In our latest Booked Solid podcast episode, we sat down with Zachary Humphrey, a registered nurse who turned his passion for real estate into a thriving short-term rental business. Zach isn’t just any investor—he’s built his portfolio from the ground up, balancing a demanding W2 job with his growing STR empire, and learning some hard but valuable lessons along the way.
From rental arbitrage to ground-up A-frame construction in Kentucky’s Red River Gorge, Zach’s journey is packed with insights—especially when it comes to why direct bookings are the key to long-term success.
Summary & Highlights
The Airbnb Nightmare That Changed Everything
At first, Zach followed the standard STR playbook, listing his properties on Airbnb and VRBO. But a Thanksgiving weekend disaster made him rethink his approach.
A guest violated house rules, caused property damage, then falsely reported a gas leak—leading Airbnb to suspend his listing for three days. Not only did he lose thousands in peak-season revenue, but he also had to fight to clear his name.
“I don’t have control over this like I think I do. If I had a direct booking site, I could have handled the situation myself without relying on Airbnb.”
That’s when Zach realized that depending on OTAs meant giving up control. Since then, he’s prioritized building his own booking channel, collecting guest emails, and taking ownership of his STR business.
Direct Bookings = Higher Profits + Better Guests
One of Zach’s biggest takeaways? Direct bookings don’t just save hosts money—they attract better guests.
As a travel nurse, Zach himself books short-term stays every week. His experience taught him that frequent travelers prefer to book direct, skipping platform fees while still enjoying a trusted experience.
“If we’re doing this to make money, then direct booking is the way to go. Guests feel like they’re saving money while, in reality, I’m making more by bypassing platform fees.”
This insight shaped Zach’s direct booking strategy:
- A strong website that builds guest confidence
- Automated guest email collection via StayFi
- Proactive guest nurturing with personalized offers
By controlling the guest relationship, Zach ensures more repeat bookings, fewer platform headaches, and higher profit margins.
Rebuilding After a $100,000 Loss
Zach’s path to success hasn’t been easy. In fact, his biggest learning moment came from a devastating $100K loss on his first A-frame build in Red River Gorge. After trusting the wrong contractor, he found himself entangled in a fraud case with zero recourse to recover his money.
Instead of giving up, Zach pivoted. He doubled down on building better partnerships, thoroughly vetting contractors, and diversifying his revenue streams through flips and joint ventures.
His story is a raw, real reminder that setbacks are inevitable—but resilience separates successful investors from the rest.
Rapid Fire Questions with Zach
To wrap up the episode, we put Zach through our signature Rapid Fire Round. Here’s what he had to say:
1. What’s one piece of mindset advice for someone starting something new?
“Know who you are first. Your investments shouldn’t define you. Money and real estate are temporary—don’t let them consume your identity.”
2. Any books that have shaped your investment philosophy?
“Fake by Robert Kiyosaki. It opened my eyes to how the system is rigged and why you need to take control of your own financial future.”
3. What’s your #1 tip for hosts looking to start or grow their direct bookings?
“Don’t overthink it. Start by capturing guest emails with StayFi. Once you have that list, marketing to them is easier than you think.”
Listen to the Full Episode
Zach’s journey is one of resilience, smart investing, and taking control of your business. Whether you’re an experienced host or just getting started, this episode is full of valuable lessons to help you maximize profits and minimize platform dependency.
🎧 [Listen to the full episode of Booked Solid here] .
And if you’re ready to build a direct booking strategy that works, join our CraftedStays community—where top operators share insights, strategies, and tools to help you scale.
And if you’re looking for an easier way to build a high-converting direct booking website, check out CraftedStays—the platform built for STR hosts who are serious about owning their bookings.
🔗 [Learn More About CraftedStays Here
Follow Zach’s Journey
Transcription
Zachary: And I also make more profit margin when you book direct. And so that’s what I do. If we’re doing this to make money, then direct booking is the way to go. And it also benefits and incentivizes your future guests or guests you have now, if you know how to approach that correctly to save money too, in their minds, they’re saving money while you as the host are actually making more money by going on a direct booking platform.
And when I use Airbnb every week as a travel nurse, I have to go direct booking because I cannot afford all those fees all year long. When you’re really using Airbnb frequently, and guests that are well affiliated with Airbnb, and usually, or short term rental stays, those are usually good guests. They want to book direct, so booking direct also can tend to bring you, I think, a better guest quality, because these people are more savvy.
They’re looking for that stay. They’re familiar with short term rentals. Of course, our presentation of that’s got to be a decently good looking website. They’ve got to have confidence when they’re looking at your website. And things like that, things have to flow to give them that confidence that Airbnb gives as a multi billion dollar industry.
Hey folks, welcome back to book solid the podcast where top operators share their strategies to help you maximize your bookings, scale your revenue and stay ahead of your short term rentals on today’s show. I have Zachary Humphrey. He’s a W2 nurse in his day job and has done multiple investment strategies.
He’s actually going to walk us through a few different learnings that he’s done. I’ve actually really enjoyed the show because we had a chance to talk through what he’s gone through, through his investing journey. He’s done everything from arbitrage. To new ground developments, fix and flips, and all the different things that he’s learned along the way.
And I just really love the way that he’s approached it. The mindset, some of the challenges, you’ll be shocked on some of the challenges that he had to kind of overcome both mentally and financially. so it’s amazing show and definitely we get to talk a little bit about why he’s investing into direct bookings and some of the foundational pieces that he tries to put into place very early on.
To really take control of his bookings. So without further ado, let’s bring them in.
Gil: Hey, Zachary. Welcome to the show.
Zachary: Hey, thank you.
Gil: You’ve been busy doing a lot of different things. Maybe what jumping right into it. Can you give folks an introduction on who you are?
Zach: Sure, sure. Yeah, my name is Zach Humphrey with Bluegrass Rentals of EKY. I live in Eastern Kentucky. Me and my wife started investing in short term rentals about a year and a half to two years ago. We’ve done a few different things since then. Outside of real estate, I work full time as a registered nurse.
Gil: Yeah. Talk, talk to me about how you got into short term rental. Like we, we talked a little while back and how your occupation occupation kind of led you to that. But I definitely want to hear you kind of tell that story to our listeners today.
Zach: Absolutely. So yeah, my, my uncle has about 20 Section 8 long term rentals in my hometown, and he always kind of pushed me towards investing in real estate, but, uh, he has a full time job on fixing his properties all the time, and it really wasn’t a super beautiful property, if you will, and so I just started diving into real estate investing and came across short term rentals, and it was more attractive to me and my wife to host, uh, Vacation type stays.
And so that’s kind of what led me down that route more so, as well as when you start diving into the return on investment and the cashflow, all of that gave me an, uh, my ultimate goal of getting out of registered nursing. I felt like I could get there a bit quicker with short term rental investing over long term rentals.
Gil: Yeah. How do you, how do you find it managing these rentals as being a full time nurse as well to visa? That’s quite a demanding job in itself. Like, how do you make sure that you can really operationalize all the things you need to do as a host, but while also making sure that you’re taking care of your patients?
Um,
Zachary: for my cell phone and everything in the modern day with the hospitable app and my relay financial app, I’ve been really able to keep the guest communications on par just using hospitable automated messaging software. I kept 90 percent of my guest interaction down and then my paying my bills and managing my vendors.
It made everything seamless for me and really. Smooth with just using my cell phone day to day. I had up to three airbnbs at one time While working full time as a registered nurse some of those having all their cleans in the same day Which was a little bit can be hectic or stressful but through Getting everything set up on the front end.
It makes it possible throughout that process I have had multiple times on my lunch break where i’ve been having to send messages and Put out fires, so to speak, but it’s definitely manageable at that number. I think if I was up to five or more, I would not be able to, uh, I would have to have some kind of help after five in order to manage all that and still be a full time nurse,
Gil: a lot of full time nurses that will also like tag team with their spouse as well, too. I don’t know if your, your wife is answering messages, um, alongside with you, whenever you’re, you’re busy in there, um, because sometimes some of those shifts are long and you can’t really escape to your phone or take, you might, you might be skipping breaks all together.
Zachary: Right. Exactly. I have those situations. It’s usually 7 a. m. to 7 p. m. and, and, and sometimes, like you said, there really isn’t any downtime at all, but, uh, through the short term rental piece of that, you know, our first three properties were all three rental arbitrages and in a small town, Kentucky, and we really marketed those towards the sort of, uh, travel nurse demographic family coming in to visit family or even engineers with the local chemical plant that’s here.
So we really weren’t in a vacation destination. And from those three properties, we invested about 25, 000 in furnishings and we gross income to about 67, 000 that year on those off those three properties. So I was personally shocked that our small hometown, in my opinion, a small town in Ashland, Kentucky could do that kind of revenue, uh, based off how much we really had to invest into it.
So I was really thankful for those and learned a lot from that. And all of those were in my backyard as well, being only 5, 10 minutes from my house. So it made it a lot easier for us to be involved in that if we needed to be
Gil: Yeah. Yeah. So those are, those are arbitrage units. Um, you’re doing, uh, there’s actually a few projects that you’re going on and doing right now. What’s give me a kind of a scope of some of the things that you’re keeping yourself busy outside of your, your W2.
Zach: Absolutely. So we ended up selling those three rental arbitrage furnishings and uh, we really pivoted towards like I wanted to think of, you know, what can move my wealth needle, not just my cashflow needle. And so we started looking at the nearest short term rental market, which was the Red River Gorge in Southeast Kentucky, which has been getting a lot of attention on the market.
And uh, Kenny Bedwell of STR Insights also spoke of Slade, Kentucky. We bought about four acres, about 10 minutes from Slade, Kentucky in a place called Campton, Kentucky, two separate lots. And we started ground up construction on an A frame about a year and a half ago. And yes, a year and a half ago, we’ve ran into some situation there.
We also have another lot we’ve prepped for the next build. We’ve also been developing relationships with, uh, and Partnerships and JV with another LLC to begin some construction projects, at least two in the coming year of 2025. I have a business partner JV already have where he is going to be doing two geodome builds and I’ll be responsible for managing those for him once those get done.
And he’s starting construction on those decks and foundations and all of that right now. And beyond that, we also are doing a local flip in my hometown, near my hometown in Greenup, Kentucky, and it’s just going to be a flip property to a family by buyer investor. It won’t be a short term rental, but we just needed the cash flow.
And so we needed some cash strategy as well as that holding strategy to move our investing ability. So that’s why I even kind of brought in that flip
Gil: Yeah. Yeah. It seems like your, your strategy, your real estate strategy has kind of evolved over time. You mentioned in the very beginning it was really around gain that cash flow. So then you can take that next step and you’re actually taking a pretty big leap where you’re not just acquiring your own property, you’re building your own property.
Um, right before this, we had a little conversation about some of the things that. You’ve learned through your journey. Can you share with our listeners here today, one of the biggest learnings that you’ve done or you’ve experienced as being a real estate, uh, investor.
Zach: Absolutely. So I can shock people and say I’ve lost 100, 000 at real estate investing. And I so my first ground up construction in Red River Gorge, Red River Gorge is notorious for hometown people. But if you’re outside of that hometown market, it can be vicious. Um, if you don’t have an in with people and get name by name recommendations of who that you should use for general construction labor, GC’s, a subs, contractors, then you could end up getting a really bad person.
And unfortunately for us, our first, our A frame has been under construction for so long because the first contractor we hired ended up being paid his phase one payment and did about 20 percent of what he was paid and then no longer continued to build for us. In fact, we had a budding of heads because we found out that he had not built our foundation.
more than eight inches into the dirt and the frost lines about 24 inches. So the foundation was improper. The roof line was improper. They had done everything wrong. And based off what he spent of my money, I’m not really sure because he refused to provide me receipts. He and in fact, I’m one of 15 people that they took advantage of that the federal state of Kentucky is prosecuting them on insurance fraud and laundering millions of dollars.
So I am one of 75 people on this case, and I lost basically all of that money. I don’t know what he spent of my money on my own project, but I think, uh, that was a total loss there. Cause even if they do go to jail, which they deserve to do so, I’m not gonna get that money back. And so, that’s why this project has taken so long, cause now we have to throw our own cash at it.
And hopefully partner with someone in the future for maybe that remainder. But that’s why I’m doing this flip and green up, is to just get a cash flow in added income to put on this A frame to finish it. And the big takeaways from that is I don’t want to look at it from a negative perspective because really the anxiety over that situation was eating me alive.
I, my job is very high stress as a registered nurse working the floor at the hospital. And so, I had some days where I felt like I just needed to crawl into a hole to be honest with you when that A frame situation blew up in my face and I had no idea what am I gonna do? Is the bank gonna foreclose on me?
Am I gonna lose my house? What’s happening? And I tried to eventually get a grip on that and turn that into a learning experience, whereas before it was really eating me up. And the big takeaway from this is I would have more vetted these general contractors prior. I, I had, I was told by the bank to use these guys.
I was told by the guys I bought my land from to use these guys. But really nobody knew them, and I shouldn’t have taken people’s word for that. I should have vetted them myself on a better level. Even though they did commit insurance fraud and fake their construction insurance with me. So there’s not a lot you can do when somebody’s gonna break all the rules.
But I could have vetted them better on my own account to know what I was getting into or what I could have been getting into. Another piece I’ve learned is to be there. Be there. If you can be there where your project is, I mean that’s That’s ideal. And I, I, and I see people who do very well investing very far away.
And I’ve read the book, Long Distance Real Estate Investing. Totally agree with all of these principles. But if you can be there, that is just ideal. Because if I had been there more often, I would have caught the shady work that was being done sooner. And could have done something about it sooner. I wouldn’t have taken people’s words at face value.
I would have vetted the claims. I would have looked up Things I would have checked receipts. I wouldn’t have been so naive and I went into this a little bit naive not realizing that I thought I have a signed contract with these contractors, so they’re not going to break the contract. Well, they broke every piece of the contract, so I would have been more thorough in every way.
And it’s not that I would have been. Overbearing, if you will, but I would have been more thorough. That’s what I would have done to avoid the situation. So learning from that and then bouncing back from that by turning other investments and putting cash on that a frame so that we can move forward.
That’s really what my perspective has become. And that’s why my strategy has shifted some.
Gil: Yeah, exactly. Have you, um, read the book, uh, extreme ownership?
Zach: I have heard of it, but I’ve never read, I never read it.
Gil: That’s, uh, what you’re talking about right now reminds me a lot about that book. Um, it’s by Jocko Wilkins. I think he was in the Navy. Um, but the book really talks about just really his mindset about really when things go wrong, you can’t Put that on someone else’s blame. You can’t put that on someone else.
And it’s really your responsibility. And it’s, it’s really a management book. So even though some of your employees may mess up, if something does happen, it’s on your responsibility. You didn’t do all the checks, you didn’t do everything you could have. And it really teaches you over time that you should take every.
Negative experience as a learning experience for you to improve on that. So it’s actually really good for you to actually be able to overcome some of that mindset because it’s losing a hundred grand. That’s, that’s not pennies. That’s not pennies at all.
Zach: It was, it was a struggle for me because then I felt like, am I not smart enough to do this? Do I not know what I’m doing? And, and all my numbers on paper were perfect. All my math made sense. Everything made sense on paper, but everything went wrong. Well, how do you respond to that? Because everything I looked at when my return on investment is going to be 30 plus percent.
My everything’s great until it wasn’t. And so I really felt like, man, what was wrong with me for why this occurred? And that Had to healthily work through that and then my fear was what about my next investment? What’s going to go wrong now because now i’m constantly waiting for bad news And I had to start approaching this from you know, that was that situation, but this is this situation Here’s how I can approach this next investment from a better perspective better better behaviors, better mindset, better checking my balances.
And so I could go into the next investment and not be so scared, not be so overcome by what has happened in the past. So that’s, that’s been the biggest thing I’ve had to learn probably in the last year.
Gil: yeah, yeah. You don’t want, you don’t want to drag PTSD through all your next real estate projects and definitely that’s, that’s, it’s going to slow you down quite a bit. Um, what’s, uh, Did you, what, how did you kind of get through some of those kind of mental challenges that you, you had to kind of overcome?
Like was there anything that really kind of help you switch that flip that switch over to the other side?
Zach: Sure. Uh, really? I mean, a lot of it was my wife has been extremely supportive throughout this process. If she had went out and invested and lost 100, 000, I probably would have been a way harder on her than she has been with me. She showed me a lot of grace and you know, to be and I’ll just be honest. I mean, from our perspective, I We try to run a Christian business.
I do read the Bible daily. I try to live that life. And so, it was just refocusing my perspective on what’s eternal, what isn’t. What moves the needle of life in general. That I still have my wife. I still have my son. We still have our home. We have our good jobs. There’s things that this situation isn’t taking from me.
And so I’m grounded in that, regardless of how that situation plays out. And so that was something I had to get a hold of and not allow that A frame house to become an idol for me that, that, that consumed my attention and time. And so it was even refocusing it back to it’s an investment and investments are ultimately always temporary.
And so that is a perspective shift that I had to take on. It wasn’t. It’s not the totality of who I am as a person in my life. And so, I had to kind of regather who I am as a person and to realize that that’s not changing who I am. It’s not changing my morals or my ideals or my, the love I have for my wife and son.
Regardless of how that plays out, I, the things that matter to me most are still there. And so that was the perspective shift for me. Business wise. The same math, the same math, still math, the same real estate advice is still real estate advice. I’m still getting all that on paper. Reading books daily and podcasts and videos and networking, but it was really an, it was really a shift and a battle of identity.
And security more than it was the investment house boards, you know, dirt, all that. It was beyond that. And that’s that sort of spiritual journey of investing in general. I feel like that happens for a lot of people. It takes people places they never dreamed when they dive into it and they look back and say, wow, I can’t believe I accomplished X, Y, and Z.
And, and it’s really deeper than just, Boards and dirt and numbers on paper and that’s that journey for me had to happen kind of quick because I got a lot of challenges to that from the very beginning.
Gil: Yeah, I think that that’s where I’ve seen a lot of real estate investors really thrive is really how do they harness their mindset to help them kind of grow because. Just like real estate investing. It’s like entrepreneurship. You’re going to come with different challenges and in entrepreneurship, there’s a really high failure rate, extremely high.
And so a lot of founders really focus on how do I actually get myself in the right mental state so that I can get through all the challenges that I should expect in my journey and real estate. I think it’s no different than that. Like you’re, you’re gonna. There are going to be properties that you purchase that don’t pan out.
There might be projects that you take on that don’t pan out. But if you don’t have the right mindset on it, you can do all the homework and that you, that you can have all the skills. But if you don’t have the courage and the mindset to muster through all that, you’re not going to get very far.
Zach: Absolutely. Yeah. And, and through this situation also, I’ve, I’ve met so many good people because of this situation and me looking for advice, me asking for, you know, other people’s advice and networking from this negative situation with this house that my future investments, like I have an army of trustworthy people now, people I’ve spent so much time with and around that I believe our next investments are our home run hits.
It’s because now we’ve got all our subs in order, our GCs, we know who we can trust, we know where the money needs to go, we know where it’s coming from, and so, but that may not have been that way as strong from that quickly in, had things all went as I had hoped they would have in the beginning. So there has been some positives out of this that Maybe it wouldn’t have happened the same.
People I’ve met and come into contact with that I’m thankful for. And so that’s the way I try to talk about it now. I try not to talk badly about the contractors that did that to us because, you know, we all can make some bad decisions in life, get off track, and make some bad mistakes. So I try to show them grace in my own mind and that helps me not be a slave to bitterness and, and even be able to move on into my future investing because of that.
Gil: Yeah, I actually think that might be like kind of the silver lining behind it all. Like this could be an ingredient in your recipe book that helped you actually scale much faster, like had this not happened to you, you might not approach it the way you did and it could potentially come later on in, in your career, in your investing career.
And it could be not just a hundred thousand. It could be a couple, a couple hundred thousand or a million, a million. It can be a much larger stake, but now you’ve taken that learnings. You’ve also, you Change the way that you approach these types of projects now and are much more suited. So I think that like, there is a strong silver lining there.
Zach: Absolutely. And I’m, and that’s the way I try to look at it as well.
Gil: Yeah. So what’s, um, so what’s the timeline walk me through some of the timelines of like when you purchased that plot of land, when the development is, and when did you find out that, um, things weren’t going as planned?
Zach: Yeah, we started construction in March of 2023. Uh, so we bought the land around January of 2023. We started construction in March. It was about August. In fact, the general contractors that were doing the shady work gave me a connection to a draftsman in Georgetown, Kentucky, who they recommended that knew a lot about constructions and planning because we had some questions about certain aspects to the to the framing and things and what decisions we were going to make because of the mistakes they had already done.
And when he, when I called the recommendation they gave me, he wanted to see the property in person himself. When he came to look at the property, he said, you’ve got way more issues than you realize. They’ve not done your foundation correct. They’ve not done this and that correct. And the Red River Gorge, the only inspections required are the plumbing and the electric.
Everything else is uninspected. So that’s why so many bad contractors can get by with stealing from people down there. There’s just not a thorough inspection process, which they’re trying to change. Uh, the state of Kentucky is because so much money is being funneled there is as short term rental operators.
And I would even give that as a warning to people operating in tertiary and secondary markets where the return on investment could be higher or maybe less competitive for you as a short term rental owner than the more pristine or well known markets. When you dive into these secondary markets, you’ve really got to have your team in place or be able to trust who you’re using because there is more of a homegrown mentality to your.
Vendors and contractors, and if you’re an out of state investor particularly, these people don’t, doesn’t seem to bother some people as much of taking advantage of you. So, when you go into secondary markets, just be careful. So, uh, once we had him tell us your situation is much worse than you realize, it wasn’t but a month later that these guys threatened to sue me.
I refused to pay them any more money. And then they just never came back again. I never heard from them again. And then that’s whenever the court case from the state of Kentucky was opened and I got involved with that. And so now that’s just ongoing.
Gil: Wow.
Zach: Since then, no con not we, since then we hired a second contractor and he got our house up a little bit further.
And now our main piece moving forward is just financials to finish the property.
Gil: Yeah. Did you have to pull up the foundation given that it didn’t, that it wasn’t, uh, done correctly?
Zach: It had to be underpinned, so we had to dig up under every post and pour more concrete and rebar. Uh, and that was a lot of money. That was a 20 grand expense we weren’t planning for.
Gil: Wow. so right now you have a couple of projects on right now. So what’s, which, which one’s the active one that you’re spending most of your, your time on right now?
Zach: Uh, the current the most active property that we’re working on right now is our green up Kentucky flip the numbers on that we got it under contract for 44, 500. It’s a 3 bed, 2 bath, 1300 square feet. And it’s in, it’s the ugliest house in a family neighborhood, and it was a perfect little flip opportunity.
And the ARV is 155, 000, and the rehab to fix it’s about 60, 000, so those numbers there gives us a pretty good margin for profit.
Gil: good spread. Yeah.
Zach: Yeah, and once we finish that and flip it, then the idea is to just put all that at the A frame. So, uh, just looking at cash flow strategies right now, we’ve even tried to wholesale some properties just to get cash coming in.
Um, so we’re working on trying to wholesale a project or two and JV’ing with some other wholesalers. So those are different things that we’re involving ourselves with to increase cash flow so that we can, uh, get this A frame through the finish line.
Also, uh, just property managing, I’ve got that friend from Florida who’s building those two geodomes, and I’m kind of helping supervise over his geodome builds, so once they’re finished and they’re both in the Red River Gorge, I’ll be managing those for him, uh, um, once they’re finished being built.
Gil: Yeah. Talk to me about. Some of your shift, it sounded like in the very beginning you were doing arbitrage units. Um,
Zach: short term rentals.
Gil: all short term endos, were they condos, townhouses, single families?
Zach: they were two apartments and one house.
Gil: so what led you to go from arbitraging apartments to getting into unique bill? That’s, that’s, that’s a, that’s a very different strategy altogether.
How did you get down that path?
Zach: Sure. Um, so the arbitrage initially for me was just increased cash flow. That’s all we were going for was to have more cash to put at what the ultimate goal was here, which was cabins or something more unique. And the Red River Gorge was the most powerful market near us to give us that unique experience with vacationers. So, uh, that’s kind of the bridge there that happened is land for the Red River Gorge for us was still very affordable where I buildable acre somewhere around 40 to 60, 000 on the low end, you can get as high as 120, 000 an acre to 100, 000, but we stayed in that 000 an acre range, which is affordable for us at the time for what we had saved in our bank account.
And really what I had saved as a nurse through covid. So during the covid experience, I had saved X amount of dollars. And so, uh. And the idea here within short term rental in general is it’s an experience based investing strategy. So, uh, we wanted to provide them something more unique, which was a amenity rich A frame that the market has a lot more A frames now in the last two years than when we first started this process.
Uh, but the competition in the Red River Gorge is still pretty low. If you go into the Smoky Mountains market as a short term rental operator, if you don’t have the game room, the hot tub, the sauna, even indoor pools now are becoming almost a must. Uh, and that price point is just so high. The Red River Gorge.
The competition barely even has a gaming system, a Pac Man in a corner somewhere. Almost everybody has a hot tub now, but the point of that is that that competition is more, uh, the competition there is just so much lower. So coming into the Red River Gorge and doing something unique, it’s not as hard to do something, uh, budget friendly unique and still be able to compete with other operators.
And that’s what led us to that market, that’s what led us to that mindset. More successful within when you do short term rentals with a unique experience based mindset. So
Gil: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’m surprised that you didn’t, uh, tackle one, one, basically a purchase of a property that’s already existing in that market. And then do the, the bill, you almost knew from the very beginning that you wanted this to be not just a few steps better than the competition. You’re looking to actually outpace yourself.
Zach: the Red River Gorge is tough in the way that you almost have to do ground up construction. There’s not much that comes on the market. There’s no real, there’s not really big cabin builders that are pumping out 10 or 20 cabins that are all identical and then selling them. Uh, there, so there’s not these big developers just yet.
There is developers going that way. Uh, I’ve interacted with some of them, and one of them particularly are from the Smoky Mountains market, and they want to develop the gorge in a broader sense. But because there isn’t a lot of on market inventory, and the stuff that’s on market usually is not very quality builds, um, it really pushes you to do something ground up and something fresh.
And so, from my perspective, that I’ve ran my numbers on in the Red River Gorge, ideally, I think, If I had to do it over again, a one bed, one bath, couples based unique stay, return on investment per square foot is the best return you’re going to get in the Red River Gorge when you focus on a couple stay with a unique flair.
ROI on square foot that there is so much higher than a bigger property with less uniqueness, if you
Gil: yeah. It could be just also like the clientele that attracts in there. Um, there’s probably folks that have disposable income, probably in the twenties and thirties without kids yet. Um, and they’re looking for kind of escape. Um, so I, my guess is that you’re not having like multi generational family that’s looking to travel to a river of a gorge where you can fill that occupancy with.
So that totally makes sense to me.
Zach: Yeah, there are people there that are doing cabins that are probably for 400, range cabins that are grossing over 100, 000 to 150, 000 a year. They’re still to this day. So there’s a demographic for it, but the competition is less for these unique one bed, one bath. Two bed, one bath stays and you are correct.
The demographic there is a two to four person group, usually twenties to 40 year olds and 250, 000 visitors per year in the Red River Gorge are, uh, rock climbers. This market is one of the pristine rock climbing destinations on the East coast of the 700, 000 visitors they have to that area in general per year.
Uh, a significant portion of them are young rock climbers. Uh, that’s not me. I’m scared of heights, but, uh. Uh, that is true and that does make sense why that more couples stay would be so successful, especially if you give it a unique Uh, a unique presentation,
Gil: Yeah, I, I, I think I remember back in 22, I was looking for different markets to invest into and we’re about to do brand new construction. I think this is right after we, we bought our first property and we were talking to a builder, uh, one for one of those like modular homes where basically it’s done offsite and brought in house.
It’s almost like a tiny home, a very, very modern. Um, and. He told me that like one of like, there’s, there’s many, many places that you can be investing into. And one of the secrets that he found was to actually go on and find out where rock climbers and boulders are, are really traveling to. And you have some really high concentration of folks that are really willing to pay top dollar for, for, for their stays.
I was, I was surprised that like, you can go that niche down and find different markets out there.
Zach: right. There’s a one bed, one bath glass house in the Red River Gorge and based off their occupancy rate and their nights, they’re charging, they’re grossing over 80, 000 a year on that one glass house property, which I think is incredible at a one bed, one bath sub 500 square feet, but it’s all glass all the way around.
It is one of those modular houses you’re speaking of. And so I was shocked at how good they were doing. Um, I mean,
Gil: And they’re not, they’re not that expensive. I think when I was looking into it, we’re thinking about doing it in Arkansas, uh, was one of the places that were, I actually, I wanted to do one in California, but California, it’s just so hard to bring one of those in there, mainly because they’re coming from Canada, um, and just shipping it to California is hard, but also.
Um, California has much stricter regulations in terms of how to get permits and how to pass, um, uh, pass all the permitting, uh, where Arkansas is much, much easier there. So we were looking at Arkansas, but these units were 120,
Zach: Yeah,
Gil: So you just make sure you get the concrete pad in there, you get utilities, you get plumbing in there, they’ll spec out exactly where they want them to, to be run.
And they’ll connect it. And within a week of actually bringing it on on site, you’ll have a fully functional, uh, unit there. Yeah, it’s amazing. It’s amazing.
Zach: I’ve, I’ve, I’ve looked into that too. We’re not there yet. I’ve even thought about it. We have about a half an acre where I live at right now that we could put something like that on in our side yard and just do like a fence separating the two of them and there is a local to me like my hometown.
They’re building a 20 million dollar, uh, uh, conference center. They’re building a half the hospital. The hospital is being doubled in size, guys. Um, so lots of travelers, there’s a horse track, a quarter horse racing track being built 10 minutes from my house, which for Kentucky, that’s what they’re known for.
So there’s a lot of travel coming to kind of where I’m at now. It’s really been tempting to me to do something local.
Gil: Yeah. So that the a frame, um, plot of land, can you put more properties on that? Are there regulations on, on like how many you can actually put on that, that land?
Zach: You’re allowed to do up to two builds per acre, pending septic approval.
Gil: Okay. Okay. So you have, you have room for one more. Is that right?
Zach: Yes. Correct.
Gil: Okay.
Zach: that particular, on that parcel. Then we have another parcel directly next to it. I currently have that parcel listed just to see if I could possibly sell it to get some cash to put on this. A frame as well.
Uh, but if it doesn’t sell, then this is something that we could actually end up using down the road for our next build project. So I’m just kind of sort of floating in that realm right now of being willing to do sell it if I need to.
Gil: Yeah. I’ve seen a lot of success where folks will buy large acres of land or maybe multiple acres of land. And they’ll almost do like a mini resort in that area where they’ll have four tiny homes, a community, like a shared community area, a fire pit and all that stuff. And They’ve done phenomenally well.
Like I’ve seen folks even do this with, um, mobile home parks, like they’ll actually don’t like take down a mobile home park and they’ll convert it over.
Zach: Yeah, it’s like short term rentals.
Gil: Yeah. Yeah. Because they already, they are like a mobile home park has a lot of the same utilities kind of run already, um, for some of these builds. And so if you, if you can actually demolish them.
You can convert that, that, that, that land is a pending approval from the city, but like, it’s a lot easier to, to tackle a land that’s already kind of prepped for that.
Zach: Absolutely.
Gil: Yeah. Um, before the show, we were talking a little bit about, um, direct bookings and kind of like how you came to really care about direct bookings and like kind of the shock that you had at one point.
Can you share with our listeners here, uh, what you experienced on the platform? Um,
Zach: had a, a gap experience that led me to carry more about direct bookings and realizing I really need control over the cash that’s coming in and the bookings that I host. Um, we had a few different weird stays while we had those rental arbitrages. Most guests were fantastic, but there are a few bad apples.
And one of those individuals, uh, had, yeah. done, uh, brought in more guests than was allowed. They had done some damage to the property. They were being disturbing. They were not a good guest and it was Thanksgiving weekend. Um, and, uh, they say they want a refund because I asked them, you know, I don’t think your stay is going to be able to continue.
That’s how concerned I was over our house. And this is not something I would do with. Every day I try to be as chill of a host as possible, but this is one of those situations I feared for the quality of my property safety. And, uh, they demanded a refund. I told them I could not do that. So then they tell Airbnb that they smell gas.
And so Airbnb immediately blocks the listing through the Thanksgiving weekend. I lost thousands of dollars in that particular weekend because of them. Me losing that thanksgiving booking and also I had to you know, show improve to airbnb. Hey, this house has no Has no gas issue in some markets. You got to get a Firemen to come out and verify that there is no gas smell.
So I had to go through all of that. On top of that, they plugged up my toilets by putting stuff in them that, uh, caused me to have to get a plumber. So it only, it only, it only cost me thousands of dollars in damage. It cost me for the plumbing fee on a Thanksgiving weekend. I lost the Thanksgiving booking.
I had Airbnb breathing down my back. threatening to delist my listings because of that situation. All of that. Let me know. Hey, if I could have just told this guest, you’re breaking all my rules. You need to, you need to leave this property. And I controlled that direct booking myself. I may not have had the, all the other things.
Uh, of Airbnb really go into this that could have caused me a lot, it caused me a lot more stress and even fear over losing my business because if they block that one listing and they’re not happy with you, what’s going to stop them with blocking my other bookings if I’m not compliant with everything they’re trying to get me to do?
So, it really just showed me that, you know, I don’t have control over this like I think I do and I need to, I need to be able to be more involved in who I let in my property and how I let them book it and even holding a control over it when I feel like my rules and the safety of my, My property is being disturbed, so.
Gil: yeah, it’s, it’s kind of scary how Airbnb is a platform. I don’t hear this as much as on from VRBO, but Airbnb specifically how much control they have over hosts. Um, and at any point they can shut down your listing. It sounds like exactly what happened here where they had a false complaint that was unwarranted and basically Airbnb sided with the guests and you, your ability to pay mortgage for that or that month or, or rent for that month is.
But you can’t do it.
Zach: Right. The guests never did get a refund for me though, so I stood on that ground, but uh, They did get it back at me by damaging my toilets and costing me a Thanksgiving weekend booking So I guess we kind of battled each other in that way But you know that that’s that’s I’ve tried to my big takeaway because I have had Airbnb refund me twice through air cover Insurance for damages from guests and I’ve had people ask me How did you get Airbnb to cover you and it just went down to having receipts Being nice to the person who answers me on the other side of the phone and not being, uh, overly aggressive and rude and I want my money.
And just being, going a little ways with being kind to the Airbnb person who’s on the other side has been the way that I’ve been able to get refunds from Airbnb. Their platform does give me reach, which I do appreciate, but there’s also pieces, again, that I just don’t have control over, and it’s your word against the host, and Airbnb is incentivized to go with the host, the guest before the host, um, for money’s sake, so it does, it does cause a conflict of interest in my personal opinion when it comes down to resolving issues, and so, um, that’s been my experience.
I have had them come through for me and defend me to guests before, but I’ve also been on the receiving end of that too.
Gil: Yeah. In this case, how, how long was your, um, listing deactivated or suspended even?
Zach: It was about three, three days.
Gil: Okay. So it wasn’t that it wasn’t, it wasn’t that long. I’ve heard, I’ve, I’ve heard situations where like you, they’ve gone weeks and they, they’ve called Airbnb almost on a daily and wasn’t able to kind of turn things around.
Zach: Yeah, I had the local authorities come out and verify there was no gas smell immediately. They came out immediately, luckily that day. So it did not take me long to disprove what the guest was saying was not being backed up by professionals. So Airbnb in this instance, the person I was dealing with was quick to resolve my issue for me so I could re host.
But unfortunately, it just occurred at a time when I really needed that revenue during what is almost entering slow season in a way.
Gil: and that Thanksgiving booking is, at least for us, it’s one of the biggest bookings of the year. Thanksgiving, New Year’s, Christmas, those are usually two and a half times more than any other stay for those for the same days.
Zach: Absolutely. And while the apartments were renting, the house was double the revenue, triple the revenue of those apartments. So that was what really hurt was that, was that particular weekend being the way that that was.
Gil: Yeah. Did they end up leaving you a review or? Yeah.
Zach: guest did, the guest actually did end up leaving a review and I did get that review removed, uh, by letting Airbnb know, you know, this violates the retaliation policy and the way the guests worded some of what they said. was against what I believe Airbnb’s rules were as interpretation. So what I’ve done even with Airbnb, I go and read their rules and their policies, and then I quote when I message the Airbnb rep, uh, I quote from their policy what I think the guest said or did that violated their policy.
And in the instance of what this guest did, it did go against, by my interpretation, against Airbnb’s policy. So. The, the particular rep in this instance agreed with me, but I know that it’s sometimes you’ve got to call multiple times, get multiple different reps before you get someone that’s trying to help you,
Gil: Yeah, I’ve heard many hosts that just have no luck reversing things whatsoever. Um, and that’s good that you, you actually had them state explicitly that they’re looking for, they’re looking for refund. Otherwise there’s going to be repercussions. And that’s probably, that’s probably exactly the language.
Yeah.
Zach: I mean, just the way I worded my interactions with them, I, in a way I was trying to prep them to say what they wanted because then it showed that they were holding this against me and that helped me to get that review removed and the Airbnb rep to also see there’s some other motivation here for what’s going on.
Yeah.
Gil: Um, what’s, uh, what’s some of the foundational pieces that you invest to from a direct booking side that you think is really important for hosts to really do in order for them to kind of gain that independence that you were talking about?
Zach: Uh, the big thing for me, I think, is just collecting those emails and marketing to those emails on a, on a regular basis. And that’s not as hard to do, I think, or as overwhelming as people may make it out to be. But of course, to stay five, collect the emails, market to those emails. Um, even a month out, I may give them a percent off, uh, incentivization, maybe a 10 percent off incentivization.
I’ll do a year review when they’re, sort of anniversary of their stay is coming up to remind them, Hey, you booked this time last year. Here’s maybe even a 10 percent off, unless it’s maybe a special holiday where I may not do that. But, uh, I try to stay in front of the, the previous guests as much as I can by reminding them that I’m still there.
And that’s through email marketing to them. And that’s me using the stay five technology. Uh, to do that. As far as direct booking as well, that’s just getting a website built out, which right now ours is down while it’s getting worked on, uh, by a trusted friend of mine who’s kind of getting that ready for when we get the geo domes up.
Once those are done being built, we’ll list those up on the website again. So it’s just directing people to traffic that I can control. I use stay five for that purpose. And, um, keep those email lists going. So that, that’s, that’s the application piece to that. The why I do that is because I don’t want to lose my listings over a false claim from a guest that had bad intentions.
And so that’s the motive there for why I would go that way and why I felt so compelled that, Hey, it’s worth having a direct booking website. It’s worth investing in that because that’s not free. It’s worth investing in that state of the art technology. It’s worth getting those guest lists and those.
Emails down because it gives you the freedom, the liberty and the control that people get into investing in general to begin with. Um, you don’t want to have a job still. If you’re investing in real estate, you’re trying to get into a place where maybe you don’t have a job or a manager or a boss over your head anymore.
I know a lot of people are there, but if you’re still directly controlled by Airbnb in a way you still are, uh, so direct booking is the way to actually become free through real estate investing, if you’re going to do short term rentals,
Gil: I hear you on that one, and we talked about that a lot on the show is really to, I think over the last 12 to 18 months, there’s been a huge rise of education and folks like, I think more recently have had more negative experiences with threats of their listing and taken down or bookings coming dry and not being able to really reach out to past guests.
And I think like one of you, what you talked about is really. Being able to remarket to folks that you have hosted in the past, that’s actually one of the most effective ways that we’ve seen, um, hosts really start to take advantage of really their direct bookings and start to, to build that momentum there.
Um, and especially for you, especially your, your new builds there, I find that a lot of folks that really have unique stays, they have really the ability to amplify using social media as well, too. Um, so you have. Yeah, like, I think like once you kind of get your pictures up and started inviting influences in that, in that market there, you have a lot of potential to really not just kind of build that momentum over time, but start to see that very early on.
Zach: Absolutely. And direct booking too is profit margin mindset. So if, if you’re got all these Airbnb fees, that’s a big reason why people don’t want to book through Airbnb anymore. In fact, I, as a travel nurse, I stay in an Airbnb at least two to three nights every week of the year. every week of the year. I stay at an Airbnb in Cincinnati, and so it was for our work.
So if I was depending on Airbnb for housing on a weekly basis, which I currently do right now, but did not have a direct booking out, I’d be paying thousands of dollars a year in Airbnb fees, and I don’t want to do that. So luckily, my host, who I’m not going to name on here, to protect her listings, of course, but I found her through Airbnb, and then we Talked together and she says, Hey, would you book direct with me and you can save money on the fees?
I make more profit margin. We’re both happy. And that saves me thousands of dollars a year while using Airbnb as regularly as I do because of direct bookings. My host who I’ll protect her and her listings, but I first book with her over four years ago and she approached me and said, Hey, would you want to book direct? It’ll save you Airbnb fees. And I also make more profit margin when you book direct. And so that’s what I do. And so what Airbnb direct direct booking is, is profit margin mindset for you.
If we’re doing this to make money, then direct booking is the way to go. And it also benefits and incentivizes your future guests or guests you have now, if you know how to. Approach that correctly, uh, to save money too. In their minds, they’re saving money while you as the host are actually making more money by going on a direct booking platform.
And when I use Airbnb every week as a travel nurse, I have to go direct booking because I cannot afford all those fees all year long. So, uh, that, that really, when you’re really using Airbnb frequently and guests that are well affiliated with Airbnb and usually. Or short term rental stays. Those are usually good guests.
They want to book direct. So booking direct also can tend to bring you, I think, a better guest quality. Uh, because these people are more savvy. They’re looking for that stay. They’re familiar with short term rentals. Of course, our presentation of that’s got to be a decently Good looking website. They’ve got to have confidence when they’re looking at your website and things like that, things have to flow to give them that confidence that Airbnb gives as a multi billion dollar industry.
Uh, but there’s so many reasons why I think direct bookings are superior and what I really heavily will be focusing on pushing as much people that route from the get go once these geodomes go live.
Gil: Yeah, yeah, I can’t. I can’t wait to kind of see how you pick things up and definitely follow your social following and see kind of how that goes over time to, um, Zach, we usually end the show with three questions. Um, First question. Um, what’s one piece of mindset advice that you would give to someone that’s starting something completely new?
Zach: Starting something completely new is, is grounding yourself in who you are as a person, what your morals, values, and identity is. Because these investments you do, the money you make is kind of outside of you. It’s not an eternal part of who you are as a person. So grasping and working through who you are and what you want to be as a person supersedes the way you shift money, the way you approach investing, and that can help you keep those two separate so that you don’t become so absorbed.
With investing that you wake up 30 years later and wonder where your life went and you don’t know who you are. So I think grounding that down into, you know, knowing who I am, being, wanting to become who I know I want to be, and letting that drive my decisions instead of letting a career of investing spiral into something that kind of eats my life away.
And so that, that mindset there is the way I would approach it from the beginning, no matter whether or not you go midterm, longterms, Section A, flipping, wholesaling, short term rentaling. Uh, we can become so consumed with what we do that we think that’s who we are. And then we lose sight of ourselves in the process.
So
Gil: Yeah. Yeah. I like how like Mike Shrogan from STRC, cause he talks about that quite a bit of like, really like investmenting is just really a vehicle to kind of like your goals, not to be all in and all it’s not, it’s, it’s really around like if your goal is to really. Break free from your W2 and spend more time with your family.
That’s, that’s what you should be trying to achieve. And you can be doing many different things to help you get there, but don’t let that investment to be really the be all and end all.
Zach: absolutely,
Gil: Yeah. It kind of reminds me of, uh, the book that I referenced quite a bit is like, start with why by Simon Sinek. Um, that one’s a really good one for me because it helps me kind of like ground myself on like, why am I doing the, what things I’m doing?
Um, a lot of it has to be like, Is it achieving the goals that you want to do? And is it making you yourself proud of the person that you’re becoming?
Zach: absolutely.
Gil: Yeah, maybe kind of, uh, that’s probably a nice transition to, uh, the next question I have for you is, uh, are there any books that you found very inspirational that perhaps may have impacted your life?
Zach: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, the book I recommend, if I had to say, pick one, it’s a little bit of a bigger book, but it’s Fake by Robert Kiyosaki. I didn’t say Rich Dad, Poor Dad, because everybody says Rich Dad, Poor Dad, but, uh, Fake by Robert Kiyosaki was a big one for me. I remember I went on vacation, and, uh, I went to this, like, Goodwill, and I was like, I need something to read, I’m, I’m bored here, and so, I found this book, picked it up, I knew I had read Rich Dad, Poor Dad prior, and this book was really good.
It just, it showed me how the money system has, sort of been set up to keep the middle class trapped and, and so, uh, how money really in a way the credit system is fake. And so it gave me a lot of motivation to not so depend on my, you know, at the time I had done no real estate investing, I’d done no investing at all.
I was just blindly dropping my money off every week on my paycheck to my. Uh, you know, retirement account and, you know, 3 percent or whatever, and so just kind of drop it and forget it and hope one day I can retire. And that book opened my eyes up and showed me that if that’s my mentality at this time in human history in America, that’s not going to happen.
You need to have a, an active involvement. In your future, if you want to have be able to retire successfully, in my opinion, so this book helped me to see that and help me see that plainly by showing me the system. I’m playing in the game. I’m playing in by default being born here where I am. There are rules.
I need to play if I want to. Achieve and succeed what I had envisioned for myself, and that was realizing first that the system I’m playing in is pitted against me, and so I need to play by a different set of rules. Become an entrepreneur and own a business or invest and not be tied to an employee mindset.
Gil: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve read rich dad, poor dad. I’ve, I went through probably half of like cashflow collagen, but I haven’t read fake, um, that seems significantly thicker than rich dad, poor dad.
Zach: it is, it’s, it’s, it is, but it’s all just about like how we got to where we were with the modern day credit system and his opinion on how to play against that.
Gil: interesting. Okay. I’ll have to pick that up sometime. Um,
Zach: It’s really good.
Gil: All right. Last, last question. Um, what’s one big takeaway, uh, for folks that are looking to either start off in direct bookings or amplify their direct bookings?
Zach: Yeah, a big takeaway, I think, is just realizing that, you know, you’re, you’re going to be, you’re going to be the creator if you are direct booking mindset oriented. If you are, depending on the platform, like Airbnb or VRBO, you have no control over that. And the way to get started is so much more accessible than you’re making it seem in the beginning.
It seems very scary. Uh, I just barely got my listing up. You’re telling me now I gotta get people’s emails? Like, that’s overwhelming. That feels terrifying to some people. Uh, but it’s just biting off what you can at a time. Using the Staphy, getting the emails, and remarketing to those people. And there’s so many resources for free out there to show you how to do that, that, uh, it’s not nearly as hard to enter in as you might think that it would be.
So, I just want to encourage and really speak towards your beginner investors that possibly are listening to this just to motivate them to do it. And then as they get comfortable in that, collecting those emails, then start looking at getting that direct booking website built out. Uh, but get familiar with the process of being able to Collect those emails, mark it back to those people, and then give them a place to land.
And all of that is so much more easily doable than you think it is in the beginning. So we, I know that I blow things out of proportion, but it’s way more accessible than I realize.
Gil: Yeah, and I think a lot has changed. Like even Staphy has grown quite a bit over the last few years. And like, that’s one of the reasons why we ended up starting craft a stays in the first place was because like, we didn’t want that big barrier to entry. We didn’t want folks to delay. Getting into direct bookings three, four years down when their portfolio is bigger.
And they think now it’s the time I should be investing into it. But like, honestly, even your first property, if you do really well, you really nurture those emails, you can start to collect hundreds and hundreds of emails from past guests. And as your portfolio portfolio grows, you can start seeding folks from one property to another one.
And like, we wanted folks to be able to feel confident to have a really well polished website. From the very beginning and not feel like they’re either shackled by using whatever’s out there with the PMS or having to pay thousands and thousands of dollars to have a website created. Like that didn’t make sense to us.
So,
Zach: Yeah, I’m not a super technologically savvy person, though I am fairly young I guess, uh, I am not super technologically savvy. So I feel like if I’ve been able to get a grasp of that and be able to execute that, that I know, I often think to myself, you know, if this other person’s achieved that, then I know I can too.
What are the barriers that are keeping me from getting there? And a lot of times it goes back to me viewing it as being bigger of a deal than it really is. And so that’s helped me to reapproach things from a different perspective in all of my investing journey. You know, I came at this like a imposter syndrome, you know, I’m no investor.
I don’t know how to do any of this. And so once I’ve been able to see things for what they really are, a lot of times I’ve made things out to be bigger than they are. And so that’s helped me to kind of do them, uh, despite feeling insignificant or insufficient to meet the task at first.
Gil: Yeah. Awesome. Zachary. It was, uh, really good to have you on the show. Uh, if folks want to kind of follow along your journey, where can they find out more about you? How can they connect with you?
Zach: Sure. Uh, Instagram at bluegrass rentals of EKY. It’s a black background and I’m in my scrubs, uh, yellow, black, yellow, black ground. And I’m in my scrubs in the, in the photo and on the Instagram page. Or you can go to YouTube. I have like a small YouTube channel. I’m trying to grow it. It’s Zachary Humphrey, H U M P H R E Y.
And it is also just that yellow background with me and my Navy scrubs, where I try to post some short term, short, uh, short shorts, YouTube shorts, and long form content on the various things I’m doing in real estate investing at the time, whether that’s our flip projects or our short term rental operations, things like that.
I share that journey there and also some educational. So, uh, I’d love for your visitors or your viewers to go and check out those two places, especially our Instagram page. We’re trying to grow that once we get these properties live, we’ll be using our socials to market to people. So, uh, that’s where they could find me in those two locations.
Gil: Awesome. I’ll be sure to add those links to the, to the show notes so that we can show them.
Zach: appreciate that. Thank you so much. And thank you visitors for listening today. I appreciate it.
Gil: Yeah. Thank you. It was good having you on the show. Bye.
Zach: you, buddy.
Yeah. Yeah.