An STR Rollercoaster: Exploring The Highs and Lows of Rental Arbitrage, with Syed Lateef of SyedBnB

Speaker 1: 0:00

We'll start the show in just a minute, but first a word from our premier brand sponsor, casago.

Speaker 2: 0:06

Casago's founder, steve Schwab, has been quoted as saying you can only be a local in one place. This simple yet profound statement is the basis of Casago's franchise model, which allows locally owned vacation rental management companies the ability to compete at a national level by leveraging the system, software and support to buying power of a much larger organization.

Speaker 1: 0:25

As a Casago franchisee, you have the freedom to run your business with the support of a community of like-minded professionals, while leveraging the economies of scale and buying power to increase profitability and reduce operating costs.

Speaker 2: 0:38

Visit casagocom forward slash franchise for more information.

Speaker 3: 0:43

Welcome to Alex and Annie, the real women of vacation rentals. With more than 35 years combined industry experience, alex Hussner and Annie Holcomb have teamed up to connect the dots between inspiration and opportunity, seeking to find the one story, idea, strategy or decision that led to their guest's big aha moment. Join them as they highlight the real stories behind the people and brands that have built vacation rentals into the $100 billion industry. It is today and now it's time to get real and have some fun with your hosts, alex and Annie.

Speaker 1: 1:21

Welcome to Alex and Annie, the real women of vacation rentals. I'm Alex and I'm Annie, and we're joined today with Syed Lateef, who is the CEO of Syed B&B. Syed, welcome to the show.

Speaker 4: 1:34

Thank you so much. I'm excited to be on your show.

Speaker 1: 1:37

Absolutely. We're excited to have you here and learn more about the empire that you have built, which is quite impressive, and we've got a lot of questions and I know you've got a lot of great answers and stories. So, before we get started, can you just give our audience and us a little bit more of a background on who you are and what your involvement in the short-term rental industry has been?

Speaker 4: 1:59

Sure. So my background is finance. I worked in corporate America, at Allstate Insurance, for about six years. I ended up getting into this bigger pockets craze, where I used to listen to all the podcasts and be on the forums and I wanted to find financial freedom. So one of the things that they recommended was house hacking. So in 2017 is when I purchased my first multifamily property using low money down loan and having to live in that property for a year, having furnished it and the year was complete, I was ready to move out and I said, okay, what can I do with this unit? And at the same time, I listened to another podcast on some individual who was doing amazing on Airbnb. So I'm like, okay, it's already furnished, let me try it out. And that's when I put it on Airbnb, it ended up making double the rent the first month I put it on and then, like two, three months later, it ended up making triple the rent. And then I was like, whoa, this is like something amazing. What if I made my other units in my building Airbnb as well? And at the same time, my leases were up on those units and the tenants were leaving and I ended up making those Airbnb. And every time I put a unit onto Airbnb, each one made three times rent. So I said this is like once in a lifetime opportunity. I want to quit my job three, four months into doing this and then I'm like I want to go into doing Airbnb full time. Fast forward to now. Today I have 300 units under management.

Speaker 2: 3:31

And.

Speaker 4: 3:32

I have about a hundred resources helping me in my business and I've been doing this for about almost seven years now.

Speaker 2: 3:39

Are all of your units in the Chicago area or do you have them in other markets?

Speaker 4: 3:42

So majority of my portfolio is in Chicago.

Speaker 2: 3:46

Okay Question on that, because I encountered a lot of challenges in Chicago because of regulations there. Yes, how do you navigate that? Because that seems to be something that I don't know that they have good organization around those regulations and how they're dispersing the information and how they're even deciding what it is, but how have you found the ability to work around or work with the regulations?

Speaker 4: 4:07

Yeah, the regulations in Chicago are strict, which I like as a business operator, so not a lot of players are able to join my market, so the supply has been flat for some time now, especially since COVID and with the newest regulation change and kind of high level. Without getting into details, in Chicago you could have 25% of a building up to six units on Airbnb, but on units four, four units or less you have to be a primary resident, so it takes away the mom and pop small person that wants to have one or two units for Airbnb. And then it also takes away the big players, because the big players want 20 units in a building. 30 units in a building could only have up to six. So there's this little in between. A local guy like me allows me to work with the big property management companies in Chicago to allow me to scale my business and again, like I said, it keeps the competition from other people coming in because it is so strict to coming into this market.

Speaker 1: 5:12

Sounds like you got in at the perfect time then Right.

Speaker 3: 5:14

Seven years ago, yeah.

Speaker 1: 5:16

That's interesting. I was thinking more that you got in around COVID area, but you had been doing it already for a few years ahead of that.

Speaker 4: 5:23

So, like in COVID, I had to deal with that COVID below I was. I scaled up my business right before COVID. I had about 180 units right before COVID. So I scaled pretty quickly to that and majority of my growth was like the four months before COVID happened. Not only was I taking losses on a monthly basis from being into my winter slow season, I was taking on a lot of debt and private loans and credit cards to buy furniture to get into units, because landlords during the winter time also is not rental season, so if they have a place vacant they want to give it to me, right? It was a combination of losses every month because of slow season plus debt. And then I was like, all right, I'm going to be able to come back and bounce back. Once spring break happens, once summer happens, I'm going to be able to pay all my debt back to my people and I'm ready to go. And then it was like March 15th where, like it hit me with, like with the knockout punch, like the play, the planes got grounded, airbnb refunds, all my guest reservations, like I can't even remember. It was like 100, 150, 200,000 dollars worth of guest reservations that I have coming up and all of a sudden, no demand, and I had the 400,000 dollar rent payment coming up in two weeks.

Speaker 1: 6:43

Wow, oh my God, my mild heart attack. Yeah, I was going to say talk about anxiety, it was not even mild.

Speaker 4: 6:48

It was like straight up. I was on like life line. It hit me so hard and because of that I it's like ripping the bandaid off right. It was like nothing, like I could react to what was going on or whatever the case, and maybe that actually helped me get through the situation that I was getting through. I was like, okay, I tried this business and I was successful. At one point, without my, without my fault, it ended and I was like, okay, then I just got to start over and do something else. Maybe I get another job or something like that. But I was like, okay, I need these 10 things to happen. And I listed it out and like, if these 10 things happen, potentially I could stay in business. And one of the things was the most important thing was going to the landlords and having a conversation. So it was like literally like flights got stopped. And the next day I ended up going into like my landlord's offices and they were like what are you doing here? We've never had somebody just show up at our office in like our history of anything. I'm saying that, hey, we want to get out of all your leases. And then so basically I gave my landlords like three options. I gave them like one allow me to pick up my furniture and leave and let's terminate the leases. Number two is let's get on like a revenue share plan where let's see what happens in COVID and maybe we could take like a 50-50 split on any money that comes in. And number three it was like or I don't pay you and you come after me and my assets and we could handle it that way. And it was about 40 of those like 180 units ended up telling me okay, just, we don't want to touch you, just get out, don't hold on to our unit. Another 40 was I will sue you until you have nothing. And then they were like we're not COVID charity. You signed the lease. You have to pay. There's no getting away from that. And the third one, which is the most important one, where majority of my units like 90 of my units was with these two landlords and because I had so many units with them, they said okay, let's figure out what happens in the next two months. Let's share split revenue 50-50. If it works out, great. If not, then you could just pick up your stuff and get out. Eventually, the people that said that they wanted to sue me ended up realizing how bad COVID was going to be. It hit us overnight.

Speaker 1: 9:11

They didn't have any money to sue you with.

Speaker 4: 9:13

Probably yeah, so I started like trickling into everybody else, like, okay, how bad it's going to affect the world and business and all that. So finally they started talking about settling payments. Okay, give me two months rent, give me three months rent, give me a month of rent over your furniture, stay in my unit for three, four more months and then call it like I ended up settling with all of them. But yeah, so like I had 180 units and now I dropped back to 90. And now my landlords that had 90 units with ended up doing okay with me. There was actually demand coming into Chicago For a few reasons. One, the supply cut in half. It went from 6000 to 3000. Quickly right, the supply cut in half. But also, at the same time, hotels were considered dirty. They were like a revolving door of people coming in and out. If you went to a hotel you'd get sick. Yeah, because of those two things, people started coming to my place and I started getting booked out. I had majority of my portfolio on a suburb and things were going on in like the city of Chicago where people were leaving the city to come to the suburbs Because there was like riots and all that craziness happening during that time.

Speaker 2: 10:20

Yeah.

Speaker 4: 10:21

Yeah, and then, all of a sudden, my landlords were like this is not bad. I'm collecting like 75, 80% of my rent and that's better than zero, so you're good with us. So yeah, without going on. But that's what happened.

Speaker 2: 10:35

Oh, that's so much to deal with. I can't even like so. Florida was locked down forever. It felt that. I know we opened up quicker than others, but so clarify for me. So are you in a rental arbitrage model?

Speaker 3: 10:46

Because it's something you don't own, okay, okay.

Speaker 2: 10:49

So I've worked on that model in vacation rental markets and just it never works.

Speaker 3: 10:56

And so.

Speaker 2: 10:56

I'm always curious how people make that work, and especially this posture, because I think people were doing really well in 2021 and 22 and going into 23. People had high hopes at all. That was going to stay. I know Alex and I had a lot of conversations on the show last year.

Speaker 1: 11:11

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:11

You really need to be paying attention, because we've hit the peak. We're going to fall down, not that the domain is going to go away, but it's not going to be where it was. So how have you maintained with a rental arbitrage model? Because, again, that's a very risky model in some areas and is it 100% rental arbitrage?

Speaker 1: 11:28

Are there any properties that you just regular management for?

Speaker 4: 11:33

So it's 99% rental arbitrage. And then I own three buildings with 13 units.

Speaker 1: 11:38

Okay, okay.

Speaker 4: 11:39

One thing is I'm in urban markets where there's a lot of inventory of apartments in my market, so I understand from your perspective. When it's a vacation rental market, it's probably like homes and big homes and the rents are super high and a lot of the people are also probably wanting to take on the risk of vacation rentals and prefer a more management type agreement, like a split between the revenue with the management and owner, and that's what they're used to too. That's just always a culture has been in your markets. Correct me if I'm wrong. So one, my product mix in my market are nothing like yours. Right, like mine are studios, one bedrooms and Chicago's old history. It has old buildings with nice units, like inside old buildings. There's a lot of inventory in different neighborhoods that like not in downtown. I'm in Lakeview, lincoln Park where like the stadium for the Cubs is where some colleges are, and then Lincoln Park it's old buildings with nice apartments, and then there's a $5 million home or $10 million home. It's a different type of product mix. So because there's so much inventory in Chicago or in any urban market, there is a need for landlords to have at least they rather get money versus it being vacant. So that ends up giving an opportunity for guys like me to have a rental arbitrage business. I would never go to a market like Florida in the coastal areas and never think of doing anything like this. Maybe there's people doing that, I don't know, but mostly my colleagues that I know of are doing it in urban areas, in big cities like Dallas, philly, scottsdale and that. So that's that.

Speaker 2: 13:23

Yeah, definitely not successful in the coastal markets, for sure, yeah, and in those markets.

Speaker 1: 13:27

I would say the main difference between urban versus coastal is that you have demand, especially in a city like Chicago, year round versus Myrtle Beach, panama City Beach or a summertime market and a little bit of off season and shoulder season, but not nearly nothing close to that in the off season. But you guys have sports and everything else. So I think that makes a big difference there to do.

Speaker 4: 13:47

I'm curious why In Chicago market it's actually extremely seasonal, just like what you said All my money is made in four or five months in the summer and in wintertime literally nobody comes to Chicago. I'm taking like crazy losses.

Speaker 1: 14:01

That's opposite of what I was thinking, yeah no.

Speaker 4: 14:04

So, first of all, january and February are like months where it's like negative 10 degrees and it's just not pleasant to come to Chicago. So, like this last year, I made or it's not that I didn't make I lost $350,000 a month from November and then 350,000 loss in December, 400,000 loss in January, like 350,000 loss. Like I had crazy losses this last winter. And back to your question about like demand. Right, you talked about over the years what happened. And in 2021, in my urban markets there one I ended up scaling back up and I could tell you a little bit how I was able to scale back up if you want to talk about that. But in 2021, I ended up getting all my units back and more. I'll tell you how later. But because of the supply decreasing in my market in Chicago, the demand came back a little bit during that summer in 2021. So I had a record year for my P&L in 2021. Also, I was on a revenue share for my slow season. So it was not like I was taking losses Like I was with the rental regular rental arbitrage and then I ended up switching back to rental arbitrage right when the winter was over. So I ended up being crazy beneficial to me. And then in 2022, it was the pent up demand year where I did take the losses in the winter because I'm back on paying leases. But now it was May where they said the mask mandates are gone. Restaurants, 100% capacity, summertime, chicago, everyone's traveling. I had a crazy ref par year that that summer. But then it was like in the winter time where I just talked about those losses $350,000, $400,000 a month like I told that $1.5 million worth of losses to my books in the winter time. It was like pent up demand summer and then Chicago fatigue in winter because everybody came in the summertime and I had record numbers in summer. I had record losses in the winter. That's what my opinion is, I think, on what happened in my market, because that's what the number is telling me. All of a sudden I have all the dollars I made. I ended up having to delay my rent five days, open up my credit cards and start maximizing all my credit cards, stop doing auto pay to my utilities. I went in negative again until, again, the summer came up. When the summer came up, now it's not COVID, pent up demand. Now my repars are down 25% year over year per unit level, Even though I have more units that I ever had at 300, in 2022, I probably had 225, 230, something like that. My revenue is flat year over year, but it's now increase of expenses. My revenue is flat, my expenses increase. My net income is lower this year than last year, on way more units. So it's just this situation that I'm in. Fortunately, I've changed my forecast every month, because after the month comes in, then we're forecasting the next two, three months that's coming in. So I changed my forecast. Like last year, I thought I was going to have an amazing year 10 million or so. So 2022, I did 10 million of revenue and I had a million dollars net income. And then 2023, I thought I was going to get to 400 units. I thought I was going to have 15 to 17 million dollars of revenue. I thought I was going to have a two million dollar net income and 2023, which is this year, I had to drop my forecast. At one point. It was like 300,000 dollar net income. Now I'm back up and my revenue is not 17 million. Now it's 10 million and I actually lost units. That through relationships. It's just like this roller coaster up and down year. I don't know what's going on. I'm only good for the next summer. That's all I'm good for. So now it's. I made money this summer and I'm not touching a thing, because now I'm going to take my losses in the winter, and is my winter going to be as bad as last winter, or is it going to be not as bad? I don't know, because everything is changing so much. I don't have, even if you had historical data. Historical data is not going to tell you what's going to happen right now?

Speaker 1: 18:11

Yeah, it's almost impossible to predict with your model. I think too and appreciate you opening up about that. It's definitely. I think you've obviously been able to navigate and do a great job with it. But I wouldn't say that it's what you do is for the faint of heart. I feel like it's got to be an emotional and anxiety filled roller coaster. At a lot of times it's not profitable if you can make it work. But I'm sure those months when you're hitting those losses that's hard to come by. But what's the booking window like for your properties? That's also pretty last minute.

Speaker 4: 18:44

It changed significantly over the years and I thought it was going to bounce back to what 2019 type lead times. And it's not. It's literally last second, all the time. Consumers have options now and hotels are open back up. Yeah there's a lot of drama in the media regarding Airbnb's and cleaning fees and this fee and that fee and fake listings and cameras. And there's always something Airbnb bus, how Airbnb is too expensive. There's always just something and that's like probably turning people off and like hotels are now taking back that like market share and people are going back to hotel. So my lead times are literally last second and then five days is majority of what my bookings happen. So it's like scary for sure, like when you see your books, like it's okay the next week. Like you said, it's like it is stressful mostly during my winter time. So when I go into hiding you make eight figures $10 million. But you don't want to take a vacation in your winter time because you don't want to spend money because all of a sudden you're losing hundreds of thousand dollars. It's not a good feeling to go on vacation getting out of. Chicago, so I stay home, and it's just like this like roller coaster of emotions all the time.

Speaker 1: 20:00

I think I can't get out of it One similarity between your side of the business versus the traditional vacation rental thing or side. I think it's definitely similar in that, with our business being in the summer time. It's the same thing we're preparing in January, february, spending a lot of money on advertising that we're not getting paid by those guests until they actually come in or 30 days earlier, and that becomes a big challenge, too that I've worked for large companies that we were able to maintain a 360 day advertising plan, but if you're a newer company, you can't float advertising in January if your arrivals aren't starting to come in until April and May. And that really lends itself to why Airbnb, vrbo, has been so prevalent, because you don't have to worry about the marketing. You just put your properties up there. Let them do it for you. But that being said, I'm curious you call it an Airbnb business. Do you try and get your own direct bookings as well?

Speaker 4: 20:56

So I've gone through cycles of this over my years where I always get influenced from outside and then everyone talks about direct bookings, always a way to go, and I understand from your guys' perspective why it's so important. And that's because it's more of traditional legacy type, you guys always did it that way.

Speaker 1: 21:17

And.

Speaker 4: 21:17

VP guests, you have great reviews, you have a brand, you have everything going on for VP guests and all that, and everyone else in your market is also doing the same thing, so it's like normal For me. I went through the process of trying to do that. I had my direct booking website, but then it came to a point where I actually did not like my direct booking website because of it being in my markets that had a regulated market. I don't want to have people's eyes on where exactly all my properties were in my local market. As I started, I initially wanted a brand. Right, I started telling everybody who I was. It was cool to have a brand in my business. For me, too, it was almost a way of getting recognition from your friends and family, like you're doing something. But then, as you start getting to the biggest guy in your market, it's oh crap. I don't want eyes on me anymore.

Speaker 3: 22:09

I want to do this low key, so I ended up taking away my direct booking website.

Speaker 4: 22:14

I ended up I have multiple Airbnb accounts and I don't have a business tag to my Airbnb account. I'm a person and I want to stay low key as possible in my market and that's why, even for many years, I stopped doing podcasts, no social media, none of that. And then, recently is when I started doing this and people were like wait, who is this guy? Where does this guy come from? This guy is probably lying about everything he's doing, but the select few of my colleagues, like the players in the market, knew who I was right, so that's what I was okay with. But now, because of these crazy fluctuations, I'm like okay, like now it's time for me to create a personal brand and get my story out a little bit and hopefully that doesn't hurt my current business. but maybe at some point having a personal brand can help. If I monetize it, then it can help me with my cashflow situations. And just in case if I make the wrong move which I can tomorrow I have something to fall back on. So now I'm coming back onto the scene and having a personal brand, but not marketing my business brand. I'm not marketing my units like that, I'm just marketing myself now. So that's my thing. Another story is one. There was one time Domeel that I don't know if you're familiar with that company, and they went bankrupt during COVID. Yeah, right before they went bankrupt they had a scandal in Nashville, for I guess they lied about primary residents and their properties. Then this was like before they even had Domeo as a business. It was a business owners, but that media article went viral and when that happens, airbnb takes action. So Airbnb suspended the Domeo from the Airbnb platform, even though they had 2,000 units on me at the time, and the company had to let go of the two co-founders and they had new people coming back up. But Domeo spent a lot of money on direct marketing. They built that brand, they built that everything. But in one month, two month period they had to fire both CEOs because they couldn't live without Airbnb. So that sounded all good to do direct bookings, branding, and they had all the money in the world. They were VC-backed company making $40 million a year and all of a sudden the second Airbnb takes it away. Ceos get fired Two months later. Investors are not gonna fund you anymore because Airbnb is so much of your business Now you go bankrupt. And all because of yeah, in our markets, direct bookings is good, but we cannot compete with Airbnb. Airbnb is so strong that even the second I miss price a unit on Airbnb. Boom. One second later I'll get a booking. And that's how much people are searching on a constant basis. That's crazy, you know.

Speaker 2: 24:56

Yeah, yeah, Do you use any other? Is Airbnb your sole source of reservations?

Speaker 4: 25:02

So I I'm on, yeah, Go ahead.

Speaker 2: 25:04

No, I was gonna say so. If that's the case, like, how do you insulate yourself from any potential? Say, God forbid another COVID happened and all of a sudden they refund all the money and they reach into your bank account and take it back, cause that was where a lot of people got tripped up, and one of our good friends on the traditional side of the business, simon Lehman, always talks about having okay, so the money is like the oxygen that gives your business the room to grow and it's you've got to think about the future and if you're really beholden to one channel I've worked in the in management and OTA space and channel manager space and the one thing I know to be true is that you really have to diversify yourself to be to find stability, to find that balance for the whole year. Does it worry you that you become beholden to one that you can't wean off of it, or that, again, if something happens, that it could wipe you out in 24 hours?

Speaker 4: 25:54

Yeah so yes. I always worry about that because things have happened over the time that literally takes the breath out of me. This is done again, like I have these like crazy panic situations that happened in my business and it's always something new, but it's like colossal type things like that. That is like tomorrow I'm done and I've had accounts like 40 units out of my account taken down and that will literally put me under right. I've done things to like multiple accounts on Airbnb to help minimize that risk for that. But I am on other platforms. Vrbo, bookingcom, expedia, marriott have approached me at some point but I couldn't get with their like channel manager and stuff it was like annoying, but you know, that's Annie, right. Oh sorry what.

Speaker 2: 26:44

I work for Homes and Villas, oh okay, oh yeah.

Speaker 1: 26:47

She might be able to help you, hopefully. Yeah, I work for somebody from.

Speaker 4: 26:49

yeah, it was like I couldn't even do it with my channel manager, Sure it's connected to us probably. Yeah, like they need a booking pal to an addition to my like PMS, whatever.

Speaker 2: 26:58

Yeah.

Speaker 4: 26:59

So, anyways, like my market share is 85% Airbnb and the remainder on vrbo, bookingcom, and yeah. So even if I wanted to have more market share on other platforms, it's just not driving that demand. I'm doing whatever I can. I talked to, like, their partners hey, how do I get more bookings? It's just probably my product type is not what is familiar to the people that are booking on vrbo People that are booking on vrbo? Are booking your type places right? So they're not looking at Chicago urban apartments, one bedroom studios to come stay at my place.

Speaker 1: 27:34

What about Hopper or any of the last minute?

Speaker 4: 27:37

Wednesday websites.

Speaker 1: 27:38

Wednesday yeah.

Speaker 4: 27:39

So I wonder if I'm on them through my channel manager. Yeah, I'm not sure. I don't see those bookings come across. Yeah, but again, nothing can compete with the monster that Airbnb is. So, you can be on a hundred of them but, like 85, 90% is going to come from Airbnb.

Speaker 1: 27:56

And so yeah.

Speaker 4: 27:56

I have that risk. Airbnb is my life. I've always pissed at them about something. It's just I won't go say anything publicly. I'm always going to be like, ok, I'm thankful for Airbnb changed my life, but yeah, it's like they could also take away my livelihood and overnight.

Speaker 2: 28:12

Yeah, that's always worrisome, and Alex and I talk about this a lot is that the divide that I think has been created between the STR world, which tends to be urban, and, like the VR world, which is the traditional vacation markets, is that there's this, there's a tone or an air of it's all passive. You can just put it out there, you don't have to worry about it. You're clearly someone who's worried a lot, which I don't know how you're doing it. You must have like really good, like managed, like meditation skills or something to help you manage through that. Just being in the business in a normal sense is like a roller coaster, just seasonalities, all the things that could possibly happen. Alex and I both live in coastal areas and hurricanes I've had, I've experienced hurricanes and an oil spill, like things that you just never. And then, ok, I think I've done like all the if I had a bingo card of all the things that you would go through. I've gotten almost got to bingo, but I just don't know how people can do it. And what is your advice to people that are? Because there's so many people wanting to still get into the space, and I think there was a lot of people that jumped into it a year and a half ago, bought at the height of the market. Their mortgages are really high. At least I guess with you. You're arbitraging, so you're not. You don't own the assets. If you wanted to walk away from it when your lease was up, you could do that. But what is your advice for people that are getting into it now? What do they need to consider that maybe you wished you'd considered when you started?

Speaker 1: 29:30

And I want to add one question to that because I'm very curious to know I think it dovetails into more about the programs that you sell and offer for people to get into arbitrage. So tell us about that and what that advice is and how that looks like from your that side of the business.

Speaker 4: 29:45

I'll try to answer the question, but maybe there's a little too many questions in that, but I'll try to get some of them. One it's still a viable business in whatever market that you might be in. Some markets might be more challenging because there are certain situations with either the supply or demand. There is super increase of units in some southern markets that are challenging for the arbitrage business, like you hear stories of the Phoenix Arizona markets where they had a crazy increase of supply. They had no regulations. Everyone during COVID wanted to go down to that market from all the big cities and there was so much demand there. But all of a sudden, when things are back to normal, the supply still stays there but the demand decreases. So all of a sudden people the new people into the business, come in and say oh, I'm not making money anymore, airbnb sucks, it's a terrible business. It's Airbnb bust. This is all fake. Then Austin similar thing. Then I hear about Florida and Miami Similar thing Again increase of supply and the demand dropped and all of a sudden Airbnb bust is going on. But there are a lot of other markets around the country where you still can make money. So there's still a lot of demand there in highly regulated markets are always my favorite markets where you can figure out if you can figure out how to run your business or Simply in your backyard. If you're an one individual that doesn't have the overhead I have, you'll always make more than the rent of the unit. But again, it depends on your neighborhood and depends on the demand. But even in the most random areas, in some of the places that I have experienced, people are still making good money above the rent and can still make a livelihood, still can make a side income from doing this business. Either you can figure out the like ins and outs of the business or you can have a coach or a mentor or somebody that created a course To help you deal with those problems like you could. You can make a mistake in pricing and all of a sudden a Pricing mistake can be five to ten to fifteen thousand dollars in your one, two, three, four, five units, right. Or if you have somebody to guide you to make sure that mistake doesn't happen, you'll save on that. So there are mistakes that somebody can end up Going through that can be saved by somebody that has gone through all the mistakes in the OI world. One yeah, you still run this business and make a substantial amount of income. Depends on your market. Depends on your neighborhood. I always recommend starting your backyard. You're familiar with the area. You know why people would come. You could self-manage it. You don't have to hire the people. So, yes, you can make that. Regarding real estate prices, and that question that you had over there, again depends on the market. Again, from my understanding those vacation rental markets, I hear Smoky Mountains two times price. Somebody bought a million. Now that place is two million dollars and then now it's dropping. Yeah, I'm sorry that happened to you, but you join one of those top ten markets in the United States, according to air DNA, and all of a sudden that happened to you. That's unfortunate. That's nothing that you I could have foreseen or maybe I could have foreseen, and I wouldn't want to go when everyone else is going. Hopefully they're able to figure that out. But if they put themselves in the best situation, sometimes you choose the wrong thing. So it's not too good of a curtain answer for that one.

Speaker 2: 33:00

But I don't solve that problem with somebody loaded. It's kind of. It was kind of a loaded like thing.

Speaker 4: 33:05

We threw at you there.

Speaker 1: 33:06

It's a lot.

Speaker 4: 33:06

Yeah, it's a lot to unpack. Did I miss any of them?

Speaker 1: 33:09

So now let's segue that and sorry, I jumped the gun a little bit, but let's segue that now into the programs that you offer, oh, from the mentorship and the education that you sell to people.

Speaker 4: 33:19

Yeah, so I haven't sold a thing yet I just started this before five months ago right now. Okay, it's my content that I'm putting out there. I'm trying to be known again, coming to podcasts like you guys to tell my story and stuff. But I'm gonna model my my business off of some of my colleagues that have been successful in the business. My one colleague his name is Hamza is the one that convinced me to do this personal brand because he's doing really good in it and he has three offers like that he has in his business one being like a beginner's course, which is like a digital product on how to run this business. There's an advanced course that has more Modules to help understanding. And then there's like the mastermind coaching one-on-one type thing. So it's gonna be three products that I'm actually gonna sell and Hopefully I do that. I don't even know yet. So right now is just I'm trying to increase my following, trying to get eyes on me. I'm doing PR, higher publicist. What I like is I have money to spend on this a little bit more than some other people might have and not have to worry about it. Right, this isn't my side thing, is not my main thing. I just started and it's been getting some traction, so let's see where it goes from here. But my argument to people on why I bring value is I always say that I have the biggest Airbnb business on Instagram. That's what I say, and Because I have so many units and I've been doing for so many years, all these people that say that they could help you grow your business they cannot grow it like I can't help you grow it because I've been through it. A lot of these people have one, two, three, four, five, 10, 20 units, and then they call themselves experts, and they've been doing it for two years, right, yeah, and then it's almost like this game on Instagram and social media has become like Anybody every there's like everybody, and anybody is also now an expert on Airbnb, and they literally don't even have any businesses. So my argument is okay, I'm coming with real experience, so if you're gonna work with somebody, you should work with me. Let's see, though. Let's see if that works.

Speaker 2: 35:20

That's great, and I think that by sharing your experience, like that's what and again Alex and I've talked about this kind of for the last year or so is that there's a lot of people that jump into the space and to your point is I had success, I rented a unit, I'm good to go, I'm an expert and that's and they're giving false information, they're giving like what their expectation is, not what their experience is, and so I think for you being able to share you've been through like the ebb and flow of it. You've been the definitely the big ups and the big downs and the fact that you've maintained and stayed and understood that this is a business like to Alex's point, like not for the faint of heart. You have to stick with it. It's something that you have to work at every day and you can't just take the million dollars and run away and think that's the end and it's going to continue. So I applaud you for being honest and wanting to share that story, because that's important for people to understand that this business is a great business to be in, but it doesn't. It is not passive by any means. You have to put a lot of energy into it.

Speaker 4: 36:15

Right, and it's not get rich overnight. It's a long term game. And a lot of the people on social media have these taglines that say like two hour work week and comfortable after one month, and you could do this from your phone and you could go on vacations and you could drive exotic cars. And no, it took me some time to build that and now I can do that because I've scaled my business significantly, but again I could lose all that overnight as well, yeah, so yeah, that's kind of I don't want to target the young crowd that's flexing right to the point where they're just going to fail. I don't want to put somebody in a bad situation either.

Speaker 1: 37:03

What am I?

Speaker 4: 37:03

going to benefit off giving false promises to somebody. My market is somebody that doesn't have zero dollars to their name. They're going to have something to bring to the table to understand the value of this business right and understand the risk of this business and see that I'm a coach that can help them through problems and can give solutions to some stuff they're going where they don't have to figure out themselves. That's where my approach is going to be for this.

Speaker 1: 37:29

Yeah.

Speaker 4: 37:30

So you mentioned you mentioned.

Speaker 2: 37:32

Hamza is a friend of yours. That's in it. Do you have any other mentors that have helped you along the way, or were they when you first started and got you through the hard times?

Speaker 4: 37:42

So I wouldn't say Hamza is my mentor, I would say I'm his mentor for the Airbnb business, but he's my mentor in the personal brand business Gotcha. I saw Hamza coming up. He has scaled his business significantly faster than I can, but he was the guy on the Facebook groups that used to annoy me a little bit. He would ask the questions and then I would just ignore him because he would always just message me all the time. But then finally once I started seeing him do some amazing things. Then it's hey, I want to be around people like that. You proved to me that you're not just a talker right, and you actually take action on things. So then he intrigued me. He started posting content, I started relating to the content, then I started liking this guy and then that's when I became friends. And then we see that we have a lot of other common interests. So then it works out well and then we compete with each other. We competed with each other in everything we do. If he says I just got 10 unit deal, it makes me like, all right, I'm going to go out and try to hustle to get some more units. I like that, I need that. I use that for him for that. So I don't necessarily have a mentor, but I have a professional group that we have conversations on problems we go through. I'm in like two groups, where one is with some of the big VC back companies like front desk and sex, then 10. The guy from Y hotel we have a slack group that they invited me to and I appreciate it because I'm the only guy that is not VC back and I have a lot less units than all of them. But I get to hear some of the stuff that they go through and I get to hang out with them at like VRMA and stuff and hear what they go on. But their problems are way different than my problems but there are some similarities. But I also have this professional group that I made maybe four or five years ago with urban operators or even vacation rental operators that are just like us, and it was like a Facebook group that there was like people that were doing masterminds to charge you like $5, $10,000. I'm like, wait, I don't need to pay somebody to make friends in this business, let me just do it myself for free. And then I was doing it from there. So, yeah, we end up going to the conferences and meeting each other. At the conferences like VRMA, imn, like these conferences we go to and we all get together, then we talk about our problems and yet even those are the guys that helped guide solutions to me during COVID. I got their vibe to see like how bad it was going to be and then I started making my decisions. Yeah, I do have a professional group that helps me get through problems, but not like necessarily a mentor.

Speaker 2: 40:11

Yeah, I like the way you said that you didn't need to like that you could get friends for free, like one of the things that I think one of the things that's really great about this business whether you're on the STR side of the VR side of it is, for the vast majority of everybody, they're very open to sharing and sharing their knowledge and helping you find solutions, and I think that's what's great about this business. So you don't necessarily find as much on the hotel side of the world, because the hotel side of the world is very siloed. So I think it's great that you're doing that, and that's one of the things that Alex and I have committed ourselves to do is try to reach across the aisle, so to speak, and bring more STR into the VR and vice versa, because, again, there's more similarities in the way we do business and there are differences. There's definitely some differences, but I think we can learn a lot from each other and it's great to hear that you go to VRMA and you're going to the conferences that are geared to traditional, because that's where we're all going to be able to learn from each other, as if we go to these conferences together.

Speaker 1: 41:04

Yep, yep, it's about having different people to compare yourself to to help push you at reminding me of a quote, something that you said earlier. Sayed says the fighter. Frank Shamrock says we all need the plus, the minus and the equal. Each fighter to become great, he said, needs to have someone better that they can learn from, someone lesser who they can teach, and someone equal that they can challenge themselves against. And that's so true. I think having that mindset really just that's where people really set a trajectory for growth, and it sounds like that's what you've built in the different associations and people that you're surrounding yourself with.

Speaker 2: 41:39

Sayed. Thank you so much for joining us. It is really great to get to know you. I hope that we'll see you at VRMA in a couple of weeks in Orlando. Definitely would love to meet you in person. Yeah, Alex may have already encountered each other, but it was wonderful to hear your story. I hope that maybe we can have you back again sometime to talk about your other successes, maybe when you branch into other markets and take the world by storm. But in the meantime, is there what's the best way for people to get in touch with you?

Speaker 4: 42:05

Best way for people to get in touch with me is on Instagram, and my Instagram tag is Sayed BNB S-Y-E-D. Bnb. I have it at the bottom of my screen for my name Follow me there. You could hear about my problems, my stories and things that I go through.

Speaker 1: 42:21

We appreciate you sharing it too, and I think, as we started this, it's important to share what you've learned and let people. In that way, I think you'll have a lot of people that will just respect you and the journey for being vulnerable and sharing your successes but also some of the failures too, and we appreciate you being very open today and what you've shared. And hopefully seeing you. If anybody wants to get in touch with Annie and I, you can go to alexandannipodcastcom. And until next time, thanks everybody for tuning in.