Transcript: Episode 149: Sweethearts On The Run

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[00:00:00] Susan Barry: This is Top Floor episode 149. You can find the show notes at topfloorpodcast.com/episode/149. 

[00:00:13] Narrator: Welcome to Top Floor with Susan Barry. This weekly podcast ride up to the top floor features tangible tips and excellent stories from the experts and characters who elevate hospitality. And now your host and elevator operator, Susan Barry.

[00:00:32] Susan Barry: Welcome to the show. John Bianchi didn't major in math. In fact, he didn't major in anything, but he makes his living running numbers and doing data analysis. As founder of STR Search, John helps real estate investors pick cash flowing, profitable, short term rental properties to invest in. He has worked on more than 150 deals valued at around 75 million dollars and John says he has a 100 percent success rate. For hoteliers, underwriting deals and creating pro forma income projections may feel familiar, but in the short term rental industry, John's ability to do all of this deciphering of complex data and to give successful advice on the amenities you need to increase revenue is pretty rare. Today we are going to talk about cash flow and kids activities, but before we jump in, we need to answer the call button.

Call button rings

[00:01:40] Susan Barry: The emergency call button is our hotline for hospitality professionals who have a burning questions. If you would like to submit a question, you can call or text me at 850-404-9630.

Today's question was not submitted at all because it is a question that I have for you. I have interviewed a ton of people in the short term and vacation rental industry, a business that I continue to find unendingly fascinating. And one of the things that is the most fascinating to me is this, okay, you know, I'm a hotel person from way back and I love to stay in short term rentals. I love to stay in Airbnbs. And when I talk to STR people, they love to stay in hotels. So here is my question for you, John, would you rather stay in a hotel or in a vacation rental?

[00:02:38] John Bianchi: Can I ask a follow up to that? 

[00:02:40] Susan Barry: Yes. 

[00:02:41] John Bianchi: Am I staying by myself? Am I staying with my, my girlfriend or am I staying with a group of people?

[00:02:47] Susan Barry: That is a question that only you can answer.  

[00:02:53] John Bianchi: Okay, so I always say that if I'm going to be traveling with just my girlfriend, I want to stay in a hotel almost every single time. Like, I don't care because I want that consistency. I just need the room. I I know that hotels are built out beautifully, especially the new ones. They're, they're perfect in my opinion. Like you have everything that you need in the smallest amount of square footage and I love that. And then it's also, it feels comfortable. It's more, it's like, it's, it's the consistency really that gets me right. Um, but if I'm going to stay with 10 people. I don't want to be in a hotel at all, like whatsoever, never because, uh, because we're all just gonna be so spread out. I want to be in a really big Airbnb that I can, that I can really enjoy. With that being said, if I'm also going on like a, maybe a romantic getaway, you know what I mean? It's like an anniversary or something like that. I want to book out a hotel or sorry, an Airbnb. That's going to be like a really special Airbnb in comparison. So.  

[00:03:42] Susan Barry: Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. 

[00:03:43] John Bianchi: Yeah. Right. I was just going over this with somebody else. It was like really beautiful A-frames or like tree houses or something along those lines. Like something unique like that, that's going to be rented out for those sort of those times. 

[00:03:53] Susan Barry: Oh, that's a good point. And I think your answer is the answer of nine out of ten consumers, which is it's all about purpose of visit. There is no such thing as a short term rental customer versus a hotel customer. It's the same lodging customer. It just depends on what they're doing on their trip. 

[00:04:14] John Bianchi: And I think that's, so great point. I just want to add to that, being that if you understand that it makes it easier to be able to understand the data and the trends of both of those industries.

[00:04:24] Susan Barry: Oh, that's a really good point. Well, we are going to get into the weeds of data, but first I have to ask you - you were a financial advisor before getting into the short term rental business. Which is another thing that I see time and time again with the entrepreneurs that I interview. What is it about being a financial advisor that lends itself to entrepreneurship?

[00:04:47] John Bianchi: Well, I would say that most people that become a financial advisor already have that entrepreneurial bone in them. Because the way that a financial advising businesses pitched to people is they say you have 0 up front and you build up a client, you build up a book of clients. So you get 1 client, maybe in a full year, you get 20 clients. The next year you get 50, then you get 100 all of a sudden after 3 years, you have enough reoccurring business that you can live off of that and you don't have to work as hard. And in 10 years from then, you're working a fraction of what you're working before. And so it's, it's seen as this, uh, business that you can grow with no capital upfront.

And that's how I was pitched it. That's what got me into it as well. And I ended up doing it for three years. So I got to the point where I was in a very comfortable position, but hated what I was doing and, and realized that, Hey, it's okay if I don't have money, you can raise money to start a business, right? There's other options here, but I needed, I needed to get that street cred from the financial advising business that I built up to them, be able to feel confident to move on to the next thing. 

[00:05:51] Susan Barry: That makes sense. So then describe your first short term rental business. What did you do? And what happened? 

[00:05:59] John Bianchi: So I started off with the arbitrage model, um, which is like one of the frowned upon ways of doing it where you rent out somebody else's home, which I fully understand, right? I get it definitely nowadays. Um, but at the time -

[00:06:11] Susan Barry: You know what, I'm going to stop you because you better explain that just in case people haven't heard of rental arbitrage before because it sounds like a way fancier word than it really is. 

[00:06:22] John Bianchi: Good point. It is the idea of renting out somebody else's home or, or, you know, long term rental and then turning it into a short term rental. You own a property, I pay you $2,000 a month. I then go rent it out on Airbnb. And hopefully I make more than $2,000 a month and whatever other expenses I have. Right? That's rental arbitrage. The reason people don't like it is because, uh, so many long term rental people get pitched by short term rental people to be like, can I rent out your place? Right? And then they're like, they're annoyed by it because there's this additional risk that they're taking on. Regardless though, I, it is this awkward interaction, but you do find people who are like, yeah, I'm open to that. Right? I'm willing to do that with you. And then you create relationships with these landlords. And once they see the light. They're okay with it once you get them over that hump, right? And I 

[00:07:08] Susan Barry: I think a big difference between you and the arbitrage folks that people get frustrated with are that you were honest with the landlord about what you were doing instead of just being sneaky about it. 

[00:07:20] John Bianchi: Yes. Now, with that being said, the very first property I did didn't, I, you know, it was, it was more of not thinking to tell them rather than anything else because it was like this apartment. They're like, yeah, we'll rent to you as a go. Perfect. I'm like, I'm thinking my head. Like, there's going to be no issues here. Within 1 month we got a cease and desist letter and we had to turn it into a midterm rental. And so I was like, that was like the very first property we got. And I'm like. All right, never doing that again. Every single person I'll tell will be up front with and it'll just be a lot easier. So no, fully agree with you on that. Um, you had tons of people that are just hiding it, which is obviously frustrating.

So, but, uh, but yeah, so I built up my business with the rental arbitrage model. I opened up a couple of homes, uh, in the Michigan area. Had a little bit of a track record, was able to raise money from individuals to be able to go and open up more properties. Uh, Chicago was market I ended up in. Uh, by the time COVID came around, I had, uh, like eight or so arbitrage properties, another, uh, seven or eight management property, so property I was managing for other people, and then I had my own cleaning company as well. And my cleaning company took care of all of the Airbnb properties. And, uh, that was a nice way for me to be able to afford to pay somebody full time to literally manage almost the entire business. And so it freed up a bunch of my time, which I use to study data. So that was like, that was the entire process and method of how I got obsessed with this, but yeah, then COVID came around and that was not good. 

[00:08:39] Susan Barry: Got it. So you basically had to make a big pivot. We'll talk about STR Search in a minute, but my understanding is like then, now you still have your hands in sort of multiple businesses in the short term rental industry at the same time, but without going into like too much detail about what those are necessarily, I'm more interested in what are the pros and cons of having multiple businesses or maybe I should say multiple streams of business at the same time.

[00:09:12] John Bianchi: That's such a good question. 

[00:09:13] Susan Barry: Well, let me tell you why. Because I feel like entrepreneurs get all of this advice about like focus in on one thing and make it scale and make it scale, make it scale. And that is not fun to me. Like I want to be doing six different things at the same time. So I'm looking for someone to give me an excuse for why it's okay.

[00:09:36] John Bianchi: Well, okay. So amazing question. I love that. I love that so much because that's such a entrepreneurial mind question to ask. Um, what I will say is that with that business that I had before in Chicago and also with what I'm doing right now, both of the things that I'm doing where I do have multiple streams of income coming in through different products and services and whatnot, they all revolve around one thing though, right? So one thing I have not done is, you know, build out an Airbnb business while also running a Subway. Right. So I've never done that. But if I have done, um, the, what I just explained there, where it's like this, you know, building up multiple businesses that are all revolved around one thing. That I find to be different. So would you agree with that? Are you like the, when you say you want to do six different things, are they all focused on the same idea? 

[00:10:22] Susan Barry: I mean, in general, like I, you know, you could make the argument that my company Hive Marketing that serves the hospitality industry is related to Top Floor as a show because our show is about hospitality, but there's two different pieces of my brain at work, maybe. I don't know. 

[00:10:43] John Bianchi: Nope. That makes sense. That makes sense. I, for me, like I can explain how it evolved because it wasn't like an active decision. It was more of like an evolution. And so with the, with the first business, I was doing rental arbitrage and then I had somebody come up to me and say, Hey, can you manage my property? And, uh, and to do rental arbitrage, you have to pay for all the furniture to go in. So I was costing me $20,000 every single time I got one of these, whereas a property management was free. It was literally just like I took over the management and I received 20%. So it's lower risk, free, and I infinitely scalable for the most part.

Whereas arbitrage costs a ridiculous amount of money. So I was like, well, now I'm going to put all my focus into this, right? So now all of a sudden I have two, but technically it's just that this is a smarter model. And then it got to the point where I realized that enough homes. That I was paying my cleaners way too much for how much they were screwing up. And I was like, I'm just going to do this myself. Right? Like, I'm like, I can figure, I was teaching them how to build out their operations because they didn't know what to do short term rentals yet. And I was like, why am I doing this? So I just, I hired somebody taught that person and built it out. And then it was a, another great revenue stream.

The cleaning company one, I think was stepping out of my comfort zone for sure. But I saw the money and I was like, I need that money. I need that money back. And I want to use that money for something else. And then I'm working in a really nice way. So now that I've done it, I always advise people, like, if you can be your own cleaning company, do that as well, because it brings in, it just makes it such a more solid business in comparison.

[00:12:09] Susan Barry: That makes a lot of sense. Okay. So at STR Search, which is your main business that we're talking about right now, you help real estate investors figure out what properties to buy. Can you describe a typical engagement with a client and like what all you do for them? 

[00:12:26] John Bianchi: Yep. It's uh, it's very straightforward. So there's, there's always so many moving parts and I always try to stop myself from explaining all that. We just find people profitable properties. It's as simple as that, right? Um, in the short term rental space, it has gotten very difficult to be able to find a property that is going to cashflow because, you know, the price of homes almost doubled in most places. Um, and then the interest rates have gone through the roof as well. And so then therefore your expenses are a lot higher and then travel demand is also lower. And so within the past year or so, um, there's this big need in the market where people are like, I can't find a good property. Like I don't know what to buy, whatever it may be.

It's sort of like this white glove service where we are guiding you towards one specific property that we think is going to be the absolute best property for you across the entire United States based off of, you know, how much money you have to work with, uh, what your preferences are, different things like that. And then without getting into every last detail, there's a lot of different people you need to be connected with until you get to that property that's until it's ready to go on to Airbnb. And we have connections for every single last thing that you could possibly ask for. And they're like vetted people that we've worked with.

[00:13:28] Susan Barry: So you're not a realtor though. 

[00:13:31] John Bianchi: No, which is a huge advantage, right? So — 

[00:13:34] Susan Barry: Okay, say more about that. 

[00:13:35] John Bianchi: Yeah. So when it comes to the realtors, uh, their job, their incentive is to put you in a property in their market, right? No matter what. Um, they also cannot give advice in this sort of way that we can give advice because of a lot of the laws that are kind of revolving around that. And so the first thing is that you don't have incentives that are aligned, okay? So that's the first thing when it comes to a realtor. Realtors are great. We, we work with a ton of realtors, but a lot of realtors don't have their incentives aligned with their, with their clients. And they just want them to buy a property because that's when they get paid, right? Whereas our entire incentive is to make sure that that property cash flows for you, because next year you're going to need another one. And if we, Okay. Did an amazing job with the first one. You'll come back for the next one. And I want to do this for the rest of my life. And I want to build up a client base for the rest of my life, just like in finance, but instead for Airbnb, build that client base. And so my entire incentive is to ensure that people come back year over year and refer us over and over again. So we have to, we have to get you a cashflow property. Like that is the objective. 

[00:14:34] Susan Barry: So hiring you isn't instead of a realtor, it's in addition to a realtor, maybe before the realtor. 

[00:14:41] John Bianchi: Exactly. So we actually work with a ton of realtors. Um, it usually is before the realtor, but a lot of times what happens is that people will go and talk to a realtor in any of the vacation markets across the United States, and they'll tell them that they want to buy a property. And then they get shown, you know, five, ten different properties. And they're, they just simply go, I don't feel confident with any of these. Like, I don't know if they're going to be good. And the realtor is not going to sit there and go, this one has the potential to make a hundred thousand based off of all these comps. And here's the entire analysis breakdown. And so then eventually they go, you know, they're, they're not putting in an offer, they've seen a ton of properties, they want to buy a property, but they just don't have the confidence for it. The realtor goes, you got to talk to these guys, they're going to, they're going to help guide you. And then we send them back to the realtor and afterwards. 

[00:15:23] Susan Barry: That makes a lot of sense. And once you've found a cash flowing property, I know that you also give advice about what amenities the buyer should add to the house or the property. Can you give some examples about that and like what you've recommended people do? 

[00:15:40] John Bianchi: For sure. So this is the other half of the battle, okay? So a lot of people think it's the whole thing, but it's half, right? Um, I always say every single property can be pretty, but not every single property can cashflow. Right. Which is a very big deal. Um, you can put all the amenities into a property that you overpaid for in a bad area with no demand, and you're not going to make a dime. And so then therefore you want to make sure that you have the right property first. Once you get it, then it's, we got to optimize this thing to be the best property in that market or close to it.

And so the, the thing that we are doing is we're understanding the market first, right? So we want to know all of our competitors, just like you would do in any other business specific to that market. From there, what we want to try to understand is who, what demographic is willing to pay the most to stay here. So we were talking about like a romantic getaway. If I had a little one, one cabin, I'm not going to make it for families or something like that. I'm going to make it this like beautiful, you know, place that's going to be great for an anniversary, right?

[00:16:34] Susan Barry: A hot tub and a wine cooler. 

[00:16:36] John Bianchi: Right? But not, but, but above and beyond that, because it's not just a hot tub. It's a hot tub with like, I don't know, stuff around it that makes it feel romantic. Like whatever that may be. And when I take the photos, there's going to be a rose petals inside the water and all those little things to make people be like, Ooh, okay. This is actually, this you know, something different than just a hot tub or just a bed, right? That I'm buying from these other places. And so understanding your demographic is really what allows you to know your amenities. Because another great example I always use is if I'm going to be focusing on a bachelorette trip and I want to create a bachelorette home. I'm not going to put a jungle gym in the backyard of that home because that's going to be for kids, right?

So, I mean, like, when you think about that way, you go, oh, okay. Right. So then, therefore, if I start with who's going to be renting out this place more than anybody else, because if you market to everybody, market to nobody. Who are we marketing towards? And then we want to create an experience for them. And by creating an experience, we get an experience premium. Um, and I like to think about Disney world when I say that, because when you go to Disney world, everything has come to life and because it's all come to life, you pay way more because you're getting this amazing experience. And so take that logic that works unbelievably well for this theme park and bring it to your little Airbnb and get your experience premium. And that's where, you know, a lot of your revenue or sorry, your profits going to come from. So with all that being said, what I'm trying to simply say is that depending on whatever market that you go into, we are going to figure out your demographic and then we're going to figure out the amenities that make the most sense for that demographic. Right? 

[00:18:06] Susan Barry: That sounds like the most fun part. Like, okay, you said bachelorette party. So here's what I'm thinking about. You get a place in Nashville. It has every room has two double beds or whatever, because you want a lot of women to be able to stay there. And then you have a whole get ready room that's like mirrors on three walls with great lighting and a bunch of little seats for people to sit. Like, is that kind of where you're going with this?

[00:18:32] John Bianchi: To a T like to a T. Every single wall is pink. So I, I mean, I wish I could share my screen, but there's the, the — One example is that, uh, there's this home, there's this one lady. She, her name is it's Bridget, It'sBridgetBitch on, on Instagram. And, uh, she designed a lot of Airbnbs and she does an amazing job with bachelorette trips. And in one Airbnb, they took a garage and they made 17 different backdrops in the garage so that you could take like all these different photo shoots inside that one garage.

[00:19:06] Susan Barry: Oh, how fun. 

[00:19:08] John Bianchi: Yeah. So there's like, I think, I think it's seventeen or seven, one of those garage though. And it's super cool. Like, so, you know, girls get together, three of them, they pose, they have this really cool background. Then they go to the next one. Maybe that one's better. They like it more, whatever it is, but it's, it's tiny things like that that create the experience, you know, and I always try to explain that to people when a batch, like, uh, a bachelorette going on her bachelorette trip and she's, you know, inside that Airbnb, she's going to feel like she's on her bachelorette trip the entire time. Not just when they all throw on pink or I'll throw on white and they go out, right? It's the entire time. Buzz. It feels that way the entire time they pay a premium for that. 

[00:19:46] Susan Barry: I mean, just the fact that you said the sentence, if you market to everyone, you're marketing to no one is so key to the entire crux of my existence. We have something on this show that we call the land of differentiation. And one of the things that has happened in the hotel industry over the last 25 years or so is that there are 470 million brands with no differentiation between them. So nobody knows what any of them mean. And none is set up for a bachelorette party perfectly. So this is super interesting. Also, I would like to work for that second half of the company as a consultant. So let me know when you're ready and I will jump right in. What do you think are the biggest mistakes people make when they're doing a short term rental business like as a side hustle? 

[00:20:38] John Bianchi: Um, it's just not starting with their competition. It's literally as simple as that. Like that is the, the, um, without a doubt, the biggest mistake people have overconfidence in their ability to create a listing that they think is going to be the best of the best, but they don't even know what they're going up against, right? And so, um, an analogy that I've been using quite a bit recently is just the idea of walking into a grocery store and going to the chip aisle. Right. And going to the, uh, being able to see all those chips in that, in that aisle. But imagine every single chip bag is a no name brand, regular flavor, right? It's just the simplest possible. Yeah. Right. That's how they're seeing their competition. They're going in. They're like, this is, this is who I'm going up against.

And they think they're going to be like the Cool Ranch Doritos. Fun size bag that's going to get in there and they're going to beat everybody, right? Like that's how they're seeing it. Cause they're so emotionally attached. Yeah. Maybe it's just, maybe it's that they get too emotionally attached to what that, and they get this overconfidence. Um, but when you kind of remove that completely, you study every single property in your market and you understand what the best of the best are doing and what you're getting yourself into and like what you're going up against. Then it makes it more realistic to what you're actually going to be able to do with that property and what the revenue is going to be, what you need to do to outperform them. All of those little details that actually are the things that allow you to make money in this, in this industry nowadays, right? Especially if you're going into a competitive market, right? 

[00:22:01] Susan Barry: I mean, but also on the flip side of that, if, none of your competitors have anything cool, you don't need to dump $250,000 into the bachelorette backdrops. You can maybe do one or a little piece, you know, or do something every six months rather than an extravagant makeover or whatever. 

[00:22:25] John Bianchi: And uh, the way that I explain that is must have amenities versus nice to have amenities. Some markets go into, you have to have a hot tub, right? If you don't have a hot tub, you're not, I mean, pool is the easiest example. If you don't have a pool, you're not going to make money simple as that. Right? But then there's a nice to have. And those nice to have is what allows you to stand out, be more competitive and to be able to beat everybody, right? But you have to have these ones at a minimum. A great example of this is before I started with TechFester, one of the properties I had down in Scottsdale didn't have a hot tub, didn't have a putting green. Beautifully designed, had a pool really nice in the right area, all this stuff. And it wasn't performing well. And I reviewed it. I'm like, guys. Everybody has these two amenities, but we don't. So when they go and look at us, why would they choose us? Because they can just go over there, pay less and get a hot tub. So it's like, it just didn't make any sense. Um, and so once we added those in there, we were, we were good to go, honestly, like added them in and no issues with the property moving forward. 

[00:23:23] Susan Barry: We like to make sure that our listeners come away from every single episode of Top Floor with some really specific and practical ideas and tips and tricks to try in their businesses or in their personal lives. You may not want to reveal this information, but I'm going to try. What are a few data sources that you recommend people refer to when they are trying to figure out whether their subject property is going to generate revenue? 

[00:23:51] John Bianchi: When we, when you say sources, are you talking about like sites and places where people can go?

[00:23:56] Susan Barry: Yeah, like if the big overarching advice is you've got to pay attention to your comps and review data, where do I start? 

[00:24:03] John Bianchi: Yeah. So AirDNA is the go to site of all the sites. Um, AirDNA is going to be able to give you the data on every single property across the United States for, I believe the cheapest price at this point, um, in comparison to everyone else. Every single data provider that you're going to go with, though, has issues, has flaws, and has a ton of useless data that they show you. And so, uh, I cannot recommend enough that you have to understand the difference between good and bad data before you use any of the providers that are out there. But I mean, I really don't even need to say the other people. Um, AirDNA is like the go to.  

[00:24:37] Susan Barry: That’s what I thought you were going to say. That's yeah, always been my go to for um, learning about that market. Okay. If I'm a short term rental host listening to this right now, are there two or three table stakes, like price of admission amenities, that you've got to have on Airbnb these days or is it market dependent or are there just a couple things that you've got to have?

[00:25:03] John Bianchi: There it's 100 percent market dependent. Without a doubt, market dependent, also demographic dependent. Like I get that question often, where people say, do I need a hot tub in my Airbnb? I go, it depends. I'm not marketing you in, you know what I mean? Like, you know, does it help most likely? Do you need one? I don't know, right? 

[00:25:22] Susan Barry: Gotcha. Okay. Let's, I'm going to give you a market and maybe you can give me a couple for that. Then let's say that we are budget beach destination. The property is going to be, um, appealing to families. 

[00:25:40] John Bianchi: What part of the, what, what are we talking like, uh, Miami beach or are we talking, um…

[00:25:48] Susan Barry: No, cheap - like a cheap one, like, uh, Northwest Florida.

[00:25:50] John Bianchi: Likely going to need one. So, and the reason being is because of the shoulder seasons. So it's more about thinking about the temperature, right? Um, if you're —

[00:26:01] Susan Barry: Okay so need one, what? 

[00:26:02] John Bianchi: Need a hot tub. 

[00:26:03] Susan Barry: Oh, got it.

[00:26:04] John Bianchi: Yeah. You're likely going to need a hot tub. Likely. Now I don't know the temperature exactly when it comes to Northwest Florida, but, um, no, I mean, yeah. So, okay. Northwest Florida, we're talking like Destin and Palm City Beach. Yeah. So I would recommend one. And the reason being is because it's very, very warm there during the summer months. But then once we get into September, October, even November, it starts to cool off. And, uh, if we're talking about Scottsdale as a, as a sort of like example to that, it is unbelievably hot in Scottsdale during the summer. But then the shoulder months, it's cool. And so within the summer months, you can get into the hot tub. And then in the winter, it's even better because it's not, you're not freezing your butt off, like in Michigan to go sip outside to get into the hot tub, but getting into a hot tub in the winter is actually really nice. And so, um, I would recommend a hot tub cause it gives people an amenity outside that they can use during the shoulder in the winter months due to the weather purposes. 

[00:26:59] Susan Barry: Okay. We have reached the fortune telling portion of our show. So you need to predict the future and we will see if you are correct. What is a prediction you have about the next evolution of properties that are popular on Airbnb? I know I need to explain this question a little bit more. So if I were going to just off the cuff say like, “What's popular now?” It's tree houses. houseboats, like unique things that really stand out. Do you think those things are going to get boring and then something else is going to become popular or do you think they'll always stay the same?

[00:27:40] John Bianchi: I think that those will always stay the same. I think those will always be popular because they're unique and there are only so many of them and there's so many people that could go to them. 

[00:27:48] Susan Barry: What's the next thing? 

[00:27:50] John Bianchi: We're starting to see it already, but it's mini resorts. Right. So very small resorts. Uh, so like a property that's so well put together that you don't even really need to leave it. Right. Um, something that has every amenity and, uh, stuff that you could possibly do right in that property. No need to go anywhere else. So Joshua Tree has a ton of these where they're really well put together. There's nothing to do in Joshua Tree. Right. Like for the most part, there's Josh - there's a national park. For the most part, not much to do. Therefore, your property needs to be, um, have so many things to do that people don't feel like they need to leave. Right.

[00:28:23] Susan Barry: Got it. So like, give me an example of some of the things on a property in Joshua tree. 

[00:28:27] John Bianchi: So, uh, pool without a doubt, right? Pool without a doubt because you get that, then you're going to get a hot tub in there for once again, those, you know, cooler time periods, uh, pickleball court will definitely help without a doubt, but we're talking about like, even just having a fire pit with views, uh, so that people can like sit out and enjoy the views or a star gazing section or an outdoor movie theater so that they can enjoy the evenings of sitting outside and having a good time. And, uh, you know, these sort of things one, allow people to hang out and just relax and do absolutely nothing during the day. Sunbathe, swim, eat, whatever. Right? And then at night it's fire movies, stargazing, and they don't have to leave the property ever. And then maybe they go for a hike midday, but they come back and they hop into the pool. They don't need to go to uh, you know, Disney World during their stay to make it a good trip, right? They've got everything they need right then and there. So yeah, that's what I would say. 

[00:29:18] Susan Barry: Oh, that sounds like so much fun. I want to go to a place like that. Okay maybe you've already answered this question, but if you could wave a magic wand and create an ideal house, what are some of the characteristics that would have all those things you just said probably. 

[00:29:38] John Bianchi: I want to go in so many different directions. There's one thing I want to say, cause like, you know, you talk about hotels and, uh, I know this is probably not the answer that you were thinking, but it's the one that's on my mind. Uh, one thing that I hate about Airbnb is inconsistency. So when every time, every time I go into a bed or a bedroom, the bed frame is like not great quality. The bed's not great quality. The pillow is not great quality.

[00:29:59] Susan Barry: It’s pillows for me. 

[00:30:00] John Bianchi: Yeah.

[00:30:01] Susan Barry: It’s the pillows that are made out of that foam that doesn't move that I want to die. Uh huh. 

[00:30:06] John Bianchi: Yeah, exactly. I've got a neck issue, so like I die every time. 

[00:30:09] Susan Barry: Yes. 

[00:30:09] John Bianchi: So, if I were to have like an ideal home, I would create every bedroom to feel like a hotel room almost. So you get that high quality, the consistency, you know, what you're getting every single time that you walk in and you know, that it's going to be comfortable when you sleep and you feel good and you've got the blackout blinds and all of that. I think that is actually going to be the next generation of what people are - it's like, do you have the hotel certified, uh, bedrooms, right. And furniture in there and everything, not just the cheap $150 bed frame and whatever. 

[00:30:41] Susan Barry: Not a residential, like an industrial strength type of furniture. Is that what you're saying? 

[00:30:46] John Bianchi: Exactly what I'm saying, right. Where it's, it's good quality. It's well put together. It has everything you need. Again, even just blackout blinds. You need them like you, otherwise you're, I just, I just had a terrible experience with no blackout blinds and I was tired for a week because of it. Right. So. That's obviously the first thing. The next thing is just, uh, um, you know, I would want the property to just be a mini resort, like literally just a mini resort.

It has everything and anything that I would ever want to possibly have within that backyard to entertain the 10 plus people that I'm going to be with. And we're going to have an amazing time. And really that's, that's like the key thing. I would love to be able to have a place with amazing views and something like that, which is almost always impossible because of the, uh, the hill that you're going to be on to get those views, but... 

[00:31:29] Susan Barry: It's funny because I'm thinking about my favorite, like, visits with our families. It's never the, oh, we went into this or we saw this exhibit or we went to this party or whatever. It's always the times that you're just hanging around and like talking, swimming, that kind of stuff. That's where the memories are for me and that's where it's fun.

[00:31:54] John Bianchi: Could not agree more. And this is one thing that I have aggressively stressed to the TechFester team and everyone else. You need to have a dining room that sits the amount of guests that are going to be there.

[00:32:06] Susan Barry: Yes. 

[00:32:08] John Bianchi: Dining rooms are where memories are made. I don't care what anyone says. Breakfast. You have breakfast every single time me and my friends get together. I've got a nice big group of friends. We always like to get together. We always have breakfast together and we always play cards. And those are like the two main things we do. If we are not all sitting at a dining table together, it ruins the entire experience. We're not all together, right? So, yeah, I'm a huge stickler on that because that's where memories are created. 

[00:32:33] Susan Barry: Totally agree. Okay, what's next for you and what's next for your company? 

[00:32:37] John Bianchi: Uh, we're just gonna continue to expand, continue to grow, continue to let more people know that we exist. I strongly believe that this service that we are providing is needed within the industry and needed from a lot of people. And so I want as many people as possible to know that this exists and we're just going to continue to get out there as much as possible. And I must, I know for a fact it will evolve as all of my, as all my products and services have evolved over the years with me. So I don't know exactly what it'll look like but I know that we'll just try and continue to expand to get to as many people as possible. 

[00:33:07] Susan Barry: You're going to have 19 businesses with an STR service.

[00:33:11] John Bianchi: Hopefully not. 

[00:33:11] Susan Barry: That's totally what's going to happen. Okay, folks, before we tell John goodbye, we are going to head down to the loading dock where all of the best stories get told. You know, I have to ask a question. What is the loading dock in a short term rental? I guess the garage? 

[00:33:27] John Bianchi: Yeah, maybe. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, let's call it the garage.

Elevator voice announces, “Going down.”

[00:33:37] Susan Barry: John, what is a story you would only tell on The Loading Dock? 

[00:33:40] John Bianchi: One of the craziest experiences that I had, uh, when I had my properties in Chicago, was I had these really bad guests that were Blaring music inside of a, uh, uh, an apartment apartment, right? So the other people in the apartment were calling me and being like, what the hell is going on? And I get there and uh, it's, it's this group of guys that are again, blaring music. I tried a couple of times to get them to shut off and they wouldn't. So I just did stay there and like made sure they didn't. And one of those guys walked down and, and we started having a conversation. And everybody in there was like 20, 19, 18, maybe, and this guy was the oldest at 21. And I started engaging in conversation with him and he's told me that, um, they are, we're from the, from the South side of Chicago and they rent out Airbnbs on the North side of Chicago to hide from grown men who are trying to kill them. 

[00:34:30] Susan Barry: WHAT?!

[00:34:32] John Bianchi: Yeah. So this is like, you know, Chicago is crazy when it comes to these kinds of things. It's like, you know, gang stuff and whatnot and that blew my mind. And, uh, and the thing is, is I talked to this guy for like 40 minutes probably. And he was the nicest person I think I have ever met. I still think about the guy all the time. And I'm like, man, just genuine human being. He was so nice to me. He was so nice to the people. He was trying to explain like, you know, we're not trying to do anything bad, but like, this is the situation. And, and, uh, you know, they were just like, do whatever they wanted, which wasn't helpful. But yeah, that was the craziest thing. And I had to stay there and just like, I had to kick him out the next day.

[00:35:11] Susan Barry: John Bianchi, thank you so much for being here. I know that our listeners loved learning about your business and your suggestions for improving their short term rentals. And I really appreciate you riding up to the top floor. 

[00:35:27] John Bianchi: Thank you so much for having me. 

[00:35:29] Susan Barry: Thank you for listening. You can find the show notes at topfloorpodcast.com/episode/149. Jonathan Albano is our editor, producer, and all around genius. He even wrote and performed our theme song with vocals by Cameron Albano. You can subscribe to Top Floor on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen. And your rating or review will go a long way in helping us give you more of what you like. 

[00:36:05] Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Top Floor Podcast at www.topfloorpodcast.com. Have a hospitality marketing question? Reach us at 850-404-9630 to be featured in a future episode.