Jeff Chheuy, a pharmacist turned real estate investor and content creator, shares his journey and success in real estate investing.
Episode Summary
In this episode, David Bright and Nate Hedrick talk with Jeff Chheuy, a pharmacist turned full-time real estate investor. Jeff shares his journey into real estate investing and emphasizes the importance of finding the right market for short-term rentals, leveraging tools like Rabbu.com for market analysis, and the benefits of using professional design and photography, property management software. Jeff also shares the importance of mentorship and personal finance education.
About Today’s Guest
Jeff Chheuy is a real estate investor and content creator focused on helping others achieve financial freedom and live a better life. After pivoting from his career as a pharmacist, Jeff built a portfolio of short-term and long-term rental properties generating over $10,000 per month in rental income. Through his platforms on Instagram and YouTube, Jeff shares insights on real estate investing, personal finance, and self-development, empowering his audience to take control of their financial futures.
Key Points from the Episode
- Reflecting on the Year and Looking Ahead 0:00
- Jeff Chheuy’s Journey from Pharmacy to Real Estate 3:49
- First Steps into Real Estate Investing 6:51
- Navigating the Real Estate Market 16:09
- Finding Profitable Markets for Short-Term Rentals 16:21
- Utilizing Professional Tools and Services 21:49
- Balancing Investing with Personal Life 28:50
- Final Advice and Resources for New Investors 29:04
- Connecting with Jeff Chheuy 43:10
Episode Highlights
“What is going to be ‘scroll stopping’ through all these listings? You’ve got to have a good product at the end of the day, because what you’re going to be showing is what your guests are going to be experiencing first of all.” – Jeff Chheuy [23:52]
“I am big about lifestyle and actually enjoying your money. How do I not have such a scarcity mindset and be so worried about money all the time that I never spend it and so I end up learning how to spend a little bit of money.” – Jeff Chheuy [36:24]
“Save, learn personal finance first. So learn how to save more than you spend, because at the end of the day, like your real estate business is gonna bite you in the butt if you are spending more on your business. So it applies everywhere.” -Jeff Chheuy [41:50]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode
- Jeff Chheuy on Instagram
- Teeco
- Rabbu.com
- Subscribe to the YFP Newsletter
- YFP Disclaimer
- YFP Real Estate Investing Facebook Group
- Nate Hedrick on Instagram
- David Bright on Instagram
- YFP Real Estate Investing Website
- David Bright on LinkedIn
- Nate Hedrick on LinkedIn
Episode Transcript
Nate Hedrick 00:00
Nate, welcome to the Yfp real estate investing Podcast. I’m Nate Hedrick
David Bright 00:09
and I’m David bright we’re both pharmacists and real estate investors that believe that real estate investing does not have to distract from a meaningful career in pharmacy.
Nate Hedrick 00:18
Each episode, we share stories that educate and inspire pharmacists to leverage real estate investing as a part of your financial plan. Hey, David, how’s it going? Hey, good. Thanks. How you doing? Man? Good. We’re approaching the end of the year, starting to reflect back on the year we had, and what’s what’s coming in 2025 I mean, me and the girls are starting to look at our goals and getting those down for next year and just, you know, all the thankfulness for that awesome year we had. And I don’t know, it’s just it was a good a good year and a good episode that we’re about to get into.
David Bright 00:53
Yeah, I think it’s fun to reflect back on the year, all the different pharmacists that we’ve interviewed this year, and then beyond the last 100 plus episodes, and thinking about some that are full time pharmacists with a little bit of real estate on the side, others that are less and less in pharmacy and more and more in real estate investing and kind of everywhere on that that spectrum, even some that have completely stepped away from the day to day pharmacist work and and that spectrum is just really interesting is people find the fit, the balance that brings them fulfillment, that they enjoy the most. Yeah,
Nate Hedrick 01:26
and today’s guest is definitely a little more on the no more pharmacy side of the spectrum. He’ll get into it. But really learned at one point that 40 hours a week of pharmacy time, and more than 40 it sounded like was just not a sustainable model for him long term. And so he wanted some some flexibility, wanted to find a way to step back. And really found his passion in the short term rental space, and just really dove into that.
David Bright 01:52
Yeah, I know that I’ve talked with pharmacists over the years, even before I was doing much in the way of real estate investing, and I’ve seen that balance. And one of the things that I love about the pharmacy profession is that it is possible to step down to part time, go back to full time, step out entirely, and come back. And I’ve seen pharmacists have done that for a variety of reasons, and I think we all have. And so that’s one thing that’s that’s really nice, is if that’s not sustainable for you right now, you can make a shift and you can shift back in. And today’s guest is still kept his foot in the door, so that he has the ability to do that. And I think, I think there’s really something to that.
Nate Hedrick 02:29
Yeah, so, so we brought on Jeff Choi. He reached out to us on Instagram, and he’s got a great following there. He he’s been really, really successful in the short term rental space. And I think what I like about Jeff’s story, especially is that he’s not following the crowd. He’s not doing the same thing that everybody else is doing. And in some areas, he’s really kind of setting the trend, and he’s seeing people start to catch up to what he’s been up to. And so anytime I see that, especially in like the real estate space, or in a space that’s already pretty saturated, it’s a great a great person to talk to and learn from. So we really enjoyed getting the chat with Jeff about all that.
David Bright 03:02
Yeah, he has some really great tips too, about affordable markets. I think a lot of folks think about short term rentals as I’ve got to spend millions of dollars on these really high end beachfront properties and and he talks in the episode about ways that you can jump into this world with not nearly that much money and make it a much simpler entry for pharmacists,
Nate Hedrick 03:25
for sure. All right. Well, I hope you guys enjoy the episode and whatever you’re celebrating this this holiday season, enjoy that as well. There you go. Hey, Jeff, welcome to the show.
Jeff Chheuy 03:35
Oh, thanks. Thanks guys. Appreciate you having me on.
Nate Hedrick 03:40
Yeah, really glad you reached out, and we’re really excited to chat and learn more about what you’ve been up to and both in the pharmacy world and the real estate world. So why don’t we just dive right in, tell us a little bit about the your background of becoming a pharmacist, and what kind of work you you were doing and still are doing today.
Jeff Chheuy 03:57
Got it. So I’m a retail pharmacist. I work about once a month, usually covering shifts that people need help. People need help with, and nowadays I pretty much am a full time real estate investor, mainly short term rentals in non conventional places that people don’t really think about. So I live in San Diego, but I don’t recommend investing my backyard. Graduate in 2017 University of Colorado, Denver, and yeah, that’s, hopefully, that’s a good enough, yeah,
David Bright 04:28
yeah, yeah. With a, with a story like that, that sounds like you were a full time pharmacist, and now you’re very part time at one day a month. So I’m curious, what was that aha moment, or what was that catalyst, or what was the driver that caused you to make that shift, not getting out of pharmacy entirely, but drastically cutting back on your pharmacy hours and pivoting more towards real estate,
Jeff Chheuy 04:51
got it okay. So I guess back when I was, like, when I just graduated, I was super stoked about pharmacy still, like, I think. My third year, I started getting a little bit of burnout, because my original plan was like, do residency and all that stuff, but it ended up being pretty exhausting by my third year, and I decided against it, and I just wanted to go out and make some money, so I ended up becoming a community pharmacist down in Pueblo, Colorado, and it was really awesome. I learned a lot. It was a huge learning curve. Even though I’ve been in retail since, like, I was like 18, I was a clerk, tech intern, and then I was a pharmacist. So even though, like, people are like, Oh yeah, you’ve been in it for such a long time, it’s actually quite different acting as like a pharmacist versus those other professions, just because I feel more responsible, but I kind of like that responsibility and that growth. But what I didn’t end up really liking after like, working like 40 to 60 hours every single week, it was pretty exhausting. And what I quickly learned is that you’ll never really have too much trouble finding work as a pharmacist if you’re in a place that has some need, in Pueblo, Colorado, like I actually floated to other markets, like Cortez, Colorado, um, Grand Junction, once even, uh, Lamar Cara, which is, like the south side of of that area, if you guys don’t know where it is, and ended up being about an hour or two away. But I ended up commuting almost like six hours, sometimes round trip for these, these shift coverages, yeah. But the cool thing is, I wouldn’t hate on it completely, but they took care of me like they gave me hotels. And honestly felt like vacation, but I realized I missed my family a lot and my friends, and ended up being like the situation where I was working. I made those one October, which was probably that, that light switch moment. You guys keep asking me about, well, most people ask me about is I worked like, 28 out of 31 days and and they were long shifts, and there I was, like, pretty much on the road and in hotels the whole time. It’s like, I just played it out in my mind, if I did this continually for 30 years, because that’s just how I how I kind of am I like to do things as best as I can and commit to them. And it takes a lot of time to be, to be like a master of your craft for anything. And I think I would have probably, like, drove myself to insanity just keep on repeating over that over and over. And my original plan was to become, like, pharmacy manager, district manager, regional manager, and after like, chatting with, like, becoming a manager and chatting with some of my other bosses, they’re like, Yeah, good. Take up to like, five to 10 years. I was like, I don’t think this is gonna work for me personally. That’s all. And that’s when I decided to, like, in 2018 I bought my first two homes, and that’s how I got into real estate.
David Bright 07:35
Yeah, I we talk with a lot of people about that first house moment, because that’s a big jump to make too. You know, we you can talk about it. You can listen to podcasts. You can read books. Pharmacists are really good at analysis paralysis. We study things so hard, and we can get caught up in our own minds and so but that jumping off point and making that decision, it could be a real struggle. So can you talk about that? Especially you said two homes was your first jump there?
Jeff Chheuy 08:04
Yeah, I guess I was a I was a little overzealous, and I have had really great mentors, which I’ll get into in a second. But, yeah, talking about, like, pharmacist analysis process, I think it’s super huge, and I understand, I kind of understand why, like thinking about it from our perspective, like we’re here to kind of identify problems and stuff, and then, like, every time you, like, try something new, it’s like, Oh, do we really want to do this? Do we really want to do this? And it ends up applying towards, like, finance stuff, which is why, like, most of us are probably, like, so scared to take the jump. But yeah, so my first two homes back in us, I moved back to South Carolina, so my first two really good mentors were my parents. So my parents actually have been real estate investors since as before I was born. So they came from another country called Cambodia, which we briefly talked about earlier. But for me, seeing their situation and comparing it to mine is kind of what helped me and like this story is actually, I think is can be kind of quite cliche for a lot of immigrant families, not sure if that’s that’s true or not, but for my family, like they came here from Cambodia, like, during like the war, they got sense of feeling, my mom’s first like desire was to buy a house. So so she ended up, like, saving her money, like working at the blueberry farm, ended up buying a home, and they ended up selling that house a little bit later from Philly made, like, I think she told me, like, good amount of me, like, like, 30,000 $40,000 which is a lot back then, and moved to Long Beach, California, and that’s how we ended up here. Long story short, they, they have a long real estate experience, ended up buying, like, commercial properties, and they stuck with residential but for me, like, they always just imagine me as, like, becoming a doctor, becoming a pharmacist. And because I was so shy, introverted when I was young, they told me, like, oh yeah, we didn’t think you had, like, what it took to become, like a business owner. So So yeah, we kind of, like, thought this was going to be perfect for you, but lo and behold, you end up, like, uh, being quite tired of like the two. To go w2 and you actually want to become a business owner. And, um, so that time happened, like, when I was tired, I was like, shoot, I don’t know where to go. And this is why I’m, like, such a big fan of, like, having like people tell the world about what what they do, so they can have like mentors to look up to or coaches to look up to. I started off in like, personal finance, like you guys were, were up there for me, like, learning about personal financing with, like, personal finance club with Jeremy, but, yeah, I reached out. Sounds like, Hey, how did you guys, like, get into real estate? Like, do you think it’s a good idea for me? Is this gonna help me reach my goals? And, yeah, we got you. You’re our summer. Of course, we’re gonna take care of you so that first year, like, save me up, like, saying I’m one thing about me, I’m quite frugal. Like, my company allows us, like, they offer, like, free PB and j’s and stuff in the break room, so that’s what I’m eating. Sometimes, made use of our like, our travels, like, you know, when they covered our meals or hotels and stuff. So and I rent, like when I lived in pueblos, four people in one house. So I only paid two for 250 bucks, you know. So I’m making 131 40 is a really not that bad. I was able to save a lot. My first bad purchase was obviously my car, so a bad expense, but moving past that, so I end up saving a lot of money. Um, bought these two homes that are turnkey, brand new builds. I really didn’t know anything about it. Honestly, I was super scared. It felt like I was going into pharmacy again for the first time. Like, what? Like, the words that felt scary to me back then were things like conventional loan, FHA loan, you know, Doctor loans. I was like, I don’t even know what PMI is, property, mortgage insurance. And I really didn’t know what I was doing, and my plan was to live in one and then ran off the other. So had these two units, like, literally next door. They’re in the same neighborhood. I ended up, I ended up, like, getting a job change. So that’s when I got my promotion to pharmacy manager, and ended up, like, moving a little bit closer, and ended up renting both. But the thing that happens, like, I thought, like, when I bought these homes, that they’re gonna be like, some sort of, like, magical investment where I was gonna like, boom, I’m rich. But no, it was. I learned quickly that long term rentals don’t really make that much money that fast, but it’s a huge wealth, like wealth like game changer for wealth, like we bought them both from 135 pretty much look exactly the same again, but nowadays, like, just from quick appraisals, they’re getting around, like 250 in in like, springbrick, South Carolina. Yeah, I’m stoked about that. Yeah. And, um, I was able to eventually, like, pull out extra loans to, like, supplement my other rentals a little bit later. And those are my first two homes. Man, there’s so
Nate Hedrick 12:39
much good stuff that back there, I think the thing I’ll pull out first is just how I think there are sort of go out there that are doing something, and whatever it is, right? It could be pharmacy. It could be, you know, their their day to day, whatever, that maybe isn’t the perfect fit for them to be doing all the time. And they’re like, Well, I can’t change because this is the thing that I was supposed to do, or this is the thing that I’ve already started doing, so I have to stay there. And I just love that you’re like, Look, I’m not turning off pharmacy necessarily, but I am going to try something else and see if that’s a good fit for me now. Like, and check that out. Like, I’m gonna buy these two houses jump in with both feet. It doesn’t work out, like, I’ll try something else different. And I just, I think that’s important people to hear because it’s, it’s, there are a lot of people that are probably feeling stuck in whatever that one thing is that they’re in right now, but you don’t have to be stuck. And I think that’s a really good case example how, I mean, we’re, when you become a pharmacist, like we are heavily invested in this career, right? A lot of schooling, a lot of time, but it doesn’t mean you have to just be there all the time. So I think that’s, I think that’s something I’d want to pull out and highlight for people.
Jeff Chheuy 13:41
Yeah, definitely regarding the investment thing, I always like point this out to people, like it was a big frame shift for me, like, when I when I realized, you know, my pharmacy degree technically costs like, over, like, $140,000 and if I failed, which, like a year, I would have lost out on that. So thankfully, that didn’t happen, but it happened to a lot of my friends, and some of them end up, like, taking like, six years in school, eight years in school. And I was like, the loans don’t, like, slow down, unfortunately, and it just digs a dig, like, a deeper hole. But then I’m like, Oh, if I invest 135 which is pretty much the same amount as my tuition in school, plus I get a loan on it, plus it goes, I get rent from it, like someone pays me, plus there’s probably appreciation, because my parents told me there’s appreciation. Plus, like, there’s these tax trials people keep telling me about that. I don’t really understand what’s going on and in 30 years, because amortized, it’s mine. So I was like, this is a pretty low risk deal. Worst case. Now I’ll just sell it and I’ll lose like, a couple 1000, yeah, which would suck, obviously, but I wouldn’t be, like, in the hole, right?
Nate Hedrick 14:42
It’s not life ending, and pharmacy is your fallback plan, right? Like, that’s a really good, darn good fallback plan, which I think is really cool. So, and the other thing I think that’s important is that, like, you didn’t rely on just knowing everything, right? You didn’t jump in. Like, well, I read 42 books and listened to every podcast there was, and then I had all the knowledge, and I was read. You’re like, I relied on these mentors. Like, I knew just enough to be dangerous and I knew I could learn the rest. Like, I don’t know. I think that’s really important to highlight as well, that you didn’t have to know everything to jump in. You had trusted people next to you, ie your parents in this case, but like, those people were with you the whole way to make sure that the process wasn’t going to be crippling for you. Didn’t have to know everything.
Jeff Chheuy 15:20
That’s right? Yeah, I definitely, like, I’m a big fan of mentors, and I hopefully, like someone like, whoever’s listening to this has someone around there that they can kind of trust, is what I’m hoping for. Yeah,
Nate Hedrick 15:30
and so now you actually kind of give back, right? Like you are that mentor for a lot of people. You’ve got a guide and an Instagram following, and what I thought we’d do when, when you reached out. And I kind of was poking through your Instagram and some of the fun things that you were putting out there, and really great stuff. For those that want to check it out, please check out your Instagram. We’ll get put tags at the end. But there was a great guide in there, and it was, it was titled, eight steps to turn $50,000 into 50,000 per year. And I just, I really like that idea, like, how can you invest 50k and all of a sudden be getting 50,000 back every single year? And so you had these eight steps, and I kind of wanted to go through at least a couple of these, maybe all of them, and just unpack some of that stuff, because there’s some really good nuggets in here that I think will help people understand maybe how to jump into real estate, especially in the short term rental space, where it sounds like a lot of your effort is focused right now, is that? Is that right? Pretty
Jeff Chheuy 16:21
much, like 100% besides short term rentals and mid term rentals, yeah,
Nate Hedrick 16:25
okay, gotcha perfect. So then, yeah, let’s, let’s dive into these. I’ve got them laid out in front of me here. So, so number one was fine markets like West Virginia. You mentioned that because you’ve got a property there where Airbnbs make a certain amount per year. So like you said, 90,000 per year or more. So, okay, I immediately want to unpack. Like, how do you find a market? Like, that’s a great tip. But, like, how do I do that? Do I google? Like, good markets for Airbnb? Like, what does that look
Jeff Chheuy 16:52
like? Okay, so there’s actually this really cool free website I always recommend people check out when they’re first starting off. It’s called rabu.com R, A, B, B, u.com, and, there’s actually a calculator on it where you can just go to tools and go to put in a property address, you paste in the address, and then it’ll actually, like, tell you the exact income. It’s gonna show something really low. There’s a trick to, like, make this like a actually perform and get more than the the average. But if you’re like, starting from scratch, and you don’t have like, you don’t even know what address to buy, like, what city to buy in, you use the same website, and there’s something called Market finder tool on that same website, and if you scroll down, there’s a there’s a tab on there that says ROI score, which is basically rent to price ratio. So like, we have average rents here, and this is what the average price purchase is, depending on someone’s like, stage in their life. Like, I always recommend different things. Like, for me, like, when I was starting off, I would never tell myself to invest in San Diego for cash flow just because I couldn’t afford it. It would be a struggle. And I’d really had to, like, learn how to, like, learn how to, like, raise money and, like, just be a really advanced investor, which I don’t tell him what do right now. So instead, what I what I did was, um, I’m a big rock climber at this time, so I didn’t use this tool initially, but this is how I how I do it now. But I heard about new Gorge National Park, which is the newest national park in America, along with some buddies and I, and, um, he ended up getting an Airbnb there, and it turned out really well. And I was like, Hey, I’m already doing this one in Joshua Tree. I’m going to bring the same ones that I did in Joshua and apply those concepts over there in West Virginia. And now, if you look at that ROI score on rabou.com UX at Oak Hill, West Virginia, hopefully it doesn’t like put this on the map, but I guess it’s a good thing. Map, but I guess it’s a good thing. If it does, oh, well, it’s a good thing.
It’ll be more fun. But yeah, that markets like number eight, I think, on the list, or like number 10, like best market of, like, 3000 markets cool, like, rental income to the actual costs, and overall, like, it’s a little bit of like, trial and error most of the times. Like, you hear word of mouth, like, from your friends, like, and you pick and choose the ones you trust. This one, he’s a doctor. We’re really good friends. I was like, Dude, I trust you. I see your numbers. You’re showing it to me because there’s, there’s a app that shows you, like, how much money and stuff you made. And I was like, based off these types of returns, I should be pretty much hitting like, 30% plus every single time, which for anyone doesn’t know, cash on cash return is like the amount of income you make after all expenses divided by the amount you actually invest. And that’s how I figured out this is a good deal, because usually, traditionally, in real estate, you buy stuff at like, eight to 12% and that’s what I was shooting for when I first started. And if you want to find markets like West Virginia, you don’t like my market, my market, just keep on scrolling down, and you’ll see there’s stuff like Kentucky, places like Toledo, Ohio, places like Cleveland, or somewhere like Michigan, that actually really makes sense still, and it doesn’t have to be like where I’m at. So that’s one cool thing about like long distance real estate investing, is there’s a book. Out there by David Green. If you guys haven’t read it’s called Long Distance real estate investing. Yep, I plot. I try to use his concepts and mix it with the short term rental strategy. But I just do market analysis a little bit different, so if I want to support that, so going on past like, how do I find markets like West Virginia? I specifically do national parks. So it’s quite easy to track. So a lot of this info is data driven, too. So I’ll go to the National Park Service website, and I’ll track, hey, how many visitors are actually coming to this national park? And I know I’m West Virginia, it’s like just shy of 2 million. And if I compare that to Joshua Tree, which is where my first Airbnb market was, and I don’t recommend Joshua Tree more, by the way, if anyone’s gonna ask that, mainly for the RE this reason why is, when I first bought it was really good, but it started getting really like, well known and saturated, because a lot of multi millionaires who had a bunch of equity tied up in San Diego, Los Angeles, California, were bringing it over there, and they could afford to do that. I can’t keep up with that, but they get around 3 million visitors per year. I couldn’t spend million dollars on one property, or at least justify it to make only, like 70 to like $100,000 so I ended up moving to these other markets. And if you go onto the actual Airbnb website, you’ll see that, hey, there’s only there’s, there’s more than 1000s on the Joshua Tree market. So before I, like, might be like, start like, when I would start getting worried about West Virginia getting saturated, maybe when it hits around, like, that mark, like over 1000 rentals. But if you go right now, you can see that it’s around like 611 or like 700 something around there. So there’s some room to grow, 2 million visitors. You just divide that by 365 and you see how much demand there is potentially for for people to stay.
Nate Hedrick 21:37
All right, so I shouldn’t buy for aisle Royale National Park. I think they had like 28,000 visitors last year. It’s the least visited park, and so she skipped that one. But the rest are good. Isle Royale. It’s way up in in, like, Minnesota, Michigan border. It’s a really cool Park. Just it’s like in the middle of Lake Superior. So nobody goes and visits
Jeff Chheuy 21:56
Yeah, I’ve never heard of the Helen. See, there you go. So gotta be smart about this.
Nate Hedrick 22:00
You can’t just pick a random National Park. I like, Park. I like it. It’s really good to think
David Bright 22:06
about. Yeah, another theme on your list of your eight things is oftentimes on this list, you say, get a professional Airbnb design, hire a professional photographer. I know in pharmacy, we talk about working with other professionals, and you don’t need to do it all yourself, but particularly with the distance approach that you have, it sounds like you’re hiring a lot of professionals to do this. You’re not trying to do it all yourself.
Jeff Chheuy 22:32
That’s very true. I gotta say, when I did start off, I was quite scrappy, and I did do a lot of it to, like, save money, but I don’t recommend it for this, for this exact reason. It’s like, like, if you go to a restaurant, you know, like, you know you’re not, like, cooking the food, you’re not serving the people, you’re not doing all the work, you’re not seating them. So you want the chef to be cooking the food, and your designer is technically your chef, and they’re going to be ones making the product for your guests. So you want to have, if you do nothing else, at least, at least have a great design that said, I do have friends who are, like, professional designers who are getting into Airbnb, and I tell them, yeah, go for it. That’s fine, but you still want to do your market research, because it’s actually market specific too. So if you’re like, a certain Airbnb market, you don’t really have to reinvent the wheel. Like, there’s, there’s like, data already on, like, what’s performing. Well, it’s like, you already know how Metformin is gonna affect the body. Just makes more Metformin. Give you some medicine analogy, but, yeah, you can just go on there and look at like, what is being successful? Like, using that Rabu website I told you about, we’re just going to share an Airbnb website and clicking on which ones are fully booked out. And that’s usually a good sign. Like you want to make something that kind of looks like that. Lately, in this day and age, what I found has been doing the best is things that are scroll stopping. You know, me being in social media too. Now, like trying to grow that as best as I can, I have gotten decently well getting a good eye. Like, what is going to be scroll stopping through all these listings, and you got to have a good product at the end of the day, because what you’re going to be showing is you’re you’re going to be showing is that’s what your guests are going to be experiencing first of all. But you’re also going to be having professional photographers come in and then photography just if you’re not a professional photographer, definitely do not do it. It’s like, the cheapest thing you could do to, pretty much, like, make your best bang for buck, like, is design and photography. Do not mess those up, please. And professional photography is very easy. It’s like, 300 or 400 bucks, and you can just Google professional photographer and real estate photography or lifestyle Airbnb photography specifically, by the way, I
Nate Hedrick 24:32
think we’ve all seen listings that are taken with, like, someone’s like, you know, iPhone eight in like, a dark room, and they’re just terrible. And you’re like, How does anyone pick this place? So, yeah, this place? So, yeah, pro photos. I love that. It’s a good tip. One of the other ones you have on this list that I really like, too is that use the proper listing tools like so once you get it up there and you’ve got the design and you’re built this place out, you mentioned a couple on here, I’ll just kind of hit a few. But you said hospitable, price, labs, turnover. Folio. Like, I’m not in the Airbnb space or the short term rental space, but like, maybe hit one or two of your favorites. And like, why you why you would recommend something like that for someone?
Jeff Chheuy 25:10
It’s pretty much necessary. I know nowadays, Airbnb is actually trying to push you on their platform. So they actually have, like, their own pricing software and stuff, and they’re trying to get you to stop using these third party platforms. But at the moment, when I started back in, like, a year and a half ago, I decided to I didn’t properly manage in the past for myself, I hired property manager this. This is my property management like for myself as newer but that management system will let you hook up to other websites like VRBO booking.com, your direct booking website, plus Airbnb. So imagine you trying to manage those four different platforms. You can imagine how many double bookings you’ll get already, and that’s gonna gonna make you cry, especially if you’re working a full time job as a pharmacist. Like you’re not there all the time, like you’re there they’re trying to make sure that your patients aren’t getting hurt, you know, like, we’re there to take care of our patients, so you can’t always be damning in every single, every single little thing. And that that platform takes care of a lot of things that people are concerned about, like, they’re concerned about, like, oh, how, how do I change the locks for people to make sure that no one else, like the past guests, weren’t able to get in? It takes care of automated messaging. Include your digital guidebook. So, like, when they automatically check in, they can, just like, tour the home yourself, as long as you do a good job upfront creating it. It has that pricing software that we called, called price labs, and it attaches to like, people are like, Oh, well, how do you adjust your prices? How do you know what’s right? It’s like, you don’t really have to think too much about it. You can get, like, super technical. What this is, which is where, like, property managers, like, will come in and like, make the price labs app even better on the platform. But this works quite well for a lot of people. And property management for for Airbnb itself, is much more expensive than long term rentals. It can range from like, 30% to like, I think, like 12, 10% on evolve, but usually I like to go for that middle number, 20% if I’m going to hire someone out. But I don’t really recommend people do it in the beginning, just because most people can handle like seven rentals without pulling their hair out. And if you’re if you’re getting these Airbnbs that are making 70 grand a piece, you just do the math, like, seven times 70 and then do 20% of that, it gets pretty expensive. Ends up almost being like a pharmacist wage. So that’s why I tell people, like, when you’re starting off, like, learn, learn the business, learn the systems, and eventually you can hire it out. And then you can easily, like, get virtual assistants. Like we have virtual assistants that will contact the guests in case they have, like, any, like, urgent stuff that, and we’re, like, checking our prescriptions or something like that. They just make sure that the guest has good experience, because you just want to be the last one to have respond to the guests. Tell everyone. Because imagine, like you’re at the pharmacy and like you’re just waiting for your medicine, you get no updates. It just makes you feel really bad. It’s like, oh yeah, this, this pharmacy doesn’t really care you, like you want to. You want to come help the customer quickly. So it’s like, kind of the same way, like the customer service aspect comes in, and that’s why I like all that software. It helps you do all that make it fluid, so you’re not, like, pulling your hair out again, and you don’t really have to think about
Nate Hedrick 28:20
good stuff. And like I said, Jeff’s got some fantastic stuff on his Instagram in terms of, like, more tips like that, so make sure to check it out. We’ll link that in the show notes as well, but, but again, wanted to highlight a few of those because I think they really start to show just one your expertise in this space, but also just how, like, we can break this down to the chunks and make it manageable. And I think you’ve done that really well. So
Jeff Chheuy 28:42
thanks, man, yeah. Oh, one thing I want to mention that people always probably have a headache with is cleaning turnover actually is hooked up to that, to that platform too. The cleaners can check the calendar. There’s a checklist that tells them this is exactly what you need to check before you leave take pictures, and it’s timestamped inventory list, if everything’s missing. And there’s a supply closet where they go into and check inventory so you don’t run out. And you can have your VAs or them if you trust them enough, if they’re well trained, super easy. It’s great.
David Bright 29:10
yeah, yeah. I think that automation is important because obviously the rent, one of the values of short term rental is the rent is a lot higher than in a long term rental. I think one of the things that a lot of investors talk about that top line rent number, the revenue that comes in from the rental and there’s less discussion about the bottom line after all of your expenses, I think it’s there are people out there that will buy, you know, a single family duplex, four Plex, and try to get up to that $10,000 a month. But it’s pretty easy to have $9,000 worth of expenses in the long term rental market and not have a huge spread. But I think what you’re describing with $10,000 a month of income, the expenses may be quite a bit lower because you’re not paying as many mortgages and things like that. Can you talk about how that difference between the top line and the bottom line can be a lot wider in. The short term market, and that that can drive a lot of interest for people that are looking for cash flow towards short term rentals.
Jeff Chheuy 30:08
Yeah, it can definitely still be high if you’re buying in, like palm springs or, like, an expensive market like San Diego. So that spread is not there, which is, again, why I encourage people to go out to these other markets. And I remember, I actually did skip on this earlier, you asked about, like, how to get like, $90,000 from these, these home sites. Holy, skip that part. But basically what you do is to see, like, whether a property can perform on, on something like that is, you go back to Rabu and you put in the address, and instead of hitting, like, the average, which is 50 percentile, like, if you do the things, I’d say, which are putting those good amenities really have, like, a really great design there’s a really good chance you’re gonna hit at least 75th percentile on your reservations. We’re pretty much almost always at 90% and we get those guest favorite badges a lot of the times. And that’s what we’re striving for, is like, the greatest customer service. So that’s that’s how you get a larger amount. And now going back to like, why the spread is larger on short term rentals is we were buying in these West Virginia markets, and these homes are not $1 million like they are in San Diego. Your mortgage is no longer 5300 bucks per month. Instead, it’s 1000 bucks per month. So if you’re making about the same amount as you would have in sandy or Joshua Tree or like, say, we had a $15,000 a month in its high season, in July, and our mortgage is only 1500 bucks. You can pretty much cover the whole year with one really good month. And actually has happened, like a like, we have this really cool mobile home, like I always, I call it a mobile home, but it’s actually a manufactured home on fixed foundation, but we did seller financing, you know, the social media stuff, it’s fun. Yeah, we got, we got it for under contract for 170 we did seller financing on it. And the lady who sold to us was, was really happy, like she was, she didn’t want to like work anymore in the rental space. She just wanted a constant check. And she only wanted $15,000 down. So this is something called seller finance, if anyone’s not familiar with it, but you can pretty much make up the terms, because the bank’s no longer involved. Most of those regulations are like bank rules, like, like, Hey, you have to put 20% down. Those are like their banks rules. But if you go and bypass all that you can be like, Hey, I see you own this home outright. Would you be open to like, me giving you $15,000 down, and I’ll and I’ll give you, like, 1000 bucks every single month. And ended up being a 0% interest loan, which is kind of cool. So, um, basically, by the end of five years when a note balloons, which means, like, in five years when a note is actually do, like, the loan I had to pay the person back there’s only give me, like, little over $100,000 to owe on that property. And overall, that property has already pulled in, I think I last checked, $61,000 since doing live in May so and I think having that, that buffer, like, and it’s cool as farms, this is, this is like, it works in our favor as farms. I’ll tell you that, because most of the times we’re scared of like, hey, what if we buy this really expensive house, and now it ends up eating at our bottom line. We got to take care of our families. We want to live our life. We want to go on vacation still. But if it’s like $1,000 mortgage payment versus $5,000 mortgage payment, it’s like we’re payment. It’s like worst case scenario. Your salary can cover that. Yeah, which, hopefully not, though, which hasn’t happened yet. I haven’t, haven’t had the need
David Bright 33:32
to, but it dramatically reduces the risk like you’re talking about. I think so many pharmacists are so risk averse, and hesitate to jump in, but you’re right at the lower price point, it’s, it’s much, much easier to make that initial jump, particularly if it’s $1,000 a month mortgage payment, and you’re looking at several $1,000 of of potential rent, even in a bad month.
Jeff Chheuy 33:53
Yeah. And I totally forgot to mention you guys also wanted me discuss expenses. So the typical expenses are pretty, pretty similar, too. So are we? I generally look at like, annual revenue overall, like, because I’ve actually have like, three homes there right now, so I have good data, plus, like, all my clients and my students and my partners. We have homes there that we partner with together, so we have a lot of data on that. So I use that annual revenue number, and it’s actually better than getting the month by month just because Airbnb seasonal. But the law expenses that are pretty typical are like gas, electric, internet, lawn maintenance, um, what else? Pool maintenance, sauna maintenance, hot tub maintenance, um, gutters, um, what else typical? Uh, capital X repairs with capital expenditures, like big ticket items, like roof Foundation, electrical, if that hasn’t been updated, if anyone doesn’t know, and it ends up eating about like half the income. So if we make like 120 from a property or 100 ends up being like 50,000 we keep. So as long as your property manager self, yeah, as long as you’re property manager yourself,
Nate Hedrick 34:58
right? And. Again, bigger numbers than you would see in a long term rental by far. I mean, you might see 50,000 as your total income, if you’re really lucky. I mean, that’s that’s bringing in several 1000 a month, right? So, like, yeah, it can really get up there on numbers pretty quickly. That’s pretty cool,
Jeff Chheuy 35:13
yeah. And compared to my long term rentals, again, like my mortgage on the like, is, like 1350, and then my rent is, I think, like, 1650 so and then I’m not even really like adding like, um, my expenditure. So I’m probably more like breaking even nowadays, to be honest, because I have a bad time. Like, I’m not the best at raising rent. So the short, the short term game makes it much easier for me. I’ll tell you that I was like versus like, when I don’t like, no, like, these people are gonna be temporarily.
Nate Hedrick 35:44
So you’ve already mentioned this a couple of times you. So you talk about having some students or and you’ve got this website that is out there to really teach, like, financial freedom. And I just, I get the sense just talking to you like you really have a good grasp on this balance of actually living life compared to just like, working for cash and capital all the time, and I think, I think that’s super important. So I guess maybe just talk to us a little bit about that, like, that philosophy, and like, how you connect and help people, because I think that will give people some more, some more insight into what you’re trying
Jeff Chheuy 36:14
to do at the end of the day. Like, uh, that’s a great question, because I am a big about lifestyle and, like, actually, like, enjoying your money. There’s, like, some people who like, there’s this. I don’t know if you guys ever heard the book, The Richest Man in Babylon, probably my favorite book. And there’s this, there’s this term they use in there. I’m pretty sure it’s a normal term. It’s called a miser, basically just hoards money. And I never want to be that, like, after, like, reading that book, like, hundreds of times. Like, Man, this is like, Man, this is like, definitely not what I want it to be. How do I, like, not have such a scarcity mindset and like, be so worried about money all the time that I never spend it so I end up, like, learning how to spend a little bit money. Because I told you guys, like, my background, I’m pretty free with Pb and J’s free food. And that used to be my jam, but later on, I was like, okay, you know what? Like, my health is worth it, my vacation is worth it. Travel is worth it. Like these experiences, and every time I think about like, the things I that have been most memorable for me have usually been like times I’ve been with my family celebrating holidays, or like, these really cool vacation trips. So I want to basically just double down on that and actually bring that to my family whenever I plan to have kids, because I’ve always seen myself as a dad, and there was this one really like, like a pivotal, like, road trip that my parents took me on when I was young. And I want to do this for my kids. It’s basically like, sometime during the summer, I think I’m not sure if it was like when they just got laid off from Boeing or not, but they end up packing up the car taking me, my brother, my sister and my other brother on this really cool, long road trip from California down to Florida, up to New York and then back into California. And it ended up being, like, a month long road trip, yeah. And it was super eye opening, because I think what it did for me, like, I mean, I try not to attribute things like, things in the past, but for me, this is a really good experience. Like, was very impactful, and it showed me like, hey, there’s, there’s more to the world than just California. Like, the California bubble, everywhere you go has its own perks and its own downfalls, and there’s so many things to enjoy in life too. Like, you go to New York, and you’ll you get to enjoy the crazy traffic and see what it’s like in the movies. You go to Florida, you go to Disneyland. You think it’s the most magical place on earth, and all sudden there’s a hurricane. You realize maybe it’s not as magical as you thought. But yeah, just by traveling and, like, learning about new cultures and these, these experiences, it’s kind of like, what I want to double down on life as, like, you know, you can get pretty tough life raw, like, can be hard, especially if you’re just working all the time and you haven’t really, like, had, like, the distance to step back and, like, reflect on your life.
Nate Hedrick 38:55
I think it’s super important. And we operate in the same philosophy. I mean, we, we are always trying to prioritize that kind of stuff. And I hope, I hope my kids look back someday on the trips that we’re doing, have that same like, moment of like, this is actually important, like, being out there in the world and experiencing it is way more important than just, like, notice of the grindstone getting stuff done. So that’s cool. That’s awesome.
Jeff Chheuy 39:15
Yeah, they always have that virtual reality so, like, Oh yeah, you can go anywhere virtual reality is like, Yeah, but you can’t quite yet, like feel on your skin isn’t quite the same yet, so I think it’s always going to be better in real life. But who knows, maybe they do something crazy.
Nate Hedrick 39:29
Jeff, I want to take you to our final infusion questions. I really enjoyed all this so far, but we have three questions we ask us about every guest on the show. So we’ll just kick it off with number one, what’s one tangible strategy you use to make sure that your investing works hand in hand with your career once?
Jeff Chheuy 39:47
So before you do anything kind of think about like what it’s actually going to do to your life, too. I’ll tell you that and whether it matches with your goals. So for me, like I love index funds and stocks, that it’s. Probably one of my favorite investments for people to do, but it just didn’t work out for my time. So for me, I want to be free within like two to five years. So before I played it out, I was like, Okay, I’ll be able to save maybe, like 75,000 if I really script and save, but then I have to sacrifice on my other values. So it didn’t work out for me, like being able to retire within two to five years. Crypto was too, like, scary for me, so I played that out. I was like, I just don’t know about the volatility. It’s too new. Like, I think it’s gonna do well. I believe in blockchain, but I’m not gonna bet the farm there either. For me, having good mentors and people you really trust that are actually living and like, like, walking the walk. I think that’s the term. It’s probably like, the biggest, like, life hack, I gotta say, like, if someone, you see someone who wants like that you think is where you want to be, going hang out with them, if possible, imitate them. And you don’t need to reinvent the invent the wheel. Nothing under sun is like, technically, everyone’s done everything. So don’t feel bad about like, copying people. Yeah, I’m copying you guys. Want to be like you guys. I love it.
David Bright 41:06
Second question we always ask is, what’s one resource that’s been most helpful to you in your real estate journey, whether that’s a book, a podcast, person, author, website, whatever that would be, okay?
Jeff Chheuy 41:18
Super loaded question, but I’m gonna say bigger pockets. Podcast has been super helpful for almost I’d say all real estate investors. Favorite book, I’d say the two that would get people the let’s do three or three, I’ll get people the furthest, the most. I think if they were to like, not read any other three books is maybe short term rental, long term wealth, long distance real estate investing. And maybe the book on below, the book on loads, no money down. My Brandon Turner, those are three. I’d say, Yeah, try those three.
Nate Hedrick 41:50
good stuff, and then you’ve given a lot of tips already. But I guess if you had to boil it down, if new pharmacists contemplating a start in real estate investing, what’s one piece of advice you’d give to them?
Jeff Chheuy 42:01
Save, learn personal finance first. So learn how to say more than you spend, because at the end of the day, like your real estate business is gonna bite you in the butt if you if you are spending more on your your business. So it applies everywhere. Find some mentors, and then, if you can house hack first. I think house hacking is probably like the most underrated way is the only, the only downside to house hacking is you don’t do one at a time, because there’s only one of these so but house hack, yeah, like, if you think about it, like people always look down at so much, like they’re like, I don’t want to live with other people. We did that in college. Technically, you got roommates, because it’s the same thing. Might as well just like, have it be your own home. You know, build equity, hopefully, if it works out, but at least your cash flow, you’re getting experience and the skills to actually have the confidence to own real estate is a huge thing, because a lot of times analysis paralysis, you don’t believe in the stuff, but if you’re in the weeds, like seeing it, experiencing it, you’re just going to move a lot faster, and you’re able to make the decisions in a tiny manner which is required for being in business and real estate and, you know, in pharmacy too. Technically, yeah, you can’t just, like, wait on improving a medication. You know you’re gonna get yelled
David Bright 43:10
Yeah, I love it. If people want to hear more, how can they, how can they find you? Where can people find you?
Jeff Chheuy 43:16
You can just follow me on Instagram. That’s probably the easiest way. At Jeff Chheuy, if you really want to like, dive deep down, you can go on to like my email subscriber, my company’s website’s Teeco, teeco.co, but honestly, Instagram is the best way. I’ll say hi as to as many people as I can. It’s just me on there. So if I’m slow, please give me some slack. Just post army.
Nate Hedrick 43:42
I love it. Jeff, thank you so much for joining us, sharing your story. It’s been awesome to have you on and I’m excited to see what you what you get up to next.
Jeff Chheuy 43:51
Dave, you’re the best. Thanks again. Thanks man.
David Bright 43:55
Thanks for listening to the Yfp real estate investing podcast. If you like what you heard in today’s show. Please leave us a review or subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode. If you have a question, know someone that would make a good guest, or want to connect with us, head on over to Yfp realestate.com and join the growing Yfp real estate investing Facebook group. As we conclude
Nate Hedrick 44:14
This week’s episode of The Yfp real estate investing podcast, an important reminder that the content of this podcast is provided to you for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information in this podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with their financial advisor with respect to any investment. Furthermore, the information contained in our archive, newsletters, blog posts and podcasts, is not updated and therefore may not be accurate at the time you listen to it. Opinions and analyzes expressed herein are solely those of your financial pharmacists, unless otherwise noted, and constitute judgments as of the dates published such information may contain forward looking statements which are not intended to be guarantees of future events actual. Results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward looking statements. For more information, please visit your financial pharmacist.com forward slash disclaimer.
David Bright 45:08
Thank you for your support of the Yfp real estate investing podcast. Have a great rest of your week.
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