How side hustle paid off my mortatge at 35 - Shaun Craike

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]Paid off his entire mortgage in just 18 months using this strategy.

[00:00:04]>> [laughter] >> And put together deals that are positively geared in today's interest rate environment.

[00:00:09]>> $60. So, like it's very cheap. That property is generating a cash flow of over 21,000 per year.

[00:00:15]>> That's a lot of money.

[00:00:16]>> But also, if you were to go out and buy it today, it's still cash flowing by making it completely hands-off and passive.

[00:00:21]>> Meet the man that's beating past inflation and throwing rate rises out and cashing in. Sean Cragg, property investor with a solid portfolio, shares how he used a combination of Airbnb property investing and creating a sellable business from his living room at home.

[00:00:35]>> It's very much possible to manage a couple of Airbnbs yourself. Do it well, you will succeed. Let me explain this a little bit more.

[00:00:41]>> $722,000 sale, cash flow positive Airbnbs, but still like 20, 30 grand. I think you were telling me 30 grand now, 20 grand if you bought it now, and you were mortgage-free in 18 months. Sean Cragg, we got a lot to talk about, mate. We do.

[00:00:58]Mate, this is something that I feel like it doesn't matter where you're at in your journey, if we're going to touch on how you actually built a a business in 18 months that you essentially just sold for 700 grand, we're going to talk about how you engineered, cuz this was a key part of building the business as well. But you might be looking at this guy going, "I'm I don't want to build an Airbnb business." That's fine. There's plenty for you, too.

[00:01:19]Because the formula that you use, the little 1%ers that you've stacked, these are all of the things that help grow the business, but you can just help grow your cash flow, your portfolio. There's a lot to this.

[00:01:30]But being mortgage-free, like mate, I Where do you want to start? I think the business is probably the right place to start, cuz that really opened our eyes to a whole new world of possibilities that we didn't really see at the time until we were in it, I guess. How did it all come about? An old housemate of mine, the guy that had first moved to Cairns, was living with him at the time. He reached out to me like 10 years on from when we first met, and he was running a nursing agency, and they could not find accommodation for their nurses that were coming up to Cairns on two and three-month contracts.

[00:02:03]Reached out to me and they said, "Look, we've got a budget of $180 a night. We need to find self-contained apartments."

[00:02:08]>> What year was this? This was 2022. Four years ago now. And it really opened our eyes to the difference between a short-term rental, so like a a hotel or a self-contained apartment, versus a long-term rental market. Because the reality was at $1,200 a week in Cairns, you could get the crème de la crème of rental properties. Even now that would get you a pretty good rental, wouldn't it?

[00:02:28]>> Even now that would get you a very nice rental. Probably in most parts of Australia, $1,200 goes pretty far. And just in case you're wondering why Shawn's referencing Cairns, he is from Cairns. I left that bit out bit out of the start. Yeah.

[00:02:37]>> [laughter] >> But we just opened our mind to, "Okay, if they can't find accommodation for $180 a night, surely our rentals that we're renting for three and four hundred dollars at the time would be suitable."

[00:02:49]And that's what really got us down this Airbnb path and what started us moving into the Airbnb path and what actually led us to to launch the business. All right, so it was just like a little bit of an aha moment that came from I guess I want to say an opportunity, but it doesn't even sound like it was an opportunity. It sounds like it was almost this inquiry, this conversation that you then went, "Wait a second, there is an opportunity here." 100%. It very much come knocking on our door is how it started. And we'd always looked at the Airbnb market, and it all And when I say Airbnb market, I think it's almost Airbnb is the brand, short-term rentals is the concept.

[00:03:25]>> Yeah. But a lot of people it it's interchangeable, I guess.

[00:03:28]>> an escalator or an escalator. Yeah.

[00:03:30]Correct. So, we'd always looked at the Airbnb market and always knew what was there, knew that you could make money in it, but never really got driven to fully research it despite having a couple of properties out of our own at that point in time. It just never jumped out at us.

[00:03:46]So, when that phone call come and when we were hearing the actual numbers of $180 a night, $1,200 a week. It really illuminated us to the fact that jeez, we really should unpack this a bit further.

[00:03:57]Maybe there is money to be made in this space. The thing that's always held me back from it personally, two things actually. One, serviceability issues, which from what I understand now are different to sort of three, four years ago. And two, the cost, the cleaning, the management, the time, all of this kind of stuff.

[00:04:13]I've heard that there's a lot of people that actually not only don't do well, but sometimes make less because that's not managed right. Can you kind of open up on your experience, how you manage it well, how does that work? Airbnb's, short-term rentals are really location driven to the extreme. So, you can have, say, two properties in Cairns. One can be in the CBD, one can be 10 minutes out of the CBD. Mhm. The one 10 minutes out of the CBD will be completely flop. No one wants to stay there. There's not enough amenities. There's no reason for anyone to go stay in Woree, in Bayview Heights, 10 minutes out of the CBD.

[00:04:49]There's just no drawcard there. Mhm.

[00:04:51]Where you can have a property in the Esplanade in Cairns City, where there are all the local attractions are, where all the nice restaurants are, and that's going to have sensational demand. So, it really is a location by location basis.

[00:05:02]The company that you sold your company to, they manage something like 3,000 of these around the country, don't they?

[00:05:08]Correct. Yeah. Is this exactly the same whether someone's looking at this in Melbourne, in Sydney, in Adelaide, in Perth? Sydney's a great example. So, Sydney, the CBD of Sydney, short-term rental properties perform really well.

[00:05:19]The beach suburbs of Sydney, they perform really well. Yeah, you Coogee, Bondi, yeah, yep. You go out to like Olympic Park, and not that far out, and suddenly you're way better off on the long-term rental market.

[00:05:29]>> And this is because of vacancies, or management, what is it that people miss?

[00:05:32]It's a combination of nightly rates and vacancies. So, when it comes to short-term rental properties, that's really what decides your income is. The vacancy rate, so how many nights a year the property is rented out, and what it actually achieves each one of those nights. And that's where as soon as you go a little bit out of the hot spots and where people actually want to stay, suddenly there's not that much demand from a transient population. People coming either for business, for short-term stays, or like in Kansas we have quite a lot of contractors that come up and do road works, doctors and nurses, airplane technicians. As soon as you move away from the populations that are looking for short-term accommodation, suddenly your returns start to disappear. It does make sense.

[00:06:10]I've never thought, "I'll go to Sydney.

[00:06:12]I'd like to stay in Liverpool." Like you If you're going to Sydney or Melbourne or what it Like, yeah. And unless there is like a like you said, maybe you want to stay in Bondi. Makes sense, but And the only real like exception of that is when you've got a property that becomes a destination home. We had you up in Cairns for for your birthday recently.

[00:06:30]And you guys stayed in a beautiful property. Sauna, pool, fire pits.

[00:06:34]>> had a cinema. Even had a cinema room. It really wasn't near anything. No. But the home in itself was a destination. I remember actually chatting with you about this. And and this is actually kind of leads into my next question is like really what is it that actually makes makes a cash flow cow? Like what is it What do you need in the asset? So far you're already talking about location and it's about like somewhere that people want to go, but that was something I wanted to go to. But I remember you telling me that that would take like an entire day to reset. Like it's why you couldn't actually just have that on the market for a day cuz you'd lose so much and like the cash flow wasn't that amazing. I think there's two important parts to why two completely separate reasons I should say as to why someone will own a short-term rental.

[00:07:18]The first one's cash flow. It makes sense. It's going to generate more money on the short-term rental market than the long-term rental market. And that's one population of people that own that type of property. The other population that own those sort of properties and the one in Cairns that you stayed in is a good example of this. They used it as their holiday home part of the year. They weren't actually owning that property for the cash flow. Mhm. They had personal use out of it, personal enjoyment out of it. The Airbnb guests that stayed there between them staying there maintained the house, generated a little bit of income, helped with their holding costs. It wasn't the primary driver of them owning that property. So, I think and you know, we see that across the whole coastal of Australia. There's plenty of holiday homes that people stay in 2-3 months of the year. 9 months of the year they have on the short-term rental market. So, that is important to consider those two different clients, those two different types of people that actually buy that sort of property. So, that's not necessarily the kind of asset that you would be building a solid cash flow base with or building an Airbnb business with necessarily, but that's a great way that if you want to spend 2 and 1/2 3 million, whatever that was worth, on a holiday home, but just actually make a little bit of money out of it and still have it as a holiday home, then it kind of works. To add like real numbers to that, so that home that you stayed up in Cairns, that was worth probably around that 3 million mark, generate probably around $140-150,000 worth of income a year. Mhm. So, call it three grand a week. Mhm. We have apartments that we bought for 400,000 that generate 75 grand a year. All right. So, with that in mind, can you start unpacking a little bit more of the actual numbers? Because again, this isn't numbers from 5 years ago. This is like numbers from literally now, but also this is a property that you bought a year and a half ago, 2 years ago? So, I think a a great example is property we bought in 2024. I'll give you the numbers of what that actually looks like for us today, but also if you were to go out and buy it today, cuz I think that's that's relevant.

[00:09:13]The property is right on the Esplanade in Cairns. So, this is where we were talking about location versus being a destination property. For this this property, the location is the destination. It's right opposite the Cairns Lagoon. It's right opposite 500 different restaurants in the city. If you're going to Cairns and staying there for a holiday, this is where you want to stay. It's It's a good spot. It's a great spot.

[00:09:36]>> And on as well, I think this really highlights the value of apartments in the short-term rental space versus houses. Cuz for example, this apartment complex has a gym in it, it has a pool in it. It's also in, like I said, the perfect location in Cairns where you couldn't buy a house in that location.

[00:09:55]First of all, houses don't exist in that part of the CBD. Secondly, if you were to buy something close, you'd be spending multiple millions of dollars for something of a sort of similar quality. So, your yield's out the window. Yeah, your yield's out the window. So, for a yielding asset and a cash-flowing asset, this is [clears throat] where I think these apartments in these prime locations really make sense on the short-term rental market. So, this property we bought it for 386,000 in 2024. On the long-term rental market, it would currently rent for around 650 a week, which isn't actually that great by the time you factor in body corporates, which are around 11,000.

[00:10:27]>> All right, I'll stop there. 11,000 >> 11,000 a year.

[00:10:31]Did you glide over that one?

[00:10:32]>> [laughter] >> That's massive, Sean. Okay, so obviously this is all taken into account with your numbers still?

[00:10:38]>> This is all taken into account. So, there's two lifts in the building, there's pools, there's gyms, there's onsite management. The complex, when you walk into it, is really well presented.

[00:10:49]Okay. And that comes at a cost. Yeah, yeah, okay. And that And plus Cairns is actually just more expensive for your council rates, your insurance, your etc. So, even just the insurance component of that would be higher. Correct.

[00:11:00]>> you're not paying building insurance because it's a part of it.

[00:11:02]>> Put it this way, at the moment for a smaller complex, reasonable body corporates now in Cairns are sitting around that 5,000 mark. So, that's what in like if you see cheap body corporates, it's probably around that 5K mark. Yeah. So, 11K is expensive, but as soon as you start incorporating lifts, as soon as you start incorporating onsite management, it pretty much is what it is for for that style of complex in that area. So, just in case you're about to click the next button because $11,000 a year is it's it's huge, okay? Keep looking at these numbers cuz we've gone through these before. Can you keep reading, Sean? So, we've got 11 grand body corporates, council rates is 3,200.

[00:11:38]>> Mhm. Airbnb charged 15% for any bookings on their platform. So, essentially after Airbnb platform fees, we got paid out 75,000. Uh-huh. From that 75,000, we did have cleaning costs, power, electricity, internet. So, after those costs that went to 59,500.

[00:11:55]>> So, sorry, your 75,000, that's after the Airbnb. So, it grossed more than that before Airbnb said, "Hey, we'll take Correct. Okay. All right. So, Airbnb take their 15%. Mhm. In our bank account, we essentially got paid 75,000.

[00:12:08]Got it. Out of that, we had to pay for the cleaning of the property, the linens, the electricity, the internet, which then left us with 59,500.

[00:12:16]From that, you've got your body corporates of 11,000, which are massive.

[00:12:20]>> [laughter] >> 3,200 council rates. Mhm. And then the interest on the loan on that is around 24,000. So, with that all said and done, that property's generating a cash flow of over 21,000 per year. So, after all expenses, after the 11 grand body corporate fees, we're still walking away with 21 grand a year. And this is exactly what I was saying, stick around, because it may be Airbnb's for you, maybe it's not for you, but but so you're taking out all of the expenses and cuz I I would have walked past I would have been, "Fuck that. I'm not paying 11,000 dollars."

[00:12:55]Yeah.

[00:12:55]Like that's that's that's a lot of money, but if you're still making 21,000 dollars a year, like putting a deal together and and I think the beauty of this as well is like you and I were talking about this before. You bought that essentially you debt recycled, which if you're interested in debt recycling, an amazing episode with Jeremy Urizel, you click on that, I'm sure we'll have it linked below. You essentially debt recycled this out, which we're actually going to come to a little bit more about the sale of the business, paying down your mortgage, how this all works, but effectively, it's 100% loan. So, if someone was actually going to buy this now for 500 cuz you got it for I think it was just under four, um they would essentially have the same kind of mortgage if they had a 20% deposit. Is that right? Correct. So, I think that this brings up an important point. This property is cash flowing really well. Mhm. But, it's also gone up pretty close to 100,000 in that almost 2 years since we bought it. We bought it in 2024. We can bring up the exact month, but 2024 and it's currently, yeah, Yeah.

[00:13:55]>> around that 500 mark.

[00:13:56]>> Where is this? Um sold Yeah, May 2024.

[00:13:58]So, Yeah. pretty much >> We're recording this in late April, so it's almost exactly 2 years. So, that's pretty good. That's sort of like 10% growth per year. So, it still had good capital growth. So, it wasn't or or I see that debate cash flow versus capital growth and sometimes you can have both and this was a a really good example of a a property that has performed well on on both fronts. The other really important caveat that I want to include in on this is that property we are self-managing. And this I think comes back to the the business conversation as well. So, if you were to pay an Airbnb manager to look after that property, Mhm. they're essentially charging between 20 to 25% management fees. On the 75?

[00:14:36]>> On the 75. Okay, so 20 to 25%. So, you're losing 50 So, you you'd still be positively geared by about 5 to 7,000 if my quick math is right. Correct.

[00:14:46]>> Okay. But, you'd be doing nothing different.

[00:14:48]>> Nothing. Well, actually, you Yeah, you'd be doing nothing. You'd be doing nothing. Correct. The the manager's looking after everything. This is a really good like that property cash flows phenomenally cuz we manage it ourselves. Mhm. It's still cash flowing in today's day and age by making it completely hands-off and passive. Okay.

[00:15:04]So, my first question there is does it cost you more than 15-ish thousand dollars a year of your time? No, not even close. Okay. How How much What are you doing? So, I think this comes back from when we built the business, Mhm. we automated a lot of it. So, our when someone books, they get an automated email confirming their booking. The day before check-in, they get an automated email with all the check-in instructions. The day before check-out, they get an automated email with all the check-out instructions. Our cleaners basically have our calendars synced with their calendars, so they see the bookings. We're not having to call up the cleaners and go, "Hey, can you do this clean on the 23rd of April?" It's all automated. So, it's really only the occasional issue where the guest can't work out how to turn a toaster on.

[00:15:53]>> [laughter] >> Does that really happen a lot?

[00:15:55]Unfortunately. Yeah. This comes back to the business as well. So, currently we own four, plus we look after my mother-in-law's Airbnb. So, we currently manage five Airbnbs. Five doesn't take up a lot of time. I would say on average it might take three to four hours a week. It's probably not even that. It's a couple of hours a week. It's a few phone calls.

[00:16:15]>> But, this is because of the automations, the systems, the knowledge.

[00:16:18]>> Correct.

[00:16:19]>> Yeah. Okay.

[00:16:19]>> But, I would say once every three months, we get a phone call at 11:00 at night that someone's locked themselves out.

[00:16:26]>> What was the one with the snake the other day you told me?

[00:16:28]>> [laughter] >> We had a guest turn up to a to one that we were managing, and literally there was a big python at the front door.

[00:16:36]>> [laughter] >> She'd arrived from America.

[00:16:39]>> Ah, terrified. Terrified. And this was like a six-grander a week Airbnb. She had like a six-grand booking. She ended up staying in a a hotel in the city, cand- canceled, didn't get a refund, walked away from the booking, petrified that there was a snake. And the kicker is this property was pretty much located in the rainforest. She's So, what?

[00:16:58]That's how it works. You're in the wild.

[00:17:00]You're in you're in the wild. Those issues do arise, and managing five, like I say, we do get called out from time to time to go and address an issue that happens. And when we've got five, that's maybe once every two months, that's maybe once every three months that those issues occur. Towards the end of where us owning that business, when we had around 40 managements, it was more like every week we'd get a call at 11:00 at night, or you'd be cooking dinner and have to leave the kids for dinner and So, it turns into work when you really scale this. Like, yeah, it's a proper business. It was 100% a proper business.

[00:17:31]I think if you live locally, it's very much possible to manage a couple of Airbnbs yourself. It's not that time consuming. There's is good savings to be had on management front, but if you're living out of town, you really do need someone on call because those issues do arise on a relatively regular basis. Not all the time, but Someone's got to remove the snake from the front door.

[00:17:55]Correct. All right, so portfolio at the moment then. So, you've got five to four that you and Nick are managing that are yours, and then another one that's um my mother-in-law, I think you said.

[00:18:04]What's it positive by now? Cuz I'm just doing quick math in my head. It's like 3 hours a week. Let's even double it and say you're wrong and say it's 6 hours a week, all right? What what's the whole thing positive by? I don't know the exact figure across the four Airbnbs at the moment, but I would hazard a guess it's somewhere between sort of 60,000 to maybe 70,000 cash flow.

[00:18:23]>> This is what I'm wanting to work out because whether it is three 3 hours a week just it's not much.

[00:18:29]>> It's not much. It's probably not even 3 hours if I'm being honest. Like, a lot of it is automated. If if I then say 65,000 positive and then divide that by 52, I don't know if this math works, and then divide that by that's that's $1,250 a week positive by 3 hours that's essentially $416 an hour. Sorry, I was just going to say, let's even say it is 6 hours a week. And if we divide it by six, it's still 200 bucks an hour. But as you know, that's not the whole story with property. The cash flow is great, and the cash flow gives us a whole lot of freedom, but it's also the capital growth that comes with those properties.

[00:19:01]I I fully on board. It's more I'm trying to work out the value of your time. Yep.

[00:19:06]And before when you were saying like, "Oh, but like it essentially would have been 15 grand." I was genuinely expecting you to say a high number cuz we we didn't we haven't talked about this the the exact time frame. But if it's like oh actually I'm working for 30 40 bucks an hour, I'd pay someone else to do it. Yeah. But if you're working for two $300 an hour, it's worth your time. The thing that I'd be naive not to talk about is the fact that it does require someone to be on call 24/7. If a guest gets locked out at 2:00 in the morning, they do expect you to answer your phone. So while [snorts] it's two or three hours worth of work each week across the five of them currently >> Mhm. they do expect someone if they can't get the stove working at 9:00 at night to answer their call. Surely there's like some kind of after hours Airbnb emergency service where the the few times that happens and they charge you a quid for it but it lets you sleep.

[00:19:56]>> It's called an Airbnb manager and they charge 20%. That was our business. Oh okay.

[00:20:01]>> [laughter] >> And that's why our business exists though. And that's why we were able to scale and grow that business so quickly is we were we were providing that 24/7 service. We were taking that away from property investors and we were handling that nuance and that those pain points.

[00:20:17]I was thinking about it more so from the lens of like Bianca and I stayed in one in Melbourne once and there was this company to get the key was called Key Ninja and it was actually a very average experience but that was literally what they did. Yeah. Their whole job was and I'm assuming they charged them 100 bucks to just literally go here's a key but that that was the service. That's why I was thinking maybe there was some kind of after hours service but Sounds like a good business.

[00:20:40]Anyone watching me? [laughter] Don't know. After hours Airbnb support.

[00:20:45]There's the opportunity there. Once you get to a certain size portfolio and this is where we got to we got to around 40 managements Mhm. and the challenge become at 40 managements whether we scaled to the next level and started to put on people to cover the night shift or not. Mhm. But at 40 managements it was a tremendous amount of work. It was a lot going on. There was a lot of after hours calls. There was a lot of friction in that business too that me and my wife handled. And we were at a bit of a crossroads whether we scaled and went to sort of 150 to 200 properties.

[00:21:17]>> Mhm. Which then it would make sense to build out the team and build out the support.

[00:21:21]>> a middle management, etc. Yeah. Yeah. Or we did get approached at that point to to sell the business.

[00:21:28]So that's where we were at the crossroads and when we sold the business it was a was a decision we we really we didn't take lightly whether to scale it up and then have those after hours support, but basically from zero to 40 we were the after hours support, unfortunately. And so if you're going to scale it up, cuz you built this in 18 months. I say you it's you and Nick, yep. You got to how many was it? 40. 40, okay.

[00:21:52]So for you to build it to I guess essentially five times the size, do you think it would have taken you five times as long or were you like on a roll then and you were like listing like three or four of these a week? Pretty much from the start we had a wait list. So we were setting them up, we were helping if they weren't already furnished, we were furnishing them. Mhm. If they were already furnished, we were just helping with the decor cuz it did make a big difference. Those little touches made a huge difference to the returns. So we were doing that. We did have a wait list of properties that we wanted to onboard with us. They were on the long-term rental market, we were switching them over to the short-term rental market. We were getting faster at it and I think we could have scaled.

[00:22:29]But it also just becomes that typical business problem of like once you delegate, no one's ever really is efficient as you are at certain things.

[00:22:37]Mhm. Nick and I were working on call 24/7, but to get someone to be on call overnight Some nights they trust as well. Some nights they wouldn't do anything. So like how do you pay for that? There was a the whole lot of moving pieces that we didn't end up needing to figure out, but were the next hurdles that we decided to yeah, take take the money and run run instead. But yeah, so one or two properties I think it's very much doable yourself after you know, but if you're not on location then I yeah definitely advisable to get someone to handle it for you. Now you mentioned you were doing some of the setup and the decor. Obviously presentation is is a thing. You and I were going through some comparisons before though. I was blown away at the difference just 1% cuz it wasn't like oh this was disgusting we made it look pretty like classic Reno before and after. It was like hey this was okay, but we made it look better, but here's how much of a difference it makes. Can you actually I've got a few pictures here. Can you actually start sort of going through and pulling this apart a little bit?

[00:23:33]>> Yeah, let me unpack these photos, but I think before I do, what I always used to explain to our clients, you're doing online sales. Mhm. When you buy sneakers online, you're looking at the photos of the sneakers. Yeah. When you book your holiday in Sydney, when you book your accommodation in Sydney, it's not like when you go out and buy a property, it's not like when you go out and rent a property. You don't turn up and inspect the property, have a look in the cupboards, feel the floor plan, see the property, look at the neighbors. You're purely buying your accommodation based on what the photos look like online.

[00:24:04]Mhm. Maybe a short description and the reviews. To stand out against the competition, you really just need to be the one that gets booked over not being booked. So this is where it's not like what you mentioned, your traditional Reno where it's the ugly carpets, the kitchen that needs updating. It's not that sort of polar difference. We just need to be have the client choose that property over the other one. And this is where like the subtle differences really start to come in and make a huge difference. Makes me think of there's this young Indian lad and in in India he built I think it like a proper hotel empire. I don't know how many thousands of hotel rooms they've got now, but apparently it's literally how it all started. He approached the guy that had the hotel wasn't doing very well and he's basically like hey can I do a deal with you that I will split whatever revenue and he literally just dressed the rooms and photographed them really well and like marketed the place properly. Did it with one and then went to another and another and another, but he was like there was no magic to this.

[00:25:01]We took over every number of Airbnb's that were already on the Airbnb in the short-term rental market and just come through and did these little changes.

[00:25:08]So, we've got some photos of this is actually the Esplanade property that we bought. So, this is one we bought for 386. This is the bedroom. So, straight away like looking at the photos, the doona cover here looks like it's been there for probably 30 or 40 years. Mhm.

[00:25:22]The place was built in the '90s. It It probably is the original doona cover doona from from the '90s. But it doesn't look bad though. Like you're not looking at that thinking this looks stabby or this looks disgusting. It just kind of looks like you can probably smell it a little bit through the photo.

[00:25:36]>> [laughter] >> Which to go out and buy a new new doona, you're looking at like $60. So, like it's very very cheap, very inexpensive.

[00:25:45]A couple of nice decorative pillows, same thing you probably looking at $60.

[00:25:50]We got rid of the bed heads. They were just brown, they were ugly. To me, they weren't overly appealing.

[00:25:56]Um and we replaced it with some rattan artwork and that was probably around the similar price. So, like all up for for this whole room to change the vibe and like you said, we didn't drastically change it, but just to improve it enough that someone would be more willing to book our apartment than the actual hotel's apartment. So, just to back up quickly, this is actually in our hotel. I think there's about 100 hotel rooms here. We just wanted to make sure that if guests were comparing our Airbnb to the on-site hotel rooms, that they're booking ours. So, this is where the little changes just drove that. And so, these changes are little. Like if you're watching right now, just in case if you're on iTunes or Spotify and you're you're listening, um head on over to the YouTube channel so you can see exactly what Shawn's talking about here because like this again, this isn't ugly room, it's just okay. This and and beauty's in the eye of the beholder, maybe everyone doesn't agree, but the numbers agree that this was just enough better and this is where I find it's fascinating. You didn't run through here with 10 grand making it incredible. You just made it better enough. 100%. We saw it time and time again where you'd have apartments in the same apartment building both on the short-term rental market and we would go in and maybe spend two or three thousand dollars extra just setting up the day core, setting up the bedding, putting new pillows on the couch. Not massive renovations and then those properties would outperform 15 20,000 over a year compared to the the ones that had that had that work done to it.

[00:27:21]>> So if you're going to do this and you don't have that flare for style, either learn it or hire someone that does because it's sounding like this is an integral piece of your return. I think the big part is when when you look at properties from an investment point of view on the long-term rental market, maybe preparing it for sale, you're really looking at the bones of the property cuz that's what someone's buying. They're buying that the walls, the floor coverings, they might be buying the window coverings but the bathroom reno's. Where when someone's coming to stay in a property, the furnishings is just as important as the actual property itself.

[00:27:54]This this reminds me and and I I want to go through living room shots within two secs as well but like again the one that Bianca and I stayed at in in Melbourne.

[00:28:01]It is on Southbank, stunning views. In my opinion the best views in Melbourne.

[00:28:06]I think it's 40th floor or something in Freshwater Place and it was just there was you couldn't see a wall. It was just all glass. Absolutely amazing but like the couch was old, the TV was old, the the the thing it was a little bit older.

[00:28:17]It's probably why it was slightly cheaper but it was the only one I could get that was that view and that apartment that and I got it. But I remember sitting down thinking they could have charged us like an extra two three hundred dollars a night if this was just nicer. And when you're playing on a per night basis, it's there's a couple of things there like if a property rents for $500 a night and you can get 10 more nights per year, that's five grand. Or if you can get $50 more per night for 200 nights of the year, it's 10 grand. Like there's a a number of different ways that cuts up. So, this is where we were always and anyone considering the short-term rental market just spend that little bit extra making it look appealing cuz it is online sales. People need to be visually drawn to the property before they book it. And then you've also got to deliver on that.

[00:29:03]The reviews are just as important having good solid reviews Mhm.

[00:29:06]>> having that customer service so that it keeps compounding in the property you can charge more and more each year as it goes on and that review base builds. But having it right from the start having a good quality photos having a good presentation so important. Let me explain this a little bit more with the these living room photos. So, this is basically how every single room in this hotel was furnished. And the reason they've done this way is the hotels buy furniture packages.

[00:29:29]>> Mhm. And bulk discount. Bulk discount.

[00:29:32]They probably bought 200 of these coffee tables.

[00:29:34]>> Mhm. And what we wanted to do was just open up the spaces make it more inviting. So, we essentially got rid of the TV cabinet and put the TV up on the wall. It just opened up the walkway opened up that hallway. We actually kept the coffee table. So, the coffee table's the same in both of these photos. We didn't change that over, but we did change the the sofa over. You actually can't really tell in these photos it looks like a similar sofa, but even the photos we just opened up these shutters opened up the space and made this whole room look a lot bigger. And this is something if you know if this property was for sale probably people would go and have a look at these both of these units. There's not big enough difference that one person would rule out one and not the other. I like that you're saying both of these units and they're literally the same. Literally [laughter] the same. Yeah. But if you had both of these properties advertised on real estate.com they're both open at 11:00 on Saturday, you'd go and see both of them.

[00:30:24]But if you're living in Melbourne going for a holiday to Cairns, you don't get to go walk through them and compare them. Mhm. You've got to make a judgment call purely on the photos. And this is why it's not about being Sheep Stations better, it's about being incredible.

[00:30:35]It's just a little bit better than the competition. That's all you need.

[00:30:39]>> That's all we need. And And was basically our business recipe is we were really wanting to make sure that the properties that we took to market were as appealing as possible and that made our clients so much more money. We were able to generate a lot more money than other Airbnb managers in the area because we were taking that time to set them up right. And that's why I think, you know, we had a waitlist for that 18 months while we were building that business is people could see the value and also when people were looking at our portfolio of properties that we were managing, they were all presented like this. They all presented beautifully.

[00:31:11]And that allowed us to attract other beautiful properties onto the portfolio.

[00:31:14]Talking about selling the actual business. So we're at this stage where I was going to ask you about launch, but it doesn't even sound like there was any kind of launch. It sounds like it just kind of evolved. Is that right?

[00:31:23]>> It very much evolved. So we started and at the time I was selling real estate and I enjoyed it, but it never felt right. And and I say that in a way that I was sitting down at coffee tables with mom and dads and they were looking to sell their investment properties and I was somewhat convincing them that I was the man to sell their property.

[00:31:43]Meanwhile, I was buying properties in the area and truly believed the area was going up in value. So there was always that weird sort of contradiction.

[00:31:50]So when I saw the business opportunity to build out the Airbnb management business and do it in a way that we brought a lot of value to our clients, it was something that excited me. So we we we did go all in, but it wasn't so much a launch. It's just one property fed into the next and suddenly we were making enough money that we could finish up in sales and just focus solely on that. So that was sort of I guess the evolution rather than the launch of the business. It's just one thing led into the next and then the the passion and the enjoyment really started to to drive it.

[00:32:18]>> In terms of actually growing it for anyone that's interested more in the business side of things with this, what were the things that you were doing then marketing wise? Were you spending like huge Facebook advert adverts budgets?

[00:32:28]Was there I don't know if you advertise on like Airbnb stuff like that. How are you getting the word out?

[00:32:33]>> We never spent a dollar on marketing which was interesting coming from real estate sales, where we were spending a lot from promoting ourselves. Word of mouth was considerable, but there wasn't actually that much competition for Airbnb managers in Cairns. So, we had a really well-designed website that was visually very appealing, very much showcased us as expertise, and we managed to get Google rankings pretty quickly that we were ranking as one of the top three businesses in Cairns for Airbnb management. So, that sort of started to fulfill it. The other source of leads was real estate agents. I'd been in the real estate industry, I think, for 7 or 8 years at that point in time. I was a pretty well-known sales agent, and people were looking for someone to to pass their referrals to.

[00:33:14]So, that really helped grow that business, as well, that reputation I had with with selling agents in the area.

[00:33:19]>> Okay, so SEO, really good website that looks schmick. So, looking nice once people actually click on it. And then building the relation, actually not building, really. Just maintaining the relationships, yeah, >> the relationships you've got.

[00:33:30]Talk to me a little bit about that, because I can already hear people going, "Well, I wasn't real estate agent for 7 years." Like, how would you start that?

[00:33:36]If you put the old agent hat back on, what would someone need to call and be like, "Hey, Shawn, I've got an Airbnb business." What are they saying to you?

[00:33:42]I would literally just go out and open homes. Go to open homes, meet real estate agents face-to-face. Most of them are pretty friendly people. Like, if you if you've been out looking at investment properties, you've you've probably met an agent or two. Go go have the conversations with them. Let them know what you do. Let them know what you do differently. And pretty quickly, if you deliver on your promises, the referrals will come. In terms of sale, because I feel like we could we could prod a little bit more in the scale side, but I feel like it's hustle is really the answer. It's like, we set up a few things, and then we just kept working, and it kept growing, word of mouth.

[00:34:15]There's no magic beans that if I kept pressing, I'm going to find, is there?

[00:34:17]>> No, there was definitely no magic beans to the the business and the growth and the scale of it. Mhm.

[00:34:23]The sale was an interesting one. So, there was no magic recipe. It just one thing led to the next. But, the sale was actually interesting. We actually got a message through LinkedIn about two, three months before we sold and I thought it was spam. I just like was like, "Oh, Red a big company interested in buying your company." We weren't really considering selling at that point in time that I took mental note of it, but I don't think I even replied to the message through LinkedIn. And then two, three months went past. We probably grew the business from 30 to 40 over those couple of months and it got to the point that I realized and and me and the wife realized we either needed to go all in to the next level and basically to match the profitability we were at, we needed to double the portfolio size. By the time we added extra people, that basically next 40 properties would bring on wouldn't make us any more money because of the people we had to hire to reach that point.

[00:35:16]>> Got it. Okay. So, your margin starts disappearing. Your turnover looks more impressive, but your lifestyle is actually getting a hit, basically.

[00:35:23]Correct. Correct. So, that was sort of the crossroads we reached is do we hire more people, scale up the business, realize we're not going to actually make anything for the next anything more for the next 12 or 18 months, and then on the other side of that have a business that becomes more profitable again, or do we sell it? So, we actually decided that we'd explore the sales route. So, we reached out to the the random LinkedIn message of all things and we come up to a verbal agreement for the sale. And this is just such an important learning. If we'd gone through with that verbal agreement, it would have cost us an extra 250,000 in tax.

[00:35:58]Yeah, right. Okay. Which just to me highlights sometimes you you don't know what you don't know.

[00:36:04]And for us, we felt like we were doing the right thing selling the the assets of the business that it made sense.

[00:36:10]Yeah. But literally one phone call with our accountant made us realize how much of an error that was going to be. And what was it? What were you doing wrong?

[00:36:18]So, rather than selling the assets of the business, which then would have made the So, cuz what were the assets? You talking about selling the actual property because you didn't own all the properties. So, we could sell the management rights. So we had the management rights to the 40 properties.

[00:36:31]>> And that's the asset?

[00:36:32]>> That's the asset, correct. And there we we can sell them. We can transfer them from ourselves to another company and then we would have shut down that company. Yeah. So that was selling the assets. The alternative to that is selling the the business as an ongoing concern. What's the difference? What is that? They're buying the shares. So the company that we set up had two shares.

[00:36:51]Mhm. They were going to buy those two shares and that by buying the two shares they own 100% of the company. So that was our our two options. We could either sell the company as a whole Mhm. or sell just the assets. To me, I thought that was one and the same. I didn't really Sounds pretty similar. [laughter] Obviously 250 grand disagrees with both of us. So conversation with the accountant and very quickly come clear that I didn't know what I didn't know.

[00:37:13]By selling the shares in the business Mhm. we got the capital gains discount cuz we'd owned those shares for longer than 12 months. Yeah. Which is a pretty topical at the moment that the capital gains discount >> Very much. It doesn't just apply to property, it also applies to shares, it also applies to business ownership. Mhm.

[00:37:29]Because we owned the shares in the business, we got the 50% capital gains tax. We instantly halved that tax bill.

[00:37:34]And then there's another thing called an active asset discount. When you own a business that you sell, it's classed as an active asset and there was a further 50%. So essentially we went from what was going to be around a $380,000 tax bill because that would have applied the full sale of the the business to our personal tax income Mhm. to essentially only 25% of the sale price was then applied to our income and then we paid the normal tax rate on that which put it in put us in that sort of 45 cents per dollar mark which moved our tax from around that 360,000 >> So like 100 and something. Yeah, less than 100 which yeah, crazy just that advice and speaking to the right people how much difference that can make in something that effectively was the same on looked like the same from the outset.

[00:38:16]>> It's not like it changed it for you. It wasn't like oh okay, but if you do it this way it's going going you another 12 months or it's going to require this extra capital. It was literally just the a shuffling of even the terms because I'm assuming the company that bought it didn't really care if they were buying the actual agreements or the company.

[00:38:31]Did it affect it for them? It slightly affected it for them. So, by buying the company, they inherited any sort of tax liability, any previous liability. So, they needed to structure the contract in a way that they were protected on those fronts.

[00:38:47]>> So, basically they need to know that you ran a clean company because if you had debts that were hidden, they would then be responsible for those debts.

[00:38:54]>> Correct.

[00:38:55]>> I'm assuming there's just a bigger DD clause Yep. to check, yeah?

[00:38:58]>> Yep, exactly right. So, there's a little bit more due diligence, a little bit their preference would have been just to buy the assets. It is a cleaner transaction on their front.

[00:39:05]>> Mhm. But, we're talking a couple of extra hours work on their end to make it >> of hundred thousand, yeah. Correct. So, that was a really interesting and a real like light bulb moment for me that no matter how long you've been in business, no matter what you're doing, speaking to the right professionals can just drastically change the outcome. Did they use that to try and negotiate it with you as well then? To be like, "Hey, look, we'll we'll give you X instead of Y because of this?" Or We owned four vehicles at the time, and those vehicles were I think we bought each car for about 15 grand. The backpackers we had working for us had reversed them into several poles.

[00:39:41]>> [laughter] >> They weren't worth a lot. You're recruiting down at Gilligan's on a Friday night, mate. Pretty much.

[00:39:46][laughter] They weren't actually going to buy the cars. They were just going to buy the the management rights for the properties that we had. And we ended up going, "Hey, look, if you buy the company as a whole, we'll include the cars in the sale." So, there was probably 40 grand worth of of cars there that sweetened the deal, but well and truly the tax advantages offset.

[00:40:05]>> And you didn't really want four cars, I'm guessing.

[00:40:07]>> interest in four beaten up cars. Yeah.

[00:40:09]Okay. [laughter] Mate, and so then you've got what, roughly five, six hundred thousand dollars? Or it sounds more like probably around five. Now, is that about right?

[00:40:18]>> Oh, well, about 600 by the time we we paid the taxman.

[00:40:20]>> Okay, the same. You're now mortgage-free. You're dumping that straight onto the house.

[00:40:24]>> Yep. So, we moved that straight into the offset account. Within 18 months, and I don't want to take away from the fact that this is obviously work. Like, I'm not I don't want to make this sound like this was just nothingness, but you you built a business and which was great revenue. You had a several Airbnbs that you you actually still own a few of them as well. Then you sold that for a $700,000 exit, paid off the home, and but then went, "Let's go buy another Airbnb." Correct. We ended up buying two more after after >> [laughter] >> Property's always been something that's just excited us. And it's always been a a path to freedom. Mhm. And to take that 600,000, that 600,000 would essentially save us 36,000 a year in interest by living in the offset account. And the question was, "Can we beat 36,000 a year in returns? Can we put that 600,000 to work Mhm. and outperform 36,000 in interest savings?" And for us with that Esplanade property that we bought that's generating 21,000 net income, we bought another property that's performing pretty similar. The answer was yes. And that's before you even start to factor in the capital growth on the the bigger asset base. Okay. So, you put the money into the house, but then you debt recycled it out to then put it back into Airbnbs. You felt you could get a better return than the interest you were saving on the mortgage. 100%. Got it. And again, I emphasize watch the episode on debt recycling. For some reason, it's confusing, but once you get it, you've got it, and it will make a big difference. If you've got cash and a PPR, it doesn't work if you don't have a PPR. It doesn't work if you don't have cash, but when you do, this can be a wonderful way to move money around very tax effectively.

[00:42:00]So, for anyone that's wanting to actually do this, Sean, that's gone and I feel like breaking it into a couple of different categories. Now, number one, get into the Airbnb space and actually like build a proper cash flow. Like, now in 2026 with all the oil stuff that's going in the world, the everything. Like this this is happening right now. And the other is to actually maybe scale as a business. What are the the two biggest takeaways and almost like two action steps with this? In regards to the business, and I think this is a lot of people you speak to, they're always contemplating starting a business. Maybe it is in the Airbnb space. Maybe they're looking at producing tricycles. I don't know. But like fortune favors the brave.

[00:42:37]You've got to go have a crack. And I think people very quickly play up the downside. If I quit my job, if I do this, like it's all going to go tits up.

[00:42:46]But quite often like the biggest risk is you're back where you are today. You go get that job back in the place where you're working.

[00:42:51]>> That's the big thing. Can you get the job back? Nine times out of 10, yes, they will have you back. Correct. So I think like if it comes to starting a business, the Airbnb business, there's still plenty of opportunities across Australia to to launch and grow a successful Airbnb business. There's not actually that much competition. Where do you see the biggest at the moment? In regards to locations? Yep. If someone's listening to this right now, where where do you see like like Southbank units are cheap as anything right now?

[00:43:15]Business-wise right now, anywhere there's a concentration of hotels, a concentration of Airbnbs will do quite well. So we're sitting in Adelaide CBD at the moment. We're surrounded by hundreds of hotels.

[00:43:26]>> Mhm.

[00:43:27]I can guarantee that you could grow a very successful Airbnb portfolio right here. So don't look at it as there's too much competition. Look at it as there's plenty of demand. Plenty of demand. It's a lot easier to build a business around something that's already got demand than try try and create the demand. Yep. And like Richard Branson, Virgin Airlines, there's not even a lot of companies.

[00:43:49]Companies out there managing Airbnbs, there's not too many doing it well. So to come into the space, take the time, have the care factor, and do it well, you will succeed because there is the demand. Where if you try and create an Airbnb business in an area where there's no hotels, no Airbnbs on the market at the moment, there's probably a reason for it. It's like being a market maker. If you're developing or renovating, it's like maybe you're actually onto the thing and you're the first one and amazing. But also, maybe there's a reason it's not not being done much. But you kind of make me think of something else that you've you've told me before and like Ryan, friend up in Kansas, told me before like in cans sometimes because it is like backpacker centric and people are there normally chill and hang out. Literally just doing your job makes you a superstar.

[00:44:32]>> Yes.

[00:44:32]>> And it sounds like you're actually like kind of copy and pasting that and just going, "This is the opportunity in the Airbnb space at the moment." There's so many people kind of half-assing it or not doing it well. Just doing the job properly makes you stand out. And I think that goes for like a lot of markets, a lot of industries.

[00:44:49]If you genuinely care and care about the product you're delivering, you will do well. Mhm. The the the benchmark across different industries, there's some industries where the benchmark's probably higher, but I think there's a lot of opportunities across Australia when it comes to business. The moment and the Airbnb space is definitely one without any hesitation. But I think, you know, as a big takeaway for this, if you are contemplating, do the thing. Do the thing. Mhm. Poster on the wall.

[00:45:15]>> [laughter] >> On the wall, yeah. Do do the thing. Just because that's obviously a bit of an in joke right now to explain that I've got a big poster on the wall that Shawn's just walked past in the studio, which is strangerslook.io, which is essentially preparing to do the thing isn't doing the thing, talking about doing the thing isn't doing the thing, goes through everything and it lands on only thing that is doing the thing is doing the thing. I love that.

[00:45:35]>> I love the idea of doing the thing because I think the reality is there's always uncertainty in the world and, you know, we're talking off air just before about the oil crisis and the uncertainty and will the short-term rental market do well in the next 6 or 12 months? And the reality is no one has a crystal ball.

[00:45:52]Mhm. Maybe flights will get canceled.

[00:45:54]Maybe oil restrictions will come in.

[00:45:56]Maybe we won't be able to drive our cars more than 8 km. But you've got to take the punt at some time and do the thing.

[00:46:02]Cuz worst case scenario for how many people that didn't end up buying during COVID that now look back and go, "Well, it's easy for you. You bought during COVID." Versus actually just going, "Okay, but it was terrifying at the time doing it. Like it was really scary."

[00:46:15]Um same as buying during 2008-2010.

[00:46:17]It's terrifying at the time for a for a lot of people. It was really scary. I'm sure same as the dot-com boom, same as the the we can just keep going back. And and it keeps getting more and more real.

[00:46:26]Is there potentially going to be an effect on the market? I mean, this episode's coming out I don't know, three or four weeks' time from from now. Maybe there already has been. And you're listening to it right now and you're like, "Haha, losers."

[00:46:37]Maybe. But but also maybe there's some short-term pain that you might go through a little bit. You have to put it on the long-term rental market. You don't make quite as much cash flow. But then all of a sudden a lot of that pent-up demand is gets released. And you're the one sitting there going, "Sweet. I'm pretty well positioned now."

[00:46:53]100% and it's easy to kick the can down the road and go, "The conditions aren't perfect." But I think you you got to play the ball where it lies. Play what's happening right now. And right now the short-term rental properties are doing really well in a number of locations across Australia. So I think if you you know, if you're looking at buying a cash-flowing asset and you're looking for something that's going to get good returns, it is a viable option in the market at the moment to be buying short-term rentals in certain locations.

[00:47:20]I want to start pulling apart more about the serviceability side because from what I understand that is one of the big keys. Like you never used to be able to do or pretty much anything with it. But now there actually are a few lenders that will start taking it. But it depends on the way that it's presented as well. Like there's there's all of these little nuances very similar to your ongoing going concern versus selling the assets. The tiny little things that change then make this huge difference in lending. We always found even going back a couple of years ago when the lending restrictions were a little bit tougher, we could always provide a long-term rental CMA. We could always say this was what it would rent on the long-term rental market. And they I take that into account in the serviceability.

[00:47:57]So, that's always a a fallback there, but you're 100% right. There is lenders these days that will actually consider the the income on it on its own. Cuz realistically, and again, I got to probably talk to Jeremy, another accountant, about this like if you're going to hold this now, especially with the changes in CGT potentially coming, buying it in a company now might actually even make more sense than buying it in a corporate trustee structure or your personal name.

[00:48:19]Because then, even though it doesn't pass the passive income test, um actually, you know what? Maybe it does. It would, wouldn't it? Cuz it is it's a business. Oh this Yeah, again, but I have to >> [laughter] >> I've got to We're going down a rabbit hole. Yeah, yeah. I've got to talk to Jeremy about this. Basically, where I'm going with it though is if if you've actually got it in a company, then and because this is more of a cash flow asset, then you're potentially going to be setting yourself up better. But again, I'm just to make it clear, definitely not answering that question right now. This is an answer that I actually want to find out for you guys though on another episode, but this is a question that if you're going to go down this this path that Shawn's talking about, these are the questions you want to start asking your expert team. This is the stuff that from the very beginning, so you don't find out later on, "Actually, if you hadn't sold it this way, you could have got this." Or if you hadn't bought it in this structure, you'd be paying 20% less tax every year. Ask the questions up front.

[00:49:08]Cuz some of these things can't be undone. If we had sold the business how it was originally going to go through, we couldn't go back at the end of the financial year when we lodge our tax returns and restructure that deal. It it's done.

[00:49:19]And same thing, if you buy a property under a certain entity, under your personal name or like you can undo it, it's just a lot more expensive than getting it right the first time. You can. I'm going through it at the moment, and it is expensive. But but yes, it's it's definitely not ideal. It can be a mistake that costs you tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars, or you just don't end up ever fixing the mistake and have to just live with it because it's too expensive. Correct.

[00:49:43]Shawn, you and I talk about your story so casually, and you very much talk about it so casually. I think it's nothing short of incredible that you Like big numbers get thrown around so much in the world of the internet and there'll be a few people that'll be like, oh, 700 grand, that's not that much because they've just seen some other video that was like 700 million.

[00:49:59]But it's like you're you're a normal dude from Cairns that has done like with with Nikki, you and your wife have just kept it doing. And I don't know many people that can pay off their home.

[00:50:10]Actually, that's a lie, not quite.

[00:50:12]I don't know there's there's not that many people that can pay off their home in 18 months. It's not doable working.

[00:50:18]Very interesting point here. Yes, you've you've thought outside the box. You've created value. Like I got a vision board out there on the the wall and it's got a little picture of Fred and what it says above it is teach him to be a happy man that creates a value he enjoys and I feel like you very much embody that because you've done something that you enjoyed. You got to a point where you weren't enjoying as much and then you were like, well, cool, but now let's sell it. You live an amazing lifestyle with with the girls. You have still got your finger in the pie. Uh you're building your own party at the moment as well. Like you're doing a lot of stuff, but I I feel like the takeaways for people is to keep moving forward. If you think cash flow can't be achieved now, it can.

[00:50:59]100%.

[00:51:00]>> Think outside the box. If you think you can't make money in apartments, I'm still not happy about that strata, but but you can.

[00:51:06]And it's it's just about not taking something from face value and going that doesn't work. It's like sometimes look that little bit further. There might be a credible opportunity in front of you.

[00:51:16]And you've also shown that with some some hustle in a relatively short amount of time, you can completely change your life options. 100%. I love it. And there's any final words of wisdom, anything you'd like to to leave with us today, Shawn? Do the thing. Do the thing. I think that's going to be stuck with me for a while now. It's just do the thing.

[00:51:32]>> isn't it?

[00:51:33]>> It's great. It's great. But Shawn, I do want to ask you, we're actually going out for dinner tonight, mate. Shawn Craig, what is your favorite pizza? It's probably changed over the years of the last time I was on the show, but anything with a a barbecue sauce.

[00:51:45]Anything with a barbecue Is it a meat lovers or or is it either or? Either or, just a good barbecue sauce base. Okay, we Sign me up.

[00:51:51]>> I can make that happen. That's easy.

[00:51:53]>> [laughter] >> Mate, thank you so much for sharing your story. You've flown 3,000 km to be here.

[00:51:58]I hope you get to visit a little bit of wine country while you're here, mate, but I really appreciate your time.

[00:52:03]Thanks for having me on.