The Amenities Arms Race: Maximizing ROI through Data Driven Design with Mark Lumpkin

Alex Husner  0:23  
welcome to Alex & Annie: the real women of vacation rentals. I'm Alex.

Annie Holcombe  0:27  
And I'm Annie.

Alex Husner  0:28  
And we are joined today with Mark Lumpkin, who is the Director of Sales for STR Cribs. Mark, welcome to the show.

Mark Lumpkin  0:35  
Thank you both for having me on. I've been a longtime listener, I'm excited to chat with you today.

Annie Holcombe  0:40  
We're excited to have you and I am super excited. And Alex knows that I love to brag on all the great things and great people that come from the panhandle of Florida, and you're another one homegrown boy, in terms of business, so why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are and what STR cribs is?

Mark Lumpkin  0:57  
Cool. Yeah, um, so yes, I'm obviously a Florida local as well, and, or South Alabama, whatever you want to call it. But I think it's the most beautiful place in the country. So happy to live here. And in the Emerald Coast. I would say that I'm a husband, a father, I love to travel. And I've always loved real estate. And so the short term rental industry, just kind of like naturally attracted me to it, I just kind of fell into it. And I'm also, I'm also a big fan of creating really unique fun spaces. And so that's really what STR cribs is at its core is taking vacant properties and turning them into awesome resort style, short term rentals. We do it all across the country. Our our scope of work is quite large. And so it allows for investors to have a hands off experience. Let us handle everything for them. And we work all across the country. So we're really mobile, and we can basically handle anything people need us to do.

Alex Husner  2:00  
So cool. I love all these different business models that have popped up in the last few years. But I'm curious when When did you get started? And kind of what is the company look like in terms of organization across this 30 markets? Yeah,

Mark Lumpkin  2:14  
that's a great question. So I've actually been in this space for coming up on five years. And so I was originally with Showplace, which was a virtual designer in the short term rental space. And STR cribs has been around for about three years, they've set up close to 500 properties. And so they've got a lot of experience, I've got a lot of experience in this space. We've got around 10 full time designers, we have about 20 people in our project management and construction department that handles permitting, and dealing with HOA ordering materials, doing cleaning, just handling everything that you need us to. And so we've got a pretty robust team, there's about 30 of us total that are working on projects every day. As far as how we handle working across the country in different markets, we really look at it on a case by case and local basis. So there's some projects in some markets that we can subcontract out and just use some local labor. There's other projects that maybe require us to do some traveling for. There's other markets where we just have our go to team because we've done multiple projects in that area. So it really depends on what the home needs and the area of the country it's in. But no matter what we find a way to get there, we find a way to get it done.

Annie Holcombe  3:36  
I was at the IMM conference in Miami back in January, February timeframe. And I sat on a panel. And we talked about sort of that experiential travel that is so prevalent within kind of really more of the STR space. And it is in in the general like vacation rental space, because the scalability of doing customized homes is harder when you're managing hundreds and 1000s of units than it is if you're managing just a couple. And there was a lot of really neat conversation about it. And I'm curious, do you are you working with individual hosts? Are you working with large managers? Are you kind of across the board? Is it just really dependent upon what they want at an individual property?

Mark Lumpkin  4:16  
Yeah, I would say most of our work is done for individual property owners. Or maybe like some institutional fund managers that are putting a lot of capital into the short term rental space. I call it the amenities arms race. You know, a couple years ago, we went to these conferences, and no one was talking about design and amenities. And now that seems to be the hot topic. And the reason for that is the markets gotten more competitive. You've got more saturation, more density in these markets, people just have more options. And so the best house with the best amenities and the best design seems to be what's winning in today's industry. And so a lot of people are talking about it. A lot of investors who maybe even have half a dozen or a dozen and properties in their portfolio, but are looking to set up the next one, they're looking to set up the next one different than they did the last four or five, because they know the industry has changed. And so people that we talked to are hyper focused on that guest experience. And you know, it's the term stopping the scroll, right? Someone's scrolling through Airbnb, how do you get them to stop scrolling and click on your listing? Well, it's with that hero shot and something that really just rips off the screen. And those are the kinds of images and experiences that we've really focused on creating.

Alex Husner  5:32  
So cool. It looks like you're pretty big in Orlando.

Mark Lumpkin  5:37  
Yeah, we've done a few in Orlando. It's really competitive. We're working on a Star Wars themed house right now, that has like custom bunk beds that are going to be starships. So you literally the kids go in it's like the spaceship, bunk bed setup, that we've done some cool murals. Orlando is one of those markets that if you don't go all out, I don't think you're gonna do well. And, you know, there are other markets that you don't necessarily have to go out. But you definitely want to be really focused on who your guest avatar is. And who's coming to stay at your property and why they're coming to stay at your property.

Alex Husner  6:13  
Yeah, right. 100%. Yeah. Do you help companies or hosts with that in the process? Yeah. A little bit about that, as I love that. That's so it's very interesting. Yeah.

Mark Lumpkin  6:24  
So we will do a deep dive on the data. And we really, we kind of have coined the phrase designed for the data. And so we'll dive into what your specific market looks like. What kind of travelers you're seeing, are you in a snowbird older couples traveling market? Are you in a market that seeing a lot of young families with little kids, and it will really try to tailor your home to maximize the experience of those type of guests that are coming into your market, we also look at the competition. And so if I look at a market, and there's a lot of three bedroom, two bath houses, but not very many, four bedrooms, well, hey, what could we do to get you that fourth bedroom is there a garage space that's unused, it could turn into a fourth bedroom, is there maybe a second dining room that could be converted, there's always extra square footage, we just want to focus on how we maximize that square footage and give you the best home that's going to get a really drive the highest ROI. And so yeah, we're doing an in depth analysis on the property on the market, on the travelers that are coming into that space, and then giving you a blueprint, a playbook, that's going to give you the most success. It's

Alex Husner  7:32  
gonna be exciting to work with clients or individual hosts that have that appetite to do this too. Because I mean, on the other side of things, you've got the traditional rental companies where every year it's like pulling teeth to get homeowners to update an old TV or a couch that you know, has gotten terrible reviews over and over again, that they're just really penny pinching, and they don't want to put any more money into it. This is like a dream for most property owners if they had these types of homeowners.

Mark Lumpkin  8:01  
Yeah, that is a great point. We work with a lot of property managers who send referrals to us. And we get to be the bad guys and kind of tear apart their listing and say, Hey, guys, you're not doing well. There's a reason you're not doing well. Look at the houses in your neighborhood that you're competing against. Yeah, ask yourself this. Would you book your house over that house? You would? And so how can you expect to do well, I know that's a really hard predicament for property managers to find themselves in, because they need the inventory, they want the inventory. They don't want to lose that that property owner and that that listing. But I think that we're a great partner for them to have or we can come in, we can be the bad guys, we can make recommendations. And at the end of the day, you don't have to invest $100,000 into a property, you can do some small things like decor updates, full length, mirrors, rugs, a fresh coat of paint, you can do some stuff to really improve your property for 1000s of dollars, not 10s of 1000s. But it does require an owner to be willing to invest in the home. And if they're not, I think that they're just going to be disappointed with the saint getting the same results over and over again. That's really funny.

Annie Holcombe  9:11  
I was recently at a show down in Mexico City. And I was sitting with some people and they handed me over somebody's phone and said, Would you look at this gentleman's listing, he wants to know why it's not booking, we think we know we just want your opinion. And I took one look at it. And the look on my face said everything. And he was like he just kind of said, Oh God, what is she going to say? And I was like, would you stay in this unit? He goes, Well, I mean, it's close to the beach. I was like, Is it looking at the beach? And he said no. And I said then why would somebody stay in this it looks like a prison cell. And he was he kind of he was so mortified but he was like I appreciate you. I appreciate my wife told me the same thing. But I think the fact that it was so close to the beach like that nobody would care what it looked like I was like, all you got to do is go to Target and buy a rug like that's really all you got to do and like just put some color into it. I think sometimes people We'll get so lost in the the investment of it that they're not looking at like, Well, how do we make it aesthetically pleasing? So the investment works, you know, they just can't see the forest for the trees. I think from a, as a property manager when I was doing that the conversations with owners to get them like Alex said, to get them annually to do these things, seemingly meaningless things like upgrade a TV or change the carpet or buy a sofa, you know, like, it was so frustrating and so hard, but to be able to have somebody to partner with to be able to play the bad guy, like, I really liked that position, I think we can we can refer you to a lot of people that can use Yeah,

Alex Husner  10:31  
a lot of companies would, there's no need for that, and would much rather just be like, Okay, this is the expert, we've brought them in as the consultant here. And, you know, it's just, it's hard, because to your point, they don't want to lose that inventory. But at the same time, as a brand, and as a company, it's so important to keep that in mind that it's like if you have properties that they're not updating, and it's dragging down your view scores, you know, that's when you have to make those tough decisions that if they're not going to do something, you have to let them go.

Mark Lumpkin  10:59  
Definitely, definitely. And that's the only decision they can make. But when they've got when they've got investors that want to step up their game, I think it's really hard for people to make the mind shift change from I'm a long term investor. And I have long term rentals, too. I'm a short term investor, and I'm running a hotel, right is being is being in the short term rental industry any different than running a hotel? I don't think so. You've got to attract people to come stay at your property. You've got to turn it over with cleaning, you have to provide basic amenities, you have to provide a great bed a good stay. Like there's so much correlation between the two. That I think that when you're in the short term rental industry, I think you're in the hotel industry, you're not in the long term rental industry. And it's hard for investors to shift their mind from one to the other.

Alex Husner  11:47  
Yeah, that's that's a really good point.

Annie Holcombe  11:49  
Yeah, it really is. Yeah,

Alex Husner  11:52  
I mean, I think about, you know, some of these condo resort buildings in Myrtle Beach. And, you know, there's several that they every few years, they do some pretty major upgrades. And these are, you know, substantial capital projects. But whenever they do those, it's like, you know, that's where everybody's going to stay that year. But then you have a lot of same thing. You've got the the older style resorts, that they just don't want to make those improvements. But you know, ultimately, it comes back in the form of revenue or loss revenue when you don't make that decision.

Mark Lumpkin  12:20  
Jeff, definitely, right. I mean, that's why restaurants go out of business, I think, what's that show with the guy he goes in and tears apart the bar in a restaurant? Yes, yeah. It's, it's a great funny show. And it's, it's entertaining. But they're always talking about, hey, every couple of years, you have to rebrand even a restaurant, you've got to rebrand that restaurant, change out the booths and keep it fresh and new and exciting. And the hospitality industry is no different. People are looking at the house as part of the vacation, they might be going to Myrtle Beach, but they're going to Myrtle Beach to say this beach property because it has the game room for the kids. The hot tub in the sauna for mom and dad and a killer view. Right? That house is the vacation. Yeah, and

Alex Husner  13:02  
I think a lot of areas like actually look at it a little bit differently, that they're like, you know, they're not there for the accommodations. They're there for the destination. But you know, and I think there's, there's not a right or wrong answer to that. I think it kind of depends. But in this new wave of travel of being able to see these just incredible properties that are out there, there's a lot more people that they actually really aren't going and the house or the property itself is a destination, you know, for the whole trip. Yeah,

Mark Lumpkin  13:32  
definitely.

Annie Holcombe  13:32  
What is so going to the fun part of all of this, so these different amenities, and I've seen some of the posts that you've made, and some of the various floor not floor plans, but layouts of backyards and those type of things. And I know the one that's like super hot and popular right now is like pickleball but the no we're we deal with a pickleball. And in our in Panama City, and I think every market is dealing with right now. They're they're kind of noisy. So like when you go into it when you go into a destination and somebody says I want all these amenities, do you look at it and say, well, like, let's look at what's around you what, like, where is your property located so that you're not putting again a pickleball court in next to, you know, a couple that lives next door that could be you know, 80 years old, and they don't want to hear slamming all day long. So you want to give them more like indoor amenities, those type of things like what do you do you factor that in when you talk to people through the process?

Mark Lumpkin  14:23  
Yeah, that's a really that's a really kind of a hard question to answer. What they decide to do with their backyard is totally up to them. I get it, there are going to be neighbors, they are probably not going to love it. We always suggest really focusing on having your quiet hours and making sure you're abiding by all the rules. But as far as like what the neighbors are going to think about what you do in your backyard that's down to the individual owner. Sure. And I think we've all you know, we've all dealt with one of our properties that has a neighbor that doesn't like that it's a short term rental, but we're really just focused on what's going to get the most amount of guests there. to pay the highest ADR, and those backyard amenities drive ROI, and people love them. So yeah, you might piss off some neighbors but hopefully you make enough money to make it worth it on

Annie Holcombe  15:11  
that what is the what is the highest ROI? Like what is the what is the best? Maybe what is the cheapest amenity that you could add that you're gonna get the highest return on?

Mark Lumpkin  15:20  
I think it really depends on who the guests are. They're traveling to your space and then what market you're in. So you want to look at where you're at. If you're in a mountain town, cabin town, ski resort town, hot tubs barrel Saunas are going to be really high ROI driving amenities. Everyone has a hot tub right now. It's really kind of a checkbox amenity. Like if you opened a property in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and you didn't have a hot tub, you're probably not going to do well. So those are things that you either need to have or they're really, really nice to have. And then when you look at maybe these kind of family friendly destinations like Tampa, Florida, Orlando, really thinking about what the kids can do to have fun with which is game rooms, outdoor jungle gyms, we do some really cool built in bunk beds with slides. Those are really high ROI driving amenity. And then I've kind of got a quick list of inexpensive amenities that I think are really nice to have and are going to drive ROI. One is the arcade games. So we all remember the old school arcade games, you're my mom used to drop me off at the at the arcade with it pocketful of quarters and leave me there all day, and I'd have a blast. Well, uh, millennials right now are the largest demographic of people traveling and we are all the arcade. We all remember that. Yeah. Remember, right. And so it's nostalgic. For us. It's just cool. You see it in the pictures, they cost a few $100, they can fill up an empty corner or make a kid's game, make a kid's bedroom into a slash a game room. So those are really cool amenities. I also think full length mirrors, like 99% of women and 98% of men want a full length mirror in a bedroom, make sure you look Okay, before you leave the house, you can buy full length mirrors for $99 at IKEA, and they get rid of that nasty corner that has nothing in it. They reflect the light really well. So the room photographs better. There's so many benefits to a full length mirror. And I could go on and on and on. But there's just a lot of little things that you can do in a house that really improve it overall. You don't have to go spend 50 grand to get a pickleball court.

Annie Holcombe  17:30  
Yeah,

Mark Lumpkin  17:31  
if you've got the 50 Grand, let's do it. But if you don't, there's other things you can do. Right? Yeah,

Alex Husner  17:35  
I totally hear you on the full length mirror. And I can't tell you how many times I've been staying somewhere that doesn't have that. And so make sure that my shoes look good with a dress, but my dress I will stand on like a chair, I'll get a chair from the bathroom. And sometimes this doesn't end well and very well. So it would be much appreciated. Certainly, if more properties like that are true.

Mark Lumpkin  17:58  
Next time you do that post a picture so we can see you standing.

Annie Holcombe  18:06  
Terrible, but not to do.

Mark Lumpkin  18:09  
Yeah, yeah. And then the other thing too is like, think about how many houses you've stated that don't have blackout curtains? Yeah. Are you kidding me? Like when's the last time you stayed at a hotel that didn't have blackout curtains, that would never happen. And so you've got guests traveling from different time zones, you've got small kids that need to take naps. But I'm gonna guess nine out of 10 properties. I've personally say that don't have blackout curtains. Why not? That's a hospitality. Basic, right? So really thinking about that stuff is going to make a big difference in your property success and your guests experience?

Alex Husner  18:40  
Yeah. On the data side of like how you help these managers make this decision? And then beyond the reviews, like do you have any sort of a process that you go through to analyze any of like their surveys or things that maybe aren't just like the forward facing verbo reviews or Airbnb reviews? Like what what does that look like?

Mark Lumpkin  19:00  
As far as like, from taking a property from where it sits today to where it could be if we were like we did a refresh? Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, the reviews are nice to have looking at the competition is really probably the most powerful thing you can do. And so, if you're here, and there's other houses up here, well, what are they doing to get up there that you're missing out on? And I'm gonna guess a lot of times, it's not necessarily that they're beach front, and they have an extra 1000 square feet, or there's a lot of thing you might look at and go there's things that are out of my control, I get that. But what we see a lot of times is there's a lot of small things that are within their control. Maybe the property is not kid friendly, and doesn't have a pack and play in a highchair and all that stuff that comes with a property being kid friendly. Maybe you're not dog friendly. If you don't want dogs in your house, I get it, but that's a that's a quick change that can really improve your ROI and your revenue. So there's a lot of little things that we see that people can do. And what we do is we look at the high had benchmarks in the market? Who has the best properties? Who's making the most ROI? And what are they doing? And what can we do similar?

Annie Holcombe  20:05  
Where you go stay in properties like ones that say, like Orlando, like you were talking about, I mean, I've stayed in a couple of different property managers houses down there. And they all start to look kind of the same because they are doing the same amenities like I've been in three or four in the last couple years. Like they have the slides, they'll have the game room, they have the big pool, they have those kind of things do you go stay in like competitors of your of your clients, properties to kind of get a look and feel and maybe that the service is also playing a role in what the amenities actually are?

Mark Lumpkin  20:36  
Yeah, we don't typically go stay in the houses. But you did bring up a good point is that when you have a lot of density in a market, you tend to have a lot of homes that start to look similar, right. And I think of that as a big reason for why you should hire a a service kind of like ours, where we're not location specific. And so what we're doing works in a lot of different markets. And when we come into like Asheville, North Carolina, and we do a house, well, we might have only done a couple houses in that market. But there's one designer I can think of who's done 100 houses in that market, will all of her houses start to look the same after you hire after she gets hired over and over and over again. And we come in with a fresh taking a fresh look. And so, you know, a lot of people say, Well, hey, you're not local, I think of that as an advantage. Because we haven't done 50 houses in your market. Maybe we've just done one or two. And so our homes are really going to stand out and be different.

Annie Holcombe  21:31  
So yeah, like a fresh set of eyes. That's

Mark Lumpkin  21:33  
good. Fresh Eyes. Yeah, yeah. Good point.

Alex Husner  21:36  
What's the like, craziest, like best renovation that you've done? Most over the top?

Mark Lumpkin  21:44  
Best over the top? We've done a few that I've been that I've just absolutely been really impressed with. I want to get my own TV show. Like I feel like we should be on HGTV, like swinging a hammer, like you know the fix in

Alex Husner  21:58  
the name str krejza. It's

Annie Holcombe  22:00  
all right. No,

Alex Husner  22:01  
I wasn't ready. So I can see that.

Mark Lumpkin  22:04  
Yeah, I'm glad you picked up on that. Yeah, we totally after MTV Cribs. So we've done a few in Scottsdale and a few in Florida that have just been totally over the top, bright colors. We did a Cancun themed house that was like a bright purple basketball, core and neon signs. And quite frankly, it's not a house, any of us would want to live in, like after a week or two. This is it's too much. This is obnoxious. I came I had fun. But those properties are doing really, really well. Because they stopped the scroll. They're so unique. They're so different. People want to go stay there for a weekend or a week. And the ones that we go over the top on seem to do the best. And so my always kind of encouragement is if you're going to do it, you might as well go all in because you're gonna get the return and if you do it half assed, you're gonna get the half assed returns.

Alex Husner  22:56  
Yeah, go bigger go home. Definitely. Oh, that's really cool. So as you look to expand into other markets, what's on your radar? Like what what areas do you think would would really benefit from these services?

Mark Lumpkin  23:11  
Yeah, I think that I think that there's a lot of different markets that have not been tapped into and have really not been optimized. Broken Bow. There is, you know, I'm looking at Huntsville, Alabama, like Martin, Michigan seems to be a market where and Wisconsin seem to be two markets where I see a lot more growth in the short term rental industry. What I like to do is I like to look at markets and and look at all the homes. And so if I look at the first page of Airbnb on any market, and the first 10 houses all look exactly the same. To me. That's a market that's untapped potential.

Alex Husner  23:50  
Yeah, yeah. Because

Mark Lumpkin  23:52  
if I go in there, and I do something different than the other 50 houses, I'm going to win every single time. And so it doesn't even necessarily matter, I guess, what the market is, and what's up and coming. I just like to look at markets where everything's the same. And every house has the same couch and has the same amenities and has the same service. And then if I can do something totally different, I know I'm gonna win in that market.

Alex Husner  24:17  
I'm thinking like, some of these legacy beach markets that have just huge beach homes and south of where I am in Myrtle Beach like Garden City, Surfside Outer Banks, you know, like these markets, that these are huge homes, and they do it and they do well. But it's like a lot of them are just, you know, unless they were newly built. They're kind of they're a little data. They don't you don't see when you're searching anything like what you're talking about in those search results. So yeah, sure. Definitely.

Mark Lumpkin  24:41  
Those are harder books.

Annie Holcombe  24:42  
Go ahead. No, no, no, go ahead. Go ahead.

Mark Lumpkin  24:44  
I was just gonna say those are hard markets to compare because you've got these huge houses that are that are beachfront. And so people are paying a premium to come to your house because the house is so unique, and the location is so unique, and I don't necessarily think that are serving This is going to have the biggest difference on those type of properties, because the beachfront house is always going to rent out because people are coming to the beach. But if you're in the middle of a city, and there's 30 other properties that look just like yours, and you don't have a distinct real estate advantage, you need an amenities advantage, right?

Annie Holcombe  25:19  
Love. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, how many projects at any given time do you guys have in the works? And then what is your pipeline look like for future projects?

Mark Lumpkin  25:27  
Yeah, we've got about 45 active projects. And we're typically doing somewhere between, say, 15 to 20 a month. And that keeps us pretty busy.

Annie Holcombe  25:37  
I guess so I guess so. And so and so you're identifying future markets? Like how far out are you actually signing contracts? And when are you because I would imagine that you also have to be mindful of trends. So you don't want to get get in them, you know, be have a project that six months down the road that you're planning on something when all of a sudden that trend is like, it's it's gone. It's like the Barbie trend, everybody wanted to do Barbie. And that was great. It was wonderful. But like it that after certain amount of time, it's only going to appeal to a small portion of it, instead of a large portion of audience. So do you like keep that in? Like have a whiteboard somewhere that you're writing on trends and following them? post it notes? Anything

Alex Husner  26:15  
like that? Yeah.

Mark Lumpkin  26:17  
Yeah. So you are right, the very heavily themed homes can be a trend, right? If you did a Taylor Swift house, in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, because Taylor Swift was coming to do a concert in a couple of months, you're going to capitalize on that weekend and make a crapload of money, and then that house is going to die because that market is not going to support a heavily themed house. That's so unique. And so we definitely stray people away from things like that, where they're so unique, so themes so niched, we more or less want you to have a really nice, beautiful home, that that's colorful and pops, and attracts families, or couples, or whoever your guests are, that are always going to be coming and really maximizes them. But if you're in certain markets, like Orlando, and you do a Disney themed house, well, Disney is not going anywhere. So you're okay to do something like that. And if you go to Nashville, and do a cowgirl bachelorette themed house, you're going to be fine. Nashville is always going to be a bachelorette destination for country Pete, folks, right. And so there are definitely certain markets, that we would advise our clients to capitalize and go all in and double down on a really heavily designed and themed house. And then there are other places where we'd say, Hey, you should probably not do that. This might work out in the short term, but it's not a great long term investment, just because the market specifically won't support this for a long time.

Alex Husner  27:42  
No, that makes sense. That makes sense. What do you I'm sorry?

Annie Holcombe  27:49  
No, I like I had a question. And then you started, then I lost mine. So go, Oh, okay.

Alex Husner  27:57  
So what is the rest of the year look like outside of planning for those markets? Like, do you guys, does the team go to conferences? I do see yourself or do you get set up with with booths or?

Mark Lumpkin  28:08  
Yeah, that's a great question. I think that we're planning on vrma. And Scottsdale, are you ladies gonna be there?

Alex Husner  28:16  
Oh, yeah,

Mark Lumpkin  28:17  
we'll be there. Okay, cool. Well, I'm gonna preemptively give you VIP invitations to our black tie event, which is going to be done at a $5 million listing that we're currently putting together in Scottsdale. And it is going to be probably the coolest short term rental in the entire country, when we're all said and done. And our goal is that the house is done the first week of October. And we're going to do a launch party, which is a select group of folks from the vrma. And so I'm extending two tickets to the both of you for October, if you want to come that sounds

Alex Husner  28:51  
great. We love red carpet. And it's been a couple of years since we did the last one. So

Mark Lumpkin  28:58  
we're gonna go all out on it. So I'll definitely keep you in the loop on that. That's what we've got on the agenda. We are, we are actually doing some stuff that's a little unique that maybe a lot of folks in the short term rental industry don't think about, which is going to events and branching outside of the short term rental industry. And so we serve as investors of all kinds and we don't have to be at every short term rental event. But we might go to like a doctor event or an oral surgeon event or find folks that are in different industries and open up the short term rental industry as an opportunity for them to invest in. And so we're definitely strategically thinking about how we can get in front of other people who aren't today thinking about the short term rental industry, but could be a good asset and should be thinking about the short term rental industry.

Alex Husner  29:50  
What about real realtors and I'm sure you must deal with realtors quite a bit.

Mark Lumpkin  29:54  
We do. Yeah, we've got a really great realtor referral program. We do see a lot of projects come through our realtor network. And so yeah, we're always trying to network with realtors. There's kind of so many people in the world and there's so many great business professionals and people that are really valuable to have in your network. So we're really being strategic about that and going outside of the short term rental space.

Alex Husner  30:16  
Yeah, I love that. That's really cool. We've got definitely a breadth of understanding of the industry getting to see all these different sides of it, too. So that's really cool. Yeah, I think the black tie in Scottsdale sounds great. Definitely let us know. And definitely well. Yeah. Well, thank you for joining us today, Mark. This is awesome to learn more about STR cribs, and we're excited to watch your journey as you guys continue to expand across the United States. But in the meantime, if anybody wants to reach out what's the best way for them to contact you?

Mark Lumpkin  30:51  
I'll let you share my email in the show notes. And then LinkedIn is a great way to connect with me as well. I'm pretty active on there. So awesome. Thank you both. Okay. No, I was gonna say yeah, thank you both for having me on. Super fun to hang out with you. I've obviously been a longtime listener, and I'm looking forward to connecting again in Scottsdale in a couple months.

Alex Husner  31:11  
Awesome. Thank you. We appreciate that very much. And if anybody wants to get in touch with Andy and I, you can go to Alex and Annie podcast.com And until next time, thanks for tuning in everybody.