Patryk Swietek on right rooms and when to cut an owner

Quick Summary

Patryk's case is that the room you're in decides what gets offered to you. As Jeremy tells it, Jeff Iloulian remembers Patryk hitting him up on LinkedIn four years earlier, before Patryk had any properties, and a couple of the co-hosting companies he's since bought came through connections like that.

Then the operator's problem starts. Once 20 good leads land in a couple of weeks, you have to pick, and Patryk screens the owner before he looks at the house. For the bedroom and amenity math behind that second half, BNBCalc Markets has the comp data.

Key Points

• Buying the Cohost Company added about 35 properties. Jeremy guesses the count before that was around 30, Patryk corrects him to 50, and Jeremy does the arithmetic on air to land on 85.
• The brand did work on its own. Patryk says the first day he had the company, what he calls the biggest lead in Joshua Tree history came to him, a 40 acre Moroccan style estate that had been a wedding venue, with a pond in the desert and ATVs so the staff can get around it.
• His business partner counted about 20 high quality leads in a couple of weeks after that, so the two of them built a formula for what they take. The owner comes first, because an owner who insists on $800 minimums makes even a great house unbookable, and then the home, where a five bedroom with all the amenities beats the nicest one bedroom you can find.
• Jeremy pitches a rule of thumb, that for every 20 homes you add you should cut five owners. Patryk won't make it a rule. He'd rather scale responsibly, since the first six months of a new home take the longest while you onboard it and build trust with the owner, so he cuts case by case when someone turns difficult and lets the rest churn naturally when a client sells.
• He's honest that a leaner version of the business would sometimes pay better, and he's run those numbers. What stops him is payroll. He raised one employee's salary until she could afford a horse, a better house and a car, and he'd been to another employee's kid's birthday at Dave and Buster's two days before this conversation.
• His hack for introverts is to skip working the room and become friends with one connector instead, then drive through their network. The New York weekend is the example, with John Bianchi flying in and Patryk flying from California, into an office Jeremy took partly so he'd have somewhere to host mentees and friends.

Full Transcript

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Patryk: We wanted to start recording this for you guys because I flew out to New York. We're here at Jeremy's new office and it's totally incredible. We're here at the podcast studio and we were having really high-level conversations and we thought, why don't we just take these conversations to the podcast booth? And also do a joint episode of the Short-Term Rental Pros and Patryk Real Estate Show.

Jeremy: There you go. Heck yeah. And so I think that we had some really good conversations. It's interesting because we can film this podcast right now and have everybody listen to the same conversations that we're having. These are conversations that can get you to the next level.

Can we talk about what was the last podcast conversation we had, or where was that? Just to give some context of our relationship and why we talk and shoot the show so much.

Patryk: Yeah, for sure. I helped you and your now fiance get engaged in Joshua Tree. We had a podcast episode. You said you wanted it on the boulders, so we did it right on the boulders and she was waiting there patiently.

Jeremy: Just to give some context, Patryk has an awesome real estate portfolio largely centered in Joshua Tree. He let me and my fiance go check out the different properties for the day, and we finished off what we claimed to be filming a podcast. We actually didn't talk before if we were actually going to film the podcast or not. That wasn't something we even cemented.

But once we got up there to the top of a property that your business partner, Josh, now owns, beautiful property, boulders. He showed me pictures of what he's doing to it. Absolutely crazy, circular, crazy property. When we were at the top, probably 40 minutes from sunset. We're like, all right, we can't just sit up here for 40 minutes. Obviously I want to get the engagement pictures in the sunset. You only get this one time. You can't Photoshop the sunset in there. We're like, all right, we actually have to film.

Then our photographer, Christian, he was like, do you guys have mics? He didn't know he was recording the podcast. He's like, oh, I'm just here for the photos.

Patryk: Actually, Kate had mics, I believe.

Jeremy: We actually did. If you guys want to listen to that one, we're a little bit space cadet and scatterbrained at times because we're just looking at the sky.

Patryk: Yeah, we're looking at the sun to make sure it's going down. It's like, oh, this is the perfect time. We've got to close it up right now. All right, we're ending. Let's go. Done.

I know Jeremy for quite a bit. It feels like I've known you a lot longer. I think it's because we hang out, I feel, and talk a good amount. I think one of the conversations I really wanted to bring up is about being in the right rooms. I think this is what this event is all about. Maybe talk a little bit about the event and getting in the right rooms.

Jeremy: Yeah. Patryk just hosted a conference, STR Nation San Diego, which was awesome. John and I were talking about it when we did our podcast, which will probably be released previous to this one. It was fun, great energy. We said, oh, it's because Patryk's young and fun and energetic. That's why. It makes sense that a conference he put on would mirror him. It was a lot of fun.

I'm telling you, your conference is actually, I'd say, the most fun conference.

Patryk: You're going to make this hard to stop doing the conference.

Jeremy: At least pausing it, right?

Patryk: Maybe we'll revisit that conversation.

Jeremy: This is a sales pitch. For next year, yeah.

Patryk: Now we're in New York and we're going to go talk to a bunch of people. I think a lot of your mastermind students, the people that you work with, they're going to learn from the best of the best. We had John Bianchi fly in, freaking legend in this space. I think it's going to be really cool.

We're all young guys. I think that's the common thread that I see. We're young guys that have found our tribe. It's hard to do that in our world because people our age... I'm 27. I think you're 27 too?

Jeremy: Correct.

Patryk: Yeah. People our age, what are they doing in New York? They're partying at the clubs. It's a Friday night. We're filming a podcast right now.

Jeremy: We're filming a podcast. We're going to go to Dumbo House later. Come on.

Patryk: We will. We'll have a good time, but it's classy. It's great. We're going to have great conversation. We're going to talk very cool, different things, but it's not going to be the same things like, oh, what girl were you sleeping with last night? We're past that already. You're engaged to your fiance. I have four years with my girlfriend. We're committed relationships. We're talking game. How do we level up? How do we get to the next place? Having that community is huge, especially people our age, because there's really not that many people out there that do that, and can get really lonely.

Jeremy: Absolutely. To lay the scene right now, we're in our office, which also when we got the space, I was like, oh, I want this to be a place where I can host my colleagues, my friends, my mentees. That's really what this weekend is. It's the first example of that. Unfortunately, a little bit of flight issues. It's a little bump in the road.

I know we talked about it in previous pods, but everybody's flights either got delayed or canceled. Patryk made it from California. John made it on another one. Frederico is coming in from Spain. He said he's going to get here by 9 a.m. tomorrow. Fortunately, Michael Chang lives in New York City. But the point is we're getting people that we care about that are aligned, have similar goals, and we're getting in the same d*mn room.

Patryk: And you get everyone energized, excited, talk about the right topics, and you use this as a benchmark and say, hey, next time we're in this room, you better have progressed. You want to stay in this room? You're in the right room.

Jeremy: You're in the right room. Let's grow this room together. And the way we do that is by being individually and collectively successful.

Patryk: Yeah, 100%. And I think we all grow together. Rising tides lifts all ships, and I believe in that wholeheartedly. I think a lot of times people are around the wrong group. The whole saying, show me your five closest friends and I'll tell you where you're going to be and what you're going to do. And I think that's so true.

Even growing out of your friendships, have you grown out some of your friendships in the last five, 10 years, just people that you've known in your life?

Jeremy: I don't even know if I've grown out of my friendships. When I was in high school, I had my high school friend group, and I'm still close with them. But obviously they're all together this weekend in Wilmington, North Carolina. I was actually sad. My childhood best friend Andy was supposed to be here. Andy's also in the Airbnb business. Andy helped me with my second boat rental location. So he was going to be here, which I was really excited about. It's the first time coming to New York. But then our high school friends... And granted, one of our girlfriends was sick, and this is her first weekend not being sick, so I get it.

But yeah, definitely, I feel like friend groups that I've been friends with have stayed... They're so tight. And I'm still friends with them, but obviously I'm meeting new people. I'm doing new things. You and John, we're going to go have dinner. We're close friends.

Patryk: So it doesn't mean you've grown out, but it's just like... You're probably the type of person, you just like to meet new people too, and I'm the same way too.

Jeremy: Yeah.

Patryk: I think you're right. Growing out of a friend group, I think, is different than what I meant. I think more so, I think we take different paths. And it's funny, because my closest...

Jeremy: Make more friend groups. Make more friends.

Patryk: But my closest friends live in New York. We're going to meet up on Sunday. So that's kind of the awesome thing, is we stay connected. But it's lonely in the respect that you have to find new friends because you're in a different place, right? You're talking about acquiring properties, about getting to the next level of how do we actually scale this? How do we get super properties? How do we mitigate the potential looming recession that's going on, right? Things of that nature, and growing the wealth and the businesses that we run.

Jeremy: And yeah, you've done some crazy things. So since we were on... I think when we were on those boulders, you were saying, hey, I can't really talk about this right now, but in talks to buy another property management business.

Patryk: Yes.

Jeremy: You closed on it.

Patryk: We have, yeah.

Jeremy: You closed on it a few months back. And then it seems like you've just had a... I mean, it's the property management business. I'm not going to say... Obviously, I look at a ton of Airbnb listings. I know John might be one of the only people who probably might look at twice as many as me, because I look at a lot of freaking Airbnb properties. And I had seen the Cohost Company before. I'd seen it. The properties are... If you're a person who follows Airbnbs and looks at which ones are doing well and tries to figure out why they're doing well, that brand is an outlier. And I'd say it's probably the most well-known property management, short-term rental property management business in the world. I think there might be one. There's a guy based out of California who has a few thousand, but I can't even tell you the name of it. But I follow him online. I followed him for a few years.

Patryk: Right.

Jeremy: So the fact that you've acquired this brand, I feel like you've had a lot of momentum, not just from the portfolio that was added, but just the fact that you now own the Cohost Company. People are coming to you left and right.

Patryk: Yeah, just the brand itself just leveled me up. I mean, it was crazy. The first day that I had the company, the biggest lead in all of Joshua Tree history came to us. And this is debatable. Obviously, the Invisible House, everyone talks about. But this house, I think...

Jeremy: It's like a famous house.

Patryk: It's a famous house that's really well... I mean, it's known to have weddings. It was a wedding venue. But it's more than that now. They're updating it. They're putting a lot of money into it. They're putting a full pool in that. The house is a Moroccan-style estate, 40 acres. There's multiple boulder packs. It is wild. Elon Musk was there for a wedding. At one point, Rihanna stayed there. It's just a really cool property.

Jeremy: It is the house you manage now.

Patryk: Yes. We're launching it pretty soon, the first phase. And then we're going to update it as time goes on. But just to show you how big this property is, we have ATVs for our staffs, those little ATVs to go around. There's a pond in the desert that you have to maintain and stuff like that. It's crazy.

Jeremy: It's crazy. This house is more logistics than your normal house.

Patryk: Yes, it is. But it is an incredible home. And what makes it even better is the owners are so incredible. I love working with them. You think that the harder the home, the harder the owner. In this case, the client is amazing. It's one of the best clients. And I love working with them, and it's really exciting to work together.

Jeremy: So question I have for you. You added on how many properties from the Cohost Company?

Patryk: 35-ish.

Jeremy: 35-ish. Prior to that, you had about 30.

Patryk: 50.

Jeremy: 50. Something. Okay. So that got you to 85.

And when I was with you guys, with you and Josh and STR Nation, which we can probably get into partnership dynamics and all that, because you and Josh have a pretty funny but works very well dynamic between you two. Shout out Josh. Josh Rudin.

So after that, people just started coming to you. Leads left and right. That's what Josh was like, oh yeah, we've gotten 20 leads pretty much, and these are high-quality leads, in the last couple of weeks. When that happens, A, how do you decide which properties you want to take on? And then is there like, okay, there's properties we're just not going to take on at that point?

Patryk: Yeah. At that point, it comes down to criteria, right? Josh and I sit down. We're like, we need a formula of what we take and what we don't take.

The first part is going to be the owner. Are they cool? Are they somebody that we can work with? Are they aligned with the vision that we have? Meaning, are they going to set crazy restrictions on us? If they're going to do $800 minimums, we're not going to be able to book it. It's even a super property. It doesn't make sense, right? Are they going to give us the freedom? Are they reasonable in their asks and their demeanor? How much time do they take, right? Even if they're really nice, maybe they're really anxious and they take a lot of time. Those are really hard ones. But those we usually deal with if it's anxious. We usually set expectations, and I think usually they build trust with us over time.

But then there's the home, right? First, how nice is the home? There could be a one-bedroom that's incredibly nice, but that's capped to how much money it can make. How many bedrooms does it have, slash how many amenities, right? Those are going to be more important, because a five-bedroom with all the amenities is going to do better than any beautiful one-bedroom you put in front of you, no matter how great the land is, no matter how great anything is, because people are willing to pay more for a four or five-bedroom, right?

So those kinds of considerations we think about, and then we put together like, okay, holistically, this is somebody we want to work with, and this is somebody we don't want to work with.

Jeremy: I said this and I'm wondering if you guys have talked internally on it. I was like, all right, if you guys are adding all these and have all these leads, you should literally set a metric and say, all right, for every X number we add, we should take out. We should just make a rule that we have to cut, because I feel like a lot of times you're like, oh well, it's making money. Yes, it's causing all these issues, but it's all right. We've already started it. Unless you have like, well, you have to do this, you're just not going to cut it.

Patryk: Yeah. Oh, actually, that reminded me, houses that are not done well is also an important metric, because if they're not done well, even though the owner's nice, everything's good, it's a high-end home, the amount of time it takes to maintain it could be astronomical.

But to answer your question, yeah, 100%. You want to make sure that everything's... Oh, hold on. Dylan, what did you say one more time?

Jeremy: Well, I said if you're going to add 20, should there be a metric of like, I'm going to cut five owners or clients?

Patryk: Yes. So the way that I look at it is scale responsibly. You don't want to overload your team, because in the beginning, the first six months usually take the longest for that relationship, because you're building trust with the owner, the home's getting onboarded, we're doing a lot of upfront work versus one that's already running.

So we try not to let go of properties unless there's a real reason for it. So if somebody's being more difficult later on, we'll kind of have the decision like, hey, we're going to have to cut you out. So it's case by case, because if it's a good owner and it's a great client, even if we're onboarding a lot, we don't want to cut that owner, because they're a good client to us. We want to give them everything we have.

And there's going to be normal churn to begin with. Clients leave if they sell houses or whatever. So for us, we take that in consideration and we're like, okay, let this person be with us, because they've done good for us and we've done good for their property and we don't hear from them. That's fine. We just add more staff.

But have I thought about, yes, wow, if I cut my top 20 homes and I cut all my staff and I just ran it like just the priority staff, the ones I really need, I've thought about that. I've ran the numbers and it's like you basically make more money that way sometimes. And I'm thinking to myself, should I just run 20? Why do I have 100? Can I have 20 making me 4K a month?

Jeremy: 4K a month each.

Patryk: Yeah. Well, let's say 3K a month is more reasonable.

Jeremy: 3K a month each.

Patryk: Okay, 3K a month each. That's a pretty good life to live.

Jeremy: That's a great life to live. I mean, top line, you'd be making a lot, and then you probably have a CEO to run the show. You wouldn't have to be dealing with anything. You just cash in your check.

Patryk: But the thing is, it's bigger than that. The reason that we don't do that is because, one, we're scaling and we're growing. So we have more personnel than we have homes technically, but we're bringing on enough homes to support that.

But the big thing I realize is when you have a staff, you realize that you're changing people's lives. So every day, man, and I think you see this with the people that you hire, you give them jobs, you give them purpose. Right, Sidney?

Jeremy: Sidney, my cousin, who's an intern.

Patryk: Is your life changed?

Jeremy: She said so changed.

Patryk: She said so changed. Yeah. So there's literally a whole bunch of...

Jeremy: We changed Sidney's life. That's why we're here right now.

Patryk: Exactly. I mean, what would be the point of this office?

Jeremy: She's leaving on Wednesday though, so it looks like her life wasn't that changed.

Patryk: Yeah, right. She was like, yeah, peace.

Jeremy: College.

Patryk: We'll have to talk about the whole college thing later.

Jeremy: Come on.

Patryk: No, but you see there's a lot of seats in this office, right? And if you're alone, you wouldn't need this cost of an office. But the thing is you want to give people a commodity. You want to give people a space to create. You want to give people a purpose in their life.

And I think I see it with, I went to one of my employees' kid's birthday party. We went to Dave and Buster's literally two days ago. It was the best experience ever, because deep down I know that I pay both of the parents that basically supplies for the kids, right? I'm not saying I pay for their salary. They definitely work for their salary. They do everything. They deserve it 100%. But it makes me feel good that our business is supporting their family.

And I see their kids changing lives. I see her getting finally, she was like, I wish I had a horse. That's what I wanted, right? We raised her salary and now she can afford a horse. She afforded a new house. Her living situation was subpar, right? The desert, you get snakes that come into your house. It's crazy. And she's got a really nice place now. And so she has a car. I mean, it's crazy the change you can make in people's lives. And I think that's what makes me want to continue doing what I do.

Jeremy: Got it. And something I think you're really good at, or something you've honestly taught me is, and I know we're alluding back to being in the right room, but I met you at one conference and then I saw you at another one. You go to a hell of a ton of conferences and you know everybody who puts them on. You're networked with everybody.

And I was with Jeff Iloulian, I don't know how to say his name, but I was also actually with Mark Androsky, who's Minoan. We went to an STR meetup in the city yesterday. They might actually come tomorrow, by the way. Jeff said he's in.

Patryk: Perfect.

Jeremy: I got to respond to Mark's email. He emailed me. He didn't text me. He has my number. I don't know why he emailed me. I digress. Mark, if you're listening, just text me, man. We're cool. We're friends. Don't be shy.

But Jeff was like, dude, he just hit me up on LinkedIn four years ago. And he was like, I don't think he had any properties or anything at the time, but he just hit me up and was like, hey, I'm getting into this business and I would love to pick your brain and talk to you, or something along those lines. And I was like, I'm not surprised at all. That's very Patryk.

I feel like you literally looked at the industry. You said, this short-term rental real estate world. You found every single person, and you hit up everybody and was like, I'm coming in. And you got opportunities brought to you. You've had a couple co-host companies that you were able to buy through connections, right? Ultimately through people knowing you or knowing other people who knew you. But you said, this is a world I'm diving into and I'm going to make my mark and everybody's going to know who I am.

Patryk: Right. And that's just who I am. And so for anybody that's an introvert listening and it's like, I want to freaking, I don't know, I feel like you're pretty extroverted too. But if somebody's more of an introvert, I think the number one hack that I tell people that are introverts is become friends with a Jeremy or a Patryk, because then you don't have to go out there and meet everybody. That's the hard part. We just introduce you to everybody.

Jeremy: You drive through their network.

Patryk: Bring them in there, put them in the right room.

Jeremy: Put them in the right room.

Patryk: Like you talk to us, like, let's put you in this room where you're going to meet all the best STR operators at this office, that event that Jeremy's putting on, and you're going to meet everybody that you need to know, and you're going to meet all the top speakers and they're all going to fly in for you.

And it's like, why are they flying in? I wouldn't fly in for some random person that's coming to this meetup. I love everybody, don't get me wrong. I don't know them. I'm flying in for you, right? I'm flying in because you have a stake in this industry, and I want to hang out with you, to be honest. And I respect you. And I'm willing to do whatever for you because you're in the space, and you're a great value to me and other people as well.

So in retrospect, because we have this relationship, everyone gets to benefit from this in New York. You were able to create this. And I think everybody else that was able to drive through your network is able to have that experience, which I think is cool.

Jeremy: Yeah. Well, I appreciate you coming.

Patryk: Yeah.

Jeremy: Now, Patryk and, well, I and John [inaudible]. Michael and Frederico are also speakers. Well, Frederico lives in New York. He just happens to be in Spain right now. And he was like... I was like, oh dang, you're flying back from Spain. I'm like, holy crap. Thank you, man. Well, I thought you were just going to drive down from like two hours upstate.

Michael, he has a car and he lives in Queens. I bet he'll be the latest one, even though he's the shortest. I'm joking. We'll see, though. We'll see.

Yeah, dude. Well, thank you, man. Thank you for coming.

Patryk: Of course. Yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited for us, our continued collaboration.

Jeremy: So you don't have plans with your friends tonight, are you?

Patryk: No. No, we're going to go. We're going to rip it until Sunday. We're going to hang out with some other friends.

Jeremy: So what can people... you're doing a lot, but what's in store in the immediate future for Patryk Swietek?

Patryk: Immediate future, building this business and sustaining it into the best possible light. I think I've scaled really fast, but I haven't really had a chance to really build the foundation. I've kind of just built the plane while I've been trying to fly it, I guess. Or jumping out of the plane.

Jeremy: Jump off the cliff and you're building the parachute.

Patryk: Oh yeah, that's a great... Is that... I actually don't know.

Jeremy: I don't know.

Patryk: Whatever it is, I'm doing it. Yeah. What's that? What's the quote? But what are you doing? What are you up to?

Jeremy: Yeah. I mean, so a few things. One, BNBCalc, building BNBCalc. Under contract on a house right now to buy, actually. It's kind of cool.

Patryk: Like a cool Wisconsin one, right?

Jeremy: Yeah. And it's with one of my mentees who in my last year, he's gone from like one to five in each property. He does massive, large barndominiums. Massive, large, redundant word. Massive barndominiums in the Midwest. And he has a unique brand. He has a social media channel, an Instagram account with 30,000 followers, that is purely like Midwestern large barndominium content.

Patryk: That's sick.

Jeremy: So he has his own little... he has a really cool moat that he's built. And yeah, we talked about the first one a year ago, he projected the numbers. I said, I think he maybe could actually do that. He crushed it, knocked it out of the park. And then number two, number three, same, he's sent it to me. I've given my feedback. He's worked with investors. Asked me the feedback, or how to go back and forth with investors, or might use me as a sounding board.

And after the fourth one, I was like, wait a minute, why am I not an investor? I'm telling him, oh yeah, you need to tell the investors this, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, wait, I should just be an investor. Next one you do, let me know. Which is cool. It was like a cool full circle thing. I mean, I've learned a lot from him as well. So I'm excited for this property.

I also made an offer on another property the other day. I don't think it's going to... we'll see if it works out. But I'm still making offers in this market.

Patryk: That's what it's all about.

Jeremy: Yeah. Well, I try to buy like a couple a year and I'm behind. I bought one in December of 2023 and I launched it in March. Doing very well.

Patryk: That's awesome. The feeder, one with the feeder and all.

Jeremy: Yeah, exactly. So I'm like, I got to do, I want to do one or two a year.

Patryk: Oh yeah.

Jeremy: And I'm behind. So I've got to get going.

Patryk: Or you're going to be paying those taxes, boy. You got to get going.

Jeremy: Exactly. But yeah, BNBCalc, we're launching new features.

Patryk: I love BNBCalc because I feel like you've been in growth mode on that business. From what you've told me, you've been spending a lot on making sure the product is incredible and it's in everybody's hands, more so than even... you're delaying the profit aspect of it, which is amazing, because you're really focusing on development and making sure that this is valuable to everybody. And I'm really excited about BNBCalc specifically. So all of my students, we get signed up on the bulk yearly and we work together on that, and students love it. So it's awesome, man.

Jeremy: Yeah. When we were in San Diego, it was cool because the embed feature literally went live. I got a message that it went live right before I went up to talk. So I was like, ooh, now I can, it's like I'm releasing something. I felt like I was Steve Jobs there. Instead of the new Apple, it's a website embed feature. I don't know if that's as cool. Maybe one day we'll do something as cool as an iPhone. Time will tell on that front.

Patryk: Yeah.

Jeremy: But then that, and then, I mean, this is trying to get the right people in the right area talking about the right things. And not even just the podcast, but what we're doing this weekend with the mastermind. I believe in building community and that's what we're doing. So yeah, man, I'm really excited for this weekend. Thanks so much for flying in.

Patryk: Thanks. Thanks for having me, man. This is awesome, dude. And I appreciate it. Love you like a brother.

Jeremy: Yeah. Thanks so much.

Patryk: Likewise, homie.

Jeremy: Well, with that, I guess today's joint episode of the Short-Term Rental Pros Podcast is a wrap.