Today we’d like to introduce you to Teri Trifiletti.
Teri, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
For 22 years, my office was an operating room. As a cardiovascular perfusionist, I was the person running the heart-lung bypass machine during open-heart surgery, quite literally keeping patients alive while surgeons worked on their hearts. It’s one of the most high-stakes, high-pressure roles in medicine, and I loved it. But it came with a cost: rigid schedules, long unpredictable hours, and very little control over my own time. At 42 years old, I thought my career was set but then we got the opportunity to relocate from Chicago to Charlotte. It was a difficult decision for me and my husband to make, but we took a chance and made the move. When our kids settled into their new schools, I could have found a new hospital, plugged back in, and kept running the same race on a different track, but I couldn’t bring myself to start somewhere new and get back on that rat race.
So in the meantime, while trying to figure that out, we bought an investment property nearby and launched our first short term rental. It was a smashing success right from the get go, so we bought another home and another and quickly found ourselves with a small property management company with me as the CEO.
I went all in when I officially retired from perfusion in 2019 and got my real estate broker’s license. From there, I met other investors who wanted me to help them launch their properties. My husband joined the company in 2021 full time and now we manage 18 rentals around Charlotte.
The transition was more natural than I expected. In the OR, every detail matters. A missed step has consequences. You learn to anticipate needs before they’re spoken, to stay calm under pressure, and to put the person in front of you first. It turns out those are exactly the skills that make someone exceptional in property management.
Today, I help property owners maximize their real estate investments while making sure every traveler who visits our city feels genuinely welcomed and cared for. I set my own schedule. I build my own systems. I decide what my days look like and that kind of autonomy, after two decades of answering to hospital schedules, feels like a gift I give myself every morning.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
it’s been fairly smooth and I don’t say that to make it sound easy, but because I think the preparation I put in before making the leap made a real difference.
The first thing most career-changers underestimate is the identity shift. When you’ve spent over two decades being really, really good at something, your profession becomes part of who you are. Letting go of that title, that expertise, can feel like losing a piece of yourself before you’ve found the new one. There’s a grief in it that nobody warns you about.
I already knew a lot about real estate, so jumping into a short term rental business felt natural. I immersed myself in learning everything I could about short term rentals, airbnb, vrbo and how to make them successful.
Not having a clear and defined schedule was challenging at first. You can get lost in the uncertainty of what needs to be done. Learning to prioritize made that easier.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
The Simply Home Host Company was built on a simple but powerful belief: that owning a short-term rental should feel like an investment, not a second job.
We are a boutique property management company serving the greater Charlotte metro area, with a special love for the waterfront and luxury properties along Lake Wylie and Lake Norman. We specialize in short-term rental management, think Airbnb and VRBO, along with property setup and staging, and co-hosting services for owners who want to stay involved but need a knowledgeable partner in their corner.
But here’s what actually sets us apart: we are hands-on in a way that larger management companies simply cannot be.
This isn’t a call center operation. When something needs attention, I’m not dispatching a ticket into a queue. I’m personally invested in every property I represent, every guest experience we create, and every owner relationship I’ve built. That level of care is baked into our name. Simply Home. We want every guest who walks through one of our doors to feel like they’ve arrived somewhere that was genuinely prepared for them, not just cleaned and checked off a list.
That same attentiveness carries over to our owners. My background in cardiovascular surgery trained me to be meticulous, anticipate problems before they happen, and never cut corners when the stakes are high. I bring that same standard to property management. Your investment is someone’s life savings, their retirement plan, their legacy and I treat it that way.
What are we most proud of? Honestly, the trust. The fact that owners hand us the keys to some of their most valuable assets and sleep well at night means everything. And the guests who come back, or who leave reviews saying a stay with one of our properties was the highlight of their trip to Charlotte, that’s the hospitality version of a great patient outcome. It never gets old.
Whether you’re a property owner looking to maximize your rental income without the stress, or a traveler looking for a beautifully appointed home away from home in the Charlotte area, The Simply Home Host Company was created with you in mind.
We don’t just manage properties. We create experiences worth coming back for.
What makes you happy?
My family, without question. My two daughters and my husband are my why. For so many years, the demands of cardiovascular surgery meant that I missed holidays, birthday and other special occassions. Ordinary moments, school pickups, weekend lake days, dinner at the table without a pager going off are the ones I treasure most, and they’re the ones I nearly let slip away without realizing it.
But if you ask me what makes me truly happy? It’s a Saturday morning with nowhere I have to be, my girls laughing somewhere in the house, and the quiet knowledge that I built a life, on purpose, that looks exactly the way I wanted it to.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://thesimplyhomehost.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesimplyhomehostco/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheSimplyHomeHostCo
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/teri-trifiletti/
