What it takes to be an absolute STR Pro

Quick Summary

Jeremy and John discuss strategies and practices for excelling in the short-term rental (STR) industry. Key themes include leveraging data-driven decision-making, focusing on guest experiences, optimizing property amenities, and maintaining strong operational systems. The importance of learning from failures, building resilience through competitive advantages, and offering unique value in the market are emphasized.

Key Points

• Use comprehensive market analysis to identify inefficiencies and find optimal property investments.
• Constantly monitor and evaluate market trends and guest behavior to adapt and enhance property offerings.
• Focus on creating a top-tier experience to remain competitive during economic downturns or market fluctuations.
• Use past mistakes as opportunities to refine processes and make informed decisions in future investments.
• Conduct thorough research and due diligence to minimize risks, such as assessing essential property features like pool heaters in specific markets.
• Regularly update and maintain properties to keep them fresh and appealing, such as repainting and repairing during slow seasons.
• Build efficient systems for scaling, including team management, contractor coordination, and guest communication.
• Understand how guests interact with your property to improve layout and amenity offerings.
• Tailor properties to meet the needs of travelers, especially by creating inviting and usable outdoor spaces.

Full Transcript

Check on the full podcast on:

1. YouTube
2. Spotify
3. Apple Podcasts

Jeremy: What's up, guys? Welcome to the Short-Term Rental Pros podcast. We are here in sunny San Diego, California, at the STRR Nation conference, and I'm super lucky to be alongside one of the keynote speakers, John Bianchi—the Airbnb data guy—who's going to talk to us today about what it takes to be an absolute STR Pro in 2023.

John, thank you so much for joining me.

John: Appreciate you, man. Always love being on these podcasts with you, Jeremy.

Jeremy: And we're actually running it back—John has been on before. So after you listen to this one, go back and listen to the first one because he dropped a lot of knowledge bombs there too.

But what I want to get into, before we talk about, you know, how you do things and all the success that you've had, I want to talk about, you know, what are some of the more failures. You know, I know you've done a lot of investing for the company you work for as well as individually, but, you know, what have been the learning experiences and the not-so-bright aspects of your career?

John: This is—I'm glad you brought this up—because I think this is one thing that a lot of people don't talk about: their failures in the Airbnb business, right? And when you talk about your failures, you learn from them, and that allows you to get better at what you're doing, right?

So for myself, like, my worst-case scenario was when I had my own properties. I did two rental arbitrage deals down in Scottsdale. I thought I analyzed everything. I thought it was good at that point, right? And what I realized was that I actually missed the fact that you needed a pool heater. And so, because I missed the fact you need a pool heater, I was no longer competitive across all the other properties I was going up against, which meant my revenue potential was so much lower than what I expected it to be. I ended up losing about $40,000 to $50,000 across two properties, right? And then they didn’t renew, and, like, I just—I lost everything.

Jeremy: And because it was arbitrage, I didn’t want to buy a pool heater because they owned the property, of course, right?

John: And the thing is, I didn’t do enough research to be able to realize how big of a deal that was at the time. I missed out on that because I didn’t have a process in place.

Now, what I want to say is that that’s one of the mistakes I had. I had three other ones that I’ve made as well when I was really first getting going, right? Without going into too much detail, I learned from all of those. And now that I work with Techvestor, we’ve bought 120 properties over the past 18 months—somewhere around that number, right? But 72 of those, we have our data that’s live, and all 72 of them are profitable, cash-flowing properties across the board, right? So we haven’t missed. And it’s my job to ensure that we are buying the right properties. I learned from my mistakes and made sure that we are now only getting the best possible properties with the most opportunity—the most inefficiency properties—within whatever market we’re going into.

So that’s my horror story, but, you know, you learn from your mistakes.

Jeremy: Can I say—it’s fair to say—what drives you now to, like, be the best is that feeling of having failed when you started?

John: Yeah, yep. 100%. Failing sucks. Failing sucks, right? And, like, especially when you’re using other people’s money, and you’re going out there and you think you know everything, and then all of a sudden, a year goes by, and you made literally no money—you lost money on the deal—and you have no way of, you know, taking that failure and moving into another place and trying to, like, recapture your gains, right?

So when you do that, I realized that, like, what if I was just more diligent at the very beginning to ensure I wasn’t making that mistake? And that kind of caused me to go—not crazy—but, like, just way more in depth, right? And I’m obsessed with the data because I know it has the answers. And if I can just understand the data better, then I’m going to get to the answers, and that’s going to make sure that I’m not losing people’s money, right?

And we’re with Techvestor. We’re like $60 million-plus right now of other people’s money. So ensuring that we are investing that in the best possible location is all that matters to me, right? So yeah, it makes—it’ll make you obsessed if you really dive into it.

Jeremy: And now you feel kind of that, like, enormous responsibility of having other people’s money. All that do knows going to this, like, knows, but you have the best process. You are—you are looking at the most data points. You are making the most informed decisions. And then your company, after it leaves your hands on the acquisition side, is operating it with, like, the best practices possible.

John: Yeah, so one thing you just said there, you know, you can't really do anything about, you know, the world crashing—you know what I mean—but, uh, or an economic downturn or the S&P 500 dropping like crazy. But what you can do is you can build in things to your property that help you, uh, get through those time periods, right?

So what I mean by that is building out your property in a way that it’s going to be one of those properties that will continue to get booked even when there is an economic downturn. Because even during COVID, people were traveling, right?

Even when you’re supposed to stay inside. And so the thing is, a lot fewer people were traveling, but there were still some people traveling. And so, if there’s only, you know, 25% of the normal people that were traveling to a certain market, they’re going to book those top 25 listings. We want to be one of those listings, right? And so we just have to make ourselves one of those ones so that we can still get bookings during those down times.

And I think that’s one of the best things that you can do to insulate yourself when that time comes, right? Just making sure you’re in that top 25.

Jeremy: And what—so John and I talk a lot, not only on podcasts, and oftentimes we kind of go back and forth on what we’re seeing going on in the marketplace. And we joke about what is the highest ROI possible amenity there is.

So, what are the three—just, I know obviously different places have different things that go for them—but generally speaking, what are the three must-haves, the three best bang-for-buck investments you could possibly…

John: Bang for your buck investments? We talked about this with joke a lot. It’s the hanging lights.

Jeremy: String lights. We need an affiliate on string lights.

John: String lights done right is what makes a difference, right? You can’t just have one set of string lights that goes around one spot, and you take a photo with your iPhone, and you’re like, “Yeah, I got string lights.” You know what I mean? You’ve got to, like, line them up. I always tell people, I’m like, buy so many string lights that you think it’s too much—you know what I mean? You’ve bought so many, like, “I have too much here.” That’s how many you should have, and you should be hanging up to really light up that place.

And then the photos are what’s going to make the difference, right? Of actually how well does it look in those twilight photos. So, hanging lights with the right photos, right?

Jeremy: And then I would say fire pit. Fire pit plus string light combination. And that was, like, the last house I set up. I did the fire pit plus hanging lights combination. Prior to that, I had just done fire pit, or I had done string lights somewhere else, right?

John: So, like, anywhere that people are going to be using your outdoor space at night, that you can add light to it so they can continue to use it during the warm times of the year, is going to make it such a cooler space.

Imagine you had cornhole set up, right? And then you’ve got, like, lights up and down the cornhole space so people can keep playing cornhole at night, right? While they’re having drinks, and some people buy the fire, some people buy the hot tub—like, whatever it may be—you’re just creating this atmosphere for a large group of people to have a great time, right?

Jeremy: That’s what it’s all about. It is about—in this game—it is literally about having a great time.

John: So, question for you, because this is something I do: When you go out to an Airbnb with all of your friends, do you watch your friends interact within that Airbnb? Do you watch what they’re doing in the Airbnb?

Jeremy: It’s like—I’m such a sicko when it comes to going to, now, and just, like—like, the one I’m staying at right now, I went in there, and literally by the marks on the wall, I was like, “I’m going to guess how many years this has been on Airbnb because of, like, the little cosmetic wear and tear that it’s had and, like, the lack of, like, touch-up paint.”

So I was like, based off the cosmetic marks, I think this has been for about three and a half, four years. I went back in, and I got back to, like, 2019. I was like…

John: Alright, repaint your listing every once in a while. Come on.

Jeremy: Yeah, you got—that’s—that’s a pro tip. Literally every year or two…

John: Take a week during the slow season—and fix everything up, you know what I mean?

Jeremy: And keep leveling up your listing.

John: Yeah, but dude, so the reason I asked that question is because when I go out to, uh, any Airbnb with all my group of friends, while we’re doing anything, I’m literally watching what people are doing. So, I’m watching, like, where are the guys? What are the girls doing, right? What are the guys doing? How’s everyone interacting? What are they not using? Why, right? And I’m trying to, like, get a feel for it, because then that’s going to affect what we put into our listing and why we put it in there, right?

Jeremy: Yeah, meanwhile, if people—like, so I—the N I own—very rarely, like, very, very rarely will I have, like, people—like, friends—stay at that with me. And when I do, I just get anxiety. I’m like, “Don’t touch that. Don’t break this. We’re not going in the hot tub. Like, I’m not draining the hot tub and getting that reimbursed.”

John: I definitely don’t want to be invited to that then.

Jeremy: No, I’m kidding. I’ve loosened up a little bit, but, like, at first, when it was like, “I need every cent possible”—like, literally, you take two cents away from me, and I don’t have enough money for my next deal, right? Like, don’t break anything; otherwise, I’m not going to be able to—so much anxiety. My friends get drunk, they’re trying to jump off the roof of the docks onto, like, onto my table. Like, just fck sht up and—

John: You got some good friends, eh?

Jeremy: Yeah, I mean, this—alcohol does crazy things. Just don’t recommend that. We’ll F—we’ll get you a new one. We’ll fix it. This—this will be funny.

Yeah, yeah, don’t—this won’t be funny. But yeah, no, I definitely—look, when I stay somewhere at someone else’s, I’m like, “What are they doing good? What are they not doing well? Like, can I make money here doing something better than them?

John: Like, well, then, what could that be? Why, right?

Jeremy: You know what I mean? How much does the rent cost? How much—how much does a home cost here?

John: Everyone thinks data is this, like, math equation—data science—and, like, being able to, like, study all of it. I’m not a data scientist. I’m not a data engineer—nothing. I’m just an analyst, a guy who is able to look at the data and kind of make, uh, decisions based off of it, right? Like, I—somehow, I didn’t go to school for it, just kind of figured it out, right?

Jeremy: I’ll call you a data scientist.

John: Not

Jeremy: John Bianchi Airbnb Data scientist

John: that’s not true. That’s not true…

Jeremy: PHD Doctor.

John: The reason I’m pointing this out is because, you know, looking at the way your group of friends or family moves around a house at an Airbnb that you’re staying at for a vacation is a data point. And so, being able to understand how they’re using it is a data point. Looking at photos and the way they’re taken from certain angles—that’s a data point, right? Like, that data, that information, can be used to help learn how to increase the revenue of your property so that you can do better than everybody else around you.

And that’s all that matters. You’re in a business—you should be trying to win in your market as much as you possibly can. And you win by adding more value. And so, you’ve got to figure out what value drives most revenue, and then you just study your competition as much as you can

Jeremy: Or…

John: You know that more than anyone, right? Sorry, you’re gonna say something there? I cut you off.

Jeremy: No, no, go ahead.

John: Well, I’m gonna say this—I say this—I’m not sure if I said this last time, last podcast, but I’m gonna say it again: Jeremy and I are friends because of his portfolio. If he had a shitty portfolio, I would not be friends with him.

Jeremy: He has said it a bunch of times. Like, I would—your property starts to suck, I won’t like you anymore.

John: Yeah, It can’t fall apart. So, like, the thing is, is that I—I—I—I found—I didn’t even know who—I don’t think we knew each other all that well. But I came across a coup of your properties, and I was like, “Holy sht, these are really nice.” Like, I thought they were some of the most impressive properties that I had seen.

And then I realized you had, like, 25 of them. And I was like, “Wow, this guy’s killing it. And you’re not a fund. You’re not, like, bringing in massive money. You’re not from, like, some rich family, you know what I mean?” And I was just like, “This guy understood how to put together a proper listing so much better than the vast majority of people. And he was scaled at it. He’s 26.” And I was like, “What the fck” Right? Like, anyways. And that’s why I was like, “Alright, we gotta be buddies.”

Right, like somebody, and then we just started chatting, so…

Jeremy: And we don't shut up once we start.

John: Yeah, we just keep going. But anyways, I just want to say that because this guy understood all these little things probably better than anybody else, and you got to give yourself credit for that, you know what I mean?

Jeremy: Because—well, I—and I—well, I give credit, but I mean my process, which I think we kind of figured out. We had a similar process. We didn't—you know, we didn't do—we did it kind of in parallel. We figured out the best, and then we kind of figured out, before it was like—before we were talking in conferences about this—it was like, find the pros.

Like, it’s the Short-Term Rental Pro podcast, but when I was starting, it was like, “Who is crushing it?” Okay, like, “Who is crushing it, and why are they crushing it?”

John: Now, I was just going to ask you, like, how did you first figure it out? And that's exactly it, right? You started looking at the people who were crushing it, so then you figure out how to replicate what they were doing.

Jeremy: Yeah, exactly. And same thing—I was just like, “Oh crap.” Like, I—I started my first—the first property, iPhone photos I took—I took to whop down my—I don’t even know if I had an—do I have an Android? I've had Androids in the past. Don’t…

John: Brutal. Shame him for that.

Jeremy: Let’s cut that out. But yeah, I took iPhone pictures and put them on, and didn’t—you know, that was, like, the start. And then was realizing, like, over time, just looking on air, looking at mine. Then I started seeing other people’s, and I’m like, “Wait a minute—they’re charging higher rates than me, but they’re slightly smaller houses. Like, wait a minute.” And the competition, the competitive drive, starts to hit you.

John: How long do you think it took you? So, like, from your first property that you got to being able to get a listing at the level of the listings that you’re at right now—how many homes did it take? How many months did it take until you feel like you were at, like, a listing you could be proud of?

Jeremy: Yeah, I would say when I really, like, went all in and was like, “This has to be done at 100% execution,” was the first time I raised capital, like, from my—from, like, from my friends.

John: So your first property, you didn’t raise any capital?

Jeremy: I—I did. The first property wasn’t, like, my friends, though. It was like—it was—it was, like—it was just people. It wasn’t like 23-year-olds, like my peers.

John: Make sure you’re crushing it with them.

Jeremy: Yeah, and I was, like, managing other people’s property. So it was like their money—they were buying a vacation house. So, like, you know, it was less…

John: There’s something about taking on other people’s money that you really care about that makes you hone in your skills like nothing else. There’s like—you almost want to put yourself in a position where you are so responsible for somebody else’s, you know, money that it makes you want to learn every single last thing you possibly can to be the absolute best.

Because it’s a revenue driver for yourself, to motivate you, and sometimes if it’s just your own money, your own property, it’s like you can kind of flow through.

Jeremy: You’re managing a property for a vacation owner, you’re helping them set it up, but it’s like…

Jonh: That one’s a different scenario because you’re always dealing with, like, what the landlord wants. And they always don’t understand, and so it’s so difficult.

But, you know, sometimes just putting yourself in, like, that pressure—like iron—what is it? Iron crate? How is it?

Jeremy: “Iron creates iron? Or?

John: —it’s not—it’s not— It’s just something. Anyone listening knows what we’re talking about. “Iron sharpens iron.”

Jeremy: Iron sharpens iron.

John: Iron, yeah, there he goes. Iron sharpens iron, right? So, uh, so—so anyways, that's—that's what I'm referring to.

Jeremy: We'll have some other scientists on.

John: Told you I'm not a scientist whatsoever. But anyways, yeah, man, that's cool. Like, that—it took you that long, and now, like—now, with your listings, you can obviously get them. They look great, photos are great, amenities are great.

How do you feel about the budget that you're working with, right? Because obviously, every time you're putting them together, you're working with a specific budget. How do you work within that to make it an amazing listing?

Jeremy: Yeah, so I've tried—I—I, starting with as little money as possible, have tried to create as much wealth as possible. Okay, so it's been a simple kind of equation.

John: Real quick, do you know how much you started with and where you're at right now? Is that something you're willing to share?

Jeremy: Yeah, I mean, I actually have a document I actually just found a couple weeks ago. But I literally had—it’s kind of—this might—I don't know if this makes me sound good or bad—but I literally had a document I made in 2019 called, like, "Net Worth." Okay, it was my net worth document.

John: How many properties did you have at that point?

Jeremy: Well, zero.

John: Okay, zero. And what was your net worth?

Jeremy: Like $7,000 or something, like six, seven. And that's when I, like, moved to New York. Okay. Granted, like, I literally at that time, like, I split a room with my friend. Like, we had, like, a shared room because…

John: Yeah, New York—it’s different. It’s different.

Jeremy: Like, I—because my cousin or my brother split a living room, by the way, with somebody else. So it's because I wasn't, like—I did the math, and I was like, “Based off how much I'm making and the fact that I have, like, $6–7,000, like, I won't—I will lose all my money if I have to pay $2,000 a month to rent.”

John: Yeah.

Jeremy: So I went from that, and then, just like context, I actually pretty much got rid of that $6,000 on a $5,600 pontoon boat.

John: Okay. So, Genius! Hey, well this—I—I heard about the whole pontoon boat. I remember that was your thing for a while, right?

Jeremy: And I—and I at that time also got a couple—so I had done some, like, freelance web development. Okay. And I got a, like, a contract—like, my friend got a contract to, like, rebuild, like, a ticketing website for, like, a school district in Illinois at the beginning of COVID. And he brought me in to, like, help build it out. So, like, I was doing everything I can because I was like, “Damn, this pontoon boat's making money, like, how do I get my next one?” And then, like, “Wow, these houses are making money, like, how do I do everything I can to make money to then eventually start buying these houses?”

So it's really—it was a crazy ride, for sure.

John: Well, let's—do you have the nowadays net worth? Is that an allowed thing to share? Have you ever shared?

Jeremy: Yeah, I mean—well, so the huge determinant of that is the value of these homes, correct? Which, like, you're not going to—I'm not going to get an appraisal on each one just so I can, like, have my exact number.

John: But you have a general idea of what they might appraise for, right?

Jeremy: Yeah, I have a general—I mean, if you take the Zestimate—so I was like—I mean, Zestimates terrible. It’s terrible value. It's not fair.

John: If anything, that would probably be less than what you're—

Jeremy: Definitely, because that doesn't take into fact, like, how much we put into the homes to make them look good, to make them look marketable.

John: Are you, uh, beating around this question real quick?

Jeremy: Yeah, I mean, I will say—and also, like—I mean, now that I have, like, companies that have businesses, I guess, like—but if I just, like, ignore that and I just think of, like, my real estate, my cash, my stocks—I do have a stock portfolio.

John: Okay.

Jeremy: I'm not—but yeah, I'm—I guess I'm a millionaire.

John: There you go.

Jeremy: I'm not—I'm not, like—I'm…

John: That took a minute to get there. But okay, nice, man. $7,000 in 2019, zero homes. How old have you been?

Jeremy: I'm 26. I was like 23, 22.

John: 23, $7,000, 26 millionaire with multiple, multiple propert—proper nine properties that you own, a handful, a bunch of others that you rent or co-manage, right? And a bunch of other businesses on the side as well.

So, like, three years and you, uh, are absolutely crushing it.

Jeremy: It's crazy. Wild. Wild. Every—just enjoy the process and have fun with what you're doing. And just make good decisions and surround yourself with good people. And, like, if you're going to do some career—I mean, example, this—me sitting next to John right now—like, do some business line. You want to be friends and talk with the people who are the best at it because they're going to—you’re going to—you’re going to share with them some information. They're going to share with you and the data that we both collectively have, right? Because of who we surround ourselves with.

But it—because what we're passionate about—we're in a competitive advantage to be good at this game.

John: Yep. Couldn’t agree more.

Jeremy: And you're an advantage.

John: I'm going to put it out there right now that I currently have zero personal homes myself.

Jeremy: John's itching.

John: Give me five years. I'll have way more than that…

Jeremy: I feel like, got into—you got into this world, and you know, you've done it. You've done it your own way, you—a different way than other people have.

John: Well, here's my thing, right? So I'll explain my path for anyone who doesn’t—they're like, “How do you have zero homes, and you're talking all about this?”

Right. So I had—I had eight management contra—or, sorry, eight rental arbitrage contracts, eight co-hosting contracts. And from that, I built up a business. But then COVID came around, wiped it out. And then I—from there, what I did was I sold those contracts. So I was able to get out of the business.

And then I focused in on the one thing that I did best, which was how to evaluate the data to be able to find the best properties. I started helping other people being able to do that, right? 'Cause I was out. I sold all my—I sold off the business. But I had one thing I did well, so I just honed in on that. And I was like, “I want to get really, really good at this before I continue to move forward.”

And so then I found a company I could work with where I could work on that skill and develop it even more, right? So then I'm working with the company to do it. I'm also helping other people, and I'm building that up. And that's what I've been doing for the past almost two years now. And, uh, I've now gotten to the point where I'm like, “All right, I'm ready to go back into the market. I'm ready to buy my own properties. I'm ready to do joint venture deals. I'm ready to get to that point of actually building it up.”

And so I can't wait to own a property. I can't wait to see—see what it looks like. I can't wait to figure out, find, like, the best possible deal, right? But we're—we're very, very close to making that happen. And so, getting right back into that, building up that Airbnb business again. And I'm just going to continue to do it till the day I die. I absolutely love it.

Jeremy: I'm excited to have you on when you have your first property. Then we can talk about guest, like, experiences for you.

John: I'm going to try and figure out how to get somebody else to manage that. But I wanna—I want to talk—or just give, like, kudos to John. And actually, kind of like—similar to Josh. Josh is the founder of Project Seven Studios.

For the guys watching this on YouTube—that's the backdrop. But kind of what did—like, initially—and what you did was, like, you started posting on social media about how to do things. So you talked about how to do data analysis.

To buy a—re—you put out free courses where you just—you just gave out a ton of value for nothing in return, right? And then you put this out into the world. And then Techvestor—uh, correct me if I'm wrong—but he hit you up and was like…

John: It's not exactly how it went down, but it was because of everything that I put out there. It made it very easy to be able to work with them.

Jeremy: Yeah, and they—they knew you were credible at that point. They didn't need your resume. They didn't need to see "data scientist PhD." Data scientist—like, you just—you talked the talk, and you got into short-term rentals.

Like in a way that's a zero-dollar way to get in…

John: Yeah, get all the knowledge and everything, right, that you need from it. But provided value.

Jeremy: Provide value.

John: That was—there was something that—I can't remember who said it—but it might have been Tony Robbins. But it was pretty much like, "Just provide as much value as you possibly can."

Even when I talk about your Airbnbs, I'm always saying, "Provide as much value as you possibly can," right? So for myself, I knew that I had this skill, and I knew I could help other people. And what really b—me were—were all the people that I talked to that bought a property that never cash-flowed. Drove me nuts, right? Because I knew that there were ways to avoid that.

And so I—I thought to myself, I'm like, "If I'm going to help other people, let me just provide an outrageous amount of free content, free information. Give them all of the secrets that they possibly could need so they can do it by themselves if they want to do it with me, they can, right? But they can do it by themselves if they wanted to."

And so that's what I focused on—was just as much value as I possibly could. And honestly, it's like tenfold, you know what I mean? Like, it tenfolds itself. It takes time, but it tenfolds itself to the opportunities that show up. Like being able to sit here with you and just being friends with you.

Again, one of my favorite portfolios is yours, right? So, like—and the fact that we're probably going to do deals together, we're probably going to do more things together. And I—you only believe in me because I put stuff out there to help other people. And then I kept honing in on my skills, right? So it all kind of, like, evolves into more.

So anyone who's kind of sitting out there thinking about anything along those lines…

Jeremy: Whether it be short-term rentals, whether it…

John: It could be anything, anything.

Jeremy: I would say short-term rentals is a lot of fun though. I mean, I—we’re talking about, like, at this conference. Like, I've been to other conferences.

I've been to real estate conferences. I've been to—I've been to just my—the old company I worked for was just, like, you know, asset management startup. So I—I was at, like, kind of, like, wealthy people investing conferences, right? And there is no doubt short-term rental conferences are the most fun.

John: I—I was thinking that this morning. I was like, "I'm so glad that I somehow ended up in this world because all these people are so much fun to be around." Like, they're so—everyone is just, like, super nice, easy-going. Everyone's having a good time.

And all these people, like—like yourself—working five hours a week, and you're—you're making money. You're feeling good. Mind you, you do other stuff—you're not like—it's not like you're doing nothing for five hours. But you're doing—it gives you the ability to do so much more, right?

And so it's just those like-minded people. It's so easy to become friends with them because you guys are so similar. And anyways, I just love—I love this industry as well. Plus, we're in the industry of vacations, right? Better than

Jeremy: We're, like, looking at the water in San Diego.

John: Beautiful San Diego. It's just amazing out here. Great weather.

Jeremy: Like, I think this is a cool space where—I mean, we're—how old?

John: 31.

Jeremy: Okay, you're 31. But we're, like, relatively young. Younger guys.

John: Yup, I hit the 30s, you know, so it is what it is.

Jeremy: Yeah, but like—and we are, like—we're able to at conference and, like, be legitimate. Like, I say confidently, like, we are the best at, like, what we do. And what other industry can I come in at, you know, 23 in real estate? Real estate, like, the oldest thing.

John: In other words—it’s not very complicated. You don’t need to be very smart.

Jeremy: Yeah, but also, it's like—I feel like a lot of—in real estate—represent a fund that has tens of millions of dollars.

Yeah, but, like, it's really, really hard. And now, obviously, this is why Techvestor—obviously, major creds—because winning at this game at scale—yeah, is difficult. You guys have taken the bottom-up approach. Whereas, like, people are like, "Oh, institutions are going to come in and spend $500 million," right?

Institutions, that is hard as hell. If you're some 50-, 60-, 70-year-old who's made hundreds of millions of dollars, and you can raise from pensions and that—the amount of grind you will have to go into to create the operations to build a multi-hundred-million-dollar short-term rental portfolio that actually does well and gives your customers or your investors an 8% preferred rate of return is practically impossible.

John: Yeah. You know what? Sief and Sabrina did it though, man, and they're doing…

Jeremy: They started the bottom up, you know?

John: It's amazing, right? Like, to see what they've been able to do. I honestly—I say this all the time: If I made $10 million tomorrow, I would still continue to work at Tech Vestor because I love—love it so much. I love the team. I love being a part of one of the biggest things in the short-term rental market. It is my favorite. And so there's no way I'm ever leaving it. And I just think it's the coolest thing to be a part of. So, yeah, scaling is outrageously hard.

Whenever somebody says they're going to open up a fund to compete in the short-term rental space, and essentially to be our competitor, we say, "Go for it," because it's like—it is very difficult. Go for it. Just, you know, figure it out for yourself. Like, it's—it's pretty tough. You got to find some really great people. But it's—anyways, it's a great environment to be around. I love this. I love what they do. I know you love what you do too.

Jeremy: I would say it's like—you say, like, my stuff's, you know, impressive. And I—I probably, like—I probably have, like—there are probably people who obviously have, like, more, bigger, nicer houses and whatnot.

John: Right. But that's not what matters.

Jeremy: Yeah. Or maybe they do arbitrage, and they have hundreds of doors making 10–15% gross margin.

But that being said, like, I'm confident that it was, like—based off what I started, I feel like I pretty much did about what I could do. And y'all have done—and I'm—you guys done it times five, you know, times more. Probably more than that at this point.

John: Times five tech as of now. But then, well, you are—no, it's times 10, times 12.

Jeremy: whatever—times a lot more. So I'm like, “All right, 12 of me doing—not that you guys have a 100 employees or something. Like, you guys are a relatively lean team.”

John: Yeah, that's a lot of Sabrina. She really figured out how to scale the team properly. She's great with operations—like, amazing with operations. So, part of it’s also great at bringing together an amazing team too. So, credit to both those.

Jeremy: What has, yeah, what is, like, some tricks that Sabrina has done?

John: She's just a brain. She just is really smart when it comes to operations. She just understands how to make things flow really well, get the right procedures in place, and make sure that everything operates properly. And she manages her team extremely well.

So Sabrina is the one—as soon as we get the property, her team oversees and brings it to life, right? So, like, how beautiful those properties are and how well they're done and everything—that's all Sabrina. She absolutely crushes it. So a lot of people don't know that, but they should, because it's so good.

Jeremy: And managing, like, properties at scale—so obviously, setting them up at scale is difficult. Contractors, furniture—because, like, it's one thing, like, flip a house. It's another thing—you guys often flip houses and—and I do this—I flip houses and then turn them into.

John: Ish, ish. It's rare that we're going to flip a house. It's.

Jeremy: You renovate to an extent. You guys—I know you guys like painting, you know. Grey houses black now. Always. Every listing, that new listing that comes up, I look at.

John: You study a bit?

Jeremy: I definitely look. I mean, yeah, that's what you should do. You should see the pros. You know, they are the pros. And I would think, or hope, they look at mine too and, you know, think I am a data point that they can use.

John: So yeah, I mean, that's how I found your properties. Well, you were a data point.

And I was looking at—I was like, “Damn.” Yeah, and I saw Jeremy. I was like, “He—wait, I've talked to that guy once.” I reached back out to you—I was like, “This property’s awesome,” you know what I mean?

Jeremy: Yeah.

John: Yeah, man. It's—anyways, this is awesome. This is fun.

Jeremy: Yeah, this has been fun. So probably go on for another hour and a half with all these different things we want to talk about, but we got to get lunch here.

Yeah, guys. So, I—I—I know I've asked you this before, but what is—you know—what is your pro tip for—for those listening?

John: Oh, man. Such a loaded question. Every single market has an inefficiency within that market, which means that there's going to be something that is where the price-to-rent ratio is going to be the absolute best. So there's going to be some reason why that home is going to be priced lower than others, and it's going to have some competitive advantages—maybe a larger yard or—or a larger interior, something like that, that allows you to be more competitive against anyone else, right?

So whatever—whatever market you're going into, try to find the inefficiency within that market to find the most optimal thing. And a good way to be able to do this is to underwrite as many properties as you possibly can until you find the one that stands out like crazy, and then that's the one you go for.

Jeremy I think—I think I told you that the—the latest house I purchased had a power station and cell phone tower that was right behind.

John: Yeah, there you go, I remember that.

Jeremy: And you're like, "Inefficiency in the market." Like, that is—that is, like, an example.

John: The power tower, whatever it was.

Jeremy: Scares the regular home buyer.

John: Yeah, scares the regular buyer, doesn't want that in their backyard. So the value of the home is lower, and so then, because it's lower, you get a deal. But the guest who's only there for three days could care less, right? They're just going there for the home, the backyard, and all that stuff.

Jeremy: Yeah, and I generally go for houses that have spent a long time on the market. Like, I hate bidding wars, like—I hate feeling rushed. Like, I'm kind of in anxiety right now because this house I've been looking at went offline and now just went back online. So I'm like, "Ah, do I have to, like, rush and get it?" You know, I hate that feeling.

Also, like, it's like, oh, if a family wants this house, like, they can have it, you know? I'm not—but if it's a house that's been on the market for two months, you know, and nobody wants it?.

John: It's a lot easier with those ones, right? You can get better deals and stuff like that too.

Jeremy: Exactly. You don't have to feel pressured. You can—you can go lower and ask them. But that was a prime example. It's like inefficiency in the market. This house—it's on a main road, you know? Being on a main road—a lot of families don't want to be on a main road.

John: Man, I had—I had one house that was across from a Section 8 spot in Chicago. Then—then the rent was $1,000 cheaper because of that, and it did amazing, right? And then another one that was literally—the train track was directly beside the house. So when you're inside the house, you look out the window, the train goes right by. And it was—if I didn't mention anything to the guests about it, they would be really mad about it, which I figured out within the first, like, two weeks.

And then I told everybody, like, "Hey, it's right beside a train," and they were like, "Okay, sounds good." And everybody was fine with it. But the rent, again, there was, like, I think, like, $1,500 cheaper than it should have been, right? So it just—it—it—those little things, and it didn't drive—it didn't decrease the revenue in any way. Both those are my two best homes, right? Revenue-wise. And they were my cheapest homes, right?

So it's—yeah, the things that made them less desirable to somebody who was going to be living there for an entire year—right—people who are in and out for three days, it doesn't matter. So yeah, man, inefficiency within the market.

John: What's your one tip to anybody?

Jeremy: Yeah, I just say enjoy the process. I mean, I—I show, like, even my revenue numbers from year one to year two, year three, and now coming up in year four. And like, you know, first couple months, it was—it was like a couple thousand dollars, and I was so excited, so happy.

Like, every day I was waking up motivated because I wanted more. I found something I was passionate about, and I wanted to keep it going and keep growing. Yeah, so this is a fun game.

John: It's a fun game, man, for sure. That's actually exactly how I feel. I love working. I love working. I love what I do, right? And I just can't wait to get my own Airbnbs again.

Jeremy: I'm excited. So next time, John, putting some pressure on—you can't be on this podcast again till you have your own property.

John: Sounds good, man. Once I get them, I’ll be back on. I’ll be back on in a few months, guys.

Jeremy: Beautiful. Well, guys, thank you guys so much for joining. John, for those who don't already, you know, follow you—how can they find you?

John: Uh, @TheAirbnbDataGuy. You can find that—that's all the channels—is where you're going to find me there. Uh, anyone who, you know, wants to reach out to me or whatever it may be, please, please, please watch my free stuff on YouTube first. You're going to learn all the basics, everything that I know, and then we can have an educated conversation when you reach out.

Jeremy: Awesome. And guys, just to be frank, in terms of Airbnb education and content, like, and actually learning how to pick good properties to make investments—like, there's no better place. You don't have to pay someone's course. John gives it out—gives out the real information for free.

So check him out. Hope you guys enjoyed this podcast episode. Please give us a follow, like, share, and, as always, stay tuned till next time.