DTI, STR Loans & Growth: Funding Rentals Without Limits with Parker Borofsky

Summary and Highlights

Introducing Parker Borofsky

Parker Borofsky is a powerhouse, multi-year national award-winning Mortgage Loan Originator and the visionary Founder of Wealth Builders Mortgage Group, powered by Movement Mortgage. A trailblazer in the short-term rental financing arena due to her investor-friendly approach, Parker combines passion, expertise, and an unrelenting drive to help real estate investors succeed. Over the past five years, she has financed an impressive $1.1 billion in loan volume, making her a trusted partner for clients looking to build and expand lucrative investment portfolios.

1. Why You Shouldn’t DIY Your Debt-to-Income Ratio (DTI)

Parker emphasizes that many investors miscalculate their debt-to-income ratio, often limiting their own borrowing power. Loan programs have different ways of calculating income, and working with a knowledgeable loan originator can open up more financing opportunities.

For hosts looking to expand, understanding how lenders evaluate rental income, self-employment income, and bonus pay can mean the difference between qualifying for another property or getting stuck.

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2. The State of Short-Term Rental Markets

Parker sees two markets where investors keep coming back—The Smoky Mountains and Kentucky’s Bourbon Trail. While some claim the Smokies are oversaturated, she argues that demand is still strong.

“Some hosts are struggling, but the market isn’t oversaturated. The bar has just been raised. You have to market smarter and differentiate your property.”

The takeaway? Short-term rentals remain a solid investment if you’re willing to put in the effort.

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3. Direct Booking Strategies That Work

Parker’s approach to direct bookings is refreshingly simple yet effective:

• Personal connections: Her husband actively engages with guests at their Tennessee property, reminding them to book direct next time.
• Print marketing: Flyers and materials in her units encourage repeat guests to skip the OTAs.
• Email marketing: This is the next frontier she’s exploring, inspired by other hosts successfully driving 60-70% direct bookings.

If you want to build a sustainable direct booking strategy, start with small steps like Parker did—get a booking site up, engage with guests, and introduce a follow-up system.

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What’s Next for Parker

Beyond growing her own portfolio, Parker is taking her expertise on the road. She’s speaking at major industry conferences, including Level Up Your Listing and her own event, Take the Lead, which focuses on empowering women in short-term rentals.

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Final Thoughts: Direct Bookings Take Time, But They’re Worth It

One of the biggest mistakes hosts make is giving up on direct bookings too soon. It takes time to build an audience and gain momentum, but consistency pays off.

Looking to improve your direct booking game? Join CraftedStays to get expert-built direct booking websites that actually convert.

Transcription

Parker: I like to tell people don’t DIY your DTI and the reason for that is so many clients I feel like sell themselves short. They go on, they try to google, there’s somebody out there that’s got a debt to income ratio calculator which it just makes me cringe because there’s so many different ways to calculate debt to income ratio and the The problem is that these different loan products and loan programs allow us to count income differently.

Parker: So, you know, self employment income, it’s not gross, it’s net, but we can add back depreciation. Uh, rental income. Some loan originators think you have to have one or two full years of short term rental income to use it, whereas I know that the Fannie Mae guidelines. So if you purchased a rental in July of last year, we can take that calculation and divide it up.

Parker: by the number of months it was in service, not a full 12 months. And so if I’m doing your debt to income ratio and somebody else is doing your debt to income ratio, they’re using a full year, counting it against you, I’m doing seven months, your debt to income ratio is going to be lower with me.

Gil: Hey folks on today’s show. I have parker. She was actually my loan agent when I end up buying my brands and property I’ve been wanting to have her on the show for a long while now We met uh in person also again at str nation and she’s has a wealth of knowledge specifically in really helping folks get their loans. So today we’re going to deep dive into kind of one, her experience to watch trends. She’s seen how she thinks about closing loans. It’s actually a pretty deep discussion. So we get into that. And it’s really interesting to how to hear how she approaches loans a bit differently than others.

Gil: And then we get to dive a little bit deeper into her direct booking tactics. she actually deploys a lot of more traditional marketing that has helped her raise in, uh, direct booking. So I’m really excited to have her on the show. I hope you guys enjoy it as well too.

Gil: Parker, welcome to the show.

Parker: Thank you, Gil. Excited to be here.

Gil: Yeah, I’m excited to have you. I personally know you. I’ve worked with you. I was a client of yours. I’m delighted to be, to have you on our show.

Parker: Thank you. And you were a great client, by the way.

Gil: I’m sure you say that about everybody.

Parker: No.

Gil: Uh, for folks that don’t know, Parker actually helped me close on my last short term rental in the Branson market. Uh, so she’s the one that helped me, uh, help me close that one. And that was when interest rates were really going up at that point. Um, I think we closed close to almost 8%, not quite, but almost there.

Gil: We paid a pretty penny on points too.

Parker: Oh yeah. They’ve gotten a little better.

Gil: They’re gonna love there. Yeah, I might come back to you to to refi at some point. Um, we’ll see. We’ll see where things shake out.

Parker: Yeah. Hopefully I’m thinking the next 12 to 18 months. I’m hoping, but who knows?

Gil: yeah. I’m going to dive deep into kind of like, where do you see things going? And where are some of the things that, uh, you’ve observed over the last few months? Um, but maybe before we get started on that, um, what Give folks an introduction on who you are. There’s at least I know of you as two parts, and there’s probably many, many other parts of you that I don’t know, but definitely at least talk to us about your hosting you as a host and you also, uh, as a broker too.

Parker: Yeah, absolutely. So, um, I’m very much involved in the short term rental world in two facets. So, um, I am an investor. I own and self manage 12 short term rentals. Uh, 8 in the Smoky Mountains and 4 in the Panhandle of Florida. Um, and those that we’ve built up over the years, and we’re now generating over a million dollars in revenue, gross revenue every year.

Parker: So, very excited about that. We’ve been through some renovations on them too, so. I don’t, uh, don’t necessarily recommend that route unless you’re really dedicated to the process. Um, so, yeah, own and operate short term rentals. And then I’m also extremely involved in short term rentals across the nation financing.

Parker: So, um, I have Wealth Builders Mortgage Group. We’re powered by Movement Mortgage. And my group focuses on short term rentals, financing. Uh, we’re licensed in 43 states. And, uh, that’s kind of my passion. I love problem solving. And so we’ve got everything from your 10 percent down conventional loans to DSCR bank statement, uh, some non QM bulldog products that are actually pretty cool as well.

Parker: So yeah, we’ve got the whole facet. I love doing that.

Gil: Yeah, it’s, it’s so interesting. I didn’t know about this getting into it. I always, when I first got into long term rentals or there’s a few paths that you can go, but when I went into the short term rental. And I think it’s still evolving where there’s actually so many different products to help investors get into it.

Gil: Both one that relies on possibly their own income and another full set that is independent and is probably more property related. Um, and a lot more now creative, more, more creative financing as well, too. So there’s a lot of options for folks to, to really get into to short term rentals now.

Parker: Absolutely. And it continues to evolve and new guidelines, um, for different products and oddly enough, interest rates right now are fairly even between DSCR, non QM and DSCR. Conventional, they’re really close. So I know in the past, a few years back it was like, oh, well if you had to go DSCR, your rate was gonna be, you know, one to two points higher.

Parker: Well, that’s not the case anymore, so it’s

Gil: That’s interesting. Yeah, but there’s still a spread on the down payment that you’ll have to pay, right? Uh,

Parker: Yeah, so the minimum for Dscr R is 20%. Um, I’ve heard of a couple products out there offering 15%, but my understanding, just from talking to people who’ve done it, by the time you end up paying the points on those particular products, you might as well put 20% down anyway.

Gil: yeah, yeah, I guess it depends on how much you’re how much that that property is worth and yeah, how much taken out of it. That’s interesting. Okay. Um, so you have eight in the smokies for in the panhandle. How have like how long have you been hosting and how have you grown that portfolio? Are you now in a steady state?

Gil: Are you still ramping up?

Parker: So, um, so we started in 2018 is when we closed on our 1st cabins in the smokies. Um, we have a unique situation because 5 of the properties. So, or in towns in Tennessee, which is about 30 minutes outside of vision forge and we live on property too. So we’ve got. 20 acres on the river, we live in 1 house, and then we have 5 short term rentals here on property.

Parker: We went under contract on that in February of 2020. And so two weeks before closing is when COVID hit and everything shut down and nobody knew what was going on. And so we panicked a little, but I said, you know what, let’s go big or go home. We’re either going to have something amazing here or lose it all.

Parker: So, uh, I was glad we made that decision. Um, so yeah, so we had the Tennessee properties first and then expanded into Florida. And we bought our Florida properties 2020, 2021. And then the most recent one we purchased in Navarre, which is near Pensacola. was January of 23. That’s our most recent purchase. One of our properties in Tennessee is what I call our oops property.

Gil: Okay.

Parker: Like oops we shouldn’t have bought this one. Um, and so we basically have to tear down this house and rebuild it. And I just haven’t. It’s been sitting there for a couple years. Um, and so I’m not allowed to buy anymore until we get that done.

Gil: You, uh, talk to me a little bit about that one. Why is that one a, an oops property? What did, what’s, what’s going on there?

Parker: Um, I think we didn’t realize, so we had a couple contractors go out. Our initial plan was to renovate the house that’s there, but when they went out there, um, two different contractors were like, look, by the time we do the renovations on this, it’s going to cost as much as it would for you to build anyway.

Parker: So, plus everything’s just, it was just kind of, It’s kind of janky. It was built in 97, but it just wasn’t built well at all. So it’s not like it was ancient, it was just not built to, I think it was like, maybe built by the owners? Maybe a DIY kind of project? And um, so, but then the whole process of building honestly has been a little bit daunting to me.

Parker: And we just haven’t taken the time to sit down and call the architect and find the builder and get it done.

Gil: Would that be a full teardown and rebuild? Wow.

Parker: So we’ll see. There’s also, it’s a cool property. So there’s 5 RV pads on it that have electricity and water. And there’s a barn, a 12 stall barn, and we’ve got paddocks. I do have a horse out there, so we’re getting some use out of it. Uh, we recently converted part of the barn into our short term rental storage space for all our short term rental supplies, so I can have my garage back again.

Parker: Um, so, we’ve been doing some things slowly on it, but, uh, so the RV pads, though, we can’t use them for general purpose. They’re supposed to be only for agriculture use that’s grandfathered in. Um, the county I’m in has some weird requirements about that. So part of the vision, potentially, is to create like a little mini farm.

Parker: And when I mean mini, like, mini donkeys, maybe highland cow, that kind of thing. And so, then if people want to bring their RVs, if they’re coming to see the animals, I would consider that agriculture use. So.

Gil: Yeah.

Parker: And then we could get that zoning, so we’re not worried about it. So

Gil: Is that a, is that a 2025 project or that’s still on the back burner until some of the other priorities for yourself?

Parker: I think, I think we’ll start it by the fall of this year. Right. Where I’m getting to the point where I’m ready to tackle that. So I think by the fall of this year, we’ll start that project. And hopefully by spring of 26, we’ll have that up and going.

Gil: Yeah, that’s nice. That’s nice. Talk to me a bit more, um, about your mortgage business. How long have you been, have you been doing that?

Parker: So then in the mortgage business since 2016, uh, I started short term rentals financing in 2017. And, um, really it just kind of turned into a superpower. I apparently I’m really good at problem solving and just figuring out tough situations. Self employment. I think it’s because when I see a situation, even if it doesn’t technically meet the black and white guidelines, if it makes sense to me, I’m like, okay, there’s gotta be a way to figure this out.

Parker: Like this just makes sense. Like let me, you know, let’s look at this product or this product or maybe if we explain it, In this term, it’ll work, you know, um. So I think that one of the things that makes me really good is just being able to look at every angle

Gil: Yeah.

Parker: and

Gil: Yeah. So I’m, I’m guessing you’re looking at really one is like the stability of, of the person kind of operating the, the, the, the investment to is then also the investment themselves, the property and how well it performs and. If those two ends of matching right, uh, and you know that you have a solid operator, that’s going to make sure that they take care of it.

Gil: And to that, this is a property that’s going to generate positive cash flow. There’s got to be some way to kind of make that work.

Parker: Exactly. Yes. And what’s interesting is, so everything you just said is important, but it’s not what the underwriters are looking

Gil: Right.

Parker: Yes, everything you said is key and important to be successful, you know, but the underwriters, their job, and you may know this, but Some listeners out there may not. So the underwriter’s job typically isn’t to make a judgment call.

Parker: The underwriter’s job is to make sure that all the documentation we have, everything meets the guidelines of that loan product. So really it comes down to documentation, numbers, math, where are the funds coming from? Have we tracked that correctly? Is a source of the funds okay? Do we have enough to meet?

Parker: The guideline. Um, so really, it’s more of a technicality on their end. They’re just protecting the company because once we sell that loan to the investor, if, and they’ll audit it, especially these non QM loans, almost all of them get audited. They’ll look through the loan. And if there’s something in there that doesn’t match the guidelines, they will force movement mortgage to buy it back, which costs A lot of money.

Parker: Um, now the, um, investor, the client never knows the difference. So this doesn’t come back on the borrower in any way, but it can come back on the company.

Gil: That’s interesting. I, I, I had. Thanks for clarifying that by that because I, I did not have at least the assumption that the underwriter. The main purpose is really to fulfill and make sure that the requirements are all met so that down the road things can get passed along. Um, I had always thought that the underwriter’s job was really to make sure that the investment was sound, but it makes sense because, like, the underwriter’s looking at things at excruciating detail, and they’re more looking at kind of the weeds of things rather than the high level returns on things.

Parker: Exactly. Yeah. So you may not be not you, but somebody may not be a stable borrower. They may be inexperienced, but on paper, they meet all the guidelines. And so they’ll get a loan.

Gil: Okay. Okay. Yeah, I remember even when we close on the Branson property, there were some technicalities that we had to work around. and I don’t know if you remember it, I vaguely remember myself even. Um, but it had to do with us having a non waterable condo or just kind of the structure of it. It ended up becoming like these townhouses that this builder built along the community. and I think when you went through it, you, you’re like, yeah, Gil, I think we can actually, there is a product that actually works for you on this one. and I forgot what the down payment was, but it was actually pretty reasonable. Um, but I can definitely see how you try to understand the different loan products, who qualifies for it and use that as like, you almost have a memory bank of all the different loan products.

Gil: Um, and you try to match that against really what the criteria is.

Parker: definitely. Yeah. Or at least a memory bank to know which product to go back and check. I may not remember the exact guideline, but yeah, you’re right. Like, and that’s the reason that when people are working with loan originators out there, they want to work with somebody who has done these complicated loans before or scenarios because, well, someone who’s been successful doing that, because then they’ll usually have this knowledge and understand like, Hey, okay, if we can’t go this route, Let me go back and check this, or this makes sense a bit because there are some investors.

Parker: So, like, for example, in the non QM world, we’ve got 5 pretty decent DSCR products. Um, 1 consistently has the best rates and I use it the most, but this particular 1, we can do some non warrantable condo aspects, but it will not let us do condo tells. So then I’ve got to go to a different investor that is fine with condo tells.

Parker: So it’s just like their tolerances. These different investors have different tolerances.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s, that’s so interesting. Yeah. Again, like I had no idea that this world was so complex, but I walked into it. Um, and I definitely, I, I think even when we were working with you, we had maybe four other loan agents that were trying to help us figure out what the right loan type is. And I think when, when I, when I first talked to you, you’re like, actually guilt, there’s might be something where you weren’t a hundred percent sure.

Gil: And we ended up going back and forth a few times, and you ended up talking to your team. And that’s when we found out, like, actually, that’s gonna work. And, um, even then, your team was like, Okay, maybe this might qualify. We haven’t done something like this before. So there’s almost a stipulation that, like, it could possibly, like, turn around in any way.

Gil: But it actually worked

Parker: yeah, so I think, I think we actually ended up doing a conventional loan on that one and I went and dug into the guidelines and it was a, um, detached condo. It was a standalone condo and the guidelines. So, if you have a detached condo, then you don’t have to do the condo review. So then you, so essentially we didn’t have to go through the whole warrant ability process because it’s a detached condo.

Parker: Um, but that’s where I wanted to make sure, because, you know, usually I pay attention. So it’s like, all right, when all these other lenders can’t do something, I’m like, well, the guidelines that I mean, are they just not reading this part of the guideline or interpreting or, you know, sometimes I’m not sure.

Parker: So that’s I think why I said, well. I mean, based on what I’m seeing here, I think we’ll be fine, but we do need to double triple check. And so, yeah, that was exactly the case. So we were

Gil: Yeah. I’m definitely glad I had you on my side.

Parker: Yeah.

Gil: and you’ve, you’ve grown quite a bit and over the years and there’s been a big rise in short term rentals. So as you’re helping more and more hosts or property owners get into short term rentals, how have you scaled your team? What does that look like now for you?

Parker: It’s kind of been an ebb and flow on the team. Um, I actually have a couple of new members starting in the next few weeks. I’m very excited. So I’ve got another, uh, loan originator who’s also currently. Not originating loans, but very active in the short term rental world. So I think he’s going to be awesome at this.

Parker: And he was always, I’ve done all his loans and he always like knew the numbers before I could spit them out. So he understands the process. So I’m very excited about, um, him joining. Uh, yeah, I’ve had to like, so I do have an overall, like a pipeline manager. We’ve got to have somebody that’s like seeing where each loan is in process every day, you know, are we on track?

Parker: Are we behind what needs to be done? And then I’ve got a loan officer assistant. Um, who’s handling each individual file in terms of communicating with the client to get documents that we need to get it to underwriting. Uh, I do all the upfront pre approval, figuring out how to structure and which loan product to go with, and then try to hand it off to my team.

Parker: And then, of course, I get involved if there are any challenges. I’m always happy to. Jump in.

Gil: Yeah, so you’re still very much the face of the face of it, and also the strategist kind of behind it all to figure out what what is the right loan product. And then there it’s really you’re leaning on your team to make sure that you we executed in a timely manner.

Parker: Correct.

Gil: Talk to me a little bit about the topic of DTI.

Parker: Oh,

Gil: I think I think the challenge for a lot of folks is that they’ll get into short term rentals and they’ll start their first few and then they might hit a wall where they start to cap out their D. T. I. I think maybe before we kind of get too deep into it, what, what is D. T. I. And like, how do you define it?

Gil: Um, and then maybe the second is like, really, what are some of the common pitfalls that folks kind of run into as they’re trying to figure out how to manage their debt to income ratio? Okay.

Parker: good question. So, yeah, so DTI is debt to income ratio. And for most products, except for DSCR, um, the debt to income ratio, typically debt to income ratio will need to be under 45 or under 50%, depending on the loan program, which means your current monthly debts, including the new purchase, the new house you’re purchasing, will Versus your income can’t be more than a total of 45 or 50 percent of your total and your gross income. So my biggest thing is I like to tell people don’t DIY your DTI and The reason for that is well number one so many clients. I feel like sell themselves short. They go on they try to Google DTI. Uh, they, there’s somebody out there that’s got a debt to income ratio calculator, which it just makes me cringe because I just feel because there’s so many different ways to calculate debt to income ratio.

Parker: And the problem is that these different loan products and loan programs allow us to count income differently. So, you know, self employment income, it’s not gross, it’s net, but we can add back depreciation rental income. Some loan originators think you have to have 1 or 2 full years of short term rental income to use it, whereas I know that the Fannie Mae guidelines say you take, um, so if you purchased a rental in July of last year, we can take that calculation and divide it by the number of months it was in service, not a full 12 months.

Parker: And so if I’m doing your debt to income ratio and somebody else is doing your debt to income ratio, they’re using a full year, counting it against you, I’m doing 7 months. Your debt income ratio is going to be lower with me and so, um, so that’s 1 example. Another example is how we look at bonus or commission income. So, let’s say you’ve been with the company for years, but you got a promotion 14 months ago. Well, the guidelines say to average 2 years of bonus or commission income, but if we can justify and talk to under and say, hey, there’s a promotion. So now this new bonus income. That they’ve received the last year is actually reflects their new position.

Parker: Um, they’re in the guidance. It does say we can use 12 months. Um, we just have to justify it. And so. That’s where you get into again, the knowledge base. So, if you have a loan officer, who’s just following the guidelines versus 1, who’s really thinking through. Okay, well, you got a promotion, it makes sense that you made 30, 000 more in your bonus because you’re in a different position now.

Parker: Um, you know, so that’s something that not I mean, loan originators have problems with that. So I can only imagine just the average person out there. He’s not in this world every day trying to figure out their own income ratio. Another example is rental income, so we have a cool new, not Los Angeles, but one of our non QM products, meaning, so non QM means non qualified mortgage. What that is, is, so qualified mortgages are like conventional loans. They meet the federal regulations that were set forth after 2008 in terms of, um, how the ability to repay and how some of those things happen. Non QM loans, that’s where we get into being able to do the bank statement loans. For the asset depletion lens and DSCR DSCR is a non. There’s also the full doc non Q and 1 that usually have slightly lower rates. And the others, and so we have a full doc non Q and 1. That for rental income, instead of having to use the tax returns. We can take 12 months of your gross rent and just do 80 percent of that. Offset or so. That’s a really cool product because it helps a lot.

Parker: You don’t have to worry about all the expenses, especially if it was your first year and you had some really big set up expenses that doesn’t get taken into account. So, if someone out there doesn’t know all this and they shouldn’t know this, um, that’s where I think people really seldom fall short and think they’re not going to fall short.

Gil: Um, so it sounds like DTI isn’t this, Isolated thing that is tied to you specifically and how much income you have versus how much expenses that you have on any given period or even year, but it’s actually the calculation of that. And all the different nuances is really coupled with the loan product that you’re actually trying to apply for.

Gil: So when you say, don’t try to DIY your DTI, what you’re saying is really like, if you’re trying to calculate this yourself without really knowing what the loan product that you’re actually trying to qualify for, you might make that calculation very, very differently. Um, and may either be underqualified, overqualified for whatever loan product you might be looking for.

Parker: Yeah, absolutely.

Gil: interesting. Yeah. I do remember that when we had our discussion, I had actually purchased another property earlier that year, maybe even five months prior. So we closed on another Smokey’s property five months prior to getting the Branson one. And when I came to you, you’re like, no, that’s no problem with this particular loan product.

Gil: We actually can calculate that back in there. So it was actually very interesting where I had made the assumption coming into it I have all these expenses from a new mortgage without income to help balance it out that I would automatically go over my DTI limit already. Yeah.

Parker: Yeah. Yeah, that’s a perfect example. Another reason that. It kind of can be, I don’t know. I don’t know if harmful is the right word. Maybe, um, you know, I feel like sometimes people read a lot of social media or listen to others that aren’t loan originators and have this fear, like, oh, we have to do or we have to close in an LLC.

Parker: So it doesn’t hit my DTI, but then they’re. But then they’re going to get stuck putting 20 percent down right off the bat when they could start with a 10 percent down product or 15 percent down product to preserve capital to continue purchasing and they forget that, you know, Hey, look, if you’re only going to buy 1 or 2 in the next year, anyway, well, by the time you get through that year.

Parker: You get your tax returns filed and you have rental income and then if you, you know, then do a DSCR if you want to do a DSCR, or then you could probably qualify for another conventional loan at that point when we have the rental income. So people sometimes get so focused on now, and I feel like they panic about DTI when a lot of times it’s not even an issue.

Gil: Yeah. Do you ever get folks that maybe purchased two, three years back? They don’t really have a good pulse on kind of where they are and they reach out back to you even before they go to their agent, the real estate agent to look for properties like a Parker. It’s based on what you know about my kind of my lifestyle, my income, my expenses.

Gil: Do I qualify? Like, and they go to you first.

Parker: Oh, they should absolutely. You should always talk to your loan originator first to see where you are.

Gil: Yeah. I, I’ve thought about that quite a bit because like I had to put a pause on acquisition in 2025. So we, we, we didn’t acquire anything in 2025 and it was because I left my W2 job. So I had automatically wrote off like I probably wouldn’t be able to qualify for anything. My wife still works and she has a stable income.

Gil: But our financials are completely different now. But what I haven’t factored in there is now we’re preparing for 2024 taxes. The last year’s taxes and our rental is it quite well and I have no idea. Like, am I kind of like I don’t know where my DTI even lands right now to even consider whether or not we want to go the more conventional route, or do we want to go a DSCR route?

Gil: Because we do want to buy a couple more.

Parker: Yeah, no, I say, definitely. And so we’ll need to talk after this. Um, yeah, so what, you know, what I have clients do is set up a call with me. I do need to at least do a softball on credit because it imports liabilities for me. And that’s what I need to To do calculations, um, and then just kind of revisit income and look at rental data and everything to see where someone is.

Parker: But, yeah, you know, I think sometimes people feel like, well, I shouldn’t talk to you. I shouldn’t talk to you. Time ready. It’s actually the opposite. No, talk to me just when you’re thinking that you may do it anytime in the near future, because if you’re thinking about it, I don’t know how can you even think about it in perspective if you’re not quite sure what you can do or what it looks like, or how much it’s going to take.

Gil: Yeah, I remember when I back in 2013. This is a little while back when we first bought our primary residence. And I don’t know why we had this idea, but we ended up getting a prequel before we ended up even doing any house shopping. And that was normal back then. Um, and it kind of reminds me of this, where if you’re thinking about going into investments, like actually talk to your loan agent to see what you kind of qualify for so that you know what price range of properties that you actually can, can afford.

Gil: Um, it’s to me, that sounds very similar.

Parker: Absolutely. The other thing too, or just think about this, the, um, the PMI, so if you’re putting less than 20 percent down, those PMI calculators on Zillow and whatever, it will scare you. Like, I’m always like, why are people so worried about PMI when it’s actually not usually that much. And it’s because of those, the simulators or estimators on Zillow and Realtor.

Parker: com make them seem like three, four or 500 a month. And that’s not

Gil: Why is that the case? This is just a bad calculation, a bad assumption.

Parker: I don’t know. I have no idea where those numbers come from, but they’re that’s the most inaccurate thing I’ve seen on there.

Gil: That’s funny because I would think that they want to, they want to be, they don’t want to be too conservative because then they’re scaring away folks to actually do acquisitions and the more homes that gets old, the better, the better position they’re in. So that’s, that’s kind of ironic. Um, and maybe like the last few questions around kind of like the, the mortgage side.

Gil: I’m interested in hearing from you. What are some of the trends that you’ve seen in specifically the short term rental space? So not necessarily mortgages, but what I’m interested in hearing is like, um, you work with a lot of the same clients. Hopefully they had a really good experience with you the first time and that they’re consistently buying properties.

Gil: Are there specific hotspots where you’ve seen folks really, they bought a property there? Maybe they didn’t come back. They’re not buying another property in that location. They’re moving somewhere else. But vice versa, probably more interesting is, are there people that are buying properties in one location that keeps on coming back into the same?

Gil: And they’re doing like hot spots that you’ve kind of observed.

Parker: Yeah, I’d say probably the 2 areas where people tend to repeat purchase are the Smokies, believe it or not, which actually the prices are really have really come down on the Smokies step by eye and, um, Kentucky, the bourbon trail, those are the

Gil: Yeah.

Parker: 2 areas I’ve really noticed, um, Repeat clients that are, I mean, have repeat clients purchasing in different areas, but those are the two locations where they’re tending to purchase more than one.

Gil: Yeah, I think that while I was preparing for the show, I was thinking about like what are some nuggets I want to ask you that helps help indicate like good trends in the rental market. And I had the same assumption that like smokies was going to be one of those places, which is kind of ironic because we hear over and over again that the market is oversaturated.

Gil: People weren’t making as much as they used to be, but I’m actually feeling the other way around where I am in the market. I’m One of the, like one of the better performers out there and I have multiple properties in that same market. If I were to actually go anywhere, I’ll probably buy another, another smokies place.

Gil: Um, but you hear this other, other camp where folks say that, like the smoke is, is just way too saturated, way too competitive. There’s no, there’s no money to be made there anymore.

Parker: They must just be repeating that from somewhere. Um, I still think it’s a great market. No, you don’t make as much now getting in as you did, you know, back if you bought in 16, but, um, yeah, I, I kind of equate the smokies is kind of like Orlando, um. In terms of attractions and visitors and how much marketing that the county does to bring people in and all the developments that they’re doing.

Parker: So, in terms of such saturation is when there is more supply than there is demand. And I don’t see that as an issue in the smokies at this point. Um, you do have to try harder. So, when we started back in 2018, it was set it and forget it. Take some cute cell phone pictures, throw them up there and. You’re good to go, you get bookings.

Parker: And, uh, you know, we had to raise our game. So we got, we had professional photos, but we took it up another tier. And then, um, we did a little redecorating. And so we’ve definitely had to try harder, uh, because the bar has been raised. And so there may be people out there that just weren’t ready to come up to that level or to raise the bar.

Parker: And those are the ones I, I wonder if are struggling.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if also like the, the market has changed where a lot of the older folks may be kind of. Not dying out, but they’re kind of getting away from that specific market, and you’re seeing a lot of younger investors that are kind of rebuilding the smokies in a more modern way. Um, definitely, I’ve seen like the quality raised quite a bit, um, quite a bit in the smokies.

Parker: I hadn’t thought about that, but that also is an excellent point. Observation I’d agree with that.

Gil: Yeah. Um, talk to me a little bit about your direct booking side of things. Um, so from, So from what I know, you have a couple of properties that are actually pretty close to home to you. Um, what are some of the strategies that you use to help, uh, drive more direct bookings for yourself?

Parker: So we finally got her just our owner res direct booking site. It’s nothing fancy. It works. Um, about a year ago. And so my, it’s kind of funny. I use my husband for direct booking. So, well, I’m inside working away. He’s outside a lot of times and we have a unique setup. So, 5 of our rentals are on the property that we live on.

Parker: We have peacocks and goats and so sometimes I guess they’re kind of wandering around. Um, we’re also there’s a swinging bridge in Townsend that comes on to our property. And so random people will come across the bridge as well. And so 1 of the ways that we’ve that direct marketing has been successful for us is because my husband will talk to these guests and, you know, remind them to book on our website.

Parker: Next time they come back. We do get a lot of repeat guests, or he’ll give our info to people crossing the bridge. And so it’s kind of a manual. Uh, process, um, but we have started putting more materials and flyers in all of our properties, Florida, here, everywhere, um, to remind guests, hey, book, uh, direct with us next time.

Parker: So that’s, that’s what we’re doing now. So we’ve, we’ve picked up a little bit on the direct booking side. Um, what we’d like to do and have just kind of started dipping our toe in is. Email guest marketing, you know, uh, I think you talked about that a little bit where the, the cadence and getting guests to come back.

Parker: And so that’s where, I think that’s our next step to increase our direct bookings.

Gil: Yeah. So, so it sounds like you have the almost competitive advantage of being local to the area and you have a unique lot specifically. Yeah. I can see you do things like even like small little signage or little brochures that you can live at, you can leave at the end of. That bridge, um, that talks about the property, talks about the area and draw people in, like, I think you have a very, I think you’re probably just scratching the surface right now and even doing things manually where your husband is the one that’s actually like approaching people.

Gil: Um, so there’s, I see a lot of opportunity for, for growth. Um, and it’s funny how you mentioned that you leave flyers, um, and brochures at your cabin. I hear over and over again that a lot of folks have put that in practice a long while back and it’s worked really well for them where they keep on doing it.

Gil: And in some cases I even hear that do as effectively or if not better than some of the like email captures when someone’s at your property or QR codes or using the Wi Fi. Like the whole, the old paper brochures is a very effective method.

Parker: That’s good to know.

Gil: if you ever need help on the email side of things, or if you want to upgrade your own or res website, you know, you know where to go.

Parker: A hundred percent. Yeah, no, I’m excited to see what you’re doing these days and your product. And we’re, yeah, I’m excited to see that. So definitely

Gil: it’s grown. It’s grown quite a bit. Um, originally we were helping a lot smaller hosts, um, in the three to six range and more. More recently, a lot of larger hosts have been coming to us, mainly because our tech stack is a bit more modern. It allows us to do a lot more sophisticated targeting and remarketing for folks.

Gil: Um, and we’re not built on WordPress, so we get to basically do however we wanted to do. Um, so it gives us a lot more flexibility to build the best performing direct booking sites without any kind of walls in the way.

Parker: That’s cool. That’s really

Gil: Yeah, yeah. What are you, uh, what are you most looking forward to to this year? What’s, what’s some of your goals that you have in mind?

Parker: Well, personally, I will be speaking at a few conferences this year. So I’m very excited about that. And, um, so level up your listing. I’ll be there. Um, and then I’ve got, uh, I just spoke at a, um, virtual conference at Stacey St. John’s conference. That was a lot of fun. Uh, and then I’m putting on 2 events, 1 in Atlanta and 1 in Charlotte called take the lead.

Parker: Um, and it’s, uh, women empowerment. We’ve got a lot of great speakers there. So very excited about that. Um, yeah, so just kind of building that, that part of my career. I’m very excited. I like sharing with others my experience and helping them be inspired. Hopefully, like, if I could do it, you can do it.

Gil: Yeah, I remember, uh, uh, you spoke at STR Nation last year as well too, so I saw you, I saw you live there, which is fun.

Parker: yes,

Gil: I love how some of the names that you mentioned, uh, like Stacey, St. John, and a few others, like. I think there’s such a strong community of female leaders in the industry, which I really love.

Gil: Like, I’ve seen a lot of folks that really try to support each other. And I’ve had Stacey on the show as well, too. And she talked about why she built her community the way she did. And she even explicitly said, yeah, we’re excluding males because we want this to be a very vulnerable place for the females in the community.

Gil: I love that, like, it’s, she’s, she and many others are really creating a great space for, for the industry.

Parker: definitely. Yeah. And that’s something I love about the industry as a whole too. It’s a great place to. Meet friends and people that are like minded, um, you know, there’s nobody in this in our neighborhood that I can go talk to about short term rentals. They just, they don’t get it. Um, you know, but throughout this community and attending conferences and workshops, uh, I’ve made some great friendships.

Parker: And so that’s kind of a cool byproduct of short term rentals. I think,

Gil: Yeah, and I don’t know what it is, it’s not, I don’t see it as a competitive industry. Although we’re like, me and you are both in the Smokies, but, like, and I, I know this with a lot of my peers, like, we share tips, we share our cleaners, we share all, Handyman resources like all the time and it’s not in a place where, and I’ve seen this in other industries where it’s a lot more competitive.

Gil: It’s a lot more like if I give, give to you, I’m taking for myself, like even in like the long term rental space, you see that a lot like long term rental space. People will not tell you what tools are using, what builders are using. They’re trying to keep it to themselves because they see it as a much more competitive market.

Gil: But Even though there’s thousands and thousands of us in the same market, we’re pretty open about like sharing our resources and just really trying to lift everybody up.

Parker: I agree. Yeah. Yeah. I love that too about the community.

Gil: Yeah. Parker, I usually end with two or three questions. I’m balanced between which ones I really love the most. So I’m asking you a few today.

Gil: Maybe starting off with the first question. What’s one of your favorite books that has changed your life?

Parker: So there’s a new book out, um, by Mel Robbins and it’s called the let them theory. And it’s kind of funny because it sure it helps in a lot of personal areas too, but. basically it’s how to kind of step back and not let all the little things bother you and be stressed out. And so I think this now, if I get an annoying question from a guest, I’m like, okay, let them be dumb.

Parker: They don’t know how to work the remote or that, you know, it’s like the little questions that drive everybody nuts. Right? So, like, before where that would be frustrating or irritating, I’m like, you know, it’s their vacation. Let them, let me just answer their question, you know, So yeah, so The Let Them Theory, it’s, I think it’s, uh, really cool in a lot of different ways.

Parker: I feel like a lot of people can probably relate to that book, but, um, so The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins.

Gil: Awesome. Did you, uh, did you end up reading that one or did you end up audibling that one? which one do I do? Do I end up buying the hard copy, the soft copy on like my Kindle, or do I end up listening to it in the car?

Parker: That one I would recommend to Audible because Mel Robbins is the one speaking and she’s got incredible inflection and stories and it’s good. So I would do Audible,

Gil: I love it when the author actually narrates their own books. It’s very different than some of the books that I listen to, that it’s totally detached.

Gil: second question. I’m bringing this one back once. What’s one piece of mindset advice that you would give to someone that’s starting something completely new?

Parker: I would say be excited and don’t be afraid to color outside the lines. Um, You know, when I first started mortgage, I went through my classes and I felt and I was like, okay, well, this is we have to do it this way. And these are the guidelines. And then, as soon as I got in, I started asking questions are like, oh, no, you can refer to this guideline, or you can do it this way.

Parker: I was like, huh. Okay. And so that really opened my eyes to. Okay, there’s not 1 way to do this. And, you know, the further I’ve gone in my career and been exposed to different situations, even buying rentals. So when we bought in Townsend, um, not many, the short term rentals hadn’t quite gained all their steam.

Parker: Nobody knew much about Townsend. And so there were a few people that were like, I don’t know. Like, you know, cause it was a big purchase. This whole property, it’s six houses, the 20 acres on the rivers. 2. 2 million, which was a lot, um, and, but we’re, but we saw the vision, you know, and I was like, how can it not?

Parker: We have a swinging bridge that comes onto our property. Like, it’s really cool. So we took the chance, but had to, had to step outside of the safety box in order to, to see that. So I really encourage people out there to have that mindset, to look beyond the box, look beyond the black and white. And. And have a vision

Gil: I love that. I love that. Um, and then the last question I have is what’s the one tactical advice around direct bookings that you want our listeners to kind of walk away with and possibly put into action today?

Parker: send your spouse to the unit. No, I’m just kidding. Um, tactical advice. I’d say, you know, to start getting plugged into a system, um, because I do see and hear we haven’t. Been extremely successful yet, but we haven’t even scratched the surface on trying really, other than just little bit here and there. But I have heard and seen so many other hosts, uh, that are booking 60, 70% now direct bookings.

Parker: And so I think that just comes with doing it, just setting up that system, finding a system that works, connecting with somebody and a company that can help you do that, um, to, to get going. And I think, I think that’s the best tactical advice I can think of.

Gil: Yeah, I think the thing that I see over and over again is that folks will end up trying direct bookings and maybe they’ll do it for six months, maybe a year, and they don’t see that 40, 50 percent or maybe even 30 percent and they end up giving up and then they end up going back to the OTAs and relying on the OTAs, but the folks that have been successful with it, It’s almost like that, that kind of like that growth curve that you see with a lot of influencers where in the very beginning they, they publish content that goes nowhere for a very long time and then all of a sudden they, they grow, they blow up and then they end up staying up there.

Gil: Um, and I, I think that like short term rentals is very much the same where in the very beginning, you’re still trying to figure out how do you create content that resonates with your guest avatar, what are they looking for? And you’re in trying to figure out marketing from its own. Um, you’re building that email list, and it does take time for those things to start to compound on top of each other.

Gil: But if you have at it, like, two, three years, like, it’s very easy when you start to get into those double digits or even high 50, high 60 percent direct bookings. I’ve definitely seen a lot of success in that.

Parker: That’s awesome. And you’ve got a great viewpoint and bandage.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve seen both. Like, I think the common mistake I see is that folks will kind of set and forget it.

Gil: They’ll think that almost like we’ve, we’ve gotten kind of used to posting on Airbnb. Like you have a new rental, you post on Airbnb and they automatically drive traffic to you and they think like, okay, maybe direct bookings is going to be the same. I’ll, I’ll create my website. I’ll set it up and people will just automatically find it and automatically book with me.

Gil: That’s not the case. And it’s not the case for any, any business, like if you started a restaurant or he started any brick and mortar store and you wanted someone to, to go to you, you’re going to have to spend time and energy to drive traffic to it.

Parker: Agreed.

Gil: Yeah. Awesome. Parker. It was so good to have you on the show.

Gil: Almost reminiscent a little bit about kind of how we close our, our, our last property together. But it’s interesting to hear your perspective and how you think about, um, Really helping people get into short term rentals. And I thought originally it was a bit more linear, but I think based on this conversation, I’ve learned a whole lot about just even how you think and how you navigate that.

Gil: And like, if you have the energy and you have the motivation to acquire more and more rentals, there’s actually a lot of different options out there for you to achieve that.

Parker: Absolutely. Yes. Thank you so much for having me on. It was awesome.

Gil: Thank you, Parker. Talk to you later. Bye.