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 calendars and pricing with the best calendar and pricer that I have ever seen or dealt with. Mr. Luke. Carl. Luke.

Avery Carl [00:01:15]:
Do you want to introduce yourself really quick? You got a look on your face.

Luke Carl [00:01:17]:
Calendere.

Avery Carl [00:01:19]:
Calendar.

Luke Carl [00:01:20]:
Calendar, yeah.

Avery Carl [00:01:21]:
You’re good at calendaring.

Luke Carl [00:01:22]:
I’m a calendar, yes. Yeah. Director of education for the Short Term Shop, Full Time rental real estate. I’ve got all sorts of different properties. I’m a landlord, if you will. I’m good at renting real estate and making sure that people have great places to vacation. And I teach a class called Management Monday for the Short Term shop, which you’re welcome to come and every Monday if you buy a house. And I have my own podcast, Short Term Rental Management every Tuesday morning.

Avery Carl [00:01:54]:
All right, thank you very much. So let’s talk about the Myrtle beach market. So, I mean, let’s, let’s dive right in. So seasonality, very, very similar to many other southeastern beach markets, not South Florida. We’re talking panhandle of Florida, Gulf Coast, Alabama and Texas, and of course the North Carolina beaches. So what we see here is a really very seasonal market between May and the end of October. So you’re going to make all of your money between May and the end of October. Beach markets are seasonal.

Avery Carl [00:02:27]:
That is what they are. What you want to pay attention to is the gross annual income, not the seasonality of the property. So our. I like to give an example. If you guys have been listening to me at all, you’ve probably heard this before. So we’ve got two properties, one on the beach and one in the mountains. Comparable size, paid the same amount for both in the same year. And the.

Avery Carl [00:02:52]:
The one in the mountains has, like an 85% occupancy rate. The one at the beach has a 62% occupancy rate. So I hear people all the time go, oh, no, I don’t want to buy on the beach because it’s seasonal. It is. But that beach Property makes about $45,000 a year. A year more than the mountain property. So you want to really look at that income more so than the seasonality, because, yes, beach markets are seasonal. I say, I’ve repeated this three times already on this podcast.

Avery Carl [00:03:19]:
I repeat it probably 1,000 times a year. But every year I have people come to me and say, oh, my God, it’s November. And I was so booked in June, and I’m not booked right now. What do I do? I’m like, you don’t. You don’t get booked. It’s the beach. People aren’t going to the beach in November, and that’s just. Just the way that it is.

Avery Carl [00:03:35]:
But I digress. I just kind of wanted to go over the general seasonality of this market. And I will let Luke talk more about the pricing and the calendars here. So, Luke, you start wherever you want to start.

Luke Carl [00:03:48]:
Oh, yeah, and you’re totally right. And I will get in the weeds on that a little bit, just in case anybody like a number junkie listen to what you just said, that I will say that probably today that beach house is worth more than that mountain house. But her point is, you can make just as much, if not more, depending on, you know, obviously, the house in the market. With less nights rented per year in a beach market than you can in other areas, it’s just the way it is. People don’t really want to go to the beach when it’s cold outside. And Myrtle is no exception. There are things going on in the wintertime. We’ll get to that.

Luke Carl [00:04:21]:
But just in general, you can expect a beach calendar to be pretty dead in the wintertime, obviously. I would say maybe December through February and then March 1st. Things are going to pick up a little bit, if not a lot. First, first week or two of March are gonna be a little on the slow side. And then second week of March, moving forward, really all the way in through. Through October, ish, are going to be pretty full. That’s where we start to get in the weeds. There are some subtleties about different parts of the spring, summer and fall that you need to pay attention to.

Luke Carl [00:04:55]:
And of course, if you use the short term, shop. We actually do have charts on seasonality for each one of our markets that you’re. You’ll get when you come to class with me, Tom. And they will kind of show you, you know, in a nutshell, what the year looks like. But I’m happy to describe that to you now. So, you know, we’ve, we’ve already mentioned January, February, March, starting out with a 12 month calendar year here. And then April is going to be very, very busy. You got all the spring breaks, most of the spring breaks in April.

Luke Carl [00:05:24]:
You got Easter break, most of the time in April. This year it’s late May, late March, but it’s pretty much April. So April is, you know, it’s, it’s heavy based on when these folks are out of school because a calendar year in all vacation rentals, I should mention that, should have mentioned that already is heavily dependent on school. And most schools in the Southeast are going to have, you know, April spring breaks and each school is going to have a different April spring break. So, you know, we live in a beach town in the Southeast as well. So we always know it’s, it’s Alabama’s spring break this week, it’s Georgia spring break this week. It’s Tennessee spring break this week because all those different schools are coming in. You know, we’re talking about college folks and that kind of thing, but, but not necessarily college folks.

Luke Carl [00:06:13]:
The, the youngsters are going on spring break as well and the parents are taking them to, to, to the beach and so anyway, let me get back to the calendar. May rolls around and things are, are pretty dead because spring breaks over, we’re back in school. Avery, you got some sort of, sort of shadow on your face that’s making you look like a fence. That is very distracting. I don’t know if it’s coming from the.

Avery Carl [00:06:37]:
Oh yeah, there’s a. Here. If I scoot this way, it’s not as bad or something. It’s the reflection off of a car over there. Sorry, I’m sorry to everyone that I look like a fence.

Luke Carl [00:06:47]:
No, no. Yeah, we can edit that out.

Avery Carl [00:06:49]:
But if I sit right here, if I sit in the shadow, I’m good.

Luke Carl [00:06:52]:
Well, I just was looking out for you because I know if you ever see this, you’re going to be. Why do I look like a fence?

Avery Carl [00:06:56]:
Oh, I’ve, I’ve been on so many of these now that I like, I’ve before, yeah. Oh, man, I’ve had Covid on these. I’ve been looking like hell. So this is. If, if offense is the worst, then I’m okay with that first line of defense.

Luke Carl [00:07:11]:
We’re getting it done here at the short term show. Special episodes anyway. Where were we? May’s going to be slow. And you got to remember that because you’re, you’re sitting there thinking, oh, it’s summertime, the weather’s nice. That’s why. That’s one of the many reasons why May catches you by surprise. Well, the weather’s nice. Why is there nobody coming to my house? It’s because they already spent all their money on spring break and they’re getting ready to spend even more money on their summer vacation.

Luke Carl [00:07:32]:
There’s only so many vacations that people can go on, right? So May tends to be a little bit on the slow side. You can and will get bookings in May, but you got to work on them early. And I’m talking like January, February. And what do I mean by work on them May specials on your listing? Maybe drop your prices 10%. 10%, May specials, you know, all that kind of stuff. It’s no different than selling any kind of product that your retail clothing store sells or whatever the case may be. So, and then from June, July, August, we’re spoiled. June, July especially are going to be hitting hard.

Luke Carl [00:08:09]:
No thinking involved really. With June and July, you’re just trying to figure out what’s the most I can get for these nights. And you get spoiled and then you gotta, you know, to me, the most important part there is keeping an eye on who you’re putting in there for Fourth of July. That’s important because big, major holiday folks tend to not be the greatest. They can be not the greatest guests, unfortunately, like the type of people that don’t really get out of the house that much or there’s a lot of stress involved because they’re bringing family members they haven’t seen in a while. And there’s more involved with management when it comes to these heavy holidays. But you’re going to be rewarded with the big rents on that. So anyway, so then August is another one you got to kind of look out for, especially first couple of weeks of August.

Luke Carl [00:08:54]:
The summer trips are over. Kids are going back to school a lot earlier than they used to when I was a kid. So August is when they go back and they’ve already kind of, you know, done their summer vacation. They spent their money, they, they’re, they’re kind of settling back into a groove of real life in August. All of a sudden, you know, it becomes a little bit more real. And then once they’re back in school, they’re trying to figure out ways to get back out of school. And so the end of August can be okay. September is rough.

Luke Carl [00:09:24]:
September can be rough. It’s not as bad as say a mountain market in a lot of cases because you do have the great weather. And also you can encourage your guests in a Myrtle beach and say, hey, the beach will not be nearly as full in May, but the weather’s fantastic. So come on down, you know, put that in your listing. You’re selling a product at the end of the day, so put that in your listing. May is not going to be as busy. We’re happy to offer a 10% discount, but the weather’s going to be great. Come on, get in the water.

Luke Carl [00:09:53]:
You know, and then, and then October things do actually tend to be pretty decent. Back when I first got into beach markets, October was the beginning of winter. And now that’s changed, October will get some decent traction and, and you know, you might even have an on par to September, October or maybe even a little higher in some cases. Now that being said, you do need to pay attention to it. It’s not just going to be easy to get an October booked. And then we’re moving into November and December, which those two months are, are going to be pretty dead. And you should be able to get Christmas and Thanksgiving booked. I would look for a five or six, maybe a seven night minimum if at all possible, depending on your property.

Luke Carl [00:10:34]:
Obviously there’s a lot of, a lot of variables involved, but you know, there’s no guarantee you’re going to get Thanksgiving and Christmas, but pretty good chance. And then once we’re really into the thick of things like this, you know, November through November through February, with the exception of major holidays, MLK maybe for Valentine’s Day maybe and then of course New Year’s it’s going to be fairly slow. Now of course we do need to keep in mind that if you’ve got a small property or a condo, we have a lot of condos in Myrtle beach is a very popular product that a lot of people buy. We love to sell the condos in Myrtle Beach. Very condo friendly market. You can definitely snowbird those. You know, that’s where you’re going to put somebody in there on a lease for maybe two, three months. In the winter time they might do December, January, February.

Luke Carl [00:11:23]:
Usually they like to do January, February, March. Personally I would like to have them kind of be done with their lease by the end of February because I know I can start getting the short termers back in there in March, that kind of thing. Maybe you give them the first two weeks of March. Keep in mind that in if we’re just generalizing the snowbird lease people, the people are going to live in this home, really midtermers, if you will, they are going to want something inexpensive, which also generally means small. So if you’ve got anything bigger than maybe a one or even, maybe even two bedroom condo is start starting to get a little too big. You know, you might not end up with a snowbird, but you might. And you find those on local Facebook groups, you might even find them on VRBO depending on how you’re marketing, etc. So all things to consider, and that’s just kind of a 12 month calendar in a nutshell.

Luke Carl [00:12:14]:
Keep in mind there are a lot of pricing softwares out there that it will do the heavy lifting for you. Price Labs will give you a great, you know, idea of what you should be renting your property for and it will even price your property for the entire year. And Price Labs is, is extremely accurate and it does a great job and it’s very inexpensive. There’s other ones to choose from. There’s a wheelhouse beyond pricing, etc. But price labs is the overwhelming favorite and it does a fantastic job. It’s inexpensive, but you can’t just let it sit and forget about it. Well, you can, you know, if you’re a busy person with, you know, a huge job, that you don’t really need to milk this property for every single penny and it’s just something for your family to use, that’s a great way to do it too.

Luke Carl [00:12:55]:
Price Labs can do that for you very easily. But if you want to get in there and really, you know, hammer this house or this condo to make as much money as humanly possible, you’re going to need to get in there and shift gears constantly with Price Labs to get you, you know, to correct RPMs with the car analogy. But back to Myrtle beach specifically. I do want to kind of COVID some, you know, seasonality, aspects of the market and things to look out for. You do have the Summer Lights Festival, which is huge and that runs for a very long period of time in the Brook Green Gardens, basically the entire summer. They got a concert series at the Boathouse Country Music Festival in June and Summerfest which runs for a couple of months at Barefoot Landing. And there’s a lot of golf involved in Myrtle beach as well. It’s a huge golf area.

Luke Carl [00:13:48]:
Amateur golf tournaments going all summer long. August and September specifically. Also, let’s not Forget this is a 3, a fairly flyable market. This is a fly in market for a lot of folks there. You, you will go to a lot of airports in the Southeast or on the eastern seaboard and see Myrtle beach as a gate. That is not common for a typical vacation town. You know, we live in, in a vacation town. You’re not going to see the name of my town at a, an airport in Atlanta unless you’re looking real hard and you’re there the right time of day.

Luke Carl [00:14:20]:
It is pretty common.

Avery Carl [00:14:20]:
Oh, that’s actually the only airport that you will see that.

Luke Carl [00:14:23]:
Yeah. Atlanta. Yeah. Well, Atlanta leads everybody to Chicag. No, Chicago, you won’t go. No, but you, you know, you could go to like a Charlotte airport or, or you know, a smaller mid Charlotte. Not that Charlotte small, but you, you know, just a regular old airport. And you’re going to see my Myrtle beach on the sign.

Luke Carl [00:14:39]:
You know, you’re not going to see maybe a Destin Florida or an Outer Banks, you know, so Myrtle is, is a little bit more of a fly market than, than. But it’s very drivable as well. You got many metros within the driving area. Wilmington, Charleston, Columbia, Fayetteville. Of course a lot of folks are flying in from Charleston, you know, because it’s a cheap, easy, super quick flight, that kind of thing.

Avery Carl [00:15:02]:
So lots of Atlanta people also.

Luke Carl [00:15:05]:
Atlanta is the hub, you know, that’s the major hub of basically the entire Southeast right there with millions and millions of people living there. Jacksonville, Florida is not all that far.

Avery Carl [00:15:15]:
Well, Jacksonville is on the beach. They’re not going to go to Myrtle Beach Beach. But I see where, I see where you’re going.

Luke Carl [00:15:21]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Avery Carl [00:15:22]:
They have, you know, what they have in Myrtle beach that, that no other beach market can offer. Doc Antle from Tiger King thing is in Myrtle Beach.

Luke Carl [00:15:33]:
I was just there. Well, last spring I ran the, the Myrtle Beach Marathon, which by the way was spectacular. It was. I mean it’s very difficult to find a good marathon and I’m a huge runner and I’ve run a marathon and many more states than not. And their, their marathon is fantastic and, and it’s just a gorgeous town. You know, the, the real estate is beautiful and the beaches are great and, and we can’t say enough good things about it. Just love Myrtle. Love Myrtle.

Avery Carl [00:16:00]:
But, and it is, and we’ve said this on a Bunch of previous episodes. The most affordable beachfront property you can get, period.

Luke Carl [00:16:06]:
And you know, there are some events in the fall to keep an eye on. You know, just, just, just Google it. Google Myrtle seasonality. You’re going to find a lot of stuff, but there’s a lot of Christmas activity as well. So, you know, if you’re not getting Christmas booked, you probably didn’t try hard enough, that kind of thing. They do have the Christmas show of the south, they call it, and that goes, runs all, all through the Christmas season and the Dickens Christmas show as well. And so there’s a lot of stuff going on all, all periods of time throughout the year. You got about 18 million visitors coming to the area depending on the year.

Luke Carl [00:16:41]:
That was a 2022 statistic, which was obviously a very heavy year. And about $12 billion, $12 billion coming to the area to be spent on tourism on an annual basis. So, you know, it’s, it’s a great place to, to be doing exactly what we’re doing. It definitely fits in the short term shop box as far as being a vacation rental friendly market and a great place to take your family.

Avery Carl [00:17:07]:
Awesome. So at what point would you start if you’re not getting, if you’re, if you’re not seeing bookings starting to happen for some of these high seasons, at what point should you start to like, look into it and be making tweaks? How, how far out?

Luke Carl [00:17:20]:
There’s no wrong answer there. You know, same thing with Christmas. And also there’s, there’s some folks that don’t do it at all. Some folks will just keep it because there’s, there’s a strategy there where you can keep your price super high and be kind of the last person standing on, you know, a June or a July or a Christmas. And you can make more money doing it that way. I don’t like to do it that way because it’s a management nightmare. You’re dealing with somebody who probably would have picked somebody else’s house had the, you know, the, the playing field been level, but they forgot and, or their last minute. Oh man.

Luke Carl [00:17:55]:
Let’s go to the beach. You know, let’s go to the beach. Oh, let’s go to Myrtle for the Fourth of July. And it’s like, you know, and like Avery and I, we do that a lot. We’re like, hey, let’s go over here and do this next weekend. And it’s like, well, wait a minute, you can’t even get in next weekend. You know, so there. But there are folks that will price that way on purpose where they’ll just leave things really high and maybe drop it within the, you know, a week out or two weeks out and.

Luke Carl [00:18:16]:
And you. Or maybe not and drop it at all, or maybe even raise it, you know, and then you can get like the highest. There’s some people that want to get the most per night for those dates than anybody in the entire county. It doesn’t really work for me because then you’re getting somebody, like I said, that’s just picking what the. The only thing they could find. I’ve had that happen in certain situations where maybe somebody canceled a fourth of July and I was like, scrounge, you know, like last minute trying to get somebody in there. Obviously they’re not going to get a full refund if they cancel last minute. Again, we’re getting in the weeds there on management, but it’s just not my style.

Luke Carl [00:18:53]:
I want my fourth of July, my heavy summer, even just regular June and July. I want those to be filled up. I think my sweet spot personally for those is going to be April. I would like by April, I want my June and July to be pretty much filled up, especially the weekends. Maybe I’ll have a Monday, Tuesday hanging around, you know, doing nothing but that for me. Yeah, about. I would say about six weeks out for, for heavy, you know, like on the short term shop calendars. We have flames on those, those flame dates.

Luke Carl [00:19:23]:
We want those to be booked personally. About six weeks, maybe even seven weeks somewhere. I think that’s my sweet spot for the amount of money I made versus also quality of guest.

Avery Carl [00:19:34]:
All right, well, that was pretty comprehensive. You’re great. Because I don’t have to interview you.

Luke Carl [00:19:39]:
Just go, yeah, you just wind me up, man. It’s like, I don’t know, tin soldier, but. But, you know, June through June through August is your heavy season. That’s your bread and butter. That’s where you’re going to make most of your dough. And you got to make sure you’re, you know, in any beach market. You got to st up your nuts for winter time and get over that. Get over that.

Luke Carl [00:19:59]:
A lot of noobs, exactly. Like Avery said, they make the mistake. Oh man, I’m not going to make any money in December. I’m not buying in this market. Well, I mean, there’s no guarantee in the mountains or anywhere really, you know, so get over that. I like the fact that I don’t have to really worry about my beach. My beach properties for two or three months a year. It’s like Being a school teacher.

Luke Carl [00:20:17]:
Get some time off.

Avery Carl [00:20:18]:
Yep.

Luke Carl [00:20:20]:
What?

Avery Carl [00:20:20]:
All right. I think that’s really it. I mean, I guess we could touch on higher occupancy. So larger properties versus smaller properties and the differences in occupancy rate that you can expect there.

Luke Carl [00:20:32]:
Oh yeah, yeah. Bigger property is always going to have less nights booked per year. That doesn’t mean, you know, percentage wise that it’s not making the same amount if not more, you know, based on purchase price versus revenue, that kind of thing. But you know, you’re, you’re definitely going to look at could be anywhere from 10 to 20% lower on a big property on annual occupancy versus a one or two bedroom, especially a condo. Condos, at least to me. And this is again a big condo market. I want that thing to be pretty well booked. I want it to be a little bit more like a kind of a machine.

Luke Carl [00:21:06]:
Right. It’s going into service and it’s going to crank it out and. But you know, there’s, it runs the gamut. Some folks like the price high and have lower occupancy. Some folks like to price low and have higher occupancy. I do find myself to be in that higher occupancy category more often than not. Although as I’ve gotten a little older, I am slightly less concerned with that. And just, you know, at the end of the day, gross revenue is, is your, is your, your, your KPI and you can compare.

Luke Carl [00:21:35]:
And it’s another thing, once you’ve been doing this, your first year is probably not going to be, you know, your greatest year ever. It’s not, it’s not going to be. Sorry, I couldn’t get her to stop that. It’s not going to be your greatest year. So. But Once you have 12 months historical data that you can compare it next year. What was my December last year? What’s my January last year? And then you set goals because that’s the biggest difference between long term and short term rent as far as the rent numbers are concerned. Well, there’s two big differences.

Luke Carl [00:22:05]:
Number one, your rent is the same for 365 days in a long term rental. And you got 365 different prices on a short term rental. And then in a long term rental you’re guaranteed, you know, exactly how much is coming in on a short term. You have no idea. You know, I mean, the only way to get an idea is to have historical data with what you’re capable of, which is way more important than what the property is capable of for Real. So you figure out what you’re capable of and then you try and beat it the next year. What did I do last January? Let’s compare those side by side. How much do I need to make this year? Let’s see if we can get another 2, 300 bucks this year in January, whatever the case may be.

Luke Carl [00:22:41]:
Just set goals. Setting goals is, is the, is the way to have success in this, in vacation houses.

Avery Carl [00:22:46]:
Totally agree with that. Is there anything else that we haven’t covered that you think the listeners would benefit from hearing in terms of calendars and pricing? I think my main thing would be that Price Labs is the greatest tool ever, but it is not. Set it and forget it. Sometimes you have to get in there or not sometimes. Oftentimes you need to be getting in there and making tweaks and doing things. Don’t just expect it to do everything for you. It is a system that you have to manage. Just like any system, the love you.

Luke Carl [00:23:11]:
Make is equal to the love you take. You know, so you gotta get in there.

Avery Carl [00:23:16]:
But on that note.

Luke Carl [00:23:19]:
No, but, you know, this is exactly what I’m saying, but. So in other words, if you’re, if you’re looking to get as much out of this as possible, you’re gonna need to be in Price Labs every day. And if you’ve got a happy day job that you’re good with and this thing’s just on the side to take your kids, then you don’t. And also, there is something to be said for just, you already bought this house, forget it. You know, like, at a certain point there is a diminished return. And I see folks on the Internet all the time where they’re just spending way too much time on something they already own. You just, it’s not necessary, you know, put it in service, move on to the next one. The down payment is always the hard part.

Luke Carl [00:23:53]:
And so if you already own the asset, get it where it needs to be, get it functioning and move on. But yeah, you know, Price Labs is. Pricing in general is the key to success with vacation homes. You need to be spending the bulk of your time managing this property, landlording, whatever you want to call it, on pricing. That’s the number one thing. Get it, get it priced right, get the butts in the seats, and you’ll have success.

Avery Carl [00:24:19]:
All right, well, there you have it, guys. So if you’re ready to buy with us in this market, you can email us at agents the shorttermshop.com and we’ll get you connected. Or you can join our Facebook group, same title as my book right behind me. It’s called short term Rental, Long Term Wealth. We also have a live Q A every Thursday that you can join. And you can join that@strquestions.com you can ask us any of your burning questions about short term rentals and we will be answering them live. And I guess that’s it, guys. Thanks so much for coming.

Avery Carl [00:24:49]:
Thanks for your time, Luke, and we will see you guys on the next episode. Sam.