10 Things You NEED as a DIY Landlord (Self-Managing Rentals)

27:39And it was, it was very cost effective. I have to say, um, it was cheaper than hiring someone to come and open the mail. There's a lot of different ones. I use, uh, post scan mail, uh, but there's a whole bunch of different virtual mailboxes and they have like different features that they do with it. The reason I chose this one is because they let you have a larger amount of LLCs or companies sent to the same mailbox without having to pay a ton of fees extra to have more sent to one mailbox and instead of opening two mailboxes. This is one thing that I've not done and I'm not sure why because I also hate mail.

28:22It's like the bane of my existence I feel like. And like our process right now and it sucks because we've like had so many different processes but like we had um just our home address at first you know which was like the worst uh sarah and i are so bad at checking our mail that it probably happens maybe four times a year where our mailbox gets so full that we have to like they just empty out the mailbox and take it back to the post office and we have to go to the post office to pick it up uh so like okay that that's not like a good choice for all of our all of our business mail so then we got like a local it's like a ups store around the corner from our house so we got a mailbox there uh but then you got to drive to that mailbox to go check it, right?

28:57So it was kind of like the same issue. But once we got the office, there's a mailbox here at the office, right? So now we just send most of our business mail here. And the process for me is like, I'll check that mailbox. And Sam, I'll try and sort it out. And then if it's something that I need to do, I'll set it to the side. If something that my assistant can do, I'll just take a picture and send it to her. So we've kind of got a process right now, but I definitely like the idea of having someone that's just like dedicated to the mail. And I I wish so badly that my assistant like lived here in California, but she's in Texas because if she was here, she could just like handle that for me.

29:31So right now that's the thing with the virtual mailbox is you can be anywhere and you can feel what's in your mail. And that's why I don't know why we haven't done this yet. It's just been like on the to do list. So I'm committing now to all the folks in the rookie podcast that Tony's going to get a virtual mailbox set up because it's just, just like ballpark Ash. Like what, what should someone expect to pay for a virtual mailbox? I think like your standard is like$300 for the year. And then it goes to like, but I also have like the, probably like the premium thing or whatever, because I have a bunch of LLCs, but it also like varies on like how much mail you're getting.

30:07So like if you request for them to scan and open, you know, 500 pieces of mail, you're going to charge extra than if you have just like, there's like limits of like, you get a hundred free pieces of mail scanned each month or whatever. But yeah, I think it's like$300 per the year, whatever my plan is. Yeah. So it's like 25 bucks a month or something. Yeah. Like a P.O. box is... Yeah. That's probably... I don't know if it was 300 for the year. I think it might've been like 200, but they weren't scanning anything, you know? Right. Yeah. So... And with the post office, you can get them to scan your envelopes in.

30:47There is like a app you can sign up for because I had a P.O. box prior to this and I had like it's just like at the USPS.com their website or whatever their website is that you can sign up to have them scan your mail in and it's not even them it's just the envelope though you're not getting your open mail scanned so then you get anxiety of like oh my god what is this envelope blah blah blah and think it's some horrible lawsuit or thing coming in. And it's just like, you got a$6 check from national field returned to you. Cause we actually do have that for our primary residents where I can see like the outside of the envelopes, but our mailbox that we had was UPS.

31:28Um, so they didn't offer like the virtual, um, kind of like service like that. Or maybe they do, I don't know. I remember I never even asked, so maybe it is something they offer. So, but still, it's not like you're seeing the inside of it. So you're not seeing like what you have to actually do for it. Yeah. All right. Well, here it is. Tony's committing to get in a virtual mailbox. We'll set it up. And just so everyone is listening, I've literally been telling Tony about this for two years because I saw the picture that Sarah had posted of him covered in a pile of mail around him. And that's what I used to look like.

32:01Okay. So the next thing is organized file storage. So this kind of goes hand in hand. Like once you get a document, what do you do with it? And instead of having your shoebox full of receipts or having a stack of papers on your desk, I used to use folders. I would put everything into folders. So I had a folder for each, like I had a section for each LLC, one folder for receipts for that year, just for that year, one thing for tenant leases, one thing for capital improvements, bank statements things like that I used to do that and then I went to doing like a binder where I'd have a binder and I'd actually hole punch each thing and put it into the binder so it's separated by each bank account the bank statements and things like that but now I just strictly use Google Drive storage the only thing that I have that's like paper and like physical that's sitting right next to me now are my title of abstracts that I don't know how to scan them in because they just come with like this paperclip thing.

33:09And some of them are so old that I'm pretty sure if I tried to scan them, it would just like shred the paper through my scanner. But that, and then I have some surveys that they are scanned in, but I also have the physical copies and then my checkbooks. Like I have physical checkbooks for every LLC. I don't know if people still do that nowadays, but I still do have them and I do use them sometimes. But that is like the only thing. Everything else is getting organized and scanned in to my Google Drive. So that's receipts. That's any kind of documents that come in. Even if it's something that I think like I may never need again and maybe it's just a notice of something, I still just have like a random folder inside of each LLC where I'm just throwing that in because it's all scanned in for me anyways.

33:58It's not an extra step for me. So it's just literally drag and drop. Yeah. Same, same for us. We, we set ours up cause you said you were doing, you had like a folder for bank statements, et cetera, et cetera. We do ours by the, by the entity and by the property usually. It's like, we'll have one folder for that property and then like all of the things associated with that property for that. That's how mine knows too. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So same thing. And then for a lot of the things too, it'll exist inside of Google Drive, but a lot of times we'll access it through Monday again, which we'll talk about a little bit later.

34:30But Google Drive is just a place where we can make sure that we have our own copy of that. Because I think the downside of only keeping your files inside of your property management or your project management software is that if you switch. Either one, really. Yeah, either one, right? Like if you switch, there goes all of your data. It's like you've got to figure out a way to get it all out. So we try and keep everything inside of Google Drive from like a storage perspective. And then we just link to the file from Google Drive inside of our project management software. Yeah, I completely agree with that.

34:57I had to have our VA transfer from one property management software to another. And she had to manually go in and like download because we had put every receipt in there because there's the one we were using had like a bill pay option in there. And manually go through and download every receipt or all of those. So now we do it, we actually do it double. So we're putting it into the software that we pay our bills in. We're putting lease agreements in the property management software and we're saving everything to Google Drive. It takes, I don't know, like five seconds longer to do it double just because the storing of the files is so easy.

35:37We just have a spreadsheet with like the quick links to here's like the most common, you know, Google Drive storage folders you'll use. and it's just like you hit the link, you drag, drop, hit the link, drag and drop for whatever it is. So it doesn't take that much time. But one thing I will say too is like along with your receipts for your bookkeeping, you're going to want to have closing statements organized on your properties. If you sold them, if you bought them, surveys for your properties, but also your LLC information. If you have an LLC or if you have a corporation, having all of that information in one place And then think about things that your lender asks for when doing bank financing.

36:19Because those, I used to be unorganized as to where it would take me forever to find what I needed for the loan officer for each property, like my property taxes for each property. Like I was literally just throwing the receipts into a folder labeled 2025 receipts. And like I would have to dig through all of them to find all the receipts or my property taxes that they were paid because they wanted paid receipts. And a lot of times you can find them online now. But think about those things, too, and maybe create some kind of sheet that has the quick links to be able to access those also. OK, our next thing here is number six, and it is the unit information sheet.

37:05So this is where you are going to keep all of your records. And you could do this just in a document. And we actually have one for you guys at biggerpockets.com slash rookie resource. And you can get the unit information sheet there. But you could put this into your project management board like monday.com. You can just have this in Excel spreadsheet. It could be a Word document even. But it is everything that you need to know about your property. You may never use some of it. but it is some of things that if you do need to tell somebody this information, makes it so much easier than trying to figure it out.

37:42Like especially as you accumulate a couple properties, they kind of blend together. And if you've rented them out, when's the last time you've ever been at one of these properties? So I think Tony is a great example of this. Okay, he buys a property in the Smoky Mountains. He goes there when he first purchases it. And then it's been guests staying there for the last two years. Now there's a vendor there that's asking, where is the water shut off for the property? And they can't continue forward until they know where the water shut off is. Or a guest is staying there and there's water shooting out of the wall.

38:21Where is the water shut off? So that's always my favorite example because I've also learned from experience that that's something I want my tenants to know where that is. so that it doesn't prevent further damage. But just things like that, having all of this stuff listed out so you have just like a one-pager, this little cheat sheet that you can use if needed. And you can also give out to anybody on your team if they get asked these questions about the property. I was looking through our property trackers, what we call it, as you were giving your initial response, Ash. And we have a lot of the information that you talked about.

38:56we have all of the documents around the purchase of the property. So our purchase price, the escrow company that we used, our settlement statement, our closing disclosure, our initial insurance. We have our short-term rental permit the day it expires, our parcel number, which Airbnb profile that's under, the bedrooms, the bathrooms, the square footage. We have all of our utilities information. We have video walkthroughs of both the interior and the exterior, the location of things like the electrical panel, the propane tanks. So just like all the things that you would potentially need, especially if you're running this property remotely, so you can quickly remember like, oh man, where is the lockbox on that property?

39:39Oh, cool. Here's a video of like where we put the lockbox, right? So it sounds like a lot. We even have like trash day, you know, like what day do the trash cans need to get taken out? That's important for short-term rentals. So I think as you're putting your property, as you're kind of setting it up, spending some time there to just go through with a super fine-tooth comb and think, what is all the information that I may need if I were a thousand miles away to still be able to manage this property effectively? You put all of that into one location and it makes managing it so much easier. So as we've learned, a little organization up front saves you hours of headaches later.

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44:51So these are also called your reserves, setting aside money for repairs and vacancies and other unexpected costs that can come up. So what I do is I keep money in a high yield interest savings account. I use Baseline and I've also used Wealthfront too. Those are two that have really great interest rates right now. They're kind of like online banks or whatever. So easy to access, things like that. If you need you can just easily transfer right back into whatever account you need it into to go ahead and cover that transaction. But I think like a big rookie mistake is like treating all of the projected cash flow as profit because you should be saving that for reserves if you don't have already a big meaty like reserves account that you're starting your purchase with.

45:50Like I think the best way to take this is to have three to six months of reserves in place when you purchase the property. But sometimes that's not always feasible. Plus, if you use those reserves, you have to replenish it. And there goes your cash flow for several months or whatever long it may take to actually fill that up. So Tony, what are you doing with your reserves? Are you keeping them in a high yield interest savings account too? So we use Relay as our business bank and i don't know if it's like a traditional high yield savings account but they do offer i think right now it's like three and a half percent you know whereas maybe like super high yield will be like four somewhere above four um yeah you know it's not a huge difference um but yeah we keep it we have a separate reserves account for each property um and the reason we do it on a per property basis just you know again we have a lot of partners on our deals so i can't like use the reserves from partnership a to cover something that happens on partnership b so we keep a separate reserves account for each property.

46:51One of the things though, Ash, that I think we discovered as our portfolio has matured a little bit is that in addition to reserves, one of the things that a good short-term rental portfolio needs is just like a reinvestment fund. Because you also want to have money set aside for continuing to improve your property's performance. And sometimes that's small things like, you know, I don't know, buying a new gaming console. You know, like we went through this phase, we bought a bunch of Nintendo Switches for our properties. Or it could be something bigger. Like maybe we want to install, you know, you want to redesign your game room, or maybe you want to add a new amenity like Asana, or maybe you want to add mini golf, or you want to do something.

47:34But I think setting some money aside on a monthly basis as well, strictly for reinvestment, is something that more short-term rental hosts should be doing as well. That is a great idea. And we haven't been touching our short-term rental income at all. In the past year, I think over a year, we haven't touched it. And we've kind of just been saving it in there for that purpose of reinvesting. but I've never thought of it that way of just like, instead of thinking like, oh, okay, next year, I want to do some improvements. Let's start saving this year is just on a continuous basis, putting that money away aside to continuously improve your property, which is going to hopefully continuously increase your nightly rate.

48:21Or at least allow you to continue to compete, you know? And just really like the idea that initially came from, again, Sarah and I, there's this resort in Cancun that we'd like to go to. And every time that we go, they're just always like doing something. And sometimes it's small things like they're replanting plants or they're repainting the handrail. And this is a place that's like generally in really good shape already, but they're just like always doing little things to keep it that way. And that was like an eye-opening experience for us. It's like, well, man, we did all this work to set these things up, but we have to continue to reinvest to keep them performing.

48:56Okay, let's move on to number eight, insurance and legal protection. So Tony and I actually did a rookie reply episode on this recently about insurance costs rising and what kind of insurance you need on your property. And let's just state the fact here that especially if you're renting out your primary residence or you're not being upfront with your mortgage or your insurance broker, that this is a rental property. A homeowner's policy is not the same as a landlord policy. It is completely different coverage. So the first thing is to make sure that you have the correct policy in place and ask your agent or broker to spend the time going through your policy with you.

49:40Don't just take what they send you and say, here's the quote. Actually have them walk you through what is covered. You know, what could happen? Your deductible, what's your deductible? Um, so I think really understanding your policy, um, can make a big difference in what you do need and what you don't need, which can definitely change your premium too. Yeah. I think it's just a good practice to on a regular basis, probably annually is like a good time to just go back and reshop, um, your insurance and see, is there a better rate that you can get from somewhere else? Or there may be new products that you should consider that you didn't know about before.

50:20but I think sometimes insurance can be one of those things that we just like set and forget. And you forget that it is something that we should actively shop to see if we can get better, better pricing. So if you haven't reshopped your insurance in a while, you know, take this as a sign to go out there and talk to a few brokers and see if you can find something better. Tony, I'm following a couple insurance companies on Instagram that are short-term rental specific or like they're talking about it a lot. I don't, I don't actually know if they offer other policies, But what their message is, is that a lot of short-term rental hosts don't have the proper coverage that you need as short-term rental hosts because they're not going to a short-term rental specific insurance vendor, I guess, be the word.

51:06Like, is that true? Do you see that happening too? Yeah, for sure. I mean, at least from the folks in insurance that I've spoken with, like the coverage needs are definitely different from a traditional long-term rental versus a short-term rental. I think insurance companies tend to view short-term rentals as slightly more risky just because of the volume of people that are coming through. And sometimes in a traditional landlord policy, if your average stay is less than a certain figure, it could negate some of the protections that you thought you had. So if you have a traditional, you know, long-term rental policy, but all of your guests only, you know, you've only got people seeing for two or three nights at a time, that could undo some of the protections you thought you had with your policy.

51:51So yeah, I think it definitely is important that you're shopping policies that are specific to the exact strategy that you're using. Just a couple of things that I noticed when I went to a couple of these carriers and I got quotes from them that were stating like they're short-term rental specific. and I haven't compared them yet to my current policy. I literally just got these sent to me last night. But first of all, super easy process, I will say. But here's some things I already noticed that they include. And I haven't looked at my other policy to even see if they include this, but it's bed bug coverage, lost rents, squatter, which I would say lost rents is pretty common in any rental, squatter and evictions, liquor liability, animal and pet liability, and amenities like hot tubs and pools, and then also assault and battery.

52:47So I was surprised at that one. But the liquor liability, I did this post the other day about what's doing too much. I have one short-term rental that I bring fresh flowers and put them in upon their arrival, write a handwritten note and little drinks in the fridge and stuff. And someone said they leave a bottle of wine. And I've like heard such mixed things about this as far as like, are you supplying the alcohol? This person goes and drives, gets a DWI and then they sue you because you oversteered them. Like all of these libelie things go into my head. And so like I asked one person, they're like, well, we don't rent to people under 18.

53:30And I was like, okay, well, they must've been from Canada. because the drinking age is 19 in Canada. And then it's like, okay, well, what if it's teenagers coming with their parents and they drink and then their parents do because the parents didn't see the alcohol and the kids got it or whatever. You know, I just like all these things go through my head. So like maybe that if you are supplying the wine and stuff that, you know, you do have that liquor liability in there too. I think it's better just to be as open and transparent with whoever you're talking to about insurance, about everything your property offers.

54:06So they can guide you in terms of what's the right coverage. Because what you don't want to do is hide something or say that you don't do something or you don't offer something. And then God forbid something happens that wasn't disclosed and now you don't have the coverage that you thought you had. So transparency, sharing everything, I think is the best path to get the right coverage for your property. Yeah. Because what's the point of having insurance if you're not going to have the right coverage? right like the point of getting insurance is so that if something happens at your property they cover it like i looked at this campground to buy and during my due diligence i asked him to send me his insurance policy his insurance policy did not cover any kind of heating that was like um wood fueled or you know like you had to have wood they had almost uh probably like eight of the 10 cabins, there was wood-burning stoves in them.

54:59So he wasn't even honest with his insurance provider that there was. And like, hey, there's a fire. They're not getting covered. Yeah, guys. Insurance is one of those things. Obviously, sometimes it can feel like you're just kind of throwing money into the void, but it's one of those things that when it's needed, you want to make sure you've got all the right coverage. Okay. So then number nine, this kind of goes with the Google Voice thing, but it's communication boundaries and systems, but not only with your tenants, but with your vendors and with your partners or your team members. So like really defining how when tenants can contact you, what clarifies as an emergency.

55:42The most burnout I ever felt as a property manager was when I was 24-7. I allowed unlimited access to myself, no matter who called, I picked up that phone, whether it was 3 a.m., whether it was 11 a.m. or 11 p.m. I can't even tell you how many times I get maintenance requests like at 1 a.m. in the morning, just like somebody randomly thinks about like, oh, this needed to be done. Like not something that would be an emergency. It's just like they randomly decided to put in that their outlet isn't working at 1 a.m. And like so, which is fine now because it all goes through the property management software and is put into a work order and I'm not getting an alert for it while I'm sleeping because it's not urgent and it's just going in there.

56:31So I think really defining, you know, for the vendors, your team members, your tenants, even your guests. I've had, I stayed at a property where they had the all-in-one washer and dryer. And we actually have this in one of our long-term units. And we've had a couple of issues with it, but we haven't lately, knock on wood. But we were doing our laundry because we had been snowboarding and like our clothes are kind of wet and stuff and we wanted to use them again the next day. So I set my alarm to like wake up at 3 a.m. to make sure I switch the laundry. So I get up, there's water everywhere in the laundry room, everywhere.

57:15Like the thing is leaking water out of it. The door is locked. I can't even get our clothes out of it. I go to message the Airbnb host. It says like we are unavailable until 7 a.m. or something like they have an automated response thing that says from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. we are not available. Please. And I can't remember exactly what it said. It might have said please call if it's an emergency or I might have just went and found their number to call. I can't remember, but I called and I left a voicemail and they did not get back to me until 8 a.m. And they gave me the like the code to like their little lockbox thing.

57:55And they had me like shut off the water and then reset the washer and dryer and like do this thing that obviously this has happened before and they knew what to tell me to do. But it was like, I guess on the short-term rental side, what is appropriate to like limit yourself as to how much a guest is messaging you and communicating you? Should there be a limit to it at all? It's a good question. It's something that we, I think kind of go back and forth on, right? We also have in our messaging that, hey, we're generally available between these hours. You know, if there's an emergency, feel free to contact us.

58:31But we do our best to answer as many guest questions as we can before they actually ask them. And then we do as much work as we can to get them to review those answers to those questions they haven't asked yet before they need them. So for us, that means we have a really strong digital guidebook. It means we have really strong signage within the property to answer some of those common questions. So I'll give you like a recent example. At the hotel, again, we're a self-service, self-check-in hotel. So it's very much like an Airbnb. There's no front desk. Like you get there, you have your code, you punch the code, go into your unit.

59:12The keypads that we have, they don't light up by default. So like when you walk up to the keypad, all, you know, say you're going at nighttime. I think that's when this usually happens. You're going up to the keypad at nighttime, the lights on the keypad are off. A lot of people assume that you have to like press something first to get the lights to come on and then you'd enter your code. And it kept happening where people were doing that. But in reality, if you press anything on the keypad, that's the keypad thinking that it's your code. So people would press a button to turn on the keypad and then enter in their four-digit code and it wouldn't work.

59:44And they'd lock the lock. They couldn't get in. Now they're calling us late at night saying like, hey, I can't get in. you guys suck. So what we did was two things. We added a small light right above the door handle. So it was like a little like a solar light that would just like take and send throughout the day. And then at nighttime, it'll automatically kick on and just like shine light down onto the keypad. So now people can see immediately. And then we printed out this small little placard right above that light that says, read these instructions on how to unlock the door. And it has written instructions.

1:00:18And then there's a small QR code they can scan that takes them to a video in our guidebook that shows them how to unlock the door. So those two changes of putting the instructions right there in front of them, solving the issue of them not being able to see by adding the light. Now we've significantly reduced the number of people who are calling us saying, hey, we can't get into our unit at nighttime. So I think for us, it's understanding what is the issue that's happening? Is it a one-off or is it a trend? And if it's a trend, okay, what can we do from a management perspective to reduce the likelihood of that happening again?

1:00:50Sometimes it's just communication differences. Sometimes it's communication plus physical changes. But I think if you iterate that over and over and over and over and over again, you've got a lot of opportunities to improve the efficiency of your property, whether it's short-term, long-term, mid-term, or anything in between. Yeah. So basically what you're saying is it's not a availability, communication issue. It's being proactive to solve the reason to communicate in general. Yeah. Yeah. If we can just eliminate the need altogether, it's a win-win because the guest never has to reach out to us, which means everything went smoothly.

1:01:23We don't have to worry about getting late night phone calls, people being locked out of their units. Tony, maybe I should hire you to eliminate any reason for someone to call me. That would be a good idea. If we do an episode where we go through Ashley's recent messages and see what we can do to improve it. Okay. So the last thing here we're going to go over is number 10, your plan for scaling beyond just being a DIY investor. And I started out with that. I did a lot of stuff myself. I did the property management. I did the asset management. I did the deal finding. I did the payables. I did the bookkeeping.

1:02:00I did some of the rehab on some of my properties. So I think to me, the most important thing to be able to scale is building systems and processes, which I know you guys hear that all the time. But I think the second biggest thing is having reserves in place and having capital. I think that plays a major role in being able to outsource things, automate things, just that sense of security that, OK, you're taking you're letting go control of these things. You're letting somebody else do them, whether it's a contractor doing the work or it's a bookkeeper stepping in, is having that financial security that if something goes wrong, you're able to pay to have somebody to fix it, pay for whatever the mistake was or hire somebody else.

1:02:57or just like you're able to take the time from whatever else you're focusing on because you you can give up that little bit of money or whatever to be able to go and take that thing back on so I think those are like really the two big things is having that financial security to be able to grow and scale having capital to put into deals and to not be so worried about I don't have money. I need to figure out how to get creative as possible to be able to do these things. And then just building out the sensitive processes starting at day one. What are the things that I do every single day that somebody else could do for me?

1:03:39And even if you don't want to outsource, there's things that I scaled back on that I was like, I don't actually need someone to do these things for me. These are things that I actually enjoy doing and I want to be the person doing. But still like building out. So whatever you can do to automate it more or to make it more efficient, like having checklists. We had somebody on Shelby before and she talked about how she, every time she does something, she creates a checklist. And with that checklist, she saves it, files it. If her or anybody on her team needs to do that same thing, whether it's just sending an email to a prospective client, she has a checklist for it.

1:04:25Here's what you do. Here's what you say, follow through. She never wants to think about doing the same thing twice. And I think that has really helped me too. Just like the acquisition of a property, I can move so much faster during that. And it's such a lighter lift for me than what it used to be because I didn't have a checklist with, okay, get the utility switch, get the insurance switch, make the tenant handbook, start the, you know, get the property listed, all those things. And now it's just like, I can just knock out that checklist pretty quickly instead of like, oh shoot, remembering now I have to do this.

1:04:59And then, you know, the next day remembering, oh, I have to do this. I can just sit down and go through that checklist. So I think those two things have really helped me scale beyond DIY because I always was afraid and I had that mindset that if I do hire people, I'm not going to be able to pay them. I'm not going to bring in the income for that. So I think having those reserves set aside that my flip did not make the profit that I was thinking it would make, I would still have the money to pay my VA going forward. Yeah. I think when we talk about scaling beyond DIY, first, there's two books that I think every real estate investor should read.

1:05:40Neither one of them are about real estate investing, but I think it applies. The first one is called The Checklist Manifesto. It's actually by a doctor. I think his name is Atul Gawande. And it just talks about how big of an impact Simple Checklist had on improving, really saving lives within hospitals of just making sure that we're going through the same process every single time. The second book that you guys should read this called Clockwork by Mike Michalowicz, who we've interviewed in the podcast a couple of times. But he kind of takes the idea of the checklist manifesto, but applies it to small business owners, which is what all of us are.

1:06:12So checklist manifesto clockwork gives you the framework on how to build out these super simple checklists and SOPs within your business. Now, from a maybe theory perspective, there are two ways to build a business. The first way is top-down where let's say that you raise a bunch of venture capital. All right, let's say you go out and you raise$5 million for someone to invest in Tony and Ashley's real estate venture. And we go out, we hire a COO, a CFO, a bunch of team members, and we've got$5 million, like our starting pot of money to work with. And we built this entire team, salaries, and we've got like 12 months of runway before we run out of money, right?

1:06:55That would be like a top-down approach. Most people aren't building their real estate business that way. Most people are building it from the bottom up, which means instead of going out and building a team from the very beginning, you are the team. You are everything. You are acquisitions. You are operations. You are finance and admin. You're HR. You're all things, marketing. So as you start to build your business, it's trying to identify, well, what is the highest and best use of my time? Where am I most effective? Where can I really drive the business forward? And how can I try and do more of those things and less of the other things that I don't like to do that I'm not good at that aren't really driving the business forward.

1:07:29And over time, finding people to slide into those roles. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a full-time employee. Property management, right? That's just you hiring a property manager to take on the management side. That's a big workload off of your shoulders if you choose not to do that. Hiring a part-time virtual assistant from overseas who only works maybe five to 10 hours a week for you. It's a minimal cost for a lot of free time back in your own calendar. So I think just having that approach of bottom up and trying to identify what are the things I should be focusing on versus things that I shouldn't be focusing on is how you laid the foundation for scaling.

1:08:03Well, thank you guys so much for joining us for this episode of Real Estate Rookie. You can find us on YouTube at Real Estate Rookie, or you can find us on Instagram at BiggerPocketsRookie. You can also find me, Ashley, at WealthFirmRentals on Instagram, and you can find Tony there at Tony J. Robinson. Make sure to leave us a review if you're listening to this on your favorite podcast platform. We'll see you guys next time. Thanks so much for joining us. Hey, rookies. If you're watching this, we want you to apply to be a guest on the Real Estate Rookie Podcast. That's right. Ashley and I are looking for amazing stories just like yours to be a part of our Real Estate Rookie Podcast.

1:08:39Now, look, you don't need to be an expert. You don't need to have done thousands of deals. Even if you've done one deal, your story could help inspire the next listener. As a rookie investor, especially if you just got your first deal, it is all fresh in your minds and you are the best person to tell your story, give your experience on how you got it done to help someone else get their first deal. So head over to biggerpockets.com slash guest if you want to be a part of our show. Again, that's biggerpockets.com slash guest and we'd love to have you on. In diesem Jahr werden über 10 ,000 Elektrofahrzeuge für Amazon Lieferungen in ganz Europa eingesetzt.

1:09:14for deliveries like balls for young kickers. I don't know. 10.000 electric vehicles and it will be more. Based on the planned vehicles of our customers in the EU and Britain until the end of the year.