October 06, 2026

#205 Start Before You’re Ready: Laura Sides on Building a Short-Term Rental Lifestyle Around the Life You Want ​​​

Laura Sides was sitting on a Florida beach in the early days of the pandemic, reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad, when it clicked that she didn’t have to work for every dollar. Today, the former middle school science teacher behind Laura Flips Life flips condos near Philadelphia, owns two beach rentals, and has built a short-term rental lifestyle that fits around her three kids instead of the other way around.

So here’s the question this episode of the STR Sisterhood keeps coming back to.

What if the goal of real estate investing isn’t simply to own more properties? What if it’s to create a life you actually enjoy?

Since 2021, Laura’s journey has been about saying yes to opportunities and learning as she went. Her biggest lesson? You don’t have to know everything before you start.

From a Poor Dad Mindset to Putting Money to Work

Laura grew up with great parents and what she calls a “poor dad mindset.” Go to college, get a job, live within your means.

I know that mindset well. My mom was the coupon queen who only shopped Kroger on double coupon days. It was always save, save, save, and I carried that scarcity mindset for years.

By their mid-thirties, Laura and her husband had checked every box. Then they asked, is this it? One vacation a year and Costco on the weekends?

That’s when the question changed:

“How do we put this money to work, and how can we also enjoy our life while we’re doing it?”

Notice the question has two halves. Most investors only answer the first one.

How Flipping Houses Funded Her First Short-Term Rental

They pulled a HELOC on their primary home (the CFPB has a plain-English breakdown of how HELOCs work) planning to buy a Florida rental. They ended up flipping houses instead.

On her very first flip, the seller’s friend offered her a three-bedroom, two-bath house on an acre in Bethany Beach, Delaware, for $200,000.

Laura walked into her house and told her husband, “Babe, we’re buying a beach house.”

That first flip made $100,000. It covered the down payment, closing, and about $50,000 in renovations and furnishings. In Laura’s words, it was almost essentially free. In season, it clears about $6,000 a month over what it costs to own, then hosts midterm renters the other nine months.

Why Laura Walked Away From a Big Box Property Manager

Laura hired a large property management company because she didn’t know any better. I did the same thing.

Then the reviews came in, and Laura called them devastating. The house was never the issue. Check-in headaches, unresponsive communication, and inconsistent cleans were. On one surprise visit, she found a guest’s purse with medication still sitting in a cabinet of a family-friendly home.

When she fired them after two years, they didn’t even apologize. Here’s what that pattern really shows you. Nobody on that team had a vested interest in how the property performed. If your standards live in someone else’s good intentions, what have you actually delegated?

That’s why cleaning standards need a real system, like the 5-Star Turnover System™, that holds up when you’re not the one walking the property.

Self-Managing Was Easier Than the Horror Stories

The property manager once warned her that “drunk Donna” would call at 2 a.m. locked out. That’s never happened.

“If you put the right framework in place and the automations, it’s smooth sailing.”

Once she took over, her reviews and revenue went up significantly. Self-managing didn’t cost her the short-term rental lifestyle she wanted. It’s what made it possible.

The Systems Behind a Short-Term Rental Lifestyle Run From Two and a Half Hours Away

Laura’s stack is intentionally simple: Hospitable (which absorbed her PriceLabs pricing and lowered her overhead) and Turno for cleaners. Each property has had the same consistent cleaner for about three seasons.

That consistency is doing more work than any piece of software.

Direct Bookings Protect Your Short-Term Rental Lifestyle

Both listings are only on Airbnb, and they book the whole season. I pushed on this. If your listings disappear overnight, so does your business.

Next on her list is a digital guidebook, after a Florida stay where the host’s TouchStay guide landed on her phone before arrival. TouchStay, Hostfully, or an Etsy template in Canva all work. If you want to see where tools stop and your operating system starts, episode #201 on Airbnb business systems goes deeper.

Knowing What Deserves Your Attention

Laura knows exactly what she has the brain space for. Airbnb gets about 5% of her time. Flips, her main cash engine, get about 20%. The rest goes to her kids while they’re young. I always say the best AI is awareness and intention.

Her waterfront home in Ocean Pines, Maryland, was more personal purchase than cash-flow play. Her kids kayak there, the family visits six to eight times a year, and they’ve donated stays to school silent auctions. Laura teared up saying she never thought that would be them.

I feel the same when I gift my a cappella quartet a beach trip every year.

Return on Time: Redefining ROI for Your Short-Term Rental Lifestyle

Laura’s husband keeps her centered with one question:

“What is your ROI, which is your return on your investment, but also the return on your time?”

When a big single-family flip pencils out, he’ll ask why add the stress when a condo could deliver the same return next month.

Most people only measure return on investment. What about return on energy? Return on enjoyment? A short-term rental lifestyle that drains you isn’t the one you were building toward. Leah Yuhasz’s episode on when growth stops serving you is a good companion listen.

Why Condos Are Laura’s Lane

Laura and I are both condo lovers, which is rare. She looks for the dated “granny house” and solves the seller’s problem: take what you want, leave the rest. With the layout staying put, she often skips permits and is in and out in two to three weeks.

Her risk-reducer is relationships. She reads HOA rules three weeks before closing and tells the board she isn’t their enemy. She invites nosy neighbor Jane in, because a unit selling for $350,000 instead of $175,000 raises Jane’s home value too.

Start Before You’re Ready

Growth doesn’t have to mean constantly acquiring more properties. Sometimes growth looks like knowing what deserves your attention, staying in the lane you’re good at, and building systems that give you back your time.

Laura’s advice for new hosts? You absolutely can do this, and you don’t need to be an expert. She still doesn’t consider herself one.

“The best thing you can do is take that first step and just keep going.”

As a recovering perfectionist, this one lands for me.

So where are you still waiting to be ready?

If you want people who know more than you and systems that give you back your time, explore how to work with me. Follow Laura on Instagram at Laura Flips Life, and find every episode on the STR Sisterhood Podcast page.

Click here now to listen to the full podcast.

HIGHLIGHTS AND KEY POINTS:

Golden Nuggets:

• “How do we put this money to work, and how can we also enjoy our life while we’re doing it?”
• “What is your ROI—which is your return on your investment—but also the return on your time?”
• “Honing in on what you’re good at, but also what you enjoy doing, and you can do really well, staying in that lane, then just optimizing those systems to make that opportunity the best that it can be.”
• “Start before you’re ready.”
• “The best thing you can do is take that first step and just keep going.”

Connect With Our Guest:

Instagram :  https://www.instagram.com/lauraflipslife/

Full Episode Transcript:

Here we go. All right. Awesome. So today we are joined by Laura Sides. And Laura, I’m so excited to talk with you. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. This is going to be so fun. And I love your story. First, I would love for you to just share with our audience a little bit about who you are and what you do. OK, so I am forty one years old and I have three kids that all just started school for the first time this year.

But rewind to twenty twenty one when I got into real estate. Before that, I was a teacher, a science, middle school science teacher turned stay at home mom and definitely was raised by great parents. But they had that poor dad mindset. If you’ve read Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I grew up thinking that you go to college you get a job and that’s what you do you work for all of your money and then you just live within your means and we were on the beach in Florida during the early pandemic days and I was reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad and I’m like oh my God there’s a whole other world out there where you don’t have to work for every dollar you can put your money to work for you. And then we’re kind of like, well, what’s that going to look like for us?

So we pulled a HELOC on our primary and I thought I was going to buy a rental in Florida because our family loved going down. But we ended up flipping houses. So that’s a whole other thing. But it’s definitely been this whole journey of like learning as I go and saying yes to different opportunities as they present themselves and being open to it and then starting to share online and being able to connect with other amazing investors like you.

So yeah, so I have three kids. I’m married to my high school sweetheart. We live just outside of Philadelphia. We own two short-term rentals. And the way that I funded the purchase of those and then lifestyle design is I flip houses within a half hour radius of my house. And I’m typically doing townhouses and condos in two or three weeks and then making a profit of between like forty and seventy five thousand.

Girl, I freaking love it. And I was going to talk to you all about short-term rentals and now I want to hear about flips. So that might need to be a part two because I feel like there are so many opportunities for folks who are investing in short-term rentals to also be investing in additional types of properties that bring fast cash. And so again, that could be a whole other conversation, but- Those cash infusions are so beneficial when you’re building a portfolio.

And that’s been one big thing. My husband has a W-2 and it’s really good. And it’s sustained our lifestyle, right? We were totally in that live within your means and we were happy, but we looked at each other and we’re like, is this it? Like we’re, you know, we were mid thirties at that point. And we’re like, all right, we checked all those boxes. Like now what do we go on vacation once a year with our three kids and go to Costco on the weekends?

Right. Right. So we’re like, how do we make this more exciting? So then all the money that I started making became this like, all right, how do we put this money to work? And how can we also enjoy our life while we’re doing it? Yeah. And it’s interesting to hear you talk about your parents’ money mindset and how that rubbed off on you. I will tell you for years in my adult life, I lived with a scarcity mindset around money because I grew up in a household like you.

Where my parents were savers. My mom, who was like Mrs. Cleaver, she was the best mom on the planet. She was amazing. She was the coupon queen, right? So she would spend Sundays cutting out coupons. And she would only shop at Kroger when there were double coupon days. And so she was very strategic about saving money. But it was always save, save, save. Or, you know, gosh, we shouldn’t spend money on that because we need to make sure we’re saving.

And so I grew up with this mindset around money that was, it’s always scarce. Like we can’t do anything above and beyond our means, like you said. And when I actually got into real estate investing, it was totally by accident. But once I realized, hey, that… This real estate thing is pretty darn cool and I’m making money at it let’s actually figure out how to do it the first book I read was Rich Dad, Poor Dad That’s awesome.

It’s such a game changer. And your mom, right? Stacey, she was living the life that we were taught to live. She was doing what she felt was good. And you guys weren’t, you know, it wasn’t that we were poor. We had money. They just, their energy and attention was on these coupons, was on these sales, was like probably passed down from their great depression grandparents. And they were, that’s where their energy was.

But once we realized, right, once you read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, that, it is easier to make more money than to save money. And how to put that, what does it look like to buy assets versus liabilities? Once I learned that, and I had no idea what that was, I was like, oh my gosh, this makes sense. There’s aother way. Right right okay so you started flipping properties which again we’ll do a part two episode how did your introduction to short-term rentals come as a result of that flipping houses So I knew that short-term rentals could be a thing because of Instagram.

So I learned all about it from following other creators like yourself that share their experience with it. So I’m like, you know, if these people can do it, they’re making it very accessible. I can do it too. So it was on my radar, but we bought our first flip instead of that condo in Florida that I was thinking. And kind of like you, it happened on accident. I was…

Just starting the flip and the owner’s friend was there and he goes, are you buying this house? And I go, I am. And he goes, well, I have a house for you. And I said, go on. And he goes, it’s three bedrooms, two bathrooms on an acre, right in Bethany Beach, Delaware. Which by us is a very popular beach town and very expensive so immediately I was like in my head thinking there’s no way I’m going to be able to afford whatever he’s gonna say right but go ahead let’s ask and I said how much are you looking to get for it and he said two hundred thousand And I’m like, okay, I can do that.

So I had no idea about financing, how to run a short-term rental, what it would look like down there. Nothing, just kind of stumbled into this incredible opportunity. I walked back in my house and I’m like, babe, we’re buying a beach house. And he’s like, what? But what ended up happening is on that first flip, I made a hundred thousand dollars and I took that and I used it as a second home loan down payment on that Bethany house.

So we put down what? Twenty thousand dollars plus closing. Right. And then we put like fifty thousand dollars of renovations and furnishings into it and immediately launched it. And that was all from that cash from the flip. So I didn’t have any of what felt like my own money invested in it. It was almost essentially free. We put a big box property manager company on it because I didn’t know any better.

And I mean, it went well. It immediately started making money, a lot of money on In season, it was, you know, six thousand dollar profit each month over what it costs us to own. Amazing. So, yeah. So that one still does extremely well. And we’re very seasonal here. So that is a short term rental June through August. And then we always get midterm renters in there for the other nine months.

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Let’s talk about your property manager, because I think a lot of people have this, first of all, this misconception that they can’t self-manage. I did. When I started, just like you, I hired a property manager. And why did I do that? Because I believed that, number one, I didn’t have enough knowledge to be able to manage myself. And I believed that I didn’t have enough time.

And so because I believe those two things, I believed somebody else could do it better than I could. And I very quickly realized that that property manager and I were on two very different pages as far as expectations on cleanliness, expectations on replacement of my items within my property. I had several come to Jesus meetings, as I like to call them, with my property manager saying, hey, Um, why are my items that I spent my blood, sweat and tears decorating this property beautifully?

Why are they stuck in the closet? Why is my area rug curled up in a ball in the closet? Where are the Ralph Lauren pillows that I had on my bed? Because now we’ve got these cheap five dollar knockoffs. You know, what’s happening to my stuff? Um, I had several of those conversations and in each conversation, they made me feel like I was asking too much. I was being, my expectations were way too high.

Like, oh my gosh, no, we don’t inspect after we clean. We don’t have time for that. Um, what was it when you first had your property manager that was a big box property manager? Yeah. What were the red lights or red flags? I should say maybe red lights too. What were the red flags that popped up for you and how did you navigate that separation? A lot of what you just said.

And also, I had no control over the reviews or the guest experience or even vetting the guests that were there. But I could see the reviews just like anyone else on Airbnb. And it was devastating. And it was never about the property or the… Like in not even the house or the property itself are gorgeous the location everything it was headaches with checking in unresponsive to issues that they were having inconsistent cleans not having the experience that they thought they were gonna have and not having it handled properly and then communication like you were saying when I would talk to them those come to jesus meanings they really didn’t care when I fired them they didn’t even apologize and I I got to the point where I’m like how can I help you what do you people need you know and they just I think it came down to at least in this case there was no one that had any financial interest no vested interest in how well the property did or how booked the property was And no, even the cleaners, there was no recourse if it was horribly cleaned because they were probably just so overworked.

Right. And yeah, we would go down. I mean, honestly, one time I popped in down there without them expecting it. I don’t even know. And we’re going through the cabinets and stuff. Someone had left their purse with medication in it. And it’s like a very family friendly house. Wasn’t caught, wasn’t removed from the property. And then who becomes liable for that? So there’s, I mean, there was a whole myriad of issues of bad to worse and we just had to remove them.

And so what was that time period for you? How long did you have that property manager before you decided, you know what, I’m going to start hosting myself? Two years. It was really we have summer season. So it was that season. And kind of like you, I didn’t know that I had time for it. I didn’t know how to set it up. I wanted to be able to hand it off, let somebody else.

And that, that part was really nice. Right. I said it and kind of forgot it, like set it and forget it. But same thing, like things were breaking and who’s responsible for. If the guest doesn’t report it. Yep. And you have a different cleaner in there every time and they don’t even know the items in the house. Right. Right. Then how do you track it back to who is responsible for paint?

I mean, it was just a whole. There was not a lot good. Honestly, our revenue significantly went up and it was very easy for me to give service to these people and keep a good consistent clean where our reviews and revenue significantly increased. Yeah, yeah. So you set out in real estate investing, flipping properties, and two years later, you find yourself as a host as well. I’m curious, what has surprised you about hosting and what did you not expect?

That’s a good question. What did I not expect? Honestly, when I was interviewing the property management company, they painted this picture of that it was going to be this huge headache. And I’ll never forget the guy was like, drunk Donna’s gonna call you at two a.m. And say she can’t get in the house, yada, yada. That has never happened. So maybe I think I’m surprised that it’s so much easier than I expected it to be.

I’ve never gotten a belligerent phone call or message. No one’s ever contacted me half hours. I think if you put the right framework in place and the automations, it’s smooth sailing. And you honestly, you know, you care about the guest experience. I think all of those things, it’s easy to be successful a lot easier than I thought. And I guess it’s a lot easier to stand out from the competition when you are good at it.

Right. So now we have aother Airbnb. It’s a lot bigger and it’s right on the water. That one attracts like bigger families, I guess, or maybe occasionally like golf guys that are loud and get a little silly. So sometimes I was surprised at first how they were like encroaching on neighbors properties. Yeah. And then hearing about it from the neighbors where you’re like common sense isn’t as common as I thought and if there is a silly sign in the airbnb it’s probably because someone did something that they shouldn’t have and now it necessitates me saying you need a bathing suit on when you’re on the dock right right oh boy I can only envision that one so is that second property located in the same beach town or a different location It’s about twenty minutes away.

So separate. It’s Ocean City. It’s considered Ocean Pines, Maryland, but Ocean City, Maryland. OK. And the distance between you and these beach properties is what? About two and a half hours. About two and a half hours. So how often are you visiting your properties and what does that look like for you? So one thing with the second house, the one that’s on the water, is it was definitely more of a personal purchase than this is going to cash flow.

And that’s the beauty of being able to do that, right, is I wanted a place where we could bring our extended family. Our kids can kayak and play in the yard. Like, it’s a beautiful place. Property, one that I had dreamed about and we got so much sooner than I ever thought because Airbnb helps offset the cost. So we go to that one probably six or eight times a year.

Okay. The smaller one that was the first purchase is booked year round and cash flows extremely well. So I will pop into that one just to make sure that it looks good and, you know, just like check on the property itself, but we don’t get a chance to say they’re very much anymore because it’s so popular. Sure. It’s again, a rough problem to have, right? Yeah. Talk to me about, you talked about systems and automation.

What tech stack do you have? And what are your favorite ways that you like to use automation in your business? So I have Hospitable. Which is our, our main one really and I did have PriceLabs at one point, but then Hospitable put the PriceLabs integrations and so I switched over and I’ve been very happy with the switch. It’s a lot more streamlined. I never really took the time to learn the ins and outs of PriceLabs.

And it was confusing to me, although their people were always great whenever I had a question. So I was happy to switch, and it was less expensive when I made the switch. So it lowered my monthly overhead. And then I used Turno for my cleaners, and we’ve had a consistent cleaner in each property since I started managing them probably three seasons ago. And that’s going really well. So besides that, I mean, that’s it.

And really, they’re just on Airbnb now. And they book up the whole season. So I only have to manage that one platform. Gotcha. So you’re not on Vrbo. You don’t have a direct booking site yet. Nope. That’s right. Are you planning on it, on getting a direct booking site? I know. Everyone always says that. There’s no… Hey, first of all, you need to do what’s right for you, right?

And so I think everyone always says that because… Airbnb is obviously an online travel agency that garners millions of eyes every year, right? So they’re putting eyeballs on our properties, which are great. However, I think the reason I’m asking you is just from a protection standpoint, because If something were to happen, you know, you could find your listings snatched away in a blink of an eye. And then you have no business because…

Your listings were only on Airbnb if they shut down your listings. So, and you’re a great host. I’m not saying that would ever happen. I’m just, you know, from a business risk perspective, that’s the way I look at it. It is a great thing to consider for sure. And I absolutely should. I know that I could optimize them a little better, right? As far as we do have great reviews, the cleaning is good.

It could be better with more of my attention without a doubt, as far as those things go. It’s just, you, do you know how you’re like, I have this much attention for things. Right. Could it be better? I absolutely know. Would I do a direct booking? Yes. And then, you know, we could have the one thing I would like to put in place that I think would help.

We don’t get that many questions anymore, but like a digital guidebook, that would be my next thing that I would absolutely love to do. What’s the digital guidebook site? Do you have one that you use? Yeah, I use TouchStay. And so they’re great. There’s also digital guidebooks through Hostfully. Hostfully is a property management software, and they also have a digital guidebook software as well. A lot of the women in our…

STR Success Accelerator family, they use Canva as like, go buy an Etsy template and make it beautiful, put it on Canva and, you know, for twelve dollars and ninety seven cents or whatever, one time they’ve got this digital guidebook. So there are lots and lots of different options. I definitely love the digital guidebook option versus a physical guidebook. For folks like you and me, especially who don’t live where our properties are located, you know, it’s a great and simple way to keep the information up to date and accurate for our guests.

Let’s say we’ve got a favorite restaurant, you know, that happens to close down. Okay, now we don’t need to reprint something. All we have to do is go delete it from our guidebook, you know. I love that. And so we booked an Airbnb in Florida this past season and they had a TouchStay guide. They shot it over to me before we even got there. It’s an app, like it became an app on my phone.

You hit it, right? We had ordered our groceries. We had a chef come to the house all through everything. And who knows if they get kickbacks for that or not, but it, and I hope they do. It was fantastic. And it just gives you such a professional air. Every question we had was in there. It was very easy to contact them. I loved that. And I’m like, I need to slow down enough to put that because it just made my experience so much better.

Yeah. And I also think too, you know, In talking with you, I can tell you’ve got a great head on your shoulders. You have a vision for your future, what you want, optimizations you can make. And I also think it’s really important to highlight the fact that you are very aware of what you have the brain space for right now. Because a lot of people don’t have that awareness, Laura.

You know, a lot of people… Keep fragmenting their focus and then end up just doing mundane tasks, twenty hours a day, fourteen hours a day, never really feeling like they’re accomplishing what they want. So I want to talk with you about the awareness factor for you, because I talk about AI in a different way. I use AI in my business every day, but I believe the best AI is awareness and intention.

So for you, where did that awareness come from of what your bandwidth is and what you have the brain space for? Is that just naturally a gift that has been granted by the good Lord above? Or did you learn that from someone? I think right now I’m still in the building phase of business, right? So When something is set up and it’s running really smoothly, I don’t need to interject because there are other areas where my time is most valuably spent.

And that right now for us is building, you know, our systems for flipping are built out well, but that’s still our major cash engine. And that is something that gets the majority of my focus still. And then honestly, that’s probably only twenty percent where Airbnb might be five percent of my time. Twenty percent is the flips. And then. Life enjoyment and spending time with the kids is really where it’s at right now because they’re still young and I only get to do this once.

And that is what I’m doing is enough to supplement our life, right? And they can see that mom flips houses so that we can buy these vacation homes that we then get to use. We can put in their school silent auctions. We can share with our family. And honestly, I’ll tear up saying this, but like, I never thought that was going to be us. And to be able to share that with our parents is, is incredible.

I totally agree. It gives me goosebumps to hear you talk about it because I, I never thought that could be possible for me either. Right. Um, and what’s interesting. So, I sing in an acapella quartet competitively. So it’s so fun. It’s a great hobby. I’ve done it my whole life. And every year for the last, I think, five years, I’ve given away a trip to the beach and sang in one of our properties.

And my quartet is always like, oh my gosh, thank you so much. Like, this is such a big deal. And I’m like… It is. But what they don’t understand is it brings me joy to be able to share that with other people and to be able to have the means to give back, to pay it forward. That is an intangible thing I never would have dreamed of, even when I started investing in real estate to begin with.

I think it’s so special. Oh, yeah. I think what I see, and it took me a couple of years to evolve out of it, is a lot of in our space, people have such an intense focus on growth and a growth mindset. And every extra dollar should be reinvested. And that should be your main focus. And that really hasn’t been my main focus. My main focus has been, what can I do that I enjoy?

What can enrich my family? And then through that, everything else has been an incredible bonus. Yeah. Yeah. That’s amazing. I think I’m also curious to hear your perspective on what would you say to someone who may be involved with real estate investing, may have a couple of short-term rentals, but they don’t have that freedom that you have. What would you recommend they focus on? My husband is so good at recentering this for me.

And it’ll be back to the flipping perspective, right? But one thing for us is like, you can look at every opportunity and there are a lot of them. So this is across the board with all types of real estate investing opportunities. But what is your ROI, which is your return on your investment, but also the return on your time? So we’ll have the opportunity to flip a single family home, a big single family home, right?

And the deal makes sense. But he’ll say, and I think this is such a great reminder, why would you put your energy and time into that when you can get the same return doing a condo or a townhouse if you wait aother month for that opportunity to present itself? Why add this stress, right? So I’d say really honing in on what you’re good at, but also what you enjoy doing and you know you can do really well and staying in that lane.

And then just optimizing those systems to make that opportunity the best that it can be. Yeah, I love that. That’s so good. And a lot of people are only looking at the return on investment. They’re not looking at the return on time, return on effort, energy. Think about the return on your energy. When you’re stuck doing something that you don’t like doing, Ew, who wants to do that?

But so many people do every day, right? Return on enjoyment, right? Like how much are you enjoying what you’re doing? And that’s the beauty of what we do, Stacey, right? All we have to do is make a little pivot. No one tells us what to do. So you are in charge of that. And what an incredible path that we’ve found. Yeah, I love it. OK, so I want to switch gears a little bit because I am so intrigued that I have found a fellow condo flipper.

So I love condos, first of all. And a lot of people are like, oh, don’t ever buy a condo. It’s a bad news bears. And I’m like, I freaking love condos. So talk to me about condos. What you look for in a condo and what you look for in a good flip, because like you, I’m usually in and out in two to three weeks. And a lot of people think, again, flips have to be, you know, a six month process, a twelve month process.

They really don’t when you buy right. So let’s hear from you. If you don’t mind sharing when you’re looking at a potential flip, what types of things are you looking at? Give me the granny house, right? And also where we can help, right? So maybe you have this really dated condo and it’s time for you to move. You need to maybe go to an assisted living or you just need to get out of town or whatever.

You just can’t deal with all of this stuff that’s in it so find the problem and solve it right like hey you can go take what you want leave the rest I will take care of it and then the beauty of a condo is oftentimes you don’t even need permits because I’m going to cosmetically gut the house and then I’m going to put it back exactly how it was because there’s not that many options I don’t need to move a sink or a bathtub there’s nowhere to put it yeah so you put it back and it is gorgeous and it is clean and those especially I mean gosh if we’re talking about airbnbs they are a lot less risky because you know exactly what you’re getting into or in flips, right?

I know exactly what the comps are. I know exactly what they’re selling for. I can look at model matches for that condo and see how people did the design or, and then I’ll get my own ideas and we’ll put it back really quick, put it in service really quick as a, you know, and it probably does insanely well because it was inexpensive to renovate. It is inexpensive to maintain, right?

And you, especially in condos, I guess if you’re holding them right, like you are aware of all the expenses and the possible capital contributions that are coming up HOA fees, but like people are taking care of all of that for you. Absolutely. The other thing is, it sounds so silly. I don’t have to worry about a new roof. I don’t have to worry about landscaping. And again, I’ve flipped houses too.

So I’m not only talking about, I love any real estate where we can make money. Okay. But I think a lot of people have this negative connotation about condos. And so I love, love, love hearing that you love condos as much as I do. I’m going to say on the flip side, what are some of the challenges that you have experience with flipping condos, and how have you navigated them?

You have to be really mindful of the HOA and the rules. And one thing in the way that we can do this so fast, I’m sure you’re the same, is we get those rules three weeks before we close. So I know them in and out. I’ve already talked to the HOA and we are going to be friends, whatever it takes. I am not your enemy. We are working together here.

And I make that very clear. And then hopefully they do bring that team mindset. You also have to be really mindful of the neighbors and kind. Usually they’re nosy, which I don’t think is a bad thing. I would be too. So I’m inviting them in. And then Jane from next door is not going to complain as much because she knows what’s going on. And I can answer her questions.

And she has my contact if she needs anything. So hopefully she’ll come to me first. Versus HOA. So as long as you just preemptively handle anything that could come up and you’re kind and you think of it as a team, like I’m not the boss. We’re all working together here. And I let my neighbor Jane know that, hey, your property value is going to go up when I when this is renovated.

Right. So in all cases so far for me, I’ve sold them. So I’m like, you could have had someone in here that bought this at one seventy five. But that’s not the neighbor you want. So I’m going to renovate. It’s going to be beautiful. And I’m going to sell it for three fifty. And that’s the neighbor you’re going to get. And that’s going to do incredible things for your home value.

So as long as you can just stay on top of that kind of stuff. Totally. The other thing that I think is an exciting opportunity when it comes to condos and building relationships with fellow owners is you can say, hey, if you ever are ready to sell your condo and you don’t want to deal with a real estate agent, no problem. You’ve got my number. Call me. I’ll buy it from you.

So it’s like a built-in lead generation tool as well. Do you have a lot of condos that are Airbnbs? Yes. A lot of my portfolio are condos. I love that. And like you said, I think you don’t realize until you have to handle the exterior, how much of an expense and a headache it really can be. And not just roof, like landscaping, driveway, you know, trash. Yeah, yeah.

Sewer, septic. I mean, there’s all kinds of things that we don’t have to deal with in a condo building. The other thing, from my perspective, because a lot of my properties in my portfolio are in large resorts, A lot of folks have this negative connotation about an HOA. I can’t ever deal with an HOA. I think what you pointed out is so important for folks to hear. First of all, I make my offers contingent upon review of the HOA documents.

Oh, yeah. So I’m looking at all of those HOA documents before I’m ever actually having my earnest money go hard, right? The other thing too is what you said, making sure that you are in great communication with the HOA, that you’re building relationships with the HOA folks, right? That’s so incredibly important because when they know that you’re there to collaborate with them and to partner with them and you want to do things the right way, that’s very different than most of the other people they’ve experienced.

Right. So they’re instantly going to be like, I love this Laura girl. Right. And it’s not it’s not difficult at all. To pick up the phone, introduce yourself, tell them what you’re looking to do. Is there anything I need to be aware of? How can I be a great partner to you in this process? So I think to your point earlier about using common sense, it’s not that hard.

Do you know what I found too, when we were, and this is, you just reminded me of this. When I was looking to buy in Florida originally, I contacted one of the local property managers down there and they were so quick to tell me which HOAs or which condos were the best. To be in and work with. Such an invaluable resource rather than me guessing what buildings. They knew where people like to stay, what the rates were, what places had the best returns, which ones the management were terrible to deal with, which ones were great, which ones had assessments.

And they weren’t even agents. They could just give me the insider scoop on which properties to go with. Yeah, yeah. I think that’s wonderful. And to your point, you know, calling up local property managers, even if you’re not going to use them, right, just to gain insight, again, develop a relationship with them. I am a huge believer that collaboration is so important. There’s enough business for this world to go around.

Nobody needs to compete with one aother. We can all collaborate. I wish everyone had the same mindset though. We can all collaborate and make the world a better place together versus compete with one aother. But that’s getting me on a soapbox. I wonder if they also would know property managers that were looking to sell if you said that and you could get like an off-market sale that way yeah yeah absolutely managers property owners property owners yeah but see I look at that and I’m like well what about the property managers who want to sell their business oh my gosh right you’re a shark I love that Shark Tank it’s my favorite show by the way oh same you okay so do you have a favorite person on Shark Tank Oh, I love Barbara.

Me too. I have tried to get Barbara on my summit for several years. Um, she’s never said yes, but you know, I’ll keep trying. You should. Okay. I could sit here and talk to you for days. So I want to move to the lightning round. Okay. I’m going to ask you some questions and just ask you to answer with the very first thing that comes to mind. Okay.

First question is this, where is your favorite place to vacation? I love Florida. What part of Florida? Well, we stayed in Indian Rocks Beach this past year for the first time on the Gulf side. And I loved it. I don’t know that I would want to live there, but vacation wise, it was so, so, so cute. And I’d love to own an Airbnb. There you go. When I first visited Destin, so I live in Ohio.

Destin’s about twelve hours away. I first visited there during the pandemic and I was blown away at the water. I was like, there is Caribbean water and it’s drivable from Ohio. I had no idea. But it is so beautiful. So beautiful there. It really is. It is. Okay. Next question. What’s one place you’ve never been that you want to visit? Oh, Hawaii. Girl, you got to go. I know.

I’ve been married. Sixteen years. And I always thought like, oh, I’ll go on my honeymoon, but we couldn’t afford it back then. And we haven’t been yet. I would love to take the kids. Yes. Yes. It is. It’s funny. I’ve been to Hawaii multiple times, but I’ve only visited two islands. So I’ve been to Oahu and Maui every time I visited, which is silly. I need to go to some different islands.

But it is magical. It is so stunning. I also discovered I’m a Caribbean lover because it’s very similar to Hawaii, but I can get there in two hours versus fourteen hours. So I do love that. Yeah. Are you a Caribbean fan as well? Absolutely. Anything, anything beachy and tropical. I’m very interested. Girl, I knew I liked you for a reason. Okay. Next question. What’s one thing you know now that you wished you knew when you were starting out in the world of short-term rentals?

Hmm. You absolutely can do it. You don’t have to hand it off, right? It is well within, you don’t need to be an expert. I’m still not. And if you connect, that was aother thing, right? Connecting with people that know more than you, that can help you set up your systems. If you need that, managing it even too, right? Is a lot easier than I ever expected with the right systems in place.

Amen. I love it. Okay. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given? Start before you’re ready. Surround yourself with people that know more than you. And you’re not going to know everything. And this is not just about short-term rentals, but anything. You’re not going to know everything. All your ducks aren’t going to be in a row. The best thing you can do is take that first step and just keep going.

Yeah. For years, I was plagued by perfectionism. And I always tell people I’m a recovering perfectionist. But I would not do something because I wasn’t ready yet. And it had to be perfect in order for me to do X, Y, and Z. And when I learned about start before you’re ready, and when I learned… You don’t ever want to be the smartest person in the room. And I started surrounding myself with people that I could, I call it knowledge hacking, but plugging into their knowledge, their experience, their systems, it became so much easier for me to just start.

Would you agree? Yeah. Yeah. I think who you surround yourself with is huge too, for sure. For sure. For sure. Last question. What’s one thing and or person that you’re grateful for today? Oh, that’s a good one. I’m grateful for this interview. It was lovely. Honestly, lovely meeting you. It is so cool. It’s also rare for me to hear anyone say they’re interested in townhouses or condos and that they do it fast.

So it’s been really lovely talking with you because I feel like when you connect and have these conversations, it just reignites passions and drive. So I’m thankful for this. Oh my gosh, well, the pleasure is mine. That gives me goosebumps again, so thank you. I appreciate that. Laura, if folks want to learn more about you or may want to follow you online, where is the best place for them to find you? On Instagram at Laura Flips Life. So good. So good. Thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me, Stacey.

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