• Can You Airbnb a Condo?
    Invest in Real Estate,  Short Term Rental

    Can You Airbnb a Condo?

    ‘Can you Airbnb a condo?’ This is a common question we get. Lucky for you, we know all too well whether you can Airbnb a condo or not. We’ve successfully done it for years now, but have also encountered pushback and threats. We will teach you how to overcome both. I’m sure since you’re reading this that you’re aware, but a condo is a unit that is either in a larger building, a townhouse, or part of a larger neighborhood. The way that it differs from a traditional single family home is that it is typically overseen by an HOA (homeowners association) which means they have a say in what…

  • What Should Your Airbnb Review Say?
    Invest in Real Estate,  Short Term Rental

    What Should An Airbnb Review Say?

    What Should An Airbnb Review Say? If you’ve just wrapped up being a guest at an Airbnb, you may be wondering what your review about the Airbnb should say and maybe even how many stars you should leave. Another thing you may be thinking about is what will the Airbnb host say in their review about you. Well, don’t worry because we’ll also cover our tip on how you can get 5 stars on your next Airbnb review! How was Your Airbnb Stay? We’ve been hosts for 5 years and we know the most important thing about your review is to be honest about your experience. Don’t say that the…

  • How to be a Landlord
    Invest in Real Estate

    How to be a Landlord

    How to be a Landlord This probably goes without saying, but rental properties are by far our favorite investments. By investing in real estate and learning how to be a landlord over our rental properties we’ve been able to retire on less money invested into fewer properties. Ultimately, this means we were able to quit our jobs earlier which equals more happiness.  Today, we are going to take you through our process and explain how we are landlords and how we manage our properties. Responsibilities of Landlords Deciding to be a landlord and manage your rental properties adds a larger level of complexity to real estate investing. After all, you…

  • 3 Ways to Increase Property Value
    Invest in Real Estate

    3 Ways to Increase Property Value in a Weekend

    Curious to find out how to increase your property value by over $10,000 in a weekend? Today, we are covering everything, including what we did, how we did it, the materials for the project, the cost, and breaking down the added value. Background When we found out about Financial Independence and Early Retirement, we began looking for easy ways to lower our cost of living. We quickly became tired of living in a super fancy condo. Don’t get us wrong, we love nice stuff as much as the next person. The problem was, a significant amount of our money was going to the mortgage and the ridiculous HOA just to…

  • 2019 Year in Review
    Do Everything Else,  Invest in Real Estate,  Live Longer,  Manage Your Money,  See More Places

    2019 Year In Review

    Goodbye 2019, hello 2020! 2019 was a year for the books. We did everything from buying our latest rental property to quitting our jobs and moving abroad, to becoming traveling nomads. While we have updated you all throughout the year on blog posts, we wanted to dedicate this article to 2019 by doing a year in review. 2019, Year In Review First Quarter We started the year off by traveling down to Gainesville, FL to attend CampFI Southeast. It was the perfect way to start off the new year. Traveling, meeting new people, reconnecting with friends, and being in the warm Florida weather all created the perfect weekend trip. Leading…

  • how to make $465 an hour on airbnb
    Invest in Real Estate,  Make More Money

    How to Make $465 an Hour on AirBnB

    By the end of the week, we will be three months into our 6-month AirBnb experiment. We are trying to find out how much money we can make with a rental on AirBnb instead of long term renting. We’ve previously covered what you should consider when converting a long term rental into an AirBnb. Today, however, we are going to be focusing specifically on the money you can make with AirBnb. How Much Money Can You Make on Airbnb? Buying the Condo When we decided to get into rental properties, we started out by looking for a place that we could move into. The goal was to save money by…

  • converting long term rental into airbnb
    Invest in Real Estate,  Make More Money

    Should I Convert a Long Term Rental Into AirBnb?

    Unless you’ve been living under a rock the past half-decade, AirBnb is one of the first companies that comes to mind when you are thinking of staying overnight in just about any location. There are currently over 6 million AirBnb listings. These accommodations vary wildly from a 14 bedroom mansion with a lazy river to a damn air-mattress in the back of someone’s car. The question is, should you capitalize on this popularity as a landlord? Should you seek out properties for AirBnb? Or, even easier, do you convert a long term rental property into an AirBnb? Convert a Rental Into an AirBnb As real estate investors, we’ve debated dipping our…

  • Putting Lipstick on a pig
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    How to Put Lipstick on a Pig

    What in the hell is ‘putting lipstick on a pig’? In the real estate world, this is an endearing term of dressing up a relatively shitty rental, or even personal home. Our ‘pigs’ usually have good bones, and are in good locations, but aren’t very easy on the eyes. This perfectly describes one of our duplexes. We will dive in and discuss the background of the property, first. Then, the ‘lipstick’ that we put on this pig. Finally, we will breakdown the financial result of our efforts. Background A few weeks ago, Emily and I listed one side of a duplex that had recently become vacant. To give you an…

  • Invest in Real Estate,  Make More Money

    4 Ways To Get Started In Real Estate

    As you all know, we are a little obsessed with real estate. In our opinion, it is one of the ‘easiest’ ways to reach financial independence in the shortest amount of time. Since we are still fairly young, we obviously don’t want to spend what are potentially the best years of our lives working on or for something we aren’t 100% passionate about. We are using our able bodies and minds to save and invest in real estate now so we can use that as our means of living in the future while our minds and bodies can work on other enjoyable tasks. If you would have asked me 4…

  • cheap and easy renovations
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    Cheap & Easy Home Renovations

    Appearance is everything when it comes to your home or rental property. Friends, family members, and tenants alike judge your place based on looks first and foremost and create their opinion of your place. This is why we take the time to do some cheap & easy home renovations to make them look newer, cleaner, and nicer. As a result, this increases our tenant pool, reduces vacancies, and gets us more rent in the long run. Also, we think it makes people prouder of the place they live, which is important to us as landlords. Take these cheap and easy tips from our 10+ renovations and apply them to your…