Unlocked by Matt Landau

Toby Babich not only runs a successful vacation rental and management business, he has taken over as president of the VRMA during this difficult time for the industry.   In a virtual sit-down with Matt, he provides insight into how different vacation rentals are doing, gets into how he has kept his own business afloat and lays out what the VRMA has in the works for the industry.   Please visit our...

In Dana's relatively short time in the vacation rental industry, she has emerged as an advocate and leader for responsible, professional rentals in a tough market.  By pioneering 'The Good Neighbor Summit' in Denver, Dana learned how getting public and private stakeholders together can change the narrative about the industry and generate positive press.   In our first season 5 episode, she sits do...

Film producer Tammy Rowe has been working with Matt now for about 5 years. Along with her partner Stuart Hooper, Tammy has a production company based in Panama and works all over the world producing non-fiction broadcast and online content. The chat with Tammy dives into some of the values she (a Millennial!) looks for in her purchases including her travels, the platforms she uses to research, and...

Friend, colleague, and producer of all Matt's media "concerns,"  Stuart Hooper has a production company based in Panama and works all over the world producing non-fiction broadcast and online content.  Along with his partner Tammy, he has been producing The Vacation Rental Show and the Unlocked Podcast, as well as almost anything else Matt dreams up for a few years now.   The chat with Stuart epis...

This update episode of the Unlocked Podcast features Matt giving a heads up on the upcoming season, which will feature industry luminaries who have managed crises before. What to do, how to stay positive. After speaking with owners and managers daily, Matt also shares some of the patterns he's noticing beneath the surface of what was "the fastest growing sector in travel" now stopped dead in its t...

We're in-between podcast seasons right now. So I thought it might be nice to use this platform to share something very important: The Vacation Rental Advocacy Playbook: http://www.vacationrentaladvocacy.com It's a compilation of videos from advocacy specialists that can help you and your colleagues in your destination prepare for the worst. You can also see the 20 videos I picked out and reviewed...

In this very special season finale episode of Unlocked with Matt Landau, our sponsor, Sean Miller of Point Central turns the microphone around on Matt and and asks the questions we've been waiting nearly sixty episodes to answer.   Everything from Matt's management past to his Vacation Rental Show future is revealed, along with a great deal of thinking and action items about the vacation rental in...

Brooke Pfautz is the Founder of Vintory, one of the only companies that I am aware of that helps property managers grow their inventory. I traveled to meet Brooke in Maryland, where he lives with his family and where he built a property management business from 0-500 properties in 5 years. Since he sold that business and now focuses full time on helping other managers grow, we focused the majority...

This is probably the most unexpected podcast we've ever published. It features a couple, Emily and Jesse Cole, who epitomize a lot of vacation rental hosts using Airbnb to build a real estate portfolio. But that's the end of where the Cole's are normal. They also own a baseball team. Where the *MALE* cheerleaders dance on dugouts, kids find signed baseballs hidden like easter eggs, and tickets ($1...

Carole Lynn Sharoff of Atlantic Vacation Homes in Massachusetts is one of the wisest vacation rental professionals I have met in my 10+ years of interviewing. You can tell a lot about someone from how others describe them. And when some colleagues like Jodi Refosco and Jennifer Frankenstein Harris heard I was launching a new season of the podcast, they were all unanimous: you have to interview Car...

Tim Cafferty of Outer Banks Blue Realty in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina is one of the most admired and respected professional managers in the world. He is a paragon of professionalism and hospitality as a whole. Tim's region is something of a mecca for short term rentals in the USA, but when Tim started the business, he wasn't expecting his business to take off the way it did. Many years ago, I had...

Tammi Sims is the VP of Customer at Properly, an industry-leading cleaning app with a host of deeper applications. Perhaps more importantly, Tammi (along with her partner Alex Nigg) are visionary vacation rental leaders: they identified a need for this solution way back before anyone could even name the problem. Tammi is a regular at industry conferences -- and it was at VRMA in New Orleans where...

David Krathamer never thought he'd be running a world-class hospitality business. Along with his wife Edna, David is the owner of D&E Landing in Guntersville, Alabama. I stop over for the evening and hang out and go fishing with David as often as I get the chance. And on this particular visit, I decided to record a podcast. What's most intriguing about David and his business is the precision and d...

If there is one person that has been a steady constant throughout the last decade of vacation rental mayhem, it's Koryn Okey. She started out with a company called FlipKey and now works as the VP of Sales at Breezeway (an awesome cleaning app you should demo immediately). If you have ever attended a vacation rental conference, chances are you have seen or met or at least heard Koryn laugh. Her exp...

Scott Shatford is the founder of Airdna, which is (by my estimates) the most cited resource in the short term rental industry. I have been virtual friends with Scott since about 5 years back when he and I were sort of dueling vacation rental experts. But soon thereafter, Scott took the relatively simple idea of compiling all the data on Airbnb properties, and built it atop a fascinating business m...

Elizabeth Maora Sickels is one of those people with infectious energy: she's one of those people who you can't help but want to listen to and hang out with. I first discovered Elizabeth on LinkedIn where she was posting a regular stream of videos titled "Dirty Laundry" in which she'd address one less-than-savory aspect of the short term rental business. The videos are as hilarious as they are true...

Corey Jones is the creator of Lucky Savannah, which in my humble opinion is one of the most impressive boutique vacation rental companies in the world. Corey got started in short term rentals, like many people, by complete accident. A visiting French student was secretly renting out historic Savannah property, and when she disappeared, she left him a note: you should continue renting this property...

Jodi Refosco has built her Taylor-Made Deep Creek Vacations into a veritable empire in Deep Creek Maryland, but it wasn't an easy start.  She grew up with vacation rentals as the family business, but restarted in the depths of the financial crisis with a single property.   From paying cleaning staff by taking on late night snow-plow work to dealing with competitors, owners, and guests - Jodi has i...

CJ Stam is a vacation rental legend to many who know him.  He has built Southern Comfort Cabin Rentals into one of the best cabins getaway fleets in the American South, and now he is focusing on new purpose-built cabins for his vacation rental fleet.   I was road tripping recently and decided to stop and do an in-depth podcast with CJ.  In-depth podcasting with CJ may or may not involve real estat...

Amy Hinote is an industry legend and I finally managed to get her on a podcast prior to VRMA international in New Orleans, the first city she got drunk in as a teenager.   Amy rolled in with an entourage of vacation rental luminaries including Steve Milo, Simon Lehmann, and Heather Bayer, so the peanut gallery was intimidating...but that would not stop us. In this interview, we learn the history o...

Jennifer Frankenstein-Harris built her Great Ocean Condos business in New Smyrna Beach Florida into a 300+ property empire after being unable to find a technology-forward management company for a single property.  Now the largest manager in her area, Jennifer has played an important role in raising the standards and holding colleagues accountable in her region. I had a chance to sit down with Jenn...

Sarah Bradford of Winter Park Lodging & Steamboat Lodging Company not only grew to 160 highly-respected properties from just a handful, she also has her own vacation rental-themed podcast and strong opinions about Norwegian-inspired design.  I had a chance to sit down with Sarah at the Streamline Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona. Sarah is a regular on the conference circuit and has developed a 360-de...

  After an action packed VRMA week, I got the chance to sit down with Terry Whyte and talk about the conference as well as software and I wanted to share our conversation while VRMA is fresh in everyone's minds. Please note that the 4th Season of Point Central sponsored Unlocked launches next Wednesday the 23rd of October! Links mentioned in this episode: www.vrma.org www.vrmb.com/keystone-awards/

This episode takes a look back on Matt Landau's favorite lessons from the season. Links: https://www.pointcentral.com/vrmb/ https://www.vrmb.com/podcast/ep40-short-term-rent-long-term-win-with-matt-hoffman/ https://www.vrmb.com/podcast/ep36-a-theater-of-growth-with-cliff-johnson/ https://www.vrmb.com/podcast/ep-34-no-time-to-waste-with-megan-mccrea/ https://www.vrmb.com/podcast/ep-33-picking-the-l...

Sean Miller is the President of PointCentral, the sponsor of this podcast. And I just want to say up front that including him in the series was not required or part of the sponsorship contract or anything: Sean's just a really interesting and smart guy...someone I was really curious to learn more about. I had the chance to sit down with Sean in Barcelona Spain at the Kigoworld conference.  And he...