This blog thing is new for me. One thing is in my favor, I LOVE TO WRITE AND I HAVE A LOT TO SAY. Only problem I have is what to say FIRST, maybe you could share with me what you are the most interested in?
Until then, this week I will continue with Meet Cathy & Stu Scheller. If HGTV ever wants to feature old retirees doing Act II, we have a name for our show, OLD DAWGS, NEW TRICKS. We may not do as many homes as Chip and Joanna Gaines, but we sure are interesting! We have completed one to two homes per year for the past 13 years, we have sold some but mainly we have kept them and rented them out short-term. Our marriage has survived a lot of drama. Chaos is drawn to us. We are drawn to chaos. Hoping for some smoother waters for a few years.
We have learned a lot along the way. Many things we were SURE we would never NEED to do, WOULD do, or COULD do...and yet we find ourselves doing them. The longest journey starts with the first step. The people, the information, the guidance, it all comes if you are willing to put yourself, your finances, your vulnerability on the line. We were all in, no safety net to fall back on. Failure was never an option for us. We cashed in our 401K, our savings, IRA'S, stocks and went into debt. We were called crazy, stupid, and many other things, but we moved forward.
I started the business of Short Term Rentals after I saw an ad at the Superbowl for HomeAway in 2010. We had a little experience by owning and renting out a row house to college students. I had decided nothing could be worse than that!! I had $180,000 in an IRA that we had taken out to purchase a home for rental income. The deal fell through. Stocks went up and I could not buy back in without taking a loss. I looked around and chose a condo on Navarre Beach FL. A hurricane had decimated the area, and then the Gulf Oil spill had done it's best to finish it off. The condo assoc. had bottles of Dawn Soap on the board walk to wash the oil off of your feet after walking on the beach. We bought a small one bedroom condo with a killer view right on the beach, and waited for years for the area to come back to health. I played around with learning how to rent out the condo with the help of their management team, while working with VRBO as well. It took years to make enough of a profit to purchase a second home.
This is a photo of Stu putting siding back on Cape Lake House after Hurricane Ian. This is on the second story and it was at least 110 degrees in the shade! See that Tee that Stu is sporting, yes he did run the full Flying Pig Marathon after battling stage 4 throat cancer. Fun fact about Stu, he likes that everytime he puts his name in the computer, spell check corrects Stu to Stud! Stu worked part time for a few years after beating cancer, and also started working part time with me. That is when things became really interesting, I am type AA decision maker who does not play well with others, He is a type AA decision maker who believes everyone should do what he says. Our subs were confused and conflicted as we battled it out, often in front of them.
The one thing that is a constant, we build it as we go, and we love each other. Literally we decide to do it, then we figure out how. If we waited for a plan, finances and all of the things that rational people do, we simply would not do it. We would talk ourselves out of it. This life would not work for everyone, it works for us. We hear everyday from other's that we are living their dream. Usually it is someone much, much younger than us, saying that!
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