeah, I mean, I still have my insurance company. I still am investing in real estate. And when it's appropriate, I'll I'll take the property and put it on, on the Airbnb and when it's not appropriate, you know, I just do long term or, you know, exercise my other exit strategies, if you will. Gotcha. Are you doing arbitrage? Are you doing straight up buying for Airbnbs? Well, both, I mean, the last house, I do have a couple of arbitrage is going. But the last house that I bought, I actually have a closing today in about an hour. But the last house that I bought before that I was paying rent, and I called the owner with the problem, and he got a little grumbly and I said, Man, why don't you just sell me a house? Like, you know, then you don't even have to worry about it. And yeah, we wanted up striking the deal. And, you know, I bought a house in this market. below market. It was pretty good. And you never know where the deals are. Till you ask. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, just kind of being you know, in the world, you know, so to speak. You know, I rub elbows with people. And, you know, if we have a deal that makes sense, then it makes sense. There's some investors that won't do business with other investors. You know, they're, they're the guys that are are buying the homes at the discount, they don't want to be selling them at the discount. Also they want to buy at the discount and sell at the premium and not for nothing. Who doesn't, you know, but if you stumble into a situation in which it makes sense for both parties, they give a little bit of a discount still catch a premium, then it can work. And either it either it works, or it doesn't. And it's okay either way. There's there's there's plenty of fish in the sea. It's now my first understanding Initially, I thought Airbnbs were just strictly vacation homes. That does not seem to be the case, what is your experience? And how is that working out for you? Well, that relates to who is your customer? And you know, I mean, Frank, you actually asked me to do a video about who is my customer? And who is it that's renting Airbnb ease, traveling nurses, traveling workers. You know, maybe somebody's parents lives in an exclusive neighborhood in Mandarin. And certainly, there's plenty of hotels available in Mandarin, but they would rather be down the road, and a manager in home that has a pool, you know, so that they're here to visit grandma. You know, that's three examples right there. And very few of my homes are, quote unquote, destination homes, you know, and they're just everyday homes and everyday neighborhoods, you can buy them, you can rent them, you know, anything you need in anything you can do to gain control of those properties, you know, or you can even approach the owners and say, Hey, would you like me to manage this for you, you know, work with you as a co host, on Airbnb. And there's different, you know, there's different involvements. And there's different risk levels, based on all of that. I mean, Frank, you, you have a photo of patient zero, right? So you should, you should put the photo up of patient zero. And let me tell the story of that. Because I offered the owner, well, let's just throw it out on Airbnb together, and we'll split the profits. But he was just too busy. You know, getting his business up and running, that he just wanted to be paid rent, and just and then just be done. And, you know, he wound up later on becoming a client. So I hope that answered your question, Frank. No, it's such such such a crazy thing. Because like, I think I think what's cool is that you're doing arbitrage you're working with a lot of different clients in general. And then if they become disgruntled you're buying their property to and kind of working that whole angle throughout the property. Because it's a weird thing. I've heard somebody else do this, where they're doing property management, just do regular renters. And one of the things they're doing is they, whenever they become a property manager, they're asking for first right of refusal, if they ever want to sell while the property managing, so that kind of gives an opportunity to actually buy the property, and just continue managing the property at that point. So it's kind of like a whole, a whole, it's a revenue source and lead generation source all at the same time, while you're making money doing it. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. Yeah, it's amazing. So there's, there's there's three types of Airbnb investors, okay. It's real simple. It's just the lions, tigers and bears. Lions are people who, they're professionals, doctors, lawyers, they make plenty of money. And they have very little time, and they have resources to go buy a home. Right? So that's, that's a lion. A tiger is an existing investor that has a number of homes already. They want to analyze their portfolio, find one that makes sense, convert it to an Airbnb, and then test the market out. Now, when I say test the market out, what I mean by that is, you're going to try the Airbnb with just one home. If you don't like it, no harm, no foul. You're no longer in an Airbnb world. You're no longer just in real estate. Now you're in hospitality. And that's a different animal altogether. And it's easy to say, but nobody knows what that means. You know, I remember the feeling I got when I stayed at a Waldorf Astoria, and they wrote me this letter, thanking me for staying. And I'm like, Who does that mean? Holiday Inn certainly doesn't do that. But you know what I'm saying. We started writing letters to our people, thanking them for staying and our and our results and our and our reviews immediately started going back kop because nobody does that. You see what I'm saying? And then the so the so that covers the Tigers, the lions, the bears are your guys that want to get into real estate don't know what to do haven't gotten started maybe their junior executives or their workers. I mean, heck, maybe they're 20 year old college students. I mean, a 20 year old college student can wholesale a house. I mean, it's a it's, it's not, you know, rocket science, you know what I mean? You don't need an advanced degree in licensing to do it. But, but those guys, you know, they, they're, they're really prime for the arbitrage angle, you know, and, you know, by the time you pay rent, then it's difficult to pay somebody as a co host. So, you know, we're gonna go to a mom and pop landlord, and say, Look, I want to rent your house, and I'm gonna put furniture in it, and I'm going to put it out on Airbnb, but I'll make sure that you get your rent paid every month, and some landlords will go for that. And those are the only ones that you concern yourself with, a lot of them will be skittish about that. And, you know, there's nothing you can do about that, all you can do is try and find one that'll play ball with you. Some of these guys are actually going to the corporate leasing locations, and they show up at a they show up at a apartment complex. And they'll say something like, you know, look, I've got a company that wants to rent a, a block of apartments. And they sent me here to ask me, How many apartments do you have vacant right now? And they may say, Well, we have five apartments vacant right now. And if you say to that leasing agent, if you've rented all five of those to accompany, would that help you at all? What do you think they're gonna say they get a bonus based on their occupancy, right. So you're single handedly walking in offering a solution to the current problem that they have. They have 510 1520 units that are ready to go that are vacant. And, you know, we're offering to take five of them as an example. You see what I'm saying. So somebody that's just getting started would be perfect, like that. And then bam, before you know it, you have five Airbnbs, you got to figure out how to get them furnished. You got to disclose to them what you're doing. You got to work out all the money and work out the arrangements and figure out how you're going to pay for it where this money is going to come from. But then once you do that, I mean, there are no barriers to this business. You throw furniture into place, get permission to use the place, get permission to Airbnb, get permission for the for the people staying there to get into the gym and the pool. And man, you you are you are in business up and running. That's crazy. What are you have you done that before with apartments? Because I have not done that before with apartments because I'm in a market. I was born and raised here. Yeah, so I just started showing up to networking events, and everybody knows who I am. Because I'm you know, it's just Ames where it is, you know, Jacksonville for 50 years. So you grew up in a little little country town south of Jacksonville called Middleburg. So, I've never had to do that. I've always just been able to pick up the phone and call Jeff or Coughlin, or, you know, call somebody and then make it happen. And that's not to say that you can't go to networking events and meet mom and pop people, you know, and rent from them. It's just a matter of getting into the habit of getting out there and meeting with people and networking. You know. I mean, you know, what did they say your net worth is in your network? Yeah, you know, and that's what it's all about. So I've never really, I've never really had to go the corporate game. And when I looked at becoming an Airbnb consultant, right. You know, somebody approached me and said, Listen, I want to buy a house. I'm an agent, I also have a real estate license. I don't do much quote unquote, real uttering. But at the time, he said, Hey, you know, go find me a home and you can have the commission and we'll put it out on Airbnb, and we'll test it. Well, that was The first time that I had done the consulting and what's the first thing that I realized when he made that offer to me. Um, you realize you had you had a, you had something else to offer that you didn't know you had to offer. Bingo, and I risk is reduced tremendously. I don't have zero risk, because I have any account that I need to preserve that has to have that has to maintain a good reputation. But I certainly don't have the same risks that I have been the guy to buy the house being the guy that furnish it being the guy, like, let's make no mistake about it and no qualms about it. This is a high risk venture. You know, I'm saying, for every dollar that a tiger is accustomed to making, as a as a long term rental, we can earn three, okay, in the Airbnb world, but it'll cost you one. So the net result is you double your income. I asked you, what are you willing to go through to double your income? I understand, you know, somebody says, well, twice enough, and still nothing. Okay, got it. But you know, outside of that, if you were accustomed to making 5000, what would you do to bump that up to 10? If you were accustomed to making 10,000, what would you do to bump it up to 20. I mean, I got guys that 15 homes, they make more than what doctors make. And they don't work as many hours as doctors, they do work. But they don't work 80 100 hours a week. I'm not slamming doctors on these doctors. I love doctors. But I'm just I'm just saying, I've got clients where one of the spouses is a doctor. And that and that's my jam. It's like, you know, you can make more than doctors so and so. Like, you know, I'm saying and they kind of get an elbow, and 12 years of school and here I am just buying real estate and doing Airbnb ease. And it's happening. It's happening. It's a lot of work. It's an uphill battle. It's a fight. But isn't anything. You know that that's worth it going to be a fight. John Maxwell says everything is uphill. If you ain't going uphill, you sliding downhill. So let me ask you this question. So if anybody's Airbnb host, how did they become a super host? What's the fastest way to become a super host? And is and isn't and is assassinated? Go? Yeah, well, I I attained to for home status. And I lost it during the pandemic. And one of the things that we did to get it back was we implemented automated messaging. And it's like instant responses to like 90% of the standard questions that come up. Right. And that brought my rating up, you know, to to, like, you know, basically two tenths of a percent. You have to maintain 4.8. During the pandemic, we fell down, we were at 4.9. We slid down to 4.6. And then we're, we climbed back up to 4.7. So, you know, I'm like, I'm like one click away from gaining, you know, super host status. But that was during the pandemic, that was 2020. Here we are in 2022. And I still collected $2.8 million in rent. So, necessity, but it's not, it's a status thing. It's a status thing. So I go, I'm super host. And yeah, you get a little bump in the algorithm. And you know, it's bad. It's a button, it's a piece of flair. It's whatever, do I you know, do I want it back? Absolutely. I want it back. You know, and we're close. And this is this is one of the secret to the Airbnbs. And that I have these owners, they want their money. They don't care about the rating. Well, of course, they don't care about the rating. It's my writing. So they want their money. I mean, look, it is what it is. So one of the things that I'm doing to bridge the gap on this 10% And my my tech guy, he does a lot of research on Airbnb, z as a couple of them himself. He told me, he said superhost is not an action. It's a mindset. When we have a problem. We offer a credit instead of waiting for them to ask for one If that makes any sense. Yeah. So I had an issue yesterday when people came in, and they weren't happy with clean. So they, I just told him, I told my virtual assistants, I said, Hey, offer to refund them the cleaning fee? You know, and they didn't ask for it. I just offered it. You know, that's the kind of stuff that you have to do. You have to pick? Okay, are you going to extract every single little penny out of every single client? Are you going to use magic may make a great impression on customers? wow them with customer service? And get that super host? Because I guarantee you, you know, that's what it takes. And does giving them that that immediate rebate or that discount? Does that usually stop them in their tracks before the start complaining? Or take it down? Does that deescalate them fairly quick? Oh, I mean, it to a certain extent. But look, people are people and this is the hospitality business. Right? So it helps. And that's what we're trying to do. It's, it's not perfect across the board. But it's a mindset, you know, I've, you know, said to, you know, I've said to people, because we thought it was a function of how nice the property was. And to a certain extent, that's true. So we thought we'd get slick, we opened up a new account, and we put all the swanky properties in the new account, thinking, well, this is a nice property. So this goes into this goes in what we call the Super Host account. And this is a West Side ship box. So you know, we're gonna put just put this in the regular account, you know, then he gets a bad rating, whatever. But then we found that, you know, it's, it's, that's part of it, but it's also a function of the customer service. So they're, I guess the best way to put it is, you know, they're, they're equally as important. Definitely. Now, what's on the horizon? I'm gonna ask you that what's on the horizon for a your Airbnb business and what else is on the horizon? Well, on the horizon, what we're looking to do is we're looking to figure out a way to expand from 100 to 300. And what we've determined is, is that it's just, it's just so hands on, that we're having a hard time seeing, okay, how many people would I need to hire, to be able to actively, you know, co host 300 Airbnbs. And one of the things that we can do is, we can try to find, we can try to find, we can try to find owners that have their own boots on the ground people. And then they're just going to plug in to our matrix. So they'll use our automated messaging, they'll use my VAs, or maybe they get their own vas, they'll use their cleaners, their handy man's their lawn, people, their bug people, it's their boots on the ground, I take a smaller percentage, and then they just plug into the network. And we see that as a viable option for going to 200 300, even 1000 homes. Well, that's really great. It's really great too, because if you think about it, the business, all the businesses is the systems. So if you incorporate the systems, you can plug and play any business, you can essentially help incorporate any business that wants to run successfully, and keep the rating up high. Right? And then, you know, Frank, to answer your other question about what we have, where we're actually looking to, we're actually looking to expand our operations into teaching people to do what I do. I want to teach the lions where to go buy a new home, I want to teach the Tigers Okay, let's take a look at your current inventory and see which homes makes the most sense to get started with and I want to teach the bears how to get started with rental arbitrage or find their own you know, or maybe you know, get them into a quad. They move into one they can Airbnb out the other three. The numbers are just off the charts. You know, just how house hacking Airbnb style Yeah, house hacking Airbnb style. And there have been there have been people that have done that to where they'll just buy a house and instead of Airbnb in units, their Airbnb in their other rooms. Everybody's gonna get Started in their own place. And that's what the needs are different to, you know, a bear is gonna need something different than a lion would need. You know, I'm saying, but I mean, I got a guy, he's a lion, for sure. And we got a contract approved for him to buy a pool home for $535,000. So he's putting $100,000 down, he's gonna get a $435,000 mortgage, it's going to be about $2,600 a month, and that home is going to make $8,000 a month. It's like, he's like, this is insane. I'm like, yeah, it's insane. But it'll happen. You know, I mean, we have homes that are just, that are just performing exactly like that. I'd got a home that's got a pool and a hot tub. Right? Because the interesting thing about the home, we'll do, say, let's say at home, we'll do $4,000, okay, a home with a pool, we'll do like $7,000. And a home with a pool and a hot tub will outperform the home with just the pool. And then we'll do eight or $9,000. Like I have empirical data on that, you know, how about homes would just hot tubs. So what the data says on that is that it's Hang on just a second, what the data says on that is that it's about a 30% increase. So if a normally makes $3,000, it would make $4,000 into that a hot tub. So it is still worthwhile if get up pull into your backyard to really get a hot tub back there. Because it does up the overall value of the rental on a regular basis. So that again, so at the very least, if you can't fit a pool in the backyard, you know, trying to get a hot tub back there some words on that property, does up devalue enough to justify that cost, and does bring in overall a 30% more profit. You're saying based on the data you've seen? Absolutely, yeah, yeah, definitely. This home that I'm buying, has a pool and a hot tub. And it needs a minor rehab. And the reason the number one reason that I bought it is because the seller did not want to quote unquote, list their house, they just wanted it sold. So she would not allow the agent to list the house. But she said to the agent, if you bring me a buyer, you know what I'll let's write the contract. So the the end result is I got to buy a home, they named their price, and that's okay. But I didn't have to bid on it. They're like, there's no bidding. There's no bidding, if you if you like this price, you know, you're good, right? I mean, it's kind of like a sign of the market. It appraised at at $1,000 More than when I bought it. But I've got comps that support an extra 50 or $60,000 in value. So it's a little bit of a game where the appraiser is like, well, you know, here's the contract price, I'll just make sure that the appraisal comes in at the contract price, and then we're done. But it's really more, it's really worth more than that. But if even still, I don't care, because I'm in it for the long haul. And I'm going to extract, you know, $80,000 for the income from that property every year. So it's just it. I mean, it's a no brainer. That's crazy. How, I know probably Florida's dealing with this, but I'm sure you've heard like Atlanta, they're only allowing one Airbnb prep, LLC. They're kind of regulating all that stuff. Are you afraid of? How are you planning to overcome that if that happens in your market? Because that might really affect your business heavily? Well, what you're talking about, there is a constitutional issue, right? Yeah. So it's a slippery slope. A good constitutional attorney would have a field day with Atlanta right now. It because the you know, they just get them into court and say, Why are you telling Airbnb operators, they can only have one property per l LLC. And you're not saying that to people that will operate it, put trash people in the house and have their houses get trashed over and over and over again? Like, it's really a Pandora's box, but it also speaks to the risk of the business model. Yeah, you know, and there's a lot of people out there that are concerned that so many people are putting properties out on Airbnb, that there's going to be saturation But there's also people out there that are concerned that there's gonna be inverse. Right? So many people are putting their properties on Airbnb, that there's not gonna be any properties available for rent to live in. Yeah, okay. Well, I'm sorry. It's like, highest and best use highest and best, every opportunity you get, you're going to, you're going to gravitate to highest and best. And then people say, What about low income? Housing? What about low income housing? What about it? What about it? The governor of the state of Florida, said it perfectly. He said, you know, what, we let the market decide. If investors want to get involved in low income housing, they are free to do so. And they can develop their business model. So I just, I mean, I just it, it's unconscionable to me that, you know, a government organization would say, Oh, you can only have, you know, one, one, Airbnb per LLC. Well, number one, it's only $200 to create an LLC. So who cares? But number two, as soon as you know, it starts working its way through the courts, that they're making requirements for short term rentals, telling people how to operate their business, that they're not doing to long term. There's your there's, you've got a bundle of rights associated with the property, the constitutional bundle of rights, and they're violating that. That's interesting. Because it's people like everybody, it's just like a new, regular new thoughts of regulation come out, and it kind of scares people out of the markets even go down that path. So you're saying, bye, see you. Yeah, yeah, getting out of the market. You know, it's just, yeah, it's a hybrid. It's a hybrid venture, no doubt about it. I believe it's also a lot more risk in a state like Florida just because Florida is so tourist centric, and is so dependent upon tourism, like you go to a market we had run. But in Florida, we have that advantage, that tourism dollars are super important in Florida, because we don't have an income tax. So when you go though, you go to the some of the right cities in Florida, and they're just entire subdivisions now, that are entirely short term only, you can't live you know, some someone, even the short term tenant can't stay more than 179 days, in some of the properties because they don't want anybody classifying it as their home. They want strictly vacation rentals, short term rental, you know, a lot of them classify the subdivision as a resort. So then they'll get away with charging a little bit more on the HOA fee. By giving that they'll get almost a little bit waterpark ish with some of what they do for the clubhouse. And the pool instead of pool. It's, you know, it's a pool with the slide. And you know, they might have tennis courts there and some other stuff on some of these properties that normally, you look at the units and it's like, you know, this looks like a $300,000 unit. But now they're getting $700 a month in HOA fees. And it's because they've got crazy resort amenities on top of all of that, and then they throw in their own rental program. So then there's a little competition there. But it's, you know, is that something that scares you trying to compete with some of those large nationwide operators. I mean, they're not happy about us, you know, but the end result is, is that we're putting out a product that the that the market likes better. You know, one of the dirty secrets of the hospitality business is that the hotel business is designed to feed the restaurant business, right? Like, if you stay at a hotel, your very best opportunity for a meal is a restaurant. Now you can always do you know, you can always do the the, the aunt Jenny method, which was you know, we get a pack of Bologna, a package cheese, a loaf of bread, the smacking together and were eaten, right. You know, peanut brothers jelly. That's right. But like I said, your best opportunity for meal, right? Is is restaurant on our world. You get a whole kitchen grill, go to grocery store, buy your groceries, cook your food, it's just like being at home. And then I got this one piece of property that I'm co hosting On it's two acres in the middle of the city, University Boulevard, look it up. I mean, it's just amazing. I had no idea there's a two acre piece of property and, and university right in the middle of the city. Well, there's two single family homes on that property. Right. And I negotiated a deal to rent to rent it to rent both of them to, to a business owner. And the business owner hammered me. He was like, Oh, you gotta you got to work with me. You got to lower your price. I'm like, No, I don't like this is a steal. You know, you're putting nine guys in one house, eight guys in the other? How many hotel rooms are you replacing? Don't say that, if anything, my price should go up. And yeah, it's just it's a steal. If you're replacing, I mean, easily, we're replacing eight hotel rooms and that scenario. Okay, so you can imagine the hotel lobbies not happy about it. And with hotels, you know, people say to me, Well, why don't you just why don't you just break ground and just build a hotel? Just do an Airbnb Hotel? Which I would, you know, it's more recent. The right and, and, and more expensive front, there's, there's a bigger, it's so in business, we look at barrier to entry, right? That's a matrix. There's a huge barrier to entry. I talked to a hotel guy, he's built, you know, five or six of them. But it's like, look, like, let me walk you through all the steps, you locate a piece of property 800,001 point 6,000,002 point 4 million, like, whatever. Right? Well, then there's all this stuff that you have to do all this environmental stuff, impact studies, okay, is the population dense enough to warrant hotels, you know, you know, marketing studies, you know, that's why I have an Airbnb, that are close to hotels is a good idea. Because all that research is done that said, they need a hotel there. Right? So they need to hotel, they need Airbnb. He said, outside of the cost of acquisition, it's $100,000 in just crap, before he can drop a shovel in the ground. You see what I'm saying? And then there's, you know, there's all the regulation and and they're upset about that, too, because they're like, Well, you know, we're highly regulated, and they're not. So they're, they're working on, on those regulations. And that's fine, you know, because that's, that's something completely different. But when they start doing things that they're they're doing to short term rental operators, that they're not doing to long term operators. I'm telling you, it's a slippery slope. Definitely. So I have one final question before I have to take off. So unfortunately, I have to take off to grab my children here in a few minutes. But what's a golden nugget you can share to someone who's just beginning just thinking about beginning and wants to start in this business. And I'm going to preface this from two angles both the person who wants to learn how to do this so they can do it themselves. And potentially the person who you said might be a doctor or dentist or have some other day job or business that's afforded them some money and they might want to pick up a house or have an extra house that they've got maybe it's a long term rental and they want to convert it and work with a professional like you can help them make that decision and proceed well I don't know if you have if you guys have a way of flashing this number on the on the screen but one of the ways that they can do is you know just to kind of join our our little network of people that are doing it bounce ideas and learn so frank that number you know if you text hive mind to I'm gonna get that number here. You haven't Frank let's see Give me just a second here 888-534-6333 text hive mind to that number. And you're gonna get a free PDF of nine things you need to know before you start any Airbnb business. And that's also just so you know, to Daniel so he can have that edited in to the Zoom before it broadcasts. Well, you Yeah, that's just the number that's just three houses to financial freedom.com Correct. So that's that That's one, that's one way that I could start is, is, you know, we're developing and putting together a group of people group of like minded people, where we can kind of bounce ideas off of each other. We're developing a training program to help lions, tigers, and bears decide where they want to get started, you know, and, and, you know, we have a network, we have, you know, kind of like, a mini mastermind of people that come together and bounce ideas off of it. You know, that kind of that helps. Yeah, that does that does. But it's really, it's really cool. Because there's a lot of people they get stuck up on, like, all this stuff that could happen or might happen. And they won't even take action to it. But it's kind of cool that you have the data, there's only 60 properties that become financially free. That's even that's even cooler, because a lot of people think it's unattainable, and they're still going edifies. And it might, they might think they're their financial goals might take 10 to 15 rental properties, you know, well think, think about this, right? If you can get to three homes, you know, somebody might say, well, even if I was cash flowing $1,500 a home, three homes is only $4,500 a month, there are people out there that say that, I mean, that doesn't even cover my nugget. Okay, but think about the concept, right? If you can get to three homes, you can get to six. If you can get to three, you can get to six, you can get to nine, you can get to 12. Like once you get your first three, then you're going to know if this is your jam. Me. I knew it was my jam on, you know, Airbnb, number one. I was just like, it was no brainer. I mean, we we started applying like ROI, cap rates, cash on cash returns, and we you start calculating like that. Like, for a long time, people looked at me like I had three heads. Like, yeah, we got a cap rate at like, 22%. No, get out of here. That's ridiculous. Nobody's got a cap rate at 22%. I'm like, and my whole thing was like, Oh, okay. Like I didn't, I didn't think I didn't engage them. Like, you can't see it, you can't see it. And then what I started doing is I started showing my bank account, and I started showing my financials. I was like, who does that? That was my proposal. Okay, well, let's take a look at the bank account. Like wow, look at that. Um, well, that's an operating accounts, not all my money, but I mean, it's okay, you know, yeah. And then I say, Here's my accounting. And then the accounting is broken down by properties. And they're like, what's this little West Side? House? How did it make $80,000 last year? I'm like, oh, yeah, that's a funny story. And that's when that's when the co host just started coming in droves. You know, because out yeah, it's just, you know, when you when, when the money's already been spent to acquire the the, the investment and then you can just come along and offer value and double their income. You know, there's a lot of meat on the bone. Yeah. And then you know, the number one way to mitigate the risk is with your skill set. You got to buy these houses, right. You got to rent them right? You got to do it in such a way that if you had to put a family in there you could still be made whole Yeah, that makes sense. And I think I think I'm really glad you said that too. Because I think a lot of people they're just going for the what Airbnb can make but you gotta really gotta you really got to understand the numbers like if worst case scenario my Airbnb goes bankrupt tomorrow. Can I still make a rent put a renter in us and make it make it make happen? Yes, that mean that's a must. If you bought a place and the only reason it made sense is to Airbnb it. Don't do it. You're making a huge mistake. Huge. Yeah, you're putting you're putting your head on the chopping block. You're better off taking a pass on that home. And and you know doing something else. I have approached sellers that want to sell their home and it's been their idea to give me 100% financing. That's how I bought the six Plex. You have a six Plex it was the sellers idea to give me 100% financing. Now it needed a hefty rehab. Okay, and so I took the rents that I was making on my Airbnb ease and use that to finance the rehab. I didn't borrow the money for the rehab. I just, you know, took it as write offs all along the way. Nice. And, you know, fast forward to today. I have six units, four of them are Airbnbs. And it cash flows at $500 a month. Wow, each each building, there's three buildings. Each building has a $600 mortgage payment. Wow. That that'll that'll pay for, you know, our daughter's college. I'm like, yeah, just that property alone. And at the time I bought it. It was the biggest investment I've ever made. So I was like stretching and growing and expanding your vision as well. So your your three properties and this is where you kind of get into buying good properties is that even one six Plex can make you financially free at that point and your your green, your green in the Airbnb business just in one six Plex. That's amazing. That's amazing. That's amazing story, man. That's, that's really cool. Because it kind of opens up opportunity because now you look at it through a different lens. And I can make a lot more money doing this and Airbnb. Right. And, look, that's six Plex, I think is worth about $650,000. Yeah, I would rather have the monthly income than the $650,000. Some people say that stupid. I'm like, Okay, I'm in it for the long haul. Yeah. Now, if somebody came along and gave me $900,000, I'm like, okay, I can redeploy those assets into pool homes. And now I'm good. Like, that makes sense. You shouldn't I'm saying? Well, I mean, I mean, even if I, the the rents on the six Plex whether it's Airbnb, or regular rent would not warrant a $900,000 price. Does that make sense? Yeah, I mean, it's kind of like a pie in the sky number that I had. I mean, 8500 Somebody would literally have to be okay, with a point seven, five cap rate. Nobody's gonna do that. And I acknowledge that. Yeah, so I'll just take the income and be fine. I mean, 8500 8500, do you have a six Tycho's 100 grand a year revenue just off of that? That's right, easily. So I mean, you're you're getting your your cash on cash return totally paid off in six years, if you put 100% towards the purchase price, but you're not. So it's still it's still a great deal. Either way. That's an amazing deal. It's an amazing deal. What was a no brainer, it was a no brainer. So when I bought it, I bought it before the pandemic. Okay, so I only paid $50,000 and door. Oh, nice. Like, you know, people would give their right arm for $50,000 a door purchase now, nowadays. That's funny. Well, what books have really impacted your growth and your life in general. So there, there are three books that I've read that have had a huge impact on my personal life and my business life. So the first one is the richest man in Babylon. I actually, I actually read it when, when it were younger man's clothes. And it really just talks about financial principles, talks about how things were at the dawn of civilization, they didn't have banks back then you carried your money with you. And if you had money, you carried it with you. And if you lost it, or if it got stolen, it was gone. And it just, it had some basic principles that always kept in the back of my my mind. And I started using, talking about separating the money out, paying yourself first. You know, that kind of stuff. That's a book called The Richest Man in Babylon. It's quick read, it's cool read. The author's name is George Claisen. So I highly recommend now on the second one was, you know, I had a mentor at one point, and he literally said to me, Why are you worrying so much? Why are you worried about this? Why are you worried about that? And like, I don't know, just like concerned about, you know, what, blah, blah, blah, happens. And he gave me a book. And the book was, How to Stop Worrying, and how to start living by Dale Carnegie, that Dale Carnegie and in the book, the examples in the book are extreme like there are people just dealing with incredible things like you know, huge debit financial devastation, lawsuit lawsuits, you know, death of close family members super close, and just like, you know, just really, really bad stuff. And I wasn't, you know, dealing with nearly anything like that. But essentially the big takeaway on that was is okay, so you're worried about something will play it out, in its worst iteration. Tell me, what is the worst thing that can happen? And then just act as if that happened, what are you going to do now? And that was just like, enlightening. You know, it was like lifting a weight on my shoulder, I don't have to worry about if it doesn't happen. I don't even have to like waste brainpower on it. But if it does happen, I've got my plan. Like, man, if you know, this happened to me this, this would be devastating. But here's what I do. You know, I told my wife one time, I said, I said, they can take it all. And she goes, What do you mean? I said, it can take the job, they can take the property, they can take the cars, they get like, you could take it all away from me. If I had my wife and my kids, I can always just start over again. You know, that question, Grant Cardone has been asked this question before, I'm sure, actually, I saw a video of it. They're like, if you had to start all over again, fresh with nothing, what would you do? And he's like, that's a good idea. Maybe I should do that. And that's how he became the undercover billionaire. Like, you know, but, but it's like, what would I do? Like I have, you know, I have these skill sets. So I can always use them, no matter what happens. If that makes any sense, information, so that information is always growing and building, so you can't take that information is always, always growing, always buildings always out there. You know, my mother taught me how to buy houses with no money down. Long before gurus were talking about it. It's just that it was my mother, and I thought she was crazy. But, you know, when I saw everybody else he's done like, so that, you know, she taught me how to do this in 1995. Where are you guys? Men? You know, and it's like, okay, whatever. But it's, you know, that's, it's just one of those things. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. And then, and then the, the other book that I read that was highly impactful was T Harv. Eker. The millionaire mindset. So that book was cool, for a number of reasons, that one of the coolest things, you know, like, operationally speaking from the book, is that his personality comes across so much in the book, I remember reading the book and thinking, Man, I would just like to sit down and have a beer with this guy, because he was just like, his personality came across, like, it's just, and he, you know, he went on to become very wealthy did very well, speaking, the books, you know, as training programs, just like all kinds of stuff. And his mother had a value system, like, just like this deep, ingrained idea that if you're rich, you have to be a bad person. Right, you're rich, you have to be a bad person. Well, he figured out a ingenious way to solve that. He bought his mother, a condominium in Hawaii. And he said, well, that accomplishes two missions. It got my mom out of my hair six months out of the year. And she no longer thinks rich people are are terrible people. You know, I felt like it. And I just, it was just, it was so impactful. I was like, Man, that's amazing. But really, what he talks about is, you know, separating your money as it comes in, you know, there's a book out there now called, you know, pay yourself first, you know, that kind of deals with the same concept. But basically, when I have money coming in, I divide it into thirds. So the third of it, you're going to have to set aside pay taxes, business expenses, whatever a third of it is going to have to be for operating expenses. And then a third I can use to pay bills. Right? The underlying concept is, is that if you cannot manage $20, or if you cannot manage $2,000, you won't be able to manage $20,000. Right? And you know, what's going to come first the chicken or the egg? I understand that if you take your income and divide it by a third, you're probably not going to have enough to pay your bills. Okay? And it's okay. You just have to work through it. And now you have a baseline. So many times the baseline is, let's make this much Let's spend this much and I'm trying to get people to lower their baseline It's, it's a psychology thing, if you put it like if you put brainpower on it, you will figure out how to raise your income. So that a third of your income, pays your bills and not your whole income pays your bills. And you just you just keep doing that. And I've had people tell me why I can't do that. I'm like, why just do it and then move the money back the one day, you'll do it, and you won't have to move the money back. And now you're in the habit of doing it. Oh, it's like, you can't see the forest for the trees. And it talks about money, magnetism, just a lot of things like you find a quarter on the ground. You know, what are you supposed to say? You know, thank you, thank you, thank you, I am a money magnet, I'm going to pick that up. And I'm going to take it with me. Not because the quarter does anything magical. But because it's on your mind. I'm a money magnet. Next thing, you know, your mind starts finding ways to bring additional sources of income. It it was life changing. It was life changing. That's good. That's good. What is a quote that is somebody else's? Yours or somebody else's that you resonate with? Oh, man. Well, I've kind of already said it, you know, your net worth is in your network. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So that's, you know, that's, that's pretty, that's pretty powerful. You know, um, you know, another one that I have is more of a on a personal nature, you know, is, you know, how many, how many summers Yeah, left with your kids. You know, that, like, think about that? Like, my, my son is 13. So there's only six summers left? My daughter is 16. So there's only two summers left, you know, saying? So those are, those are impactful and caused me to, you know, make decisions. You know, I mean, I make I make decisions accordingly. Yeah, the understanding and realizing that your time is limited, especially with your kids and loved ones that your parents, you might only speak with them. You might only see them if they're out of a threat and they don't live where you live, you might only see them 10 to 15 times before they pass away and they're gone. And the opportunity you have to make make a connection and make a long lasting connection. Especially with your kids. I mean, your kids, you got six summers left when you get into the six summers, so make it impact. For me, my kids going to Europe, baby, let's go nice, nice. Oh, here's the right. And then there's another one. Die with memories, not dreams. There you go. That will kind of mess me up. I remember is my dreams. It really puts things in perspective. Like my kids, my oldest is turning five this year. So I'm like, I got to put her in school and like know why we send her to school like schools, the next 10 years are live, I'm going to put her in early. Let's listen enjoy the time we have while she's home and messing with your with their siblings and stuff like that. Like, you gotta you really get you really have to enjoy the time you have. Because you don't know how much time you have. Yeah, yeah, I saw something. You know, I didn't really, like everybody kind of sees everything now, you know, they they don't, they don't see the struggle. Like they don't see what I went through. Like I was I was, it's kind of a funny story on on how we got started with all this. And it had to do with centering around the kids finding a way to grow the business and still have time for the kids. But, you know, I was running an insurance company and I was having a modicum of success, you know, but at the end of the day, I mean, I was just kind of keeping the bills paid. I wasn't really kind of getting ahead, you know, but my counterparts they were out there crushing it doing really well. And I had to deal with that, like in my mind first, and then my wife kind of picked up on it. She's like, you know, these guys are out there crushing it, you know, and we're like, we're doing okay, but why aren't you out there crushing it like them? And, you know, no fault to her, you know, as you know, like security is very important to women. So, it really it hit me hard. It really hit me hard. You know that that sinking feeling in the stomach? I have nothing to say I was speechless. You know, I wanted to take Madeline to let her go on her Washington. DC trip. And I was in a situation in which I had the time to do it. So I did. But yeah, we didn't, we didn't really have the money to do it. So we have to raise the money to do it, we figured it out and got through it, as we often do, like, you know what I'm saying. But if that scenario had happened, now, it just would have been like, okay, here you go, you know, like, we'll just take care of it. It's like, it's no big deal. And, you know, there was, she wanted to do an sh t training. So we went to this whole thing, it was big, you know, how the who, and they were like, Oh, we have payment plans, we have, like, not just whatever we got to do, just take care of it. And she went through our whole SAP training, but like, so like, you see the difference. But everybody sees that, and nobody sees, you know, the challenge and the struggle that I went through feeling, you know, like, I was letting my family down, or watching my bank balance go down, you know, woefully low, you know, going, Man, I know, this thing is gonna work, I'm just gonna go all in on it. You know, they, they, they don't see the struggle. I'm sure we've all seen a picture of the iceberg where people see you know, all the rainbows and, and all that kind of stuff, and they don't see what we went through. To go through that. Aisle, man, you really got me with the quotes, man. So another one is Eric Thomas. You know. Everybody wants to shine like a diamond. Don't nobody want to get cut. Never heard that one. But you gotta get right out of his mouth. You got Eric Thomas, at everybody wants to shine like a diamond. Nobody wants to get cut. But it's, it's it's a cut that you have to go through. Yeah, no. And so, you know, I'm, I've kind of have been through a few things. I've been that guy that had to throw all the bills up in the air. Right, and pay the ones that land face out. The other ones? They'll just wait. You know, I've been through that before. That's amazing. Yeah. And that's, you know, that's part of the that's part of the journey. Yep. And there are no guarantees i Something could happen. And I might I might be back there again. Who knows? Yeah, you know, but I just rely on my skill set and just start grinding. You know, when the wholesalers cranked back up again, after the after the economic downturn, there were people that were wholesaling properties for $750 They'd literally lock a contract up for you know, 80,000, sell it to somebody for 81,000 and make $1,000. Crazy, they had the skill set, they just, they just, they just then they just got started, they just crank it back up again. You know, I started back up after the, after the economic downturn, I started back up in 2016. But I, you know, there were a lot of people that started back up in like, 2012 2013. And, I mean, you're literally, you know, getting wholesale deals right off of the MLS, you know, those days or, you know, those days are gone. Just says the ever changing times. This is, this has been a really good, I think we covered a lot today. I mean, from Airbnbs, to just building a great foundation and kind of betting on yourself, as it was a lot we covered today. I really appreciate your time Mark. Definitely, the number is 888-534-6336, keyword hivemind. And that'll send you the PDF of where to start where to get started, right. That's right. Yeah, just join our network, just jump in. We're putting content out and we're, you know, we're going to do webinars and we're going to do meet up similar just, you know, we're gonna have a lot of a lot of things where you can come and enjoy and, you know, hang around like minded people and bounce ideas off of everybody, you know, and then that's what we want. We want to create a community. That's amazing. Well, we appreciate your time. Thanks for coming on. I really enjoyed it. And I appreciate Frank for participating as well. And I hope people get value from this and I hope he says in this episode