When most people think about real estate agents, they picture the transaction — the showing, the contract, the close. But for Tyler Coon, it’s just the beginning.
On this episode of Booked Solid, Gil sits down with Tyler, founder of Savvy Realty, a nationwide real estate team laser-focused on helping investors buy (and succeed with) short-term rentals. What sets Tyler apart isn’t just his knowledge of STR markets or his deep portfolio of investor clients — it’s how he turns a real estate purchase into a launchpad for long-term profitability.
This conversation goes beyond the sale — into operations, trust-building, design strategy, and the critical role of direct bookings from day one.
Summary and Highlights
👤 Meet Tyler Coon
Tyler Coon is the founder and CEO of Savvy Realty, a nationwide team of short-term rental agents known as Savvy STR Agents. Based in Asheville, NC, Tyler has specialized in short-term rental investment real estate since 2019. What started as a solo passion quickly scaled into a full-service operation helping investors acquire high-performing STRs across the country.
Now with a presence in over 20 markets nationwide, Tyler continues to expand Savvy’s footprint — aligning clients with smart, profitable opportunities and supporting them long after the sale.
🧠 Key Takeaways from This Episode
1. Treat the Purchase as the Starting Line, Not the Finish
Tyler doesn’t just help clients “buy a house.” He helps them understand if they’re ready to operate an STR successfully. That means:
- Vetting the financials
- Matching design expectations with budget
- Ensuring they’re prepared to amenitize and stand out in a competitive market
2. The Best STR Agents Know the Whole Game
With access to real-time revenue data, local vendor networks, and design professionals, Tyler ensures his clients aren’t flying blind.
3. Direct Bookings Should Start From the First Stay
Whether it’s capturing emails with StayFi or hiring influencers to drive traffic to a direct booking site, Tyler believes in planting the seeds for independence early.
“Guests are making core memories at your property. Why wouldn’t you want them to come back — directly?”
🔁 Direct Bookings in a Changing OTA Landscape
Tyler doesn’t mince words about what’s coming:
- Airbnb will likely introduce sponsored listings
- Expect “similar listings” suggestions to show up under yours (like Amazon or Vrbo already do)
- It’s going to get more expensive to stay on top — unless you own the guest relationship
“If you’re not building a direct booking strategy now, you’re going to be behind. Airbnb’s algorithm will be pay-to-play before long.”
Tyler’s long-term vision? Market-level direct booking sites — collaborative platforms that bring the top listings in each region together, owned and promoted by the operators. (Spoiler alert: we may be partnering on that very thing in Asheville soon.)
⚡ Rapid Fire with Tyler
What’s one mindset shift you’d share with someone new?
“You’re going to screw it up. Forgive yourself early and often. Make the repair, then move forward.”
What’s one book that changed your life?
Rocket Fuel – “It helped me understand that I’m a visionary. I need integrators around me to execute.”
What’s one tactical move to grow direct bookings?
“Collect every guest’s email — StayFi, emails at checkout, whatever it takes. Then send a video after their stay with a discount code and your direct booking site.”
🎯 Final Thoughts: It’s More Than Real Estate
Tyler’s approach is a masterclass in long-term thinking. It’s not about the closing table. It’s about helping investors build something that works — not just today, but years down the road.
If you’re ready to get serious about your STR portfolio, this episode is a must-listen.
👉 Listen to the full episode here
🔧 Built to Book? We’ve Got You Covered
If you’re building a direct booking strategy, check out how CraftedStays can help:
- Create beautiful, mobile-first booking websites
- Collect guest emails for future marketing
- Launch local market listing hubs with PMS integrations
🌐 Connect with Tyler Coon
Transcription
Tyler: Collecting email addresses, right? Something like stay fi to make sure that you’re truly collecting email addresses from everybody you possibly can in that group. Because at the end of the day, those folks are gonna know someone else. So the more email addresses you’re collecting, the more you can market to these people and try different tactics, right?
Don’t just send some bland newsletters, something like that. You know, Bill Faeth preaches this a lot about his new bookings. He sends them a video. Send everybody after they check out, send them a video, email all CC’d together and say, Hey, we loved having you guys. Thank you for leaving the place so clean.
We’d love to have you back. I’m gonna send you a little discount code for if you guys want to come back next time. Here’s my direct booking site. Nothing’s stopping you from sending that email nowadays, and I guarantee. 0.001% of reservations are getting something like that. If anyone.
Gil: Hey folks. Welcome back to Book Solid, the podcast where top operators share the strategies to maximize bookings, scale your rentals, and get ahead of the short term rental game. On today’s show, I have Tyler Kon. Tyler Kon is the founder of Savvy Real Estate. He has many agencies throughout the Nation to help folks get into short term rentals.
I’m bringing him onto the show mainly because. I found his tactics, his way of approaching acquisitions of rentals. Very different than a lot of other brokerages, and I wanted him to share kind of how he thought about. Getting people into short-term rentals, how he thinks about that relationship between an agent or the brokerage and the client themselves.
And really how does he think about long-term success to really make sure that they’re, they have what they need to be successful. Um, we dive into a lot of meaty topics. I’m really happy to have him on the show and really just have him share some of the vision, some of the values that him and his team has.
Gil: Hey Tyler, welcome to the show.
Tyler: Thanks Gil. Good to be here, man.
Gil: Yeah. On the show today we have Tyler Kon from Savvy. Um, Tyler, before we get get started, do you mind giving a quick introduction on who you are?
Tyler: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, my name is Tyler Coon. I’m the founder and CEO of Savvy, STR agents, a nationwide, uh, real estate team that specializes in helping investors buy and sell short-term rentals.
Gil: Yeah. You’ve been, you’ve been in this industry for a little while now. What, what were you doing before? Savvy was the name. It is today.
Tyler: Uh, before Savvy was the name. Uh, it’s funny, I was just a regular residential real estate agent. Right. And, uh, I had a team at the time, I had buyer’s agents. We had a listing agent assistants the whole nine yards. And, uh. You know, the whole real estate game has been done a million times. There’s millions of real estate agents, or at least there was, there may not be anymore.
Tyler: Um, there was tens of thousands of real estate teams. And so it’s like everything that could be done had already been done by someone, and it, it just didn’t feel my passion. So when I started selling short-term rentals myself here in Asheville, um, I. You know, it felt different. It felt new and there wasn’t kind of a roadmap to follow.
Tyler: I was forging my own path. And, uh, so, uh, you know, decided to do short term rentals just permanently myself and exclude all other real estate and don’t touch a first time home buyer or generate any other type of real estate lead. And, uh, it’s been a lot of fun. So that’s what I did, uh, pre savvy at least.
Gil: What, what year was that when you first started to make that switch from residential to short-term rental investing.
Tyler: Yeah, like everyone, 2020, you know, it seems such a tumultuous year, right? Everybody was like sitting at home and trying to figure out who they are, uh, without being out in the world. And uh, yeah. So that was the year.
Gil: Yeah. That’s amazing. How, how, what, what kind of led you down that path to think, oh, short-term rentals is kind of where, where you wanted to, to sink your teeth into.
Tyler: Yeah, I was working with, um, this doctor outta Myrtle Beach and we drummed up a really good relationship. We got really close with each other and I think he bought five short-term rentals from me that year. And, uh, this was still mixed in with like regular residential business and I was having so much more fun doing the short-term rental stuff.
Tyler: That I decided, I mean, I clicked the reset button in my career right there. I already had things in the works, people hired and processes and systems, and I started over and, uh, you know, my first year in short term rentals, I sold $50 million of real estate, which is not nothing in the real estate world.
Tyler: That’s, that’s, you know, it’s fairly good.
Gil: So how’s, uh, how’s that transition? It’s been five years since you made that, uh, transition to. To short term rentals. Um, what’s, what is it like today and what was that journey like?
Tyler: Yeah. Um, the journey’s been really interesting. Um, you, you kind of see nowadays where, you know, it used to be like the short term rental agent. Was really the only person you could go to. Maybe there were like gurus and masterminds and those things were kind of starting. Um, but nowadays you see like a lot of consultants, like STR Insights, you know, that are out there.
Tyler: Um. You know, consulting these clients. And so it’s been an interesting last like year, year and a half because we’ve almost have had to figure out how do we re commoditize what we’re doing as real estate agents because I, I think, you know, you had this big NAR lawsuit last year and uh, I think that people have lost trust in real estate agents.
Tyler: By far and large, um, I have my little audience and my clients really trust me. But kind of as a general rule, I think real estate agents over the last couple of years have lost a lot of trust and, uh. You know, I think it comes from the fact that real estate is very simple to get into, to get your license and to sell a couple houses maybe to your friends or family.
Tyler: Um, but there’s very few actual standards that real estate agents have to live up to. I create my own standards, right? Like in my own mind it’s like I have to do a good job for my clients because I know that that’s what builds my business. But, um. So that’s kind of been, you know, for, for the last year and a half trying to figure out who are we, how do we offer a, a, a service that people really trust, enjoy, want to be a part of?
Tyler: It adds value to them. It’s a win-win. Um, and live in this new world where there may be, you know, other players involved that have different opinions than you. And, uh, it is been really interesting the last year, year and a half.
Gil: Yeah, I think, I think when we chatted, almost been half a year and ago, but. The, what I took out of really what you’re creating is not just another real estate brokerage. You’re not trying to bring a whole bunch of agents together to serve necessarily the acquisition of homes, but a much broader vision.
Gil: Um, can you share with folks kind of like what your vision of savvy is, both now where you’re at and also kinda like where you wanna take things.
Tyler: Yeah, I think, uh, you know, to have somebody boots on the ground in the market that you’re looking in, I don’t think we’ll be replaced by consultants that are like looking nationwide, right? Because there’s something to be said. You can see what we’ve done here in Asheville, right? And some of the partnerships that I’ve forged, you know, we moved to Shida.
Tyler: Literally to this area. She was living in Iowa. She’s a, an amazing interior designer for short-term rentals. And uh, I finally got her to move here last year. Um, and it’s because she was doing so many projects with my clients. Um, but it’s the whole system. It’s the whole setup, right? Um, so at the end of the day here in Asheville, I’ll give kind of an example of like what I’m doing locally.
Tyler: This is what we wanna see national. Um, for me, I have launched and own all of the local Airbnb, Facebook groups. We have a WhatsApp group where every client that we sell to gets added to. We’re all pulling resources. We’re figuring out who are the best vendors and contractors who are the best local revenue managers.
Tyler: Um. Who cuts their lawn and, and, and then, you know, do we do an, an equity analysis in two years and figure out, you know, their revenue might be really good, but maybe they’ve earned a ton of equity in the property as well. So I think that from a local standpoint, I’m leveling up this area in terms of revenue expectations and what, uh, you know, a buyer can potentially make on their property.
Tyler: But we’re also figuring out ways to make sure people are tapping into the right equity. Um. I did a, a savvy session the other day, which we do every Wednesday, kind of as educational pieces, uh, for short-term rental investors. Um, and, uh, you know, I think that it was really interesting to show people what the potential returns are on short-term rentals nowadays.
Tyler: Not even just cash flow, but in appreciation and, uh, debt pay down and tax benefits and all these other ways that you make money in short term rentals, um, and how you can be successful. Um, so for me the vision is, is more about being. Kind of the local boots on the ground for our clients because Mo, most of my clients don’t live here.
Tyler: They live in California or Texas or New York or wherever. And uh, and, and ultimately I am their main resource here, and I don’t just look at it as a real estate transaction before. We look at a house, it has to get my sign off and listen. I’ll write an offer if somebody forces me to write an offer, like, okay, great, we’ll do it, but they’re gonna get my true and honest opinion about that property, uh, whether they want it or not, right?
Tyler: Uh, and it’s gonna be, you know, Hey, this place is, uh, not worth it. I don’t think that the revenue’s gonna be there. Um, and we do that a lot. I mean, we, we say no to way more properties than we say yes to. So the vision truly is, um, to help buyers and sellers of short-term rentals maximize their revenue from beginning to end, whatever that means.
Tyler: Um, so it’s not just about being the best real estate agent while they’re under contract. I, I find that’s like my lowest use of time, right? Um, AI could replace me on that. But AI couldn’t replace the vendors. The network that I’ve put together, the designers and, and, and the knowledge that I have in terms of, hey, these short-term rentals just launched last month.
Tyler: We know what they’re doing today. I got just right before this call, I got on, uh, with a client of mine who launched, uh, a short-term rental month and a half ago, and he’s going, I’m not booking what’s going on? We got him in with a listing optimization specialist. We, we diagnosed his listing. The problem was his photos are so busy, his design is like so much.
Tyler: I said, VO, your photos are like attacking my eyeballs. Like I don’t, and he said, yeah, people have actually asked me is this place even real? And uh, so I’m like, you gotta. You gotta tone it down. You gotta have some comfortable photos in there. So we are, we are pushing the boundaries of just real estate agent here.
Tyler: I feel like I’m a partner to my clients and, uh, really wanna make sure that they succeed. And then I wanna do that with our agents at Savvy in every city in America.
Gil: Yeah. Yeah, so there’s also like what I took from just that all that is like, there’s almost like three pieces to. Savvy there. There’s the local expertise. You know the local markets really well. You know what that membership pencil out to be. You know what the revenues potential are, the expenses. Two, you have local resources out there, people that you know and can trust to refer to your clients when they’re building things out, because as we all know, your boots on the ground is very, very important for you to operationally run.
Gil: Your, your short, short, short term rentals if you have the wrong cleaning staff, and I’ve met so many folks that hire the wrong folks and they’re on the fourth cleaning staff, and it’s really, really daunting. And you can’t scale when you’re, when you’re thinking about that stuff. If you’re, if you’re constantly having guest issues and you’re thinking about, how do I get my cleaners to like, get their act together?
Gil: You’re not gonna be able to scale like that. Um, and then the third part of it is like really around, kinda like the SDR operations slash coaching side of things, uh, which is a, a bit more, not, not generic, but not necessarily locally bounded, but like how do you teach people the right tactics? How do you get them to think about things in the right way?
Gil: How do you provide them resources really to be a good short-term rental operator? Was that, was that right? In terms of like the three things that like separates you, you guys from any other brokerage out there?
Tyler: Yeah, I think so. And, and a lot of it is also financial, right? Um, people, I think new clients, you know, I dive into what their financial picture is. Because at the end of the day, I wanna make sure that they’re making the right decisions because at this point I sell one. I personally sell more short-term rentals than anybody in the country.
Tyler: Nobody does more than me. I personally sell more than most consulting companies even consult on in a year. Um, so I see more proformas, I underwrite more properties. I see the mistakes people are making. I also get calls from people who didn’t buy or sell with me, but they’re in my area and they’re going.
Tyler: You know, what did I do wrong? I, the, here’s, here’s where I made some mistakes. You know, uh, people are looking at, you know, putting a lot of money into these things. Nowadays, the budgets nowadays are way different than they were four years ago. It’s hundreds of thousands of dollars, potentially 500,000 in down payment and, and design and, and furnishings, you know, half a million bucks.
Tyler: And cash is a lot of money. Sometimes it’s somebody’s entire life savings, so I wanna make sure that we get that right from the beginning in terms of what sort of mortgage are they gonna do, what are they set up for, are they gonna do a second home? Well then if they’re gonna do a second home and potentially max out their DTI.
Tyler: I wanna make sure they don’t have any plans to move their personal home in the next two years because they could get screwed, right? If they’re like, oh yeah, next year we’re moving to Miami. It’s been our goal. It’s our, it’s our life’s dream. We’re gonna go there, we’re gonna buy a big fancy house. And then they get there and they’re like, oh, their DTI maxed out from this second home that they just bought.
Tyler: They didn’t know. Nobody told them, you know, um, nobody thought to mention it. And so it’s really important that I get involved in, in their finances. Uh, not that I’m the best, they should have their own other advisors too. Um, but I’ve seen a lot of people make a lot of mistakes and so I can try to make sure that they don’t make the same ones I.
Gil: Yeah. Yeah. It seems like you have a much longer term vision of the relationship that you have with your clients. It’s not necessarily just about the transaction, but I’m guessing based on experience that you found that. You’re growing your portfolio, growing the clients that you serve, allow them, could be more repeat clients, and really you wanna make sure that you’re setting them up for much long-term success, so they continue to come back to you and your team.
Tyler: Yeah, I mean we have clients that have bought, bought and sold with savvy six times in different markets. Uh, I may have a buyer come here to Asheville and they’ve got four places in Gatlinburg and three places in Florida and a place in Arizona, and they come back and they use the team over and over and over again.
Tyler: And, uh, you know, I don’t wanna make it. Seem like everything we’ve ever done has been perfect. I’ve certainly made mistakes. I got fired by a client this week. Um, you know, uh, but we do our best and we speak the language of short-term rentals, which a lot of agents don’t, but we really do take that long-term vision.
Tyler: It’s a huge tenant for us, um, to make sure that we’re doing whatever we can to. And, and people ask me some, they’re like, well, what are, are you a saint? Like you, you’re sent from heaven and no. Right? Like this is, people come back and they do business with us multiple times. You know this as a business owner, it costs money to acquire your next customer.
Tyler: There is a, you know, a customer acquisition cost, and it’s much cheaper to get the same customer twice than it is to find a new one. Plus, most of the time if they’ve bought from me, that means they trust me, they like me, they like the process. They’re gonna go through it so much easier the second time than they did the first time.
Tyler: My life is gonna be easier. So no, um, I’m not a saint or sent from heaven, uh, but I really like to work with the same people multiple times. And so I want you to be set up for success. It’s not worth it for, I sell 80 to a hundred houses a year. I don’t need to sell one more. That’s a bad investment to somebody, uh, to make a commission.
Tyler: I, I, I’d just rather not. I’d just rather go to sleep happy.
Gil: Yeah. Yeah. So given that, like what are some of the values that you believe that. Within Savvy, not just yourself as as you, as an operator, but you wanna make sure that you instill in your all your team members.
Tyler: I think obviously the main one right there, you know, speaking, we’re talking about integrity, right? And, uh, that’s the name of the game. Um, but having that, that financial picture too, I think is a really important piece that a lot of our clients, I don’t know if they know we’re doing in real time, right?
Tyler: We’re making sure they get the best interest rates with the best lenders. Uh, you’ll find other teams, they refer you to their local lender. Uh, that’s like paying them to refer to you and, uh, we’re not doing that. We’re giving our clients multiple choices, right? Um, and we may have affiliate partnerships with people.
Tyler: I’m not, you know, I’m not dumb. There are affiliate partnerships out there, but also I’ve overridden those partnerships many times when I thought somebody else might be a better fit or have better rates or something like that. Um. And, uh, and so integrity is definitely number one for me. Um, and I think everything else bleeds into that, right?
Tyler: So if I was to say other values, it would be honesty, but that bleeds into integrity. Um, so at the end of the day, it, it’s about trying to maintain that integrity, um, and live in it. And of course, you know, it’s, it’s something that, uh, you know, you have to work towards. You have to live up to, um. And, uh, you know, I’m, like I said before, I’m not a saint and I’ve never, I’ve, I’ve never claimed that I do everything right all the time.
Tyler: Um, but the one thing I can say is I’ve never led an investor wrong on purpose ever. Because I just, there, there’s no one, there’s no reason for me to do it because I can find successful properties. Um, and, uh, and at the end of the day, um, I can go to bed feeling really great about what we do here at Savvy.
Gil: Yeah. Yeah. Kinda last question on, on, on kinda like your business and your mindset around that. Like what, what do you. Look for when you’re trying to find new agents to join Savvy, and likewise, kinda like what did they look for in you? Why did they decide to join you? Because I’ve worked at, actually I’ve worked with some of your, your, your agents before.
Gil: Um, and we bought houses from, from, from your agency before. So like, I know the, kind of the caliber that you, you try to bring into, uh, your brokerage.
Tyler: Yeah, I think it’s, uh, one, they have to be involved in the short-term rental industry already. Um, so if they’re a newer agent, then likely they own a property management company. They own a bunch of rentals themselves in multiple areas. I think that’s really important as well. Um, uh, so that’s a major, major piece.
Tyler: We won’t, there, there’s no agent on our team that doesn’t know short-term rentals in and out. Um, the real estate game, they may have to learn. Right. Going under contract and all that. But we can teach that. That’s pretty easy. And we’re here, we’re a team of like over 40 people at this point. So any problem that comes up, somebody’s experienced, um.
Tyler: Uh, the next thing is that yeah, we’re, we’re really leading with culture and integrity. They have to be a good fit for us. We won’t just take anybody. Um, it’s funny because we’ll get people, um, we’ll sign a new agent in a new location and then all of a sudden folks come out of the woodwork and they’re like, oh, well, why didn’t you know, now I wanna sign up now, or I wanna be a part of it.
Tyler: And the one thing that separates us from any other short-term rental teams out there is that we don’t hire two agents in one market. It’s an exclusive relationship, um, because at the end of the day, we wanna make sure that we’re promoting that agent as the number one short-term rental agent in the area.
Tyler: And if you have two people, you can’t do that. Uh, one is number one and the other’s. Number two, why would I send you to my number two or number three, or number 20 agent? I will only want to send you to my number one ever. So that’s all you’re gonna get from us. Um, and it’s not to say that there’s not a lot for us to learn.
Tyler: We’re at the precipice of this thing. There is so much to learn in so many ways that we can be better. Um, but I think the main thing is that we’re striving for it as to why agents are joining us. Uh, it’s been amazing to see. Um, you know, I cast a vision for this thing of being, you know, the premier real estate.
Tyler: Agent team of choice for short-term rental buyers and sellers. And, uh, we’ve totally leveled up. We have exclusive partnerships with, uh, software companies like Air DNA and rabu. Um, we work with BiggerPockets and big email newsletters like the offer sheet. So I think our, our biggest superpower and my biggest.
Tyler: Personal superpower is in my partnerships. I love to collaborate with everyone. You know, this we, you and I have, have talked about collaborating. We, we talk about different ideas. I love the short-term rental industry, and there’s so much more that can be done, especially with the advent of ai. We’re not even scratching the surface of what AI can do for short-term rentals right now.
Tyler: And now I want to be heavily involved in that. In fact, we built an AI model that analyzes, uh, short-term rental listings called b and B grade, uh, that, uh, analyzes them, runs them against an AI model, which has been trained on all the top listings in the US and then gives you optimization feedback for your listing.
Tyler: Um, and I built that people can use it for free. It doesn’t cost a dollar, it’ll never cost a dollar. Um, and I built that for fun, you know, so, uh. Something that, uh, I’m really passionate about this industry. I’m really passionate about seeing everyone that we work with level up and do better. Um, and, and it’s so cool because it’s fun.
Tyler: I love it. And then you get to see people be more successful because of it.
Gil: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I left the, the mindset of just the bigger picture. Um, and again, like when we talked, it was, it was not about what the acquisition, it wasn’t really about how do you get the most transactions throughout the year, but how do you actually set up hosts to be really successful and hopefully they grow the portfolios to be massive portfolios and they’re buying all their properties from you.
Gil: Um, so that’s, that’s, that’s amazing. As you think about onboarding new. Operators there. A lot of folks, I don’t know how, how much has changed, but the last few years there’s a lot of folks that were trying to get into this industry and they’re trying to learn everything from the ground up. What are some of the things that you really try to coach people when they’re starting to get into short term rentals?
Gil: I’m, I’m guessing the performance when the first few things, making sure that you’re buying the right asset, but then following that, what do you, what do you try to advise people?
Tyler: Yeah, so I’ll, I’ll, I’ll start with a story here. Um, I was in Miami speaking at the IMN Short-Term Rental Conference a couple weeks ago, and I got a call from a new potential client. So I got on a call with him and, uh, he said, uh, including down payment, I have $130,000. And I said, okay, well maybe if this is a 10% down, he goes, no, I, I, I already know I can’t do a 10% down.
Tyler: I have to do a 20% down DSCR loan. And, uh, you know, to make a long story short, I said, don’t buy Nashville. You shouldn’t buy here, you don’t have enough money to buy here. Um, because at the end of the day, you can buy the asset, but you can’t improve it. And there’s not gonna be anything turnkey in my market that you’re gonna be able to buy and not have to spend a lot of money to improve.
Tyler: And, uh, you know, Bill Faeth and Kenny Bedwell. Said this on their podcast a couple weeks ago, which I had a little bit of a bone to pick with, but, uh, ultimately I, I ended up for the most part, agreeing with them and they said, you know, if you don’t have $200,000 to put into design and amenities, don’t go to Asheville anymore. I don’t think that’s entirely true. Uh, so, so if you hear this, don’t think that that is the barrier to entry. Uh, we certainly have people that are doing much better than that. Um, but in a general sense, right? We are moving in that direction. And so, uh, one, can the asset perform, but then we’re not just vetting the house, we’re not just vetting the potential of our area, we’re vetting the client.
Tyler: Can the client afford to do this? Did they have the confidence to do this? Um, because I’ll tell you, the only clients of mine that have ever failed are the ones that we, we give them the, the roadmap. You need to put a hot tub. You need to replace all this furniture. You need to spend this much money. This is what it’s gonna cost.
Tyler: This is what it’s gonna take. And then they call me a year and a half later and they’re like, yeah, we didn’t do any of that stuff ’cause we just wanted to see how it goes. Those are like that. That’s the killer words right there. I know when they call me and say that. You didn’t do? Well, I, I know that that’s gonna happen.
Tyler: Um, and I was getting tired of hearing that, right? Like, and it wasn’t very often. It was a few times. Um, but now I vet my clients really heavily. Um, and that’s what a lot of, a lot of people think, I’ll just sell any house or sell to any client. I. It’s not true. Uh, and I can get that guy that had $130,000 to come on any podcast and say, I turned him away from Asheville and I sent him to other markets where that budget does work.
Tyler: Indianapolis Indiana’s a great market to do that. Very little competition there in like the super properties that we’re doing here in Asheville. Um. Uh, and so, uh, you know, at the end of the day that for me is the main thing. Um, and then vetting out what is it gonna take to turn that property into a property that can compete at a high level, not just today, but in the future as well.
Tyler: I don’t want my clients to buy a property that. I know in six months is gonna get outdone, right? They, we have to look at that property and see this property is something, if you put this, this, and this, you design it this way, um, that you’re gonna protect yourself going into the future, right? Um, so for me, those are the really important things to, to walk through with a client in the beginning.
Gil: Yeah, that, that’s really important. I, I, I think, like for me, I’m in the Smokies and the competition has really stepped up over the years and I think it’s calmed down quite a bit now and everybody’s. Pretty much like at the plateau on top. But I know a lot of folks that either one really took it seriously and magnetized their homes and do, they’re doing quite well.
Gil: Um, or two, they just left the bears in there. They left all of the old furniture instead in there. And they’re now at a point where like they’re thinking, do I now amenitize my place or do I sell the asset? Um, and that’s sad because like that means that the last two, three years you lost on revenues that you could have gained.
Gil: There’s, there’s, there’s value in that. Like if you did that earlier, you don’t have you, you could have gotten high, much higher revenues. Yeah.
Tyler: It’s a huge point. I think, you know, I always tell there are a lot of people out there that are like, okay, don’t over invest. Don’t do this, don’t do that. I get it. Um, you, you shouldn’t overinvest, you should run a pro forma, all of that sort of stuff. And when you get into the property, I mean, there things come up, right?
Tyler: Things come up behind the walls. You start working on things, things come up. Do not. Uh, cut your budget on the property just because, uh, things are coming up right? And this is why it’s so important to vet your clients. Do they have the confidence to go through this? Do they have the wherewithal to, to go through this?
Tyler: Remember earlier I said, you know, sometimes it’s $500,000 to get into a place. I have a client right now that has an offer on a place that. If they don’t get the a hundred thousand dollars credit that we’re negotiating, the deal does not work because they’ve told me how much cash they feel comfortable spending and with their down payment, it is not enough to get that house to a level I know it’ll take to rent.
Tyler: And there’s leaving some buffer in there. So to your point of like, you know, should they have just done it upfront? Overspend in the beginning if you can, and budget in a little bit to overspend, right? I would rather you overspend a little bit in the beginning and then reap the benefits of that extra revenue over the years, rather than in two years, go, oh man, I wish I would’ve put in, you know, those murals and that hot tub because now I would’ve had all this extra revenue and that, because you’re gonna end up doing it in two years anyways.
Gil: Yeah, definitely. And I think like people underestimate, like how much it does take to really magnetize your place and refurnish your place to be at the standard it needs to be. And it might be different from industry to or market to market, but I found almost all my properties I spent. A third of my budget just on furnishing.
Gil: So the two thirds went into down payment and closing costs and all that stuff. But the other one third is all about amenities, all about refurnishing. We almost, we’ve taken over properties that were already vacation rentals in the past. We took out everything. There almost was nothing left in there that we wanted to keep.
Tyler: Yep, exactly. And it’s funny, you know, now we’re looking at million dollar properties and we’re talking to people about putting 10% down, putting a hundred thousand dollars down, and then putting 200,000 into design and amenities. It’s not cheap anymore. Um, however, this is what’s gonna create a much higher buried entry to our industry as well.
Tyler: Um, and this is what happens in any profitable industry. That the, the every man can get into. Right? Uh, it matures. It becomes more expensive. That’s just what happens, right? But if you can survive in not only that, but thrive through that, um, I think it’s an industry where you can last a really, really long time.
Tyler: Um, nowadays we’re looking at some of these short term rentals and they look like little mini resorts, you know, and it’s amazing. But people, Airbnb, guests have the expectation nowadays. The novelty of Airbnb has totally worn off and, uh, and, and that. You know, feeling that you used to get in 2018 of walking through somebody else’s front door and that was enough.
Tyler: And then it was, you know, inside was like, looked like hotel rooms in a home, right? That is all gone today and people have high expectations and they want to have an experience, not just a place to stay. Um, and I firmly believe that. And uh, for us, that’s where we’re going at. Savvy. That’s what we’re looking at when we’re looking at these assets is how do you truly make this an experience?
Tyler: And we’re keeping up with all the trends. We know literally what launched last month. We know every great short-term rental that launched last month, how they’re doing. We’re tracking it, we’re writing case studies and nobody else has that kind of data. Um, and is putting that together from the acquisition, uh, point of view.
Gil: Oh, that’s amazing. One of the things that we talked about early on was really some of the stuff that you help host with after they’ve launched. Um, and kinda like your long term vision of really making sure that hosts have what they need, they’re set up on the right tools. Um, and I was actually surprised to hear that like direct bookings was so something that was actually in that vision so early on.
Gil: Talk to me a little bit about why you think it’s important for folks to get into direct bookings, even when they’re first starting off their portfolio. I.
Tyler: Yeah, I think, uh, when you create these experiential places, uh, you can attract. These folks to come back to your place, right? They’re creating core memories with their family that they won’t be able to replicate anywhere else because nowadays your place is really unique, right? Um, and so these direct bookings are so important, I think, because that’s an easy way to attract people back.
Tyler: Um, I do believe that Airbnb. I’m very surprised that they, they haven’t started it yet, but I think two things are coming for Airbnb. One, when you click on a listing, I think right underneath the listing, just like on Amazon, you’re gonna get, here are some other listings that are like this, or maybe that are better than this, or maybe that have a better price than this.
Tyler: They haven’t started that yet, but there’s no reason for them not to. Every marketplace gets there. The second thing that every marketplace gets is sponsored listings. So now you’re gonna have to compete. With your cash, right? And there’s gonna be an auction. And every online marketplace is doing this. And, uh, the second that Airbnb shareholders realize, uh, why are we not monetizing this?
Tyler: Uh, especially because they can see how much money some of these top Airbnbs are making, hundreds of thousands, um, uh, on their assets, we’re gonna see that. And the only way to beat beat that is direct bookings, right? Repeat visitors building an email list. Um, and so, uh, you, you have to be looking at that right now today.
Tyler: Um, otherwise you’re gonna get beat out by all the people that have been focusing on this for the last four or five years that can remarket to all their past guests. Um, one thing I think we’re gonna see in the future, and one thing I’m really excited to do is, um, direct listing, kind of like. Co sites where it’s not just for one listing, but maybe it’s for Asheville and it’s for all the best listings in Asheville.
Tyler: Um, something I really, really want to dive into, hopefully with you. Um, but for today, we just don’t have the time to do it. But I do think that some of those, like co-listing websites can be really interesting, especially when you start tapping into the world of influencer marketing. Um, we just hired an Instagram influencer to come here.
Tyler: Um, to a property and for a thousand dollars video, it generated $30,000 in bookings in a week. Um, and that went all through direct booking, right? Didn’t go to Airbnb or anything like that. So that’s, that’s the power of some of this social marketing. But if you aren’t ready for Airbnb to come in with sponsored listings, you’re silly.
Tyler: If you think that that’s not gonna happen, I would not be surprised if we don’t see both of those things this year.
Gil: Wow, that’s that. That would be a very scary thing if that did happen. Like and, and, and, and very much may because like we’ve seen Amazon do it and the things that get elevated to the top are the folks that are paying the dollars to be up there and.
Tyler: Every marketplace is doing it. The money is in the ads. Right. And that’s how companies like Google can offer all their services for free because all the money’s in the advertising. Um, and, uh, they’re gonna realize that,
Gil: Yeah, and I think also like what you mentioned about the similar, similar properties, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but VRBO already does that. If you ever shared your listing. With specific dates, they don’t actually bring you to the property page. It brings you where your property is, the first one on the top, and all the listings underneath it, they bring you to the map screen.
Gil: I found that to be really odd because if I, if I’m sending a listing for my VRBO, I want them to see my listing. I don’t want them to see everybody else’s listing.
Tyler: Yeah. Yeah. It’s interesting too because I think that’s something that’s hurting VRBO right now because, uh, you’re not gonna send the VRBO link. You’re gonna send the Airbnb link. Right. Um, but we’re definitely seeing a consolidation, I think, into Airbnb. Uh, for sure. We’ve seen a huge downtick in the number of VRBO listings.
Gil: Interesting. Ironically, I, I think, I think VRBO, and we we’re slight tangent here, but like, I think VRBO does play a lot of favoritism. Like if you do really well on VRBO, they’ll continue to send
Tyler: I’ve noticed that too.
Gil: Yeah, because I went dark, I was dark. I, I probably got my first year on my first property I had one, one VRBO.
Gil: And that was like in the very beginning I had, I had nothing from them for like 12 months. And then year number two, I started getting 20%. Now we’re close to like 40, 50% and we’re in the Smokies. That Smokies is not a big VRBO market. It’s primarily Airbnb.
Tyler: Yeah. That’s amazing. I’ll maybe give away a secret because I can’t remember who told me this. It must have been a year and a half or two years ago. So if you ever told me this, whoever, if you’re listening, sorry that I released The Secret, but I’ve waited a long time. Um, but I heard, and I’d love your feedback on this, that I.
Tyler: Um, booking.com in the Smokies is huge, um, and, uh, almost no parental cabins are on it. Um, and so I had a, someone tell me one time I was on a call with them and they said, I get about 30, 40% of my bookings from booking.com and the Smokies because there’s so little competition. Um, but, uh, booking.com is the number one booking platform outside of the us, you know, um, and it’s what international travelers use when they come here.
Tyler: Uh, and so. Yeah, it’s really interesting to, you know, kind of understand the different platforms and what they’re doing. ’cause I also think that Airbnb, uh, promotes you if you don’t, if you aren’t taking bookings anywhere else. I, I, I do firmly believe that, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they lean more into that because all they do is kill their competition at that point.
Tyler: So, yeah.
Gil: Yeah. It’s rewinding back a little bit. You mentioned interesting point about like how local, it would be interesting to see if local markets start to build their own kind of direct booking sites and that’s, we had the same. Um, thought of that’s actually where the market is going. And actually earlier this year, we end up releasing our own platform that allows you to connect multiple PMSs to one massive site and it allows you to list everything on there.
Gil: It was in preparation for this, and we’re starting to launch our first few communities like this, but like, I don’t know how big it’s gonna get. We’re all leveraging the same platform that we’ve created for individual sites, but I’m interested in seeing like how well that ends up picking up.
Tyler: Yeah. Well, let’s launch it in Asheville like tomorrow. We’ll get 200 listings on there.
Gil: I can definitely do that.
Gil: That’s, that’s very plausible. Yeah. Let’s, let’s, let’s work on that together. Um, Tyler, we usually, uh, end with three questions. Um, first one being, what’s the one piece of mindset advice that you would give to someone that’s starting something completely new?
Tyler: Um, you’re gonna screw it up. Um, I’ve had to learn how to really forgive myself when I screwed up. Um, uh, I. I think it was, um, I heard this recently on a podcast from, I think it was Mel Robbins. Um, and she said that you, you have to go back and try to repair things or else you’re gonna continuously regret it.
Tyler: Um, and so, you know, when I do screw up, um, I’m ready. I admit it. Fairly quickly. Um, you know that client that fired me earlier this week that I was talking about, I text him on the side. I said, Hey, let’s click the reset button. I’m totally willing and able to offer myself what, what, whatever time works for you.
Tyler: We’ll have a conversation tonight. Let’s click the reset button. Um, and he said, no, thank you. And, uh, you know, I said, well, okay, best, best wishes. Let me know if you need anything. Um, and that will happen. Like, you’re gonna lose clients, you’re gonna get fired. Um, it happens to the best of us, but people, maybe people are surprised with how much business that I do, that I still get fired to this day, right.
Tyler: To this week. Um, uh, and so you’re, yeah, you’re gonna screw it up. Don’t, don’t be so hard on yourself.
Gil: Yeah. Yeah. All right. Uh, question number two. What’s the one book that has made a major impact on your life?
Tyler: Um, rocket fuel, uh, for sure, number one for me because I am, when I read that book, I really understood myself, um, you know. I am a great visionary. I have lots of ideas, but the implementation behind ’em is terrible. I don’t implement them. I would rather sit around and think of new ideas and then tomorrow I overwrite them, uh, with other new ideas and they’re good ideas, but nobody can keep up with that.
Tyler: I. And so surrounding my, I I was on an interview earlier with a new person that we’re potentially hiring and my director of operations, who’s my main integrator, and she said, Tyler has surrounded himself with little mini integrators and they all run in their own direction and he doesn’t micromanage them.
Tyler: He gives you ideas and he’s really excited and passionate about it, but he’s not gonna sit there and, and, and force you to do things a certain way because he did. His brain has already like moved on the next day to new ideas. So it’s just not in his nature to do that. Um, so yeah, for me it’s rocket fuel
Gil: Yeah, it sounds like you have the characteristics to be a great, uh, Silicon Valley, CEO,
Tyler: maybe. Yeah. Never get anything done and just come up with new ideas every day.
Gil: uh, the shiny object syndrome.
Tyler: Yeah. But I would say for everybody, you know, I had a kid come to me one time and I told him to read Rocket Fuel and he was an integrator. And I knew he was an integrator, but he was thinking he was a visionary. Right. And he came back to me after he read it and he was all disappointed.
Tyler: And he goes, well, I can be a visionary and an integrator. And I was like, dude, we can’t exist without somebody actually executing and figuring out how to get stuff done. Right? Like, if it was all me in in the world, it would be a total disaster. Everything would be on fire because nothing would ever get done.
Tyler: We’d still be in our cavemen days, right? Like figuring out how to create fire a new way. Um, so yeah, don’t be too upset if you fall on one side or the other.
Gil: Yeah. Awesome. Last question, what’s, uh, one tactical thing, um, that you would advise folks to really amplify or get started in direct bookings?
Tyler: Um, tact collecting email addresses, right? Something like stay fi, um, to make sure that you’re truly collecting email addresses from everybody you possibly can in that group. Um, because at the end of the day. Those folks are gonna know someone else. So the more email addresses you’re collecting, the more you can market to these people.
Tyler: Um, and, and try different tactics, right? Don’t just send some bland newsletter or something like that. Uh, collect the email addresses and after they check out, send, you know, Bill Faeth preaches this a lot about his new bookings. He sends them a video. Send everybody after they check out, send them a video, email all CC’d together and say, Hey, we loved having you guys.
Tyler: Thank you for leaving the place. So clean, we’d love to have you back. I’m gonna send you a little discount code for if you guys want to come back next time. Here’s my direct booking site. Nothing’s stopping you from sending that email nowadays, and I guarantee 0.001% of reservations are getting something like that, if anyone.
Gil: Yeah, I believe it. If you, if you do something like that and you left them with a very memorable stay, they’re gonna remember that.
Tyler: Yeah,
Gil: Awesome. I.
Tyler: And they may not come back themselves, but they’ll tell somebody
Gil: That’s true. That’s true. Awesome. Tyler, it was great to have you on the show. Where can folks find out more about you? How can they follow you? Where are you?
Tyler: Uh, I’m, I’m like an old millennial, right? I’m mostly on Facebook. Uh, so you can find me there. Tyler Coon. Um, I’m also on Instagram. I think it’s Tyler dot avl, but it may be AVL dot Tyler. This is how old I, right? Like I don’t have a TikTok, I don’t have a Twitter. I. Uh, and then, uh, check us out on our website, www dot Savvy Realty.
Tyler: And, uh, you can book a call there with any of our agents and any of the markets we’re on or me directly.
Gil: Awesome, awesome. I’ll be sure to include those, uh, so we get the right links into, into the show notes. Uh, but it was, uh, really good to have you on there. I’m, I’m excited to see kind of how you continue to grow this agency.
Tyler: Me too. It’s been a lot of fun so far and I’m humbled to even see where we are today. Sometimes I don’t believe it. So
Gil: Yeah. Amazing.
Tyler: talking to me about it and having me on. Gil, good to see you again.
Gil: Bye.