How Successful Realtors Invest Their Profits

Malia Smiley:
I do realize that when you start you have a very small sphere of influence in CRM because they just haven't all opted in yet. So just by the sheer fact alone, the way a 401k works, it's going to multiply if you do 8% per year times X amount of years, it gets bigger. So very similar, you have enough people opting in and filming enough videos, you go from 5,000 to 10,000 to 20,000 to 30,000.

Malia Smiley:
So now you're just following all these people around. And at some point, if you're likable and trustworthy enough they pick up the phone and call you or text you or recall you or re-text you.

Tim Chermak:
This is the platform marketing show where we interview the most creative and ambitious real estate agents in the country, dissect their local marketing strategy and get the behind the scenes scoop on how they're generating listing leads and warm referrals.

Tim Chermak:
We'll dive into the specifics of what marketing campaigns are working for them, how much they're spending on those campaigns, and figure out how they have perfected what we call the platform marketing strategy. This is your host, Tim Chermak, I'm the founder and CEO of Platform. I love marketing and I talk too much. So let's dive in.

Tim Chermak:
Hey guys, it is Tim Chermak. And welcome back to another episode of the Platform marketing show. I'm joined today with Malia Smiley. Malia is a realtor near the Tampa, Florida market. You're in Dunedin, is that right, Malia?

Malia Smiley:
Yeah, so I'm in Pinellas County, which would be Clearwater, Tampa Bay area, Clearwater, Palm Harbor, Dunedin, St. Petersburg.

Tim Chermak:
Okay. And Malia signed up for Platform back in I think summer of 2019, and the previous year she had done about $4 million of sales. And Malia has since grown her business from about $4 million in sales to last year she did $12 million.

Tim Chermak:
So in other words, since Malia started implementing and really consistently doing the Platform marketing strategy, it's tripled her business from 4 million to 12 million. But as we'll discuss here in this episode, she already has 6 million that's under contract in Q1 of this year. So this year she's actually on pace to do over $20 million at the current pace that she's at.

Tim Chermak:
And again, just a couple years ago, Malia was selling about $4 million a year. So we have some really interesting conversations we're going to have during this particular episode, because of course we're going to discuss how she has grown her business. That way we'll talk about some of the marketing strategies, the ads and all that.

Tim Chermak:
What we're also going to get into is some creative ways that Malia has found to actually invest those profits to grow her long term wealth. Because so many agents obviously have a high income, they get to the point where they're making a lot of money in their business but then they don't really know how to save or invest it. And they're just putting it in really boring and predictable things like retirement accounts, 401ks, things like that. And they waste their real estate knowledge.

Tim Chermak:
So Malia has found a great way to invest those profits in a way that actually leverages all the local insider knowledge that she's accumulated by being a full-time realtor. So Malia, welcome to the Platform marketing show.

Tim Chermak:
So let's start back in 2019. So I think you signed up at some point in the summer of 2019, and I know that we had a Platform Mastermind that year. That was the year it was in San Antonio. And I think that was November of 2019. And you had been with Platform for something like five months I think and you didn't have any closings from platform.

Tim Chermak:
So you had been sticking with it for five months and had nothing to show for it basically in terms of closings. So walk me through what you were thinking then and what was going through your mind, because now we have the benefit of hindsight and you obviously last year, you closed over $12 million. And so this struggle of just trying to pay the bills essentially is a distant memory for you. But you still remember it.

Tim Chermak:
So walk me through what it was like you're five, nearly six months into Platform and you have no closings from it but you're paying all this money into marketing. When you went to that Mastermind, what was going through your mind?

Malia Smiley:
So yeah, I had been around for five or six months and I really bought into the Platform concept really straight out about the gates when I had just been introduced to it. I loved everything about it. Although $4 million isn't exciting now, but at that point I was pretty busy and I still had a decent little size business, it was paying the bills.

Malia Smiley:
And I was busy, my phone was ringing. So I wasn't really actually doing the stuff that Carly, my account rep really wanted me to. I, I'd hop on the phone and I'd miss my call sometimes, and I didn't go into my Platform CRM. I thought it was a cool concept but I wasn't actually doing any of the work that was involved. And it was actually funny because I think Carly was picking up on, I was like, "Carly, this is kind of getting expensive."

Malia Smiley:
And like I said, I had a decent little business that was working. And the Mastermind was coming up in maybe two or three weeks, and she was like, "I would really love if you could make it." And I messed around in my head about it for a while, and then I think we had a call on that Monday and it was that Friday or Saturday. So she said, "If you could just pull it off, just do it."

Malia Smiley:
I don't remember what happened. My schedule opened up and at the last second I was like, "You know what? I'm going." And so I think I decided maybe it was on Saturday, I decided on Thursday to go. I bought a flight for Friday. I remember throwing my stuff in the backpack. I was literally just went and I threw my stuff in a backpack. And I remember sitting at the airport to board my flight and I was going through the future, like cool, I'm going to land and then I'm going to get to my... Oh shoot, I don't have anywhere to go.

Tim Chermak:
You don't have a hotel.

Malia Smiley:
I was booking a hotel or an Airbnb or whatever I booked. And to arrive there, I knew nobody. It wasn't like I was calling people, like, "Hey, can we split rooms?" Or, "Where are you staying?" And I was just rogue.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah, you were still new to the Plat fam so it's not like you knew a bunch of agents that were going to be there.

Malia Smiley:
No, I wasn't reaching out to anybody.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah, like Carly had basically just convinced you, Hey, you really need to go because you're going to kick yourself a couple of months from now if you don't go. And so you booked it all last minute, like the day before you showed up, you didn't even have a hotel.

Malia Smiley:
So last minute.

Tim Chermak:
And what was it like when you got there? How'd you find a hotel? Where'd you end up staying?

Malia Smiley:
I stayed in a little Airbnb, and I guess I took an Uber over to the hotel. And I'm from Florida so of course I was wearing some big old hoodie because we don't have jackets and stuff. And anyway, I showed up and I just remember seeing some of the bigger agents and I remember being like, they're not... And no offense, but I was like, they're not better agents than I am but they've been around for three or four or five or six years and they are doing what you tell them to do.

Malia Smiley:
So I saw Justin [inaudible 00:07:48] and I remember running up to him like, oh my gosh, okay, teach me your whole system and blah, blah, blah. And he was like, "You know what I do? I film all my videos. That's what I do."

Malia Smiley:
He's like, "My follow up. So, so." He's like, "But I film all my videos."

Malia Smiley:
I'm like, "Wow, really?" Like, "That's it?" You're falling down on so many things and you're still making this extremely successful. I remember thinking that thought. And then Shane Saunders had this big business built in five years and agents underneath him and this whole thing. And I was like, huh. Oh my gosh. Like, okay, and they filmed their videos.

Malia Smiley:
And so I was like, all right, fine. I'm going to go back and I'm going to actually do the things that you're telling me to do.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah, just do, start.

Malia Smiley:
Sounds so stupid and it's so simple.

Tim Chermak:
Start doing the basics, yeah.

Malia Smiley:
Yep, that's really what happened. And then so that Mastermind...

Tim Chermak:
So really going to the Mastermind in November of 2019 was the light bulb moment where it sounds like you're just like, I need to start taking this seriously. Because maybe the first five months or so you were Platform, you were doing an ad or a video here and there but you weren't doing everything that Carly was telling you to do. And that seems like the time where you just realized like, oh, the people that are really successful at this, they're not any smarter than I am or anything. They're just doing everything that Platform tells them to do and that's why their business is growing.

Malia Smiley:
Yeah, that's right. And there's a point of longevity too. I do realize that when you start you have a very small sphere of influence in CRM because they just haven't all opted in yet. So just by the sheer fact alone, the way a 401k works, it's going to multiply if you do 8% per year times X amount of years, it gets bigger.

Malia Smiley:
So very similar, you have enough people opting in and filming enough videos, you go from 5,000 to 10,000 to 20,000 to 30,000. So now you're just following all these people around. And at some point, if you're likable and trustworthy enough, they pick up the phone and call you or text you, or recall you or re-text you if you fizzled out. And then they re-reach back out to you again to get the process started.

Malia Smiley:
So it keeps you top of mind through that whole process too. So just there was a time factor too that also helped.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah, where you just hadn't been with Platform long enough to really start to see some of the long term results obviously when you've only been doing it for five months.

Tim Chermak:
So at that point I think you really started, I guess started taking it seriously.

Malia Smiley:
Yeah, I did. I started taking it seriously.

Tim Chermak:
What happened after the Mastermind in November, 2019? What did you start doing in your business? Were you filming new videos every week? Or what would you say changed that set you up for the year that you had in 2020?

Malia Smiley:
Honestly what happened is I came home, and some of my little conversations that I had that had fizzled out and it was just almost sheer luck. Because I came home and these people that had reached out from Platform were like, okay, sounds good. We're going to list our house with you.

Malia Smiley:
And I was like, okay. Okay, great. Like, oh my gosh, it works. These guys literally didn't know me and now they're going to buy. So I listed their house a little house and I sold them a new build. So I did a double transaction with them and I was like, it worked. And then literally at the same time, I, my phone rang and the girl's like, oh, Hey, she's like, Hey, just figured I'd call. We've been texting all morning, but I just thought I'd call. And I was like, I who's like, who is this?

Malia Smiley:
And she's like, it's Aaliyah. We've been texting all morning. Well, she was texting my auto, the auto responder. And so the first two or three texts, I didn't know. But she had just picked up the phone and called me. So I ended up selling her house. We were under contract maybe 10 days later. And I, these, these both kind of happened simultaneously. And I was like, oh my gosh, like, wow. It was a million dollars worth of business. That was like all within two or three weeks after I got back. So like, that was just the C on top of the Mastermind that made me go like, okay, got it. I see how this works. And then just a few weeks after that, a girl reached out via Facebook messenger. And she was like, Hey, it's Angie. I knew her very socially. She's like, I want to talk about listing my house.

Malia Smiley:
And I was like, oh, that's cool. Like we had kids and I've run into her once or twice, twice. So when I sit down and talk to her to list their house, I said, and by the way, you know, I do this really cool marketing. I have, you know, I do the listing tours and we put them on Facebook and there's people on Facebook. And she's like, I know I saw. And so I, when I got home, I went back and saw that she had opted in and there's a bunch of realtors in my community. Right, right. And she had listed this townhouse with a different realtor a few months back and they had never sold it. So privately after following me around Facebook, her and her husband said, let's call Malia instead. So she literally, she knew me, but that Facebook, top of mine was the center for her too. So I

Tim Chermak:
Looked and she, and she, she even said, so

Malia Smiley:
She said, so she said, I know I saw you. And then I went back and found her, like for maybe three or four months, she had been seeing me on Facebook and she's been watching my tours and watching me. And I was still new. I didn't know. It's always what I was doing, but, but the other person didn't sell her townhouse. And here I am with a Facebook presence. So she called me. So I listed her townhouse low and behold. They tell me that they're preapproved for a $600,000 house already that they just weren't able to go buy because they hadn't sold the townhouse. So that was another million dollars of transactions. And, and then from there, the people who bought the townhouse, I ended up representing them and then I sold their house. So I just had like six or eight things, just all kind of come as a, as a, either directly from platform or from those transactions. And I was like, wow, cool. That was, that was really cool. And that actually changed the, that was the beginning of my business, starting to like really go to the

Tim Chermak:
Next. Yeah. It was, it was like all of a sudden you have all this evidence yep. That the platform strategy is working where maybe up until that point, you were hoping it was going to start working. Yep. You know, but that's when you, all of a sudden got this, like flood of like all this high hanging fruit starts to drop

Malia Smiley:
High hanging fruit is really what it was, Tim you're.

Tim Chermak:
Right. Yeah. And all, all of a sudden within, you know, a 90 day period, you get this flood of closings and you realize like, huh, maybe there is something to this, you know, platform strategy and all this retargeting and this content of, you know, staying top of mind with people. So this is happening in what Q4 of 2019 and Q1 of 20, 20 Q1 of 20 anyone. Yeah. So anyone who's following along knows what's about to happen in Q1 of 2020, and that's all the COVID lockdown craziness. So what, what happened for your business? Malia in 2020

Malia Smiley:
And you know, actually honestly, AF right when that happened, I, all these lockdowns happen. And so I was like, oh my gosh, we're not allowed to go out. We're not allowed to show homes. I'm going to be broke. I'm going to have to rent bedrooms in my house. We're going to be like on the streets. Like I was literally just like worst case scenario,

Tim Chermak:
Like freaking out. Yeah. Yeah.

Malia Smiley:
And so I was like, fine, you know what? I can't go out and do anything. And I can't go out and show homes. So in order to pay my bills and not just fully go broke during this disaster, I'm going to just sit down and I'm just going to work platform because I can do it from my house. My kids were home. And so I sat down and I started like working my CRM because like,

Tim Chermak:
Basically it's like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to really get serious about follow up now. Cause I guess I'm stuck at home. I have no excuses not to be really, really serious about following up with leads.

Malia Smiley:
Yeah. I put my kids in the pool. I can see them from my desk. So my kids swam all day and I just sat behind my computer and did follow up because I truly thought that this market was going to go a very different way. And then I was going to be like, so, so broke. And so I was just trying to like eek out just a little bit. So I was like doing phone work and doing computer work. And shortly after that was like, you know, started being like highest ever month, like month after month after month. And I was like, oh my gosh. Now the real estate market and COVID changed as well,

Tim Chermak:
But sure,

Malia Smiley:
Sure. Platform definitely helped. And you know, I was able to start knocking out a bunch of videos and I was getting more and more serious about platform too. So it all just kind of like synergistically started working.

Tim Chermak:
So even though obviously the world went crazy in 2020 with all the COVID hysteria, right. Your business really still thrived in 2020. What did you, what did you finish the year with in terms of GCI in 2020

Malia Smiley:
10 million,

Tim Chermak:
10 million? So, I mean really then in your first,

Malia Smiley:
My GCI.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah.

Malia Smiley:
I was at about 2 25, 2 30.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. So you're, you're your volume was 10 million. Yeah. So yeah, my volume was 10. Yeah. So you went from four to 10 in your first full year of platform. So even in like, even though like you admit, Hey, I didn't really take it super seriously. Maybe the first six months in your first full year, you still more than doubled your business going from four to 10 and then it continued rolling into 2021. Now you said you finished 20, 21 with about 12 million in closed sales. Right?

Malia Smiley:
I did 12 and a half million in 2021. Okay. Close sales. And as I had said to you earlier, I was sick with COVID for three months. So I was very, very sick. And I only had, I think one closing because I was just like falling apart and we'll get that

Tim Chermak:
Part,

Malia Smiley:
Which is what saved me through COVID, which was the investing side of things. But so I probably should have figured out fi finished out 20, 21 at about 15, but I was at 12 and a half.

Tim Chermak:
So you did over 12 million in 2021, but you'll admit like I was basically out sick for about three of those months. So really I did over 12 million in just nine months of the year, essentially. Yeah. Yeah. So that's obviously really, really impressive. Now, when you, when you look back at the last couple years that you've been working with platform Lilia, are there any like specific ads that you think just have crushed it for you? Like are there one or two ads in particular that you've done that you just really know helped, helped you stay top of mind with people and helped bring those leads to the surface?

Malia Smiley:
The first two ads that I really feel like that mattered for me was one of them was, you know, that cute one, the ducks in a row. And I had seen another agent kind of like fall in the pool with the ducks and you know, we're in Florida, there's pools everywhere. So I did a falling in the pool one and you know, I really got a ton of response and I was like, even my close friends and FA you know, friends on Facebook would see it. They're like, oh my gosh, that was so funny. And I was like, oh wow, okay. There's really a lot of eyeballs that see this around the same time. I ended up filming a listing tour where I wore like a dinosaur suit. And I was like running around in the background in this dinosaur suit. And it was funny.

Malia Smiley:
And you know, so like from those two, both kind of in like six week period, people were really kind of like, oh my gosh, this is a great, and then I feel like it took my business to a next level on those. But some of the other ones, you know, that I really like, that we do are like the personal moments and you know, just very stuff. That's not even real estate related. Like because once you get yourself that many eyeballs on you know, people start to once again, no one like can trust you. And so they're more responsive to those ads. They start to comment on those ads because there's just that many eyeballs and they feel comfortable doing it. So like, I think that my, my, my engagement where people actually care is way higher now just even on ones that may not even be as thought that didn't take as much time. You know what I

Tim Chermak:
Mean? Yeah. Yeah. Now in your own words, cause obviously I know what a personal moment at is, but in your own words, how would you describe the philosophy of like, what is a personal moment ad and why should you do it? How would, how would you put it in your own words to someone who like isn't familiar with that term?

Malia Smiley:
It's a good question. I mean, I think a personal moment ad makes you very real to people. And instead of this, like ho to realtor in a suit, you know, on high heels, like you become really real. And when you become real, I think that saying of people knowing, and liking and trusting you, and I feel like the liking and trusting you part is a big part. And so I think that's what personal ads do for a business is that people know and like, and tr learn to like, and trust you. And they're already like very confident and when they call you know, and I remember hearing this too, like people were like, Hey, because it's the same way we feel about will Ferrell. Like we feel like we know and love will Ferrell, but he doesn't know who we are. It's the same type of thing.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. Yeah. So what would be an example of one of your personal moment ads, if like the idea, right. Is that it's getting people to know like, and trust you and the idea is that it's not supposed to look like an ad, right? Yeah. What would be an example of a really good personal moment you add just like explain it as if someone has absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Like what would be an example of a really good one?

Malia Smiley:
So I live in a town named dun called Dunedin and in Dunedin, there is a big golf cart community where people, you know, everyone buys these little golf carts and they, you know, mess around town and they, we have little farmer's markets and cute coffee shops. It's just really cute. It's quaint. And it's also really like dorky and fun. Like, you know, they dress the golf carts up in tinsel for Christmas and we have golf cart parade and whatever. So, you know, one of my personal ads was me and my kids in our golf cart. You know, it was just a selfie that we took as we were like, you know, driving to downtown to get coffee on a Saturday. And I don't remember exactly what it said, but it was talking about the golf carts and how, if you, if you want to enjoy this type of community, like Dunning's a great golf cart community and you know, it's fun and whatever.

Malia Smiley:
And you know, I just had so much engagement because how fun, like, how fun is that? How fun to take your family to get coffee on a Saturday, in a golf cart, you know, and like perfect weather. And so anyone who knows Dunedin or who lives in a similar golf cart community who has a golf cart who decorates their golf cart, like they're all chiming in and commenting because it's really something that's kind of personal. And if you don't have a golf cart, but you're like, wow, that's so cool. Like I want to do that. So, you know, it kind of hits on a lot of buttons for people, you know?

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. And most importantly, as you just described it doesn't look like an ad. Yep. Like that's not the typical thing that a realtor would post on Instagram or post on Facebook. Just kind of a fun lifestyle moment that they're sharing of, Hey, I'm taking my family here and you write a paragraph or two about what's going on in the picture, but you're not mentioning that you're a realtor. You're not mentioning here's my cell phone. If you want to buy a house here, you know, it doesn't look like an ad. It's just kind of like a quick snapshot of something that was going on in your personal life. And you write a quick paragraph about it and it has absolutely nothing to do with the real estate market. It's just helping people get to know who you are.

Malia Smiley:
That was my favorite part about platform and platform's marketing concept. I don't like that ho toy high pollutant vibe. It's just not my vibe. And so when it was like constantly talking about your sales, constantly talking about how great you are, and it felt like an ad and everything was an ad and it was high pressure sales. Like that is just so opposite of me. I'm low pressure sales. I'm, I'm, I'm I want to give people knowledge and good information and information to think with. And, you know, I've been in the real estate world for a long time. So like my, my take on the real estate world and my viewpoints on how I think things are changing and shifting and the value of investing in real estate and all this stuff. So like I'm not high pressure. And so those ads feel high pressure. And I want my marketing to feel like me, you know what I mean?

Malia Smiley:
I want it to reflect what my philosophy is and my concept. So for me, it was just kind of like a no brainer when I saw platform, you know, prior to that, when you used stuff like Zillow ads and whatever, like you better answer the phone right away. And by the way, I have two kids. So like, I didn't want to race out the door on a Saturday at 1:00 PM because I know if I don't go show them that house, that instant, first of all, they're not even loyal to me in the first place. But if I do race out the door and show them to the house, I got a 50 50 shot that they are going to be loyal. But if I don't answer that phone call, they're calling the next person one inch farther down on their phone. Yep. Whoever's going to answer the phone. So there's no loyalty and there's no stability. And I didn't like that. And I had to be high pressure.

Tim Chermak:
And obviously

Malia Smiley:
Right now, you

Tim Chermak:
Know, you're, you're completely dependent on Zillow. If that's how you're getting all your leads. Like your entire income is literally dependent on one company that could change their terms or contracts at any time they could price, give those leads to another realtor. Right. Right. And so, yeah, like you said, it's just not even, even if it's profitable, here's the thing. Even if you're paying Zillow a couple grand a month and it's bringing in 10 grand a month, so it's actually profitable. That's not how I'd want to build the foundation of my real estate business. Because you said those people are not loyal to you. The only reason they called you is because that was maybe the first phone number that popped up. If you don't immediately answer, and you're not immediately willing to go show them a house, like they'll move on to the next person who is like, that's not the type of client that you want.

Tim Chermak:
Like those aren't the people you want to be adding to your sphere. Because people tend to refer people that are like them. And so if someone's an annoying client to work with, they're going to, you know, statistically refer other people that are annoying to work with. Like that's just how it works. Yeah. So it's not really the foundation you want to be building your business. So that's awesome. All right. So your business kicked in 2020, even though the whole world was going crazy with all these lockdowns and COVID and everything in 2021, things were even better. Yeah. You know, you scaled to, like you said, doing over 12 million, but really only working like nine months of the year because you got so sick for three of those months. Yep. That you accomplished that in basically just nine months, which is amazing. Yeah. Now I want to, I want to kind of shift gears a little bit and talk about what happens with those profits.

Tim Chermak:
Because one thing that's really impressed me about what you've done in your market is that as obviously a professional full-time realtor, you're studying the markets all day, you know what neighborhoods are hot, you know, what the home price trends are and everything. And you started looking at investment properties and Airbnbs and you've invested in some Airbnbs yourself and you know, have these units. I'm not sure what your mixture is of long term rental versus short term vacation rentals. But I know that you own a bunch of investments yourself, which allows you to leverage the knowledge you've built up in your career and then use that to invest the profits from your normal day to day real estate career. And I think this is brilliant because many, many agents, you know, they, they get to the point where they're making like a really high income, right?

Tim Chermak:
Whether it's 200,000 a year, 300,000 a year, whatever. And then they just stick it in index funds or, you know, whatever stock market mutual funds or, you know, they just do very predictable things with their money and that's fine. But the interesting thing is there's there's rules. When you know, invest in equities on insider trading, like you cannot buy stocks or sell stocks based on insider tips that are not available to the general public. Like people go to jail for this all the time, because it's just illegal. Right. And yet almost all real estate investing in one way or another. If you think about it is done on insider trading, it's done because you know, something that the average person out there doesn't know and you're leveraging that information asymmetry to your advantage. And so in the, in the conversations we've had in the past, that's become really clear to me that you're like, this is just obvious to me.

Tim Chermak:
Like it's obvious that if I'm a real estate expert, why would I not use that knowledge to make my own investments? Because this is a part of, you know, the economy that I have a clear advantage. I know more than the average person. I'm not just like gambling, where I put my money in the stock market, cross my fingers and hope it goes up, because that's almost the definition of gambling, right? Yeah. I'm actually using my knowledge that I do know more than 99% of people about the Airbnb or the investment rental market here in the greater at Dunedin area. I can take advantage of that information advantage to make money. And so I know that you have invested a lot of the profits from your real estate business in acquiring rehabbing, Airbnb properties and then owning them for the cash flow. So let's get into that. How many, how many properties, how many doors do you have right now? What does your portfolio look like? Like right now? Yeah. And how did you get started?

Malia Smiley:
So I actually had a really great advantage because my dad and my mom owned rentals and they actually happened before Airbnb exists and we called them Airbnbs. They were like hotel motels. They were called condo hotels or long term rentals or short term rentals. But the short term rental market, wasn't nearly what it was back then that it is now. Sure, sure. So I had that advantage and I saw my mom and dad do it. And so I actually just knew that.

Tim Chermak:
So it like, it, like, didn't feel weird to you when Airbnb popped up, it wasn't like this whole new business model. Like you had seen it before.

Malia Smiley:
Yeah, exactly. Like I was already actually managing my parents' units in Hawaii where, which is where I lived for a long time. So, you know, for me it was kind of just like a really relatively easy transition. And I knew that game because I had done it with my parents. But you know, I feel like, as you said, like insider trading, like you can't do that if you're in the stock market, but guess what? In the real estate world, like not even insider trading, like it doesn't even have to be these like amazing tips and tricks. Like I just know, I know, oh, this house is going to come on the market or, oh, I talked to that person. I talked to your neighbor's friend, you know, a couple years ago. And they had a, you know, there was an investor that was talking about putting in a new strip mall, just whatever, just a bunch of information. And in addition to that, you have all the people, you already know everyone in this world, you know, contractors, you know, handymen, you know, AC guys, you know, you know, you know them all. So you've got a really good basis already built just in your professional world of selling real estate to be able to transition over to owning rentals, whether

Tim Chermak:
They're yeah. And long term

Malia Smiley:
That's.

Tim Chermak:
I said, that's a, that's a huge point that I think many agents take for granted is that yeah. You already have the full network of like your preferred contractors and vendors that you trust, whether it's plumbers, electricians, GCs, you know, even like interior designers, stagers, like you have this incredible network that other people would probably be willing to pay for. They would kill to know every single person. Yeah. And yet, because of what you do nine to five, like you already know all those people, you already have such an advantage in getting started in whether it's long term rentals or short term vacation rentals as an agent. But most agents don't think of it that way because they take it for granted because it's kind of like, well of course I know all these people, right. But they don't realize the right, the average person doesn't, that's a huge advantage.

Malia Smiley:
And let me say, who else you even know, you know, real estate attorneys, you know, you have access to all the paperwork that you could need contracts, leases short, you know, you know, all the lingo, you know, you know what I mean? There's just so many things that you have your hands on that other people, yeah. You, you know about what rents are. If you've ever sold a duplex or a Plex, you already kind of know what rents are in the area because your clients guaranteed have to have asked it to you. So you already kind of have a gist on that. You know, you know, a little bit of the lingo on, you know, on the, on the investor side of things, you know, what a flip is, you know, to look for really crappy flip jobs. You know what I mean? So like you just have so much going for you already,

Tim Chermak:
You, you also know like the underlying value of a neighborhood where you might acquire something. Like that's something that the average person, if it's just, I don't know, some random doctor or lawyer who has some extra money to invest. Right. And they're like, Hey, I'll get I'll I'll, I'll get an Airbnb. Right. They don't really know the underlying value of that asset other than their maybe guessing what it might rent for every month. You know, if it's on the Airbnb market and they can do research on Airbnb and see what are, what are stuff in the area renting for. Right. But what they're basically guessing at is all right. But even if it doesn't rent, what's it worth. So in a worst case scenario, if I try this for a year or two and I need to sell this property later, what is it actually worth?

Tim Chermak:
What will I be able to sell it for? Is it in an appreciating neighborhood? Or am I going to have to take a loss? You know? And I sell it a year or two from now as an agent, you don't really have any of that informational risk because I mean, I would hope, you know, if you're acquiring a property, like what it's true market rate is, right. Is the neighborhood appreciating where if you do hang onto it for a year or two, but you decide to sell it later, do you know that, you know, you should be able to sell it for more like, you know, all those things basically off the top of your head that's right. That again, you take that for granted, but the average person doesn't, there are multi, multi, I mean, even Decca millionaires out there, people who have, you know, base information.

Malia Smiley:
Yeah,

Tim Chermak:
That's right. Yeah. That, you know, maybe they're worth 25 million and they don't know what you know about your local market and that's super, super valuable.

Malia Smiley:
That's right. And like, I know that they're doing a downtown redevelopment. Right. And so I know the downtown redevelopment map and redevelopment core, and I know what streets are there. So I know even though it's kind of a crap neighborhood right now, and it's been that way for a long time, they're giving out grants to businesses to come into that area to re revitalize the whole thing. I know that other people don't. So if someone's like, yeah, I want to buy and hold like, okay, that's where I'm going to take you because you're going to get property for cheap or cheap compared to what it is here. And we know it's going to go up. It's almost like not even a gamble. Like it's like, you know, tomorrow morning, the sun's going to rise. Like it, this is going to go up. This is approved. Millions of dollars are being put in here. You can't see it yet. But as a local agent, I know this, you know,

Tim Chermak:
So what is your personal portfolio look like? Right. Normally like how many units do you own?

Malia Smiley:
So I have 10 doors. Six of them are short term Airbnbs. Four of them are long term. I keep a little bit of a balance. I like the little bit of stability of the long term. And actually some of my, some of my Airbnbs I've actually started making like monthly rentals. I personally know that there's a big market that no one really kind of pays attention to. And that's at like midterm market. Those are the people that like need a landing spot for six or eight or 10 weeks to come, move into town, start shopping for the house, have a spot for their family and then move into the house. So like one of my long term rentals, I moved into this kind of midterm concept and I actually use it to house my clients when they come in and they pay me like a fair market rent, I give them right. A couple hundred dollars off of what I would charge someone else. But I have it available. They're super thankful because they can actually

Tim Chermak:
Land, especially right now. When, so often people have a contingencies on their offers of like, Hey, I need to find a spot to live. If I sell, you know, that would be super valuable right now. So you keep kind of a balanced mix of, Hey, it's not all short term Airbnb. I have basically it's almost 50, 50 long term rentals where they're just stable, predictable income. I know exactly how much money I'm collecting every month. And then the other half is the slightly higher profit margin. Short-term Airbnb rentals where the trade off is of course you can make more money, but there's also the unpredictability of, you're not guaranteed that you're going to have someone renting every day of the month, obviously. So in your area, because obviously everyone listening to this podcast knows that every market is different, right? So it's not that what you're doing in Dunedin, that all of the numbers are going to apply anywhere else in the country. But let's just talk about in your market. What is the ideal Airbnb investment property, in your opinion, like in your opinion, what makes the most sense? Is it a $300,000 house with three bedrooms and two bathrooms? Is it a must be a platform lead? Is it a, is it a $200,000 condo that's within walking distance of the beach? I mean, what to you makes the most sense as an investor in your area of what you're looking for when you buy an Airbnb property,

Malia Smiley:
I'm going to answer this question, but it's not going to be an answer that you expect. And the answer to that is the one that pays the bills and the one that makes you happy. So we have a huge range of things that you can buy, but ultimately the numbers have to just make sense. And so for example, like there are cute little places for two 50 or $300,000, like cute little studio condos that are on the water. If you are an out of state investor and you maybe older, you don't have time to come do the maintenance, the fence, the gardening, the thing. Yeah, I get that. It has HOA fees, but guess what you're just paying and someone else gets to do it and you don't have to deal with all of it. And that makes sense for an out-of-state investor. Right. And you could, you know, they, they do all this management and pest control and whatnot. So like that's a good setup for that

Tim Chermak:
Type of thing. Now on, on, on your properties that you own, Malia, are you personally going and mowing MI lawns and cleaning or are you hiring that out? All that step out to, I,

Malia Smiley:
I don't have time for it. I do hire it

Tim Chermak:
Out. Okay. So you hire all that out, but obviously the nice thing about Airbnb is you can pass on the cost of cleaning often to the people renting and they pay a cleaning fee.

Malia Smiley:
Yep. And you know, I have a theory. I used to, I back early when I was much younger, I had bought some houses that were really kind of like in Soso neighborhoods and junkie and you know, ultimately a lot of those houses, the tenants would ruin stuff and whatever. And you know, then it's like, well, don't put nice stuff in a rental. Like, you know what? I put nice stuff in a rental and I charge the price that's equivalent to it. And when my stuff gets ruined, it's already built into my price that I can replace it. And the people that I attract seem to be higher on clientele anyway. So I just have a whole lot less of my stuff being ruined. So

Tim Chermak:
Sure. What is, okay, what is, what is the average, because I know I'm assuming all of your Airbnb units are not literally the same price, right? What is the average kind of price of what you're charging for Airbnb? Just so people can get an idea. Hey, is Melia renting out bedrooms in her house for 40 bucks a night? Or are you charging $300 a night for a whole single family home?

Malia Smiley:
I don't do bedrooms in my house. It's not the it's not conducive to a realtor's time. Who's really going to be busy and selling houses. You can't be messing around trying to make sure that they have a towel. You know what I mean? Like this is not the game. The game is to buy real estate, take your profits. If you're making a couple hundred thousand dollars a year, you're going to take 50 or $80,000 and you're going to put it as a down payment as your next unit. And my criteria for buying a unit is that I want to know that in worse case scenario, worst case COVID hits again, we're all on lockdowns. I can't do Airbnb. I want to know that my math works. If my expenses are $2,000, I want to know worst case scenario. I'm making $2,000 on a long term tenant. And I can do that all day long. This is not top of the market. This is like all day long. Someone else said,

Tim Chermak:
Right? So the first, the first question you asked then is even if you're hoping that, Hey, maybe this unit in theory could make three or $4,000 a month as an Airbnb vacation rental, like in a perfect world. The first question you asked them when you're evaluating potential properties as well. If I couldn't do that and I needed to just find a long term tenant who was going to stay there and pay me every month, can they at least cover the bill? So I'm not losing money every month if I get a long term. So that's kind of the first hurdle then, then what do you look for

Malia Smiley:
After that? And then I want to know what the profit on Airbnb is. And in addition to all that, you know, there's different rules. Like I see people like, oh no, no, no, it's fine. We'll buy this place. And I don't care about the rules. Like that's cool. I don't like to follow rules either, but guess what your neighbors do like you to follow your rules. So ultimately your neighbors are going to call the city on your, if

Tim Chermak:
You're in. Yeah. Like if you're in an HOA or a neighborhood that doesn't allow Airbnbs or yeah. Yeah.

Malia Smiley:
Yep. So there's a lot of security in being within those rules. So that's one of the factors in the condo or the house is, you know, there's different zoning for different homes and stuff. So that is one of the things that matters. And I've had to tell people before I know that this isn't the best house for this price. This is a good house for this price. But I know that one around the corner was a little bit prettier, but that one you can't Airbnb. And this one that this one you can, and this one is going to be a better money maker than that one. Because ultimately your neighbor's going to call on you when someone throws a party, you know, or, or whatever. I mean, people get, have all the reasons

Tim Chermak:
In the world. So what is, what is the most premium of the Airbnb units that you have? Let me just ask you that specific question. What is the nicest one? The most expensive one?

Malia Smiley:
So as of today I actually have an in my inbox, I'm writing an offer on my dream home. You want to talk about insider information. I'm about to take a listing and it's a five bedroom with two bonus rooms. It's technically like a seven bedroom house. It's huge and beautiful. And I was about to take the listing and all these people are jumping over themselves. And I said, you know what? I've been wanting to go in this neighborhood for a long time and I am going to write this offer. So it's actually in my inbox right now. We'll see tomorrow if I get it, if it's accepted, but I'm taking the listing. So if you want, I have, you know, she already knows and likes and trusts me. So I've got a pretty good chance of her accepting my offer. And then, but that being said, then I would actually move out of my four bedroom house with the pool and I would turn this into my next Airbnb from here. My others are three bedrooms, two bedroom studios and one bedrooms. And funny enough, like I do really well on my studios and one bedroom units. I have clients last year I helped two sets of clients. They all bought one of them buys, three bedroom, two bathroom houses with pools. That's she will not do anything less than that. She does incredibly well with it. She bought four units over the past year and

Tim Chermak:
A half. How much, how much, how much does she charge per night? On average? Just so people listening can get an idea of she's

Malia Smiley:
Charging between two 50 and $500 a night.

Tim Chermak:
Okay. That's a huge variance. What would explain that variance? Is it the time of year or?

Malia Smiley:
Yeah, the time of the year is a big variance. Obviously if the market's a little bit slow, we're going to lower our prices. There are pricing strategy, like apps that we can use. So obviously like if it was a Christmas time or new year's or Mardi GRA or whatever, those pricing strategies are going to raise our prices, if it's spring break or those higher season numbers, those numbers are going to go up.

Tim Chermak:
Is, is there a typical ratio with Airbnb investors where Hey, like in general you should price it so that it's sold for, you know, 20 nights out of the month or is it 10 nights out of the month or what is the realistic goal every month that, Hey, we're hoping we have, you know, people paying us for 25 nights out of the month. What is, what is the number? That's the goal? It

Malia Smiley:
Really varies a lot because some people are like, I don't care. I'm charging the premium. I don't care if I'm, if I'm, if I have 55% occupancy because they're charging that premium and they get 55% paying that huge premium. And then there's other people that have 85 or 90% occupancy, which is a way better occupancy, but their prices are lower. So it's just, just a little bit more affordable. And so you're just getting booked all the time and there's arguments on both sides. One side says, oh, I don't want all the wear and tear. I'm happy to have 55 nights. And the other side says, yeah, but 45% of your nights are sitting there empty. So, I mean, I think there's different. There's different ways to skin this

Tim Chermak:
Cat. So with, with, with your current house, let's just dive into a specific example here again, PE like everyone listening to this knows that just because these numbers are true in the Leah's market, like you'll have to apply it to your market wherever you are. If you're listening from Texas or Kansas or Montana or North Carolina, whatever. Right. It's going to be different everywhere. Right. But let's just hypothetically say that if you get this offer and the offer's accepted tonight and you're going to turn your current home then into an Airbnb rental, your current home you set is four bedroom. Yep. Two bath. And you have a pool.

Malia Smiley:
Yep.

Tim Chermak:
Okay. So how old is your house approximately? Is it a 1970s house? 1960s house. Is it the year? Two? Thousand's like

Malia Smiley:
86, but it's been remodeled. So like it's a pretty cute, it's a really cute house for Florida standards. It's not old and dated or

Tim Chermak:
Anything like that. Yeah. So it's like a nice updated house. Four bedroom, two bath got a pool. What is the market value realistically, if you were to sell right now, like what would you say? Not as the best price humanly possible, but what is like an average market value for your house right now? Is it worth 600 or 400 or 300 or?

Malia Smiley:
Okay, well, this is going to get more interesting. The part I did not tell you is that my house has a guest house. So I have a full one bedroom, one bathroom fixed, okay. House that sits out by the, and because of my zoning two years ago, they changed where I happened to already have lived the zoning to allow short-term rentals. So that boosted the value of my particular house. Even though this same house, six blocks away would not be allowed to do Airbnb. So my value goes higher though, because I have the guest house and because of the zoning. Right. So if I were to list my house right now, I'd list it for $600,000. But the house, the same house around the corner would probably sell for 5 25.

Tim Chermak:
Okay. So let's just say then $600,000, $600,000 right now your mortgage payment, just for principle and interest is probably going to be like 2,500 bucks. Something like that. Right?

Malia Smiley:
Probably a little higher depending how much you put down maybe 20.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. You're actually right. Yeah. Yeah. You're actually right. It probably is almost closer to $3,000. Yeah. So, and that's only, you know, principle and interest, your actual taxes and insurance might be another, you know, 500 to a thousand dollars, depending on obviously where

Malia Smiley:
You're, you're open the three thousands for depending how

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. So you're yeah. So with your current house, assuming you're not putting down a ton of money, right. You're not putting down 25% down or something. Let's just say that the monthly break even is $3,500. Because that seems to be like a reasonable, a reasonable number. Like the break even is $3,500. If you turned this into an Airbnb property, what do you think the numbers would look like for income for it every month? Keeping in mind that it's a $600,000 house that has a monthly break, even of all the bills are about $3,500 a month.

Malia Smiley:
Let me add that. In addition, you have to pay the water electric trash interval, right? Sure, sure. Because you have to have a fully furnisher setup now. So you're not at 3,500. You're probably at,

Tim Chermak:
So it's probably 4,005,000,

Malia Smiley:
But the income you'd probably be about 10,000 a month.

Tim Chermak:
So you'd be able to rent your property out on Airbnb and you would expect to make probably $10,000 a month

Malia Smiley:
Between eight and 10. Yep. I would. Now if it's going to vary again, because there's,

Tim Chermak:
What would like the a nightly rate be that you're using to reach that number, Malia, and then multiply the monthly rate by, are you assuming it's rented 20, 20 days a month? Or I'm just curious how your brain works when you evaluate that. Yeah. That's a good question.

Malia Smiley:
You, so honestly, when you usually try to use actually yearly numbers, because we have such a big seasonality point. So January through April is just huge. Everything is twice the price, so

Tim Chermak:
It's almost right. Cause everyone wants to come down from the north to Florida during the winter.

Malia Smiley:
Yeah, exactly. So you can absolutely kill it January through April and then almost break even the rest of the year and it's almost still worth it. So it's really a full year's numbers is really how I try to judge it. And once again, this is the goes back to the insider information, you know, like I'm, I happen to call my client the one who bought all the three bedroom, two bathrooms with the pools. She's got four of them now. And I said, Hey, talk to me about your numbers. I'm thinking about moving out of my house. I want to know what your three twos with pools look like because mine's a four, two with a pool. And I want to talk about your numbers. You know, like anyway, obviously we clearly have a really good relationship. I've helped her for years, her places. So, you know, and that's once again, that note me being able to have that in. She's not going to tell everybody else her numbers necessarily, you know, I also there's. You would go run your numbers on Airbnb. So the answer to the question is, what am I counting? Probably 200 to four 50 a night as well. And I try to keep my occupancy at about 85%. I don't like to have a bunch of vacant nights. Okay. I feel like it's a little bit of a waste, but, but her numbers, she does the premium numbers and she keeps her occupancy at 65%.

Tim Chermak:
So your, your, your mentality, again, there's not really a right or wrong, but your mentality is like, Hey, in a 30 day month, I'm hoping that I have a paying customer 25 nights a month. Yep.

Malia Smiley:
23 to 25 nights. Exactly.

Tim Chermak:
So, so like, you're, you're okay if there's whatever four or five, you know, days a month that you don't have a tenant because you're charging enough that assuming that you have, you know, paying, paying customers 20, 25 nights a month, that you're still hopefully going to hit that eight to $10,000. Now, what would your property rent for as a long term? Would it rent for like $3,000 a month or

Malia Smiley:
Good question. And this is what I always tell people, because they always want to know exactly what you're asking. Like, what's the numbers, what's the profit, what's the occupancy like, and the answer is you don't really know until you're in it, but here's what I do know. I know that if you have a property that is for, I tell them always this kind of scale of like a scale of comparables, right? So if you have a property that would rent for $2,000 a month to a long term tenant, every single day, all easy peasy, $2,000 a month, if you want to move into that midterm range with 30 to 60 to 90 day rentals, that same $2,000 a month customer, that same house would be 26 or $2,700 a month. And so there's still a good market in that midterm range. Then if you want to do the extra work and you want to run the short term Airbnbs, you can go from 2,700 to 3,900 or 4,000, but do you want the extra work? Are you willing to do it? Right? So some people sit in that midterm range and they're happy there because they're up a thousand dollars a month. Sure. And there's just not that much work to do.

Tim Chermak:
So in general, I'm trying to like search for the patterns here and the ratios, like in general, would it be safe to say that the goal of any successful Airbnb investor is that you look at what a property might get you as a long term rental, and then you should at least be able to double at least to triple that. Yep. And that's what it should be getting as an Airbnb. And if you're not getting double to triple what you would have been getting from a just normal, generic, long term rental, it's probably not worth your time or energy. If you're not at least getting double or tripled, that's kind of your general framework for evaluating

Malia Smiley:
Yep. Basically

Tim Chermak:
A property. So, yep. So like in other words, if, if a, if in a different area of the country, right, let's say that a long term rental, like a place is running for $1,000 a month, you would say like, Hey, if you can't Airbnb that property for at least probably $2,000 a month, you probably want to steer clear of that.

Malia Smiley:
Yep. That's right. And maybe that, and maybe the good middle ground is for them to do that. Midterm rentals, there's traveling nurses, there's people moving to different areas and they say, cool, well, I'll leave it furnished. Right. And I'll charge that extra premium, but it's not like you're not running this full time business. So maybe they want to settle in that kind of middle ground. And let me say one other part to this, you know, I call it the stack. But like, so let's say you have some units, right? That you turn, you happen to have five or seven and you want to turn them into short term rentals. And let's say they're only each making a profit of 800 to a thousand dollars each. But if you do eight of them, eight times a thousand dollars is $8,000 a month. Times 12 is a hundred thousand dollars a year.

Malia Smiley:
You just, that's a whole yep. Income. So if you can turn it into a business and you can do the stack, which is why I think for realtors, like take the 50 or $80,000, put it as a down payment for your first unit, put it as a down payment in the next year for your next unit. Put it as a down payment, you know, property managers, you know how to do it all. You can automate the systems. And this is where, you know, realtors who don't have, we don't have built in retirements. You know, like this is me building my, my retirement as I go, it's not taking, it's not hurting my income. Right. I'm living a perfectly great life and I'm accumulating real estate. And, and then in addition to the cash flow, like we're only talking about the cash flow in addition to cash flow. Even if you didn't even want to do the Airbnb game and you were like, don't want to manage it, don't want to deal with it. Just buy rentals and put long term tenants in them because we all watched how real estate markets move. And as I said, my buying criteria is that even if markets go down or stay level, if I had a hundred units and all my a hundred tenants were able to easily pay their rents and the market totally crashed, then I just hang tight.

Tim Chermak:
You don't sell. Yeah. So that's, that's always, that's always rule number one, no matter how much you think it theoretically could make as an Airbnb rental, if you know that worst case scenario, you couldn't at least rent it as a long term rental to at least cover your expenses. Yep. You don't even care how much money it could make, because you're not going to buy that property. Always want that's right. I

Malia Smiley:
Want to know that all because this is how everyone lost their shirts in 2009 and eight, because they were all buying stuff, buying for appreciation, but then math didn't work. And so, and then they would buy using adjustable rate mortgages, right? So the arms adjusted, they couldn't make the payments. That's fine. You can do it for a month or two or three or four. But when you're getting eight or 10 months and you're going upside down every single month, then you start to have a problem. So

Tim Chermak:
As long, and that's assuming that you only owe one and that's assuming you only own one property too. If all of a sudden you're upside down and you have a portfolio of five now you're now you're really hurting.

Malia Smiley:
Now you're really upside down. So for me, it, the basis is just, don't go upside down ever. And if you are in a market, like let's say the market levels off and it's totally flat right now, my properties are literally just fine. I'm going to lose some of my profit, because I'm going to take my short term rentals and I'm going to convert them back to either midterm or long term rentals. I'll finish out what I'm supposed to do, but my math will always be great. And so, and I learned this because I bought a few real estate properties when I was very young and I was my first round into the real estate game and I lost, I had five of them and I lost four out of the five when the market crashed, because I didn't know that market changed. I was very young, right. So for me, that's just the basis. And I, and I tell this to my clients too. And I think they very much appreciate it, which is also going to bring me to a new point, but they appreciate that I, that I level with them and that I'm straight with them, you know? And I'm going to say, can you make this payment? Is this going to work for you? Right. And I do it when they buy their personal homes too. I think they really appreciate that.

Tim Chermak:
So let me ask you then what is your cause I'm, I'm sure you've thought about this. You seem like a very introspective kind of strategic person. What is your like 10 year plan, like 10 years from now? What do you want your real estate portfolio to look like? Because based on our conversation so far, it seems like your business strategy at kind of a macro high level is I'm going to make as much money as I can as a realtor, you know, during my normal day. And I'm going to try to make 200, $300,000 a year so that I can invest it in acquiring more properties. So that eventually when I'm older, I have all this cash flowing real estate, but I'm using my career as a realtor to basically fund building that real estate empire. So yeah. What is your goal Malia? 10 years from now? How many properties do you want to own or what do you think the monthly cash flows will be from that? Where do you see things being at 10 years from now? If you just keep doing what you're doing,

Malia Smiley:
You know, originally it was like, oh, I want a hundred units or a thousand units. And you know, and at some point I realized like that's also a hundred tenants or a thousand tenants, which is why Airbnb got exciting to me because I can hold on to some just really good real estate. You know what I mean? That's appreciating real estate. It's going to be maybe on the water. Like this is just real estate. That's just not ever going to go down. Right. And I heard it an amazing seminar. One time he goes, you will never buy you. It will always be too expensive. Like whenever you buy real estate, you're going to always be like, oh, this is too much money. He goes, when your parents bought their house, 30 years ago, that's now paid off and they paid $300,000 for it. They thought it was too much money and now it's worth $900,000.

Malia Smiley:
So for me, I've really, that's like sunk in. So I try to buy good properties. I try to keep them. I'm also pretty young. So for me, I don't need to sell stuff off right now. I'm still kind of in like a growth phase. Sure. So I'm leveraging my properties. I'm trying to make big money on the front end so that I can buy more properties and be in, because I know time is also on my side. Real estate goes up over time. Even if it does level off or dip down over time, it will go up. They're not making more of it more land. So I,

Tim Chermak:
Especially, especially if you're near the ocean in Florida, like real estate is

Malia Smiley:
The ocean in Florida, which is where I am. There's just not more of it. So they're building inland tons of tons and tons of building inland, but there is just no more in Pinellas county, which is where I am and they can only go up. Right. And there's, it's not, that's not going to happen very quickly. So my point is that I want to buy, I want to hold my real estate eventually. Like I'd like to be able to just, I manage my properties because I'm already in this world and I'm answering my phone all the time. But you know, I would turn it over to a property manager. The cool part about buying real estate too, is that you can 10 31 exchange it into newer and bigger and better properties. So you could have 15 or 20 duplexes and plexes and you could roll it into like a big commercial mall and just hire a manager and step away from it if you ever wanted to. So there's just so many variations that you can kind of go with it. And that's what, and that's the other thing that I love about real estate and I'm pretty diehard about it. And this is why I would say half of my client base right now, Tim is young, not young, newer investors, people who want to get into the real estate game, they want to get into the Airbnb game. They want to have a second home here in Airbnb when they're not here. I have a lot of those clients because I'm really passionate about it and

Tim Chermak:
I, and they are, they are coming to you because you've proven your expertise. Yep. In understanding the local investment market where obviously most realtors understand the local market in general, they know in general about what homes are worth in neighborhoods, but you have proven your expertise. And yeah, I understand all of that. And on top of that, yeah. I understand the dynamics of what the cash flow and ratios and profit and law should be for investment properties. So if you're thinking of buying a property, you know, for Airbnb or long term rental, Malia can help you with that. So you're finding those people are referring their friends to come to you. And that's now starting to build a really successful referral business, which means you have more commissions that you can invest to buy even more property. So how many, how many doors did you say you had again? Was it eight?

Malia Smiley:
10.

Tim Chermak:
10. Okay. So you have 10, 10 doors right now. And kind of the goal in general is that every year you're able to make a new down payment of whatever, 50, $75,000 on a new property. So I'd imagine that means 10 years from now, you actually have 2020 properties at least. And if, if each of those properties is what making a thousand dollars a month.

Malia Smiley:
Yeah, correct. Remember I said, you know, when I was very sick with COVID, thank, thank God for my real estate portfolio because I, as much as I didn't cover all my bills when I was very, very sick. Sure. I sure covered about 50% of them. So the little bit of upside down that I did get into, I was able to kind of bail myself pretty easily. And I mean, I'm really thankful for that. You know, like there was still money coming in, but I am a single parent. So most per people would be really in trouble with no income for three months. It would absolutely have thrown the average person sideways. And I have learned to have security and safety, you know, three to six months worth of income as a security net. And you know, I lo this is why I built my rental portfolio because I was like, it's all on me. And if I'm ever sick, you know, obviously in the past four or five years, like I've been sick with the flu or this, I had to broke my foot. So like, you know, I can't CA I can't have it all be on me always. And so this is why my rental portfolio is like my spouse, my spouse's income. Right. Because now I have this second income. Yeah. That is always kind of coming there. And it gives me that security now. That's why I built it.

Tim Chermak:
I love that metaphor. So as a single mom, you're like, Hey, I don't have a spouse's income to supplement mine. So rather than getting a spouse, I'm just buying Airbnb properties. Yeah,

Malia Smiley:
That's right. I built, I built my spouse's income.

Tim Chermak:
That's awesome. That's awesome. Cool. Well, this has been, this has been really great. We're going to have to wrap up the episode here, but I almost feel like there might be a part two coming on where, you know, we go even further and maybe we can discuss some of the more details of the properties and get into some more specifics there. But this has been really valuable. Malia, thank you for your time. I'll give you one more opportunity here, just in case there's anything that you forgot to share. If there was one more thing you wanted to add on how you've invested your profits, was there, was there, was there anything else that you wanted to mention?

Malia Smiley:
No. I just want to say that I would love to do a part two with you and get a little bit more granular on why it makes so much sense for a real estate agent to transition into being an investor, flipping homes, whatever. I just, I would love to even talk more about that. And I love that I was on the podcast. I love talking to you.

Tim Chermak:
Awesome. Well, thank you for your time, Ali. I think this will be a super, super valuable episode for everyone in the platform. If anyone has any questions for you, whether it's about how you've grown your business, or obviously how you've invested those profits, would you mind sharing your cell phone number?

Malia Smiley:
Absolutely. (727) 692-1601. And I do want to say one last thing I forgot, you know, this has really given me an edge over a bunch of other good realtors. So, and I, we tipped on this a little bit earlier, but like truly took my business. The next level was me. Melia is the special Melia is the girl, you know? So like this is something that someone else can a get into on the investing side. And then B also make that their specialty in their markets too.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. So you've absolutely leveraged your knowledge of the investment market and the rental market in your marketing as a realtor. So you've built that brand. So those people come to you, they refer their friends to you. And that's obviously an advantage that the average realtor,

Malia Smiley:
And guess what else happens? People come and they buy real estate from me. They come buy a house from me, but in the meantime they hear me, they hear that I have Airbnbs, they hear me talking about real estate. They hear me talking about investing. So what happens is they actually turn into minimally a double client because they buy their own property and then they see what I'm doing. And then they want to come and start getting into the investment game. So they're coming back around a year later. They because they're excited now and they saved up a little bit of cash to come by their first or second investment property. So these guys become longstanding clients of mine for a long time.

Tim Chermak:
Yeah. So I mean it really, I mean how, like one way you could word that I guess is it's like increasing or I should say not increasing shortening the sales cycle in between re repeat purchases of your clients. Yep. Because most realtors, if they sell someone a house they typically have to wait. I think the average is like seven to 10 years before that person's going to sell that house and buy another one where you're often able to shorten that seven to 10 years to maybe just one year because you might sell them a house and then 18 months later they're like, Hey, we want to buy an investment property with you. And obviously you're getting a commission on that as well. So it makes every client you pick up in your normal business as a realtor worth that much more because it's probably going to statistically turn into multiple commissions inside of inside of five years. So it makes every client that much more valuable.

Malia Smiley:
And let me add even one more part of that. My guest house is what started me on Airbnb. So I run into these people in my front yard sometimes and they're also really nice. And in my Airbnb profile, I say that I'm a local realtor. I have sold multiple properties to people who have come and been my Airbnb guest and they say it straight to me on my Airbnb when they're messaging me. Hi, we're so excited to come to the dun Eden area. I saw that you're a realtor. I'd love to talk about the area. So we're having conversations out by my pool or sure. Via phone or whatever. And so I probably sold, I don't know, five or seven places to people from having my little guest house Airbnb, and now I have multiple ones. So even if they're not staying in my back thing, they're still messaging me about purchasing real estate here. So it's just,

Tim Chermak:
You know, that's genius. It's, that's absolutely genius, synergy

Malia Smiley:
Energy.

Tim Chermak:
That's awesome. Yeah. We will definitely have to do a part two because frankly I want to learn more about what you're doing because it sounds like you have a, it sounds like you have a pretty cool system, so thank you Malia. And until next time, thank you guys for listening.