Heather Bayer

Today, I'm talking to Sharon Michie, the owner of Cottages to Castles of Sanibel and Captiva. When Hurricane Ian was headed to Florida in September of last year, her emergency hurricane plan kicked in, but no one could have imagined the devastation that Ian would bring to the communities and businesses on the islands as well as Fort Meyers Beach.  In this episode, Sharon shares her story of that day and the months of recovery since to build back a business that has been a staple on the island for 40 years.

Heather Bayer

This is the Vacation Rental Success Podcast, keeping you up-to-date with news, views, information, and resources in this rapidly changing short-term rental business. I'm your host, Heather Bayer, and with 25 years of experience in this industry, I'm making sure you know what's hot, what's not, what's new, and what will help make your business a success.

Heather Bayer

Well, hello and welcome to another episode of the Vac Rental Success podcast. This is your host, Heather Bayer, and as ever, I am super delighted to be back with you once again.

Heather Bayer

We talked recently to Tom Goodwin of Mountain Laurel Chalets in Gatlinburg, and he was telling a story of the wildfires that decimated the Gatlinburg area in… I believe it was 2017.  And the loss was just massive,  the loss for businesses and communities and personal lives. It was just horrendous. And we didn't actually dwell too much on that. We were talking more about how Tom has made such a fantastic success of the family business. But in that episode, I'd mentioned that another guest that we've had on the podcast a couple of times, and that's Sharon Michie, from Cottages to Castles of Sanibel and Captiva, had gone through a similar experience in 2022 with Hurricane Ian.

Heather Bayer

And it was on September 30, 2022, when thousands of lives were changed forever when that hurricane made landfall in Florida. It was the deadliest hurricane to strike the state of Florida since 1935, and the strongest to make landfall since Michael decimated the Mexico Beach area in 2018. I'm sure you remember that one. I'm also sure that we all watched this unfold on CNN and other news networks. While the city of Fort Myers and Cape Coral and Naples were particularly hard hit, leaving millions without power, the islands, Sanibel Island, Fort Meyers Beach, and Pine Island bore the brunt of Ian's powerful winds and the storm surge, which leveled nearly all standing structures and also collapsed the Sanibel Causeway and the bridge to Pine Island entrapping those left on the islands for several days.

Heather Bayer

As with most natural disasters, once the event itself is over and the breaking news moves on to the next drama, we tend to forget what happens in the aftermath. We forget the communities that have to recover, the rebuilding of homes and livelihoods, and the repercussions for every type of business, and how they all deal with the massive losses and personal grief. So Sharon Michie of Cottages to Castles of Sanibel and Captiva was there. She was there on the day of the Hurricane. She was there to follow up in the immediate aftermath and has been there on the islands and within the community for the last nine months, aiding in the wider recovery process as well as helping her business to recover. A business that was started by her mother back in 1983, so around 40 years that company has been on the islands. So there was no way that Sharon was going to let this go. Without further ado, let's move right on over to my interview with Sharon.

Heather Bayer

So I'm so happy to have back with me once again for the third time, Sharon Michie, from Cottages to Castles of Sanibel and Captiva.  Sharon, welcome. It's always a pleasure to see you.

Sharon Michie

You as well. Many thanks. Hopefully the third time's a charm.

Heather Bayer

Well, I look back on the two other podcasts we did, and actually, they were both about issues and disasters. One of them, we talked about how you handle problems and issues within the company. Then the next time, we talked about COVID. Then, of course, the Hurricane. As I mentioned in the introduction, it was a completely devastating experience for everybody in the area. I think everybody who's listening watched it unfold. You are still here. You're rebuilding your company now and helping your community to rebuild as well. So I'd love to spend this time we have together talking about how this all panned out and how you approached the recovery and where you are now. So let's just recap on Cottages to castles of Sanibel and Captiva before the hurricane. How many properties did you have, and a little bit of the history behind it?

Sharon Michie

I'm a boutique agency and family-owned.  So I'm 40 units, never been larger than 50 ever in over 30 years of doing business on the islands. Mother started in the business out here in 1981/82, and we opened up Cottages to Castles in 1997, and we specialize in high-end and boutique properties. Your word ‘doyen' that you had brought up a few months ago, we had always called ourselves the doyennes of domesticity and disasters. That's what we specialized in. The word is known out here on the island. But we've been at it for 30 years and I've been on my own for the past seven/eight years now since my mother passed away. I'm still a very small company and still very hands-on and specialized.

Heather Bayer

Well, in the previous episodes that we recorded, you're super-successful, lots of returning guests, and it's a very popular place. The islands are very popular. I actually hadn't heard about them until we first started talking. I've done lots of research since then and can't wait to come. But when the hurricane came in, how many people did you actually have in properties?

Sharon Michie

It was probably about 40% because September is our low, low, low season. So I only had maybe a dozen families total.

Heather Bayer

Okay. And what did you actually expect? It's hurricane season, at the end of September, right in the middle of it. When this first came up, what did you expect from the forecast? And how did you put your plan into action at that time?

Sharon Michie

This would have been my fourth or fifth hurricane, and our most recent Category 4 was in 2004, and we were a direct hit for that. It was a smaller storm though, and faster. So we have a hurricane playbook, we call it our Rodeo Book. So we work in teams, we now embrace technology, so it's a lot easier. We implemented our Breezeway and our email, and we also still pick up the phone and we stop by and make visits. So one of us makes the phone calls and does the direct messaging saying, We're watching a system out in The Gulf. We provide flashlights in all of the properties. So it was left on your counter, please locate your flashlight. If you need supplies, if you need anything, please let us know. We'll bring you water, this or that, in anticipation of a tropical storm, [during] which people can actually stay. It's just a wind and rain event, not a big deal. So we start communicating with guests that way, and then we reach out to our guests that are due to arrive to tell them we're watching a system, stay put, don't call us, we'll call you, and we'll keep you posted.

Sharon Michie

And then we include the message that if you have travel insurance, don't fret. So we will do the heavy lifting for you, but please don't call us. We'll call you. Tune into our Facebook page for the most recent news. Instagram is our happy place, so we don't post notifications there; and Twitter. So Twitter is where we would post anything to watch specific weather channels, weather people, that sort of thing. But Facebook is where we do the real time updates. So that way people can not worry about their reservation. We put the emphasis on, We are going to be out closing up our properties and giving our properties the highest and best chance of surviving an event, whether it's a tropical storm or hurricane, so that we can hit the ground running and get back to business.

Heather Bayer

When did you realize that this was going to be way more of a major storm than was originally thought?

Sharon Michie

Four days out, we began closing properties that we had people in or had not yet been closed. Our rule of thumb is, if a property is vacant longer than two weeks, we pre-close it during hurricane season. The water heaters are turned off, water is turned off, outdoor furniture is brought inside, so it's prepped. There's very little that we actually have to do for that. It was four days out and we knew we were going to at least get wind if it was going to go north of us to Tampa. We began with the homes with the highest degree of difficulty, the three-story homes and the homes that aren't storm ready and resilient, that don't have impact windows and doors or have challenging landscape and furniture and fixtures outside. We started four days in advance with that and messaged all of our guests and residents to make a tentative reservation over in Florida, as we call the mainland. So if they didn't want to go ahead and leave, make a reservation now because they're not going to be able to get one. And then we emphasize that if they don't have a ten-day kit provisions, then it's probably best they go home.

Sharon Michie

So by two days out, it was still uncertain, but the storm was tracking and wobbling a little more east each time, every four hours for the updated weather forecast. And it was basically following the path of Hurricane Charlie from 2004. That wobbled at the very last minute. People were frantic trying to get out. We had just a few hours notice for that. I could see that, and I would rather air on the side of caution. We started four days out, and then by two days out, we had a couple of holdouts for guests that weren't wanting to go, because they didn't have travel insurance or they were international travelers and they had just gotten here and still had a month on their stay. So we sent our crews over to begin closing up those properties anyway. It's like, you're going to have to go. Sorry, this is going to block your view and your house is going to be a little crowded inside, but you have to go. So by two days out, we knew we were at least going to get the fringe and it was going to be unpleasant and uncomfortable.

Heather Bayer

And then all hell broke loose?

Sharon Michie

Yes.  We did not receive a timely notification from our county regarding the mandatory evacuations. So we can get guests out as non-residents. We can say you cannot stay because you are not a resident. So we didn't get the notification until less than 24 hours before the storm hit. There was a delay. So 1,070 people stayed on the island, whereas with Hurricane Charlie, it was just about 100.

Heather Bayer

So what about your guests? Because I understand that one of them was particularly reluctant to depart.

Sharon Michie

Yes, one had just gotten here, international traveler, did not want to leave. He had sent our crews away twice, in fact, that had come over to close up the property because he didn't want his view blocked. That was challenging. We had two other guests in little beachfront bungalows and they didn't want to leave, but they did have a plan B. Had those guests stayed, they would have died because those properties are gone. There is nothing there and they are concrete bunkers, but they would have washed away. The guest at the house, it got to the point where we were calling and texting and we said we were going to have to involve law enforcement at that point to have him removed, which we can do with transient leases with transient guests. They left abruptly and it was just after five o'clock, because I remember we got the notification on our PointCentral lock that he used his code and locked the door. So we sent the crew back over and I went over to try to further secure the owner's boat on her lift and to assist the crew with getting the armor screen up.

Sharon Michie

The house has impact windows and doors, but the armor screen helps with other areas of the house. At that point, the wind is blowing, it's raining sideways, it's not great, and we got the house secure. I left and I live at the opposite end of the island. I got to the entrance to Sanibel and to head up to my house, which is still a 20-minute drive, and the fire trucks were leaving. If the fire trucks are leaving, that means they are closing our only road to the island, which means I either have to go now or I don't go at all. I had my bags packed, everything packed at my house and my things at my office packed, ready to go because I started this process a week before. I was ready to go. I had the bare bones minimum in my car. I had my Starlink satellite and I had my laptop and just a few things and just a few basic things from the office and that was it. So I left with nothing. I didn't have my hurricane passes, didn't have my passport, didn't have anything with me, clothing, my supplies, nothing.

Heather Bayer

And where did you go?

Sharon Michie

Went to a friend's home in Fort Myers that used to work out here on the island and she has a whole house generator. So went over there, was fairly close to the airport and set up the Starlink there.  Pretty soon, internet was out, power was out, so we were able to hum along nicely. I was able to be online and live in real time, communicating with my owners and with my guests and I was able to use my phone because of my internet connection. The whole county, 800,000 people, no one had internet or cell service, and I was at least able to communicate outside. I couldn't track where my team was and how they were doing or friends and neighbors, but at least people knew I was okay and I was able to get the word out as to what was going on.

Heather Bayer

That must have been the toughest 24 hours that you've had for…

Sharon Michie

48. And cell service didn't come back for months, by the way. So it was a good week to 10 days before I found most of my people, most of my tribe.

Heather Bayer

Goodness me. So it was a week or 10 days before you found the people. I know we look at these things on TV all the time. We look at devastation from earthquakes, from wildfires, from hurricanes. And it's so different because we're sat back on our couches and our grounds are all landscaped and our houses in one piece. It's very hard to imagine how… just hard to comprehend how you start the recovery of that type of devastation. You're the only person I know that has really been through something like this and has been there at the start. So where do you go? You said to start with, you got your tribe, you found your people. What happens next?

Sharon Michie

Well, my goal was to come back onto the island. The causeway was washed out, so there was no way to get on the island. So law enforcement, city officials, emergency responders, structural safety inspectors, there's no way on the island. I had two neighbors that stayed, one in a resilient home, one not so much. Home is fine, but it's not a newer home. So I was able to make contact with them and another friend on the mainland. My mainland friend had a boat. They had pulled their boat and I contacted an owner in my rental program that had a home on the mainland and she had a private boat ramp. Federal officials had taken over all public boat ramps and private boat ramps at that time. This one they had not, so we were able to launch the boat with three other friends so that we could slowly head out to the island through all the debris in the water. We could site, basically, somebody on the bow, port, starboard at the stern, navigating, so we could guide ourselves out. I dropped my two friends off at their home, which is a newer home, so it was fine. It had flooded underneath, and they have two boats and their boats were intact. They had strapped them to their lifts. So now we've got access to two more boats with that. So we left them to secure their home and do what they needed to do now that they'd seen their place. And so we worked our way out towards my house. Again, there's a little ramp near where they were landing all the helicopters on the island. So the footage that you see where they're landing them on the golf course that's near to my home. And that's a very, very difficult area to navigate by boat. So we knew they weren't going to be trying to use that ramp that you really have to know what you're doing to get into the skinny water back there. So we had a bike on the boat and I managed to climb through a person's house that used to be on the other side of the bayou and was now on by the ramp and got on my bike, rode to my house, was able to get inside and grab my things.

Sharon Michie

Obviously, the state of the island changed things, so I didn't need my gear bags and all my provisions.  It's like, Nope, those will stay here. But now I need a full-size tube of toothpaste, so I don't need the sample size to last me a few days. I had had sewage come into my house so basically started pulling rugs and things out, opening up the windows, garage door, went to my neighbors, told them I was here, gave them my other Starlink that I had from the office. That was the one I had in my car. I had mine at my house. I gave them my Starlink from my house, actually, so they could communicate because they were climbing up to the third floor of their home, sitting in a beach chair on the roof to just send out text messages around one in the morning when you could get a signal. I had about 30 minutes on the ground to do what I needed to do, get my hurricane passes, my passport, basics, and bike back, and then get on the boat and try and work our way out of there because it was getting dark early. So I didn't tell anybody and make an announcement that I was going. It was just I needed to get my basic things so that when they reopen, I can get back to the island.

Sharon Michie

At that point, the next thing we needed to do was secure long-term housing for me and my employee and friends and putting the feelers out so that we could find homes for everybody, because we knew we weren't going to be coming back. They said it would be up to a year. That was the next major goal was to do that and track everybody down that stayed, were people okay or not. So we started our little network and then had a common meeting place where the city officials were meeting at one of the hotels in town. We would all congregate there.

Heather Bayer

What about your office?

Sharon Michie

Office I didn't go to for probably about a week. I had eyes on the office. There was a family that had left a family of tortoises behind or that they had stayed and the tortoises washed away and they were featured on the CBS Sunday Morning News. One of the turtles was at my office, 3 miles away. The turtle was photographed and it was in front of my building. You could see satellite imagery looking down, but that didn't mean your building wasn't collapsed flat on the ground.

Sharon Michie

I had eyes on the building, I already knew that I had at least eight feet of water based on city cameras that were adjacent to my property. I knew I had eight feet at least, so I knew the inside was going to be a total loss. But it was a concrete building with impact windows and doors and a metal roof. I had gotten word and pictures were sent to me, so I didn't need to rush to the office. There's nothing there for me to see at the moment. Then at that point, I started coordinating boat rides with my neighbor because they were bringing people over for contractors, so that they could start remediating. Since my neighbor has a boat and it can run in that water, I would come back and I would stay three or four days at a time and ride my bike. My bikes all survived, lucky me, along with my e-bike.  I had solar inverter generators, solar panels, all of that. I had light and I had my Internet, I had my computer, I had my grill. I was way better off than a lot of other people.

Sharon Michie

I was able to function without gasoline, without gas for generators. I would bring gas with me for my neighbors, for their generators and ice cold milk. Then in exchange, they'd give me boat rides because boat rides were averaging anywhere from $100 to $500….

Heather Bayer

I can imagine.

Sharon Michie

….Each way. It was an expensive proposition for people and people were desperate to see their properties.

Heather Bayer

That brings me to your owners.  No doubt tey were trying to connect with you as you were their boots on the ground, right?

Sharon Michie

I hijacked a golf cart that was gas powered. So there's a club near my home and they have gas powered golf carts. Since we were at the highest part of the island, we were relatively dry. Some areas had 6-feet, some had 3-feet. Most areas had 10 to 12-feet. So I was able to get my hands on a golf cart and my neighbor also had a gas powered golf cart, so I was able to move much faster than on my bike to cover the whole island.  So I sent an email to all of the owners, I will be going to the properties. But some are challenging. There's knee-deep mud, so you can't take a golf cart. So you've got to have walking sticks or beach umbrella parts, the bases of beach umbrellas to use as walking sticks, you know, to try to get to a house and to climb over debris and through debris or to a condo that you can't get up the stairwells because they're full of cinderblocks and paddleboards and sunscreens and whatever.

Sharon Michie

I was able to get to all of the properties in two days and took a friend of mine who's a locksmith with me as well. So he was on the island and I'm like, Come along. So we were able to pick some locks and get into some properties and sledgehammer down a few doors and that sort of thing to get in and get some basic pictures, had a marker with me, drew a line on the wall with me standing next to it to show where the water line was and would send that information out to the owners.

Heather Bayer

And going back to the basics of your business, so you've got the owners on the one hand who are, I'm assuming, just concerned about the state of their properties. But you've also got, no doubt, a slew of guests on the other hand who are booked. And to them, all they're concerned about mostly is their vacation. How do you handle that?

Sharon Michie

Again, we make it very one-sided. So we sent lots of emails. I updated everybody every day what I was doing, and I made the decision immediately within 24 hours that we would be issuing full refunds. I'm not going to hold onto people's deposits. I'm not going to give you the opportunity to rebook a future date. You'll get first dibs on your same dates whenever we reopen, but I'm sending everybody your money back. Please don't dispute your charges. Don't make life harder for us. We're just sending everything back. I need to get a pen first, and then I need a printer. And no, you can't just ‘Amazon' a printer because Amazon isn't delivering for weeks. So to the mainland, there was no power. Everybody was really supportive. The guests were very supportive. We just said, Just be patient. We have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. It was going to be a very uncomfortable ride going forward. So I issued refunds within a week. I came back and stayed up till two in the morning, and then I'd get up at five, get my provisions together, get on a boat, go back to the island, stay the day, come back, start the process all over again.

Sharon Michie

Owners, we had emailed them when we knew the storm was going to hit. We had asked everybody to get all their insurance policies together and go ahead and file a claim pre-emptively before the storm, so that you get a claim number in advance. So owners did that and that we would be providing guidance to them on how to proceed with insurance and cancellations and how we handle that to make it advantageous to them with their taxes.  That we weren't going to be canceling reservations, we were issuing refunds that way the owners could take a tax credit. It was very one-sided communication of this is what we are doing and if you want to do anything to help me, write me a favorable Google review.  Do that. That would be great. That's helpful. Keep our little business going online until you can return. The main thing was to just keep the flow of information going out, which because of my situation with internet, I was able to do that. It was difficult for other businesses on the island to do that at all. People were very, very gracious and very kind, and that goes a long way.

Heather Bayer

So how about your guest who didn't want to leave? Did you hear back from him?

Sharon Michie

I'm still hearing back, yes. I'm still hearing back regarding security deposit refund.  The property sustained damage as a result of him not departing in a timely manner, damages that would have been avoided.

Heather Bayer

Oh, right.

Sharon Michie

Totally would have been avoided, because of steps that they took on their own, trying to be helpful, which were not helpful. Then the cost of returning their items to them that they left behind. The deposit did not go back. That's the only deposit that did not go back. I'm hearing from barristers and this and that, it is what it is. Here's the photos, here's the communiques that we sent. It is what it is. In this case, you endangered our lives and the owner's property sustained damage, that it would not have sustained had you left in a timely manner and our crews not been sent away four days prior.

Heather Bayer

Yes. It's not surprising to hear that that would occur, but it's shocking nonetheless.

Sharon Michie

I did have some guests that filed a false insurance claim. I had an insurance company contact me about the personal effects that were left behind at a property, and I was confused at first. I'm like, I don't recall that at all. I'm like, They didn't leave anything behind. They're like, Well, how do you know? I said, Because they were a couple that left late as well. We got the notification from PointCentral that they had left, so we went over there to secure the property, and it's a small property. So we brought the grill in, secured the outdoor shower, and we emptied the refrigerator and freezer. There was a pack of frozen shrimp bait, a can of Natural Light, and a frozen margarita pouch. So we took that over to the community trash. And then we did a video for the owner, which we do all the time. So when we're doing a last-minute closure like that, we did a video. They did not leave any clothing or any personal effects or anything behind. So I sent an email to them saying, received an odd phone call about items left behind, and they said, Well, how do you know we didn't leave anything?  I said, Because we went there and I have the video. So they went quiet after that.

Heather Bayer

Oh, I'm sure they did.

Sharon Michie

So there are opportunists, even in a disaster.

Heather Bayer

Of course, there are. Here we are eight months, eight and a half months in. How would you rate the recovery? You call it Repairadise, which I love. That is the title of this episode is the Journey to Repairadise. Where are you now after all these months? Were there any highlights… and lowlights? Obviously, there were highlights and lowlights in the last eight months. But what comes to mind?

Sharon Michie

Well, the little things, obviously, being able to drive over the Causeway for the first time, slow and bumpy on dirt, but that was amazing. But the main thing was reconnecting with people and people that we're still seeing for the first time that we haven't seen because a lot of our friends and neighbors have nothing to return to. There's nothing to come back to. So when you do run into someone, it's amazing. So we cry happy tears. We cried happy tears when we saw a FEMA truck picking up garbage and debris on your street. So you didn't have a 20-foot wall of smelly debris. So you cried when we were able to get mail for the first time and we'd had to drive out to the airport to get it. Our post office just reopened three weeks ago here on the island. It's still a mess, but we can now get mail on the island. When you got electricity for the first time, and more than half the island still doesn't have electricity, but when you are able to flip a light switch on for the first time and see a ceiling fan turn and discovering wild tomato plants that are growing and seeding all over the island, they're growing on the beach even.  Native plants, when you discover a turtle, how did the turtles survive? They floated here and there and everywhere.

Sharon Michie

It's just… there's so many little things, and yet there's so many things that are just still hard. It's such a large swath for the storm in the recovery area. Everyone needs everything. So between all of the barrier islands, 90% of Fort Meyers Beach is gone. 80% of Sanibel was severely damaged. The mainland, the other outer islands, everybody needs electricity, everybody needs plumbing, everybody needs a roof, everybody needs walls. And you've got the FEMA 50/50 rule. So many people can't rebuild because of the level of damage that their property sustained. So it's pretty heartbreaking every day. And the response from the insurance companies is lackluster. So it's making it very painful. So we're all absorbing stress every day. And those that stayed here clearly have PTSD. The rest of us just had absorbed stress, so there's a difference. So when you're absorbing that level of stress every day because you can't get a permit still, you can't get an appointment for a plumber, there's so many things you can't do. And so you can't do one thing without the other.

Sharon Michie

So it's just very, very slow. And I just emphasize to guests who are calling and emailing and to the owners that if you were not born with a genetic marker for patience, this is a skill then. It's a skill set. And I am not someone who was born with a genetic marker for patience, so I am very Type-A.  Dig in, I'm built for this stuff, I can survive without electricity and water, I'm a girl scout, I can do it, and I've done it. And a lot of people aren't. So it's just mentally exhausting. This is mentally exhausting and to just see a hellscape around you every day, everywhere you turn. So it's nice to go to the beach, if you can get to one, and just look out over the water. That looks the same. You just don't turn your back and look towards the buildings. So that's nice.

Heather Bayer

I've been watching some of your videos on your Facebook page, and I'll put a link to that on the Show Notes. And there was one particular one, you're walking towards the sea, I think it's a relatively recent one, and saying exactly that, that the ocean is there, the ocean looks beautiful. But once again, it's hard for those of us on the outside to think, Well, eight months, you should be back to normal. But of course, it's going to take a lot longer than that. Now, they said a year. How many properties are going to come back to you, do you think?

Sharon Michie

Right now on Sanibel, there are two condominiums, two units that can be rented. You can't get to the beach from them. The beach is right in front of them, but you can't get to the beach. They don't have an elevator. There are two condominiums. There's part of a hotel on Sanibel, and then on Capitava, there's 50% of a hotel and some condos or houses mostly. So out of over 7,000 properties, there's less than 200 total. I have four or five properties that are resilient. So it was just replacing a Tesla wall charger and a pool pump, and we're good. But I was not interested in renting to anyone other than island residents that need a place to live while they rebuild their homes. There's nothing for people to see here. Supporting island businesses are great, but there's not that much to support. You can rent some bicycles and you can go to some restaurants, but you want people here for the right reasons. I don't want them traumatized because they've got flat tires and there is no AAA service. No one's going to come rescue you.  Our garage on the island is gone.  So, there's no internet, or that they're demolishing the house next door to you, or that the house you're looking into right behind you looks like a dollhouse… the back half is sheared off, so you're looking into it.

Sharon Michie

And then we get the ‘traumarazzi' going on, as we call it, the people driving around taking videos of the devastation and putting it online. It's upsetting. It's really distressing. So in all of my posts, I've made a point, I don't show anything that's someone's home. It's like, if you're tuning in for that, you're not going to get that on my page. So we show progress and we show little victories. But everything is just challenging and slow. The houses are coming up much faster. Condominiums are going to be next winter for some, but it'll be 18 months for others. And then those that are reopening by the fall or the winter, we have to make sure the guests manage their expectations that just because this unit is ready for you, that doesn't mean you're going to have an elevator. There's going to be work going on above you, below you, on either side of you, across the complex from you, behind you, at the clubhouse.  There's going to be noise. So if you're okay with that, great. So it's not going to be the Sanibel you remember and the vacation that you're accustomed to. So if you can just manage your expectations a little bit, it'll be fine. It'll be absolutely fine. So normally, work isn't allowed to go on during the winter months. It can only go on in the off season. Anything goes right now.

Heather Bayer

So you've got a summer coming up. So it's not going to be a summer that you would have expected, obviously. Would it be next summer or do you think the summer after where you will be back to something that resembles the previous Sanibel and Captiva?

Sharon Michie

Next summer will be definitely more promising. Definitely more promising, provided we get through this hurricane season, which just started June 1. Provided we are unscathed this year, next summer will be a markedly different summer. But there are also a lot of properties that have been bulldozed and are gone. So those are going to be 2-3 years for those to be rebuilt. But we'll be back to renting and there will be some retail shops on the island, finally. We'll have a second fire station by then. The second one was destroyed by flood. So things will get a little more normal. The library will be opened, the historical village will be opened, the shell museum will have reopened by then. So all the fun things that there are to do here will be back. But it just takes time.

Heather Bayer

What keeps you going, Sharon? What keeps you motivated and driven every day?

Sharon Michie

This is my home. It's the only home I know. And we always used to say that people would save their money all year long to come for one week on this little barrier island. And that's a pretty special thing. And it's a really special place. And that people are cheering us on from all around the globe and sending lots of messages of goodwill and little care packages like, We didn't get to see you this year. And we know you love these treats that they make for us and bring down. So they're sending nice little care packages. You want everybody back and you feed off the energy of the people that are here. Right now, there's less than 500 people on this island. So it's like it was when I was a kid. The island would close the first of May and everything closed, restaurants and everything, except for the grocery, and it would reopen November 1. So it really is like going back in time.

Sharon Michie

But as I said, mentally, it's tough. So we always say there's tough runs and tough runners, and I'm a tough runner and I want to get these people back here.  I want our community back. We want people's livelihoods back. It's just that feel good, positive, happy place. This is a really special corner of the world, and the sooner we get it back for everybody to enjoy, all will be right in the world again.

Heather Bayer

So what would you advise for other property managers and owners in these areas as they are preparing for another hurricane season? Because you never know. Think back to 2018 and Mexico Beach and Hurricane Michael. That was the complete town just went.

Sharon Michie

They're still sorting through that right now as a matter of fact, still.

Heather Bayer

Yes, five years on. It's tough for anybody who has a company in these sorts of areas. But of course, so it is in wildfire areas as well. I was talking to Tom Goodwin at Mountain Laurel Chalets recently, and he was talking about the Gatlinburg Wildfires in 2017, I think, and they lost nine of their own properties… just gone.

Heather Bayer

We talked in a previous episode about you having an emergency plan, your hurricane plan, and you mentioned this at the very beginning of this conversation about all the things you did to get people prepared.  Would you do anything different once you get really up and running again? Will you make any changes to those plans that you made?

Sharon Michie

We didn't account for the Causeway not being accessible. So that would be Plan B, make a friend with someone who has a helicopter – that's a good one. I've got friends with boats, the helicopter would have been faster. There's really not much different that I would have done other than those last two sets of guests not being as gracious with my time to let them get out. That's really the only different thing.

Sharon Michie

I've updated during our downtime now. I met with my attorney who you've interviewed with, Keith Brady, who you've done a podcast with. We took this opportunity to update our owner contracts and guest contracts and vendor contracts and to specifically cover language regarding natural disasters and the process. I was able to guide a lot of our owners because we encourage them to put them [their properties] in LLCs and insure them as such and not as second residencies, because you can get loss of use income because it's being treated as a business. The good news is most of my owners did that. Most of my owners got paid; therefore, I get paid. I get my commission. I was able to tell owners to review their insurance policies and look carefully that if they're part of a homeowners association or a condominium association, there's generally a clause in there that says if you're given a special assessment as a result of a natural disaster, that's a benefit that will be paid by the insurance company.  I had owners call me saying, Wow, I had no idea. I'm getting $1,000 or $5,000, which doesn't cover the $350,000 special assessment, the first assessment, but it helps. It's something.

Sharon Michie

So insurance in place is everything. And if they're not going to insure and they're self-insuring, that they have the means and the money to rebuild. I do have some owners that it does not make sense to spend $60,000 a year for flood insurance, and they self-insure. They have rebuilt. Everything's fine. So they're not feeling the pinch. I've always asked my prospective owners before I accept them into a program, I always ask what their motivation is for buying a property. And there's no wrong reason…. I've always loved it here. I want to retire here. I want to make money off this. My accountant says I need to throw off some cash and invest in real estate. There's no wrong answer, but I need to know what the motivation is. And then the second part of my question is always, can you afford to go minimum one year and up to three years with zero rental income and not have this disrupt your marriage, your lifestyle, 401, 529 plan, braces on your kid's teeth, any of that? Because if the answer is no and you need the income to make this work, I'm not the agency for you. There are plenty of other agencies out here that they don't care who they're working with, and that has served me very well this go round. I have not had one owner call me to say that they're financially distressed, that they have to sell, that they can't afford it, that they're out. It's been wonderful. It's been absolutely wonderful.

Sharon Michie

We're all humming along and I'm arranging for contractors. That's the other thing I would do differently, is have a separate clause in my contract regarding property management. I've now set up a consulting side. So I've got home watch service for property inspections, whereas if you had active rentals and things in place, guests in place, you'd be checking properties on a regular basis. Well, this is a little bit of a different animal now. I've got language covering that now that we switch and we become more of a property management home watch consulting and project manager. I have a separate side set up now. My income stream, I may not have commission income steadily, but I did get commission from the loss of use for my owners. Now I'm supplementing that income by doing project management, by overseeing their projects.  So I'm getting a percentage of what the project costs while they're renovating and updating. That's really one of the only things that I would have changed, that I would have already had that in place.  I could pivot more quickly.

Heather Bayer

I think one of the most important things that you just said there is about the business use and the insurance and having the owners insure as an LLC, because I think people forget the owners will be covered for their loss of business income, which means that you, as the property manager, get your commission. And that is super-important. I love that you have this policy of selecting the owners that come to you and making sure that they meet your criteria. And it's not a free-for-all and will just take anything that comes in. A lot of companies do that, but it has served you well to operate the policies that you have done.

Sharon Michie

40 units makes it a lot easier than 200.

Heather Bayer

Yes exactly.

Sharon Michie

But I get out there, I volunteer.  That way…. our mental health, we're all out there because this is definitely taxing. As I said, it's tough mentally and emotionally that you see your neighbors homeless and your community turned upside down. So we get out there and we volunteer at the wildlife hospital, painting the intern housing and clearing out the cages to rebuild them for flight raptors and on the beach doing debris cleanup and roadside and in the ditches and the swales. And then at our social services, our Friends in Service Here group, distributing furniture from Lowe's and Home Depot and sinks and doors and food and all kinds of things. So we used to donate…. our Rental Managers Association…. over 10,000lb of food a year to the food bank. Well, that's not coming to them now. So we're asking people, if you want to support local businesses, well, go buy a plant at the Wildlife Conservation Foundation and gift it to somebody. Say, here's a free plant I've just paid for it. Give it to a resident that needs plants, who has no plants anymore. Go to the animal hospital, make a contribution there.  Go to the food bank and make a contribution of food or money so that food can be bought for the people that are living out here now that don't have any resources available to them.  So that's been a big boost. Makes you feel better that you're helping humans and wildlife and to just improve the state of the community overall. So that's been very nice to do.

Sharon Michie

And that was one of the other things in the early days after the Hurricane. Our Rental Managers Association, we held an emergency meeting. All of the agencies, we all got together to just discuss should we be splitting up properties, checking on them for each other, sending updates. Because at that point in time, you could only get to the island by boat and you had to walk or ride a bike. And because I live on the island, I had a vehicle that survived. I had a second vehicle, it was at my house. So I had a vehicle, I had nine bicycles, I had an electric bike, and then I had that golf cart. So we were able to move people around, but we met to just collectively review everything.

Sharon Michie

And that's where we shared information. And I said, make sure your owners check about their insurance policies and do not cancel reservations. Talk to your accounting people, talk to whomever you need to, but whatever you do, do not cancel them. If you cancel them, your owners can't collect a loss of use benefit and then you can't get a commission. It was a very uplifting meeting and we were able to share the challenges and the state of everyone's office and did anybody need help? We've been meeting monthly, as we always did before, but we've been meeting monthly and we're still sharing updates on properties and when agencies will be reopening and when they can move back in. Again, any support that anybody needs, we're all there to help.

Heather Bayer

It's interesting. Brooke Pfautz has been running a series on LinkedIn of the 10 mistakes that property managers have made, and he's had a lot of responses. But there's many of those lists include some common themes, and one of them is about people saying, I wish we'd got together with other management companies earlier, because once we did things changed. We suddenly realized that we're not competitors. We are all in this together. I know that from my experience, but it's certainly [true] when it comes to a situation like you've been through, then it must have been just helpful on the one hand, and then reassuring on the other hand to know that all of you had each other's backs.

Sharon Michie

We've all been comrades. We work together. We lift each other up collectively. We've met with our Mayor, we've met with our County Commissioners. We've reminded them, this hurricane made it very clear that this island is tourism driven. And in the absence of vacation rentals, there goes the income that the County receives. The bed tax money, the state sales tax money, the money for beach re-nourishment, the number of people who rent bicycles and go on fishing charters and go through the wildlife refuge and do all the things, seats in all the restaurants. Now there's nobody here. We're getting a lot of support from our city and from our county officials to make sure that we're all going to get back on our feet. They've been really good about providing information about grants and opportunities to get additional funding for anybody that needs it to keep their business on track, or to get them going once they're ready to reopen. It's been really nice having that open door and that we are in such a small community that we're able to reach out and get that support. And if they don't have the answers, that they'll get them for us.

Sharon Michie

So it's been really nice as a collective with all of the agencies to be able to share information and go to every single ribbon cutting for each business that reopens and see each other and again hug and just congratulate and cheer each other on that another business has finally opened, no matter how small.

Heather Bayer

Tough, so tough to go through something like this. But with those positives coming out as you go through recovery, that is so heartening.

Heather Bayer

Sharon, this has been such a great conversation. I think, as I've said over and over again, when you're on the outside looking in at something, you cannot envisage, you cannot encapsulate what you might be going through, the people who are involved in it. I'd just like to thank you for sharing all this. I'm sure there's a lot of people listening who are in locations that could, at some point, have the same disaster impact them. So I hope this has helped them out. And I would like you to come back, perhaps in a year's time, and talk about all your guests coming back and the shells back on the beach and the shell store and museum open and we can have a really happy conversation.

Sharon Michie

Yes. I'd like to also thank all of our partners that we work with, like PointCentral and Breezeway and Travel Guard, CSA, Global Generali and RealTech and Rental Network Software. Just all of our partners, Ascent Processing, that they were so gracious to reach out and help us and suspend our accounts and suspend fees for all the agencies, all of the partners, whether you…. no matter…. Escapia…. everybody … it was amazing…. Streamline. So how helpful that is knowing that there's no income stream whatsoever for the foreseeable future, that it was just a no questions asked so that our partners, the people that we choose to do business with, reciprocated and are supporting us while we're going through this. And Breezeway, in particular, was very helpful in allowing me to create some different checklists that aren't property associated, like for the hurricane closures and things like that in the reopening. So our inspection process has changed with that. So they were gracious in allowing me to work outside the box a little bit, as was Andy at Touch Stay as well. So they were super helpful so that I was able to create some different processes and workflows that are outside the norm so that as we recover, we're working outside the box.  But all of our partners were super helpful and continue to be. So it's really nice.

Heather Bayer

I will make a point of listing all those partners that you've mentioned on the show.

Sharon Michie

They go on and on for every rental agency because we all talked at our Rental Association about who, what partners were helpful, and we were surprised at a few that decided to put money before people.

Heather Bayer

That's this industry for you, though.

Sharon Michie

People first, then money, then things. Yes, exactly. Then in the case of vacation rentals, people first, then the things of the vacation rental, then the money. Take care of the first two, the money will follow. My mother always said that. Take care of the people, take care of the property, the money will follow.

Heather Bayer

Sharon, thank you so much for joining me. I still hope we get to meet sometime. I'm going to talk to you in a few moments if you stay by. Just about the Vacation Rental Women's Summit, because I really think you should be there. So thank you and we'll talk again, hopefully in a year's time.

Sharon Michie

Many thanks.

Heather Bayer

Well, that was so interesting. Thank you so much, Sharon, for joining me and sharing all that. I cannot imagine going through such devastation and coming out the other side and remaining positive and still being Gung Ho and going for it eight months after, even when it's clear that there's so much more work to be done.

Heather Bayer

I'd love you to go to the Show Notes and check out some of the links that I'm putting in there. There's links to some video on what happened in the aftermath of the Hurricane. There's a link to Sharon's Facebook page, and of course, the links to her vendors who supported them so much in the aftermath. That's taken up much of the hour, so I'm not going to say much more than this.

Heather Bayer

We are approaching our 500th episode. I'm so excited about it. Not only are we going to have that episode, but we are bringing back one of our sponsors for another 10 weeks, and you'll be hearing from them as well. It's really exciting time for us just achieving that massive milestone. That episode is going to be really special because I have a panel that is coming to share their wisdom with you about how we prepare for the next few years after the craziness of the last few.  So I'm not going to say much more about it than that. I will be posting a little bit more in social media over the next couple of weeks, and hopefully you will join and hear this great panel at that time. For now, I'd like to thank you for being with us. It's always such a pleasure and can't wait for next time.

Heather Bayer

It's been a pleasure as ever being with you. If there's anything you'd like to comment on, then join the conversation on the Show Notes for the episode at vacationrentalformula.com. We'd love to hear from you. And I look forward to being with you again next week.