Blue Ridge Short Term Rental Expenses: What Vacation Rental Owners Need to Know

Luke Carl [00:00:03]:
Welcome to the Short Term show from Blue Ridge, Georgia. We will cover everything you need to know, including buying, holding, managing from a distance, raising rents, renovating, and how to rent it when you are not using your very own vacation home in the North Georgia mountains. For more information on current purchase prices and income data, please visit theshortermshop.com welcome to the Short Term show special episodes from Blue Ridge Short Term Show. We are in Blue Ridge, Georgia, a couple of us virtually, and we are going to talk about expenses today. What’s it cost to keep a rental property or a vacation home of sorts running in the North Georgia mountains? And we are happy to be here on behalf of this short term shop. I’ve got Yaak, a familiar character in this series and we have Melody, who has actually purchased a property with the Short Term shop. She’s fantastic and we are very grateful that she’s given us a little bit of her time today to come discuss. As a matter of fact, Melody, I am going to ask you a few questions before we go.

Luke Carl [00:01:24]:
Tell us about, I guess give me a little overview of your real estate journey in general, if you don’t mind.

Melody [00:01:30]:
Yeah. So I guess in the pandemic I wanted to start to invest somewhere and so I was listening to Bigger Pockets and came across Avery’s episode and that one really stuck out to me. So, yeah, reached out to the Short Term shop and then looked in to a couple of the markets. Felt more comfortable with the mountain market and couldn’t get into Smokies by myself. But for Blue Ridge, I really liked this area because I like how it’s more geared to the outdoors and I love spending time outdoors. So I thought that I’d be able to provide a great experience there as a host. Yeah. So bought my cabin two years ago, went over to Blue Ridge, kind of lived there for about like three months to get to know the area and then also get to know my neighbors and just feel like I can provide a good experience for the guests, um, while like fixing the cabin up and finishing it.

Luke Carl [00:02:27]:
Wow, I love that. I love that. Nobody ever talks about that. Uh, that’s brilliant because you get to know it and feel it and touch it and I do that myself. I actually just last week or two weekends ago, my football team had a night game and I said, you know what, I’m going to go sleep. We’ve got one, we’ve got a rental that’s just two, three miles down the road. And I said, I’m going to go sleep down there tonight because kids Were already, you know, going to bed anyway and, and I just wanted to, you know, see what it was like to, as a guest, you know what were there noises and there were, there were noises and what. You know, I found that there, there was three doorknobs to the balcony.

Luke Carl [00:03:06]:
I wouldn’t really call it a balcony, but for lack of a better way to put it on this property, they were all just janky and just a mess. So I. Yeah, and we had a brand new hardware store right up the road. New Ace Hardware, which is where, where I live. You know, this is a tiny little vacation town. So that was a big deal and I said I can’t wait to get up to that Ace hard. So I went and bought some new doorknobs and swapped them out and found these weird sounds and fixed them and. And then I also noticed that the dishwasher was not attached to the countertop and so I fixed that and just little stuff.

Luke Carl [00:03:38]:
So you were there for three, three months and, and had no, had no familiarity with the market at all, it sounds like. So I would assume you, you felt that that was a, you know, you got a lot accomplished in that three months.

Melody [00:03:51]:
Yeah, I for sure did. Got to really like have a very hands on experience in curating what my cabin looked like. And because it was when I bought the cabin, it was, it wasn’t really turnkey. The furniture is very kitschy. It didn’t have a hot tub, no deck. So made sure those go. Went in. And yeah, I really got to build my team there as well, so found my cleaner there.

Melody [00:04:21]:
Went through a lot of interviews and like my neighbors are also very helpful as well. They step in whenever I need some small things. So yeah, just the community is really helpful out there.

Luke Carl [00:04:33]:
Okay, wonderful. And I would assume you were working remote at the time. Is that how that was facilitated?

Melody [00:04:41]:
Yeah.

Luke Carl [00:04:41]:
Okay, cool. Cool. Like to have you on my podcast sometime, but which by the way, I’ll plug that while I’m at it. Short term rental management. Every Tuesday morning we talk about landlording and vacation rental management in general. So today we’re here to talk about which I have a feeling, Melody, I’m going to ask you more questions about your journey in general, but let’s, let’s stick to the topic at least for a minute, which today is expenses. Expenses. So my thing there is a lot of times, especially if you’re brand new, your expenses can kind of be similar to a primary home in my experience.

Luke Carl [00:05:20]:
Right. So because it does sort of function just as a primary, you Know, people are living in it, basically. And as far as the electric bill in the water bill, et cetera, which we may not even have water bills in certain areas of Blue Ridge, but it may even be a little less at times of the year. If, if people are moving in and out, maybe you got a few days off, your electric bill could go down a little bit. Now, of course, in the heat, in the high heat of summer, man, they crank that air conditioner, they work it hard, and then in the, in the cold, cold of winter, they do the same. They’ll, you know, and they’ll leave d doors hanging open because they just, you know, they’re on vacation. It’s not, I don’t think that folks do this kind of thing, you know, maliciously, like, oh, it’s a rental. I’m gonna leave the door open.

Luke Carl [00:06:05]:
I just, I just think they don’t think of it. They’re half drunk, they’re having fun, they’re on vacation. And so that, that, that kind of stuff does happen. And if you’ve got propane going on for heat or, you know, whatever that may be. So let’s talk about that in general. Yak. How many, how many properties. Let’s.

Luke Carl [00:06:23]:
Let me ask you about the wells. Like, how many properties are going to be well versus city water, give or take?

Yok Re [00:06:27]:
Let’s say probably 98% of them are going to be on, well, on some sort of well, community shared or private? There are a few. You know, if you’re not too far from one of the highways, there’s a chance you may have county water. County water is getting, you know, more prevalent, but still, you know, just, you know, pretty rare at that, I would say. Advantages and disadvantages of that. You know, people think well water and they automatically think, oh, it’s very ferric. You know, a lot of iron smells like onions. You know, if you ever lived in the country in the Southeast, you know, that well water can, you know, is not, you know, cannot be very pleasant. With that being said, our well water here is.

Yok Re [00:07:12]:
Is really nice. You know, runs through a lot of. A lot of hard rock, a lot of bedrock. Doesn’t really smell. Yes, it’s filtered. You know, you’re going to have a filtration system on the house with removable, replaceable filters. But again, the pros of well water versus, you know, county water, I would say is you’re going to have a little more reliability with the county water. But it doesn’t taste as good.

Yok Re [00:07:35]:
I’ll be honest with you. I think our well water tastes a little bit better and it’s going to be cheaper.

Luke Carl [00:07:41]:
Yes. I mean almost most likely you’re going to be on a well.

Yok Re [00:07:45]:
Absolutely.

Luke Carl [00:07:45]:
So, so let’s talk about that. Let’s get into a little bit of detail there. First thing I want to say about wells having quite a bit of experience with them, they are all different. Right. Every one of them has its own personality. They’re different depths, they have different minerals within that hole in the ground than the guy next door and his hole in the ground, you know, so. And then also filters. Yoc mansion filters.

Luke Carl [00:08:09]:
There are several filters to be aware of when it comes to a well. There’s going to be these large basically look like a water softener really. Or honestly they look like a helium tank at the grocery store when you’re filling up your kids balloons. Go ahead. Yeah, right. Yeah. And, and so they, they, they have different layers to them and they can actually change those layers based on the type of water quality you’re getting. If there’s a certain smell, they can change certain section of that filter, etc.

Luke Carl [00:08:44]:
And those filters are generally, I don’t know they’re going to run you. I’m just making numbers up right now but last time I bought one of those big, big filters somewhere around maybe two grand, 2,500 bucks. And they do have a lifespan of somewhere about like any appliance basically like a water heater even about 10, 10 to maybe you could probably even occasionally push them to 20 years. But they, you may need end up, you may end up needing two of these. You know, it depends on what kind of water you got. Yak mentioned smells and if you’ve got. But that would be sulfur, right? That’s coming out of the ground is again it’s a mineral. It smells like onions or eggs and it’s kind of gross.

Luke Carl [00:09:22]:
It’s, it’s, it’s really in my opinion as far as renting a piece of real estate is concerned, the sulfur is the worst one. And then it trickles down because it’s gross. And then it, it doesn’t hurt you though. It doesn’t hurt you. It just smells bad. And then it trickles down to iron is very common which is going to turn your water a little bit red which again is easy to filter out with with the proper water guy and the water water system and then hard water. A lot, a lot of times if you put a water softener in the house it will clear up some of these problems if depending on how you know how bad they are. You can, you can occasionally.

Luke Carl [00:09:56]:
Again, I’m no expert here, but you can occasionally clear up a sulfur issue with a water softener. Make sure it’s filled with. Filled with salt. I had one one time. Man, this thing ate salt like crazy. We were over there filling that thing up every three weeks, and it was because of sulfur, but it was taking care of the problem. So we just, you know, salt’s inexpensive. Really the biggest problem there is taking it over and filling it.

Luke Carl [00:10:17]:
We put it on a schedule and that’s how we handled it. And then of course, it trickles down to. There’s these smaller paper filters that a lot of folks will have, which they call those little whole house filter. And it’s a. It’s kind of looks like a pool filter. And they, they suck, to be honest. But if you keep them swapped out, you know, every house, again, every house is going to be different. One house is going to need every two weeks, one house is going to need every six months.

Yok Re [00:10:43]:
You know, I’ll tell you, Luke, in, in Blue Ridge, you know, I think we’ve been blessed with our water. You know, a lot of these, these water nightmares sound a little scary, but fortunately for us, we really don’t have a lot of those issues that you’re speaking of. And a lot of times it is just that paper filter getting replaced every. Every 90 days or so. I think they’re about 100 bucks a filter. You probably get a knockoff on Amazon for probably, you know, half that. But, you know, for the most part, have your clean. You have your handyman replace that filter every 90 days and you should be good to go.

Luke Carl [00:11:16]:
Okay, great. That’s good news. That’s good news. So in a lot of cases, we can probably knock off those prices that I was mentioning because you got some good water in the area. That’s cool. And Melody, what’s your experience been with your water? How, how. How good is it?

Melody [00:11:31]:
I’d say it’s pretty good. So mine is the community water system because I’m in Cherry Log. So it’s this in utilities and it’s a flat fee every month no matter how much we use. So 37amonth. And that’s really helpful because for hot tub cleaning, they do drain the hot tub some of the time. So that’s a lot of water to have to refill. So that flat fee is pretty nice.

Luke Carl [00:11:55]:
How many houses are on it, do you know? Is the whole hoa?

Yok Re [00:11:58]:
Yeah. So all of Cherry Lake, basically all. I’m not going to say all The Cherry Log, but all of Cherry Lake and Hidden Lake, two communities within Cherry Log to the two biggest communities, they’re all on the same system. And the Sissons is one of the local families who they are. They, you know, they’re kind of the Rockefellers or Vanderbilt of, of Cherry Log. And they own a lot of the infrastructure and they run IT management and they do a lot of the, A lot of the roads, a lot of the cabins. They built them there themselves, but I would say it’s a lot. Several hundred, I would guess.

Luke Carl [00:12:30]:
And so you pay an HOA fee? Yes.

Melody [00:12:34]:
Yeah.

Luke Carl [00:12:35]:
Okay. And they basically take care of the water. It’s almost like a beach house.

Melody [00:12:39]:
Yeah, I guess.

Luke Carl [00:12:42]:
Right. Yeah. It’s nothing like a beach house. But the water system. So in other words, if the, if the fill, if the well pumps go out or there’s a filter issue, then the HOA takes care of that.

Melody [00:12:52]:
Yeah, yeah. Your pipes burst at your own house, then you got to take care of that. But they do help try to. They’ll tell you that it’s burst. So, I mean, you should try to find it beforehand, but.

Luke Carl [00:13:02]:
Right. Yeah.

Yok Re [00:13:04]:
And speaking of melody, it was 25 degrees this morning, so not to scare you, I’m sure in sunny California it’s a little bit different, but. No, Luke, you’re speaking of the hoa. I just wanted to add, you know, to a lot of people in Florida, HOA is a, you know, I know it’s three letters, but it’s viewed as a four letter word. You know what I mean? Like, it’s a, it’s a nasty little word. But to be honest with you, for somebody like Melody and, you know, the vast majority of investors here in Blue Ridge, it’s a good thing to have. I mean, these are, you know, it’s used as a pass the hat to, to manage the roads, to manage the wells. It gives, you know, other eyeballs on all the, all this infrastructure that you remotely can’t necessarily have. So, you know, if a, if a tree falls down in the road, you know, somebody else is going to take care of it.

Yok Re [00:13:50]:
It’s not necessarily going to be on you. You know, if, if there’s an issue with the well, you know, there’s going to be plenty of people barking at it and looking to fix it where, you know, you’re in. You know, let’s just say you live in California, you may not have access to that information quickly enough. So to be honest with you, an HOA here in Blue Ridge is, is a pretty good thing. To have.

Luke Carl [00:14:12]:
Are HOAs more common than not or, you know?

Yok Re [00:14:16]:
Yeah, I think so. Absolutely. I. I think they are. You know, I. I don’t want to put a number on it, but I would say it’s significantly more common to have something within an hoa. And again, they really exist. The only reason? Yeah, they have some architectural control.

Yok Re [00:14:30]:
You know, they want to make sure nobody’s going to paint their house, their cabin, purple, and, you know, nobody’s going to put up a trailer hood next to you. But on the same token, they’re really just there to manage the roads and manage the wells, and that’s a good thing to have if you’re, you know, looking to get into this business.

Luke Carl [00:14:45]:
Let me call my painter and tell them that purple was a bad idea then. I was just about to get that done, but anyway, so. Okay, how much is. Well, hold on, let me. Let’s wrap up this water thing. So what you’re saying is, is. And I don’t want to say that there’s not going to be any water cost of any kind at any of these properties, but what you’re saying is for the most part, that might be true.

Yok Re [00:15:06]:
Going to be low. I mean, she’s paying $37 a month, and I’d say in a lot of cases, that’s probably going to be average, you know, maybe, you know, 30 to 50 bucks a month for water, depending on your situation. And you know how they divvy that out. There’s going to be some instances where it’s totally just wrapped into your HOA fee. You know, you may pay 100 bucks a year, and that may include water and road maintenance, you know, so you just never know. But it’s never going to be something that’s going to be overwhelming.

Luke Carl [00:15:32]:
So, melody, you’re paying $37 specifically for water?

Melody [00:15:35]:
Yeah, my HOA is 25amonth and then.

Luke Carl [00:15:39]:
37 on top of that for the water.

Yok Re [00:15:41]:
Yeah.

Luke Carl [00:15:41]:
Regardless of usage.

Melody [00:15:43]:
Yeah.

Luke Carl [00:15:43]:
Okay, so you could dump and fill the hot tub 127 times and it’s still $37.

Melody [00:15:47]:
Yes. Yeah.

Luke Carl [00:15:48]:
Okay. Interesting, interesting. Speaking of HOAs, they seem to be a little bit more. More common than not. Is she just described. Okay, hold on, let me back up Melody one more time. Let me write that down. 37 for water, 25 for HOA.

Luke Carl [00:16:02]:
Any other fees from the HOA?

Melody [00:16:04]:
No.

Luke Carl [00:16:05]:
Oh, my goodness. That is dirt cheap. All right. I don’t want anybody too excited. I’m sure there’s other places that are not like this, but. Yach, can you give Me a rundown. Are there other HOAs that are going to be more expensive or that kind of thing?

Yok Re [00:16:16]:
I would say that’s probably kind of the norm. Yeah, there can be some that are more expensive. You know there’s a massive subdivision in. In in l. AJ Called the Kusawadi and that one’s about dollars a year. And then you’re going to have expenses on, you know, normal expenses. On top of that, you know there is community water in there. But I would say for you know, an HOA that’s on a, on a well system, you know this is going to be, I would say, you know, 50 to 60 bucks a month for your water and HOA can be, you know, fairly normal.

Yok Re [00:16:48]:
I’d say right in the middle.

Luke Carl [00:16:49]:
Interesting. Okay, so very good chance that if I buy one of these things, my water and my HOA is going to be pretty similar to what we’ve just discussed.

Yok Re [00:16:58]:
Pretty.

Luke Carl [00:16:59]:
Okay, cool, cool. What about electric melody? Just give me, you know, what is an average electric bill and how big is your property?

Melody [00:17:06]:
So my property is. It’s a three bed, two bath, 900 square foot cabin. So it’s on the smaller side of a three bed two bath. But for electricity on average throughout the year is 170amonth. In the winter when it’s high occupancy like November to January, it’s around 200 to 250 and then February to October is 150amonth.

Luke Carl [00:17:31]:
How many square feet?

Melody [00:17:32]:
900 oh, 900 small.

Luke Carl [00:17:34]:
So I would say that that’s pretty similar to what a 900 square foot of primary home would cost in any average Joe area. Yak. You have any other information on electric bills for us?

Yok Re [00:17:47]:
I would say they’re going to, they’re going to vary widely. Right. Also you know, what is gas in your house? I can’t remember on melodies. You know, what is gas and what is electric? You know a lot of the newer properties now are going to have a lot more electrical, you know, electric systems in there, meaning, you know, stove and heat versus some of the old, a lot of the older ones are still, you know, use gas simply because it’s, it’s easier to construct homes all, you know, with as much electrical as possible. A lot of times, you know, from a gas on the gas. The only things in some of these newer homes are kind of vanity things like the, like the logs in the fireplace. That may be it. And so but back to the electrical conversation, it can also.

Yok Re [00:18:28]:
That’s going to vary widely on your house so let’s just say you have, you know, a big house that’s hanging out over the edge of the mountain that just gets hammered with sunlight. That’s going to be a little bit different than, you know, a cabin that’s kind of in the woods in Cherry Log, you know, so your sun exposure is going to have a significant impact on that as well.

Melody [00:18:50]:
Yeah. So for context, my cabin is in the trees, so not a lot of sun exposure. I do have a hot tub and my H vac system is full electric. I do have a gas wall heater, like a small one. So that’s the backup when it gets below freezing.

Luke Carl [00:19:08]:
Because your unit can’t keep up.

Melody [00:19:10]:
Yeah. So for a full electric with an electric heat pump, the heat pumps lose efficiency when it gets below freezing. The wall heater is strong enough to heat up my small cabin when it gets that cold. So, yeah, I guess my gas or my electricity bill isn’t too high.

Luke Carl [00:19:30]:
Is that. Is it uncommon to get below freezing? Yach.

Yok Re [00:19:34]:
No, it’s not uncommon, but we don’t, you know, no different than the Smokies, you know, no different than, I would say Gatlinburg. We just got our first real significant cold front come through last night. Like I said, it was in the 20s. You know, it’ll be, It’ll be that for the next few days, and then it’ll be, you know, the lows will be in the upper 30s again. So, you know, we do get below freezing, but not, Not a ton, but absolutely. It’s. I wouldn’t call it rare by any stretch.

Luke Carl [00:19:59]:
And do a lot of these properties have the, you know, the, the heater, the wall heat, the supplemental heat?

Yok Re [00:20:05]:
No, I don’t see that a lot. You know, again, with a, with an older cabin, something built probably in the 90s, maybe so early 2000, you see them, but they’re really phased out. Like Melody said, you know, the heat pumps, which are great to have for air conditioning, they. They. They tend to be a more efficient product and are easier on the. Easier on the utility bills, but they do. When it gets below freezing, it is. They do kind of struggle and sometimes some auxiliary heat is needed.

Yok Re [00:20:34]:
And luckily she. She has that.

Luke Carl [00:20:35]:
Yeah, it’s the auxiliary heat that’s going to cost you. There’s basically heat strips in the unit, which it basically turns it into almost like a space heater, like what she was talking about. And that’s when the. The bill can really go through the roof and it struggles hard to keep up. But again, this, you know, if you’re from the north, this sounds crazy, but in the south, this is. It’s just the way it is, you.

Yok Re [00:20:56]:
Know, And I would tell people, you know, with the space heater, Luke, one of the. One of the keys here is don’t play the game of, you know, okay, nobody’s in the cabin, so I can cut the heater, you know, cut it way down low. Sometimes for them to catch up cost you more than it does to just kind of keep it in stasis. So, you know, if you do have a heat pump, I highly recommend, yeah, you know, maybe, maybe a 2 degrees, 2 or 3 degrees, you can drop it, you know, below, you know, comfort level. But don’t, you know, don’t just cut it off on. Nobody’s there because just trying to get it to catch back up can. Can sometimes cost you, you know, more money than. Than just leaving it where it was.

Luke Carl [00:21:35]:
Yes, I’d like to further expand on that in. Because I’m completely obsessed with H Vac. And so I agree. Now, if the property is going to be empty for a long time, I would go ahead and cut it down to like, I don’t know, 45, maybe 50 probably is a good number because that way, you know, if you got pipes you’re worried about freezing, you don’t want it to get, like, crazy cold. But what Yacht’s talking about is, is when you’ve got a heat pump, if you. If you try to raise the heat on the thermostat more than, I think it’s 4 degrees higher than what it is in the room, that emergency heat kicks in and it costs you a lot. And if you’re trying to go from. If you’re trying to go 25 degrees at one time, that emergency heat is going to stay on until you get within three degrees.

Luke Carl [00:22:20]:
So you’re going to have emergency heat on and cranking while the heat pumps going off at the same time. I mean, for probably for a few hours. And that can be extremely costly. The way around that is to. If you got it empty for a long time, which hope that doesn’t happen. That’s probably not gonna happen. I’m just saying maybe it’s a vacation home that you don’t even rent. Who knows? Just getting way in the weeds, just bump it three, three at a time.

Luke Carl [00:22:43]:
And then that way the emergency heat never kicks on. But that’s a giant pain in the ass. And quite frankly, you kind of need to be there, otherwise you’re gonna forget. And then, you know, it takes. Takes forever, but it’s an excellent point. We’re way in the weeds now, but. All right, let’s move on. What about Internet? What kind of Internet are we.

Luke Carl [00:23:00]:
Are you. Do you have at your place, Melody?

Melody [00:23:03]:
I don’t know what kind it is, but I know the, the company that I use is Etc. LJ Telephone Company. Yeah. And it’s $80 a month, usually $50 a month for the first 12 months. So you get a discount for the first year. And yeah, I don’t have any cable.

Luke Carl [00:23:22]:
No cable. And it’s regular old, like it’s piped into the house.

Yok Re [00:23:25]:
It’s terrestrial. Yeah, she’s got, she’s got terrestrial Internet. They’re in Cherry Log. She’s got two options. It’s going to be ETC and tds. She’s lucky. She may not know how lucky she is, but ETC is the best service in the area and they are the fastest. And I don’t know if she would consider it super fast.

Yok Re [00:23:43]:
I’d be curious to know what your speeds are. But you know, for the most part everybody’s going to be service. I’d say again, 95% of the houses are going to be. Be able to be serviced by either ETC or tds, which are both terrestrial based services.

Melody [00:23:59]:
Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t remember my exact speeds, but I was working from home there, doing video calls and also watching Netflix. So I was able to do that very smoothly.

Luke Carl [00:24:07]:
Did they give you a choice of speeds?

Melody [00:24:09]:
Yes.

Luke Carl [00:24:09]:
Okay. And so you went with the $80 package, whatever that may be. Typical Internet for just any, you know, sounds like what most people would deal with in any house for the most part. Do we run into situations where we can’t get Internet?

Yok Re [00:24:23]:
Yeah, that, that certainly can happen again during COVID a lot of these, you know, TDS for example, was one of the few or if not the only terrestrial service in a lot of these areas. And all of a sudden everybody started working from home. Everybody started homeschooling. So now you have a substation that was powering 20 homes. Now it’s, it’s powering 80 homes. And the speeds got super, super slow. So that is something you have to be careful for if you get too remote. Yes, there are some instances.

Yok Re [00:24:57]:
Elon Musk’s product, what is Starlink, is starting to become available. You know, a lot of people are starting to get those, you know, but that has to do, I think. What’s that about a hundred bucks a month? $500 for the hardware? You know, that’s becoming more of an Option. There are some people, if you’re close enough to a cell tower that are, you know, using like the Verizon or, you know, like T mobile hotspots and things like that. But there, I wouldn’t say. I would say it’s. It’s 1% of the cabins that don’t have a good option, to be honest with you.

Luke Carl [00:25:30]:
Okay, cool. Very, very few then. All right, what about gas? We mentioned gas a little bit. So this. Well, Melody, do you have any, any gas at all in your helm? And if so, what is it powering?

Melody [00:25:40]:
Yeah, it’s powering the grill and the wall heater.

Luke Carl [00:25:44]:
That’s it.

Melody [00:25:44]:
Yeah.

Luke Carl [00:25:44]:
And it’s a natural gas or a propane tank.

Melody [00:25:47]:
It’s a propane tank. It is one that I own. So you just choose whichever company to fill it for you. I chose Folger before, when I first had it filled. I haven’t had a refill ever since I bought the house or ever since I found out that my H Vac unit was very inefficient. So after I switched out my H Vac unit, then I haven’t had to refill.

Luke Carl [00:26:09]:
Oh, let’s talk about that again. Way in the weeds. What happened with the H Vac? It was just old.

Melody [00:26:15]:
Yeah, it was old. It was nearing the end of its life. It had a. It was 2000, built in 2002. And. Oh yeah, 20 to 25 year lifespan. I thought I would be able to like, just run with it, but when I bought the cabin, the first two months that I paid the gas bill, it was in the winter. Luckily, when I found this out, it was $400 each month.

Melody [00:26:38]:
So I wasn’t down to pay $400 a month for gas.

Luke Carl [00:26:42]:
So wait, wait, the old unit was propane?

Melody [00:26:44]:
Yes, propane.

Luke Carl [00:26:45]:
The old. The old heater.

Melody [00:26:46]:
Yes.

Luke Carl [00:26:47]:
Okay. And so the new one is now full electric.

Melody [00:26:50]:
Yeah.

Luke Carl [00:26:50]:
Ah, now it makes perfect sense. And then you subsidize with the wall heater, which is propane.

Melody [00:26:55]:
Yes.

Luke Carl [00:26:55]:
Okay. Yeah. So a lot of times propane can. It’s definitely more efficient and quicker. It, you know, electric heat, it takes a while. Propane heat, you turn that thing on and it’s. It’s boom, it’s going. And.

Luke Carl [00:27:06]:
But, but you know, you could use a lot of propane if it’s really, really cold outside. So there’s benefits and disadvantages and advantages to both. So. Okay, cool. So. And I would personally, I’m gonna say 10 to 15 on an H vac. That’s, that’s just me and If I’m buying a house with a 15 year old H vac I’m probably gonna swap it out. But it depends on where you’re at in your career, you know, cause that’s not cheap, you know these.

Luke Carl [00:27:29]:
How much did you pay for your new unit?

Melody [00:27:30]:
6,000.

Luke Carl [00:27:31]:
Uh huh. That’s a lot of dough. Yeah. Baloney sandwiches. Yach. Yup. Okay. Yach.

Luke Carl [00:27:40]:
What else there on the, on the gas. Every house gonna have gas or not?

Yok Re [00:27:43]:
You know, most of them again are going to have some form of gas like she said. Now some of them will not. You know the newer homes, I would say anything built in the past 10 years going to have very little gas. It’s going to be kind of vanity stuff, you know, like I said, like gas logs which really aren’t spitting out a lot of heat. I’ve even seen like exterior lights on a house be gas powered lights like these little propane or you know, powered chandeliers and things like that on some of the really high end houses. But you know you, you chances are you’re going to have a tank and you may have to rent it, lease it or you may own it. Melody opted to buy her own. To lease them is not that expensive.

Yok Re [00:28:23]:
You know, it can be 10 to $25 a month, usually somewhere in the middle, about 15amonth. And again you’ll lease it from the company that you are that is giving you the gas service. And Blue Ridge, we’ve got tons of it. Folgers Freeman, she went with Folger, great company and they even have the auto fill. You know, they, a lot of them have like a remote system where they can drive by and you know they have sensors on their trucks and they get, and basically what they’ll do if you get below 20% on your tank, they’ll fill it back up to 80%. So without asking you, which you know what I tell Luke and you can probably back me up on this, I tell people it’s a great insurance policy. The last thing you want is people showing up in December and not having hot water.

Luke Carl [00:29:08]:
Oh yeah, 100%. Okay, so to reiterate, you were paying hundred dollars a month when you had propane heat on a really old propane heater, which by the way you mentioned 20 to 25 years. They do say that the propane, the gas pack heater, heat units, they do last longer than just a regular old H vac. So yeah, that might be true there. But anyway, since you’ve switched to electric heat, your gas bill is, is how much or how much. Let me ask you this. How much is it to fill the whole tank? How many gallons is it?

Melody [00:29:38]:
I don’t know. It’s a pretty big one.

Luke Carl [00:29:39]:
Okay, so probably 500, maybe a 250. But. And so, and, and to fill that tank cost you how much or are they just topping it off?

Melody [00:29:47]:
They’re. They’re just filling it to 80%. I don’t remember whether or not it went all the way to 20% when I had them filled those two times, but each time I filled it was $400.

Luke Carl [00:29:59]:
Okay, but since that has happened, you haven’t had to fill it again. Yeah, right. Yeah. If you’re just running a couple of little things in the house, it’s probably going to last like a whole year. So maybe, maybe 350, $400 a year. We’ll throw that out there. Does that sound about right?

Melody [00:30:14]:
It’s been about two years.

Luke Carl [00:30:15]:
I haven’t filled it two years. Okay. Yeah. All right, cool. So just be in my. Keep in mind it’s going to be propane. Let’s talk about maintenance, handyman stuff, landscaping, you know, just typical day to day. What are you dealing with there, Melody?

Melody [00:30:32]:
Still maintenance.

Luke Carl [00:30:33]:
Yeah. You know how often you got to get a handyman out there? Do you have any stories about a handyman?

Melody [00:30:38]:
Whatever you have for me, so I don’t have to get a handyman out there that often? I would say it was more in the beginning when I was getting my cabin more like winter ready. But yeah, he just comes every now and then for like leaf blowing, weed whacking, gutter cleaning, stuff like that, or any like, repairs for any guest damage. But yeah, other things to consider for maintenance, chimney sweeping, cabin staining, and also removing branches that are over your house because it can get windy and you don’t want that to ruin your property. Yeah. So it comes out to like on average 150amonth. So, yeah, this is like maintenance on the house and then also if the guests damaged anything.

Luke Carl [00:31:29]:
I like that. So in other words, spreadsheet wise, if you’re just doing analysis on a property you haven’t purchased yet, small home, 150 bucks a month. I think that’s probably pretty reasonable. Snow removal, do we have any of that yak?

Yok Re [00:31:43]:
Not really. I mean, we’ll get snow probably, you know, six to 10 days out of the year. Probably only two to three of those will be significant enough to cause any, you know, any road issues. But again, if you’re on a hoa, a lot of times there’s Going to be enough traffic and, you know, people that care to kind of take care of some of that. I know where Melody is. A lot of times, you know, we’ll. They’ll just shut down the roads, you know, to be honest with you, I hate to say it, but they’ll just shut down the roads and say, hey, this is a little too, you know, a little too dangerous. And then it’s going to be you as a host to kind of play some PR there with your guest and kind of smooth that over.

Yok Re [00:32:20]:
Obviously a different conversation. But snow is, you know, it’s something you probably have to deal with maybe once or twice a year of any significance.

Luke Carl [00:32:30]:
Is it safe to say if it does snow, there’s a pretty good chance your guests are gonna end up canceling?

Melody [00:32:35]:
Oh, I haven’t really had experience with guest canceling because of snow.

Luke Carl [00:32:40]:
Okay, that’s. I mean, that’s what I would do personally. And again, I don’t have a property in this market, but I do have mountain in this. In this area properties. And if it snows, I’m just like, hey, you’re probably better off just canceling. I’ll give you a full refund. Now, again, now we’re getting into the nuts and bolts of management and landlording, and everybody’s going to have a different way of doing that. And there’s no right or wrong answer.

Luke Carl [00:33:02]:
But just my policy in my company is if it snows, I’m sending a message saying, hey, it’s node. Feel free to cancel. We’ll give you your money back. Again, it’s got to be pretty bad. That’s a very rare, Very rare. I mean, that’s. I mean, we’re talking maybe once a year for a couple of days, if that, you know, so that, That’s.

Yok Re [00:33:20]:
That’s it. And, you know it. The beauty. And again, not to get into the weeds here, but if you’ve. You’ve got a neighborhood and a lot of people don’t like a. A gravel road, a lot of times a gravel road can be a godsend for when it’s snowing. You know, you got new asphalt, and Cherry Log has some new asphalt right now, and I can tell you it will get slick as, you know what, when, you know, there is some melting snow and then, you know, some. Some of those temperatures back down in the 20s and that new asphalt gets slicked over.

Yok Re [00:33:50]:
It may be that way for, you know, some time. So, again, you know, I. I appreciate a gravel road every now and then in a subdivision because it can definitely Kind of curtail some of that, you know, treacherous road, you know, off roading experience as opposed to asphalt when it does snow.

Luke Carl [00:34:08]:
Okay, cool. What about landscaping?

Melody [00:34:11]:
I just have my guy do leaf blowing and weed whacking.

Luke Carl [00:34:16]:
No grass per se here, yaka. Not really any grass to deal with.

Yok Re [00:34:20]:
Oh, and you know what? I’ve always kind of told my people that, you know, if somebody wants something with a yard, hey, you know, during the growing season, man, you’re gonna have to have somebody out there every, you know, eight to 10 days to take care of this or it’s gonna, you know, look unkempt. And for the most part, I would say, you know, exactly what Melody says is, you know, picking up dead fall, you know, that’s always going to be a challenge. Trimming some bushes, you know, and maybe, you know, spraying, you know, to get rid of some, some weeds around the corners of the house and around fence posts and stuff like that. But for the most part, I would say, you know, in terms of getting a lawn crew out there, I would say that’s not going to be the norm for most people. It’s just going to be kind of dead fall, weed whacking, you know, that type stuff that she was saying.

Luke Carl [00:35:05]:
All right, what about stain? Are these, these are, you know, cabins primarily. Is it situation where I need to get that washed and stained every periodically? Yeah.

Yok Re [00:35:14]:
You know, again, this is one that kind of depends much like on your electricity bills, has a, you know, the sun exposure has a huge impact on, you know, how much stain you’re going to need and how often you’re going to need it restained. If you’ve got one of these houses that’s got a, you know, you’ve got 180 degree view, you know, long range, mountain view. That side of the house is getting absolutely hammered with sun, probably 12 hours a day. And you may need to restain that and especially some of the, you know, that one by, you know, fascia board and things like that, you know, you may have to replace and restain that stuff every four to six years. Now if you have a cabin that’s, you know, a nice cabin in the, in the woods, kind of like Melody has, you know, that may be something you only depending on the quality of stain, you may only have to do that every 10 years or so. Pressure wash as needed. I tell people, you know, be kind of cautious because a lot of times you can do more damage than good with pressure washing. But yeah, it kind of depends on your situation.

Yok Re [00:36:17]:
I’d say anywhere between five and 10 years. You’re going to have to kind of take a step back and reevaluate the staining situation.

Luke Carl [00:36:25]:
That’s no different than painting a regular old house really.

Yok Re [00:36:27]:
Exactly right.

Luke Carl [00:36:28]:
And it’s going to be based on square footage. The bigger your house, the more it’s going to cost. Simple as that. And those prices are changing all the time. So I don’t need, I don’t know if we need to get in the weeds on that yak. You heard any numbers on, you know, 2,000 square foot house getting stained anytime recently?

Yok Re [00:36:43]:
Or my guess would be somewhere around seven grand depending on the deck and how elaborate everything is. The last one I had stained, but this was pre Covid was half, that was 3, $500. So you know, again, it just all depends on kind of how elaborate the cabin is. You know, sometimes they’ll charge you different fees based on, you know, do they need to get scaffolding up depending on, you know, a lot of just structural issues, not necessarily issues, but just, you know, the structure of the house can, can vary that price significantly.

Luke Carl [00:37:16]:
Right. Of course, Melody’s house, 900 square foot, that’s going to be quite a bit less expensive. But I think that’s seven grand number for a, you know, medium sized house. Large, medium to large houses. Probably somewhere in a wheelhouse at the recording of this podcast. All right, let’s slide into cleaners. So can, well, I guess Melody, how much I know you know how much your, your cleaners charging you and it’s again a small house, have one bedroom.

Melody [00:37:43]:
Two bedrooms, three bedrooms.

Luke Carl [00:37:45]:
Three bedrooms. Okay, three bedrooms. And what are they charging you to clean it?

Melody [00:37:49]:
Yeah. So mine is a three bed, two bath, 900 square foot on a single level. That makes a difference. So it’s 125A clean for me and I’m restocking for consumables and linens. So for her services that includes on site laundry, hot tub cleaning, the grill leaf blowing, the deck and the fire pit and trash removal and then also pets. She doesn’t charge an extra for that, but I did do a lot of interviews because I had one cleaner not be able to clean within like a day of hiring her. So the range that I’ve seen is about 120 to $200 for Kevin my size. And there are cleaners who charge extra for pets or removing trash and also.

Luke Carl [00:38:39]:
For restocking three beds with and you’re pet friendly. And how much is it again?

Melody [00:38:43]:
125.

Luke Carl [00:38:44]:
Oh, that’s extremely inexpensive. My goodness. Now Would you, if you were to shop around for somebody today, do you think it’d be a little more than that?

Melody [00:38:52]:
I have found other cleaners that are around that price. Yeah. So, I mean, there are definitely a lot of cleaners that seem a lot more experienced. Like they have their, their own team.

Luke Carl [00:39:04]:
That charge a lot more pet friendly by choice. I would assume you like doing the pet friendly?

Melody [00:39:09]:
Yes, definitely.

Luke Carl [00:39:10]:
Okay, Yak. Any. Any more insight as to how much a cleaning fee might be?

Yok Re [00:39:14]:
I would say typically she’s on the low end of that. I would say typically, you know, add, you know, for a three. For a standard three bedroom, it could easily be $50 more, you know, probably closer to 175. Now, I will also say Luke, and, you know, this was a conversation we had early on. This is the benefits of Melody staying in that cabin for three months when she first bought it. You know, she’s able to kind of go through and do some of these processes and interview these people and, you know, spend the time to do it, you know, while kind of, you know, living amongst them, if you will. So, again, great job by her. And the benefits of, you know, being able to do that and staying there.

Luke Carl [00:39:56]:
Yeah. You feel like you have a better relationship with your cleaner because you’ve, you know, met her in real life and all that.

Melody [00:40:02]:
Yeah, for sure. She was. Yeah, it was great having like, actually meeting these people in person and seeing if you have that rapport with them and seeing just like how they work. Are they on time or do they seem like they have good integrity and stuff like that?

Luke Carl [00:40:19]:
Yeah, I agree. Now, the reason we bring this up is because most folks, if you’re completely unfamiliar with this, with this process here, most folks don’t, don’t meet their cleaners. You know, I mean, they’re, they’re, they may not even see their property for a number of months or even years at some periods of time. But I would say the majority of folks that are doing this probably don’t meet their cleaner. And if they do, it’s quite a ways down the road when, you know, maybe a year or two into it. And I think that that’s totally fine. That’s the norm. But I do agree that there is a benefit of looking somebody in the eye and getting a vibe, you know.

Luke Carl [00:40:55]:
Yeah, I had a guy, I always tell a story. I had a guy, there’s two guys, they were like, they were floor guys and, and the one guy, I met him in real life before I ever hired him, and we got along wonderfully and we, you know, he texted. We got a. You know, the rapport was great. And then his buddy, who was helping, it was a partnership there. They ended up doing, I don’t know, 10. 10 jobs for me, probably larger jobs. And the other guy and I, we could.

Luke Carl [00:41:21]:
I. We just did not get along on the phone at all. I mean, for whatever reason. And then eventually it was like two or three years later, I finally met him in real life, and I was like, oh, I get it now. You know, it’s like, okay, this is just how this guy is, you know, and then you. You get along better after that. Just. It’s just something about looking somebody in the eye.

Luke Carl [00:41:39]:
But again, the reason we bring it up is because it’s fairly uncommon in this business.

Melody [00:41:44]:
Yeah.

Luke Carl [00:41:45]:
Now the 125 includes your hot tub, too.

Melody [00:41:47]:
Yes.

Luke Carl [00:41:48]:
Oh, my. Yeah.

Melody [00:41:49]:
Yeah.

Luke Carl [00:41:50]:
All right, well, not.

Yok Re [00:41:51]:
Not the. Not the chemicals and stuff. Right. You’re still purchasing all the consumables yourself, correct?

Melody [00:41:56]:
I know she has, like, maybe testing strips, some balancing stuff, maybe. Yeah.

Luke Carl [00:42:04]:
Okay, so you’re shipping her bromine and you’re shipping her paper towels?

Melody [00:42:08]:
Not bromine. Paper towels. Yes.

Luke Carl [00:42:09]:
Oh, okay. So if I wanted, like, well, let’s. Could you call her and say, hey, for an extra $25, will you handle all the paper towels and toilet paper and et cetera? I would do that.

Melody [00:42:21]:
Yeah, she could.

Luke Carl [00:42:22]:
Okay. Okay. Because, yeah, I. I just got so sick of shipping all that stuff. It was like, non stop, Luke, I need this. Luke, I need this. And I’m like, oh, you know, yeah.

Melody [00:42:30]:
I should probably look into that too.

Luke Carl [00:42:32]:
But again, one. One more reason why you’re probably at the lower end of the cleaning fee spectrum right now. Okay, cool. What else? I think we. Firewood, maybe. Is that common? Are there wood burning fireplaces?

Yok Re [00:42:46]:
There can be. You know, I tell everybody, you know, discussing whether you’re using gas logs or. Or, you know, real wood. It’s about, like, talking politics, you know? Like, some people are just on one side extreme, one side of the fence or the other. You know, some people are just like, hey, man. You know, people are. People are coming to a cabin in Blue Ridge, Georgia, by God, they want to. They want to burn a log.

Yok Re [00:43:12]:
You know what I mean? Like, that’s. That’s part of it. You know, that’s part of the cabin experience is. Is. Is stoking a fire. And there are some people that are just like, I am not going to let somebody I don’t know start a fire in my cabin. And then the other group says, well, it’s why I pay insurance, you know, so it’s, you know, I’ll say this, it’s. It’s fairly common, especially for people that have like a game day porch.

Yok Re [00:43:40]:
And when I say game day porch, at least that’s what we call them. Here is the, is the fireplace outside on the deck. You know, there’d be a fireplace inside and a fireplace outside. A lot of times on the, on the game day fireplace, it will be a wood burning fireplace. Very common to provide the wood there. But again, I would say probably if, if we were to ride around Blue Ridge and find look at 10 different fireplaces, I would say maybe only one of them is going to be wood burning.

Luke Carl [00:44:08]:
Okay. And any idea what it costs to have some wood delivered? I really have no idea.

Yok Re [00:44:14]:
I, it’s getting more and more expensive. But I would say, and I don’t even know because I’ve seen, I’ve seen a cord of wood impress me and I’ve seen a cord of wood not impress me, you know, because nobody really knows, you know, what a cord of wood is. It’s kind of like a league in the sea. So last I’ve seen, somebody was charging about 250 bucks to get a cord of wood shipped. And I think that’s pretty fair considering the labor that gets involved in that. But sometimes it can be more. And you know, your mileage may vary on what a cord of wood is. I’ll, I’ll preface this conversation with that as well.

Luke Carl [00:44:56]:
Well, I’m just going to say I’m out. I’m out. I’m a guy that’s had, I’ve got, you know, I’ve been in this business long time now and I’ve been through, I don’t even really like bringing it up to be honest, but you know, a couple of fires and it is horrible, horrible, horrible. So I’m all anti fire, period. I don’t have grills. I do have grills at my, my cabins but they’re cemented in the ground X amount of feet from the structure. They can’t move them. I went grill free on my beach properties and again, there’s a lot of different ways to landlord, but once you’ve been through that F word, there’s nothing worse.

Luke Carl [00:45:35]:
There’s just nothing worse. So I’m all out on the fireplace. I’ve converted all mine to electric and I feel that there very little room for error with those. I mean, you know, not, not a lot of things that could go wrong with an electric little, little electric log. So that’s the way I roll. But anyway, what else I think we covered? I mean, we’ve taken quite a bit of Melody’s time here. She’s absolutely wonderful. Anything else you guys want to say on the way out?

Yok Re [00:46:04]:
I would add, you know, like to add dill about the cleaners, you know, in the handyman. And I know it’s not necessarily an expense, but it can be an expense, you know, if you need that person, hey, I’ve got a new Keurig machine. You know, the Keurig machine broke. I need to, you know, can you install it or, hey, I got a new arcade. You know, a lot of times if you’re, if your handyman can’t do it, sometimes your cleaner, maybe they’re their son in law or they’ve got a cousin or they got a niece or a nephew that wants to pick up an extra, you know, 30, 50 bucks, be good friends with your cleaners, take care of them and that’s another, you know, part of your team. If you need, you know, an arcade installed, you know, say, hey, do you have a nephew? If I ship this to them, can I pay him an extra hundred bucks to take it over to the cabin and set it up for me? You know, some of these arcades in a box or anything like that, a Keurig machine, whatever that may be. Hey, if I, if I ship it to them, can I, can I pay him, you know, 25, 50 bucks to, to put it in the cabin? And a lot of times they’ll be like, yeah, rock on. You know, so, you know, consider that.

Luke Carl [00:47:06]:
Yes. And I do also want to mention that we are being vague on purpose today. We do not, we don’t want anybody to happen to listen to this and say, well, the short term shop told me my electric bill would be 150. You got to do your due diligence here, folks. Do your due diligence. And a lot of that stuff’s going to change anyway based on usage. And it says almost every single thing we talked about today is a variable. Right? So.

Yok Re [00:47:32]:
And Luke, one thing in these cabins and you can back me up on this true log versus a frame built cabin, you know, they got different, I don’t know what you want to call it, efficiencies, you know, a true log cabin, you know, tends to be a pretty good insulator, you know, but they’re, but they cost more to insure, so it kind of offsets. I don’t know what that offset is, to be honest with you. You know, every situation Is a little bit different. But if you’ve got a true log cabin, typically those are better insulated houses. Also, the newer the cabin, the better insulated it is. Those costs may vary. You heard what Tay said, versus having a. A gas, you know, gas furnace versus having a heat pump right now, you know, these.

Yok Re [00:48:12]:
These more modern technologies, you tend to pay more for them up front, but they certainly are more. More efficient and, you know, run better, you know, or cleaner, quieter, and are a better product for you down the road. So to your point, there is a ton of variability in here.

Luke Carl [00:48:25]:
All right, what? Did we miss anything, Melody? Well, he called you Tay. I. I was. I was.

Melody [00:48:30]:
That’s my last name.

Luke Carl [00:48:31]:
Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah.

Yok Re [00:48:33]:
I put everybody in my. In my Rolodex by their last name.

Luke Carl [00:48:36]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, what am I missing here? You guys know each other better than I. Better than me. But anyway, go ahead.

Melody [00:48:42]:
Yeah, I guess some other things I heard on the other episodes of this or other episodes of different markets. You all covered taxes as well?

Luke Carl [00:48:53]:
Oh, taxes, Yeah.

Melody [00:48:54]:
I forget if that’s property or the sales and use or hotel.

Luke Carl [00:48:58]:
No, I love it. Let’s cover all that. How much is your property tax, Melody?

Melody [00:49:01]:
All right, so mine is 150amonth.

Luke Carl [00:49:04]:
Oh, a month. Okay.

Melody [00:49:06]:
Yeah, yeah, it was a year.

Luke Carl [00:49:09]:
Wait a minute, hold on. What’s the math on that? That’s 15, 1600 a year. 1600 something. 150 times 12 is. 1800. There you go. 1800. All right.

Luke Carl [00:49:21]:
$1800. That’s dirt cheap. Y. Is that. Is that just how it is there?

Yok Re [00:49:26]:
Well, yeah, for when she bought it, I’m sure there’s probably going to be a reevaluation. I’ll probably go up some. On average. You know, I would say for, you know, a $500,000 cabin, you know, don’t quote me on this, but you’re going to be looking around 2 grand to $2,200 a month or a year. You know, 2 to 2200 for about a. A $500,000 purchase is going to be probably, I would say, average.

Luke Carl [00:49:50]:
I love the South. I do. I love the South.

Yok Re [00:49:52]:
Well, our. Our governor, you know, fortunately, not to get political, but when Covid hit, he kind of made a vow not, you know, on a lot of these taxes to kind of keep everything kind of low, and they’ve kind of stayed that way, you know. Now, there have been some reevaluations. I will be perfectly honest with you. There have been some cab. There have been some properties that haven’t been their taxes haven’t been reevaluated in seven, eight years. And they did get a new tax bill and it went from, you know, these are people, you know, they bought a cabin for $375,000 in 2018 and now it’s worth $800,000. And you know, their tax bills have changed.

Yok Re [00:50:28]:
Okay.

Luke Carl [00:50:29]:
And well, in insurance, we didn’t cover that either. Melody, what’s, what’s the insurance on your property right now? And of course that’s changing very rapid, rapidly.

Melody [00:50:36]:
Yeah, mine is 185amonth with Tower Hill. I use. I was on proper when I first bought it and it was about 50 more a month.

Luke Carl [00:50:44]:
So about 2200. Again, you have a smaller house, but about 2200 for your, for your insurance. Okay. And then we mentioned, you know, monthly taxes is right. You know, hospitality taxes, etc, that kind of thing. If either one of you can give a brief rundown. Again, we’re not offering any kind of tax advice here, but just, you know, what, what are you looking at?

Melody [00:51:08]:
So what I paid to the state is 7% for sales and use, and then for Gilmer county, the Hotel Motel is 8%. And then I just googled fan in yesterday too, and it was 7% as of August. But I think maybe y’ all can speak to that.

Yok Re [00:51:24]:
I think that’s right. I think that’s right.

Luke Carl [00:51:27]:
Yeah, I think, I think you did your homework.

Yok Re [00:51:29]:
Yeah. And Gilmer, where she is, by the way, they also, you can be taxed based off of a rough estimation of the contents of your property.

Luke Carl [00:51:41]:
Right. Then that’s like an annual thing. Right. And you can kind of guesstimate it. Basically.

Yok Re [00:51:45]:
That’s it.

Luke Carl [00:51:46]:
Yep, yep. Yeah. So, and again, you, you do want to check with the county on the, the, the taxes that you’re going to be paying on a regular basis. And she’s, what she’s talking about here with these taxes is a percentage of rents. You know, so she’s paying the X percentage of rents for this tax. That tax. We do cover that, by the way, in management Monday, the short term shop is not going to tell you how to pay your taxes or how to do taxes. It’s not our level of expertise.

Luke Carl [00:52:14]:
But we do cover the tax situation a little bit. And management Monday, which is of course, I teach that class every Monday. If you end up buying a house with the short term shop giving another plug for management Monday, it’s free, by the way. It’s on the house in just a value add for choosing the shop to help you with your purchase. Cool. Cool. Anything else?

Melody [00:52:34]:
No, that’s all for me.

Luke Carl [00:52:35]:
All right. Well, Melody, thank you so much for your time. You’re absolutely wonderful. And yak, I’ll see you on the next episode from Blue Ridge, the short term show. Thank you so much, guys.

Melody [00:52:47]:
Thank you.

Luke Carl [00:52:53]:
Sa.