How to Manage a Short Term Rental in Myrtle Beach

Avery Carl [00:00:03]:
Hey, guys, it’s your host, Avery Carle. Welcome to the Short Term Show Special Episode series on Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I’m super excited to do this 10 episode deep dive into this market with you and I wanted to make a few notes for you first. So if you want to set up a search for properties or see current purchase prices or current income numbers in this market, you can do that at our website, the shorttermshop.com. if you just want to connect with us and hang out and talk about short term rentals more, you could do that in our Facebook group. It’s the same title as my book. It’s called Short Term Rental, Long Term Wealth. And you can also find the information on all of our other market short term show special episode series there as well.

Avery Carl [00:00:41]:
So we look really forward to hanging out with you over the next 10 episodes and we’ll catch you guys on the next one. Let’s go foreign. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the Short Term Show Special Episode series on Myrtle Beach. Today we’re going to be talking about common occurrences that you’re going to have to deal with when you’re managing and running a property in this market. So I’ve got a cool panel here to help me talk about this. First we’ve got Bradley Klein. Bradley, you want to introduce yourself real quick?

Bradley Klein [00:01:15]:
Yeah, absolutely. Hey, guys, I’m Bradley Klein and I am one of two Myrtle beach agents in the area. Of course, I help all the buyers and sellers in the area and Samantha is our other agent.

Avery Carl [00:01:27]:
All right, thank you, Bradley. Next we have Tim Grillo. Tim, you introduce yourself really quick.

Tim Grillo [00:01:33]:
Yeah, absolutely. Good morning, everybody. My name is Tim Grillo. I actually live in the Smoky Mountains, but own properties in both beach markets and the Smokies. So spent a lot of time managing properties.

Avery Carl [00:01:45]:
Yes, you do. You’ve got a bunch of them at this point. So let’s talk about this. So let’s talk about common occurrences in, in the Myrtle beach market, managing beach properties that you’re going to run into. And I’m going to just go straight for the jugular here and let’s go jump right into weather and guests that want to cancel for weather when it’s not necessarily a thing. So what I mean by that is, yes, hurricane season happens every single year and you will see on the news, even if you live in Michigan, you, you will see stuff about hurricanes on the news several times, probably like, you know, August, September, October time, and it technically starts June 1, I think, but don’t really hear too much until later in the fall. So anyway, it’s a big thing on the news and what will happen is people will want to, will see that on the news and they’ll want to start canceling their vacations with you in Myrtle Beach. Even if we aren’t sure the, the, the torn, the tornado, even if we aren’t sure the hurricane is going to go to Myrtle beach yet, you know, maybe it’s headed more towards inside the Gulf.

Avery Carl [00:02:49]:
Maybe it’s going to strike, you know, south Florida and not really get up to, to the Myrtle beach area. So what are some best practices when it comes to, oh, there’s a named hurricane, people want to start canceling and we don’t even know where it’s going yet.

Tim Grillo [00:03:04]:
So for me, one, you’re absolutely right. This will happen 100% is going to happen. If you own in a beach market, I don’t care which one it is. And it really, quite frankly, anywhere you have these things, something’s going to happen and people are going to ask about canceling because of X. It could be rain, you know, but anyway, I think first and foremost, you know, be, be somewhat forward in your listings about it. You know, have something as blunt as we don’t, we don’t cancel for weather, you know, on. So have that for sure. And then on the other side of it, I think, you know, empathy goes a long way and educating goes a long way.

Tim Grillo [00:03:40]:
Most of the time people visiting these markets don’t, they don’t live there, you know, so they live in an area that doesn’t have hurricanes, so they don’t know what to expect in it. And it’s scary. I’m from one of those places and hurricanes scare me. You know, if you live there, it’s different. So anyway, I say having some empathy when you’re dealing with this, it goes a long ways. But encouraging travel insurance, we absolutely do that. But it’s kind of a firm but be understanding. So like when we communicate with guests, you know, we, we tell them, no, we don’t cancel for this.

Tim Grillo [00:04:09]:
Now if it gets to a formal evacuation, we do, you know, we get to, you know, if it comes to like, you know, the National Weather Service issues or who or the local government or whatever issues an evacuation, then we do, we do refund for that. But the, you know, a lot of times those will be like a 10 days ahead of thing where the likelihood is they’re going to show up and there’s a decent chance it’s actually going to be sunny. You know, there’s not, you know, that happens a lot. We’ve had a lot of people wanting to cancel and then they end up having the best vacation they’ve ever had. And it’s just been gorgeous when they get there because hurricanes do silly things. They. They turn and they don’t always know exactly where they’re going to land and things like that. So that’s really kind of a little bit how we handle it, but it just takes a little bit of practice and understanding.

Tim Grillo [00:04:49]:
You know, it takes a lot of understanding just knowing that they don’t. They’re just scared a little bit and they don’t want their vacation ruined. So.

Avery Carl [00:04:55]:
Yeah, and one thing I want to highlight is that we’re not trying to, like, hold people into a vacation where the hurricane is coming to this market. This is only. We’re just talking about if there’s a hurricane out there. We don’t know where it’s going. Obviously, if it is going to be a direct hit to Myrtle beach, we’re giving refunds. Okay? We’re not trying to force people like, oh, well, I’m not going to give you a refund, so I guess you better show up and, you know, force people into a dangerous situation for their family. We are strictly talking about if it’s not necessarily coming towards. And people just want to cancel preemptively.

Tim Grillo [00:05:29]:
Absolutely. If there’s a hurricane coming, we’re telling them not to come, unfortunately, coming for sure. We’re telling them not to come, but like you said, when it’s way out in the water and we don’t know yet, you know, we just kind of communicate with them and tell them to stay, you know, keep watching the news and watch, you know, we actually give them, you know, we do digital guidebooks. So our digital guidebooks contain a lot of information. We give a lot of links to local governments and local educational agencies for those types of things. That way they have more than just us to follow on on that. So that way, if something were to happen while they’re there, heaven forbid they have, you know, the knowledge that they need to deal with it. So.

Avery Carl [00:06:04]:
So let’s dial that back a little bit. And because we see this happen with some of our beach properties sometimes where people show up and it’s not a hurricane, but it’s just, you know, they didn’t get the best weather world during their stay unrelated to hurricanes. You know, we’re talking spring break maybe, and they get there and they happen to have a rainy few days, but then they want to discount for that. What what do we do about that?

Tim Grillo [00:06:25]:
It’s kind of same thing. We, we, we, we try and get ahead of those things. So, you know, we, we put in our listings things that say exactly what you just said, this could happen, you know, and we don’t refund for that. But you know, here we give them like again, we use the guidebook. There’s other ways you can do it. But we give them things to do on a rainy day, you know, like we’ll give them a bunch the area that are entertainment based, that you know, that to try and make the best of it as best as we can.

Avery Carl [00:06:51]:
Gotcha. So we’re not giving discounts for that kind of weather.

Tim Grillo [00:06:55]:
We don’t.

Avery Carl [00:06:56]:
That makes sense. I agree with that 100%. Anything else related to weather you think we need to go over before we move on to a different topic?

Tim Grillo [00:07:04]:
Maybe really just, really just be upfront about it. I mean, that’s kind of my theory with a lot of things is just like set the expectation up front so there’s no surprises. People don’t like being surprised. And so if you set the expectation up front, it takes a little bit of word crafting to not make it sound like you’re just being harsh and, and just like absolutely no refund. You know, you don’t want to word it like that, but you do need to be on the other side of it. You don’t want to be so wishy washy about it that they don’t understand what you’re saying. So just, just be upfront that weather can happen. We don’t have control over the weather.

Tim Grillo [00:07:35]:
If weather does happens, here’s the best way to salvage, you know, what you got going on. So.

Avery Carl [00:07:39]:
All right, so let’s move on to some other things that you may have to deal with and maintain at the beach. So a lot of properties, if you’re getting single family are in which Myrtle I would say is. Correct me if I’m wrong, Bradley, More condos and single families, right?

Bradley Klein [00:07:54]:
Yeah, there’s probably 80, 20, 75, 25 roughly in that area, but there’s definitely significantly more condos than, than single family homes. For sure.

Avery Carl [00:08:03]:
Gotcha. So typically if you are getting a single family home, I highly recommend getting a property with a pool. And what are. Tim, what are some things that we have to keep in mind when we are like in terms of pool maintenance and things like that? Like we need to. Definitely need to get a pool heater if you’re buying a property that has one that doesn’t have one. But what else?

Tim Grillo [00:08:23]:
Yeah, that was my biggest gonna go to was the pool heater. You know, obviously make sure the pool is clean and you know, everything that everything works. You know, just have a, have a regular pool service go out and, and do maintenance on the pool. As long as you’re doing that, for the most part, pools aren’t, they aren’t this huge like surprise thing that’s just going to pop up a bunch of problems usually. I mean, really the only problems I’ve ever had is for some reason the pool heater’s off and that, that will, that will upset people. So make sure the pool heater is on and working properly. So, and obviously chemicals and all that kind of stuff are right. So.

Avery Carl [00:08:55]:
Yeah. And how do we get around what we’re supplying people with in terms of being at the pool? So do we have like a different kind of towel for the pool or how do we manage that?

Tim Grillo [00:09:07]:
Yeah, my recommendation there is, is create a system. A system that works for you and is convenient, easy for the guests to understand. We do do different towels. We have different color towels that are pool towels and we ask them not to take the, the other towels out. So again, there’s not a, there’s not a one size fits all. Just have a system that works for you, that’s easy for you, your cleaners and the guests all understand and, and make it manageable. Don’t, don’t over complicate it and definitely don’t overthink it. So what you don’t want is to have, you know, your good towels that go in your bathroom get ruined by being outside and getting whatever so, so special towels.

Avery Carl [00:09:45]:
Want to make sure we have a pool heater. What do we do if like a guest gets there and they’re like, oh my God, the pool is dirty? How do we handle that?

Tim Grillo [00:09:50]:
Well, I’d say that depends on, you know, obviously if it’s a condo or a single family home. You know, if it’s a condo, you’re going to be making a call to the HOA and the hoa. All the ways I’ve dealt with that have. Pools have actually been extremely responsive to that. And they’ll send, they’ll typically send out a maintenance person. And these are questions you can also ask when you’re kind of in the buying process. If you’re, if you’re doing hoa, ask question like that, like who handles these kinds of complaints and stuff like that. Because they do handle it differently from HOA to hoa, but typically they’re using a management company they’ll go out and deal with it.

Tim Grillo [00:10:21]:
If it’s a single family home, you’re going to kind of have to manage that yourself. And obviously, you know, you’re going to have a pool person that, that you use. So again, the more upfront you can be about these sorts of things, like, you know, understand what your pool person will do and what their hours are and have that stuff in the listing slash guidebook, whatever you use, and to communicate with your guests so that they know, you know, if they call at 9 o’ clock at night, that you’re probably not sending a pool person out there at 9 o’ clock at night. You know, that, you know, you can, anything happens, please let us know. But these are the hours and this is how, how we’ll do our best to respond. So again, setting as much expectation upfront that you can.

Avery Carl [00:11:00]:
Yeah, totally agree with that. Just manage expectations on the front end. It’s much easier to let people know than to have to apologize when they’re already mad. So definitely make sure that you let them know everything they need to know regarding the pool. Oh, go ahead.

Tim Grillo [00:11:14]:
To me, it’s as important on the managing expectation with a guest as it is my contractor, you know, so whoever your pool service person is, make sure you and the pool service have the same expectation as well. Because if your expectation is this and the service they’re offering is something different, you’re going to constantly have problems and you’re constantly frustrated. So make sure, you know, equalizing expectations across the board is huge. So. And again, the more you can do up front prior to the guests, you know, you want the guest experience to be flawless. Obviously it’s not always that way, but you want to strive for that and the more you strive for that, the less problems you’re going to have.

Avery Carl [00:11:46]:
Totally agree. So let’s talk about some other things that might be specific to this and outside. How about sand management?

Tim Grillo [00:11:54]:
Yeah, that’s a biggie. You know, especially, I mean, my properties are condos and they are beachfront, so sand management is a thing. Again, if you have a condo, there is usually going to be an area for this. If, if there’s not and you, I, I recommend, you know, and you have to balance your time on this, but, you know, have some sort of involvement with your hoa. Attend the meetings, listen to what they’re saying, speak up. But we’ve actually invested, you know, not a ton of money, but we’ve got a nice shower area for when you come off the beach for. We actually put feet washing Stations in and the overhead and everything. So, and then again, communicate this stuff to your guests so that they know, you know, you don’t, don’t just rely on your HOA sign.

Tim Grillo [00:12:34]:
Also put a, put something in all your literature saying, you know, before you come from the beach, you know, wash off. And so that, that’s really the biggie. Choice of, of flooring goes a long way with sand management. Don’t, don’t install carpet. And if you have carpet, rip it out. Be careful what kind of rugs and stuff you choose. I mean, I think it’s fine to have rugs in condos on the beach, but, you know, be mindful of what kind of fabrics and stuff you’re choosing because you are going to get sand inside your, your, your units. And I’d say, you know, every once in a while we have an issue with drains where our drain will get sand in the P traps and stuff.

Tim Grillo [00:13:13]:
And we have to have a plumber go out there and, and deal with that. So again, the more you can stay ahead of those things, sorts of things, the better you are. So the best way for me to stay ahead of that is I would rather get that feedback from my cleaner than I would from a guest. So like I tell my cleaners, like, if it starts getting slow, like not even clogged, just slow, let me know. That way I can get it taken care of before it becomes an issue with a guest. You know, again, we’re trying to have the guests never have to report these things, but sometimes, sometimes it happens.

Avery Carl [00:13:43]:
So what else related to outside things that you have to manage inside your house do you think we need to be aware of? Is there any, like, bug problems or. I mean, there’s definitely bigger bugs in coastal areas, I’ll say, than other places.

Tim Grillo [00:13:58]:
But yeah, I think a couple. I mean, I’m not gonna talk the bugs. Yeah, I mean, do pest control. But two things for me are, are door locks and, and balcony doors, so I want to touch on each of those separately. But, but the door locks, you are in a, an area that’s affected by salt. So salt water and salt mist in the air. So your door locks are going to. Your door locks are going to have the chance to fail due to just salt doing, you know, having corrosion issues.

Tim Grillo [00:14:32]:
So the way we manage that is, you know, obviously having a backup key. So we actually, you know, have it. Have a lockbox somewhere and with backup key in it. So that way if the electronics in your door lock keypad fail, you can have a backup key to get in what we actually do on that too. And this may seem a little extreme, but I actually love it is it can be a pain to get somebody to go out there that knows how to program a digital door lock. So we will actually have a, a spare door lock that’s all programmed to our WI fi and all ready to go in an owner’s closet that’s locked up. So that way if, if we have a failure on the electronic lock, we can send any handyman out there that can change a doorknob and put the new lock in and they don’t have to do all the programming stuff. They just literally put it in, put the batteries in it and it, it links up and it’s ready to go.

Tim Grillo [00:15:25]:
So that’s, that’s a biggie for us and that saved us more than once having that spare sitting there. So, you know, and this doesn’t happen like, it’s not like your door locks going out every day, but it is, it is something that happens in beach markets that doesn’t really happen in other places. So, so that’s one thing. And then another is, and this is just a silly thing, but people will leave the balcony door wide open on, on your balcony and they love the breeze coming through and it’s nice, you know, I can’t lie. But what will happen, especially in the summer is if you have your air conditioner on, they won’t shut the air conditioner off. They’ll have the door open and it’ll be enough to where the air conditioner runs non stop and it will freeze up your H Vac unit and then they’ll close the door and then they’ll go, it’s hot in here. And they’ll, you’ll get a message saying your air conditioner is not working and it’s broken and blah, blah, blah. And so they’re, you know, obviously you can put up signs, you can, you know, communicate that, you know, and, and you know, we, some people put a label right on their thermostat that says that some people put a label on their door.

Tim Grillo [00:16:24]:
That’s up to you how you want to do that, but you need to communicate it somewhere that if you’re going to have the balcony door open, shut the H Vac off and, and not have it on or it will freeze and you know, have some consequence to that, that if it freezes it’s not going to work. Beyond that, there are systems that you can get that are like an interlock system where if it’s like a sensor that goes on the door that if you open the door, it shuts off the H vac. That’s getting a little bit more complicated. But those things do exist. So.

Avery Carl [00:16:53]:
So, yeah, I think now that we’re talking about like door locks and exterior stuff. So what, exterior wise, do we have to manage in this market that might cause problems for guests? You already mentioned one if the door lock dies, which does tend to happen more often in these beach markets than in markets where there’s less salt in the air. But what else do we have to think about?

Tim Grillo [00:17:20]:
Furniture. Any kind of outdoor furniture you have, you have. I highly recommend using like a polywood style furniture, some kind of a robust plastic. Both the sun and the salt attack furniture. And if you get like deck furniture from Lowe’s or anywhere. I shouldn’t say Lowe’s any, any department store, you know, the, the stuff that’s rated for outdoors, it is going to rust. And the, the initial steps of that. Are you going to have stains all over your balcony? And the second, you know, worst phase is it can get so bad that it breaks, you know, because those things are, are just kind of thin metal wrapped in wicker or whatever.

Tim Grillo [00:17:53]:
And so get good, good outdoor furniture. And then the other thing is sun. Sun beats them up. So you want the good. The good outdoor plastic furniture is very resistant to the sun and everything. It stays fresher looking for a long time. You know, if you’re in a condo building, your, your balconies are typically going to be concrete and they’re either going to have tile or something like that on them. So you don’t really have a whole lot of maintenance to worry about there.

Tim Grillo [00:18:14]:
You do have to keep an eye on your railings and stuff. Make sure your railings are, you know, aluminum is usually preferred, but just make sure you’re. You’re not getting rust and corrosion issues on your railings. If you have a single family home and you have a deck, obviously. Well, not obviously. That’s why we’re talking about this, because it’s not obvious, but any, any of your fasteners are susceptible to corrosion. So, you know, you got to keep an eye on things like deck screws and nails and stuff like that. If they’re getting rusty.

Tim Grillo [00:18:40]:
You know, a lot of times those things in these markets are built with like stainless steel screws, but not always. So just, you know, you have some exterior maintenance type of things that you may need to do.

Avery Carl [00:18:50]:
Trying to think what else. So definitely all kinds of corrosion problems. Not necessarily problems, but stuff you have to keep an eye on management.

Tim Grillo [00:18:59]:
And I, I, you know, it’s nothing to be scared of. It’s just, it’s just a different thing. If you’re, if you live in Michigan or Iowa or someplace like that, you’ve never had to deal with this stuff. You know, it’s no different than having to deal with snow, you know, somewhere else. It’s not like a, it’s not like the end of the world. It’s just something new that you may have to deal with that you haven’t dealt with before. So, but you know, corrosion, corrosion is like I said, one of the big things you’ll have it if you supply any kind of beach, I’m gonna say chairs, umbrellas, you know, things like that. Same thing.

Tim Grillo [00:19:29]:
They can corrode, you know, if they have metal pieces, some parts in them. So you kind of may need to be ready to replace those once a year or however often it needs it. So stuff like that.

Avery Carl [00:19:37]:
Yeah. So Bradley, is Myrtle Beach a big market where people want to ride golf carts or bicycles around?

Bradley Klein [00:19:43]:
Yeah, that’s what I was going to touch on actually. Especially with single family homes. A lot of property managers, self managed, obviously will provide golf carts. You’ve got, you have electric and you have gas golf carts. So I recommend to supply an electric golf cart as opposed to gas because you don’t want to have to rely on guests to have to fill up the gas or have to rely on a cleaner to have to make sure it’s topped off. It can be forgotten, of course, with electric you just plug it in and off you go. But there are liabilities to it. So they can’t be driven after dusk and before dawn, they have to remain within four miles of the, of the residence that it’s registered and they can’t be driven on main highways.

Bradley Klein [00:20:28]:
So there are some liability issues that do come with golf carts, which of course, liability comes with everything. But people do supply golf carts. Yes.

Avery Carl [00:20:37]:
So I think my suggestion there would be, if they exist, is to, instead of supplying your own golf cart, supplying the info for a company that will rent golf carts to them and drop it off. Yeah. So that way you’re shifting that liability away. Same thing with bicycles. Have a company drop them off so that A, the liability is not on you to maintain it, but B, when they have all these questions about something that’s not working right, which I don’t know how to fix the golf cart, I don’t, I don’t know how to, I can’t even ride a bicycle. I don’t know how to fix a bicycle. I couldn’t. I could not even tell you how to, like, change a tire or a chain on a bicycle.

Avery Carl [00:21:12]:
So I am not the person to help you if I’m managing a property and you have a problem with my bicycle. So I like to have. Just give them the number in their guidebook of a place that will do it, make sure that they. It’s listed very clearly several times. If that’s what they want, they can order from these people and they’ll deliver it. And so that way, all of those questions go to the company and not to me, because I don’t know how to do these things. So that’s my recommendation for that.

Tim Grillo [00:21:39]:
Another thing that this is not really an occurrence, but it is a. It is an educational thing that, that we like to do is, I’ll say being respectful of, like, environmental and wildlife issues and that are. That are in the area. A lot of beach markets have certain, you know, things going on with turtles and things like that. And, you know, as owners, we’re very mindful of what that is. But again, these people that are coming here, your guests, are not. They’re not from the area. So we do provide some amount of literature of just kind of the rules and regulations and.

Tim Grillo [00:22:09]:
And things that, you know, people don’t necessarily know. You’re not supposed to run around in the dunes and throw sand everywhere and things like that. And so having, again, we do it with links in our guidebooks and. And a couple other little things that we do. But you don’t want to. If you’re in a building of condos, you don’t. You don’t want to be the one that people are constantly calling saying, hey, somebody in your unit’s doing X. You know, you just don’t want that for yourself.

Tim Grillo [00:22:33]:
So anything you do to help educate your guests on that, because just don’t know. They’re not. They’re not usually going to be maliciously trying to do something they’re not supposed to be doing. They just don’t know the culture of where they are.

Avery Carl [00:22:43]:
So, yeah, I think that’s a really important call out because a lot of people, I remember being a kid and there was this one huge dune in Grayton Beach. I don’t think it’s there anymore. I think it’s, you know, been a few hurricanes since then, but we loved trying to climb to the top of it. I mean, it was huge. And now I’m like, oh, you’re not supposed to do that. You’re not supposed to be going on the dunes.

Tim Grillo [00:23:05]:
Lights at dark is a big thing. People like you know, chasing crowd on the beach at dark, dark. And you know a lot of, a lot of places now you’re supposed to, you know, have the correct color light so that doesn’t disrupt the turtles and stuff like that when you’re doing that. So just little stuff like that.

Avery Carl [00:23:18]:
So yeah, the, you’re supposed to have a red light. We actually not that long ago, just across the street from my office is the beach and there was somebody, some kids had dug a hole. You’re supposed to always fill in your holes if you’re you know, doing that kind of thing when you’re at the beach. And a 600 pound sea turtle did fall in it and she couldn’t get out. And a jogger found her in the morning and she was too big for her to be able to pull her out. I don’t know if she was £600. I think that I misquoted that how. I don’t know.

Avery Carl [00:23:47]:
There’s several hundred pounds. They’re expensive. I mean they’re expensive. They’re heavy. They’re really heavy. So luckily a bunch of people stopped and were able to help get that turtle out. But there it’s not like, oh gosh, that turtle fell, let me pick it up and move it. It’s, it’s not something that you can just do.

Avery Carl [00:24:05]:
It’s not a dog or like a box turtle that’s in the middle of the road. So you definitely want to be respectful those because they are endangered and yeah, very important to remember also managing. So Bradley, how do people know is there any kind of notification system or flag system in Myrtle beach when it comes to the rip currents and the beach conditions?

Bradley Klein [00:24:25]:
Yeah, so that’s actually funny. My first job in Myrtle beach was an ocean lifeguard. So I know a little bit about this. But yes, they do have the flags that indicate whether it’s riptides, whether you can or can’t go in the ocean, whether there’s marine life in the area. They are indicated by yellow, red, black, different colored flags. Correct. And they do have signage to that do state to stay off the dunes because yes, you, you’re not supposed to go on the dunes. They’re there for a purpose.

Bradley Klein [00:24:57]:
We have obviously areas where we have alligators and again typically it’s sign posted that if you see an alligator, don’t feed them, don’t go in the water in those areas because of course this is their habitat and we, we entered their area that we, they didn’t Come into ours. So of course we do have that kind of wildlife around here. But it is pretty well signposted.

Avery Carl [00:25:19]:
Yeah. I think it’s very important to make sure that your guests have access to what those flags mean. So whether that’s in your guidebook or maybe there’s magnets you can put up or sign a sign you can put up in your unit so that they understand what that means. I know when we’re walking on the beach here, my 5 year old has become such a know it all because she knows what, what the flags mean. And so double red means like you are not supposed to be in the water, period, not even your toe. And she runs around telling people you’re not supposed to be. And there will still be people, you know, you’ll see people with their toddlers in the water on a double red flag. And it’s terrifying because those are the days that you do see ambulances headed towards the beach because people do drown.

Avery Carl [00:26:02]:
And so it’s definitely, I need to.

Tim Grillo [00:26:04]:
Have her come yell at my wife. She like, she wants to swim to Cuba every time there’s red flags. And I’m like, yeah, the water, stop it.

Avery Carl [00:26:12]:
And there’s all these horrible stories of adults who weren’t drinking or anything. You know who, a friend got a little too far out and started having a problem and then they go to rescue them and actually the person who’s trying to rescue ends up being the person that drowns. So it’s, it’s no joke. And I think it’s important to make sure that your guest is not your responsibility, it’s not your liability, but definitely make sure that they have access to understanding what those flags mean. Because a lot of people don’t know what it means. They’re like, oh, red flag, guess I better be careful. And here they go. So really important, I think.

Avery Carl [00:26:42]:
What else? What else? So I guess Tim, so we talked about flags, the beaches, animals. You got to use the red flashlights. Sorry, Sand.

Tim Grillo [00:26:53]:
We’ve talked about sand.

Avery Carl [00:26:55]:
Yeah. So what else? I mean, I guess just general since these are a lot of condos. So if. Do you run into any things that you have to manage around with hoas, I’m not talking about them trying to change the rules and make it no short term rentals because that typically doesn’t happen with these big purpose built communities that are built to be short term rentals. But in terms of like guests and HOAs and ever run into anything there.

Tim Grillo [00:27:19]:
Nothing big, just I would say develop some sort of relationship with the people that you may have to call for things. You know, like I said, we have had to call the HOA for different things like pool, you know, having an issue or, you know, we’ve had noise complaints before where people are complaining about, you know, somebody being. Throwing beer cans off a balcony or something like that. So know who to call ahead of time. Don’t wait until you have a problem and then be scrambling, trying to figure out who, who, what phone number you’re supposed to call. So to me, that’s really important. Another. This is kind of a small thing, but just kind of a hack that we do.

Tim Grillo [00:27:53]:
It’s very common for hoas to provide cable and Internet and a lot of, you know, a lot of amenity types, things like that. So with that, you don’t always get to choose like your own passwords and, and things like that. So it ends up being like weird passwords. And we’re. I’m like a crazy person about, about having everything the same and like our system. So I actually install a second router in all of our places. So that way there’s like two networks. There’s the network that the HOA provides, and it provides you a second network that you can put your own name and password and everything else on.

Tim Grillo [00:28:28]:
To me, that simplifies things for TVs and just lots of stuff. So that way they’re not having to do like a crazy weird password that, that they usually are. And also that helps me with like, you know, if I need to do like I talked about the spare door locks in the. In the owners, all my door locks, it’s the same username and password for the WI fi’s that I use for those. So I can actually program those at home. I live in the Smokies and mail them to my cleaner in the Beach Market and she can put them in my owner’s closet so I don’t have to, like, I can use. I can program it on my one here that is the same and send it out. So that’s been a nice thing for us.

Tim Grillo [00:29:05]:
I’m trying to think anything else hoa, really, it’s just having the right people to call and having a certain, you know, a healthy relationship with them. So. Yeah, and ours, yeah, ours provides cable. We actually took it out, you know, our cable. It wasn’t that great. And it’s like, like I don’t know who, who the provider is, but it’s like straight from the 90s and everything. I didn’t like it. So I actually took it all out and put the cable boxes in our owner’s closet and I just have streaming only in ours and but don’t throw that stuff away, you know, because if they come looking for it, it could cost you some money, you know, if you choose to do that.

Avery Carl [00:29:40]:
But so yeah, definitely.

Bradley Klein [00:29:43]:
Sorry. I think one of the, the, one of the occurrences you should catch ahead of time during the buying process is to make sure there are not any limitations, especially obvious oceanfront condos as far as access to the amenities. Because of course some buildings will require that you have like an armband or something to use the amenities and if you self manage, they don’t. Some buildings won’t allow guests of self managed units access to some of the amenities and things like that. So of course make sure your agent catches that one ahead of time.

Tim Grillo [00:30:14]:
Yeah, that’s a great point. Ours has, ours does parking passes, you know, so anything like that again just build a system for it. Our system, you know, it’s pretty simple. They go in the owner’s closet. We have, it’s kind of archaic the way we have to buy them. They won’t like take credit cards or anything. So like we have to get them like a check, which is annoying but anyway and then our, we have our cleaner pick them up and we’ll buy, you know, whatever a thousand dollars a time with them and we put them in the owner’s closet and then when the cleaner does a turn, she pulls it out and leaves it, you know, writes what she has to write on it and sets it on the counter. So just have you know, systems for those little things.

Tim Grillo [00:30:47]:
It’s not hard but you do have to, you know, clear communication with all your vend, you know, meaning like your cleaner, whoever’s going to be doing this stuff for a lot of HOAs. The parking pass, you know, it serves a couple purposes. They, they don’t want to overflow the parking lot. Usually there is a limit on how many vehicles that you can have for your unit there. So if you have a one bedroom they’re probably going to limit you to one or two cars depending on the parking lot and the, the building of course. But also it’s a, it’s another money maker for them because they, they make money off the parking passes you typically which is kind of a, it’s kind of a subsidiary for your, your dues usually. So it just goes in a general budget and gets used for fixing up the building typically.

Avery Carl [00:31:23]:
So yeah, always good to have a good relationship with your hoa. So you know who to call when things happen. Things like that. What else. Is there anything else that we haven’t touched on that you think the listeners would benefit from hearing? When it comes to, you know, just common things that happen in this market that we need to manage around or that we have to deal with?

Bradley Klein [00:31:40]:
Often a big one, it’s not so big. It’s actually very little. But people often. We have palmetto bugs here, going back to the bugs in the house and they’re kind of like big cockroaches, but they’re not, not like they’re not nasty. They don’t. It’s not because the house is dirty or because it hasn’t been cleaned properly. They just. Oh, they’re nasty, yeah.

Bradley Klein [00:32:00]:
I mean, they’re kind of nasty. I mean, they look nasty for sure, but they just come inside when the house is, when, when it’s raining outside or the weather’s not particularly nice. A lot of the times these palmetto bugs will come inside and somehow they’ll, you’ll see them crawling up walls or they’ll be upside down on their back, dead. But it’s not because you’re staying in a disgusting rental that isn’t, hasn’t been cleaned properly. It’s just one of those other wildlife things we have here.

Tim Grillo [00:32:26]:
And the point on that, same thing. Bug complaints can be horrible. You’ll have a variety of guests. Some guests are totally understanding of it and some guests are going to go right to, there’s roaches and I want my money back. And again, the getting ahead of those things helps, you know, and, and just the more you can educate, the better. Exactly what Bradley just said. You know, if you tell your guests this is what these things are, it’s a possibility they’re going to come inside, guide, you know, they don’t hurt you. We do regular pest control, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Tim Grillo [00:32:55]:
The more you can say about that in your listing or in your guidebook or something to help mitigate those, those complaints goes a long ways. So again, if you’re from Michigan, you’ve never seen a palmetto bug. It. People can freak out, you know, you just ruin their entire vacation because a bug walked inside.

Avery Carl [00:33:10]:
So, yeah, they’re pretty nasty looking, but they are, they’re not roaches. I mean, maybe they are, who knows? But they’re. We call them palmetto bugs.

Tim Grillo [00:33:19]:
Sounds fancier here.

Avery Carl [00:33:20]:
Yeah. Okay, guys, well, anything else you think that we need to mention?

Tim Grillo [00:33:23]:
Wear sunscreen, eat lots of seafood, all the above.

Avery Carl [00:33:26]:
And if you’re ready to buy with us in this market, you can email us at agents@theshorttermshop.com and we will get you connected. In addition to that, you can join our Facebook group. It’s called Short term rental, Long Term Wealth. Same title as my book right behind me. You can also join us. We have a live Q A every Thursday and you can join that at strom to come on and ask us any questions that you have about short term rental investing. And thank you guys so much and we will see y’ all on the next episode.