A rich man's world, I have turned us off, I'm in beauty mode, when they're beauty. Hello, welcome to the full English United Kingdom's Air B&B Podcast. The place to learn how to buy, host, and grow your Air B&B business, specifically in the United Kingdom, helping you to learn, grow, and become an Air B&B success. Welcome everyone, this is my conversation with Ralph West Maycotts. Ralph and his wife Lucy own a short-term rental business called Little Place in the Country. Their properties are uniquely designed with wacky features like jacuzzi sports cars and crap door bathtubs. In this conversation we learn about the challenges and the benefits of these really highly bespoke short-term rental properties and how Ralph has grown his property interest into a thriving business through pursuing these quite bespoke properties. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did, okay, into the show. Hello Ralph, welcome to the show. Hi there, thank you very much for having me. Absolutely pleasure to have you on. We'll jump straight into the detail here Ralph. You've got some absolutely fantastic properties on the Air B&B platform and it's going to be fantastic to just learn a bit more about them and how the process you've been through to get to where you've got it to today and then your plan is going forwards for the future. Just to start off with, why don't you just tell us a little bit about yourself and your background and how you got into short-term rentals and just tell us a bit about your story. Yeah, basically a lot sort of had a very, very career, Marigian marine biologist worked all over the world and then met my now wife out in Australia and we relocated back to the UK and then had to think what a tropical marine biologist did in the UK. So I then joined Merlin Entertainment and managed to do life centers across Europe and then basically decided I wanted to do something different so sort of reverse engineered my current job and was looking for something that was flexible, could be creative with, could just do a couple of hours working in the day and yeah that's sort of more of a lifestyle job than, yeah. So marine biology is not, it's not your sort of passion for life then, you've kind of, if you moved away from that completely or do you still maintain, may take an interest then? Absolutely, loved it and really, really did it but then yeah it just worked out, I chose coming back to England and sticking with an amazing woman over, running around. So how did that journey start then, coming back to the UK, deciding that you want to move away from your chosen profession, how did you begin to kind of maneuver into the short term rental with property industry in general? I started, I started, I sort of, yeah it took two starts really, I designed the business and then started by developing an old 1950 sort of caravan down in Devon and did that and really sort of, yeah, caught a cold when I started because I kept recording my hours and once that passed over 2000, I didn't recall it anymore and then the cost was sort of spiraling and yeah it was sort of a bit of an eye and then, yeah basically, so it went from that and then yeah it moved up to Hampshire and I started building another basin just to ship it in my garden, having sort of almost mothballed the original project and then wondering what I was going to do and then got that one up and running because I was living on site that meant I could get it up and go and get it renting and then just found out what really worked and it just took off and then I went back to the one in Devon and yeah, applied like a hot tub on it and themed it up a bit more and yeah basically just got a bit crazier on it and stopped being sensible and off it went. You've got like, so is it, how many different sites, different locations have you got now as a full location? Yeah, we've got four more places in three different locations so I've got two, what we call the wagons, so wagging in the woods and wagging in the wiggle room and they're sort of the very sort of rustic themed, all a lot of timber from trees we felled and milled up and yeah they're much more sort of, as I say, rustic-y and then the Bluebird and Devon, that's very 1950s retro, so it's very sort of chrome and that's got the hot tub in Land Rover and then we've got the Lotus Spa which is a Lotus Spots car with the hot tub in and yeah that's sort of sort of slightly retro but slightly sort of rustic to it, sort of a bit of a blend of the two almost. Yeah, so that's one of those in Devon, where are the two wagons? They're up in Hampshire, so they've got, they're on one property in Hampshire and then you can see across the valley to the other one, to the Lotus and yeah, so they're those three are quite close and then just tell us a bit about because I think a lot of these ones that you come across, that I've come across, where you've got fantastic like this, they end up being on like a farm, someone owns a farm, how have you gone about acquiring these sites? Are they sites that you've, you've already own an interest in, historically, are they sites that you've found and acquired or accompanied? Yeah, the first two were on my parents land and then the one in Devon's on the parents and all's land and that's what came about just because they're farmers always scratching around for a bit of income and they've got, you know, they've got these incredible assets and incredible views, so if you sort of come together and can utilize some of that and obviously planning on a much bigger farm is much easier than, you know, if you're in somewhere, many have to just have that beautiful remote location and yeah, it works really well, so. Yeah, so what kind of planning permissions have you needed then for these properties? They're all technically mobile, so it's slightly grey but basically gone down the self-contained holiday accommodation route, so yeah, so that's sort of, is there what you need to go to? That's the planning glasses, yeah, it varies between where you are in which things but we've just gone along for pre-planning meetings to explain what you want to do and yeah, they've been sort of really good and we're sort of going through at the moment on new projects down here and lots of the time you just have to jump through the hoops or keep on working it and yeah, the generally a solution in the end and do you come across any restrictions in terms of the amount of days per year, 90 days a year, is there any restrictions with this planning use that you're getting or can you put it much, let these properties 365 days a year? Yeah, we've gone for letting them all year, do you get advantage of them then, you know, if you go for shorter terms of not having to hit business rates and things like that, you know, but we've just, we've just gone for it. Fantastic, fantastic, so that's the planning permission, the other thing with these, with these sites that leapt out at me was getting utilities to the site so if it's really getting powered to potentially getting gas to it or both that's easy for gas can be easier and getting sort of what sort of away from it, how have you managed to get around that? Yeah, a lot of having your own digger and being on farms is amazing because, you know, you've got a diggy, you've got tractors, you've got trailers, you've got large earth moving equipment, you know, and that, you know, if you're going to do something that's far away, it is epic or putting, you know, when you start putting in roads, like the latest on the Lotus Spa that we picked the location, it was an old friend of the family and they have absolutely stunning views and he'd been asking me, could we do something, could we do something and eventually I was like, okay, yeah, look, we can do this and walked around, we found the spot and like this is absolutely ideal spot and then just work back on the onto the services, but to give you an idea, just the electrical cable to run to that unit because of the distance from the board, that was, I think about two and a half thousand pounds just for the singular piece of wire. Just for the cable, yeah, just for the cable and then you're like, right, now you've got to bury this, now you've got to get it installed, so yeah, you put it in front of you. And this is coming from, this is effectively coming from somewhere else on the farm is it, so you've got a barn with a big power supply in it and you've kind of managed to pull it off of that and dig a trench and drag it across to this spot on the, yeah, so it's totally like, it's totally agricultural isn't it, the way that methodology, which is fantastic and it's, you know, the projects that I work on professionally, you know, we're dealing with UK power networks and this, that and the other and it's, you get absolutely buried and retayed before you know it and you've got 18 months to get anywhere and hundreds of thousands of pounds, so I think the, um, the digger, a bit of p-single, um, back filling it is, uh, it's absolutely the way to go and I think two and a half grand is an absolute bargain. Yeah, and we've just got to, you know, lots of it is just, um, you know, we've got friends or electricians and things, so you just check your doing, you know, the more you can do yourself and the more you can make sure you're hitting all the rags and doing it all properly, um, and get people just to do like the connection or the really technical bits and get us signed off as the, is the key, the more you can sort of do using farmers and people as, as great. Hmm, and I suppose, um, farmers in the rural parts of the UK, you don't have to worry too much about getting sewage away from the sites, do you, you've got the, uh, cesspit, so it's well-dropped in pathways and it's, so it's suspect that's how you deal with that. Yeah, and yeah, some of them, we've linked into existing systems, um, because we've got the height just to avoid, um, they're having to go down, down the route of putting in more septic tanks and things, but yeah, it's pretty, you know, those are, yeah, if you're, if you're allowed to put in the septic tank and things, it's, it's not too difficult. If you've got diggers and stuff, you can just up and go. Yeah, yeah, so you've got two, the first two of these you could, one was on your family's land, then the next one was on your wife's family's land and then you seem to imply then there's another one which was a friend of family. Yeah, so that's lovely kind of, I imagine that was quite satisfying because then you've gone from doing it on your own land to then kind of branching out and reaching out to other people within your network who have got land. Um, yeah, so I imagine that's quite a kind of interesting part of the journey for you. Yeah, no, it really was because we sort of got to the point where we looked at the business. I was having a wife and we said, actually, we don't need or want to go any bigger because, you know, the bigger the beast is them, you know, they'll work and we've got to feed it. And we'll actually lifestyle wise, this is really good. Um, and then basically that project, the latest one kicked off because we had, um, had that farm was really interested in it and he very wise he was like, look, the farm's doing okay. We've got some amazing asset, but he's like, I know at some point things aren't going to balance and I don't want to hand a debt on to my children. I need to diversify. Um, you know, I can see what you're doing. I can't go and build something crazy like that, but you know, could, could we do something? So it was, yeah, really, really nice to do that and to work with them and, um, you know, to be able to use them and pay them for their skills and characters and the stuff they've got. Without what is pushing too hard on this, um, what kind of deal did you do with the landowner? Um, you might not go too far into that, but if there's anything you could tell me about it, it'd be interesting. Yeah, no, basically, the way I've set up with all of them is to sort of to make it work for everyone is I've just, um, like an amount per night. So if we're, if we're interested out a lot, everyone does well. If we're not then, you know, you know, and sort of gain. So that really came to fruition in lockdown when suddenly everything died off. And, um, but, you know, and it works, it works out well now we're going because they get, they get paid well and it's, and it's nice, you know, one of the nicest things we've sort of had is, um, like those farmers are saying, oh, you're, you're paying us too much. I'm saying, no, but this is, you know, this is, this is a reasonable amount. And I know it doesn't, you know, because they're very much in the vein of heart, you get paid for hard work. And they're like, but we're not doing anything. They just turn up and occasionally we say hello to someone if we see them, you know, driving in, but generally we don't even know they're there. And, um, yeah, so it's a really nice way to be able to sort of help people and it's, yeah, it's mutually beneficial and, yeah, hopefully sort of helps them in the long term and helps us. So, yeah, just if you've got, if you've got much of a legal framework with these guys, if you've got, if you've got in terms of contracts, is it, is it all kind of spit, spit on the hand and shake hands? Yeah, put your hands in hand. Pony it. Yeah, really much. If you, if you get too much into paper work with farmers, you've lost them. You've lost them, have you? Yeah. So, um, yeah, no, it's great. And then I've always done it of like, you know, they're all the farmers we work with have been so keen to help on doing stuff. And then, you know, always have to, it's me having to chase to keep records of like how many hours they put in, you know, if they've had materials and things that they've said, oh, look, we've got, you know, we've got all these telegraph poles you could use to do this framework or we can use to do this, then you sort of try and make sure that you pay them for everything that they've got, which is great. So, so how do you do the check-ins on these sites, then? You're not right, slap bang next to all of them, are you? How you managing the check-ins? We are, um, basically, I used to show people in when we had a couple and we lived on the land. And now, basically, we just get it already, leave the key and people just checking themselves. So, um, that sort of happened with COVID, really. We sort of changed it. So, people could just check in themselves. And, you know, with more sites that works out, works out, well, it must say, it is very nice when I'm around and back up the ones in Hampshire or we actually get to meet guests when they're arriving or something. It's always quite fun to chat to people and see, but generally, people just sort of check in themselves, they don't know how it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, obviously, we've got to talk about your specific properties because they're incredibly bespoke, aren't they? Yeah. In terms of, I mean, you've just touched on the spars that you have in all of them, which are absolutely remarkable. But the whole fear of them, you've got like, you know, the wagon fill, then you've got the silver, what's the word I'm looking for? So, the retro 1950s of chrome? Yeah, retro's 1950 chrome fills who are. I suppose all of your properties are so bespoke, aren't they? It's going to be quite difficult for me to pick your brain on how much better it is to have a bespoke one compared to a completely normal one, because I don't think you've had a completely normal one. But I'd love you to tell me a bit about the journey that you've gone through, you know, with physically making and designing these properties. And, you know, when you're spending money, I mean, people can look at it and we'll put the links on the show notes. But like the loads of spars, for example, is absolutely out of this world, isn't it? And I'm just interested. When you're working on that, are you just thinking to yourself, this is just going to be so cool. So, I'm just doing it, whatever you're thinking about, look, this is going to get me an extra £100 a night or £70 a night or whatever. And I want to make my money back over two, three years. Just talk us through a little bit of these things from your point of view and your kind of thought processes you go through it. Basically, my two rules are to keep creativity and to have fun because you've got to really enjoy it as my tools are there's no time scale and there's no budget. And both of those things you'll create and you'll just pick a number and then you'll get really upset when you're not meeting your time scale or you're not meeting your budget. So basically, I just look at everything and if it's, if I think that's cool, then we'll go through it. If I think, oh, it's okay, then I won't bother. So it is just, we sort of did it as well when we're looking at it and we discuss it with our life and say, well, I really want to stick a, you know, a shepherd's hut in the corner of a field or do something like that. I want to go to somewhere I'd like to go and stay. And I think that's, you know, it's lovely when we've actually got to stay in them as well. And sometimes that's, I remember the first time I stayed in the wagon after building it and I set them right over looking around and she looked at me and she's like, you okay? And I was like, it's, it's really nice. And she was like, yeah, and I was like, well, I haven't sat here and actually just enjoyed it. I've always been like, oh, I've got to fix that. I've got to get that working. And yeah, so I think sort of now we just go, they'll pay themselves back in time. If it's, if it's cool enough, if it's, you know, if it's going to be fun because you're not building accommodation, you're building effectively an Instagram post, you've got to have something that, you know, people are going to flip through thousands and thousands and thousands of things. And there's, you know, lots of it is about confidence. When I first started and I built the first wagon, I went and put the bath built into the floor under a trap door. And everyone was like, you can't do that. It's under the floor. What are you doing? And I was like, no, no, that's cool. It's great. I want to do it. And I was so sort of nervous about it. And you know, almost apologising to the first guest who came and then I found that was the thing people loved. And I went, wait a minute. So if you've got a bath sat in a room, people are, oh, it's a bath. You put a bath in the floor under a trap door. Suddenly, it's amazing. And it was all the things I'd done and I'd be nervous about that people loved that from their owners, like, right, actually, that's it. You know, why not, you know, stick a hot tub in a car or have a radio that plays with it. And if it was your own house, and it was where you were living 365 days a year, you wouldn't want a bath under a trap door, probably, or most people wouldn't. But it's quite different, isn't it? What you think is really cool, if you're staying in somewhere for two nights, is a different thing that you would want in your own home. And I think it does give you that additional creativity, doesn't it? Where you can kind of push the boat out and do some of these slightly wild things. Who stays in your, in these properties? Is it, is it a place that you go and you stay there, you know, if you, when you're selecting the places, are you looking at any, thinking about sort of local amenities and kind of restaurants nearby and lovely walks nearby, or is it all about that kind of, that zone that you're in, that sort of, almost, yeah, 100 square feet. Yeah, I think, I think the thing we aim to do is kind of go, we wanted that people can turn up and they don't have to go anywhere or do anything. So, you know, there's, and, you know, if there's enough there for them, they've got, you know, really easy things that they've got, a gas-fired pizza rubbers, they can just cook a pizza or do, like, really easy food or barbecue, they've got covered areas if it's raining outside, you know, they've got really cozy indoor areas. So, just trying to make it that people don't have to go anywhere. If you've got a pub and walking distance, that's, that's a real bonus. So, when we've been looking for new bits of land, it's all been about the view and then really in terms of amenities, only is there a, is there a decent pub nearby or a decent restaurant close so people can walk to it for food or drinks? But I think beyond that, we're quite different than we sort of not looking at the area. We've just gone, let's just build something that is a destination, it's not something you go and stay to go somewhere. There's mostly couples or who tends to? Yeah, we basically just, we just do couples, so we don't do children or pets, just because with the bespoke nature of the places, it gets and with hot tubs and things, it gets a lot more challenging with children and dogs we've tried to begin with, which is a huge market, but it's, yeah, we just found it was a bit of nightmare, a bit of a mess, and to be honest, we really don't need to, we're full of, full with just having just straight couples and it's really nice and easy and simple, so we've just stuck with that. And surprisingly, I thought we would have quite a niche, sort of demographics, I sort of thought would have sort of young-ish sort of couples, you know, because they're slightly different, but, you know, we have people coming in late 70s, 80s, who are sort of, yeah, who I wasn't expecting that with words of appeal to a wider range as we do. What kind of generations do you get? Is it mostly two, three nights, do you manage to fill up the weekdays, or is it usually sort of Friday to Monday that you get booked out? We go, we do a lot of short stays, so we really go for like the one and two night stays, but what we do is we charge between about 50 and 70 pounds as a set-up fee, so if you spend one night, you spend it cost you a lot more, then if you spend multiple nights it gets cheaper. So that basically goes towards covering the cost of doing the changeovers and things, but what we find of that is doing those short stays is particularly good for sort of parents and things of that, which like, we don't mind paying more because we can only get one night, oh hey, we can't go away for two nights, so we do a lot of, and that keeps us busy, you know, when I was doing it, I really needed the money because when I only had one and I was building the next one, I think in one year, I think I had two nights free in the end because of cancellations and no one booked them in time, but that was not an easy year, but yeah, if you want to, you can just go with the short stays, it was booked three hundred and sixty three days of the year, yeah, the two nights that didn't book were, they were cancelled and then they didn't re-book, so yeah, yes, you can absolutely every night of the year, so what do you see? If something books every night of the year, how do you unwind work in that instance? Obviously, it's a great thing, but then also you'd be thinking to yourself, well, you could put the price up a bit as well, wouldn't you? How do you manage that in your head in terms of managing price against occupancy? It's sort of become a lot easier because as we've got bigger, now, the ones which are working, basically what does work on is, right, we've got our fixed costs, which are very low once they're built, in terms of materials, it's just sort of really gas for heating the hot tubs and marshmallows and linen and all that stuff, and that actually doesn't work out a huge amount of night, then we've got, now because it's a real family business, so we employ sister, brother works for us to two sister-in-laws, so there's also why I do more short stays because I've got lots of family members wanting work, so in doing that, we're like, right, well if people stay for short stays, we'll go for more turnovers and provide more employment, if it was just me doing it, I'd be like, right, you've got to spend a week or you've got to spend three days, and we'd sort of adjust it that way around, so that's why we're not worried about the shorter stays, and then both worry tours, so anything, anything sort of beyond our base thing goes sort of into the sort of development fund, so we're trying to keep it that we're very safe to make sure we can cover everyone's salaries, we've got that all set, and then everything else just goes into, let's let's play and buy new things and build new things, goes into the pop, the next projects, yeah, fantastic, fantastic, so you've got to tell me, how does one go about putting a hot tub into a lotus, that sounds to me like lots of kind of bespoke layering of kind of, you know, bespoke shaped baths cut into the shape of that lotus, all kind of laden by hand, is that, is that how it's done? It was quite something, I bought the lotus off one picture, because it was just as we're sort of going, going into another lockdown, and I've been speaking to, because they're fiber glasses, like right, they can go around a fiber house, and so yeah, the land road was aluminium, so I could do a land road, a hot tub, lotus was fiber glass, and I spoke to Adela, and he sent me a picture and I was like, well, I've got this one, which was, you know, written off, so it can't be restored, do you want the bodywork, and it was covered in brown balls, and I basically bought this thing off this picture, and then bought a hot tub, having no idea whether the two would really fit together, and it was cut a bit of one, cut a bit of the next, and then stick them all together, and now the two are one, they could never be separated again, but they're, yeah, I do enjoy the challenge of not knowing if you can actually complete something when you start it. I tend to find it's a bit easier if you sort of know that's going to work. So that could, that could be a business in itself, lotus hot tubs, I bet you'd sell a few of them. Yeah, it's quite fun, so yeah, and it worked out in the end, it's, you know, because also you're trying to get that maximum amount, you know, the biggest possible hot tub in that sort of tight space, thankfully it had the bonnet and the boot, so for all the filters and everything like that, it was great, because you've got easy access to it. So, yeah, and lots of it is just about having me the guts just to go right, well, we're just going to start and we'll find solutions as we go, and yeah, I do have a lot of sort of ideas which have got been or very heavily modified, or, you know, I've sort of had it with fold out tables or tables which come out, I think, I think that's what we want to spend the most time on, and I think the ones that actually there and work now are at, we're marks six. And the, and when we had, when we were speaking offline, you were telling me about potentially the next, the next iteration or the next project, which was something to do with a jumbo jazz. Yeah, it's actually a 1960s jet provost. So, before the red arrows used to have these jet provosts, which were RAF trainer jets, and they had a sort of a two-seater cockpit, because they obviously had training, so they had them sat next to each other, rather than lots of the planes which were one behind the other. And this one had been part of a display team, called them a cause. And, yeah, we just thought, well, basically, to backtrack, it basically started, myself speaking to a friend who's an engineer saying, right, I'm going to do another project, what's the coolest thing I could put it in, you know, planes and helicopters came up pretty quickly, and then he came up with the idea of, well, if you could find a jet provost, it's got the bigger cockpit, you know, we looked at like, harriers and all sorts of different planes, you're like, well, that, that's really a maximum width. And, yeah, then quick VBS and a quick Google, and suddenly we found somebody who had a jet provost to say, oh, so that will be big enough for a small sleeping cabin, is that the idea? You're going to kind of squeeze out a double bed into that. It's about 10 meters long and 10 meters wide, with the wings and everything on. So, it's purely got the hot tub in the cockpit. And then your accommodation is fantastic. Yeah, so the accommodation is completely separate, and then, yeah, the friend came up with the name, the jet-cusy. So, once we'd got the jet-cusy, you were like, yeah, that's it. But I do it, I've got to do it. So, this will be our next, the next property bullet that we've not seen yet. Yeah, so we're going through, we bought a place in Devon purely because of the views. It's right on top of the hill, absolutely stunning, and we're going currently in the midst of planning on a barn there, and that will be the accommodation to then go to the jet plane. Okay, she bought that, and the barn's existing, is it? There's an old barn on the site. Yeah, yeah. So, we're sort of going through, trying to get planning on that, and then once we've got planning on that, and we've got the business to establish, we can then hopefully apply to extend the business and put another unit on sort of land. So, we'll aim to do two more projects down here, and that's actually on our property and our land that we bought. Fantastic. So, this is a bit of an evolution, isn't it? So, now it's moving not away from, but developing beyond using land and family land, and now actually buying plots of land. Which is fantastic, isn't it? And that's a great evolution. It means that you've got to be more, even more cautious or more sure in terms of some of the planning things, because if you're factoring into your business model, that you can get a fighter jet on there with a jacuzzi in it, and that's a big part of the money that you're going to be earning from it. It adds additional nuance to it, and that respect, doesn't it? But that's all part and parcel of developing and of growing, which is fantastic. So, how much can you charge for one of these then? What's the nightly cost on one of these? We sort of range mid-winter, mid-week, you're probably looking about 200 pounds a night, and then weekends, like Saturday night, it'll be about 280, or often over weekends, we link nights up, just so we do fewer changeovers depending on who wants to work. So yeah, sometimes some family members are actually wants a weekend work, so we'll do shorter stays, and then push the price up a bit, or sometimes we link them up, so it all varies on what people want, and fantastic. And then you get in with that, you get in a really high occupancy rates as well, so you've talked already about one year, where you've had 100% occupancy rate, and nine on 100% occupancy rate, one of your properties. Overall, what you're looking at overall, you're up towards, I'm imagine that you're towards kind of a high end. Yeah, it would be, it's sort of this last year, has been down a little bit, we also pushed our prices up a bit, but it's been down a bit, but it was quite funny, let's say down, I was sort of panicking because we were getting two or three nights empty in a month, and I was like, "What's going wrong?" And then you're like, "Well, actually, because we've put 20, 30 pounds on a night, say, that actually, it works out with, we're actually making more, and we've got two or three nights, because when you're fully booked all the time, and you have no gaps, it gets, you know, if you've got to do, say some painting, that's a bit smelly. Yeah, so we tend to get to the point is where we lock out nights, for maintenance, our friends staying, and things like that, so we use them a lot like that. Yeah, and how much, how much, if you're, are you 100% Airbnb, or are you beginning to get some orders off of Airbnb or away from Airbnb? And how much are you, how much are you thinking about trying to now build a brand, but clearly there is a brand there because all of your properties, they've got this similar fill to them, but how much are you trying to kind of think about, look, this is a company and there's a brand that comes with this company. Is that something that's all your mind? Yeah, so we, we actually operate as little place in the country, which is the website, and we basically use Airbnb just to fill up, fill up spaces really, so I'll tend to release them all on our website first, and then if we've got any gaps or, yeah, sometimes we'll do things like hold back half terms, because, you know, making sure we've got family members who won't work, are going to cover it, and then if we release it, yeah, we find Airbnb is great for last minute things, so most of our stuff is actually direct bookings, and then, yeah, and we just use Airbnb to fill up gaps because they, they add sort of significant fees on on top, so you are then talking about a much higher premium if someone books via Airbnb rather than direct. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and then how are you getting your, how are you getting out there, if with your direct, direct bookings, sort of through social media, how do you kind of get yourself out there without using? Basically, we, we find people market us for us, we, Lucy, my wife, she does it on the Instagram, but really what we find is people who come and stay post pictures, they're friends, they like it, and we get real groups of people, so you'll find, you know, one brother will come and say, sister will come and say, then, you know, the mum and dad will come and stay and then add some uncles, so we get real seams of people. I think the best one we ever had was a hairdresser came to stay, and then we knew everyone coming from Kent, I was like, I know exactly where you're coming from, and yeah, it turns out hairdresses, if you ever want to market a place, just get a hairdresser to stay, and they can tell how many hundred people a week. They have a captive audience, don't they, for half an hour, fantastic, fantastic, so she, he or she was telling absolutely everybody whose hair she was doing, that this is the best place ever, and everyone was coming to visit. That's fantastic, isn't it? And that's the, that's purely down to the uniqueness of your properties, isn't it? Your ability to be able to, to market and to, and to fill up your bookings in that way, it's purely down to the uniqueness of the properties, I think. So, what are your plans, what are your plans next? You've got, you've got your up and coming scheme where you've got the barn conversion and you're trying to put additional stuff on it. How far do you want to take this Ralph? Do you want to, are you just kind of rolling with the punches and enjoying it and seeing where it takes you or if you got quite specific plans in terms of where you'd like to take it? Really, we're just looking to, we've almost gone big already than we were going to, so we're basically looking to put to an our land here, because of two we can have a very good income and that's sort of having them on your own land, then you've got total control over them in the future and things, so we're like, right, that's good, if we've got two very bespoke units, we're set, and then the other ones enable us to be more flexible to employ more family, to do things, and then if, you know, if things change in the future, I'm not sure what will be happening with my parents property in the long term, you know, so, so those do might might go, but yeah, we'll have another two here, so yeah, no great plans to create an empire, mainly because we just want to have fun and really enjoy it and keep going, but yeah, the trouble is if there is something great, you can't stop, as well as my account, I want to say, yeah, we're chatting to my accountant and he was, he looked really lucky, he said, do you know, if you would have one of the most profitable businesses I've ever known, if you could just, if I could just not hear the words, I've had an idea, he said, then he said, you know, you said, it's very rare I get someone that phones up and checking how to put a jet plane to on business expenses, but yeah, he says it's, yeah, but then, you know, you wouldn't have the same business if you weren't having these ideas, would you, so yeah, the accountant, the accountant can't have it both ways, yeah, you know, and that's the fun thing, like the other day, the load score featured on Radio One, and that was some, a guest was staying, and they just rang up and said, we're an anniversary, we've sat in the Lotus Hot Tub, and, you know, the presenters taken it was, no, that's not real, they can't be, and then, of course, they start googling and just the fact that, no, I don't believe it, someone's actually done this, you know, and that created a whole conversation, and if you can get that response from somewhere, it's that they're going right, we're on national radio, and, you know, there even, the debate is whether this really exists, and, you know, and they see it, and they go, wow, you're like, you know, that's a, it's such a great, great promotion when you get bits like that. Unless you, unless you're prepared to kind of push the boundaries as you've done and kind of have a crazy idea, and then not just have it that actually be prepared and able to follow through with it as well, but you just, this will never happen, well, it takes those kind of those different steps, they have a new idea, but then really kind of pushing through with it and making it happen, and it just makes all that possible, doesn't it? Ralph, what's, how can people, how can people get in touch with you? How can our listeners reach out to you if they'd like to? We've got the, we've got the website little place in the country.com, and then they've got the email addresses are on there. Good stuff. That's the best case to get you, any, any social media you'd like to point out or? Yeah, we do a little place in the country on Instagram. So that's Lucy. People can, yeah, put in Jack Coosley on that and have a look at, look at the jet plane, which is currently sat in my parents garden waiting for me to move it to the new location. So we're sort of, sort of started that project, not having a destination for it, but knowing if we bought a property, yeah, I couldn't wait years and years. It will find a home. Good stuff. Ralph, it's been an absolute, absolute joy and a pleasure to have you on, learned so much about it. It's been fantastic to learn about your properties. Really great to have you on. So thanks for being a fantastic guest. It's been a pleasure. You enjoyed this show. Do remember there's a new episode out every Monday to do come back for more in-depth conversation with short-term rental experts in the United Kingdom. Also, if there are any specific topics you'd like us to cover in the future shows, or if you'd just like to reach out for any other reason, please do email us at
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