[00:00:05] Speaker A: Welcome to the short term show. The show about short term rentals and long term wealth with real property owners hosting real properties who are crushing it in the vacation and short term rental space.
And here's your host, Avery Carle.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: Hey, y'.
[00:00:29] Speaker C: All.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: Welcome back to another episode of the short term show. I am your host, Avery Carl. And we have a really cool guest today. But first, couple announcements. We are still hiring and the Emerald coast, we need one more agent to serve. Destin, Panama City Beach, 38 area, basically the Florida panhandle, the Poconos in Pennsylvania, which we have a guest from Pennsylvania today. So maybe this will resonate. We're hiring agents in the Poconos and and then also the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. So if you think that you might be a good fit for any of these positions, you can email us at careers at the short term shop dot com. Or really in any market, Park City also.
But you know, if you're in a vacation market and you're like, I think I might be a good fit for the short term shop, email us and let us know. But anyway, on to the show. So speaking of Pennsylvania, we have a guest from Pennsylvania today you might have seen, because I was aware of her property before I met her and then when she showed it to me, I was like, oh my gosh, I know that property. So we have Naomi Brown and I'm going to let her talk about her property.
Tell us about what you have, Naomi. First introduce yourself and then we'll, we'll get to her property because it's nuts, guys.
[00:01:41] Speaker C: It's cooler than the, you know. Absolutely. Well, thank you, Avery. I appreciate that. So I became a short term rental owner just kind of by half instance. And I have a very unique property. It's a house that's actually shaped like a shoe and it is a three bedroom, two and a half bath house. 1400 square feet. Actually a lot more square footage in the property than you would expect to be in a house that's shaped like a shoe. But it's a really fun property because it was actually built back in 1950 by a guy who owned a chain of shoe stores. And he built it as kind of a promotional piece for his shoe store brand.
And, you know, the original intent was that he would have people who would come into his stores and purchase shoes. They get entered into basically a raffle to stay at the shoe house. So it was originally a short term rental property before that was even a thing back in 1950. So it's a very unique property and a lot of fun.
And it's located here in the central Pennsylvania area, which is close to Hershey Lancaster, which is kind of the Amish country and also not too far away from Gettysburg.
Okay.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: So the. I mean, it's crazy to me that in 1950 this property was purchased. Built to be basically a vacation rental.
[00:03:11] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: But as a promotional property for his shoe company. So he was just letting people stay there for free.
But he's getting people in the door to his shoe stores by raffling off being able to stay here.
[00:03:24] Speaker C: It's. Yep.
[00:03:25] Speaker B: Really interesting. Good marketing in the 50s. I like it.
[00:03:28] Speaker C: Right. This is before the day and age of the Internet and before you really had a lot of marketing sources. So this was his marketing source. Basically he built it kind of like up on a hill close to a major highway near where we live.
So it was like really prominent in the area and obviously nothing at all like it and attracted a lot of attention. And so of course it brought people into his shoe stores to buy his product.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: Okay. So I like that it's, you know, very visible from the highway. There's a, A little like White Castle on I10 coming out of. If you're heading east, coming out of New Orleans. And every time it catches my eye, every single time I'm like, look at that.
[00:04:12] Speaker C: What is that?
[00:04:13] Speaker B: And it actually just went for sale recently and somebody bought it and was actually pretty cheap. It's nothing I would have ever bought or tried to short term rent because it is basically right on the highway. But good marketing in a time when there was not the Internet. So that's. That's really interesting. So if you weren't a short term rental investor before you saw this, how did you become aware of this property to then buy it?
[00:04:38] Speaker C: So it's an interesting story.
I actually grew up driving by this property all the time because as I mentioned, it's like right on one of the. Along one of the major highways in the area. And I remember driving by when I was a kid all the time and I'd be like, what in the world is that? Like it's a house that's shaped like a shoe. Right. Like very much so an anomaly.
So it's like a very much so a local landmark in the town where it's located. They actually drop things shoe on New Year's Eve they drop a replica of the shoe house instead of like, you know, a rose or a bow or something like that.
But I grew up driving by it all the time and it just so happened that by profession I'm actually a commercial real estate agent. And the gentleman who owned it before we did so before we owned it, it had had, you know, many different lifes before from the time it was a short term rental until us. So it had actually been transformed into a private residence for many years. And then it was changed into an ice cream shop so people could stop and like take tours of the shoe house and buy some ice cream.
But after Covid, of course, that shut it down. And when they went to reopen, it was just very hard to get momentum going again, right in the year 2020.
So the gentleman who owned it before, he contacted me because he knew I was a commercial agent, said, hey, can you value this business for me? Because it was an ice cream shop. And I told him, I'm like, well, you know, the ice cream shop was not making money. I'm like, really? It doesn't have any value. But of course the property has value, but it needs to be recreated into something else, right? And so I was like, why don't you turn it back into what it was originally as a short term rental? And he's like, well, I don't want to do that, but maybe you should buy it and you do it.
And I like, you know, we paused for a minute and I went home and I talked to my husband and I was like, how could we say no, right? Like, this is, this is like a local icon, you know, like everybody knows it and you're basically like famous, you know, in this area if they hear that you own the shoe house.
So we were like, how could we possibly say no to that? So we said yes and we jumped in and bought it from him. It was a private sale. It never went up on the market. And that's primarily because he was, he didn't want the publicity, you know, like, it's a very well known property and it would been like a big deal with news stories and all this stuff if he had put it up actively for sale. So he didn't want the publicity, so he opted to do a private sale directly to us. So when we bought it, there was definitely some stuff that needed to be done. And of course it needed to be turned from an ice cream shop into a short term rental property.
And so we did a lot of work to it to redecorate and, you know, update some things that needed to be brought more current.
But we really worked hard to kind of maintain the essence of the property. Because it was built in 1950 and it's a historic property.
A lot of people have, you know, like, emotional connection to it because they drew up CNN or maybe their grandparents were some of the original occupants who stayed there like in the 1950s. So there's a lot of like, neat emotional connection that local people have.
So we really worked hard to kind of maintain the, the essence of the property and make it unique and kind of vintage to that era, you know. So we've got a record player and all kinds of stuff. It's, you know, makes it feel like you're back in the 1950s or 60s.
[00:08:37] Speaker D: Are you a real estate agent that wants to work in a fun family environment?
Then join us at the short term shop.
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[00:09:14] Speaker B: So it's three bedrooms you said, right?
[00:09:16] Speaker C: Three bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms. Yep.
And as you would expect, it's like the staircases are like real narrow and you know, windy and some sloped ceilings and, and all that stuff.
But you know, it's very comfortable, full size rooms and my husband, who's like 6:2 can still stand up in every room. It's not like it's unusually sized or something like that, you know.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: All right, so how much did you pay for this thing?
[00:09:48] Speaker C: So we bought it for 335,000.
Okay. And then we probably spent another 75,000 fixing it up, buying furniture and adding a hot tub and you know, like all the other stuff that we needed to do to turn it into a short term rental.
And we, we make about 100,000 a year in gross income. Okay. And then of course we have all of our expenses. Expenses. But it's a pretty good number and it stays very well booked.
[00:10:24] Speaker B: Okay, love that. So I'm. What kind of guests are coming to this area? Are these local people or these people coming as tourists from other areas? So what's your guest pool look like here?
[00:10:37] Speaker C: There's a lot of people who are coming from some international destinations.
We've actually been surprised that we've. We've gathered like quite a few international guests.
I mean, we have some fairly major tourist attractions in our area with Gettysburg and Hershey and, you know, some of those draws.
So some of that's not surprising. But all over the U.S. of course, some people who are more local, you know, from the surrounding states that would drive here, but I mean, really, people coming from all over the place.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: That's crazy. And what's the name of the exact town?
[00:11:20] Speaker C: York, Pennsylvania. Okay. I've heard of York.
[00:11:23] Speaker B: Okay, so what's, what's. How big is a town like that?
[00:11:26] Speaker C: There's 400,000 people within the county and then the surrounding counties, you know, 500,000, 400,000. It's a pretty. Within the greater metro area, you probably have one and a half to 2 million people.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: Okay, got it. And you have people from other countries come in to stay in the shoe house?
[00:11:47] Speaker C: We do, yes.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: Are they, like, doing a trip across America or they're coming specifically to stay in the shoe house?
[00:11:55] Speaker C: I think mostly people are coming, you know, because they are planning to come to the US Anyway. And maybe they're. They're. Maybe they come to Philadelphia. Right. Because Philadelphia is about two hours away. They might say, oh, I really want to stay in this unique property, so I'll go a little bit out of my way to stay there. You know, so there's a fair amount of that happening. But I have definitely had some people who came to stay just because it was such a unique property. So travel writers. I've had a fair amount of those.
We've had quite a few, like, TV specific shows. We were actually on.
There's an HGTV show called Zillow Gone Wild that they just produced the second season, and we were the first house. They featured on that, the first episode of the second season. So you can go watch us if you want to check that out.
But, you know, like, anybody who's looking for kind of a unique experience, we've attracted a lot of people. So there are definitely people coming to stay just because of how unique it is.
[00:13:01] Speaker B: Yeah, and that is extremely unique. I would say probably the most unique one that I've come across. Other than the potato.
[00:13:08] Speaker C: Yeah. Oh, well, I've seen the potato. I haven't been to the potato, but I've heard about it. Do you know the owner there?
[00:13:16] Speaker B: I want to say we have chatted on social media before, but no, not personally.
[00:13:21] Speaker C: Okay. Yeah, that would be interesting.
There's also a coffee pot somewhere in Pennsylvania as well, which I'd like to buy sometime. If the coffee pot owner happens to be listening, that would also. Because I love coffee and it's also in Pennsylvania.
But, you know, it's. It's very interesting because when we bought it, I was trying to figure out, like, what is the appropriate price. Right. Because, you know, if you rely on the Airbnb, like, auto pricing feature, it always says you're priced too high, right? But I'm like, if we're booked almost back to back to back constantly, how can we be priced too high? You know, so it just makes me question their, their algorithm. And obviously it's a very unique property that people come to stay in because it's unique.
And so I feel like there's there's some somewhat of a premium for the fact that it's unique, but that's always been hard for me to like properly identify.
You know, like is a property that's unique. Like if you have a tree house or something, does that mean that it rents for 20% more than like your boring 3 bedroom, 2 bath house?
I don't know. Maybe you have some thoughts about what a premium should be?
[00:14:35] Speaker B: Yes, I do. So I would not pay any attention at all to Airbnb smart pricing. It is actually. It's designed to get the best, lowest price possible for the guests. So it's not designed to price you to make you the most money. So I wouldn't look at that at all. And I mean I, I would recommend Price Labs, which is funny. We interviewed one of the higher upset Price labs earlier this week and that came out or I can't remember exactly when it's coming out. I don't know what the order is now that, now that I'm talking about it. But anyway, Price Labs would be something that I would look into. However, since you are so unique, Price Labs, you know, it goes off a bedroom count too. It's not going to know that you're unique. But what I would do is just trial and error. So if you are booking out some super far in the future, I would say like if you're booking out more than 90 days in the future, I would say you need to raise your prices.
If you have higher than an 80% occupancy rate, I would say raise your prices a little bit. But it is going to have to be kind of an incremental trial and error. Just because you are so unique, you don't really have any enemies or, well, what we at the shop call enemies, but any competitors to really compare yourself to because you're the only shoe.
So I would just incrementally raise those prices and then when you hit a point where you stop getting booked, okay, you know, that was your ceiling. Let's, let's drop a little bit. But yeah, I mean, I think Price Labs can help with that for sure, at least as like a benchmark range. And then you'll probably Be able to get a little bit higher than what Price Labs is pricing you at just because you are so unique.
[00:16:12] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean I, I feel like we've started to get to the point where it's like, okay, this seems like the good, you know, the good mojo because we're mostly full like you middle of the week in January there's openings, you know, but you could expect that in Pennsylvania.
But you know, for the most part it seems like we've kind of hit a good spot as far as pricing and occupancy goes.
But it always is, you know, a changing dynamic because you have a lot of seasonality here within the Pennsylvania market that you wouldn't have in other markets and so forth. So it's, it definitely has been kind of a let's feel it out type because you just don't have the data for something so unique.
[00:16:57] Speaker B: Yeah, yep, I agree with that.
[00:17:00] Speaker D: Are you having trouble trying to decide which market to buy in?
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[00:18:24] Speaker B: Well, so are you planning to buy more short term rentals? Are we buying exclusively the super unique places like coffee pots? I can probably get you that, that castle in western Louisiana if you want.
[00:18:38] Speaker C: Well, I, I love having such a unique short term rental property. It definitely is work to keep up on, you know, because it is so unique. I mean the whole exterior stucco and so you know when you have stucco for a roof basically because it's like the whole top of the shoe, you know, it's a lot of maintenance to keep up on that type of thing.
[00:19:00] Speaker B: So about that, like the, it's kind of like a boot almost. So the top part of the first floor would be.
[00:19:08] Speaker C: Yeah, it's, it's like sloped and it's really all just a stucco covering that's like the top, you know, so it's almost like the stucco's the roof and you know, you're dealing with snow and rain and all kinds of stuff like that. So we just have to be diligent about staying up on top of the maintenance and sealing that type of thing.
And obviously any short term rental properties a fair amount of work. So I feel like at this point point, and also just knowing that a lot of short term rentals are fairly saturated. I don't know that I'd buy just any short term rental property. But something that's unique and I know that we could turn into something that's, that's really not just a good revenue producer, but it's fun, you know, and there's just something that's, that's really neat about having a property where people come and they stay and they just say this was like such a high point for my family or you know, I've always dreamed of staying in the shoe house or something like that. It just brings a lot of joy to our lives and is, is so much fun. So I just, if, if we have more properties like that, I'm all about it, you know, because life's too short to, to be miserable and not. Not be enjoying what you're doing, you know.
[00:20:30] Speaker B: I hear that.
[00:20:32] Speaker C: Yeah.
Awesome.
[00:20:34] Speaker B: So I guess is there anything else about running this shoe business that I haven't asked you that you think our listeners would benefit from hearing?
[00:20:46] Speaker C: You know, I feel like we've, we've worked hard to really incorporate like the history component of this property. And I think a lot of people really appreciate that because it brings back a nostalgia for the older generation as well as kind of helping them connect with, you know, if it's a three generational family with the younger ones, because it's something unique.
So paying attention to the history of the property, I feel like if you have something like that that has like the mansion you mentioned, if it has some history and components of it, maybe it was haunted at one point. You know, just kind of bringing out some of the unique components that properties have is beneficial. So we have like a whole in the basement of the shoe house. The walls are covered with like old photographs from when the property was built or like some of the people who stayed back in the 1950s and their names and you know, when they got married and stuff like that. So we just like have worked hard to Kind of incorporate the history component of it as well because, you know, not only does it honor the integrity of the property, but I think a lot of people, it resonates with them and they, they really love that too. So in addition to that, also because it's a unique property, we do have souvenirs which are, of course, souvenirs like, you know, keychains and knickknacks. Socks.
Different. Different. Yeah, that we have socks with little shoes on them. So we have like a little corner in the basement that we have a shelf with different souvenirs that people can buy just, you know, to remember their visit. And that's been really popular too. So those, those little, you know, memory touch points I think have been really beneficial in building a unique and fun experience for the people who come there. For sure.
[00:22:55] Speaker B: Yeah, it is just fun. This property seems like it's just fun.
[00:22:59] Speaker C: Yep, absolutely. And there is. Now we, we've chosen not to allow pets, but there is a, a dog house that's a miniature replica of the shoe house back behind the main shoe house. So it's a tiny little shoe and we have a little stuffed dog in there.
So that's also a, you know, fun little connection point because the original owner had a big Great Dane and so he built a little dog house right behind the shoe house for his dog as well. So some fun little memory touch points like that, you know, really create a great experience and have gotten us a lot of 5 star reviews.
[00:23:39] Speaker B: Love that.
Well, thank you so much for coming on. So we have three questions that we ask people at the end of every single show. And the first question is kind of just a rapid fire. First question is, what advice would you give 20, 20 year old Naomi if you knew then what you know, now.
[00:23:58] Speaker C: You know, in, in reference to real estate?
I wish that when we were younger we would have been willing to buy like a 4 Plex and live in one and rent the other ones. Just because you got to live somewhere anyway. Right. And when I was a young person, myself and my husband, you know, school loans, I had two kids when I was 22 years old. I ended up having twins when I was newly married. And it was just a lot of responsibility and it took many years to get to the point where we had enough money put together and saved that we could invest in real estate. But time is your friend within the real estate industry space. And so I wish that we had just, just done it sooner. And an easy way to do that is just to go buy a fourplex. Right. Like Long term, long term or short term rentals. Right. That's an easy thing to do when you're a young person and it's, it's not that hard to get started. So if I had to do it again, that's definitely the first thing I would have done.
[00:25:06] Speaker B: Yeah, same. If I would have known about that back then much earlier, that would have been a good move.
[00:25:13] Speaker C: Yeah, for sure.
[00:25:15] Speaker B: All right, number two, what advice would you give a new investor who's looking to get started today? Doesn't have to be short term. You're in commercial real estate. It can be a commercial investor too.
[00:25:24] Speaker C: Yeah, well, you know, there's so many different ways to make money in real estate. Right. Like you and I were just at the Bigger Pockets conference and they've got tracks where they talk about all kinds of awesome things and there's like way more even beyond that. So I feel like it's good to kind of evaluate the type of person you are and find something that's a really good fit for you. Because the very first real estate deal that we bought was actually a foreclosure that we bought to flip. And in doing the flip, I realized like, that's really not my thing, you know, like it was a lot of work and I was making my kids like scrape the wallpaper off the walls and all that stuff. Yeah, they really hated it.
So. So now going forward, it's like, okay, I know the stuff that I'm good at that works and the stuff that you know is great, that's great if it works for you. That's not my mojo, you know.
So I mean, I, I really like commercial properties because they are low maintenance, obviously. I like short term rentals because they got great cash flow and you also don't get stuck with tenants that never leave, you know.
So I just think that it's definitely thing that, hey, if you are interested in real estate, there's the right fit for every person. You just need to maybe do a couple different things to find out what you like and what you don't like, you know, and then once you find those things, go out and do them full force, you know. So sometimes it's good just to dabble in a couple different things. And it's also good to be diversified, right? Because if we have a short term rental Property, obviously if COVID 19 happened again, that's not so great for the short term rental industry. But you know, if we also have a commercial building over here and this project over there, you're more diversified and it protects you from that downside risk. So I think just finding the right fit and not worrying about what other people are doing is an important part of learning as a investor.
[00:27:29] Speaker B: Very good advice. And last question. What's your favorite book that's impacted your mindset?
[00:27:36] Speaker C: You know, a couple of years ago, I read a book called Relentless Solutions Focus, and it was written by a guy who was a athletic trainer and really coached professional athletes in their mindset. And so, of course, when you're a professional athlete, like, you really, you have to maximize your physical performance. But sometimes a lot of that starts up here, you know, and it was just really interesting to think about, like, the connection between your.
What. What goes on in your mind and you can actually change what's happening in your body as a result, and not focusing on what your problems are doing, but what the solution is to your problem. So just that the. The learning to change my mindset from just like, dwelling on my problems to what is the solution, and I. I am going to find the solution and I am going to succeed has been really, really transformational for me. And so that's not really a real estate book, but it's a mindset book that has done a tremendous amount of good for me. So it's called Relentless Solutions Focus, that I would highly recommend for people who enjoy those types of books.
[00:28:55] Speaker B: All right, thank you very much, and thank you, Naomi, so much for coming on. If our listeners want to find the Shoe House or follow you or the Shoe House on social media or website, what have you, how can they do that?
[00:29:09] Speaker C: So our website for the Shoe House is haneshoehouse.com and Hanes is H A I N E S. That's the name of a gentleman who actually built it back in the 1950s. So Hanes Shoehouse. But if you just Google Shoehouse Pennsylvania, I'm sure we will pull up.
Of course, we're on Facebook and Instagram at those same names as well.
[00:29:35] Speaker B: All right, awesome. Thank you so much for coming on. And y', all, we will catch you next week.
[00:29:39] Speaker C: Yes, thank you. Please come stay with us.
