Speaker: Welcome to Keynotes, a podcast just for Costco homeowners.
This is where we explore how to get the most out of your relationship with
Costco, learn tips and tricks on how to make more income with your property,
and learn a little bit about the short term rental industry along the way.
I've been a vacation rental nerd since my 20s, and the team has finally let
me have this podcast so I can share everything I've learned with you.
I'm your host, Steve Schwab, and this is Keynotes.
Hey, welcome to Keynotes.
I'm your host, Steve Schwab, and today we are with Greg and Stacy
Wesson from Sun River, Oregon.
Guys, welcome to the show.
Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having us, Steve.
Speaker: Yeah, glad to have you guys here.
We've known each other now for, is it coming up on three years?
Speaker 2: Yes, just about three years,
Speaker: I think.
Isn't that great?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker: I remember meeting you guys over there in the, at the mill.
Old Mill and Bend, yeah.
The Old Mill and Bend, and I'd just gotten off my motorcycle.
I'd been riding a motorcycle from Montana to Arizona, and I made a detour
to meet you guys, and I was like, well, we'll get off the motorcycle and call
them, and literally I threw my leg over the motorcycle to get off, turned
around, and, There you guys were.
It was right there on the spot.
We had a really great dinner.
It was like an immediate connection.
Really enjoyed that day.
Uh, getting to meet you guys the first time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we were, we were blown away that you would come all that way
on a motorcycle and have dinner with us.
Speaker: That was really fun.
That was a fun day.
You guys are generational in Sun River as property managers.
How'd you guys get into it?
Speaker 2: So, yeah, my mom was cleaning houses for second homes.
40 years ago and my dad and a real estate buddy thought,
Hey, we could rent those out.
And so they got some contacts from my mom and that's how the business started.
And I've come and gone several times.
And the last time I came in and took over as general manager and have been
working in the business for about 10 years, Greg got into it five years ago, 10
Speaker 3: years
Speaker: ago,
Speaker 3: 2012.
And you were a school teacher before this, right?
Right.
Majority of my early years were restaurant work.
My mother had been a school teacher, and I had just come out
of a divorce, and so I was kind of looking to change some things up.
So I went and I got my Master's of Arts in Teaching, and by the time I got done with
that program, The jobs were not in Oregon, the jobs were in China, the jobs were in
North Dakota, the jobs were in Alaska, and I really didn't want to leave the area.
So, I stuck around, I reconnected with Stacy, we'd gone to high school together.
Um, but didn't, we ran in different circles, didn't really know each
other, but reconnected with her and got involved in the business, so.
All that hospitality background came to play.
Speaker: Good hospitality background.
I guess the thinking that you were a school teacher was from your degree.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I had that.
And I did, I subbed a couple years and just was not able to land a job there, so.
Well, we're glad you didn't and you came to
Speaker: this field.
We love having you here.
Guys, as you've taken over the company and ran with it, can you tell me a little bit
about your approach to hospitality when it comes to both guests and homeowners?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we are very relational.
That's how we We work with our clients, whether it's the owner or the renter.
Life is hard and vacationing is hard, even though you're getting away and having fun.
You know, costs and things not working right can really
make your vacation go south.
And having a vacation home and having to trust somebody with an investment
you have that may be, in our case, a couple hours away or overseas, as
we have owners that haven't probably seen their home in six years.
And they know that when they do come, everything looks as it should.
Communication is the number one thing to have, because if you can't communicate
with owners or renters often, then they start thinking that you don't care.
Speaker: It's a high trust relationship
and so that communication builds trust.
Speaker 3: I know for me and my background, one of the restaurants I
worked at one of their core beliefs was you take care of the guest and
the business will take care of itself.
And that's certainly right here, except that we have Two guests in a sense.
We have the owners and we have the actual guests coming in So we have
to take care of both of those and in doing so the business takes care of
Speaker: itself.
Yeah Yeah, it's a dual agency, isn't it?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker: So speaking of both guests and homeowners inside of Kasaga, we
have something called Owner centric.
It's a philosophy that we all subscribe to.
Can you guys tell me what it means to you?
Speaker 2: I Think for me, it's the easiest thing because Without the
owner, we don't have a business.
Because we don't own any personally.
We are renting and managing other people's homes.
And so, they are our customer first and foremost because they
provide us with the item, the house, the tool, to be able to rent it.
And so, without them, we have nothing.
And I think that's making sure that they feel that, that they know that, that hey,
we're so glad to have you as a family.
It's part of our brand that we're sharing their home with, and I think
that's super important when, um, you're talking to people, because I know a lot
of people are guest first, but at the end of the day, you can be guest first
all day, but if you don't have anything to rent, then you're, you're in trouble.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Yeah.
It's definitely different being in a business where you don't have
something, you're selling a physical item, and so you have to take care of
that home because it is your business.
Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
And
Speaker 3: it makes sense that in the orange grade it comes
Speaker: first.
You know, I, I always think of guests, you know, and making sure that we're
taking great care of guests is actually serving that homeowner and make sure that
those properties are being protected.
We have the right guests in there.
They're getting a great experience, so they're leaving
five star reviews, which help the algorithms , and rebooking processes.
But while we have a huge responsibility to those guests.
Our fiduciary is to those homeowners because you know we're the stewards of
their properties and that's in many cases like a lifelong relationship we have
with these homeowners and it transcends just the transactional business.
We often have relationships with these people that last for
generations, especially you know, you know, Your cases, right?
You know, with a generational company, I know that you guys have talked to me
about owners that have been there, signed up with your dad and are still there.
, Making sure that we're owner centric is what keeps those homeowners
around for a long, long time.
That generational thing.
You guys are really involved in the community.
I know you do a lot there.
Can you tell me how that plays into your thoughts in
hospitality and how you operate?
Speaker 2: For us, community is important because, you know, we
have vacation rentals in places that aren't always vacation rental areas.
Or, we still have some full time owners that, you know, It's mostly
vacationerals, so you're going to have vacationerals people around you.
But I think connecting with them and that they know that we
actually care about the community.
We're not just putting heads in beds, which is a term thrown around
by a lot of people that just think that's what vacationerals is about.
We want people to experience the community, enjoy the community while
they're there, and learn about the area.
And I've done a lot of work with boards.
We're actually run by an HOA.
And I've spent the last several years really bringing that
relationship back to the forefront of it being a healthy relationship.
I'd say over the 40 years it's come and gone.
And by connecting with them, working with them, they now know me and they know,
Oh, I'm going to take care of something.
If a renter's causing problems, they know I'm going to go take care of it.
We actually, I helped create a nuisance property rule that they implemented.
If I hadn't been part of their communities in the past, they probably would have
done it without a vacation rental manager.
And that's, that really hurts.
You need that voice from us to tell you how to keep our guests in line.
Speaker: Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, when I hear you say that and speak about the community in that way, I
always think about loving the community.
And I hear you guys often speak very lovingly about the communities and instead
of using the community, which I hear.
other people doing at times talking about, you know, they're just heads in beds or
doesn't really matter what the neighbors think is their property, whatever.
And that's really the wrong approach.
And, you know, speaking to you day to day, having conversations with you, your,
your love of the community really comes through and making sure that you guys
are not just stewards of the homeowners, which is, you know, our, like I said,
our fiduciary, but also your stewards of the community, which is really important.
Speaker 3: I think for us, it's not somewhere we came
to and started renting homes.
Stacy grew up in Sun river.
She would ride her bike down to the local pool and swim and then
go to the local ice cream shop.
And a lot of her foundational memories are there.
For me, I moved there while I was in high school.
My first job was at Sun River Resort.
I spent my high school years there and that's where my parents lived.
So it's more than a place for us to have homes and have other people experience.
It's having people experience what we got to experience.
I started vacationing there in 1986.
And so I experienced that part first.
And then I got to experience living there and now I get to
experience sharing that area.
So yeah, it's absolutely part of who we are.
Speaker: What a great way of passing the baton to the next generation of people
coming to experience something that you guys have grown up with and loved.
Really cool.
We talked a little bit about the owner centric model and what it means.
How do you guys put that into practice on a day to day basis?
Speaker 2: I put it into practice quite often.
I record videos for my owners and send that to them.
And they're just usually a couple of minutes.
So they get an idea of what's going on.
And the owner, you know, owner one time go, you know, the emails are great, but
having video from you, just, I see you and I can connect with you while we're
up in Canada and not near our home.
And I just think it's those personal touches of reaching
out, being transparent.
What I loved about Costco is that being transparent with
owners, That's all they want.
And yes, you have to have some really tough conversations sometimes,
but by showing them that we're not going to hide things from
them, we want their best interest.
And when we work with them, it just shows and they always know what we're doing.
It's never a surprise.
. Speaker: Do you have a memorable story that really demonstrates, , your values
and The way you think about homeowners,
Speaker 2: we think of our homeowners, I'd say it's family because some of
them have been with us for a long time.
We have a particular homeowner who I think he's been with us all 40 years, if not 38.
His son was at the one firm that lost everybody in 9 11.
You know, and so we're there for the losses.
He lost his wife two years ago.
And so we're there for these big events, even though we're
just manager vacation home.
But he calls me all the time and he asked for me and half the time he
just wants to make a reservation.
But I take that call every time.
It may not be my job anymore, but I just love talking to our
owners and he's still traveling.
And it's great to see that.
I think he's 95 now, but it's just, he's been with us for so long.
It's like a family member.
And.
We see that with a lot of our owners, especially now since some of our
homeowners have been with us 20, 30 years.
We're now seeing the transition of them being generational where
their kids are now taking over.
And now they have different needs and wants for the house.
And in rental, adding things that they, you know, being younger, they know some
more things like TVs are a big one.
You know, we see a lot of the kids come in and go, okay, we need all new TVs.
It's like, yes, thank you.
But it's just a relational business.
And I love that.
And I love that we've known these people for years in some way
that we're part of their family.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
I know we've had homes who, they've been with us a long time, and then
they look out and they see this shiny new object come into town.
They say, oh, we'll try that.
And then a year later, they're coming back saying it's not the same.
They don't function the same way, they don't treat us the same way, they don't
take care of our house the way you do.
And so they come back to us, and we've had at least two that I can think
of in my time that have done that.
Speaker: You know, you can undercut commissions, but
you can't commoditize trust.
And building those relationships that transcend business with your homeowners,
it becomes a love letter often.
Like, you know, the fact that you're taking care of somebody,
you're going out of the way in non transactional ways just to love on them.
When there's problems, they call you to fix them instead of,
you know, calling to fire you.
Or, when they decide maybe it's time to try something else and they
come back, they start to understand the value of that relationship
because, you know, it's human nature.
Those become letters back to us as property managers, you know, through
our communities and I think that you guys really exemplify that well.
If anyone wants to get a hold of y'all to talk about property management in
Sun River, how would they find you?
Speaker 2: So yeah, we have obviously our website@cascaravacations.com,
and then I am the one that typically talks to the owner.
, 5 4 1 3 0 6 3 8 1 1.
It's the joy of us as we're boots on the ground there all the time, have
staff seven days a week that can help.
Speaker: Yeah.
Guys, thanks so much for coming on.
Appreciate it.
Always such a pleasure talking to you guys.
Thanks.
Talk to you soon.
All right.