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The Short Term Show with Luke Carl
In this episode of the Short-Term Show, Avery interviews Luke Carl, co-founder of the Short-Term Shop. Luke shares his journey from humble beginnings in the Midwest, moving to New York City, working in the bar industry, and stumbling into real estate through an unexpected landlord situation. He discusses how his passion for house-buying developed after moving to Nashville and how his landlording career began in Brooklyn.
Avery: Hey guys, welcome back to the Short-Term Show! Today, I have my partner in crime and co-founder of the Short-Term Shop, Cash Flow Carl, the multi-family madman, Mr. Luke Carl. Thank you for stopping by, Luke!
Luke: It’s my pleasure! Yeah, I’ve got many nicknames.
Avery: [Laughter] And this is really weird, but I’m hoping that maybe you’ll learn something about me, possibly. So, um, why don’t you get started by telling us a little bit about yourself? You know, what you were doing before you got into real estate and how you got into real estate investing.
Luke: Man, I’ve done everything! So, back in the day… I’m originally from the Midwest. I grew up in humble beginnings. My father was a Vietnam vet—he’s a Vietnam vet, which is awesome, and he’s a retired mailman. My mother cut hair in the house. I grew up in a very nice, blue-collar upbringing.
Avery: Nice!
Luke: I moved to New York City when I was, uh, 20. I got into the bar business and ended up owning a little slice of a tiny rock ‘n’ roll bar in New York City by the age of 25. Shortly thereafter, I began my landlording career—although I didn’t know it at the time.
Avery: How did that happen?
Luke: What happened was I kind of found a house—an apartment for rent—in New York that, uh, I moved into. My roommate had the lease, and it was, you know, X amount of dollars per month. And the next thing I know, she says, “Hey, I’m moving out.” My landlord was really cool, they weren’t going to care or even know what’s going on. “Do you want to take over the lease?” And I’m like, “Yeah, sweet!” So, at 25 years old, I went down to the office of this landlord—they owned the whole neighborhood in Brooklyn—and signed the lease. They never even came to look, and then at this point, I found out how much the actual rent was of this apartment versus what I was paying.
Avery: Wow!
Luke: I was paying a good two-thirds of the rent! You know, light bulbs went off in my brain. My roommate was living in what was the living room, and she had put up a curtain. So, I went so far as to build a wall and move somebody in. I was charging him like three-quarters of the rent, and that’s how my landlording career began.
Avery: [Laughter] So you stayed in the bar business for quite some time, but you also ended up in the radio business, right?
Luke: Yeah, I’m still in the radio business part-time. After I met you, we moved to Nashville, and then, basically, I know your story is slightly different, but for me, it was a similar path. My story is that we moved from New York, where it’s a million dollars to buy anything, and all of a sudden, we could afford to buy a house. That was how my house-buying career started. We bought a house to live in outside of Nashville. I fell in love with that process, and I said, “There’s something to this.” I gravitated toward the inspector in the house-buying process during our first house-buying experience.