#emergency window treatment Lexington

[shwetanshisinha]

Urgent window treatment: Emergency window work Lexington.

Windows serve more than only as a source of light in a house; they also serve as a safety feature and a climatic regulator. A home's mood and style are first established by its windows.

It is important for new homes to have lots of windows, but it is not ideal to leave them bare and unadorned. How can a window be made to be fashionable, safe, and functional? Introducing window coverings. Blinds, shades, and drapes are a few of these treatments. It is easy to miss this product, but that should not happen. A barren window can be very unattractive since it disturbs the peace and harmony of the space it is in. Window treatments combine practicality and beauty but there are some cases where you need some immediate work.

Miller’s Window Work recognizes that you require immediate assistance from an expert if your home windows have been damaged. come to our place during official hours—in our fully furnished store response unit to repair the damage. Here is what to do if you require urgent window treatment in Lexington for your home.

Emergency window treatment does not have to be difficult or expensive when your windows are damaged. Miller's Window Work provides services for replacing broken window glass in an emergency case.

Types of window treatment

Choosing window treatments in Lexington can be challenging because there are so many different window sizes and shapes in new homes. Awning, arc, bay, casement, circular, double hung, rectangle, and sliding are a few examples of window kinds. Some of the most traditional and well-liked window designs for living rooms and bedrooms include double-hung and rectangle. Living rooms, kitchens, studies, and dining areas frequently benefit from greater natural light using sliding, circular, and bay windows.

Blinds. Blinds are window coverings made of rigid slats that may be adjusted to allow or restrict light. The slats' orientations enable different degrees of direct light to the pool. Vertical blinds, which use long strips to produce the same effect and function as horizontal blinds, are more common. For sliding doors and large windows, panel blinds have the same construction as vertical blinds. Aluminum, bamboo, wood, vinyl, fabric, and faux wood are just a few of the materials that can be used to make blinds.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Ohio was no stranger to deadly building fires. But none of the previous fires foreshadowed the 1930 Easter Monday fire as closely as the October 8, 1928, dormitory blaze at the State Brick Plant at Junction City, Ohio, where fifteen inmates died and twenty-seven were severely injured. Indeed, the day after the Columbus disaster, one journalist noted that the Brick Plant fire had called attention to the perilous conditions that reigned in prison farms and road camps and other related facilities, describing them as “firetraps” lacking adequate provision for the immediate release of inmates in the event of a fire.

Unlike the dangerously overcrowded Ohio Penitentiary, holding close to 4,500 inmates, the dormitory at the Brick Plant was a “barn-like structure of wooden frame and corrugated iron covering, erected upon a ten foot brick foundation,” with accommodations for 275 prisoners “sleeping in two-tiered bunks arranged in pairs with narrow aisles between.” Including 13 trusties, who did not sleep in the dorm, there were a total of 288 men at the Plant.

Several inmates discovered the Brick Plant fire at midnight, but by the time the alarm resounded through the dimly lit dormitory room it was too late. The fire spread quickly along the building’s floor and framework, leaping “from bunk to bunk across narrow aisles, while convicts cursed and screamed as they struggled to open doors and windows.” Making matters even worse, the fire hydrant did not work. As in the Columbus blaze in 1930, the convicts were awakened in time to escape, but upon reaching the nearest exits found them locked and barred. According to guards and convicts, it was probable that “many of the dead were trampled to death in a ‘mad rush for the exits.’”

Convicts who had made it out into the fresh air remembered looking back through windows “into the flaming interior,” where they witnessed sights that they would never forget, seeing fellow prisoners “wreathed in flames, rushing to  and fro” before disappearing in the smoke and flames that enveloped them as they fell to the floor. The roof and walls soon collapsed, showering ring the onlookers and writhing victims with burning embers.

As in the Columbus fire, stories of convict heroism abounded. Among the heroes was a convict overcome by smoke and burned to death as he tried to rescue his friend. Another prisoner, who had been responsible for the prison commissary, ran inside to fight the flames but perished “on his job.” One inmate, Andy Kiebert, who made it out safely, ran back into the burning building to rescue the convict mascot, a terrier named Tiny King. The animal lover suffered burns but fought his way back out, emerging with the relatively unscathed dog under his coat.

News reports would describe the fifteen fire victims as “charred bodies, part of them only small piles of bones,” with “few or none … possible of identification.”  A dozen of the more seriously burned were taken to the hospital at the Ohio Pen for treatment. A cursory identification of the dead was attempted, but remained tentative, their identifications being based for the most part on the location of the body when found. Prisoners aided in the task “to some extent,” but not with any degree of certainty. In the early going, the only ones identified were two African American inmates. A prison dentist examined the victims’ teeth to aid in the identifications. The remains were buried in the New Lexington Cemetery, where markers were set up for those whose identities had been established. Twenty men were missing, three of whom, officials believed, had seized the opportunity to escape during the confusion that followed the fire’s discovery. Others, including many cons, insisted none had escaped. Despite the opportunity for a learning moment, few lessons had been learned at the Junction City fire."

- Mitchel Roth, Fire in the Big House: America's Deadliest Prison Disaster. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2019. p. 89-90.

[perspectivesusa]

Motorized Window Treatments in Lexington: Embracing Convenience and Style

Explore the convenience of motorized window treatments in Lexington. Elevate your home with cutting-edge technology for effortless light and privacy control. Experience seamless integration with smart home systems, adding a touch of sophistication to your living spaces. Opt for motorized window treatments in Lexington for a perfect blend of modernity and functionality.

[laniakeabooks]

January Wrap Up

I read 11 books in January which is a personal record. I’ve included the synopsis pulled directly from Goodreads and my (short) thoughts on the book. If you’d like a longer review of any of the books I read this month, feel free to request it!

The Innocence Treatment by Ari Goelman - ⭐⭐⭐

Lauren has a disorder that makes her believe everything her friends tell her--and she believes everyone is her friend. Her innocence puts her at constant risk, so when she gets the opportunity to have an operation to correct her condition, she seizes it. But after the surgery, Lauren is changed. Is she a paranoid lunatic with violent tendencies? Or a clear-eyed observer of the world who does what needs to be done?

Told in journal entries and therapy session transcripts, The Innocence Treatment is a collection of Lauren's papers, annotated by her sister long after the events of the novel. A compelling YA debut thriller that is part speculative fiction and part shocking tell-all of genetic engineering and government secrets, Lauren's story is ultimately an electrifying, propulsive, and spine-tingling read.

 Nothing I found particularly impressive… it had potential but didn’t quite meet it.

 The Memory Book by Lara Avery - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

 Sammie was always a girl with a plan: graduate at the top of her class and get out of her small town as soon as humanly possible. Nothing will stand in her way--not even a rare genetic disorder the doctors say will slowly start to steal her memories and then her health. What she needs is a new plan.

So the Memory Book is born: Sammie's notes to her future self, a document of moments great and small. It's where she'll record every perfect detail of her first date with longtime crush, Stuart--a brilliant young writer who is home for the summer. And where she'll admit how much she's missed her childhood best friend, Cooper, and even take some of the blame for the fight that ended their friendship.

Through a mix of heartfelt journal entries, mementos, and guest posts from friends and family, readers will fall in love with Sammie, a brave and remarkable girl who learns to live and love life fully, even though it's not the life she planned.

 I am shocked. I never expected to like a contemporary this much... especially "sick-lit" or whatever people are calling it. Maybe it was because I found a lot of what Sammie said to be so relatable, or maybe because NPC is exactly the type of disease I'd like to research in my future. Maybe it's because one of my greatest fears is getting dementia and losing my memory.

Whatever it was, I hope I can find it again in another book.

 Vox by Christina Dalcher - ⭐⭐

 Set in an America where half the population has been silenced, VOX is the harrowing, unforgettable story of what one woman will do to protect herself and her daughter.

On the day the government decrees that women are no longer allowed more than 100 words daily, Dr. Jean McClellan is in denial—this can't happen here. Not in America. Not to her.

This is just the beginning.

Soon women can no longer hold jobs. Girls are no longer taught to read or write. Females no longer have a voice. Before, the average person spoke sixteen thousand words a day, but now women only have one hundred to make themselves heard.

But this is not the end.

For herself, her daughter, and every woman silenced, Jean will reclaim her voice

 Uh, yeah, not impressed. Disappointed. Annoyed. It felt like Dalcher was trying too hard and was clearly ridding on the coattails of The Handmaid’s Tale’s recent re-emergence.

Also, the narrator on the audiobook and pronounce Wernicke’s area which just grated on my nerves and honestly pissed me off.

 First We Were IV by Alexandra Sirowy - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

 It started for pranks, fun, and forever memories.

A secret society – for the four of us.

The rules: Never lie. Never tell. Love each other.

We made the pledge and danced under the blood moon on the meteorite in the orchard. In the spot we found the dead girl five years earlier. And discovered the ancient drawings way before that.

Nothing could break the four of us apart – I thought.

But then, others wanted in. Our seaside town had secrets. History.

We wanted revenge.

We broke the rules. We lied. We told. We loved each other too much, not enough, and in ways we weren’t supposed to.

Our invention ratcheted out of control.

What started as a secret society, ended as justice. Revenge. Death. Rebellion.

 Wooooowwwww... I am starting off this year with some pretty good reads. Granted, I read probably 3/4 of this one in emerge on my birthday after having twisted my knee skiing the day before...

This book didn't take the path I thought it would. It just felt like the climax and conclusion occurred in the same paragraph? I don't know maybe that's just me...

I'd love to see this as a TV show (maybe Netflix since they tend to do a rocking job).

 Day 21 by Cass Morgan - ⭐⭐⭐

 It's been 21 days since the hundred landed on Earth. They're the only humans to set foot on the planet in centuries...or so they thought. Facing an unknown enemy, Wells attempts to keep the group together. Clarke strikes out for Mount Weather, in search of other Colonists, while Bellamy is determined to rescue his sister, no matter the cost. And back on the ship, Glass faces an unthinkable choice between the love of her life and life itself.

In this pulse-pounding sequel to Kass Morgan's The 100, secrets are revealed, beliefs are challenged, and relationships are tested. And the hundred will struggle to survive the only way they can -- together.

 I still much prefer the Netflix adaptation. Although I enjoy this recovering from an apocalyptic event storyline the books take, I find that they lack the action that I love so much in the show… not to mention that my favourite characters don’t exist.

 52 Reasons to Hate My Father by Jessica Brody - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

 Lexington Larrabee has never to work a day in her life. After all, she’s the heiress to the multi-billion-dollar Larrabee Media empire. And heiresses are not supposed to work. But then again, they’re not supposed to crash brand new Mercedes convertibles into convenience stores on Sunset Blvd either.

Which is why, on Lexi’s eighteen birthday, her ever-absent, tycoon father decides to take a more proactive approach to her wayward life. Every week for the next year, she will have to take on a different low-wage job if she ever wants to receive her beloved trust fund. But if there’s anything worse than working as a maid, a dishwasher, and a fast-food restaurant employee, it’s dealing with Luke, the arrogant, albeit moderately attractive, college intern her father has assigned to keep tabs on her.

In a hilarious “comedy of heiress” about family, forgiveness, good intentions, and best of all, second chances, Lexi learns that love can be unconditional, money can be immaterial, and, regardless of age, everyone needs a little saving. And although she might have 52 reasons to hate her father, she only needs one reason to love him.

 Be prepared for a spoiled, bratty, unlikable main character. If you can’t stand characters like this, then I suggest avoiding this read, especially since we are trapped in her head (1st person narration) for the duration of the book. However, Lexi does have a great character arc, so if you are able to tolerate her for the first half of the book, you’ll actually start to like her.

Another contemporary I really enjoyed… not sure if this is because I’m not as picky when it comes to my favourite and least favourite genres anymore, but then again it my just be that I stumbled across two contemporaries that suited my fancy this month.

 The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

 Romy Silvers is the only surviving crew-member of a spaceship travelling to a new planet, on a mission to establish a second home for humanity amongst the stars. Alone in space, she is the loneliest girl in the universe until she hears about a new ship which has launched from Earth – with a single passenger on board. A boy called J.

Their only communication with each other is via email – and due to the distance between them, their messages take months to transmit across space. And yet Romy finds herself falling in love.

But what does Romy really know about J? And what do the mysterious messages which have started arriving from Earth really mean?

Sometimes, there’s something worse than being alone . . .

 Okay. First of all, the UK paperback cover is gorgeous. This would have one hundred percent been a cover buy if the synopsis hadn’t also intrigued me.

I went in thinking that it would be a space-based romance, but boy was I wrong. And good thing too. I’m not a huge fan of romance (more like I tolerate it for a good plot), and this book did not focus of the blooming romance as much as I thought it would.

Space, suspense, beautiful cover? Sign me up!

 Crash by Lisa McMann - ⭐⭐⭐

 Jules lives with her family above their restaurant, which means she smells like pizza most of the time and drives their double-meatball-shaped food truck to school. It’s not a recipe for popularity, but she can handle that.

What she can’t handle is the recurring vision that haunts her. Over and over, Jules sees a careening truck hit a building and explode...and nine body bags in the snow.

The vision is everywhere—on billboards, television screens, windows—and she’s the only one who sees it. And the more she sees it, the more she sees. The vision is giving her clues, and soon Jules knows what she has to do. Because now she can see the face in one of the body bags, and it’s someone she knows. Someone she has been in love with for as long as she can remember.

In this riveting start to a gripping trilogy from New York Times bestselling author Lisa McMann, Jules has to act—and act fast—to keep her vision from becoming reality.

 Not bad but not amazing either. It’s your typical psychic teen struggling with her newly found gifts and trying to prevent a tragedy. I’ll continue on with the trilogy since I have the bind up, they’re quick reads, and they’re a good distraction from my stressful studies… so basically just what I need.

 Bang by Lisa McMann - ⭐⭐⭐

 Jules should be happy. She saved a lot of people’s lives and she’s finally with Sawyer, pretty much the guy of her dreams. But the nightmare’s not over, because she somehow managed to pass the psycho vision stuff to Sawyer. Excellent.

Feeling responsible for what he’s going through and knowing that people’s lives are at stake, Jules is determined to help him figure it all out. But Sawyer’s vision is so awful he can barely describe it, much less make sense of it. All he can tell her is there’s a gun, and eleven ear-splitting shots. Bang.

Jules and Sawyer have to work out the details fast, because the visions are getting worse and that means only one thing: time is running out. But every clue they see takes them down the wrong path. If they can’t prevent the vision from happening, lives will be lost. And they may be among the casualties…

 This second book in the Visions series took an interesting turn on the whole psychic thing, but a lot of the book was spent going back and forth between “No I don’t want to do this” to “Yes I’m in” and “No I don’t want to help” to, again… “Yes I’m in” which was kind of a drag.

 Number of Pages Read: 3438

Average Rating: 3.5

Favourite Book of the Month: The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James

The cover, the space adventure, the thriller-type aspect to the plot… everything I love all in one.

Least Favourite Book of the Month: Vox by Christina Dalcher

I was just… really disappointed.

  Keep up with me on Goodreads!  (https://www.goodreads.com/LaniakeaBooks)

[ericfruits]

The mark of Cain

FEW THINGS about Donald Trump’s rise are harder to explain than the fact that some of the most religious Americans were behind it. In 2016, 81% of white evangelicals voted for him. It seems no one was more astonished by this than those who knew him best. “He has no principles. None!” marvelled his sister Maryanne Trump Barry, according to a forthcoming family exposé by Mary L. Trump, the president’s niece.

The popular explanation for this strange nexus is that white Christians overlooked the president’s failings because of his willingness to fight their corner, by nominating conservative judges and opposing abortion. This always seemed about as persuasive as the comparisons between Mr Trump and the flawed biblical heroes it gave rise to (…Cyrus, David, you name it). Mr Trump’s Republican opponents would have nominated similar judges; no president can do much about abortion. Another explanation, argues a new book by Robert P. Jones, an authority on American religion and politics, and head of the Public Religion Research Institute, is that white Christians were especially receptive to Mr Trump’s race-baiting. Mr Jones also offers a grim theory for why this was the case.

Melding history, theology, statistical modelling and his own experience, as a Southern Baptist seminarian, Mr Jones suggests in “White Too Long” that white Christian traditions are so steeped in historic racism that “the norms of white supremacy have become deeply and broadly integrated into white Christian identity.” This is not something most white Christians (a group that includes Lexington) are aware of. They probably condemn racism. Mr Jones finds white evangelicals especially likely to express goodwill to African-Americans. But dig into their unconscious biases, he claims, and you see a different picture emerge. “In survey after survey” white Christians are much likelier than non-religious whites to express negative attitudes towards minorities and complacency about the rough treatment of African-Americans, among other indicators of racism. Asked whether police killings of black men were isolated incidents, 71% of white evangelicals said they were, compared with 38% of non-religious whites.

This is a finding to which two qualifiers are often added. First, white evangelicals are likely to be old, conservative and live in the South—characteristics that point to unreconstructed views on race independently of religion. Second, while people who simply identify as white evangelicals might hold such views, the most pious do not. Mr Jones is unconvinced by either qualifier. He controls for age, partisanship and geography in his model—and finds the same pattern. And he finds that practising evangelicals score the highest on his index of racism. He concludes that white Christian identity is “independently predictive” of racist attitudes.

Such claims are shocking. But, Mr Jones argues, the history of American Christianity makes this likelier than it might sound. The dominant southern strains of white evangelicalism were formed amid and sometimes in response to slavery. The Southern Baptists, America’s biggest denomination, was launched to defend it biblically—which it did by representing black skin as the accursed “mark of Cain”. Many southern pastors were cheerleaders for the Confederacy, then shaped the culture of nostalgia and lament (the “religion of the lost cause”) that precluded a reckoning with Jim Crow’s legacy. The stained-glass windows of some southern churches still sparkle with Confederate flags. Almost 90% of white evangelicals consider the flag “more a symbol of southern pride than of racism”.

Post-war pessimism also led evangelicals to adopt a premillennialist theology, which viewed the world as irredeemable by man. Instead of wasting their time on social justice, it urged them to focus on their individual spirituality. The perverse effect, argues Mr Jones, was to imbue white evangelicals with “an unassailable sense of religious purity” that blinded them to their own behaviour. History records instances of white congregations pouring out of church to a lynching. And such scenes were not restricted to evangelicals or the South.

As African-Americans fled north, mainstream protestants and Catholics increasingly adopted the mores of southern evangelicals. The moral majority of the 1970s and 80s, fuelled by a Catholic aversion to abortion and common fears of the civil-rights movement, was the culmination of this fusion. Mr Jones’s model suggests the same racial attitudes are common to most white Christian traditions. Evangelicals are merely the most extreme case.

This is a bleak analysis. Perhaps the least that can be said for it is that Mr Trump, now tripling down on race-baiting, knows his base. So long as he can keep his white Christian voters happy, he has a chance, and harping on race looks like his likeliest means to do so.

Mist on the water

If Mr Jones is right, a bigger question is whether churches can reckon with the bigotry the Trump era has brought to the fore. This will take more than a symbolic statement of guilt and desire for reconciliation. Most churches, to their credit, have been doing that sort of thing for decades. Mr Jones quotes a Baptist pastor in Georgia who is trying to go further as saying that the word “reconciliation” betrays a “desire to just kind of move through all the hard stuff.”

For him and his flock, the hard stuff involves trying to build a community with the black congregation next door, whose ancestors their ancestors owned. It might also mean revisiting the individualistic theology many traditions still adhere to. It could involve restitution—as slave-built Virginia Theological College demonstrated, by launching a $1.7m fund for black seminarians.

This troubling past was always the real mark of Cain, Mr Jones writes. And “today God’s anguished questions—‘Where is your brother?’ and ‘What have you done?’—still hang in the air like morning mist on the Mississippi River.”■

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline "The mark of Cain"

https://ift.tt/322zsWG

[cathrynstreich]

Reading the Market Trends…and Responding

At first glance, Bob Eidson’s path in the real estate business may look a little circuitous. But upon closer inspection, it was exactly the route needed to bring him to where he stands today, ahead of the curve on one the industry’s most up-and-coming opportunities: the investment property/Airbnb model. Here, Eidson shares how his frontline experience in the recession-era mortgage space readied him for real estate success back in his hometown of Lexington, Ky., where he tapped into his passion for creating urban infill development and read the signs on where the market was headed next. 

Maria Patterson: Your background in real estate is very varied, but let’s start at the beginning. How did you first get started? Bob Eidson: I bought my first two properties when I was 19. After school and military service, I started as a young analyst with a West Coast hedge fund that specialized in complex real estate debt assets. Those guys understood the collateral better than anyone I’ve ever known. I then joined a group out of business school where the emphasis was placed on avoiding foreclosure and keeping people in their homes. We partnered with the California Association of REALTORS® and Prospect Mortgage, and started training REALTORS® in short sales. And on the nights/weekends, I was volunteering with Los Angeles Neighborhood Housing Services to help counsel those facing imminent foreclosure. Those two experiences opened the door for me to then jump into the largest opportunity to make a significant impact to millions of homeowners: join Bank of America and grow their short sale business 100 times.

MP: That’s when the industry was trying to wrap their minds around HAMP/HAFA, right? BE: Correct. Bank of America wanted to massively increase their short sale business, so I joined a Corporate Strategy group tasked with increasing short sales 100 times. Bank of America had acquired Merrill Lynch & Countrywide, and had the nation’s largest portfolio (about 13 million mortgages). I spent two years on the strategy side coming up with the people, processes and technology for how to go from being the worst bank at doing short sales to being the best. Bank of America went from last place to first place in the HAFA (Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives) short sale program. Last I checked, they still held that first-place position.

MP: So what led you back to Kentucky? BE: Bank of America right-sized its portfolio, so I left and got into commercial real estate and development. I moved back to Kentucky, where I had ownership in a bar and the Bourbon Review (a publication covering the world of Bourbon and American whiskey). I immediately started two real estate funds for urban infill redevelopment in tier-two and tier-three markets in the Southeast, Emerge Property & Emerge Development. We focused more on downtown core redevelopment opportunities. All of our developments offered affordable housing as well as market-rate housing. I was looking for opportunities where we thought predominantly millennial and service-based employees wanted to live, in and near the core of a downtown. These are places with high walkability scores. Further, we looked for locations that were close to or adjacent to a greenway transit corridor.

MP: Why was it important for you to develop in these types of walkable communities? BE: You have to interpret the trends and embrace them. I happen to believe that people want a lot more development around transit routes. While working for Bank of America, I moved to Uptown Dallas, and the Katy Trail opened the month I moved there. I watched this trail become a vein of energy for all walks of life and all socioeconomic backgrounds. So when I moved back to Kentucky, I wanted to develop our real estate based on similar opportunities. We believe that the future is brighter if we get people out of gated communities and living amongst each other in or near walkable areas.

Shipping containers are recycled as multifamily housing units.

MP: I understand you’ve made some innovative use of shipping containers… BE: Yes, we have completed six construction projects using old shipping containers. We just finished a multifamily concept for Emerge Development. This marks our third year of doing a project with shipping containers, and the knowledge curve has been steep! Our most recent project features four bedrooms in each of four shipping containers. The building has a stick-built core, which synthesized our evolution in thinking about shipping containers. We realized penetrations were costly, so this project features some floor-to-ceiling windows on the second floor, which will offer a stunning view of Lexington’s skyline. Further, the roof makes the structure look like a futuristic race car in a 3D view. Almost everyone grew up with Legos, so the use of them is so intuitive. One thing we’ve learned the hard way is that a little container goes a long way!

MP: Speaking of staying ahead of trend, tell us about your foray into the Airbnb market. BE: A year or so ago, a REALTOR® told us we might want to look into Airbnb. We were building affordable, rental and luxury townhomes with which we could serve multiple segments of the Airbnb market. We put one of our properties up on the site, and within the first 24 hours, we completely booked a 12-plex—12 one-bedroom apartments.

Within a week, we had 60 dates booked and we could never have imagined all the use-case scenarios. Right away, someone booked for all of October, November and December while they were renovating their home. We had a traveling nurse who came to town every other week to work four days in a row, and booked those dates for six months in advance. Corporations are using them purely as a place for people to bring clients to for entertaining as a third corporate space. We have an Airbnb that’s being rented to six guys who work for a FinTech start-up. They congregate here at random intervals; one is in Cincinnati, one is in Chattanooga, and one in Louisiana. None of them live here, but they come and go as needed.

MP: What implications does the Airbnb model have for the rental market? BE: I love this question! I think the 12-month lease will go away 10 years from now, as there will continue to be more specialty situations. The duration of median stay will extend. We’re at a tipping point where we’re all using something like Airbnb, whether it’s Uber/Lyft/Turo—everything makes sense to go to that peer-to-peer platform. Also, the shortage of time for everyone is becoming more acute, and the days of filling out clunky paperwork are ending. Everything needs to be seamless. There will be a further aggregation of the labor economy and the housing economy, and those will start to work in parallel.

MP: Do you see any other parallels between Airbnb and the rideshare ecosystem? BE: It’s funny, I just gave a keynote speech on this. The legacy hospitality business was different from the legacy cab business; the service standards were quite high, in a relative sense. When Uber/Lyft came along, the customer experience was 1,000 times better than what it was before. Think about it: Hasn’t your worst Uber/Lyft been better than your best cab ride? Now, compare the contrast with Airbnb and the legacy hospitality business. I think Uber/Lyft were such a force multiplier, in terms of value perception, that people switched almost overnight. With Airbnb, there are still people who prefer to use credit card points, or their favorite corporate hotel brand, when they’re booking travel. The adoption curve has been steep, nonetheless. I see the legacy hospitality business losing marketshare to Airbnb, slowly, over the next 10 years.

MP: How does your connection to the bourbon business tie in to your real estate business? BE: The frontier of our tourism economy is experiences. Half of the Airbnb guests are coming here for bourbon. I understand what the bourbon consumer, tourist and traveler wants. We’re listening and doing focus groups and the applications are all hyperlocal. That is part of the cool factor with Airbnb. Our most successful Airbnb unit is simply called “Bourbon, Bourbon, Bourbon!”

Look at the big-box hotels. All the trends are toward delivering a local theme…and they’re doing a mediocre job at it. People want to stay like a local. No one says, “I want to stay in some agnostic hotel and eat at a restaurant in a strip mall.” People want to stay at a hip place and go to a hipster coffee joint or a funky burger place. Localism is driving consumer preference and there’s a massive opportunity for disruptors to find authentic ways to do that. Airbnb is such an efficient marketplace for expressing creativity, and the best operators are able infuse the localism with good service.

MP: So what advice would you give for real estate professionals wanting to tap into the Airbnb movement? BE: Understand what your area is known for. It’s the age-old adage “Play to your strengths.” For us, it’s also University of Kentucky athletics, the equestrian industry and Keeneland, and, lastly, medical tourism. Lexington has excellent hospitals and people come from all over Kentucky for healthcare reasons. Nurses come for employment and patients come for treatment. I bought a townhome close to a hospital as a place that patients could rent as an Airbnb.

You also have to find people that understand hospitality and service—you have to start there. You have to be ready to answer questions within 5-10 minutes, even if the question is “Do you have any Q-Tips?”; and messaging through the Airbnb app is critical. Responsiveness 24/7 is a must—and you need someone who is going to walk each unit before a new guest checks in.

You also need to build to scale. I started with one unit and that went great, so I added another unit, and grew from there and needed additional scales, like three subcontractors to do the cleanings, or “turns” as their known amongst Airbnb operators. We used to manage 5-6 units; now we’re managing 68 of our own Airbnb units across five geographic locations, and we manage another 115 Airbnb units for other people, as well.

MP: Can you give us some numbers, for the analytical readers out there? BE: Yeah, sure can. We had 80 percent occupancy in the third quarter. That was an all-time high for us, and we won’t do that every quarter. But it’s averaged 67 percent for the trailing 12 calendar months. In the beginning, when I was modeling the likely revenue scenarios, I never imagined occupancy numbers over 50 percent.

MP: OK, but what about the expenses? Don’t you have at least double the operating expenses? BE: The increased OpEx (operating expenses) we have seen is 93 percent. In some cases, you can actually reduce some OpEx categories. We compared utility bills of the same building that was previously a short-term rental to what the current utility usage has been during its time in service as a short-term rental—we reduced utility expenses by 8 percent year-over-year. So with nearly a 200-percent increase in revenue, and about a 100-percent increase in OpEx, you have effectively doubled your profit. Now every sub-market performs a little differently, but we see similar numbers across our portfolio, which spans five different markets. 

MP: So what should someone do if they’re thinking seriously about converting a unit, or buying a unit, for the short-term rental market? BE: For the average person reading this thinking, “I don’t have time to change sheets or answer questions at all hours of the night,” I would say the following: Get in the game! Soon! There are best-in-class management companies emerging in this space at the local and national level. We are exploring a relationship with Evolve, which is one of the nation’s fastest-growing short-term rental management companies. Further, there are some super-intuitive “bolt-on” technology solutions to help automate much of this. We use TurnoverBnB.com to help coordinate turns with independent contractors. We also use Smartbnb to automate our messaging. Guests receive check-in/check-out instructions, and greetings on their second day of a stay with an offer to provide some local guidance on places to eat/shop. If guests ask a question about traveling with a pet, then Smartbnb has some AI features that will copy/paste information about your pet policy to the guest in the form of a direct message through Airbnb.

Take my advice: Get in the game. Rent out a spare bedroom, or your lake house or beach condo. Don’t get a value photographer, by the way—getting a professional photographer with experience in vacation rentals or other staging applications is recommended. They can optimize the light and really help you to promote what makes your property unique. It’s all about authenticity.

For more information, please visit www.linkedin.com/in/successhacker/.

Maria Patterson is RISMedia’s executive editor. Email her your real estate news ideas at maria@rismedia.com. For the latest real estate news and trends, bookmark RISMedia.com.

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