Covering Her Mortgage in ONE Day with THIS (Up to $16K/Month!)
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What if you could pay your mortgage payment in a single day without house hacking? Today's guest has a fascinating and unconventional way to use their primary residence as an investment without house hacking. We're going to dive in into this unlocked potential of generating income

income with today's guest, Nicole. We're going to be breaking down the steps you can take to also implement this strategy.

This is the Real Estate Rookie Podcast. I'm Ashley Kerr, and I'm here with Tony J. Robinson. And welcome to the podcast where every week, three times a week, we bring you the inspiration, motivation, and stories you need to hear to kickstart your investing journey. And we are here today in person with none other than Nicole Lulinski. While, Nicole, thanks for hanging out with us.

Thank you so much for having me. So, Nicole, let's start from the beginning. You have your primary residence. When you purchased this property, did you even think of real estate investing? And kind of tell us a little bit of what your life looked like at that time. So the house we live in now is our first home that we bought. And we were living in L.A., wanting to buy a home and looking for ways that we could...

make money off the home. I'm a daughter of immigrants from Argentina. I was born in Argentina. My parents moved to Miami when I was five. And my parents have been in the real estate business since just before 2007.

So they really benefited from the crash, mostly because they didn't have any assets. And so I always saw real estate as an investment, but growing up with the immigrant mentality and being a little nervous about making such a big investment, when we were looking for homes, we were definitely looking for something with an ADU or something that we might be able to Airbnb.

The other option was looking for a duplex or a building that we could own with several tenants. None of that really worked out for us. I was nervous or wasn't super comfortable with having an ADU and someone living at our house. I didn't really want to be a landlord living in a building. I really wanted a home.

When we were looking at properties, we stumbled upon the property we live in now that was being used for production. I had a friend who was doing the same thing, renting out her home for productions, and we just saw the opportunity.

And we went for it. That is like such an L.A. thing. I never even would have thought to like buy a house. And so just before we even like get into the nitty gritty of how you found the property, what do you mean when you say like production? So these are like production companies for like TV, for film that are paying you to use your space for whatever it is that they're recording or just just break the concept down for us a little bit. Exactly. So we list our property on Gixter and Peerspace, which I would say is the Airbnb for like

and production companies and...

location reps or even internal brand teams will find our property on Gigster or Peerspace and reach out to us to rent our home. So it can be anything from a few people coming in and using our furniture and filming in our home, or it can be all the way up to a 50, 60 person commercial where they will, you

you know, dress the whole house in their...

furniture in their style and shoot at our place. - Wow, so Kathy Fetke, who is one of the hosts of the Bigger Pockets on the Market podcast, I believe she does this to her house too in Malibu where they have production companies that come and rent it out. But I've never really talked to her in depth of how somebody even finds them to come and shoot there too.

So you found this property.

How did you know that they were already having productions done there? Was that included in the listing? That was included in the listing. But I'm a creative director and strategist, and my husband collects vintage furniture and textiles, one of the things that he does. And we love vintage homes. And when we walked in the house, we knew that this would be a perfect place to shoot. It has a huge...

front room with multiple windows. It is in a, it's like kind of a U-shaped that makes the flow work really well.

And we also had a bit of an advantage because this home was preserved, really, in its mid-century style. So rosewood paneling, this gorgeous glass-fluted details, original windows, which isn't great for insulation, but great to film. And so the previous owners of the home were a production designer

and a landscape architect. And so they did a really great job of preserving the home. And they also shot a Netflix series there. They didn't live in the home full time, but they definitely did advertise that the home was used on the Netflix series. And we immediately started thinking, okay, this might be that perfect opportunity for us where

we want to live in the house full time, I don't really want to Airbnb and have strangers in my home unsupervised.

this felt like a really good opportunity. And that happened, we bought the home about two and a half years ago and I'm happy to report it. It has been wonderful. So when you were looking at this property, did you have any kind of numbers to run? So for example, did you know how much the production companies are paying? Could you kind of like estimate or forecast what you'd be making or was it a kind of wing it? No, absolutely not. We could afford the home. Um,

but we definitely were not able to calculate any numbers or future earnings. One of the reasons why is that this is an unpredictable source of income. Sometimes we will get a few shoots in a month. Sometimes we won't get any for two months. And so we average in about one shoot every six weeks.

But I knew from talking to friends that are producers and people, my friend who rented out her house, that this is lucrative if it's done properly. So we were, you know, feeling good.

but unsure. And right when we closed on the property but weren't quite living in it yet, we listed it on Peerspace and Gigster for a little bit of confidence to see who would reach out, if we can have some things happening. And immediately we got a call from a producer of a music video, from an artist on Beyonce's label. I'm under NDA, I still can't remember. And

And they did a shoot before we even moved in. And that was so validating to have a renowned director come into our home and say, this is beautiful. We love it. There's so much here to already work with. And each director, each production team is going to make the home their own in some way. But it has incredible bones and has that vintage, timeless look.

And so we had an advantage, of course, coming from the creative space. Yeah, so was there a lot of things that you guys have done to the home to even make it a better space for these production companies?

No, not permanent thing. But we definitely, the only thing that we changed was out of necessity, the kitchen, we have like this very beautiful blue kitchen, had fluorescent lights. And in the middle of the night, one fell and broke. Like you could tell it hadn't been renovated in decades. And so we had to fix that. But mostly it's just refurbishing and making sure we are preserving

preserving this beautiful house built in the 1950s by an architecture professor at USC. So, um,

Yeah, we haven't done much. One thing we've done is just mindset shifting because you have to be really comfortable with people coming to your home. Yeah, I was just kind of wondering, like, so do you guys go somewhere? Are you there when this happens? Are they using it for multiple days where you can't sleep there? What's that? Kind of like... I'll walk you through everything. Well, first of all, we live in the house full time and we're a big part of...

I mean, we're part of the neighborhood. Our next-door neighbors have become our best friends. Our front neighbor is this wonderful woman. Like, we live there full-time. And so... But we're also very...

cautious and considerate of what kinds of projects we accept. Because at the end of the day, a director or a production team will come in for a scout before they, to scout the house and see if it's right for their project. So we also get to scout them and see if they're right for the project. When it comes to choosing projects, we're extremely picky about who we're letting into the space.

A lot of it has to do with what kind of production it is and what kind of a footprint it will have on the neighborhood. Some of it is, you know, there's a difference between a one-day 10-hour production with six people coming in that will pay for our utilities for the month and a...

30 to 50 person shoot that they're doing where there's trucks on the street and there's no parking on our street for neighbors. And that does cause it's an inconvenience for people. We'll be right back after this break with more from Nicole.

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All right, guys, welcome back. We are joined by Nicole. So there's a couple follow-up questions there, right? I have so many questions swirling through my mind here, but I'll try and piecemeal them. On like the regulation side, so like if I get a short-term rental, I have to apply for a permit. I have to, you know, there's inspections they do on my property on like an annual basis. I have to pay certain fees.

Is there anything like that to allow your product to be used in a commercial setting like this? Absolutely. So we don't do a production without a permit. It's illegal in LA. And so we work with, and the production teams work with, an incredible nonprofit called Film LA that facilitates these permits with...

So do you even have to do anything or they bring the permit with them, the production company? The producer will file a permit and that permit is facilitated by Film LA and every one of our neighbors directly next to us will receive a little notice that says, hey, they're filming in the area, this is what they're filming, et cetera, et cetera. So everything is very much by the book in that case.

Filmmelay makes sure that everybody has what they need to make sure that filming goes off without a hitch. And so we rely on them a lot to be able to speak to our neighbors or receive complaints from our neighbors, especially if a neighbor doesn't feel comfortable coming to us. We

um, encourage them to call Film LA and Film LA has made changes, um, in terms of, of a production. So for example, a production company, um, wanted to film on Halloween and because our neighborhood is a big trick or treat destination, they, um,

They asked them if the production, they made the production stop at 4 p.m. Oh, before people's kids were out and stuff. So between us and Film LA, we will meet every single one of our neighbors' requests or complaints if they're reasonable. And sometimes they're not reasonable. And sometimes we have one or two neighbors who don't want filming at all. But that's fine.

But when you live in LA proper, that's not going to happen. We've also are available during the shoot. So,

people who rent out their house for shoots, many times we'll get a locations rep to make sure to be in the house and they leave. Because I'm in production, because I care so much about our neighbors and to make sure that nothing goes wrong, I'm on the property the entire time. So I will hire a locations rep, but we've converted our garage to be our studio and our workspace will be there.

When the productions are happening, making sure that everything is okay, that if there's any problems, I'm there. The previous owners who were in our home were actually not available. So they would be in Europe or wouldn't be around. And so we came into the home together.

And the home didn't have a great reputation in the neighborhood. So we've worked hard over the past two and a half years to make sure that we're overly communicative, that we only rent the house once every six weeks, that our neighbors are getting compensated if necessary. And we'll bring them in to the production. So one time or actually many times,

production companies if they need more space will do breakfast and lunch on one of our neighbors and friends property maybe in their backyard and so then they get paid

So they get paid for that. So we make sure that's super smart, you know, like also kind of financially incentivize them to want to be a part of that process as well. And it's kind of a win-win. So let's talk a little bit about like the actual rates that you're charging. It's like the first job or what do you call them? Gigs or what? Yeah. Yeah. Job project. Yeah. So any of those, the first one, what, what did you actually charge and what was the duration of that project?

So for bigger projects that have more of a footprint on the neighborhood will be more expensive. So bigger projects with more of a footprint on the neighborhood and more of a footprint on our home will be more expensive.

more expensive. So this first project we had, which was a music video, was probably the biggest one we've had. Oh really? You're the very first? The very first. We went into it really not knowing. I had never been on a music video set before. That was one and a half days. So the first day was prep, them bringing in

or art, all of the things to dress the home. There's trailers on the street and it's a big, you know, it was a big project. That paid for two months of our mortgage. So we're able to make anywhere between 4K to 15 to 16K for a project. That is amazing.

Maybe more if it's more days. One of the reasons we're able to charge more is because we have a lot of vintage furniture and props and textiles, thanks to my husband who has incredible taste. And it spans the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s.

And that's a that's for some productions. That's a huge line item for them to, you know, rent and bring a couch and art and all of these things. So we're able to include that in the full package. So some productions will want to clear out the space and bring out everything on their own. But some productions are like, thank goodness you have everything we need here.

This is such like a non-important issue, but I'm just so curious about it. It's like, okay, if they bring in their own art, are they nailing it on your wall? And then are they leaving a permanent hole? This is another reason I like to be on, you know, on site the entire time is to make sure that I'm watching over this and making sure everything's okay. They will normally not nail in new nails, right?

Because our wood panels walls are decades old, they already have some nails in there. So we just use that. There's so many art department hacks that they do. They do command strips. They'll hold things up. There's a bunch of hacks that they'll do. So we're very protective of that. And the teams are prepared. So if we say no, they have backup plans. We're going to take one more short ad break and we'll be back after this.

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Let's jump back in. As a short-term rental host, we have, you know, there's air cover through Airbnb. You can make your guests put security deposits. Like, what is your process for mitigating and then maybe like reimbursing yourself if there is damage? Yeah. So I think, first of all, you have to be comfortable with the fact that there will be dozens of people coming in and out of your home. And I think it helped that we started doing

renting our house out before we even moved in because it felt like a more flexible place. When there is damage, when there has been, one, we have a security deposit on every single job.

But if the damage is more than the security deposit, we're working with production companies that have insurance and that are prepared to handle that. So I'll give you an example. We had a shoot a few months ago and they scratched these vintage closet wood doors.

And they were an incredible team, but things are going to happen. They're moving fast. They have to get all their shots in in 12 hours. And, you know, sometimes scratches happen. We've been able, they paid for that and the closet wood doors look better than before because we've refurbished it. So when there has been damage, we've been able to get that paid.

Sometimes when it's through Gigster and Peerspace, they also have that same type of insurance that Airbnb has. So they make sure that we get paid for any damage. And there's been some damage, like something minor, but our neighbors, for example, one of the lighting people stepped on their flowers. And so, you know, small things like that. But still, they add up. Yeah. Yeah.

And one way that we track and mitigate this is before every shoot, we have a walkthrough and we take fresh pictures of everything the way that they are. And then when they leave, we do another walkthrough with the producer. And depending on what kind of shoot it is and what kind of equipment

equipment they're bringing in we require okay we need mats for the floors we need you to cover the walls and there's teams and companies that do that that come in and cover the entire house with cardboard or whatever so there are some you know we had a very small team come and do reshoots for

a Nike product. And that was five people, no trucks, no equipment. I'm not, I'm not going to ask them to mat the floors. Um, but when they bring in a camera dolly, that's like a huge piece of equipment that you're pushing on the wood floors, we're going to need some extra protection there. Now, what about insurance as you're like for liability? Now is this covered under your homeowner's policy? Do you guys have your own?

own extra insurance for this? Yeah, so every production team we work with has their own insurance policy. But on top of that, we in our home insurance have kind of an extra policy. And I called Farmers Insurance, shout out. And my agent, Lisa, I told her what we were doing. We talked about it. She was like, oh, I've never done this before. And we came up with a policy that covers us that isn't...

too, like isn't too far off from what we would have paid anyway. So it just added a little more onto your, just a little more protection in case, in case we need it. But the other thing is that, um, we, no one is in our house unsupervised. And so we're able to, you know, understand what kind of shots they're going to get, understand what happens. We had one, um, we shot, um,

the Masters Golf commercial for the Masters Tournament in Atlanta. And the director was like, do you think we could go up on the roof and shoot some balls and hit some balls? And, you know, we...

I've been on the roof many times and I said, if we bring one person and one camera, we can do it. And I'm there. So I'm actually down to take risks, especially since I come from a creative background, the shot, the shot is incredible. I'm glad they got the shot. But we protect, you know, we protect ourselves by being able to have insurance and by being on site the entire time. I think it helps us, but I think it also helps us.

the production teams and the directors too, because if I just had a site rep there and I left for the day, he would have said no. And of course, because I think logically you're like, okay, you're not going to go. Um, but, um, you know, I, I,

I want them to come to our house and have an incredible experience and get everything that they need. And so part of that is being able to push the envelope a little bit and take those risks. Real quick, what does it cost to have a site rep come in? So a site rep will cost about between $500 to $700 a day. And so the site rep, the cleaning fees...

And the site rep and the cleaning fees are not part of the rate. So, and then there's an hourly rate that fluctuates depending on how many people there are, what, you know, what the footprint is, how many trucks there are on the street, if any. And yeah, it works that way. I want to dig into the rates a little bit, but I didn't even think about the cleaning. So after each shoot,

you out of your own pocket than have to pay someone to come through? Or is that something you're also passing on to the production team? We're passing that on to the production team. In addition to whatever fee for renting the space? 100%. Interesting. Yeah, so it's a cleaning fee that could be between $300 to $500, depending on what it looks like. The cleaning fees and the site rep fees are on top of...

the hourly rates and the hourly rates can be anything from 250 an hour to 600 an hour, maybe more depending on what the nature of the shoot is. And then what are you doing to gauge within that range? Like, how do you know, like, do you have like a calculator or like a rubric that you're using or you just kind of like by feel? At the beginning it was by feel, you know, what is, you know, you have to be able to

One, ask a lot of questions of the producers and the production company. And I definitely had less information at the beginning than I have now. But now we have two and a half years of historical data. But we have to take a lot of things into account here. One, the industry. And there were a couple of months before

last year and this year where the strike really affected production. And so we take that into consideration. We take into consideration if it's a really interesting project and we really want to work on it or we love the director and love what they're trying to shoot. We also take into consideration our lives. We live there full time.

We also work there and we've vertically really integrated our home and our business. So our business is called Studio Practica and we're a strategic and creative firm that brings together brand strategy and

management consultant and operations. And so we'll do off sites and retreats in our space. We'll also, you know, shoot our clients products in that space. And so it has to match up to our schedule and our calendar. And so all of those things we take into account to determine how much we should charge. But it, you know, a lot of it comes down to how, you know,

much of a burden is this going to be on us and on the neighborhood? And we're lucky that some projects were able to make a lot more. And so

we try to balance that out with the requests that we get. But we definitely have developed really close relationships with producers and with location managers that have helped us get to pricing and can tell us what the industry average is around all of these. - So when somebody calls you and says, "I want to look at your space," what's kind of like the steps that you would take? Say you've never worked with them before, how does that whole process work?

I would say 90% of the people that approach us, I don't know who they are and I have no idea

with them. Are they getting your information from Gigster? Is it referrals? I think the majority is still Gigster and Peerspace, but a few of them are location managers that have shot in our space in the last two years. Some creative directors or directors that I know that have referred us, our home, to the production company, but most of them are just cold outreach on these platforms and

we chat a few messages back and forth. And the first question that really determines how we move forward is, are you available this date? - Let me just ask, right? So like there are different ways that some of these platforms work. Like in Airbnb, the guest is searching for a place that matches their location and their dates. There's sites like Furnished Finder, the midterm rental space that acts as more of a, almost like a marketplace where you list

And then you can reach out to people who are maybe interested in your property. How does Peerspace and Gixter work? Is it more the potential booker is the one that's doing the outreach? Or can you see the pool of potential people and reach out to them as well? It works very similarly to Airbnb, where people are looking for...

our space with a few keywords, um, wood panels, walls, mid-century vibe, beautiful garden in LA. So in terms of convenience for these, uh,

For production and for producers, being in L.A. is a huge advantage because that's where people live. They don't have to stay overnight and it's an easier process for them if they're in L.A. So they're searching for a few miles from where they are in L.A. proper. There are some things that we say no to right off the bat.

student films that don't pay well that we just don't have the time to do if we didn't have to maybe worry about the neighborhood and we Were able to do more shoots. I would love to support student films, but we only have one shot a month So to really make it worth it worthwhile for us no to adult films Yeah

And, you know, some other things that come up that were like that that wouldn't be right for us. But once they come in for the scout, we get to meet them. They're doing scouts all the time. And there they you know, we determine, OK, is this right for us?

but also they determine if this is the right space. Is that when you go ahead and submit your proposal or is that before the scout? No. So before the scout, nothing really happens. And also after the scout could be that, you know, they found another property, but if they love the property and they think it's,

great for their project and we liked them when they came to Scout, then we move forward and start negotiating. And that's when we get so much more of that information of how many trucks are you bringing? How many people are you bringing? How many clients are you bringing? So I think I've learned to work really well with producers and get all of the information that we need to make sure that this is

this is a good project. We negotiate with the producers. They drive a hard bargain. I drive a hard bargain. And we negotiate. And we see, you know, sometimes...

they negotiate and sometimes it helps that we have a lot of props and furniture. Sometimes if they're really in a bind, I'll be a site rep for the day. And so we try to work with them and see what they can do. Sometimes they're like, we will stay and clean up. I'm like, okay, I'll hold you to it. If that project, so we want to be flexible and work with them when we can. We'd love to make it work.

But if we don't, there's other requests and projects coming in. Yeah. A few follow-up questions there. So first, are they paying you directly? Are they paying you through the platform?

Both. So sometimes they pay me through the platform if they find me on the platform. But if they find me in any of the other ways, they pay me separately. And then in terms of like the, you know, like in the short term rental space is the booking window, right? So from the time that they actually make their reservation until they arrive, right?

What's the typical heads up that you're getting from these production crews? - Film LA needs at least three days in advance to process the permit, to work with LAPD.

to put up signs and to send the notices to our neighbors. So it can't be the day before, but it's usually not more than a week or 10 days before the show. It's usually pretty quick. It's very quick. I don't know why in my brain I thought it would be like, you know,

three months or something like that. Yeah, like even planning to come in and scout and when you're actually going to do it. It happens. Yeah, it happens. But this is also pretty labor intensive or time intensive for you as the homeowner. You're taking the calls, you're bringing in the leads, you're answering the questions, you're setting up the date for them to come and do the home visit. Yeah.

You're negotiating with them, you're creating the proposal, and then you're there on site. So how much time do you say you spend per booking for everything that happens beforehand? I will say that's unique. So there are location agencies that will drop off a little letter at houses that

that they see some curb appeal and they will do that all for you at a 30 to 40% cost. Um, but I like to have more control over the situation. And so I would say per booking, um,

It's about between writing up the contract and negotiating, talking, scouting, between five to six hours. Which is worth keeping that 30% in your pocket, I think. Totally. And we have now helped other people do that, not at that 30%. Yes.

That's definitely, it's a huge number. But yeah, if anybody... So now you're co-hosting just like someone with a short-term rental for somebody else. Yeah. I'm available for like coaching and consulting on this in particular. It's a really rewarding and creative experience. It's also wonderful to...

you know, have people in your home who see the beauty and who, yeah. And, and are also rearranging things, um, in fresh and interesting ways. Sometimes we leave it like that. We're like, Oh, this is like super cool. This looks great. Yeah. Let me ask one follow up question to that piece. Like obviously you bought this as your primary residence, but do you think Nicole that someone could do this?

strictly as an investment property? Like someone buys a property with the strict goal of renting it out? Like, is there enough margin there? Like, is this something that's scalable aside from just doing this like a quasi house hack? Oh, 100%. I think that would be my next investment is to buy a home and to be able to do this multiple times a month. We get more offers than...

we can actually do because we live there full time. And so I definitely think this is an incredible opportunity for people. They're especially in emerging markets, not just LA, but New York and Miami and Toronto and Atlanta. The thing that you really have to think about is the space and the considerations and making sure you're choosing something timeless

and something that can't be really recreated in a soundstage. And so if we, for example, if we didn't live in a close-knit neighborhood, and you couldn't really, maybe we lived on a hill somewhere, and you couldn't really tell that we had a production, we would do it many more times than we're doing it now. But my hope is to grow this space,

this tiny empire and to have a few houses that we're doing for production. And I would even go a little wilder with it. And right now the furniture and styling of our house is, I think, a balance between what we love and also what we think we'll sell. But I would...

make themed rooms and keep updating it based on where the trends and tastes are going. I think someone who is looking for a home and opportunity, it's hard to describe exactly what you need because you really want a home with a lot of taste. But yeah, having this as a property, as just an investment property that you're not living in,

You have to consider the neighborhood, you have to consider the home and your neighbors, but 100% would be an incredible opportunity in any emerging market. My last question to wrap up here is, are you cash flowing on the property? Are you able to completely cover your mortgage on this property? So I would say we're about 80%. Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you. And the reason why is we've made a lot of investments to...

the home and furniture. We've updated the electrical. We've been able to do landscaping the way that we want to. So we're probably about at 80% on a yearly average. The thing is, it's not consistent. So it'll be every six weeks and stuff like that. But yeah, one of our goals was to be able to

in a home that we love and be able to make a little bit of money coming in. And so this is like far exceeded my expectations and what this could be. And yeah. 80% of your living expense in Southern California is a pretty big deal.

deals and being able to do all those improvements to the property too yeah well thank you so much for joining us today and for coming in person to record with us where can everyone reach out to you and find out more information about you well you can follow me on instagram nick lulu while um or you can um sorry

You can follow me on Instagram at nicklilywile, or you can work directly with me, studio-practica.com.

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. This was such a wonderful conversation. Thank you. This was so interesting. Like definitely something very different than we've had before. So thank you so much for sharing your story and your experience with us and the Rookie listeners. No, you're so welcome. Thank you. I'm Ashley Kerr and he's Tony J. Robinson. Thank you so much for listening or watching this episode of Real Estate Rookie.