S3 EP4 with Elsie Lodde a Boarding House RE property owner

S3 EP4
On this episode, we host our guest Elsie Lodde, a scientist by profession and multi property RE owner/investor, decorator with her free time.

We get to talk about boarding houses, their appeal and how to manage them.
She explains how she has a property in Jackson, CA that was an LTR that was converted into an STR due to being haunted and having unexplainable events happen.

We also discuss how getting to know your tenants and hearing their story can play into their rental leasing viability. Everyone has a story and a reason for the things in their past, these are taken into consideration when approving or rejecting those tenants.

Below are links to social media and rental listing:
Link to haunted rental: https://airbnb.com/h/bethanyshomesweethauntedhome
You can find everything (including newspaper articles on the history of crimes and deaths in the house) on my website at: Bethany's Home Sweet Haunted Home (bethanyshomesweethauntedhome.com)

Facebook: Bethany's Home Sweet Haunted Home | Jackson CA (facebook.com)

IG: Bethany’s Sweet Haunted Home (@bethanyshomesweethauntedhome) • Instagram photos and videos

Tiktok: Bethany's Home Sweet Haunted (@bethanys_hshh) | TikTok

Transcript

0:01
foreign [Music]
0:06
we're back season three episode four at this point
0:11
um with Elsie out of the West Coast so thanks for joining us uh you're battling
0:17
through a migraine so I appreciate your time thank you so much and thanks for joining us thank you
0:24
yeah and you you mentioned before the show you're on the west coast what part of the West Coast are you on so I'm in
0:31
Sacramento California okay Northern the part where you can surf and Snowboard in
0:36
the same day yes is what I've heard hour and a half each Direction yeah that's awesome we
0:42
can't do either where we're at we're uh the middle of Wisconsin well southeastern Wisconsin
0:48
and uh you you can't even probably go outside too much right now uh right now we're 22
0:55
degrees so we can go outside early in the week we were like negatives we got we got a foot of snow out here
1:01
we probably got four inches of rain yesterday the day before yesterday yeah that washed like all the snow off so we
1:08
don't have anything so now it's just cold I have a friend in Wisconsin and he's always telling me the negative 22
1:14
and I'm like no like under 45 is like it's really hard to cope with so for us
1:21
like today it's probably gonna be a high of 66 a low of 45 so
1:26
um I can't handle snow lucky lucky I got a couple friends live in the LA San
1:31
Diego area and they're always like yeah it's 65 I'm gonna go play basketball outside today like it's negative there
1:37
you go the weather's always perfect yeah yeah yeah yeah uh so from what I
1:43
can uh from what I've read and what I've heard you're a property manager um I am a
1:50
uh not a property manager per se I mean I manage my own properties but an
1:55
investment I do own investment properties so I have purchased several
2:02
um primarily I do boarding houses so that's kind of what I have
2:07
um 2020 was a hard year especially you know for all of us uh landlords but especially you know like ins with
2:14
um all of the eviction moratoriums um so until 20 I did a shift I sold all
2:20
of my small single-family homes and then bought large houses to to run boarding
2:26
houses that's I'm sure the whole covet thing has changed your business quite a bit
2:32
and hopefully we can get into that um as the show goes on but uh if we can
2:37
start from square one and kind of give the audience uh where did you come from so how did you get into real estate what
2:44
were you doing before just kind of a 30 second quick little intro to how you you
2:50
became the person you are right now with Investments so I grew up super duper poor when I was
2:57
21 and on my first job I used to work all the overtime I can and I started investing in stocks like 25 a week 50 a
3:02
week whatever I could afford and so I took that and was able to buy my first
3:09
house and then a couple some at some point in time later I decided I wanted
3:15
to buy another house because I didn't like where we lived and when I did that I just didn't sell the first house
3:22
um and so that kind of just started it so I was using my um equity in one house to buy another
3:28
house so originally just for my primaries but then I just continued kind of you doing that to acquire more houses
3:36
awesome and they were all in the the same like Sam or not San Francisco uh
3:42
Sacramento area yeah okay so all kind of local which is awesome and you were you
3:49
were pretty much going single family homes at that point absolutely it was just um and then in like 2018 I was working
3:56
two jobs and I had a lot of extra money I'm not a spender
4:02
um and so me and my husband makes pretty decent money as well and so I was working two jobs had a lot of extra
4:08
money I had a friend who needed a place to stay she had pit bulls and so I bought a house for her to rent and then
4:14
that kind of added to the snowball um and then when she decided she was
4:20
gonna buy her own house that's when I had to really consider what do I want to do and how do I want to do it and so
4:26
that actually is what triggered for me to sell my single family homes and well I I still own single-family homes but
4:33
now I own huge single family homes okay yeah and you were calling them boarding houses so can you get into that because
4:40
I'm sure the listeners here have never heard the term boarding house so if you could describe what that is yeah so I
4:48
rent by the room which I mean for a landlord it's kind of amazing because I can go into that house anytime I want I
4:54
can't go into their bedrooms anytime I want I have to give the traditional you know notice but I can go into those
4:59
houses anytime I want which is nice um so for example when I sold one her
5:06
house I ended up buying and hers are just a two bedroom one bath small house I ended up buying taking the equity out
5:12
of that and buying an eight bedroom five and a half bathroom house um and so it was a little bit further
5:17
away because in Sacramento that would be a million plus so um it's about an hour away
5:23
um but I bought that and so now I rent each room individually so as long as
5:29
about half the people are paying their rent the mortgage is paid so I didn't have the same anxiety about like okay
5:36
she moves out and somebody moves in and they don't pay the rent and then I have to come up with the full thing so it's
5:41
one thing in California that that one percent rule really doesn't exist right yeah we're living off of hopefully we
5:47
break even because our Equity is King right like our Equity grows so fast that's really what we're going for so
5:55
usually like if I lose two three hundred dollars in a month um that's fine because that Equity you
6:01
know she lived in that house for three years and it was about a hundred and thirty thousand dollars in equity in
6:06
three years so so it was worth it you know to lose two three hundred dollars a month for a hundred and thirty thousand
6:11
dollars in two years um so but now I have it so yeah as long as half of the rooms are rented
6:18
basically I'm making my money back yeah and then so I did I bought I started
6:24
that process found this house so great and um and then I found another house that I
6:30
just absolutely had to have and that's kind of like shifted my whole world view and everything about my life but
6:38
and when I was when I was reading and and listening and just trying to wrap my
6:44
head around getting into real estate investing the one thing they said was you can start small with single-family
6:49
homes but the one thing you need to understand is when there's a vacancy you're 100 vacant there's no safety net
6:57
and if you're gonna think about going either single family or you're kind of like in between like a four Plex and a
7:04
single family because it is a single family but it operates like a fourplex um if you have some vacancy or someone
7:11
doesn't pay rent you're only 75 vacant or 50 vacant but at least you have
7:17
income coming in which is like that extra safety net uh that you have
7:22
and which is very very cool between that and my ability to actually like go into
7:28
the houses whenever I want to um and just make sure everything's clean I actually cleaned my properties myself
7:34
that way I know Hey this bathtub's not leak is not draining correctly so I'll
7:39
actually go in and clean my own properties I do most of my own handyman work so I go in there and I change my
7:45
own air filters and I and you know change locks and do all the stuff that I have to do when I have to do it so the
7:50
tenants know me well um so I have pretty good relationship with most of my tenants although honestly these tenants
7:56
um when I started this because they are fully furnished um which I love because I love
8:02
decorating um they're fully furnished properties which makes it easier because I don't have people bringing their stuff in and
8:07
out doing damage to my house yeah um they just have to show up basically with their clothes and their food and they're good so I assumed when I got
8:14
into this it would be mostly young people yeah so I've been shocked it is
8:20
not really people live with their parents until they can afford a five bedroom house in California that's just
8:25
the way it is I don't it's not how I grew up but that's you know like we can't wait to get out at 18 years old
8:31
that is not how it is today so most of my tenants are are much older like my
8:37
young tenant is like 49. really yeah so and up until they're mid 60s so those
8:45
are that's kind of the age range I have you know which it works well for people on the fixing because I'm paying the
8:51
utilities um their internet and everything so they literally you know all they have to do is be able to to pay that and so it
8:58
makes a little bit easier I think for them to budget yeah so yeah so it's kind of a it's a win-win situation I feel
9:04
like because I get to give them uh you know safe and affordable but also a
9:11
really nice home yeah for them which you know makes me feel good yeah and and
9:17
those same people that are in these the boarding houses would be the same people
9:22
that and I'm I'm also an agent so I'm trying to equate it if they're going to go out and buy they're probably the
9:28
people that are in the market for like a condo where they don't want to do any maintenance they don't want to do anything they just want their spot to
9:34
live and they're happy you'll never buy a house like right right they're just not that I mean if they were they would
9:40
have done it by now right I'm just saying for the the feel of not having to do yard like they like the feel of the
9:47
house but they don't want to do the maintenance or the yard care or anything like that they don't want to clean
9:52
gutters they just want their space to live which is what you offer but it was such a
9:57
foreign concept I feel like even 10 years ago to set up something like that
10:04
forever I don't think they were popular I mean [Music]
10:09
the 1900s like the early and then 1950s even they were super super popular but I
10:16
would say for instance probably like the 1960s 1970s they have become very much less popular yeah we gotta find
10:24
we should find how many there are in in the Milwaukee Wisconsin area because I
10:29
haven't come across many investors that do it which I I like the idea
10:35
um I just don't know it takes a lot of Airbnb and just leave it at that I would
10:41
think around here I would think it would take a lot more trust because it depending I mean I know you have your
10:47
own space like your own room but the common areas I I guess there's a lot more to be angry
10:54
about because of not as having As Nice of weather when you can step outside or do things so maybe everybody's contained
11:01
and I don't want to like uh I had a question about like the demographic like you said that you said
11:06
mid to late 40s on up right I mean are these are you talking like divorced
11:14
um people with or without kids and you know like things like that so it it probably all walks of life in that age
11:21
range but you would think like you know middle-aged guy going through a divorce needs a place to stay doesn't have the
11:26
income or doesn't have the money to put down on an apartment or like a full home you know this is probably a great chance
11:33
for him to have his own space and not have to worry about like you said moving furniture in and out and
11:40
doing all that stuff you'd be like all right here we go and what kind of terms do you give them is it three six months
11:46
a year so I don't usually start off anybody with
11:52
long or two so like if you move in during the winter you're gonna get a six month yeah I might do later just because
11:58
I want to see if you're going to be a good fit right and if not I want to get you out
12:03
um so some of the tenants actually have been there long before I bought the house they've been there for like five years because the previous owner they
12:10
had rented out through some rooms upstairs and then the downstairs they had rented as a single family home and I
12:18
switched it and turned it all into two room rentals um so they have been there for quite
12:23
some time but yeah so I usually start with six months because I want to make sure you're a good fit before or you
12:29
know but I also have had a fair amount of travel nurses or live in a wine area so like people coming in just for wine
12:35
season and stuff like that too so so we kind of get a mixed bag but right now
12:42
it's been since there's less travel nurses I have a lot of caretakers in the house but yeah you're right two of these
12:48
women are from Africa they don't have kids or family here I've got you know a
12:53
senior woman who she's got she's got family around she's not married there's no kids
12:59
um so and again I you know I I kind of prefer that older demographic but they spend most their time in their rooms now
13:06
the reason I clean these houses is so that way there's no fighting over common areas right yeah okay because that is
13:14
one of the biggest issues with roommates always is like oh my God they're such a slob like for me kitchens and bathrooms
13:19
have to be spotless so if I live with people who left it trashed all the time there would be animosity so I just cut
13:26
that out by going in and cleaning their kitchens and their bathrooms how often do you do the the cleaning on
13:32
that I would like to do it every uh two weeks but usually it's about once a month okay
13:38
no that's super cool and you had mentioned um previously it was about the demographics
13:45
and the people in there it's escaping me now but um it was a it was a very very good
13:51
point we're gonna have to replay it and go back um man oh man
13:59
that's escaping me um but I did I I like the concept I want to
14:05
be able to bring that here in Wisconsin I think it'd be a super fascinating um
14:11
rental Avenue to go into I would just have to find a property to do it is
14:17
there anything that you look for when you're looking for these properties like specifically because they're a bedroom
14:23
count uh bathrooms that's all I care about okay okay and do you go
14:29
do you try to go like two units to a bathroom is there any sort of system that you look for like that in order
14:36
that you've seen either works or does not work yeah I definitely try to so I have five people using two bathrooms
14:43
upstairs that would be about my Max and there's also a half path that can be used on downstairs
14:50
um but honestly I'm actually like because of the rental room like one of my tenants lives in Florida he works
14:56
sometimes out here so he rents the house year round so he can leave his car um in the secured parking lot and leave
15:02
his stuff here but he was here one month so far like of the whole last year
15:08
yeah so not using my bathroom you know like so I have these tenants one works
15:15
six days a week you know so it's really you would think that there'd be a lot of wear and tear with eight rooms all these
15:22
people it's really not you know because again they do stay in their rooms but most of them work a lot
15:29
that's a good concept it's good I mean yeah that's a great great concept great idea I mean I remember what it recalled
15:36
I remember I had a roommate it was about you talking about the common spaces and people being messy and not cleaning
15:42
obviously we were college kid so all of us were messy and I will take blame on it dishes were like the last thing on
15:49
our list of things to do and we had one roommate who just would never do it and I walked in one day after practice
15:56
and he's eating cereal off of a plate because he didn't want to wash a bowl and it's like dude come load the
16:02
dishwasher one time so those are the situations that thank you for going in and resetting the
16:09
apartment for or the the space forum but I also also very strict rules about
16:14
cleanliness about you just just all the basic considerations right I've never had to usually use them but I do have
16:22
them there in case I need to violate somebody on a lease because of the fact that like okay no you can't leave your
16:28
stuff all over the common space you leave yourself in room you need to clean up after yourself you need to you know
16:34
so it's a whole lot of just basic like common uh knowledge just to be polite to
16:39
one another you know I have this list of house rules um but again it's not usually an issue
16:45
especially when you have older tenants you know it's not again it wasn't the
16:50
demographic I was expecting but it it works for sure is there a monthly Card
16:55
Club for all the tenants like everybody gets together and plays Bridge or or Euchre or
17:00
Canasta right yeah Bridge they actually are very like to themselves in their
17:06
rooms okay honestly that's ideal that's honestly the idea that I'm trying to think of like properties in my area that
17:12
would that would fit that I mean you guys have them you guys have these huge oh old victorians I mean have been
17:19
turned into quad plexes but you have big houses and so that's the thing we need you know for me mostly I'm buying old
17:26
houses from the 1800s are you willing to share like your requirements for like
17:32
moving in is there a a security deposit or first month's rent last month and
17:37
like on average what you look to charge for a room I I know you said you include all utilities on your end you pay
17:44
everything for that so like what does that look like for you and so uh for rent for a deposit it's two
17:52
months uh deposit which okay um you know we can't do first last and deposits so it's just no it's you first
18:00
plus two months deposit is what it is um and you know I could actually charge
18:05
three times in the state of California because it's furnished but I do too to make it more reasonable and sometimes
18:11
I will allow people to make payments towards that second month deposit if they don't have it depending on the
18:17
situation right and sucker I'm an empath um and so I do con I am concerned about
18:24
my attendance like well-being and stuff so I know everybody's like keep in business I can't it's just who I am but
18:30
usually that works out in my favor um so yeah uh so that's my big
18:36
requirement and of course I you know I look at credit scores but again I don't really care about your credit score to
18:42
care what's on your credit because if you have I don't care if you have student debt I don't care if you have medical bills but if you have utilities
18:48
or evictions um those are the things that I actually care about but if it was like in 2017
18:54
you know I have I have one of my tents like his son died in 2017 and clearly he stopped you know caring and didn't pay
19:01
any of his bills at that time I get that like that makes sense to me like I would
19:07
be gutted too so I let him and he's the most amazing tenant
19:13
so it's like you know I kind of look at people as people um and so I don't really have like this
19:19
oh strict you know this um and I do have a lot of tenants just because again when you're renting by the
19:25
room you have a lot of tenants right it's not like one tenant one family it's not like that so you know I I'm probably
19:33
more in their business than I I probably should be but again it's you know it's it's just a little bit different
19:39
situation I feel like than just like renting an apartment to a family yeah that's a good Dynamic I mean there's there's property managers all the time
19:45
that are like completely hands off and they don't even know or interact with the tenants and sometimes that works for
19:52
the tenants and the the owner of the property you know I have a friend who
19:58
I think she's got 20 Doors if you if you call it that house single family Plus Rentals and she just uses a property
20:04
management company and I think sometimes she might have final say with who the tenants are
20:10
um but other than that she just lets them handle it and she's like okay yeah good to go rent it out to them and then
20:16
she never sees them or interacts with them and I'm a control freak and I've worked very hard to get every single one
20:22
of my properties I am not leaving those decisions up to somebody else right and that and that's yeah I can agree with
20:28
that too like it's the more you know and just like you said it's you are coming across people who
20:35
have stories or have situations that happen and I I think I'm the same way I'm
20:41
kindness always wins for me man I mean like I I can be the bad guy sometimes but I always try
20:48
to do the right thing and I tell that to my kids do the right thing even when nobody's watching so it's like if you can help make this person's situation or
20:55
life a little bit better and that's in that instance and you know it may not mean a lot to you or it's easy for you
21:00
to say yes but it could be mean so much more to them because of the the assistance that you're providing so it's
21:06
pretty cool yeah I'm an empath but and so I'm a highly intuitive empath so I
21:12
can read people extremely well um and I kind of can I know more than I should about
21:19
people just in general um but I'm also neurotypical so I can
21:24
definitely be like I feel your energy I feel bad for you but don't make me mad
21:30
because when you make me mad it's a different situation now I'm always going to be professional but I'm going to tell you the way it is always I'm always
21:36
going to say it the way that it is and so um I don't let people take advantage of
21:41
me and I'm gonna be there to be like Susan what are you doing cleaning clean you need to clean your stuff up you need
21:47
to take this out of the house I'm not doing this anymore like so I you know I can be like you know sometimes they text
21:55
me like I'm their their parent or like you know like they want me to work out squabbles over like he's coming in here
22:03
and being unreasonable because I'm using the hot plate when he wants it and I'm like I'm gonna order your hot plate I
22:08
don't want to hear this conversation again have a nice day yeah like yeah and I I do like that you do your
22:15
own proper management I do my own for most of the same reasons I mean what I
22:20
and I think our culture is feeling it where things get too big and the personal aspect gets completely taken
22:25
out it's just numbers but that's super hard in real estate because you're dealing with people's lives like they
22:31
need a roof and it can't just be looking at numbers I'm I'm the same way with credit score like when we do our
22:38
background checks I tell them like everything's gonna come through the best thing we can do right now is talk about
22:43
it before it comes up on a sheet because if I pull the report you don't tell me about this thing that happened then what
22:50
do I I look at it as like you trying to hold that from me like I don't find out and if we're gonna work on honesty here
22:57
like I would rather have you tell me before and if you tell me and it pops up and that's what it is that's what it is
23:03
like I'm not gonna hold it back because you have a low credit score because you went through
23:08
uh a separation in from for a year you weren't able to do or pay some bills
23:15
like that is life things happen but if you're back and you're working and things are going and you're paying all
23:21
your bills and you're all caught up or catching up then yeah I don't see why there's an issue there
23:26
um but once you start giving it out to somebody else like a property manager their turn or their head turns into like
23:32
I just have to make the numbers work for my client and at some point or themselves exactly hiring their friends
23:39
and their family at all these like ridiculous costs to come in and do the maintenance like I can do that so yeah I
23:45
don't need you to do that you know like yeah that's that's my thing it's just it's giving up money again I grew up
23:50
very poor so I didn't grow up with servants to do this stuff for me right so like life so I'm still going to go do
23:57
it all myself um yeah I I mean I have control issues that's just who I am so but it happens
24:04
but I I do have that conversation with with my tenants about like I I'm the
24:10
property manager my job here is to make sure that your space is operating and safe I'm not the police I'm not going to
24:16
fix quarrels like those you're an adult you have to treat yourself as an adult if obviously there's something legal
24:23
that needs to get involved yes I'm here to support you but like treat this as your own space like I want you to have
24:29
some ownership feel to this and and I do give them Freedom like if you if you
24:34
want to paint a wall paint it I will tell you if you go lime
24:39
green on me you're getting charged you're getting charged for me to put it
24:45
back but I mean you can see all of my extra Decor that's just sitting around with another house all around me here
24:51
yep do not touch my walls do not you're welcome to change the bedding if you really don't like my my comforters
24:59
do not touch my walls put a bunch of nails and holes and screws no but I I just I work already all over
25:06
the walls there's no reason put any more in there so it's actually worked surprisingly to my favor because no
25:12
one's taking me up on it because I tell them like hey if you want to mount your TV mount your TV if something goes wrong
25:19
and you hit an electrical cord like you are liable for all of it and it's on the lease like I obviously don't want you
25:26
touching the walls I don't want you painting I don't want you doing anything like you can't take baseboard off and
25:32
put your own baseboard on like we're gonna cut the line there but if you want to put up a picture put it up but if
25:38
it's damaged when I come back in all of that is falling on you so like there's
25:43
your ownership side to it so treat it how you want yeah um family homes I wouldn't have mattered
25:50
yeah I'm doing furnished rentals and yeah they're way different there's no
25:56
reason for them to hang a TV because I've already done it yep yeah TV hanger at this point in time
26:03
um but like yeah there is no reason for people to do it because I yeah I have already done it so it's not
26:08
I was going to ask you when you do your your common spaces there's obviously verbage in your leases with that did you
26:16
get that like trial and error where like something happened you're like okay I need to put a clause in there or did you
26:21
talk to an attorney did you take it from like condo docs like how did you formulate your lease agreement to fit
26:28
your business um so so from kind of some of the
26:33
I read some books books and then how yeah made changes as
26:40
I have found other things that happen or other things have gone along I've continued to make some changes to it but
26:48
for the most part again being who I am I usually have I I usually have a really
26:54
good job uh picking people now there are some people who are like if you're a narcissist um I sometimes I can't I
27:00
can't read you uh because you're a really good liar um and so I've only been fooled a couple of times but you know I have kind of
27:09
gone through now I've been I have been a landlord for like 11 years but again I'm like I had tenants who were staying long
27:15
term and single-family homes which is totally different than this so where I'm much more involved in the properties
27:22
um and then so you know and I've only ever wanted to do be a long-term tenant
27:29
or owner um and now I have an Airbnb which I never expected nice but that was again
27:37
the same situation Nation I you know I I go to realtor I look for houses with more than five bedrooms I found a seven
27:43
bedroom two bath house about an hour away the opposite direction
27:49
um and I just had to have it and so I I mean I can't tell you why I just
27:55
absolutely had to have that house and it took about two weeks for the real estate agent to get back to my agent and we
28:01
went and looked at it and I walked in I'm like I have to have this house I had it all planned out in my head
28:07
because again seven bedrooms two baths uh not enough bathrooms but I can add bathrooms um it the house is like 3 200
28:15
square feet uh uh finished and then there's like an 800 square foot unfinished basement
28:21
um and so I was like I can figure out another place to put a bathroom and I was like picturing them like I could put
28:26
up clothes off these doors I can make a two bedroom apartment there and I was going to turn that into an Airbnb so I
28:32
could go visit because it's like um it's in Jackson California it's on this Main Street which is like Main
28:38
Street USA it's you know it's an it's a wild west town but it's just like super cute street with like historic nothing
28:45
but historic buildings um and so like all the amazing restaurants and candy stores and all
28:52
these kind of things that you know it just kind of breaks bring me a lot of Joy um and so I bought the house and ended
29:00
up being haunted like oh very haunted interesting and so I went from I bought
29:08
it to be a long-term rental I you know I did move so I had tenants that moved in
29:13
and I told everybody it was haunted before um I moved in but they because I realized it when I did the final walk
29:20
through that it was haunted and then I had a paranormal investigation before anybody had a paranormal group come in
29:27
um before anybody even um you know moved in or anything like that so I told I I warned people and the
29:34
Aries extremely is one of those areas that's just very traumatized like Gettysburg or whatever where everybody's
29:39
houses are haunted so it's like not that big of a deal right so which I didn't know that because I live an hour away
29:46
and um and so yeah but they ended up not lasting but two three months and so at
29:54
that point in time I decided to switch it over I apologize my uh dogs I didn't
29:59
lock them up and so there's such a Bulldogs running around with all their heavy breathing so
30:04
I have a boxer who's been annoying me underneath my desk like nudging my leg for the past five minutes they just
30:11
realized that I'm over here and so yeah so it's kind of ridiculous at this point the uh the haunted and I I was gonna ask
30:18
you a question about the California rules through covid but I wanted to touch on you threw haunted on and I
30:25
cannot bypass it so we've had a couple spiritual uh people on this podcast uh I
30:32
think two in season one and then one in season two um talking about crystals and energy fields in in blocks and all that stuff
30:40
that stuff is so fascinating and I don't know anything about any of this I'm just saying I've never been to
30:46
a parable investigation yeah I used to see ghosts when I was a kid honestly but
30:52
I stopped when I was in high school um and so I know I have certain abilities uh that have nothing to do
30:59
with any of this that unfortunately won't make me Rich but like I know my friends are pregnant before they do I
31:05
know the genders of their baby sometimes I know the initials sometimes I know what they look like um I literally just had this happen this
31:11
week where like two months ago I had a dream my friend had a baby she's getting divorced well she just told me she's
31:16
having a baby she met a guy and she's having a baby and I'm like I know like and so this is just like this has been
31:22
like kind of a normal thing for me but again I walked through there and the house was just Disneyland the energy was
31:28
so amazing I was just loving it and then I found out it used to be brothel and it was a boarding house so she said there's
31:34
like not very much this house was a boarding house from like 19 like 1896
31:40
um until pretty recently the a family who the one family who owned it the
31:45
longest they owned it until 1996 and so for a majority of the from
31:51
the time of 1920 whatever to 1996 they were basically running it as a uh my
31:57
color on my screen just changed that's really weird um ghosts I know it's the sun it's the
32:03
sunlight Chiller I know I gotta go with ghosts like I always think
32:08
and I'm I'm coming around to it slowly where I'm seeing it but I always thought like okay there's a rational answer like
32:15
the door shut and I'm like okay well if there's a window open it might have pulled a draft and it closed it like there's always a logical answer but some
32:23
things I have to say like with the world being one energy source there's energy
32:29
in play that we don't see and don't feel and that's where I leave it I don't know if it's ghosts or just like a energy
32:36
force that we don't know about something's there I don't know what it is so my real job is I work in science I
32:41
work in research right but the conservation of energy states the law of conservation energy says we cannot get
32:47
rid of or create energy right period Point Blank it's right there in science right so but yeah so people have always
32:54
said like um like when I was uh long story short I was walking through
33:00
doing the the the final walk through with my real estate agent and my uh
33:05
handyman at the time and I just looked at them and said there's a girl in that closet and they just kind of looked at
33:11
me like I was crazy I'm sure they loved that oh yeah there's like okay well then I I had a paranormal which now knowing
33:18
what I know I should have known when I did the inspection because the home inspector did not want to inspect the
33:25
house whatsoever I I was like no I need you to inspect he's like but it's just so big there's so many windows he had
33:30
just inspected that eight bedroom five and a half bathroom house for me like three weeks before so I'm like no no no no no I need you to go do it and when I
33:38
get there the first thing he says to me is what if there's ghosts and I was like I don't care and so I haven't talked to him to ask
33:46
him like did you know something that you know like you know but that was the first
33:51
question and my real estate agent actually at the time also had a weird experience that day because she was
33:56
hearing knocking behind her she was in the back of the house the solarium and she heard knocking behind her so she
34:02
assumed that he was like it's a creek behind the house like literally the foundation is retaining wall for the
34:08
tree um so she figured that it was pretty dry so she thought he was down there doing something well then she saw him walking
34:15
on the front porch and so that was like their first experiences but again I just
34:20
thought oh nothing big no big deal okay the house is haunted who cares yeah but this house is like very haunted there's
34:27
like 12 of them probably um and so but yeah in the beginning I was you know in groups and they're like
34:33
oh you need to have your carbon monoxide tested because carbon monoxide can make people feel like things are haunted I
34:39
was like all right cool but like I had like a baby footprint appear on the stairs like a wet baby footprint
34:47
I don't have babies I don't particularly like kids um I shouldn't say that
34:53
um we'll edit that out yeah all right whatever dogs kids I not so much so I don't have
35:00
them hanging out with me in the house so I don't have babies to have baby
35:05
footprints on the stairs and baby Footprints period on the stairs so
35:12
um you know I stuff like that like bouncing a ball at night yeah so do you
35:17
and actually my mind changed we were doing a basement for a customer and I was doing the shower and I was setting I
35:24
was setting the the shower pan and I left it and I told him like Hey the shower pan is drying so just
35:32
stay out of the bathroom and they're like okay got it had a nice day came back on Monday and there was a footprint
35:38
like half of the foot and it was like size five
35:44
and I'm like there's we don't have anybody in our crew that has that small of a foot and we we took the guy who had
35:49
the smallest foot put it next to it and his foot was doubled the size like it was a kid's foot with the toes that were
35:55
like that went around the corner stepped in the shower pan and I brought the the customer down I
36:01
was like hey I'm trying to not make this weird but were you guys in the basement and he was like why and I was like because I mean
36:08
you can look at this I don't know what it is and he's like that's a footprint and I was like yeah so we weren't here
36:14
over the weekend and he's like neither would I I'm gonna be upstairs just let me know when you're done and just vacate
36:19
it didn't want anything to do with it and it's stuff like that where I'm like I can't say no and if I can't say
36:26
declarative no there's got to be something I don't know what it is yeah I had a weird hand print on the fridge one
36:31
day I walked in there and I took a picture of it because it was a very weird it's like a four-fingered hand
36:36
print and it's I don't know it's very unusual but again it's small it's like this size which is bigger than the footprint would have been a bigger child
36:43
than the footprint but still a child still don't have children so you still
36:49
don't yeah my real estate agent who's also my really good friend she's been helpful she helped me quite a bit um
36:54
with like paint painting and decorating and stuff like that and uh she's like I just made breakfast in there on
37:00
Wednesday that was not there this was like Saturday I was like I know like they just appeared and I was like no I
37:06
don't know I don't know I don't I don't particularly like children all together ghost children so do you do you have
37:11
this listed on air is this the one you said you have Airbnb now do you promote it as a haunted theme I was gonna I was
37:17
gonna ask that I don't feel like it's fair to not tell people that it's haunted no but like promoting it at his
37:24
haunted not like disclaimer haunted like hey come stay at my haunted like
37:29
boarding house and if you can stay four days straight I'll give you 25 off and like do it as a I mean actually they
37:37
turned out to be the best roommates for me they take care of the house and they scare off or they mess with people who
37:44
are mean to me like and I don't even have to be there if they if somebody makes me mad they
37:50
will pay them back and I I have the that's awesome we'll be using that to your advantage trying to hey go meet me
37:57
at the house in Jackson and uh amazing no yeah because like so on on Christmas here's an example so now yeah it is on
38:03
Airbnb I do listed as haunted it's called Bethany's Home Sweet haunted home I have an Instagram check it out all
38:09
that stuff so you can see the videos of ghostly stuff happening and all the
38:14
stuff that happens there um but and and so I've had several paranormal groups come through
38:20
some shows and stuff like that but anyways so yeah I do the reason I started saying it was haunted was just
38:27
because again I didn't think it was fair for people like me to show up like not
38:32
expecting it and have the stuff happen or like people wonder if they're crazy um and then also people know that I'm
38:39
not a slum Lord because they mess with the electrics so like the light just won't work one day or the the light bulb
38:45
will unscrew by itself one day or the oven won't work one day and in the
38:50
beginning I start because it's an old house I kept like calling in electricians and like the next day it's like no it's fine
38:57
so I stopped doing that so I kind of felt like for those two reasons so people know one if the light's not
39:03
working it'll work tomorrow just ignore it and turn on a different light you know but um so that people understand
39:09
that that this is just part of it now um it is one of the most active places I
39:15
can I've you know like my paranormal the Paranormal groups come through literally said like this is one of the most active places we've ever been in including like
39:22
these famously haunted places like Waverly um so it's been well enjoyed for through
39:29
that you know for those people who are really into that but yeah so on Christmas
39:34
um I have Smart locks right I program them usually about a week in advance or a couple weeks in advance to to do the
39:41
temporary uh access codes and um I had a gas check-in on Christmas day
39:47
now this is my first year I've learned my lesson I'm no longer allowing people to check in on holidays because then you
39:53
message me on Thanksgiving going how do I turn on the fireplace I'm like oh the fire place that's in the booklet that
39:58
tells you exactly how that I have labeled on it where it says pull down this flap push this button oh okay turn
40:05
that on cool okay on Thanksgiving sure no problem um
40:10
yeah so on uh Christmas I had this guy show up two hours early two hours early
40:17
so I've programmed the locks for him actually I even programmed it one hour
40:23
early but he showed up two hours early and here I am up to my elbow in Turkey
40:28
trying to get you know this all you know
40:33
now I've got to change all these locks so this guy annoys me obviously because I'm like who does this like you knew
40:40
when you left home three hours ago you're gonna be early why didn't you text me then why did you wait until you got to the house to say like oh I'm here
40:47
can you open the door like yeah on Christmas Day so anyways I was annoyed but I just
40:53
have a great day and program the walk well that night he has his mother lived like a block away so that night he
41:00
stayed at his mom's or his family hung out at his mother's and then um the next their children were
41:06
apparently sick or the the tenant I do have long-term tenants downstairs and so
41:12
they said that they were sick they were like screaming all night long and coughing so they decided to leave early
41:17
but when they went to leave they couldn't find their car keys anywhere and um and I I offered I said do you
41:24
want me to come help you look no so he hired a locksmith who had to come from Sacramento so an hour away he paid 650
41:32
because it's not just the law a key you know now it's yeah and so he
41:39
um he yeah paid all this uh to get new keys and left well walked in and the spirits
41:48
told me exactly where the keys were immediately because uh so I had the house completely decorated for Christmas
41:53
I'm extra right so the whole house head to toe
41:59
Christmas right so I walk into one of the bedrooms not one of the primary bedrooms so kind of surprised that that
42:06
you know I don't know but um and there was this snowman uh stuffy on the
42:14
dresser and I'll call Laying across its lap was like this kind of like a light up Elsa wand and the wand was turned on
42:20
so I went over to check it out and saw the keys behind the Snowman interesting so it's like oh so I was
42:29
like good news I found your keys yeah you want me to mail them to you um no he's got a spare yes he does
42:38
um so yeah so it's like it's sometimes it's kind of to my benefit but I feel
42:44
like the spirits and I actually have a really good relationship um but like recently we flooded on New Year's Eve we had in California we had
42:51
these massive storms for a month basically and on New Year's Eve
42:56
dumped rain and so we ended up with four inches of water in the house and because
43:02
again my Foundation is the retaining wall for the creek okay yeah So eventually the water just went higher
43:09
than my foundation and came right into the the house
43:15
um and houses were wiped out like we've had FEMA and around and I mean
43:20
I didn't have it that bad so I
43:26
um had to replace in the kitchen the subfloor and the flooring because the subfloor turned into squishy cardboard
43:32
so um but when I remodeled the bathroom upstairs I just changed the flooring and the vanity like the spirits were like
43:39
off the chart for like a month after that moving things like I have it on camera stuff moving in the middle of the night right and stuff like that so I was
43:47
like I don't really want to play with them thank you
43:52
I have a handicapped dog so that's what you're hearing is him oh I got you everywhere but it's like he's so noisy
43:58
when he moves like can you guys go away sorry about that that's right I run a
44:03
dog rescue too and I Foster special needs dogs so I have a lot most of mine are like wear diapers or you know cleft
44:09
palettes all these sorts of weird defects but anyways so I apologize it's cool you keep yourself busy for sure
44:16
um well we're gonna have to put that property in the show notes because I want to check out that thing but we only
44:22
have a few minutes left and I want to get into some of the um the changes through covid with
44:28
tenants because I know that as I've been reading that was one area that
44:34
um has had a lot of changes with with what people can do and what landlords can do and rights and all that stuff has
44:40
anything really affected your business uh negative or positive through all of that because I know that there could be
44:46
some positive changes I don't want to just harp on the negative I feel like what I'm doing now is as a positive
44:53
result of covid and my in my concerns for you know everything I mean luckily
44:59
you know the eviction moratorium's gone although I still to this day have never had to evict anybody that's good um so
45:08
you know that's not been an issue necessarily but that fear of not being
45:13
able to if I ever needed to is kind of what led me to here which so again I
45:18
went from a couple single family like houses to now I've got you know what I
45:24
still have several but I bought in 2021 I ended up buying three houses
45:29
um and in one year which was like everybody like in 2021 was having time buying one but yeah I found these three
45:35
houses and apparently nobody wanted them because I ended up with them and so I mean I have an Afghani Refugee family in
45:42
one house so I I set it up to rent by the room but it ended up obviously they needed furnished rentals too because
45:47
they literally came to the country with nothing yeah um and then so yes at the boarding house and then said Jackson
45:54
turned into a flip because like I had to Pivot again just because I actually am
46:00
not a huge fan of Airbnb personally say what you will I know lots of people make lots of money with it but for me I feel
46:07
like again one of my Prides in my boarding houses is that I provide affordable
46:12
housing for people who need it Airbnb takes away affordable housing from people who need it so I have always had
46:20
kind of a feeling about like I you know I appreciate your property you do what
46:25
you want it's your business model but for me that's just not something I ever wanted to do but you know when you have
46:31
a house that nobody actually wants to live in yeah I felt like oh well I guess I could Airbnb this right because nobody
46:38
actually wants to live here and I really tried to find people who wanted to live there for some time and finally said you
46:44
know what forget it I'm just gonna put it on Airbnb um but you know it's you know the covid
46:49
most of it's gone I think we have a couple rules left like we have to provide give like two months notice
46:55
before instead of you know one month's notice but honestly that's just being a decent human being anyways it's hard to
47:01
find out housing so people need to have more than one month now of course does that mean that people may not pay that
47:08
that could be a problem but you know that's just something I have to consider when taking deposits and when how I run
47:15
my business which again if I was just renting single family homes that would have been that would have been a problem
47:20
back in the day I was losing 200 a month um on a property but now it's less an
47:25
issue my goal has always just been that my properties pay for themselves and they
47:31
do and I don't make a lot of I don't make money on top of it really but that's because I'm constantly improving the properties because again my biggest
47:38
concern is equity not with how much money is in my pocket every single day
47:44
so I'm consistently you know like the Jackson House was built in the 18th uh
47:50
1878 um and it just got central heat and air for the first time well you know last
47:57
year so it's it's good yeah so it's like now I've got all these projects that I'm
48:03
like checking off that I want to do so solar um all these things that I want to do
48:09
um which you know it helped me but also uh help the world help everybody you
48:16
know so like solar facing hvacs all this sort of stuff so I'm constantly improving all of my properties
48:23
um so yeah so the money I never see it anyways but it's it's for the future yeah and that's super cool I mean that's
48:30
proof to say that you just have to pick an investment model that you want to go to um in appreciation and cash flow are
48:37
always like the first two that you decide on which one is your goal which one are you relying on and uh it really
48:43
depends on your investment strategy yeah and where you are right correct again in
48:49
California our Equity grows so quickly that that can be a thing but like if I
48:55
were in a place like you guys are then I have to look at cash flow because that Equity just isn't growing the same way
49:02
yeah because buying houses in Georgia or you know all these other places where the equity grows very slowly cash flow
49:08
would be an issue yeah but for me because I live in California cash flow
49:13
can't be the issue now I am lucky that I do have properties that make more money
49:19
which right now are paying for the haunted one because I mean it was T
49:24
basically for 10 months why one while I was doing all the stuff adding bathrooms and doing all the stuff that I was doing
49:30
and setting it up but it is it is slower airbnbs have dropped by like 80 for most people this year so but it's fine
49:37
because the bills are still paid yeah and that's my concern yep
49:42
well that's cool I mean you've built a really really cool business and hopefully it it keeps growing you can keep expanding on that
49:49
um and I apologize we gotta cut off here because we got to get onto the the next show two quick questions though I have
49:55
two quick questions you said that you have like you caught some of the Haunted stuff on camera do you have
50:02
is there a common space in that Airbnb unit where like you could just have a
50:07
continuous live stream feed have you considered that the only place
50:12
that I have cameras in the Airbnb all the time is in my basement because the basement does flood so I do have but I
50:20
have I threw in an extra one just because um in there and so but that's that's it
50:27
um so but no I don't I don't I know I maybe I could but I just yeah I wouldn't
50:33
feel comfortable with it I mean I had this conversation recently about my other house like putting a camera in the hallway because one of the tenants was
50:40
having some issues um but and the only reason I was asking is just just for like promotion and try
50:46
to you know use it to draw more people in and I agree with the Airbnb philosophy like the only good thing
50:53
about the Airbnb is that it it it pulls in it does the marketing for
50:58
you obviously if somebody's looking for you know a place in Sacramento or you said it was Jackson you know if they're
51:05
looking for a place like that and obviously you you have that I don't want to call it it's not free marketing because you're paying a fee to them at
51:11
the end of the day but you wouldn't have the the access to all the people right I
51:17
guess so that's the the trade-off but you know if you utilize them to you know get your property some more awareness
51:24
and get it rented or listed it can be beneficial my other question is when you
51:30
buy those houses and have the intention for them to be boarding houses do you have to have any type of rezoning or
51:38
like do you have to do anything with the city you just start doing room by room and no worries yeah there's
51:47
everything has been okay but no they are just single family
51:54
homes okay curious that's cool good to know I just basically have to buy these houses put
52:00
locks in the doors and have a nice day and now I found these locks that's just I replace the keypad because four is drilling holes in the door so put dead
52:06
bolts in and that was a pain but now I found these keypads that are just on the handle and yeah so so that's really not
52:14
there's not a whole lot that I have to do as far as all of that different other than obviously I finish Furnishing them
52:20
okay yeah
52:25
it's my favorite thing who knew yeah and actually I mean you you found a passion that will also help you financially and
52:33
man just maximize that so congratulations and keep going that's that's exciting yeah I'm keeping I'm
52:38
looking at other states like I really want to quit my job and just like work on houses because I enjoy it so much but
52:45
well it'll happen if that's a goal this year right yeah that's exciting well I appreciate your
52:53
time thank you so much hopefully the migraine is subsided and gone thank you
52:58
but enjoy your weekend and thank you so much for your time that was awesome it was great speaking with you guys thank
53:05
you you as well [Music]