Building Lifestyle & Financial Freedom Investing In Vacation Rentals with Shawn Moore

Shawn Moore Shawn Moore is an active real estate investor, the host of the Vacation Rental Revolution podcast, and the founder of Vodyssey. com, the #1 Vacation Rental Investing Education company in the world. Shawn has one goal in mind: to cut through all of the noise and help you find success in acquiring, managing & marketing a profitable vacation rental portfolio. Shawn has helped thousands of new and experienced investors alike navigate the complicated world of vacation rental investing. If you don’t catch him at the office, he will be spending time with his wife and two kids on a river, beach, or mountain somewhere where phones and computers don’t work.

Episode Highlights Here:

Shawn:

We’ll have somebody that will call us and say, Hey, I heard this tax strategy we’ve had to our CPAs on our podcast, and they call us up and say, I want to buy one of these just for the tax strategy. And we say, that’s not the reason. We don’t want to let the tax tail wag our investment dog, right?

Jessica:

So you’re running this company. Now there’s teaching other people how to do this. I’m curious, what are you telling them? Like, what’s investing 101? For short-term rentals?

Shawn:

Yeah, one one, we want to make sure this is the right asset class for somebody to invest in, right? Pros and cons of short-term rentals there, there is a lot of fun to Oh, it’s fun to have a portfolio of, you know, properties and beach areas, mountain areas, you know, areas that you would love to own a vacation home, I always tell people, so it’s a really fun asset class to own, there is a little bit more time involved in this type of an asset than maybe buying an apartment complex or anything else because you’ve got people that are moving in and moving out all the time. Now, we do hire full-service property managers to deal with that. So we’re not always dealing with that. But even on the front end, your acquisition is going to take you a little bit more time, especially the setup, you’re furnishing all these properties, and you’re getting them all set up before somebody comes in. That’s those are tough things to outsource. And so until the property is handed over to the property manager, there’s more time involved. And so one, we want to make sure it’s the right asset class for somebody. But after that, we want to make sure that they walk into the game with their eyes wide open as well. It’s not theirs. I always tell people there are good properties and bad properties in almost every area, you really have to understand how to underwrite this type of an asset because you could go into a great beach town, let’s say you go to Destin, Florida, and you’re like, hey, everybody’s here has great homes. And it’s somewhere that everybody’s going. Not all properties in Destin, Florida, perform very well. And so some perform awesomely, and some don’t. And there are some areas that don’t. So it really understands when we, when we have somebody dive into this game, say, hey, let’s, let’s get you walking into with your eyes wide open from all aspects, make sure one that this asset class fits your property goals and your lifestyle that you’re trying to create, to sometimes we’re talking about the tax, you know, we’ll have somebody that will be will call us and say, Hey, I heard this tax strategy we’ve had to our CPAs on our podcast, and they call us up and say I want to buy one of these just for the tax strategy. And we say that’s not the reason. We don’t want to let the tax tail wag our investment dog, right? I mean, we don’t, we don’t want to make decisions just based on one thing like that. And so when somebody’s interested in investing in, and I like, I guess you know, some of that those 22 years of learning and experience, it’s, you start to ask a little more questions and make sure that the people that this is the right fit for somebody.

Jessica:

Because I think there’s a big difference between owning your own home and then buying an investment, real estate, you know, when you’re buying your own home, you’re nesting when you’re buying an investment, real estate, it’s about doors and windows. And, you know, I’m often telling people that people think, well, I’ll just go buy a place in this place that I love. Well, not everybody’s gonna love that place, and you might not get the return that you want, right? So there is a real shift in mindset that has to happen around that is they don’t go in as a business owner, they go in as I’m gonna go find a second home and rent it out.

Shawn:

Right? Exactly. Very, very different. And that’s where understanding the asset that you’re diving into, like I love real estate, I’ve always been in real estate. So what I understand, it’s what I love. I think it’s a great tool for average, everyday people to build wealth. You know, I think it’s so, and I feel like that there’s, you know, that sometimes, especially when we’re talking about single-family rentals, and I see it mostly like on single-family rentals, or now the short-term rentals are becoming so mainstream that they think well, it’s just a single-family home, I understand that because I’ve already bought and sold three or four homes that I’ve lived in, that’s totally different. You’ve got to treat it as its own investment tool.

Jessica:

Absolutely. May you know, I’m a financial planner, and so you know, I love real estate as part of an overall financial plan it’s just a phenomenal asset, but it is a high-maintenance asset, and you’ve really got it you really gotta love it but my clients who love it, boy, I showed them I could show them a statement with as many comments as you want of stocks and bonds and their eyes glaze over $100,000 house they’re like, but

Shawn:

yeah, that would be me like, that’s how I was like like I have such a hard time with some of the other things and one of my, you know, one of my best friends, he’s my financial planner, and every time like and I so I diversify our portfolio, we buy you know, stocks, and we have different things that we do, but like I just have him do that for me because I have no interest. It’s like, I bet you’d show me properties. I’m like, I can look at that all day. So it’s you. I guess I’m a unique breed, but I think I totally understand what you’re talking about some of your clients there