Just Start Real Estate with Mike Simmons Inspiring interviews with today's most successful real estate investors!

Today's Guests: James Svetec & Riley Oickle
One of the world's foremost Airbnb experts and the co-author of Airbnb for Dummies, James has helped over 1,000 students all over the globe leverage the power of short-term rentals as a vehicle for cash flow and wealth. James is the industry's go-to expert when it comes to mastering performance and streamlining operations. He consults with more than 600 property management companies around the world.

Riley is a Canadian real estate investor and mentor who specializes in multi-family residential investing through BRRRR and joint venture strategies. Throughout the journey of buying his first income property in the Southwestern Ontario area, he realized that there is a real need in the market to help people go through this process more easily. Today, he owns a real estate portfolio worth over $8 million and has helped new investors buy their first properties without wasting time and money on trial and error.



Highlights From The Show:
This is a continuation of the show we posted a couple of weeks ago, discussing the ins and outs of short-term rental investing. We talk about financing, management, software, the science behind listings, and so much more! Make sure you don’t miss another amazing episode of the Just Start Real Estate Podcast with James Svetec and Riley Oickle and learn more about how to build a wildly successful short-term rental company!



Notable Quotes:
“Typically, management costs 20% of your revenue.”


Riley Oickle

 

“We find that if you have a short-term rental property 1-2 hours outside of a major urban area, it is a great opportunity for people to staycation.”


Riley Oickle

 

“I would love to have the company motto: I don’t do anything personally, but my company handles everything in-house.”


Mike Simmons

 

“Almost all issues will come from one-night stays.”


James Svetec

 

“The check-in process is really important because it is your guest’s first impression of your property, so you want it to be very easy.”


James Svetec

 

“I am the baby boomer of the group.”


Riley Oickle

 

“We recommend that people price their STRs manually at the beginning.”


James Svetec

 

 
Thank You for Listening!

Connect with Mike on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Linkedin, Facebook

 
Help Out the Show:

Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help, and I read each one.
Subscribe on iTunes.

 
Resources and Links From Today's Show:
Minut Noise Monitoring

NoiseAware

Nest

August Lock

Hostaway

Hostfully

PriceLabs

AirDNA

AllTheRooms

Mashvisor

Motel Makeovers

BNB Inner Circle

James on Instagram

Riley on Instagram

 

More Resources From Mike:

Level Jumping: How I Grew My Business to Over $1 Million in Profits in 12 Months
WINNING DIRECT MAIL - How to CRUSH IT with direct mail!

Today's Guests: James Svetec & Riley Oickle
One of the world's foremost Airbnb experts and the co-author of Airbnb for Dummies, James has helped over 1,000 students all over the globe leverage the power of short-term rentals as a vehicle for cash flow and wealth. James is the industry's go-to expert when it comes to mastering performance and streamlining operations. He consults with more than 600 property management companies around the world.

Riley is a Canadian real estate investor and mentor who specializes in multi-family residential investing through BRRRR and joint venture strategies. Throughout the journey of buying his first income property in the Southwestern Ontario area, he realized that there is a real need in the market to help people go through this process more easily. Today, he owns a real estate portfolio worth over $8 million and has helped new investors buy their first properties without wasting time and money on trial and error.



Highlights From The Show:
We start, as we always do, with my guests providing us with a bit of their background and how they got into real estate investing. Riley originally went the multi-family investing route and James was managing short-term rentals for other owners. They met through a mutual contractor, realized they had complementary skills, and decided to begin investing in short-term rentals together. Additionally, they do short-term rental coaching.

 

I observed that the short-term rental industry existed before COVID but that it had exploded because of peoples’ need for a safer environment than a hotel when traveling. I asked the guys several questions pertaining to this so that we could dig into the state of the short-term rental industry in 2023. James pointed out another factor to this was that more people were staycation-ing because they didn’t want to get on airplanes to travel. Many of the STRs in rural areas within easy driving distance of large cities experienced a boom as well. He said overall the industry is still trending up from pre-COVID numbers, but it has slowed down somewhat as the pandemic fears have decreased.

 

We talk about market and property evaluation, market area regulations, resources for aggregating data, common mistakes, various portfolio-building ideas, and so much more! Make sure you don’t miss another amazing episode of the Just Start Real Estate Podcast with James Svetec and Riley Oickle and learn how to build a wildly successful short-term rental company!



Notable Quotes:
“So they were like dog years basically.”


Mike Simmons

 

“Complete immersion in investing is different than dabbling on and off as a hobby for 10 years.”


Mike Simmons

 

“I was totally immersed in the short-term rental and Airbnb space, but I had never bought and owned my own property.”


James Svetec

 

“We each had those complementary skill sets.”


James Svetec

 

“There is the bird’s eye view which is market analysis and then the more micro level which is property analysis. If someone has investing experience, they would be familiar with both.”


Riley Oickle

 

“We not only look at what the regulations are in a particular area but where we suspect they might go in the future.”


James Svetec

 

“Those properties are very expensive because the area is very prestigious.”


James Svetec

 

“I wouldn’t say that an area having no regulations is a red flag, but it is a yellow flag, for sure.”


James Svetec

 

“It is boring, but you need to read the actual regulation, not an article in the local paper outlining what they think the regulations are.”


James Svetec

 

“The AirDNA data is really solid if you know how to use it.”


James Svetec

 

“I call it paper napkin math.”


Riley Oickle

 

“Beginning investors often evaluate properties based on emotion and that just doesn’t work. You need to be very analytical.”


Riley Oickle

 

“There is no way around it - if you want

Today's Guest: Tyler Jensen
I am excited to have my friend Tyler on the show today! We are also fellow 7 Figure Flippers and he is just the kind of guest I love to have on - someone who is an expert in his field and willing to let me pick his brain!

 

Highlights From The Show:
We start the interview like we often do with Tyler sharing his real estate background. He began flipping houses in 2008 as a way to help pay for his college education. He was taking classes and working full-time, so real estate was a side hustle at that point. For years, while working another job, he continued to flip houses because he knew it was an excellent vehicle for building long-term wealth. Tyler talks about how he honestly thought his career was going to be in corporate America but realized he could be successful with flipping when he was able to pay his tuition with the proceeds from his third deal. Joining the 7 Figure Flipping Mastermind was a turning point for Tyler and his business because he was surrounded by very successful investors that encouraged him and helped him scale.

 

Tyler explains his struggles with the lifestyle of being a corporate executive and how he was really trading time for money. He wanted to find a way to have both financial freedom and freedom of time so that he could be a good and present husband and father. After talking to his wife (and he tells us how this conversation went), he decided to pursue his dream of being a full-time investor. He went to Flip Hacking Live, joined the mastermind and his business exploded, doubling the deals performed several years in a row. We also dig into the process he created called the 7 Day Flip, in addition to Tyler’s thoughts on the current housing market.

 

Make sure you don’t miss another amazing episode of the Just Start Real Estate Podcast with Tyler Jensen and learn how you can succeed in finding both time and financial freedom through real estate investing!



Notable Quotes:
 

“I knew that real estate was a great way to make income, so I started early.”


Tyler Jensen

 

“On our first flip, we did everything wrong, so it was a great education in real estate.”


Tyler Jensen

 

“When I started flipping houses, it was a side hustle with the goal of helping to pay for college.”


Tyler Jensen

 

“The year 2008 was actually a great time to get into real estate.”


Mike Simmons

 

“In my corporate job, I was trading time for money and I realized it was really hurting me because I could never unplug.”


Tyler Jensen

 

“We have amazing women behind us that have our backs.”


Tyler Jensen

 

“The biggest thing in any flip is that you have to control the time, the budget, and the quality of work you are putting out.”


Tyler Jensen

 

“That system and process is critical to getting things done fast.”


Mike Simmons



 
Thank You for Listening!

Connect with Mike on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Linkedin, Facebook

 
Help Out the Show:

Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help, and I read each one.
Subscribe on iTunes.

 
Resources and Links From Today's Show:
Tyler’s Website

7 Day Flip

7 Figure Flipping

 
More Resources From Mike:

Level Jumping: How I Grew My Business to Over $1 Million in Profits in 12 Months
WINNING DIRECT MAIL - How to CRUSH IT with direct mail!

Today's Guest: Erin Maney
I am excited to have my friend Erin on the show today! She is a fellow 7 Figure Flipper and shares her recent real estate investing journey with us with the hopes that it will encourage other investors who may be struggling.

 

Highlights From The Show: 
Erin begins by sharing a bit of her background with us. She began investing about four years ago while still working full-time. She has a wholesaling company in the Milwaukee area and decided to put in her notice last June to focus on investing. With the manner in which the market changed last year though, she began to have some struggles. She said they had never had to give a lot of attention to their buyer’s list or their disposition process before, but then their buyers started dropping out. Erin was trying to build a company and hire employees, but thought if she couldn’t make it work for herself, how could she possibly empower others?

 

Because we are both part of the 7 Figure Flipping Mastermind, when Erin expressed that she was having some difficulties, we were able to get connected and talk it out. She said she was thinking of their company as a marketing and sales company and was reminded through our conversation that her greatest asset was their buyers. Erin said that she had not marketed to grow their buyer’s list at all and so she set a goal of adding 40 people to their list every week. Very quickly she saw that her efforts were making a difference and it confirmed how important it was for her to focus on their buyer’s list.

 

I asked Erin what her plan is for 2023 and she talked about how much she loves wholesaling, but because of the strength of her team, she is looking at exit strategies. She would like to take herself out of the day-to-day operations so that she can focus on building long-term wealth.

 

What a transparent and honest interview with Erin Maney who is battling through some investing struggles and thriving! Don’t miss the latest episode of the Just Start Real Estate Podcast!

 

 

Notable Quotes:
 

“I was able to give her some advice to turn that ship around.”


Mike Simmons

 

“You can survive in any market.”


Mike Simmons

 

“I am a big fan of Mike Simmons.”


Erin Maney

 

“While initially, I felt like the wind was at my back, with the market change I felt like I was running into the wind, and I hadn’t experienced that before.”


Erin Maney

 

“I had so much fear as to what was to come.”


Erin Maney

 

“You really reminded me of the fundamentals of underwriting that I really needed to get back to.”


Erin Maney

 

“A wholesaling company’s value is completely linked to the strength of their buyer’s list.”


Mike Simmons

 

“You probably saved me from going back to federal government employment!”


Erin Maney

 

“Our most savvy, long-term buyers are not going to be our best buyers as far as profit.”


Erin Maney

 

“Execution is the key.”


Mike Simmons

 

 
Thank You for Listening!

Connect with Mike on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Linkedin, Facebook

 
Help Out the Show:

Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help, and I read each one.
Subscribe on iTunes.

 
More Resources From Mike:

Level Jumping: How I Grew My Business to Over $1 Million in Profits in 12 Months
WINNING DIRECT MAIL - How to CRUSH IT with direct mail!

Today's Guest: Ted Bradshaw
Ted Bradshaw served as an executive with Xerox and IBM, then left the Fortune 500 world to explore the thrills of entrepreneurship. What he found was a long string of success that looked great on the surface. But underneath it all, he felt anxious, exhausted, and stressed, chasing money wherever it led and wondering why he never felt fulfilled. Along his journey, Ted gained valuable insight into how a person can achieve fulfillment in all aspects of life and he shares those insights with his best-selling book, Stop Chasing Squirrels.

 

Highlights From The Show: 
We begin the interview with Ted giving us a bit of his background, which is diverse and super interesting. From a dabble in real estate investing to video games, to online classrooms, and diagnosing cancer through nuclear medicine, it seems as though Ted has truly done it all. Today, Ted lives his passion in helping others find theirs. A leading proponent of the Entrepreneurial Operating System®, Ted is a speaker, author, an Expert EOS Implementer™, and the Community Leader for EOS Worldwide. Ted then breaks down the framework of the system for our listeners.

 

I then asked Ted to talk about his latest project, his book, Stop Chasing Squirrels. He relates that he wrote the book as therapy because he got caught up in setting goals and never really felt successful, even though all of the external markers reflected exactly that. He confesses that this issue was affecting him in very serious ways, including marital discord and panic attacks. He saw it with other entrepreneurs, as well. As soon as they were able to get their businesses under control by implementing EOS, they were left with the reality that they were not personally happy. It was almost as though having business chaos was a distraction from having to work on themselves. 

 

Ted had mentioned that he had at one point followed a real estate squirrel, so I asked him to share that with us. Ted talked about how his father was in real estate and taught him that it was all about building value over time. He started investing in single-family homes, like many of us, and that led to multi-family units and then new construction. He saw that even when particular units were experiencing issues, real estate was still a successful endeavor for him. He decided to go all in on a larger project and unfortunately ended up working with a high-end construction company that went out of business and he spent the better part of two years cleaning up the resulting mess. Ted said that he learned so much from this experience, even with as difficult as it was.

 

Don’t miss the latest episode of the Just Start Real Estate Podcast with Ted Bradshaw who openly and honestly shares his entrepreneurial journey with us! Go check out his upcoming webinar and course at TedBradshaw.com!

 

 

Notable Quotes:
 

“I have started six companies - four of them are success stories and two of them were learning opportunities.”


Ted Bradshaw

 

“It was a ‘go big or go home’ kind of idea and we ended up going home on that one.”


Ted Bradshaw

 

“You don’t just wake up one day and accidentally find yourself in that field.”


Mike Simmons

 

“I am a big believer in serendipity - things happen for a reason.”


Ted Bradshaw

 

“Please tell me you didn’t find yourself in the Middle East on some black market run.”


Mike Simmons

 

“In three hours we were working through things that previously it has taken us three years to get to.”


Ted Bradshaw

 

“I don’t pretend that everyone here hears all of my episodes and does everything I say, but I have been preaching the book Traction and the EOS system for years.”


Mike Simmons

 

“If your listeners look into EOS, they will find that it is a simple system, but it is also timeless.”


Ted Bradshaw

 

“EOS is systemized - it is the ‘how to.’”


Ted Bradshaw

 

“The picture can’t see the fra

Today's Guest: Candy Valentino
I am excited to welcome Candy to the show today because she has such an impressive and diverse resume! Candy started her first business at 19 years old with no degree, no corporate background, no money, and no internet. She successfully started, scaled, and successfully sold businesses in service, retail, e-commerce, and product manufacturing in addition to creating a vast real estate portfolio as a flipper and investor. 

At 26, Candy founded a non-profit charity. Through her business success, she bought and donated a building to the organization. Since then they have saved thousands of lives and Candy has been actively involved, personally raising millions for the charity. 

During her two and half decades as an entrepreneur, she has been named to Top Business Leaders 40 Under 40, Top 50 Women In Business, 10 People Making a Difference, Top 10 Business Consultants by Yahoo Finance, and was the youngest female to receive the Governor’s Award in Entrepreneurship in Pennsylvania.

Candy was recently selected by Success Magazine as one of just 6 ‘Women of Influence’ and additionally listed to ‘Leaders Who Get Results’ with names like Will Smith, Gary Vee, and Brene Brown.

 
Highlights From The Show: 
Candy starts the show by sharing some of her background. What makes her accomplishments even more impressive is that she basically came from nothing. Both of her parents had blue-collar jobs and gave birth to her in their teens. She thought initially she would be the first person in her family to earn a college degree, but was amazed that her professors were teaching her about running a business when they didn’t have one of their own! This launched her into her entrepreneurial journey.

 

Candy has a lot of diverse projects, but I wanted to see what her real estate journey has been like and if she was still investing. She said absolutely she is still investing and part of what she loves about it is its flexibility. Candy talked about how much she loves the design process and managing contractors, so she has continued to hold some of her properties after rehabbing them, but she really loves the flipping process. She shares that it has been important for her to remain somewhat conservative with her investing because the only person she has to rely on for money is herself. Now she is able to flip in the millions and her last project was a $4.5M total gut property. We also talk a bit about how she was positioned in 2008 to avoid the housing market crash.

 

Because Candy is involved in so many different businesses, I asked her what life hacks she uses for productivity and staying focused. She talks about how much she really loves being an entrepreneur and continually being pulled in different directions. She emphasizes how important staying disciplined and focused on your goals is and not following the next shiny object. Candy states that most people are not willing to put their heads down, focus, and play the long game, and so therefore, their businesses really suffer or never get off the ground. She says she has a productivity grid that she focuses on every day to perform the top three, absolutely necessary tasks for each project or business that she has to get done in order to move it forward. She also keeps her phone face-down and on silent all of the time until she is ready to handle the incoming texts and emails.

 

We then spend some time discussing Candy’s book, Wealth Habits: Six Ordinary Steps to Achieve Extraordinary Financial Freedom. She calls it a no-BS guidebook because she wanted to be honest and clear with people about how to build financial freedom that isn’t couched in flowery language. She stresses if anyone just does these things and does them consistently, they can find success as she has. 

 

What a refreshingly honest interview with Candy Valentino who was a ton of fun for me to interview! Don’t miss the latest episode of the Just Start Real Estate