How Austin Palacios Built a Luxury Cohosting Business

Quick Summary

Austin talks about strategies for building and scaling a luxury co-hosting business in the short-term rental (STR) industry. He emphasizes the importance of strong sales skills, client relationship management, and leveraging partnerships with property owners and real estate agents. The approach focuses on identifying opportunities, delivering high-quality service, and creating scalable systems for sustainable growth.

Key Points

• Focus on second homeowners or luxury property investors for less operational strain and higher revenue potential. Use tools like skip tracing and targeted outreach (e.g., Vacasa and Evolve clients) to connect with dissatisfied property owners looking for better management.
• Create efficient communication systems (e.g., email channels for support) to handle client queries and maintain professionalism. Focus on delivering exceptional guest
• Build a strong online presence through basic SEO and a professional website tailored for specific markets.
• Highlight your expertise and emphasize personalized, boutique management services to differentiate from large competitors like Vacasa.
• Collaborate with agents and brokers by educating them on STR potential and offering referral fees for client leads. Position yourself as an expert to gain organic referrals from the real estate community.
• Hire partners or team members who complement your skill set to handle operations, freeing you to focus on growth and client acquisition.
• Set up automated processes and efficient systems to manage growth while maintaining high service standards.

Full Transcript

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Jeremy: We are live with the Short-Term Rental Pros podcast. We are here in Nashville, Tennessee, at the St. Wealth Conference.

The last few days have been a lot of fun. I'm not going to lie—last night was a lot of fun, and, you know, I don't know if my energy is where it needs to be this morning. But I'm gonna give you guys all I got because today I'm with my boy Austin.

Austin is a Floridian—you can tell if you're watching this by his tan. He has gotten a lot more sun lately than I have in New York. Austin is going to help you guys today get more co-host clients, optimize your properties, and succeed with short-term rentals in 2024.

So, I'm super excited to be here with Austin. Man, tell me about yourself. How’d you get into short-term rentals? And, you know, how’d you get the portfolio you've got today?

Austin: Yeah, brother. Well, first off, thank you for having me on the show. It's good to finally see you, man, in Nashville. We had a long night last night, so I'm glad that we're up, bright and early, and shooting this podcast today.

Jeremy: We were on the rooftop overlooking the city with our friend Ryan, who's been on the podcast—accountants, yeah. His Airbnb had a little shindig, a little party. So, yeah.

Austin: He had a little open bar too. It was a good time.

Jeremy: There have been a few too many open bars, I must say.

Austin: You see Ryan, man—there’s always an open bar with that guy. But, yeah, brother, let me break it down a little bit and give you a bit of background. I started investing in long-term rentals in Chicago back in 2019. I had just graduated college, was working in corporate America, and I just, very early on, was like, "Dude, this is not what I envisioned for myself." Commuting to work, working 9 to 5, only having the weekends off, and only making $70,000 a year—I was like, "Alright, I’ve got to figure a way out of this."

I dove into a lot of books, listened to a lot of podcasts, and found real estate along the way. I realized, "Hey, look, there's already a blueprint for real estate. Let’s figure out this step in the journey."

Three months later, I ended up buying a house hack. It was a three-flat—or, it could be known as a triplex.

Jeremy: A three-flat? What are you, British or something? What the heck is that?

Austin: They call it that, apparently, in the Midwest or even Chicago. It caught me off guard too when I heard it for the first time. But, yeah, I moved in there. I house-hacked it, and after like five months, I was able to pull out $150K just because appreciation was going up. I pretty much gutted the whole place. That allowed me to take what I learned there and go back to Florida because COVID had just hit.

As you know, winters up north are incredibly difficult to deal with. So, I went back to Florida and started buying short-term rentals down there. I bought them in a few different cities you may know—West Palm Beach, Hollywood, and the Tampa area. I kind of ended up growing the portfolio there.

Then, interest rates started going up, like everybody knows, and I was like, "You know what? Let me transition over to managing other people's Airbnbs and just keep the cash flow going." So, that's a little bit about how I started and where I'm at today.

Jeremy: Got it. So, you started in the Midwest, which is where you were living at the time—your corporate job brought you to the Midwest?

Austin: Yeah. So, actually, I was a Miami boy for a while, always lived in Florida, and I was like, "You know, I want a big city. I either want to go to New York or Chicago."

Jeremy: Just so you guys listening know—Miami is not a big city. It’s just a little beach town.

Austin: Yeah, just a little beach town. Not much going on there. No, all jokes aside, I wanted to go somewhere new, so I was like, "You know what? I'm going to take my life to Chicago." I moved there in the summertime—it was beautiful.

Then November hit, and I was like, "Why the hell did I move to Chicago?" It was way too cold.

Jeremy: Okay, okay. So, you moved to Chicago—it was cold. Was it also like, "It's cold, I'm working this corporate job, and this is not my favorite thing in the world. Perhaps there’s an alternative to this?"

Yeah, so I guess what was the lightbulb moment that pushed you into real estate, short-term rentals, and entrepreneurship? Then, what was the point that got you to where you are now? I’m assuming you’ve quit your full-time job by this point?

Austin: Yeah, brother. So, the best way to describe it—You were in sports; you played college basketball. I was going through a rotational program in wealth management for the bank at this time.

And there was a gentleman—I don't really remember his name—but he was in his mid-50s, and he played professional football back in the day. I just remember looking across the desk at him, and he always had his head down, just always kind of sad and kind of depressed a little bit.

I just told myself, "I never want to be in that situation. I want to figure out a way to avoid that." A week later, I'm walking from what's called The Loop, or the train, to my office, and I just stop in my tracks one day. I look around, and there are people in their 30s, 40s, and 60s, all doing the same thing as me. They’re commuting to work, working this job, and then going home to enjoy two days off every single week.

That was really my aha moment. I just stopped there and said, "Hey, look, if I don't do something to change right now, I’m going to be doing this for the next 40 years until I retire." So that was kind of my push into entrepreneurship. Then, along the way, through books and podcasts, I found real estate, and it was a snowball effect after that first property.

Jeremy: God, yeah. Before this podcast even started, Austin listened to it, and his aha moment was... I’m just joking.

Okay, cool. So, you initially leveraged that corporate job, that W2, to start buying. You were buying in the Midwest, so I’m going to guess here that the purchase prices were not too high, interest rates were low, and the barrier to entry wasn’t bad?

Austin: Exactly. I think my interest rate was like 2.75 or 3%. The purchase price was $32,000, so I was able to get in there for like 20 grand.

Jeremy: Just an FHA loan?

Austin: Yeah, well, back in the day, they had a conventional loan that you could house hack with 5% down.

So the PMI fell off, so I didn’t have to refinance.

Jeremy: With FHA, you’ve got a bunch of fees and stuff on it. Granted, in hindsight—totally off topic here—but, you know, we had some properties where we were ideating between FHA versus conventional.

Then, we saw the fee schedule on the FHA, and it got really high. We were like, "Oh, conventional it is," for similar house hacking situations. But then, in hindsight, I’m like, "Dang, FHA loans can be assumed."

Austin: Yeah. Exactly.

Jeremy: And right now, you see people selling their property with an FHA loan as an asset, and I’m like, "Damn, I would never have thought about that at the time." Obviously, I didn’t, but in hindsight, FHA—you see people literally paying a huge premium on properties just because they can assume someone’s FHA loan.

Austin: Yeah, exactly. Dude, you see that with VA loans as well.

Jeremy: Yeah. They’re low too, like 2% loans.

Austin: I’m just like, "Dude, I’ve got to get some of those. How do I find them all?"

Jeremy: My brother’s got a couple—he’s in the military, so he’s got himself a couple VA loans.

Austin: Yeah, and what’s great with those is because the interest rate is so low, if you’re trying to help somebody find a property to buy, their purchase price can be so much higher because the interest rate is so much lower.

You know, I didn’t think about that either. But a buddy of mine was looking at buying a property with a VA loan, and he brought that up to me. So, yeah, different ways to leverage the system.

Jeremy: Okay, so you started buying yourself? You got your first—did you short-term rental that first house hack, or what?

Austin: No, so that one... I lived in the top unit with my girlfriend at the time. Then I was personally trying to rehab the bottom two units myself. I learned very quickly that I’m not handy. I was getting frustrated, and it was impacting my relationship. So, I said, "You know what? I’m going to hire a contractor."

Hired a contractor, paid a stupid amount of fees for the first one. Then, when I went to the bottom unit, I ended up finding a handyman.

Jeremy: Miami boy can’t use a hammer?

Austin: Yeah, no, I can’t.

Jeremy: He’s going to kiteboard, and...

Austin: You should’ve seen me trying to put down the LVP. I’m down there cursing, yelling, banging my hands up, trying to fit pieces together that weren’t matching. I’m just like, "Dude, I’ve got to get out of this."

Jeremy: Hey, you learn, you learn, you learn what you're good at and what you're not good at.

Austin: Yeah, exactly. But I've seen you, I've seen you on social media actually putting in the sweat equity on the properties too.

Jeremy: I have, but I'm not going to act like I'm some expert. I get how it works, you know, but in terms of fitting the little pieces, the patience for exact precision on things—I don’t have patience.

Austin: That was my thing too. I’m just like, it drives me to drink, man. I mean, like, dude, this piece won’t fit!

Jeremy: I like demoing—that’s fun.

Austin: Just swing the hammer around. Yeah, that’s the good part. Like, oh, we’re going to demo something? I’m like, nud, come here,

Jeremy: I’m like give me a sledgehammer. We can blow off some steam too. Maybe that says something else about us.

Austin: That’s another topic. Or deeper issues, right?

Jeremy: Exactly. Okay, so you got that house hack, started real estate, and I’m assuming you were like, "Oh, this is no joke." Then, I guess from there, from that first one, what got you to the second one? How’d you get into short-term rentals after the house hack?

Austin: Yeah, so when I moved down to Florida—because that first property, when I moved out, I was cash-flowing about $2,000 a month.

Jeremy: Which is insane for long-term rentals.

Austin: I was like, "Dude, this is ridiculous." So, I go down to Florida, looking for long-term rentals, and I’m just like, "Dude, these numbers don’t make sense." That same property I was buying in Chicago is like $500,000 to $600,000 in Florida. The numbers were like cash flow of maybe a couple hundred dollars. I’m just like, "Dude, this is not what I want to do."

My real estate agent at the time had a short-term rental, and, dude, she was doing a stupid amount of money. This was right before STRs kind of blew up—like 2020, right on the verge.

I’m just like, "Dude." So, I told her, "Hey, look, I want to try to find a property around $400,000, and I want to be able to make $2,000 a month in net income. That’s what I’m doing in Chicago. I just want to do that out here."

She just laughs. She’s like, "$2,000 a month? Haha, you’re going to do so much more." I’m just like, "Alright, well, I’ll believe it when I see it." She’s showing me her Airbnb, and I’m just like, "Alright, well, I’m willing to take this chance real quick and buy this first short-term rental, do the rehab, and buy all the furniture."

I used Facebook Marketplace because I was being cheap at the time. I didn’t know anything about short-term rentals, so I was like, "You know what? Buy everything." I’m picking everything up myself, doing a little bit of the labor myself, and hiring the handyman to put everything together.

We launch around Easter time, and then two days later, I have a booking for $9,900. That’s when the light bulb goes off. It was for a 30-day booking. I’m just like, "Dude, this is insane. She was right the whole time. Why have I not been looking at short-term rentals sooner?"

After that, it was just a snowball effect. I kept rolling the dice. Originally, I was just focusing on West Palm, but I wanted to branch out to see if I could find a better spread for my numbers. That brought me down to Hollywood, but honestly, that probably didn’t end up working out. Then, I entered Tampa—that property is doing great. But it’s just trial and error at the end of the day.

Jeremy: Totally. Yeah, so I actually have two properties in the West Palm area.

Austin: Okay.

Jeremy: I got one in October of 2021 and one in February or March—yeah, March 2022.

Austin: Okay.

Jeremy: And, yeah, I want to get into your transition to leveraging other people’s properties. But first, as you know—and everyone who tunes in knows—I probably, once an episode, kind of rip on Florida for a multitude of reasons. So, I want to take the time to be consistent on that front.

But, yeah, so we got properties, and, you know, the first year absolutely crushed—insanely good.

But then, you know, a couple of things. One, on the expense side, the insurance premiums in Florida have gone nuts. When I underwrite, I don’t underwrite for insurance premiums doubling, tripling, or quadrupling. And, you know, not knowing what they’re going to be next year.

In addition, Florida’s gotten—South Florida in particular—pretty competitive. You know, like when we launched our property, I was like, "We’ve got the nicest property in this entire area." You were competing against Uncle Bob. But I was like, "Dang, Uncle Bob, he bowled out on this next one.

Austin: He saw the income and was like, 'Dude, I’m not a little cat anymore.'"

Jeremy: We’ve got to put the putt-putt in. I was joking with Taylor and Sabrina at Techvester—whose podcast I think may be the precursor to this one, depending on the order—but they came into the South. Like, South... they came to Southwest Florida and Southeast Florida.

I’m looking at my area, and I keep seeing Sabrina’s listings pop up on Techvester. They just make such good listings out of properties. But I was like, "Alright, that explains it." So, yeah, Florida’s been, like for us, our steepest. Things are still good—you know, we bought it at $500K, making $100K, like still, but they were crushing.

That being said, have you seen Florida get more competitive?

Austin: Dude, it’s crazy. I mean, every point you just made is completely true. Like, interest rates shot up—not just interest rates, but home prices have also gone up.

So, insurance is the biggest factor that people don’t take into account—or they should be taking into account. If you don’t shop around for your insurance... I know some people that are paying $20,000 a year in insurance for short-term rentals, which does not make sense.

I always shop around for my insurance. My insurance for my short-term rental and liability coverage is usually sitting somewhere around $500 a month. I have a big enough spread where it makes sense.

But you made a good point about home prices going up in Florida.

So, there’s a pro and a con to that as well. The con is that it’s harder to enter that market right now and make the spread you were making in 2020–21. But at the same time, in my opinion, South Florida—Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach—has a huge appreciation play right now.

I think Miami, and you should not be buying on appreciation only, but if you think long term... Miami, in my opinion, is going to end up turning into LA. So, those home prices are just getting ridiculous. There are so many issues with affordable housing in Miami now that people are literally getting sheds from Home Depot, putting them in their backyards, and charging $1,500 a month to rent them.

If you think about that—and they can’t keep building there—there’s nowhere else to build in Miami.

Jeremy: They’ve got the ocean. Let’s do some Dubai-type stuff and pour some sand on the water.

Austin: Yeah, exactly. But if you can make your numbers make sense from a design perspective... for example, I hired Bridget—I think you know Bridget, right? I hired her for my last property, and as long as you have the money to spend on design, you can make those numbers work. Then, in the long run, you’ll get that appreciation play.

Jeremy: Yeah, I mean, I’m not trying to scare people. I’ve seen new properties pop up that are crushing it. You just have to set them up extremely well. There’s no setting up a plain-Jane property in Florida. You have to make it really, really, really stand out.

But either way, what I want to transition to now is co-hosting. So, you start—what was the point when you started managing? And frankly, when you’re co-hosting, you don’t have to care about things like this.

Austin: Yeah, exactly. 100% right. So, co-hosting probably started a little over a year and a half ago. I was just doing my own thing, and then I had somebody randomly reach out to me and say, "Hey, look, would you consider managing a property?"

I was just like, "Yeah, sure, I’ll take a look at it." It was a completely gutted place—a two-bedroom, two-bath condo with no HOA restrictions, and you could walk to the beach. That property was doing $110,000, and I was making 20% off the top.

So, I was just like, "Hey, this kind of makes sense—no down payment, no design, interest rates are going up, no cash out of my pocket." So, I was just like, "Dude, this is a no-brainer, right?"

So, in the beginning, I was really good at finding clients, but I didn’t enjoy the management side of it—the operation side of it—because, at the end of the day, it’s a business, right?

Jeremy: Sure.

Austin: So, my background originally was in sales and wealth management. I ended up finding my business partner, Hannon Cam, I’m not sure if you’ve met Hannon, but she runs all the operations and all the day-to-day. I’ve been able to develop these funnels over the past year and a half to have...

Jeremy: She was there last night?

Austin: She was there last night.

Jeremy: Oh yeah, we hung out.

Austin: Yeah. Alright, cool, cool. So, I’ve been able to develop these funnels to figure out a way to have clients organically find me, as well as do some cold outreach and target larger property managers, and convert them from their current management over to my management. That’s what allowed us to scale.

Jeremy: And that’s what we want to get into because that’s the juice—how do we get co-host clients? How did you get co-host clients initially, and how do we get them today?

Yeah, absolutely. So, how I scaled so quickly—I scaled to 13 clients in 60 days, and that was strictly through targeting Vacasa and Evolve clients. I found a data engineer who could pull the addresses for those actual owners. Once you have those addresses, you can then skip trace those addresses, get those phone numbers, get those mailing addresses, get those email addresses, and then you can set up these funnels.

They either get a postcard—and if you’re just starting your business and you have a very luxury property that you’re targeting, what I always recommend to people is to put a photo of you and your family, or you and your dog if you don’t have a significant other. Story-build on those little parts.

But honestly, in my opinion, what converts the best is just getting on a phone call with somebody and asking them how their experience has been with Vacasa, Evolve, or TurnKey. Eighty percent of the time, it’s negative.

Jeremy: And they are warm.

Austin: Dude, it’s so hot because they have no idea that you’re out there, that you’re available, that you’re a boutique property manager.

Jeremy: And that you’ll actually talk to them.

Austin: Yeah, you’ll have a conversation and adjust to their needs.

Jeremy: Exactly. And that’s generally their pain point—they haven’t been able to get someone on the phone.

Austin: Exactly.

Jeremy: They haven’t been able to get their property manager, who they’re paying 30%, to respond to the issues they’re dealing with. So, just by talking to them, you’re already alleviating their concerns.

Austin: Dude. And the biggest thing is that what they’re not doing—if they don’t fix this, they’re going under. Man, I talked to a client three days ago. They didn’t have a single booking for January.

Jeremy: In Florida?

Austin: Not in Florida, thank God.

Jeremy: Not in Florida.

Austin: Thank God. I was like, "Damn." No, it was in the Smoky Mountains. Although, if you look at PriceLabs, the market can support like 55%, even in the low season. So, keeping that in mind, you should at least have half of that, which would be like 15 days out of the month. And they didn’t have that.

It’s just kind of sad if you think about it. You’re supposed to be providing the service and this value, and then you’re not getting anything in return. Yeah, it is messed up.

Jeremy: And guys, just to contextualize where we are right now—we are literally sitting in a glass box at this conference. People are, I guess, on a break or something.

Austin: People are just staring at us.

Yeah, walking out and staring at us like we’re in a zoo or something, like we’re not real people.

Austin: Oh, here comes another one. Here comes another one.

Jeremy: Yeah, it’s like we’re being exhibited right now.

Austin: This is kind of funny…

Jeremy: But alright, back to your point. So, you were able to skip trace high, warm leads via Vacasa, Evolve, and TurnKey? Okay, is that a strategy you’re still doing today?

Austin: Yeah, I still use it today. Once a month, I’ll go on this website and see if any new, sexy properties came on the market, and then I’ll reach out to them.

Austin: That’s the best.

Jeremy: You like sexy properties.

Austin: Yeah, because you can filter on there—homes, four bedrooms, five bedrooms. They can keep the bad properties, man. They keep those to themselves. But that allowed me to scale in the beginning. What I did now is I built these organic funnels.

A marketing company will reach out to you and ask you to pay like $3,000 to $5,000 to do your SEO. Don’t do that. You can honestly just do it yourself. If you just build a Wix website with keywords like "Airbnb property management" and implement some Google reviews as well, it’ll drive you in the Google algorithm to page one.

Just to give you an idea, for "West Palm Airbnb property management," I’m number six on page one, and I’ve never spent any money on SEO. Whatsoever. Just implementing those small things.

Jeremy: Just making a website for each location you’re in. Yeah, exactly. Just call it, you know, FortLauderdaleAirbnbManagement.com or whatever, and then put a Google address. When you do the Google address, you need somewhere in that city to pick up the mail because Google sends a code to a mailbox.

Austin: Yeah, exactly. So, you need that too, but you can get a remote location where you pay like $100 a month, and that can be your address. I’ve done that before. It doesn’t cost much, and then you get mail sent there too.

Jeremy: Guys, we’re getting into the nitty-gritty, tangible ways to build your co-hosting business. Do you just get calls or emails or form submissions on these websites?

Austin: So, I always have my email address, my phone number, and a form submission page. Sometimes people will call me, and it’ll pop up on my on Google Voice. Yeah, I use Google Voice, so it’ll pop up when a potential new client is calling me, so I know how to answer.

And a key thing that a lot of people don’t think about is, if you call back within the first two to three minutes, your chances of converting them from a prospect to a client go up 5x.

Jeremy: Yeah.

Austin: People don’t think about that.

Jeremy: Because it’s warm on their mind. They might forget—"Did I reach out to you? Did I? Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t." You call them back quick. They're like, "Oh, wow, yeah.”

Austin: 100%.

Jeremy: And also, again, it’s really that pain point. This is why I think it’s exciting for folks to really sit in. Again, I think the 25-properties-under-management world is a really, really, really good world to live in, comparatively to all the different businesses out there and the ways you can quit your job.

Because you can give that individual attention. You know, if you're managing 300 or 400 properties, you’ve got to hire people under you. You've got to get your owners into the Slack channels and create a process for them to deal with their queries.

But really, at 25, you can pretty much deal with or keep those relationships warm and alleviate and tend to their issues, as well as get great cash flow. I was talking to someone yesterday with like 310 properties. For Syed, he’s total beast. He’s been on the podcast—Latif. But, you know, at 310, you deal with more. There are just more things happening.

Austin: You're right, dude. There’s more headache on the day-to-day.

Jeremy: So, what’s it like? Well, I guess you’re not on the operation side of things. Are you still on the client relationship side of things?

Austin: Yeah, so client relationship as well. For example, good advice for you guys—if you’re having owners text you and call you, try to get everything to go through an actual email address, like an "info@" at your company’s URL or whatever you want to call it.

Because, for example, we’re in Nashville right now. If I’m getting texts from an owner, I might miss it, and then they’re frustrated.

Jeremy: Totally.

Austin: Just tell them, "Hey, send an email here, and someone from our team will get back to you within 24 hours."

Jeremy: That’s what you’ve got to do as you scale. Sometimes, owners who were with you on day one are used to being able to text you or call you. Then, you put them in a group with your team, and they still text you.

Austin: And you tell them over and over, "Hey, just send an email." "But this is faster," they reply.

Jeremy: And just to be frank, some owners don’t want to ever talk to you. They’re literally just like, "Hey, do your thing, send me that monthly report, and I just want to make sure I have confidence the money will hit my account." And other than that, we’re good.

But then, frankly, this is an emotional thing for some people, especially in South Florida. A lot of people, I’m assuming, have vacation homes.

Austin: Yeah, you would think so. But actually, it’s mainly investors now. Some people, you’ll get vacation homes—which are the best clients. You actually want to target second homeowners with vacation homes. But the people I’ve found, who are investors, are like the highest HMOs because they’re always focused on their bottom line.

They’re always digging into the end-of-month spreadsheets you send them. They want to know how their revenue management is going. They’re in it for the actual money, so there can be more headaches when you see those clients. I try to stay away from them. If you’re trying to just build something a little more passive and with less effort, try to focus on the second homeowners.

Jeremy: Yeah, because they’re just like, "Alright, they’re taking care of things. We’re getting some supplemental income." So, really defining the type of customer you want to work with is super important. But ultimately, getting leads and deal flow is super important.

Are there any other tips or advice you have?

Jeremy: I see we’ve got Sean Rakovich from Airbnb Automated standing outside our glass. He’s not looking at us, but I’ve seen that guy’s stuff.

Austin: Okay, cool.

Jeremy: He’s one of the OGs.

Austin: Yeah, he was doing Airbnb YouTube way back in the day before anybody even thought about Airbnb, it seems like.

Jeremy: Yeah, he was pretty much the first one who started talking about it. And he has a big YouTube channel, Facebook group. Has a large beard right now, too, from what I’m seeing. As well as a ponytail.

Austin: There you go.

Jeremy: I think he may have just come here from Tulum or something.

Austin: Yeah, dude, living the life. I love Tulum. I love it. But let me jump back on topic.

Jeremy: Alright, on topic. Sorry, we’re a little distracted as there are hundreds of people just walking in front of us.

Austin: All good. Yeah, man. So, I think a big thing that a lot of people don’t think about is relationships. You can build pretty solid relationships in your actual market because there’s a lack of value that agents are portraying to real estate buyers looking to get into short-term rentals.

A lot of people have no idea how to run their numbers. Maybe they’ve heard of AirDNA. They plug it into the calculator and say, "Hey, look, you may be able to potentially make $5,000 a month on this property."

Then the agent sells that, and they buy the actual property. But they’re not making $5,000. Maybe they’re making $3,000. So on and so forth. So, I think if you can portray value to real estate agents and mortgage brokers on the front end as well as the back end, that can organically lead to more clients in the future.

Jeremy: Send them BNBCalc branded reports.

Austin: There you go. What you do is you go to their office, give them a presentation to all their agents, show them how to actually run their numbers effectively, and say, "Hey, look, if you have any questions whenever you're looking for an actual property, feel free to send me an email. I'm happy to walk through that with you."

Then, on the back end, whenever that owner closes on the actual property and needs a manager, that agent refers it over to you. You're then giving them a referral fee of $500 to $1,000.

So, you're adding value on the front end by teaching them how to run their numbers, and you're adding value on the back end by giving them a referral fee.

Jeremy: Bribing. Yeah, bribing—a great way to do it. That’s one of the most proven methods in the history of business.

Austin: So, if you can just get in... that’s the thing. People are scared to get in front of agents and real estate brokerages. If you can actually do that, that’s another way to consistently feed you traffic without spending any money. Send them BNBCalc, put some branding on it, and then go about it that way.

Jeremy: Awesome. Well, there you go. Okay, so you've got this funnel, and you’re getting leads galore. How’s your business partner? she’s amazing. We had a lengthy conversation yesterday.

How do you guys—for those folks out there who either have a business partner or are looking for one—how do you... I think what I’ve gathered is you know what you’re good at. You’re a sales guy, you present well, you’ve got swaggy outfits.

Austin: Thank you, sir.

Jeremy: So, when you show up at Realtors' offices—Realtors are very... I think appearances are very important to Realtors—you present well. So, you know what you’re good at. How did you find a partner who complemented your skills?

Austin: Yeah, dude. So, one thing I want to touch on first is, in the beginning, whenever people are thinking about going into a partnership, they usually just go into a partnership with their best friend.

They don’t really think about the skill sets that each individual person has—what do they have, what do you have, and how does that work together? For me, in the very beginning, I realized, "Hey, look, I don’t enjoy operations. I’m not good at operations." You’ve been doing Airbnb since 2015. I got in like 2019, 2020, if you will.

Jeremy: 2015? Wow, real OG.

Austin: Yeah, dude. She was back in the day. I didn’t even know about Airbnb in 2015. I was still in high school. But yeah, man. Just understanding what the other person is good at and what you’re not good at. If you can combine that, that’s the only time you should start and build a partnership. If you can’t mesh those two things together—if you’re not both adding value to each other—there’s no reason to get into that partnership at all.

Jeremy: Got it. So, she complements you—she’s more operational?

Austin: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Think about it, man. If you’ve been doing Airbnb for, I don’t know, 10 years, you probably know a few things.

Jeremy: It was a little more difficult back then because there was so much less technology, too. Honestly, things have gotten to the point where it’s pretty easy in terms of operating. Again, you know, there are levels to it—five versus 10 versus 25 properties. But in my opinion, it’s even a lot easier now than it was two years ago to manage properties at scale.

Austin: Yeah, dude, that’s a huge thing too. New technology is coming out every single day, and it’s allowing us to leverage it and make co-hosting or Airbnb property management more passive, which I love.

Man, one thing that a lot of people don’t think about with co-hosting... I had two people reach out to me the other day. They were trying to find new clients to acquire for co-hosting. I was like, "Hey, how’s it been going so far? What are you doing?"

They were like, "Oh, just somebody found me through my social media or something." But the thing is, we went through the whole process. I helped them set up the design or whatever, and then they decided to go with Vacasa at the end of the day. I’m just like, "Well, you’re lacking the sales skill."

You should be assuming the sale and then guiding them through the process to close the actual deal.

Jeremy: Also, if you’re helping them set up a property, I know you better have the deal inked or be charging a hefty enough setup fee to make that worth your while. Yeah, that’s what I always tell people—you’ve got to charge a setup fee.

Really, frankly, the setup of the property is the most intensive part. Setting up the listing, syncing it to your property management system, syncing it to your dynamic pricing software, and coming up with the revenue management strategy.

On the front end, it’s the most work. So, if you help someone through that entire process. You charge for it. You definitely charge for it. I’ve had people—people I work with—ask, "Hey, do I front some of the furniture purchases because whatever, they’re having issues with their card or something?"

I’m like, no. They pay for it. They pay you, or you coordinate them paying vendors to do everything.

Austin: I couldn’t imagine… Look, it’s the Karwells walking by right now.

Jeremy: Hey, hey! This is... oh, they didn’t... Sarah! Sarah didn’t even notice us. She... she... she’s laser-focused. She’s locked in.

Austin: Yeah, dude, that’s the thing. Alright, so if you’re a co-host and you’re trying to get new clients—or maybe you had one or two clients reach out to you—you need to guide them in the process. Assume that you are the market expert in your ideal market, a market industry expert.

If you do that, you guide them on the call. Tell them, "Alright, this is what happens. I’m going to determine if you fit my brand, and then I may bring you on." If you come at it that way, they’re going to want to work with you so much more.

If you’re coming at it from a scarcity mindset, like, "Hey, I want you to work with me," and constantly following up with them, that’s where you end up losing the sale. Then, they go to a shitty manager like Vacasa.

The reason they go with Vacasa is because Vacasa has their marketing and sales down to a tee. They just can’t deliver on the actual service that they provide. So just be confident in yourself, you guys. That’s the biggest thing. And learn how to guide them in the actual sale.

Jeremy: Yeah, and be the expert. I think that’s something you’ve touched on before—being an expert and being confident. Because frankly, they don’t know what they’re doing, ultimately.

So, if you’re able to just exude, "Hey, I know what I’m doing, I’ve got a handle on this," you don’t need a portfolio, you don’t need a single listing to, in this space, become a quote-unquote expert. That’s the nature. It’s a new enough space where anyone... I mean, you’re an expert, I’m an expert, and a couple of years ago, we literally had no clue about anything.

Austin: I didn’t even know what an Airbnb was.

Jeremy: Yeah, I listed on Vrbo first. I actually didn’t even know what Airbnb was. Okay, awesome. So, what is your pro tip for someone, for those listening, who want to get after it and really grow something cool?

Austin: Yeah, I think the biggest thing is, man—and I’m sure a lot of our listeners have heard this—just take action. In the very beginning, it’s going to be scary to start anything new, but success loves speed. The sooner that you start, the sooner you start throwing stuff at the wall, the sooner things start sticking.

You get more comfortable, as well as confident, and you’ll just continue growing your business or starting your business. So just get out there, take that action. Make that first phone call targeting a Vacasa client, or start your website. Get in front of a real estate agent, because the sooner that you start, the sooner that you’re going to get to your end result. And the happier you’re going to be that you did it in the beginning.

Jeremy: Awesome. And that’s all we want—we want to be happy.

Austin: Yeah, exactly.

Jeremy: Okay, awesome. Well, how can folks find you and stay tuned to your journey?

Austin: Yeah, man, feel free to reach out to me on Instagram. My handle is Austin__Palacios. That’s A-U-S-T-I-N underscore underscore P-A-L-A-C-I-O-S. Maybe look at my Instagram, see who I’m following or something, to find that one. Yeah, dude, it’s crazy, bro. Cuz, like, I moved my handles around so much back in the day. Then, I tried to go back to the original one—it was gone. Somebody snaked it from me. So now I’ve got two underscores.

Jeremy: I bought all the Austins. I’m now letting them know we can work a deal out. I’ll give you your handles back.

Austin: Dude, I’m willing to pay, man. Just let me know a price. Well, we’ll negotiate offline.

Jeremy: Okay, sounds good. Sounds good. Awesome, man. Well, thank you so much for coming today.

And everybody listening, stay tuned for the next episode of the Short-Term Rental Pros Podcast.