Hey there, listener! Thank you for checking out our older seasons! We're adding this note on the top of the show notes to keep you up-to-date with the show. Connect with Jen Amos and get bonus content when you subscribe to our private podcast show, Inside the Fort by US VetWealth, at http://insidethefort.com/

Last Updated: September 2, 2024

---

030: Property management services for military families with Toby Prudhomme

As a West Point Graduate and 21 Army veteran accomplished at solving complex problems in austere locations, Toby Prudhomme wanted to apply his knowledge, experience, and innovative mindset to modernize existing lodging options to benefit his current community, military service members, and their families. Today, Toby runs the Military First BnB Solutions which helps cost conscientious military and civilian travelers and homeowners by managing whole homes and renting their property through short-term rental platforms to families and travelers searching for fully furnished homes during a PCS, extended TDY, vacation, etc.

Learn more about Toby Prudhomme and Military First BnB Solutions at https://www.militaryfirstbnbsolutions.com/ 

--

Brought to you by US VetWealth https://usvetwealth.com/

--

Join our Instagram community https://www.instagram.com/holdingdownthefortpodcast/

Subscribe to our newsletter: https://bit.ly/hdtf-newsletter

Contact us at jen@holdingdownthefortpodcast.com

Jen Amos 0:00

Welcome to holding down the fort, a podcast show dedicated to curating knowledge, resources and relevant stories. So military spouses can continue to make confident and informed decisions for their families. Because let's face it, we know who's really holding down the fort. I'm Jen amis, a Goldstar, daughter of veterans, spouse, and your host for today's show. Let's get started.

Hey, everyone, welcome back, Jen Amos here. I want to start by thanking you all in advance, because we're back. And if you have been actually following our show consistently, you may have noticed that we have been on hiatus. And that's because we have recently transferred to a new web hosting service. So that has been squared away. And we will be consistently publishing a new episode every Monday is moving forward. Also, the second thing I want to share is that with this next interview, we had our guests call in on his phone, and at the beginning, he had his phone on speaker I believe. And then to the second half, it sounds a little more clear. So I just want to thank you in advance for giving us grace on our audio recording. Now should you have any questions or if some parts were unclear, I highly highly encourage you to check out our show notes to get a Toby's contact information. I think this is a great interview with a great resource especially if you are a military family that is a homeowner or you are looking for short term rental platforms at your next PCs. And last but not least, holding down the fort is brought to you by us about wealth. While most financial advisors help you plan for retirement, we help you plan for who you want to become. Learn more about us that wealth at us that wealth.com Alright, that's it. Thanks so much for listening and enjoy this interview.

Okay, hey everyone, John Amos here with paying down the poor and I am excited because I get to interview another incredible person in the military community. Today, I have Toby Pruden with me, I'm gonna go ahead and read his bio to you. So as a West Point, graduate and 21 year Army veteran accomplished at solving complex problems in austere locations. Toby Pridham wanted to apply his knowledge experience and innovative mindset to modernize existing lodging options to benefit his current community, military service members and their families. Today, Toby runs a military first BNB solutions, which helps cost conscientious military and development travelers and homeowners by managing whole homes and renting their property through short term rental platforms, families and travelers searching for fully furnished homes during a PCS, Extended TDY. vacation or excetera. Toby, welcome to the show.

Speaker 1 3:03

Thanks for having me. It's great to be on. And I feel privileged to be here. And I look forward to chat with you.

Jen Amos 3:09

Yeah, absolutely. Why don't we start with you sharing I guess just how we know each other and how you heard about the podcast.

Speaker 1 3:17

So I met got Jen's husband at router influence or conference him and I talked previously. And it was kind of like Scott's like, Hey, you should jump on a couple of podcasts. And I was like, Whoa, like which one? You know, any recommendations? He's like, Well, by the way, you didn't have one. Get on it. And that was, what, 18 months ago. So Scott and I have traveled to Colorado. I talked to Jim all the time, sort of individually and for Scott. So that's kind of how we know each other.

Jen Amos 3:51

Ya know, it's great. Scott has said a lot of good things about you. And it's been a pleasure to meet you a couple of times. And I'm glad that I have a chance to talk to you now I know that when you first initially reached out, I must have missed your email. But I'm glad that I found it and we're chatting today.

Unknown Speaker 4:07

Yeah, absolutely. I look forward to it.

Jen Amos 4:09

Yeah. Well, Toby, for people that are getting to know you for the first time. Why don't you tell them a little bit about your military background?

Speaker 1 4:16

Jen Amos 5:32

Wow, that's incredible. Yeah, thank you for sharing a little about your background and what you do today. Do you feel like your military experience helped you with what you're doing today with Airbnbs?

Speaker 1 5:43

Yeah, it definitely did. It taught me how to analyze problems, how to structure logical solutions, courses of actions, how to do logistical planning, how to do crisis, action planning, and how to manage people, and how to deal with chaos. Because not everything goes as planned. And sometimes you have irate customers, that is things happen. A lot those were forgotten to put toilet paper in the place. You know, there's all kinds of random things that occur that are just you can't really control some time. So you'd have to respond appropriately. And make sure you keep your customer service hat and smile on no matter how bad it gets. So yeah, I think the military taught me a lot.

Jen Amos 6:28

Yeah, definitely. What would you say you are most proud of so far with what you do in your business,

Speaker 1 6:35

I think helping providing military families a place to stay that they can call home. That's much better than a 600 square foot box, with a bed and a TV and

Jen Amos 6:49

know that is really awesome. And so I want to I want to chat a little bit more about your business. So your business is called military first BNB solutions. And I know that you really focus on military families. And so for military families that are hearing about your business for the first time, what should they know about you? And what you do? Yeah, so

Speaker 1 7:08

what we provide is we provide an alternative to channeling five to six people and pets into a single room Lodge. You know, we provide two, three and four bedroom properties with a fenced in yard. We don't charge extra for pets. And we have fully stocked kitchens with all the amenities of home, so you can pay about what it costs for one hotel room per night. And you can miss a home with a fenced in yard.

Jen Amos 7:36

Wow, very cool. I think you know, rather than living in like the typical military homes or military houses, that sounds really pleasant.

Speaker 1 7:43

Yeah. I mean, you know, that's been the feedback so far is like holy cow. I didn't know that this was possible. I've moved so many times. And we've been cramped for you know, anywhere from 10 to 60 days in a single room hotel room. It's just it becomes hard. And it becomes especially hard when we PCs in schools start so now, you know because your house that you bought or you're gonna rent is not available or Antos lodging is not available right away. You know, starting school with two kids out of a hotel room is extremely difficult. So providing this space for each family member spread out and have their own private time, per se is a huge benefit.

Jen Amos 8:27

Yeah, absolutely. And one thing I want to add that I think is really cool is just the whole pet aspect of it because I had known someone who she had to give her dogs away because she had three dogs and the military housing area only allowed one dog and so I think it's really cool that you accommodate that because you know, pets are family. Yep, absolutely.

Speaker 1 8:47

We've had people that have PCs from across the country. And they said that we had one couple from Colorado, they had three large dogs, Doberman and like a husky and a pit bull. The both of them the husband and wife said there were no other lodging options available. No one would accommodate them with those breed of dogs. And we're really breed agnostic, right? We don't prohibit people cause damage. You know, we asked them to pay for that damage. But we're not gonna fix you just because you have one breed of dog or another.

Jen Amos 9:17

No, that's incredible. And I think that is reassuring for military families that have to balance all of that, like not just the kids, but the dogs, you know, the pets. And so I think that's really awesome that you have found a need really amongst military families to accommodate their pets.

Speaker 1 9:32

Yeah, and I think one critical thing that military families need to know is that we meet all the requirements for DOD receipt aspects. So even if somebody booked with us through our website, or on Airbnb, at the end of their stay, we will provide a government compliant receipt for them to submit with their travel voucher. Wow,

Jen Amos 9:57

that is really, really awesome.

Speaker 1 9:59

Yeah. I mean, I've had so many people call and ask me that question, we will send a separate receipt to your email that will have our company logo and our contact information. In case you know, somebody's like, well, is this really a real receipt, our phone number, our email address our website, everything's there for them to contact? Yeah,

that's excellent. And I'm sure military families will really appreciate that knowing that it fulfills the DoD requirements. Yes. So my other question for you, Toby, is what if, you know, maybe a service member or, you know, family had decided to be a property owner? And then they had to move? Do you work with those type of people as well who need help? Maybe renting out their property when they PCs?

Yes, absolutely. We take them through everything. And we show them you know, what are the startup costs, what needs to go in a house from with respect to furniture, and we even have a turnkey service where, let's say, they depart, and they decided to do after a week, we do everything. So we will take this from them. And you know, for cost, we will furnish the house and set everything up, it's completely hands off that they want it to be,

wow, I think that's really awesome. My husband and I, Scott, and I currently rent out a home that is owned by a military family. And you know, not that I don't think I'll ever listen to this podcast. And I hope they don't, but they, they're not the most responsive, you know, landowners. And there's been a number of things in the last year that we lived here that need fixing, or that we needed help with. And so I can only imagine for military families that work with you, they can have that extra help, because it is difficult to be a homeowner and have renters and your PCs thing all the time. I mean, I can only imagine I personally have never been a homeowner. But I can imagine that that's a lot to juggle on top of what you're doing wherever you PCs to.

Yeah, it just, it just removes the stress from them. They don't have to worry about it. And and one of the other things that I tell all nurses is that, you know, I do my primary businesses, Airbnb. But if an owner comes to me, and it's not the right answer for their property, of short term, property rental wouldn't work for that property for any reason. I don't force that on people. I give them the best advice that facilitates them. In fact, I had somebody call me the other day, and their house is in the number one school district near Fayetteville. And I told him, I said, Hey, look, your best interest is for you to long term rent your property. Don't put it in the short term model. So I tried to do the best thing for, you know, the family, because you know, the last thing you need is to start a project and be like, Well, I'm not earning the money that you told me, you, you know. So I tried to under promise and over deliver.

Now, that is really awesome. Are there any ways you can tell that they should do something like what are some things where you know that you should suggest to them if they should do something short term versus long term? Well, it's

going to depend on the market. And it will depend on the property location. It also depends if that property is inside an HOA, it depends on the city rules, because every city has different rules. Fortunately, North Carolina restricts the regulation that the cities are allowed to impose on homeowners like Virginia Beach, where you're at, they just impose some really strict restrictive rules for Airbnb. So, you know, that would be a case where it would be an evaluation criteria. And some of that would be, hey, you really are not going to benefit from doing a short term because the regulations are against you. So it depends on the locality based on the city of Fayetteville and the surrounding area is really conducive to it because there's been so much infrastructure improvement, so there's multiple access points to the base. There's a lot of supporting industries in the area. So yeah, it depends on how much activity goes on on the base and in the community. Because yeah, like here at Fort Bragg, there's a bunch of graduations. There's a bunch of change of command ceremonies, there's promotion ceremonies, and there's there's deployments and redeployment. There's traveling nurses are traveling doctors, there's traveling students, there's commercial construction workers, a large base, and the surrounding community is very transit. So that's why we chose military bases, because there's a lot of customers that would facilitate homeowners doing short term rentals.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you for providing that insight, Toby. And I'm just curious from your opinion, for military families, would you advise them to be homeowners or renters? I mean, I'm sure that depends as well, but I wanted to get your take on that. Like if someone is about to start and then thinking about being a homeowner, would you suggest it or would you not Hmm,

yes, I do suggest people being a property owner, because I think that diversity of investment vehicles is going to generate more long term growth in being putting your eggs in one basket. And I think real estate is a viable portion of an investment portfolio.

Very cool. Well, awesome. And one more thing, Toby, I just want to applaud you for the team that you have. I know that you work with a lot of military spouses.

Yeah, we currently employ eight people. We have seven military spouses, and then one veteran, and then myself. So and we looks like we're gonna hire another veteran who's getting out of the army and they

very cool, very cool. Well, what does it like to work for you, Toby?

Well, I'm, I'm a hands off type of person. But at the same time, I have extremely high expectations. And I like to have a homogeneous team in one market area. So like the Fort Bragg market area is one market. I like trying to build a homogeneous team so that teams can run the city and I just have to manage the corporation and grow the business. And then I have the same thing in Texas. And same thing in Colorado Springs, in Holland Falls, New York near West Point in hand, and we're going to put together the same concept in Tampa, Florida.

Very cool. Well, hey, Toby, thank you so much for telling us about who you are and your background, and what led you to be in the business that you do today. For anyone that is interested in learning more about you and military first BNB solutions, how can they get ahold of you?

Yeah, they can go to our website, it's www dot military first aid in the solutions.com. And they can check us out there's a page for homeowners as a page for people who live there who are traveling and then there's an About Me section. And you know, there's three or four different ways to contact us directly. So that's they're also

perfect. Yes. And to our listeners, if you did not catch that, don't worry, I always include that in the show notes so that you can check that out and contact Toby and that way, Toby, thank you so much for your time. It was an absolute pleasure having you today.

Okay, thank you, Jan. I really appreciate it. And I look forward to talking to you again and hope to hear from your listeners.

Awesome. Okay, thank you so much listeners, we hope that you gained another piece of knowledge or resource or story to continue to apply in your lives to hold down the forum for you and your family. Thank you so much again for listening and we look forward to speaking with you in the next episode. Tune in next time.