[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.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Hey y'.
[00:00:30] Speaker C: All, welcome back to another episode of the short term show coming up on the end of the year here. Very excited to have this guest on. First got a couple announcements. We are hiring still in the Poconos Emerald coast and Kentucky Bourbon Trail. So if you have any real estate sales experience, your short term rental investor think that you might be a fit.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: For one of these positions, you can.
[00:00:51] Speaker C: Email us at careers the shorttermshop.com.
so today we have a really cool guest. We have Brittany Magzig. You might know her from TikTok or Instagram. She's got a huge following on TikTok and I will let her introduce herself from here.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: How's it going, Brittany? I'm great. How are you?
[00:01:10] Speaker C: I am doing awesome. Thank you so much for coming on. And guys, I forgot to say, her tick tock handle, it's at Mountain Mama Cabins.
And yeah, just really excited to have you on. You are, I think the biggest Smoky Mountain creator out there. So congratulations on that.
[00:01:27] Speaker B: Thank you. Kind of fell into my lap but you know, just keeping on, keeping on. Yeah.
[00:01:34] Speaker C: Awesome. So why don't you, let's start at the beginning. Tell us a little about yourself and how you got into short term rental investing.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I started actually as a school social worker. I got my bachelor's degree in social work, my master's degree in social work. I had my master's by the time I was 25. So from a young age I just knew I felt like I wanted stability and that probably was because of my upbringing and very loving home, very religious, very faith based home.
Just, you know, just people don't make sometimes great decisions and your parents aren't perfect. And my story is very extensive regarding that. But you know, we overcame and so I feel like stability was always a priority for me. So I was like, no, if I can give back of the therapy I've had growing up and being a social worker, I can work in the schools and that I can retire from the schools, I can get tenure, I'm going to have a stable income, I'm going to have insurance. And that all sounds really great to me. And I loved working with kids. Kids were always my passion. And then it wasn't until I had my first child at the age I was 30 and she was a preemie. So she was born two months early, and that rocked my world. I had no idea what it was like being a mom, let alone a preemie mom, and dedicating all of my time into a hospital.
And so it wasn't until.
And my husband at that time was a real estate broker, so I got to see him be an entrepreneur, run a business, have a flexible schedule. And though before my daughter was born, I wasn't necessarily jealous or envious of that. I was just like, okay, that's just his way of life. I'm glad he has more of a flexible schedule. And then it wasn't. When my daughter was born and it was time for me to go back in the school for maternity leave, I never felt the most unmotivated I've ever felt in my whole life. I had, like, a come to Jesus moment of what's most important. I can't believe I have to pour my heart and soul into a community that is not even a part of me. You know, I just birthed this child, so I feel like I had a very. Like, it was just a pivotal moment of, what am I going to choose here? And I did choose to go back into the schools. That was the easiest decision at the time. But the more and more I was a mom and had to navigate through daycare and dropping your child off just felt very unnatural.
And during all of that time, my husband and I had saved up enough money where when Covid happened, we were bored. We were like, we're stuck here in Michigan. No one's going anywhere. My family had grown up in the Smokies, and the Smokies was open.
And so we were like, let's just go down to the Smokies. And we ended up buying an investment property.
So I did have that by the time my daughter was born. But I would work on my investment property at night or early in the morning, and, you know, if a guest was. Had a booking, I would check it on my lunch. So I was able to kind of do that with one cabin.
And then I made a TikTok account for my cabin to promote it or to post pictures of it.
And then as that became larger and larger, I found I became less motivated to do things that I felt wasn't aligning with who I was becoming, that motherhood being. I loved making content. I loved connecting with new people and. And then in the investment world, which was all new to me because, you know, when it came to debt, unfortunately, my parents, in order to survive, use a lot of my credit. So I didn't have a great credit score, graduating from college. So when I married my husband, as we know it's joint when they take mortgages, you take the lowest credit score and that's what you're going to get approved for. And he's like, this was mind blowing. I did not know this going in that it was hard.
So we kind of just put our nose down, kept working and working.
But it wasn't until time went on, then I became a mother of two, that entrepreneurship just made more and more sense. Because I found myself thinking long term, long term. I see the education system is broken and. But I wanted to create a life for myself I didn't want to escape from, but include my family and love that.
[00:06:02] Speaker C: That's. I think that's a very common reason to get into short term rentals. That's kind of why I did. But accidentally, and we didn't have kids yet. I just knew, like, the money that I'm making at the job that I have is not going to be enough to warrant, like, we need my income, but it's going to cost more to send a kid to daycare than what I make. And the boss that I had, she didn't have kids and she was not the type who was going to understand like, oh, somebody's got strep throat today. I need to stay home. And she. There was no working from home back then. It was, you're, you're in the office every day. We're, you know, very old school. And there was really no sign of any. I just gotten passed over for a promotion and it was like, it was a small company, so it's like the only one that was gonna be around for the next five to 10 years. So I was just like, okay, I'm out of here. What am I doing now? And so looking for that entrepreneurship. I wasn't necessarily quitting to become a real estate agent. I had my real estate license just to kind of do our own deals. But we had two short term rentals in the Smokies at the time, which was enough for my salary, which guys, don't, don't, please don't listen to this and say, oh, I can quit my job on two short term rentals because you cannot. I was making $37,000 a year.
So this was a different time. And don't. I'm not saying you can do that, but you can certainly start to build your wealth by doing that. So just a little disclaimer. But yes, in order to have flexibility for more time, freedom of time with Your family, I think is a very common and good reason to want to get into real estate investing.
[00:07:43] Speaker B: For sure. For sure. And I to your point, I hated being told, it's not that I hate being told what to do. I feel like a part of being a good leader is being a good follower too. But I hated being told I can only take this amount of sick days per year, this amount of personal days, but I can't constitute this as a vacation day or a personal day because of this. And it's like how I need to be a mom. Like this is way more important. And then I would see my colleagues take unpaid days if their children were sick. And I'm like, this is not a good environment to just flourish or just be myself or go through hard seasons. And I just did not like that piece at all. There was no autonomy there.
[00:08:24] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I totally, totally agree with you there.
[00:08:28] Speaker A: Are you looking for a change?
Well, the short term shop is hiring realtors.
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[00:09:07] Speaker C: You chose the Smokies because your family would vacation there as kids, right?
[00:09:12] Speaker B: We did. That was a, a big purpose. But we also saw the return on investment was at the time especially so much higher than a lot of other tourist destinations. And my husband hates and I know you're from Florida and I play beach volleyball. My husband has always hated the sand. So like Florida was never an option. But we're probably leaving money on the table.
But that was like the place where we grew going up and it was at the, in the, in the moment the safest decision for us to getting there very quickly as well.
[00:09:46] Speaker C: Okay, gotcha. How far of a drive is it from Michigan to east Tennessee?
[00:09:51] Speaker B: About eight hours. And then with, with kids it's about 10. Because you always have to anticipate things no matter what.
[00:09:59] Speaker C: Gotcha. Gotcha. I also, the reason we bought first there was because I was familiar with it because I grew up in north Mississippi. So we went there growing up and then down here to Destin in the. In the summertime and then we'd just been there on vacation as adults and so it just kind of made a lot of sense. So let's talk about what you bought. How, how that first Property. How did you choose what size and what location? All that?
[00:10:27] Speaker B: Yeah, my. The first thing we did when we decided that we were sick of spending money coming down from Michigan, each time you were spending a thousand dollars for 10 days, which is actually really affordable, but it's still $1,000 out of our pocket. And at the time, real estate was banned in Michigan until May 7th. And then the pandemic started May 13th. So my husband was without steady income or any, you know, real estate sales.
So we were like, let's stop spending money. But at the same time, we keep coming down here and we see how popular it is despite a global pandemic. And we only were thinking, how much would it be if this global pandemic subsides?
So we called our lender, first and foremost, how much can we get approved for?
And he said, comfortably at the most at the time, 450,000. Which in the Midwest too, that's a very good sized home.
That's probably around 2500 square feet. And we were like, okay in the cabin. So the cabins we were looking at between 300 and 400, they were good cabins. But we noticed in that price range you didn't really have a view. They were a little older, the foundations were a little compromised, and it would take a lot more money to put in.
But then we saw this gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous cabin in Wares Valley in Sevierville with a gorgeous view out of our price range. It was, I think, listed at the time for 458. And we were like, this is out of our price range. But my husband, so persistent, we just wanted to look at it. And we looked at it and we were like, it was for sale by owner. And my husband's a realtor, so we were like, we can possibly. And we thought we could convince the owners, sale by owner, that their home might be overpriced by sharing comps in the area. Because at the time the average price per square foot was only $157. And then they wanted 181. So we were like presenting all of these comps to them and we somehow with between them using their son in Texas as a realtor to help the transaction between my husband being a realtor in Michigan, we settled on the price, walking away, paying 426. So we were a little below our absolute max budget.
We decided on our three bedroom.
We got some advice in that from some locals too. And even the owner of the property saying two to three bedrooms are the most profitable. And at the time we didn't Want to go too big because a global pandemic, People aren't really traveling together.
But we could not give up the view that we had. And it had a hot tub. It was turnkey. And we just felt such a peace walking into and growing up, going to my grandma's house in the Smokies. She had a beautiful bay windows, you know, those A frames. And we walk in, it looked exactly like my grandma's house. And me knowing nothing about real estate or investing at the time, I'm like, this is it. My husband's like, don't get too attached. I'm like, okay.
So we settled on it, not even realizing at the time how amazing our location was right next to Pigeon Forge, right next to where's Valley, just one road away from Gatlinburg. And we truly got very lucky and less based on just kind of going into it, hoping for the best, even though we thought it was out of our price range at the time.
[00:13:59] Speaker C: I think I remember this house from back then because we've got, you know, a slack channel with all of our agents everywhere, but, you know, we have a smokies channel, obviously. And I remember that one, like, rolling through several times. And at the time, we were like, that is very expensive.
[00:14:13] Speaker B: Yes. Yes, it was. And we were like, we're going to convince them to come down. And they.
They did not. They wanted to sell it. We had to convince them that it was. But when we got there, they were in a bind with a property management company that at the very end, almost to the closing table, the property management company said, if you don't pay x amount and fulfill these dates, we're going to pass that on to the buyers of the cabin or you.
And so that was, like, the scare tactic. And then the owners came to us, like, we need you to front this, or you need to take on these bookings. And we're like. Like, oh, my God. Because I wanted to run everything, or so I thought, and I obviously, I'm running it now. But then, long story short, we had to adapt the previous property management company a few bookings, and that was a mess. But we knew the longevity that, you know, it'll all work out in the end. And this is just, like, the hurdle that we had to go over.
[00:15:12] Speaker C: There's one property management company in the Smokies in particular that is extremely aggressive about forcing the new buyer to sign on to their program for, like, a year, which I don't think that. I don't think it was that one. Maybe it was.
[00:15:27] Speaker B: I think it might be.
[00:15:29] Speaker C: Well, they just, from what I understand, did end up in a lawsuit about that and lost on that. Wording about forcing the new buyer to stay with them for a year or something like that, because you know, your contract is with the seller, not some random person off in the future that you don't know yet that has not agreed to this. So I think they did lose that a little birdie for the grapevine told me. But it's. That's tough.
[00:16:00] Speaker B: Yeah. And that makes sense. I even told my husband there was a couple legal things they weren't even putting on their end while we were in contract with them forcefully. And I even told them it just takes one big player to not back down to these people because they can be in intimidating. There's like four owners. They're all family. Yeah.
Yep.
[00:16:22] Speaker C: Yep. And it was a.
A pretty big name in the real estate investing space that finally did stand up to it. And I think there's still some other things in the works pending on that. But I know they, that a judge did rule against the legally binding a. A new buyer, at least in Tennessee. In, in other states it's totally different, by the way, guys. But, um, in Tennessee, they can't, they can't require you to stay, to stay on with them and pay them for X amount of time. So anyway. Interesting. And yes, I know exactly who that was.
So anyway. So how many? How many? This is something that I always try to tell our clients, like you want to. If you're not in a state that requires you to honor bookings for X amount of time after closing, which like North Carolina does. I think South Carolina does also. But if you're in a state like Tennessee where it doesn't. I always try to tell people like, you don't want their bookings. You don't know if they booked them super low. You don't know really anything other than the guest is probably going to already be annoyed when they get into your house because they've had to rebook and they've been transferred around. So that already puts you at a disadvantage for your review by doing that. So I try to tell people not to do that if you can help it, but. So you were forced to. How did that go? And you know, did it go smoothly? Did you run into any, any snags or how'd you make it through that? How many did you have to take?
[00:17:46] Speaker B: 2, by the way. I took four bookings and they wanted. Yeah, they wanted me to take seven. And then we met in the middle at Four.
It was annoying to the time where I had. Luckily I had cabins and I knew what was our stay and what was theirs. And so at, you know, my guests are checking in at 4. I know you know that property management booking is coming up and it's three o' clock and the cleaners aren't there. So instead of calling my team, I had to call their team. And then they're not answering, so I'm leaving a message. And then so when I finally get a hold of someone, I said, hi, we have guests checking in at 4. It's 3 and it probably takes an hour from anywhere to Smokies to get to our cabin based on traffic and things like that, or just being last minute and they're like, oh, we totally forgot. And so luckily impacts the guests experience with that company.
But at the same time it, it was just extra work that I had to do. Which you're paying them. They charged at the time 40%, which is unheard of to me now just being in this industry, more of the service that we got. So charging us 40 for what? For me organizing. So I was a little salty about all of that.
[00:19:02] Speaker C: But that used to be, that used to be the standard. They used to all charge that out there.
[00:19:08] Speaker B: 40.
[00:19:09] Speaker C: Which is why we started self managing. Because back in the day when we started, there weren't people on the Internet or podcasts or anything like that talking about how to self manage. We just had to because we wanted to build a real estate investing business and we said we, we need that 40 so we can go buy more properties. So we got to figure out how to do this without.
And you know, that was 10 years ago. So.
[00:19:31] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, they.
Yeah. Did you start using Airbnb? So you make a Good point. Without OTAs like Airbnb and VRBO, how would self managing even happen? Because of the lack of exposure, I feel like you'd have to live right next to it.
[00:19:49] Speaker C: Yeah, back then there was. We just put it on Airbnb and VRBO. So that was 2015.
So not like way far back in the day. But pre Covid and we just kind of. There weren't, you know, we didn't have a property management software, price labs, if it existed, we didn't know about it.
And so we were doing everything. At the beginning of every month, I would look at our calendar and I would send an email to our cleaner. I'd take a screenshot and write out a list of every day that she had to go. So there was two different ways that she was Seeing it, so she couldn't possibly miss it.
[00:20:23] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:20:24] Speaker C: And it was. And I had to watch like a hawk. If we got a booking, I had to make sure to go tell her and update the schedule. The schedule. And then inevitably, things would get missed because she didn't see an email or something. So it's so much easier to be successful these days than it was back then.
[00:20:43] Speaker B: Yes, it is. And I even. I take for granted even the camera. So if I know a pest control guy is coming out or lawn care, it's like, okay, good. I know they stopped coming by or the cleaners are there. I don't have to worry. And that would cause a lot of anxiety. Just the unknown that everything's running smoothly.
[00:21:01] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:21:01] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:21:01] Speaker C: So, all right, back. Back to your property. So how many bedrooms was it again?
[00:21:06] Speaker B: Three bedrooms. Three bedroom.
[00:21:07] Speaker C: And you paid 425, 426. How much.
How much does this cabin gross a year?
[00:21:15] Speaker B: Ish.
Yeah, our lowest year was two years ago. It was 98. And we haven't done below 100 for five years. And it's anywhere between 100 and 110, so luckily, too, it's been very consistent.
[00:21:29] Speaker C: Okay, so that's been a good. A good performer for you.
[00:21:32] Speaker B: It has.
[00:21:33] Speaker C: All right, awesome. So what, since you've had one or you have multiple now, right? You have more than this one?
[00:21:39] Speaker B: Yeah, so we only actually own one outright, and then we have 13 now on our website. And how we work is we're a booking engine for those owners, so every booking we get directly for them, we earn a commission of 10, and then they pay us a subscription fee each month for me to make social media reels for them. So, yeah, we got that reoccurring revenue, too. And then my duties for them, and then whatever booking we get, we're still seeing skin in the game, too.
[00:22:11] Speaker C: Oh, love that. That's a good model. And I want to get to that again in a minute. But my question before that is, so you've now owned. At least owned one and managed or not managed, but kind of seen what multiple cabins have done over time. What is your take on the great Airbnb bust of 2022 and 2023? Are we busted?
[00:22:34] Speaker B: I feel cabin wise quantity, it's very saturated and overpriced. I think my husband works from a very conservative mindset. Meaning I think we were spoiled because once we see this ROI of, you know, paying for 425 for a cabin, getting it at a 3.5% interest rate, seeing 100k, that has never been the case from the 2022, 2023 prices. You know, you're seeing a three bedroom cabin, I think our zestimate, which I don't believe this, you know, verbatim, but you know, our cabin can be worth at one time almost a million dollars. What? The same exact thing just two years later. And we just didn't pull, ever pull the trigger on paying twice our mortgage for the same exact thing and not getting the ROI that we were getting. And so we, we had the mentality and it was a very conservative mentality, we don't want to fix what ain't broke. But at the same time, I was still in the corporate world only making, I say only I feel like for an educator, I was making good money around 70,000 a year, but it just didn't make quite enough sense for us to keep multiplying when we just felt like we were overpaying. It was like the principle of it for us in that 2022, 2023 bust.
[00:24:00] Speaker C: So let me. But your income has stayed the same.
[00:24:03] Speaker B: Or roughly for our cabin. Yeah. Yes.
[00:24:07] Speaker C: Yeah. So your income has not. Like, of course it drops some from the peak because no matter how long you own something, there's only going to be one peak and there's only going to be one, you know, lowest year ever. So. But you have not seen a great decrease in income.
[00:24:23] Speaker B: We haven't, but I have, I will say I've put a higher increase in my output to get my cabin booked. I've been working harder than ever these past two years versus when I just threw it up in Airbnb and it was, was booking six months. I'm like, from now I'm like, oh, I didn't have to do anything.
[00:24:40] Speaker C: Oh yeah, yeah. The, the early adopter phase is always a fun time. And but I, what I hearing you say about that is you were willing to do the work to adapt to the market to make money. And so what I want other people to hear out of that is like, this is not a slot machine. You are going to have to do some work back. Those of us who bought a long time ago, before the market kind of, you know, typically all industries they'll, you have the early adopter phase where everybody's making like crazy money and then we have this big boom and then we have this stabilization and then things are kind of even. So we've been through the big boom and, and I think we're stabilized now. Like it is what it is. Things are much more predictable the last few years whereas in 2020, you are going to be like your income.
You couldn't really trust the rental history or past income of properties because they were so much higher.
Yeah, whatever you were buying was going to be so much higher in 2021. And then we saw the other side of that. Okay, what people are selling and they're using their 2021 rental income to market this thing. And we're not going to make that. But now that we're a little bit further removed from that Covid boom, things are much more predictable. Like what you made last year, what you made two years ago, you could probably expect to do about the same if you change nothing now, if you. There's a lot of variables and factors in there, like is this person managing this a good manager? Are they a bad manager? Are there things we can do, revenue management wise to improve this? You always want to be looking for the opportunity, but you're not seeing these, well, the opportunity for improvement, but you're not seeing these wild swings in the market like we were a few years ago.
And you mentioned another thing that I wanted to pull out.
[00:26:28] Speaker B: You.
[00:26:28] Speaker C: There's a lot of things I wanted to pull out of that whole answer. So the. Okay, I paid 425 five years ago. I don't want to pay double that for what will roughly be the same income now. And I think that is so important because there's so many people out there that are like, if you have X amount of equity in your properties, you need to sell them. You need a 1031 exchange, you need to increase your net worth. But the number one quote about real estate is the best time to buy real estate was always yesterday. The second best time to buy real estate is today. So if you, the. If you don't own real estate, you need to be buying today. We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. It could like, we have no idea. Rates could go up, they could go down, prices could go up. If rates go down, prices are going to go up. That is, I would venture that that's going to be a fact. But what we do know is that yesterday prices were cheaper and 10 years ago, yesterday from then prices were cheaper. So why would you sell your property that is doing well? That's cash flowing, which is why you bought it. Why would you sell the property that you got at yesterday's price so that you can now be involved with today's prices and no longer have that property from yesterday's price when all of the practical advice is you should have Bought yesterday because prices were less yesterday. So my advice would be don't refinance. Don't cash out. Refinance these things. Don't sell them just because you have a bunch of equity. You bought this thing so it could cash flow. Don't take that great opportunity that you took 10 years ago, five years ago, sell that, get rid of it. And then now here you are with prices much higher, rates much higher, just because. For what? Because you had more equity than you felt comfortable with. Like, but it was cash flowing the way you wanted it to. So what are we doing? I think that I'm a big fan of the, the buy and hold forever. You know, if you, if you need to sell something, you know, 1031, exchange it, but trade it till you die. Don't just.
It hurts my heart when people, especially when they come to list with us and like, yes, I would love to list your property and make money, but.
[00:28:45] Speaker B: Why are you selling this?
Right? Oh, yes. And then I'm sure you deal with sellers of, you know, I bought it for this much in 2022. I want to either sell it for the same or a little bit more. And you're like, that's not going to work, especially in the saturated market.
[00:29:02] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And I mean, it's like all market. I would say that all markets are saturated now. It's like, not something to really be concerned with anymore. This just is the playing field now. This is what it is. There's competition. It's not just slap something up on Airbnb and make money like pulling a slot machine. It's, you know, it's get rich slow. You're buying properties to cash flow and build a portfolio.
So, yeah, I just, I feel like everything is pretty much stabilized. It's a little more predictable, which is what you want in any industry, definitely.
[00:29:36] Speaker A: If you like what you're hearing. If you're picking up what I'm putting down, you can join me on a live weekly call to talk about your next short term rental or ask questions about the one you already have. I am live once per week on Zoom and would love to have you come and say hello. It's str questions.com.
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[00:30:31] Speaker B: So in 2022, we bought a piece of land. I went on a Facebook group in the Smokies and I love Where's Valley? And I said, hi, does anyone have any properties, property that they'd be willing to sell in Wares Valley? And I got a DM from my neighbor in the Smokies and I'm like, wait, is this like, who I think it is? And because we had only connected on Airbnb or Tick Tock and anyway, she was selling her piece of land in Wares Valley, we bought it for around 60,000. My husband on the side. This is so nerdy, but he does sports cards.
And we bought that piece of land with a Tom Brady sell. And we bought that piece of land in 2022 with full intentions to build a nice 3:2 in Wares Valley. And we've still sat on that land because lumber has increased so much. Prices, quality, just availability for builders. And it's just we'll never make our money back and we might even have to reach into our pockets for a while. And like you said, we just this, the buy and hold has worked so well for us that we would like, just feel so broken, like giving money and, and then not seeing it for a long time coming back.
[00:31:44] Speaker C: Yeah, I have not built a short term rental from the ground up. I have bought new construction, like spec homes. But I feel the same way. I would just rather buy something existing, get it up and running, and like, let's get the show on the road than spending, you know, several years trying to navigate that.
So, okay, I think. Let me get to the questions that I feel like people want me to ask you. You have like 300, 000 followers on tick tock so on, and so many people that are listening have started Instagrams, Tiktoks social media for their properties so that they can market and get direct bookings. So I guess my first question would be, how were you able to grow your property social media the way that you have? I think that's the question that everybody has.
[00:32:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I think I was able to grow the property alongside what I was putting out there, because I wasn't just putting out the property, I was attaching who's hosting this property? What are my thoughts about the property? And you know, Tick Tock does not like Airbnb in general. You know, we're landlords, we're slums, we're this.
[00:32:55] Speaker C: So many things.
Oh, so many things.
Like we should start killing landlords. Like, Mao, you should be killed. I'm like, dude, right? Why are you so crazy?
But, yeah, so you've done this in an environment where people don't like real estate investors, so that makes it even more interesting.
[00:33:18] Speaker B: Yeah. And so I took that I'm pretty competitive nature, so I. I had a chip on my shoulder when I'd see those comments. And so I took that as an opportunity to respond, you know, with my story. And not that my story would be better than a real estate investor who had worked in a different way and from the ground up. Or maybe there was another investor that was blessed to have family, that had a family business, and he got a great, you know, college gift, and he utilized it to the best of his potential. So. And I view nothing wrong with either of those stories, but I just want to take the opportunity to share mine. I'm like, well, I'm not a big blackrock company buying up neighborhoods. I'm just a girl from visiting the Smokies that wanted to do this. But the more I found I would talk more about my experience in the Smokies and then how much I loved it or what I did as a host. And, you know, people love Airbnb stories of talking about guests and situations. And I always say to tread lightly about that because you don't want to lose business or make future guests think, like, oh, if something bad happens, I'm going to end up on TikTok. So I do try to fine line. I'm aware of that. But I found growing is so much easier when. Because there's so many. There's only so many times people are going to swipe through a beautiful cabin that they've already seen, that they've already had in their head. You know, I'm. I can't afford this, or my schedule's too busy to go, or I'll never go to the Smokies, my family places in Myrtle beach or Justin, Florida.
So I wanted to make a way where people wanted to invest more in who I was. And I found the more I shared about who I was personally, people relate with that and they want. It's like more of, like, a friendship. The connection I felt like I was giving and also I was receiving it. There have been so many pivotal life moments that I've brought to social media just because my trust with my audience, they're very loyal, they're very kind to.
They love the Smoky Mountains, and it's just like, I can relate with all of them. You know, I think my analytics, everyone's between the ages of 25 and 65. And it's just, you know, like, my kind of people. So I started building friendships, and then people would ask more about my life. And so I feel like the best way to grow a social media account is making sure that your face is in front of it. Because out of the thousands, tens of thousands of hosts in the Airbnb world, I also wanted to stand out of, like, why you should choose me above any other cabin or any other property management company.
[00:35:51] Speaker C: And have you seen that translate into more direct bookings?
[00:35:56] Speaker B: Definitely. So our. Our 2024 direct booking rate was 64%. And then up until.
Yeah, and then up until October of this year, which is, like, all Airbnb, but it was 71 from January to September.
[00:36:13] Speaker C: Wow, that's crazy. So I feel like the few times that I'll do, like, a walkthrough on one of. In one of my properties or, you know, anything that features one of my properties that gets a lot of views, and then I'll get a bunch of landlord scum comments, and then a few people, there will always be a handful that are like, oh, my gosh, this place is great. Can I have your direct. Can I have your, like, link? How do I book this? And I'm like, no, I don't trust. Like, I don't know who you. I get freaked out because everybody else has been like, I hate you. I'm like, no, what are you gonna do? Are you gonna, like, dox me? Are you gonna go burn my house down? No, I don't want you to know because the rest of the Internet is so scary. So how do you.
I assume that's never happened and I'm being crazy, but you're kind of proof that, like, wow, this really does work. And maybe I should accept those people and not be scared that they're gonna, like, come find me.
[00:37:06] Speaker B: Sure. And it. I will say how kind of you first started in Airbnb, where you were doing it manually. I was spending so much time vetting guests, I didn't even have a PMS system at the time. So what I would do if someone DM'd me on TikTok, I would see how I would respond.
It's one DM to say, like, hi, I love your cabins. I would love to stay. So sometimes I'm like, click, like. Or I just don't answer. So then sometimes people go, hi, I noticed your calendar and your Link. You have September 17th through the 21st available. I would love a price for that. So then I Would go to my Airbnb link, see how much Airbnb was going for, take out the service fee, respond to them. Hi, would you do it for this? Would you do it for 1300?
Let me check with my family and I'll get back to you. So then I write them the next day. Hi, were you able to check with your family? And then if they gave me a yes, I would ask them their email address. I would send them an email through DocuSign of a 10 page rental agreement I made with legal help, get that signed, have them pay me through Venmo, PayPal, Zelle, Facebook Pay.
And then so we had security, I guess, between us. And then I would put them on my handwritten calendar in front of me and then I would block it off on all of my platforms at the time, just Airbnb and vrbo.
And that was for one booking. And that's if it even worked out. So I did that for three years. And my husband would be like, you spend way too much time on TikTok. I'm like, but it's worth it, I promise. We're booking the cabin.
But it wasn't until I finally got half the of fitable and I realized things like automated check ins and messages and I don't need to send lengthy rental agreements on a direct booking all the time. But to your point of weeding out people, as soon as people like see that they have to pay or I feel like you get the serious ones and not serious ones.
I have not met, knock on wood, someone who made a trip just to terrorize me. But you know, I've seen crazier things.
[00:39:12] Speaker C: Keep it paranoid over here. Watch a lot of true crime, watch a lot of horror movies. And sometimes that comes out, that's okay.
[00:39:20] Speaker B: Sometimes I need more of that reality.
Oh man.
[00:39:24] Speaker C: Okay, so would you say that all of that direct booking Traffic is from TikTok or some of it from Instagram or Facebook or other platforms?
[00:39:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I'd say the majority was from TikTok. My Instagram didn't really grow until this year, until I started. It's so funny how social media works. You know, I was so afraid of showing my face on Facebook and Instagram. I was so afraid of how my community would perceive me. It is not a, it's not common to have a follower count like mine in a, in the greater Lansing area of Michigan. And my husband is a, like a storied realtor here. I don't know how else to say that, you know, he is known here. So I was very tiptoeing around, like, how much of my personality do I show? And we have had conversations of, like, if you talk about this, just know how this will represent me. So I feel like I was always on, like.
Like I was just never able to be myself.
And so once I finally was, I was able to grow my Instagram. It's funny how that works. You start posting more on Instagram, you get more of a following. I was so worried about people seeing the real me on Instagram and Facebook. But in, you know, even sharing my pivotal life moments, my poor son got into an accident this summer and he's doing so much better. But I was always so used to bringing my life to TikTok, and just like, that's kind of how I just always did. You know, this is my life. This is what's going on. If I can't get back to you guys, this is what I'm dealing with. And so people were so inspired or worried about my story or just wanted to see what was next. So a lot of those just big life events got a lot of people to our page and just random things, trends I've posted that got a lot of traction, and so it grew exponentially. But I was so afraid to post on Instagram and Facebook for a while. But now it's. Each one is averaging about 25,000 followers, which, you know, to any content creator, that feels good, but it's more of like, okay, I just need these people to book. As long as we get conversions, that's when it means the most.
Yeah.
[00:41:30] Speaker C: Okay. Awesome. So we're getting towards the end of the show here, so this is the last question I'll ask before our final three. So what would be your advice for a. Maybe not a new investor, but somebody who wants to build a social media presence for their properties? What would your advice be for them?
[00:41:48] Speaker B: My advice would be get ready to be consistent even on Instagram, posting at least twice a day.
The good thing with Instagram is you can cross post to Facebook pretty easily. But even on TikTok, getting used to posting three to four times a day to start your account is very important because people want a reason to come back to you. They want to be entertained by you. If you're only throwing things up once a week, it's hard to kind of get a gauge of who you are. And then I feel like more posting consistently more brings you more ideas. You're more inspired and inspired by your own ideas and what you want to put out there. And like, oh, my gosh I talked about this. I can expound on this. And then kind of getting used to the editing tool. So editing freaks people out and, you know, aligning the words and the music and captioning it. And once you can get comfortable with using those things and even a video editing tool that you like, that I feel like is the meat and potatoes, that's the hardest part of growing an account is the consistency and logistics. But the easiest part for me is just being myself. And so how do I not even curate myself to. It's like, how do I put myself or my thoughts into what people like? Which is typically a 12 to 17 second video when I want to talk for 10 minutes. So it's kind of like getting the most important points out there first with social media. And a lot of people hate to hear this. It is a reality. And that's why I love your account so much. You put your face on it. Like, I, I knew exactly. You know, of course you two have your other social media accounts, but it's so nice hearing other hosts speak from their own mouth of the hardships or what they go through or even the triumphs. And putting your face in front of it, you're gonna see a lot more growth because people trust you and want to hear what you have to say.
[00:43:43] Speaker C: That is true. And for those of you who are like, oh, I'm scared to be in front of people. So there have been. I had a post that did pretty good last week where I was talking about a one star review that I got. It was completely absurd because the guy was scared of bears. There weren't. He didn't see a bear. He just saw that, that one. I was like, God damn it, why did I not put makeup on? Like, I had no idea this one was gonna fit. And I don't have any makeup on. And it did really well. And then, guys, not one person of the dozens of thousands of people who watched that commented on my appearance. Nobody cares. Every now and then you get somebody comment on your appearance, but it's not actually because of your appearance. It's because they're insecure about something.
But yeah, and then the video that I, as soon as I saw it start to take off, I was like, I don't have makeup.
[00:44:30] Speaker B: Looks terrible.
[00:44:32] Speaker C: Not one single person commented on my appearance. So don't worry about that. Nobody's gonna call you names or ugly or anything like that. That was a big fear.
[00:44:39] Speaker B: Yeah, it's so true. I just had a video hit a million a couple weeks ago talking about a Guest who booked a one night stay which is so taboo in our arena. And I was about to go into my yoga class and I did not look like I was unrecognizable probably to a lot of people. And yeah, like you said, not one comment. I feel like when people see people are performative like they sit in front. I'm going to tell you next about this. Everyone's like scroll. It's like the closer I tell people to strategy, like I learned this from another TikTok coach. But even the closer you hold your phone to your face, people are like FaceTime, they're engaged with you. So the farther you are away, the farther you do feel from the audience. And that does translate. Yeah, yeah, awesome.
[00:45:24] Speaker C: Well, great advice. So we are to the end of the show. We have got three questions that we ask every guest at the end of the show. First one is what advice would you give 20 year old Brittany if you knew then what you know now?
[00:45:37] Speaker B: The advice I give 20 year old Brittany is, you know when I grew up in my faith based home, money was a taboo topic. It was associated with greed, it was associated with, you know, rich and we, we want to be rich in Jesus, right? Which nothing wrong with that. But I wasn't taught about debt. I wasn't taught to about debt to income ratio. I wasn't taught. Luckily I was blessed enough to have a scholarship to play volleyball. But if I didn't, what would I do? I would get a student loan for X amount and hope to God I pay it off in the future.
And I feel like what I would tell 20 year old me is you need to spend the money you have and don't spend money you don't have. Unless like cabins for example when you see that ROI and that you know, risk of investment.
But 20 year old me, I would say even the decisions you make have such an impact on you later in life. Like I mentioned to you, the credit score that my parents, I had no control over that. And I wish at 20 years old I could take control and ownership of my own destiny and saying that too.
My husband has two realtors on his team that are 20 years old that aren't maybe not get a college degree or use their college degree and they see the writing on a wall. At a very young age of money you need to survive and it's going to be how you create an enriched life. It just depends your mentality around it and how you use it.
But starting early of just hustle and not doing what everyone else does doing what aligns best with you? That's what I would tell my 20 year old self.
[00:47:18] Speaker C: Great answer. And second question, kind of similar to the first one. What advice would you give a new investor who's looking to get started today?
[00:47:26] Speaker B: A new investor?
I think small goals are important.
So a lot of people on TikTok, I feel like the, the hate comments you get. Like, you know, when we mentioned people call us names for assuming just because we're Airbnb owners, we were born rich or something. You know, small goals. You know, small goals, owning your first car. You know, being able to pay for a car without a lease attached, an APR attached, being able to pay off your credit card every month. Then you know, being able to own a house.
All these small goals, being able to of ownership will help you take pride in wanting to own maybe an investment property, whether it's a long term rental, a short term rental, being able to multiply the ownership you've already had and then once you get to that point, helping others. So, you know, landlords aren't always bad. It's like you provide a place for people to, you know, habitate in when their credit might not be good. And I always think the more money you have too, the more you're able to get back. Like I mentioned, the mindset. But a new investor, just smart. Or start small with owning little things along the way and then you'll want more because it feels good.
[00:48:44] Speaker C: Great advice. And last question. What's your favorite book that's impacted your mindset?
[00:48:50] Speaker B: Mindset?
I had mentioned this on another podcast and it's kind of funny. The stark difference. And I'll mention two of them. The subtle art of not giving a crap, even though it's replaced with the F word. Oh my gosh. So I was always a people pleaser growing up. I always, I read a room pretty accurately and so it's like I wanted to say things that would never hurt anybody or then I would take other people's burdens on. So that book taught me by Mark Manson. Even though it's raunchy, it's like you need to not worry about other people's problems because then you create, you know, chaos in your own mind that impacts your intimate everyday life. And then on the flip side, you know, a faith based book, I love it's personality types and I, I know my Enneagram per se and I'm an enneagram3. There's nine personality types and it's called the Gospel for Enneagram. And I'm like, I'M what they call the achiever. You know, image conscious. This is like the worst of them. But image conscious, you are, you feel like you are what your accomplishments are. You're very like, you know, athletes are like this a lot. Performance, performance. But that book really rooted me of like who I am in Christ. And it's not about my output or people will like me for what I do, but for who I am. And so I've been trying to really believe that also having a good character along the way, but really believing that about myself versus always trying to do, do, do or win, win, win.
[00:50:22] Speaker C: That is both great recommendations. So thank you very much for that and thank you so much for coming on. Last question. If our guests want to follow you on social media, they should be able to find you very easily. But how do they do that?
[00:50:36] Speaker B: Yeah, go to TikTok, Instagram, Mountain Mama Cabins and on Facebook Mountain Mama Cabins also spaced out. Hopefully you'll find me and then on Google now we have our Google Analytics up. But if you want to go book a cabin of ours, mama cabins.com love it.
[00:50:55] Speaker C: Thank you so much Britney for coming on. And guys, we will see you next week.
[00:50:58] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks Avery, Sam.
