Property Management Expert Specializes in Short-Term and Mid-Term Rental Management

In this episode, we have Ron Curtis, CEO of Wavy Stays, a company specializing in short-term and mid-term rental management.

Ron shares his journey from focusing on financial literacy to wealth management and real estate investment, emphasizing the concept of ‘house hacking' and providing practical advice on property management, leveraging credit, and generating passive income through Airbnb and VRBO.

He talks about his effective use of systems and team management to scale his business and stresses the importance of financial management, knowing your numbers, and seeking knowledge and mentorship through books, podcasts, and other resources.

Ron's perspective on leadership and the evolving role of a CEO is also discussed, highlighting the significance of communication, integrity, and operating with a clear vision.

The episode wraps up with Ron offering a free consultation for those interested in Airbnb and an invitation for listeners to connect with him on social media platforms.

Website: financiallitacademy.com/property-management

Previous Episode: co-founder-teaches-about-financial-literacy

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Full Interview:

Transcription:

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Ron Curtis Teaser 00:00

Let's say you come to me with a property, whether it's owner occupy, you live in a portion of it.

It's an investment property, a family that's in a business, a property that's inside of the family, et cetera. You come to me and pretty much all I need is an address. You tell me the address. I can actually go and do market research and give you a spot on projection of how much your home can make. We also want to make sure whatever markets you're in that they do not have short-term rental restrictions.

Intro 00:23

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I Am CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:52

This is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast. And I have a very special guest back on the show today. I have Ron Curtis. Ron, excited to have you back on the show.

Ron Curtis 01:00

I'm great. I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

Gresham Harkless 01:03

Yeah, absolutely. I love having guests back on the show. And I want to, of course, read a little bit more about Ron. So you hear about some of the awesome things that he's working on.

Ron is the CEO of Wavy Stays, which is a housing solutions management company that specializes in short-term and mid-term rentals. And as I mentioned a little bit, I had Ron on the show was episode number 728 of the I Am CEO podcast, and he's doing so many awesome things.

One of my favorite things about having this daily podcast is you get the opportunity to have guests back on the show, to hear about all the awesome things they've been working on.

And one of those things I actually was listening to a bigger podcast that he was featured on as well, too. So excited to have you on again, Ron, are you ready to speak to the I Am CEO community again?

Ron Curtis 01:44

Yeah, I can't wait. I'm ready to drop some gems to the community.

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Gresham Harkless 01:47

Awesome. Let's get it started then. So to kick everything off, let's rewind the clock a little bit here, a little bit more on what you've been working on and we'll let you get started with all the awesome work you're doing.

Ron Curtis 01:56

All right, definitely.

So, for my last time being here, I was actually really deep into the financial literacy space. I'm a passive income coach. I like to teach people about, financial literacy principles that often are taught at home or in school.

But now I'm focused on something a little different, more so on wealth management. And I'm managing assets. So what I do now, I have a company called waiting stays where I'm a short-term and mid-term rental housing consultant where I managed 20 properties all over the country, specifically on platforms like Airbnb and B. R. B. O.

Gresham Harkless 02:28

Nice. I love that. Was it a long process for you to get to because it sounds like it's somewhat in the same Lane in the terms of being financial and it has that aspect of it.

So was it just like you drilling down on them a little bit more about it that led you to that?

Ron Curtis 02:42

Yeah, so it seems one thing led from another. So originally my background was more so on credit and credit education. I learned how to leverage credit to purchase assets to start businesses. An example could be vending machines and also a rental car business.

I got tired of, trading my time for money, having to go fill up the vending machines, having to go, take pictures of the car, meet renters and things of that nature. So what I ended up doing was I took some of the same business principles that I learned in my previous businesses. And I transferred it over into actual real estate.

I was able to purchase a home using the first-time home buyer program with pretty much little to no money down. And I was able to get into my home, turn it in a portion of it into a Airbnb. And I've been able to cookie-cut that business model across multiple properties all over the world.

Gresham Harkless 03:27

Nice. I love that.

And I'm definitely not in the, in that sphere. So I don't know much about it. You're going to be teaching me as much as everybody else. I've heard the phrase house hacking. Is that a little bit of what that is? House hacking.

Ron Curtis 03:38

Yeah, so I actually read this book called Set for Life by Scott Trench. He's one of the CEOs of Beer Pockets, which is like a huge real estate platform.

And the book actually told me how to save my first 25, 000. Gave me a strategy on how to purchase my first home and then turn a portion of it into a house back, which is what I did.

Gresham Harkless 03:57

Nice. And those things it sounds go hand in hand, like you being able to I guess you, once you start to have that financial awareness of the life, it's allowed you to be a lot more aware of the different options that are out there.

It sounds like the one that you've been able to take advantage of.

Ron Curtis 04:08

No, definitely. Knowledge is power. Information is key. Let me give you a prime example from my credit education, senior. By investing in courses that are knowledge, I found out about a specific bank called Lightstream.

That was offering low-interest loans. I was able to do a home renovation loan with them when they dropped 20, 000 in my bank account the same day. And I was able to renovate my basement, which gave me the capital needed to start my Airbnb was pretty much cash flows about 3, 000 per month. During a peak season, which helps me buy back my time and also supplement and cover my mortgage.

Gresham Harkless 04:41

Nice. I love that. And especially like time ends up being one of those very valuable assets. Honestly, one of those things that you can't get back, you try to maximize as much as you can, but you can't get back once it's gone, it's gone. So being able to leverage that and still be able to bring in that, that passive income.

I don't know if you consider passive income, but regardless bringing income is something that's important that people are trying to achieve.

Ron Curtis 05:02

Definitely like passive income. That's my goal. One of my biggest goals is to help people travel the world and make passive income. However, that looks and I've been able to tap into the specific niche of co-hosting.

I'm not, I only own one property, which is mine, which was my original project. But I've been able to duplicate this system across multiple properties where now I'm not only paying my mortgage by renting out a portion of my home, I'm actually helping people pay their mortgages, profit and pay into the equity of their house as well.

Gresham Harkless 05:32

Nice. Could you I guess take us through a little bit more on what that looks like, what that process looks like, and of course, any other ways that you're helping to support the clients you work with.

Ron Curtis 05:39

Yeah, so pretty much the way that it works. Let's say you come to me with a property, whether it's owner occupy, you live in a portion of it.

It's an investment property, a family that's in a business, a property that's inside of the family, et cetera. You come to me and pretty much all I need is an address. You tell me the address. I can actually go and do market research and give you a spot on projection of how much your home can make. We also want to make sure whatever markets you're in that they do not have short-term rental restrictions.

And if they do, we want to make sure that you qualify for them. From there, whether your house is empty and you need to buy furniture and get it designed and things like that, or if your house is turnkey ready from that point on, pretty much I can run the entire day-to-day operations of your business for a small percentage of the business.

Gresham Harkless 06:22

Okay, nice. So I know you talked about like someone that might potentially have a property. What about the people that are potentially thinking about acquiring a property or in those steps, are those like conversations that you have as well?

Ron Curtis 06:34

Definitely. So, one of most people's key pain points when it comes to purchasing a home and finding one is affordability. Affordability, and me personally, my whole reason of purchasing a home was to house hack. So when I was searching for my home, I made sure it had a private entrance.

I made sure it had a shower downstairs. So I could rent out a portion of the home. So if anybody is out here looking for homes, especially his home buying season is approaching. And you want to find creative ways to help offset and supplement your mortgage. You definitely want to identify properties, that have those different types of things.

Private interest is, full bathrooms, full kitchens things of that nature. Or you can even live downstairs in your basement and rent out the upstairs of your home. It just all depends on what you're comfortable with. And how much profit you're trying to make in the business.

Gresham Harkless 07:19

Yeah, that makes so much sense. So, what would you consider to be what I like to call your secret sauce? It could be for yourself, the business or a combination of both, but what do you feel sets you apart and makes you unique?

Ron Curtis 07:28

I would say it's my systems and my team, right? This started out as like a side hustle as a hobby. And once I started to see that this income was starting to surpass my nine-to-five income, it made me realize, this is something that I can, potentially retire my family from. So I would say my secret sauce is, first off, me.

I'm the brand right now. I'm the CEO. I'm the one that's spending time with this thing every single day, right? And then I have great people in positions that excel highly at what they do. All over my team, whether it's my 24 hour customer service support team, right? They're responding to messages whether I'm on a plane headed to Mexico or if I'm sleeping, by the start of my next day, right?

Another thing the most important thing that we do in this business is sell nights. Some people say customer service, hospitality, etcetera. So I have a full pricing team. A pricing management team where, we have guys who know how to read hotel data like people who trade on Wall Street, who they trade for a living.

I'm not the expert in that, but I learned, you have to surround yourself with people that are smarter than you and are better than you in different areas in order to succeed.

So I would say those two things my customer service and my pricing, and then just, me spending time with the brand spending time learning more about, different things related to the industry. Is what sets me apart from my competition?

Gresham Harkless 08:45

7Yeah, then it makes so much sense. And I'm not sure if you could save those to be like, the apps books or habits that make you more effective and efficient, being able to lean on. The delegation of also understand like podcasts and things that people are there sometimes further along in the journey, we can learn from them.

Those things, do you feel like they helped you to accelerate your growth and success?

Ron Curtis 09:04

Definitely. It's different when you're wearing that, like I call myself Dr. Financial, I'm teaching the community financial literacy and I realized I was pouring, pouring, pouring, right? And now I realize, wow, I don't have a mentor.

I don't have anybody teaching me in order for me to get that leg up and go to the next level to pull people up with me. That's something that I have to do. And an easy way to do that, which is low-hanging fruit is tapping into, books, right? That already best sellers that thousands, millions of people have already read, right?

Tapping in a podcast, right? Tapping into YouTube, tapping into. Facebook groups, all these free or low-cost to barrier entry resources that are around you, right? And just start spending time with them and you'll start finding the needles in the haystack.

Gresham Harkless 09:45

Yeah, so it makes so much sense. So, What would you consider to be what I like to call a CEO nugget, a little bit more word of wisdom or piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would tell your client, or if you have to do a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

Ron Curtis 09:58

So great question.

So we start small and then all of a sudden you start scaling exponentially out of nowhere. I would say you have to know your numbers, right? So my nugget is you can't manage what you can't measure, right? At one point, I knew money was coming in. I knew my expenses were lower than my profit. Okay. And I said, okay, let's just keep doing this.

And now I have a full bookkeeper, a CPA, a financial planner these are things that I realized I need because money management is so important, right? I saw an article that said 80 percent of Americans who make over 100, 000 a year living paycheck to paycheck. And with me being in a financial literacy space, I've seen thousands of credit reports and I see that people have money management problems.

So if I had to go back and start over, I would get that quick books account first, even though I wasn't making that much money, I would hire a bookkeeper. I would get a CPA to make sure my track my tax strategies are correct. So I wouldn't be playing catch up in a position that I am now. So that's one nugget that I would tell everybody.

Man, you know your numbers. You can't manage what you can't measure.

Gresham Harkless 11:05

Yeah, I think that's so huge in all aspects and definitely, of course, in financial, because I think that's a lot of times the scorecard that we measure. But I think we often forget that by. We sometimes we just have goals. So I want to do X, Y and Z or A, B and C and we aren't really looking at it from a numbers perspective on how we're going to achieve that.

Whether that be the number of clients and people that we're talking to the number of properties, whatever it is and how we measure that we're not looking at those numbers. Then it becomes more difficult to measure that when things don't go the way that we want them to go. Okay, this quarter didn't go this way.

You can go back and look at the numbers and understand. Okay, let me do X, Y and Z. And as you said so well. Okay. Often we can do that by not trying to do everything ourselves and being able to make those investments and smart people as well.

Ron Curtis 11:47

Definitely. Yeah, it's I'm sitting on Excel, playing around with formulas and stuff like that.

And it's somebody who loves doing that, that they're passionate about it. And I'm. I just had to get comfortable with taking things off my plate and letting the professionals do what they do.

Gresham Harkless 11:59

Yeah, absolutely. And really be able to create more time. So you get to happen to your superpower, the thing that you do better than everything else, everybody else.

So does it, did you, was that again, something that you had that realization around that self-awareness of this is my superpower. So the more time I spend here is actually going to be more beneficial for everybody.

Ron Curtis 12:17

Definitely. Yeah. So I felt like a lot of those tasks and even like small notifications coming to your phone, they drain, right?

So I phone has like a feature where it shows you your usage on your phone. And I saw like I get over 1000 notifications a day, right? And our attention spans are so small. I realized I have to put a filter or buffer or what I allow into my space. And the way that you do that is through automation. Or you have another person or system to do that for you.

So I started researching heavily into that because, like I said, my main goal. is to buy back my time, travel the world, make passive income right to be able to make money and not physically be there. And just recently I was in Cabo Mexico last week and I had an owner call me at 7 a.m. while I was walking on the beach asking me about toilet paper.

And in that moment, I went and hired a customer service team that answers the phone now because I realized the type of issues I don't want to deal with in the business. Like you said, they, they drain me of my superpower, right? And I want to only focus on what I'm good at. So I can help build my business up and those are my superpowers and I'm good at.

Gresham Harkless 13:25

Yeah, absolutely. And I wanted to ask you now, my favorite question, my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO and our goal is to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Ron, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Ron Curtis 13:35

That's a great question.

Now I really feel like a CEO for my last talk because I didn't have a team. But I think it comes down to leadership, right? What my current role is. I do a lot of oversight. I oversee people. I oversee teams with my nine-to-five, and I see that's transferable. And you have to be the person that handles everything right.

You're the top level. I'm real big on like limited access to myself now. But at the end of the day, I have to know what's going on in every aspect of my business because it falls back on me. So you have to know how to be a good leader. You have to know how to effectively communicate your directives to your team, right?

I'm in the service industry, right? So I understand this is business, nothing personal. If someone doesn't like, if someone finds a hair on a pillow, I have to reassure them, right? Same thing with my owners. If the owner says, Hey, why wasn't this damage reporting, right? I have to be able to stay professional and not big.

So being a leader when no one is watching, I think it's one of the most important aspects of being a CEO. Whether you're dealing with your financials, making sure your books are right, whether dealing with your team, making sure you're paying them on time and just operating with integrity in your business.

So that's what a CEO means to me right now at this point in my career.

Gresham Harkless 14:51

Nice. So I absolutely love that perspective. So, Ron, truly appreciate that definition. And of course, I appreciate your time even more.

So what I want to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best people can get ahold of you find about all the awesome things you are working on.

Ron Curtis 15:08

All right. Thanks for having me, Gresh. If anybody is interested in learning about Airbnb, whether you want to start your first Airbnb, if you want to learn about how you can get into co-hosting or if you have a property that you have in mind that you would like to, You can feel free to reach out to me.

I give you guys a free consultation where we can walk through the numbers and things like that. Best place to find me, I would say it's Instagram. You all can find me at Wavy Stays LLC. On TikTok, I'm putting a lot more content on there. You guys can follow me at Doctor_Financial and it's spelled D O C T O R underscore financial.

And then last but not least if you guys want to connect with me on a professional tip, you guys can follow me or add me on LinkedIn. Send me a message. My name is Ronald Curtis. And I look forward to connecting with you all. I'm an open book. I'm willing to share, any knowledge or expertise that I have to help you all elevate as well.

Gresham Harkless 16:01

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. We'll make it a lot easier. We'll have the links and information shown us as well, too. I truly appreciate you. For all the awesome things you're doing here. So thank you so much, my friend, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Ron Curtis 16:12

All right, thanks. Thank you so much for inviting me to your platform. This is a powerful, amazing platform.

I love what you're doing. Like I said, it's my second or third time on this show. And I'm seeing your growth as well. So I commend you for that my friend.

Outro 16:24

Thank you for listening to the I Am CEO podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I Am CEO is not just a phrase. It's a community.

Don't forget to schedule your complimentary digital marketing consultation at blue16media.com. This has been the I Am CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

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