Braydon Ross: Owning, Arbitraging, and Co-hosting Oh My! | Episode 3 | STR Data Lab™ by AirDNA

00:00:14:00 - 00:00:33:05

Speaker 1

Love it. Well, hi. Hi, Braydon Ross, welcome to the STR Data Lab. As you know, I'm Mariah Kamei, VP of marketing over here. And I am so, so excited to talk to you today. What we're doing as part of our series is to get with movers and shakers in the business that are doing sort of innovative things.

00:00:33:15 - 00:00:54:06

Speaker 1

And of course you naturally came up Mr. Airbnb. So yeah, let's just start from the beginning, man. Let's talk about what was happening in 2017 for you. What in your mind possessed you to get into this business, Braydon? What was it? Did you wake up one morning and you were like, “I should do this, I should be an Airbnb host.”

00:00:54:27 - 00:01:12:18

Speaker 2

Actually, actually, no, that's not how it started. But I number one, I appreciate you guys having me on. For anybody that's going to listen to this like AirDNA is incredible. I've been using the software for many years and not only using it, but I've told many people about it. They're now using it. So if you haven't checked it out, check it out.

00:01:13:18 - 00:01:31:24

Speaker 2

But yes, I did start this in 2017 and this is not what I thought I'd be doing. You know, I went to university like many people, I ended up leaving university after going to two universities and one college. I realized it wasn't for me. I just didn't want to keep listening to somebody that I didn't really want to trade places with.

00:01:31:24 - 00:01:48:13

Speaker 2

I was like, Why am I taking your advice if I don't want to be in the same position? And I thought, okay, how can I get more into business? And I remember being a kid and just always finding a way to make a buck. Two bucks, three bucks, four bucks, five bucks, whatever. I could go to the store, buy candy or whatever I could do.

00:01:49:04 - 00:02:08:27

Speaker 2

So rewind to 2017. I remember I always wanted to just live in downtown, wherever the city is that I was living in. I wanted my own car. I want to live downtown. I didn't care how big the spot was and I was able to achieve that. I started doing, you know, landscaping. I used to be a hockey player.

00:02:08:27 - 00:02:26:14

Speaker 2

So I would teach people how to skate. I would do anything to make money. And I ended up saving enough money to buy my first one bedroom, one bath condo in the hometown that I'm born in called Calgary. So what happened was it was Stampede, which is one of the biggest outdoor rodeos on Earth, and it's a big event.

00:02:26:14 - 00:02:47:02

Speaker 2

I listed it on Airbnb because I wanted to make money online. My friend wanted to go on vacation and I was pretty much booked right away. And I don't remember the exact numbers, but I think it was like three or four grand made in ten days. So it paid my – either I can't remember my full vacation this is five years ago or if it ended up just basically paying a portion of it.

00:02:47:02 - 00:03:00:20

Speaker 2

But all I knew is I was able to make an extraordinary amount of money versus what a tenant could pay me if I rented it out. So I was psyched and I was hooked, but I realized like the hurdle was I couldn't keep buying more properties and I had to get creative. So we'll get into that.

00:03:00:20 - 00:03:17:29

Speaker 1

Yes. Yes, I know. Well, I have teased people about how you had sort of a different strategy. Right. So there is sort of the buy your own place, make your own money, make your own investment. But yeah, talk to me a little bit about. So you said, okay, I can I've got enough capital to buy my first place.

00:03:17:29 - 00:03:29:02

Speaker 1

It's making some money for me. Shout out to all the Canadian things you just said, by the way, like Stampede, Calgary. I think you even dropped hockey in there. So I love it. I love it.

00:03:30:02 - 00:03:43:02

Speaker 2

Maybe I said eh I don’t know. All my American friends tease me. They're like are you going to say eh? Like I don’t know, I don't even know how Canadian I do sounds. American friends are like, you don't even sound Canadian, but.

00:03:43:03 - 00:03:52:29

Speaker 1

I don't know. No, you sound just the right amount of Canadian. And trust me, I would any day of the week rather sound like a Canadian, right? I mean, they're just the nicest people. They're the nicest.

00:03:53:00 - 00:03:56:24

Speaker 2

I don't know. Oh, I don't know. We'll see.

00:03:57:02 - 00:04:06:15

Speaker 1

Well, that's okay. So what was the light bulb moment? You're immediately hooked, and then you're like, okay, I could get another property, but I don't have another ten, 20 grand sitting around to invest.

00:04:06:26 - 00:04:23:00

Speaker 2

Not at all. Yeah, yeah, definitely not. I mean, after most people, when you invest up to save your first property, you're usually like, not usually, but most people are just trying to afford to get a down payment. And then I remember buying that property to be like, Oh my God, I can't even afford to buy proper furniture.

00:04:23:00 - 00:04:42:19

Speaker 2

Like I have to save up and make money for this, right? So I was like, How can I make money online? So it listed it Airbnb. It was amazing. But I was like, okay, after coming back from vacation, I got to get creative. I don't know if it was in the shower or what it was, but the light bulb went off because I'm always trying to think of if I could do this, well, maybe other people could do it too, but I got to try it to make sure it works.

00:04:42:19 - 00:05:03:16

Speaker 2

So I was like, What if I called homeowners? And I just looked for places that were like across the road and I was like, Hey, I'm an Airbnb host myself, but I would like to rent your property and put it on Airbnb. But I actually wouldn't tell them that over the phone. I would be like, Hey, I would love to meet for coffee or and I didn't drink coffee at the time in my whole life, actually.

00:05:03:16 - 00:05:04:15

Speaker 2

I just kind of started.

00:05:05:06 - 00:05:06:17

Speaker 1

Uh oh, watch out, watch out!

00:05:07:15 - 00:05:27:04

Speaker 2

Oh, I know. That's why I'm hyper right now. So what happened was I called them, met with them, and actually pretty much one of the first people that I met with, I said, hey, here's my Airbnb account. I was a super host. This is how much I made. I can't remember if it was between 40 and 50, somewhere between actually 45, 55,000.

00:05:27:04 - 00:05:43:01

Speaker 2

I was cleaning my own property for the first year so I could make as much as possible, but a tenant would have only paid me probably 1500 a month, so I'd been 18 grand a year versus me making 45, 55. I was I pretty much made three X, so I was like, This is what I can do. But I didn't show my earnings.

00:05:43:01 - 00:05:57:16

Speaker 2

I just said, hey, I got I'm a super host. I have great reviews. I take care of my property, I own one. So I know what it's like to be a homeowner. Now, she was like, Okay, I don't mind doing this, but I want a premium on the rent. I said, Perfect. I don't care about paying that premium because I know I can hit the numbers.

00:05:57:19 - 00:05:57:29

Speaker 1

Gotcha.

00:05:58:11 - 00:06:14:11

Speaker 2

And I didn't know that, but I was pretty certain and what I used was AirDNA at the time. So I was looking at comparables and I would look at what I made and she's like, I trust you. This is my first mistake. So anybody listening, I realized that, well, I didn't realize it until I actually got to find.

00:06:14:12 - 00:06:35:08

Speaker 2

But in my second unit that I ever got I master leased that rental arbitrage, that's when you go to a homeowner, you sign a lease agreement, you got to ensure that there's like an addendum or something on that agreement you signed typically under your company and you rent that property from the homeowner. So that's first month's rent security and then you pay for furnishing, staging, etc..

00:06:35:08 - 00:07:00:26

Speaker 2

So you're all in now, right? So I set it up. I end up making I don't know if it was 1500 / 2 grand or 2500 or even 1000. I can't remember. As a long time ago I was making a profit, but three months in four months. Then I get a call from the homeowner. Hey, they're fining you $200, something like that per stay, because you're not allowed to do short term rentals, 30 days or less in the building without actually it's not even without it, which just wasn't allowed.

00:07:00:26 - 00:07:20:01

Speaker 2

Even though she gave me permission, I didn't realize that I signed off on the bylaws within the lease saying, Hey, I've read these. Even though I didn't, I was just excited and I got fined. Lost that deal, basically lost my security deposit and learned the hard way. So yeah, so just calling homeowners and that was my first lesson.

00:07:20:01 - 00:07:43:05

Speaker 1

I love that. Well, yeah, you're right. And sort of like, you know, 2017 to me, I'm old. It doesn't seem that long ago, but it was you know, it was a good amount of time ago, five years ago. And I imagine sort of the arbitrage space has changed so much since then. Right. So like, you know, all of these learnings like and sort of balancing that's being a good neighbor and working with governments on groups like that.

00:07:43:05 - 00:07:49:11

Speaker 1

So what did you how are you operating today? Are you still doing any of this sort of arbitrage?

00:07:50:23 - 00:07:55:22

Speaker 2

Yeah, I wish I could just I wish I knew how to tell you my 1 minute synopsis This is the last.

00:07:55:24 - 00:07:58:27

Speaker 1

No, no, no, no. We can go right in.

00:07:58:27 - 00:08:19:05

Speaker 2

Pandemonium. Yeah, it's been pandemonium. I'm not going to lie like in any business, because what people don't understand is business is just. It's just not easy. Like, it's not. And they think it's just going to be the straight line. And it's it never is. It doesn't matter what business you're in, you know, it's not an overnight lottery. And I realized that, okay, I could buy properties.

00:08:19:05 - 00:08:39:15

Speaker 2

I could rent properties. But what's another way where I could almost basically target anyone and show them how to do this? And if they had little to no money, they could get creative and start this business. And that was cohosting. So cohosting is the other method of leveraging other people's properties, and that's where you just offer your services to hosts that want to list or and or listed their properties.

00:08:39:24 - 00:09:02:26

Speaker 2

And you take like let's say 15 to 30% in that range for doing a certain amount of services. It can be delegating cleaners, guest communication, pricing dynamics, guest disputes, like any of those things, right. One thing people get confused on is, is depending on your local state laws, jurisdictions like my lawyers advise me like you don't want to you don't want to say you're a property management company because a lot of time you need a license to do that.

00:09:03:08 - 00:09:23:03

Speaker 2

So you should technically have the homeowner getting paid first from the Airbnb account. They should pay the cleaners and then you should invoice them at the end of the month. The people that some people are doing it backwards and they're not license and that can actually get you in trouble. So beware for homeowners or anybody listening you want to get in this, do this the right way instead of having to figure that out later with a big fine.

00:09:23:04 - 00:09:37:21

Speaker 1

Exactly. I love that. And that's why we wanted you on the show, right? Because you are going to you are seasoned enough to tell us sort of what not to do and what to do. And I'm a new as you know, I'm new to this business myself. I've really only been in it for the last year. So, yes, I was going to ask you like.

00:09:37:28 - 00:09:43:29

Speaker 1

All right, explain the nuance for myself and the audience I'm co-hosting. I love that. Yeah.

00:09:44:10 - 00:09:58:26

Speaker 2

So, so, so, yeah. Co-hosting what I love about co-hosting. And I literally just put up an Instagram story post today is how to make 100 grand hypothetically in a year. This is what it would look like. I said reach out to 100 landlords. How do you do that? There's tons of rental sites. One of them is hot pads, dot com.

00:09:58:26 - 00:10:16:20

Speaker 2

In the U.S., you can go to a filter that goes for rent by owner, click that you can directly get to the decision maker. So again, you go to the website, use this filter, call the homeowner, say, hey, I would like to I actually ran numbers on your property use AirDNA and say, Have you ever thought about doing Airbnb yourself?

00:10:17:02 - 00:10:30:06

Speaker 2

The second you do that, they're actually going to listen to you because they think they're not being pitched and realistically, you're offering value first, right? So have you ever thought about doing Airbnb yourself? I just pulled your numbers. You're wanting to rent it for two grand a month. That's 24 year. I think you could do 50 to 60.

00:10:30:06 - 00:10:46:07

Speaker 2

What if you could do double that? Would you be interested? Oh, yeah, of course I'd be interested. Well, would you be open to meeting for coffee? I'd like to help you for 30 days for free. I'm not going to charge you anything after that. If it works and I hit my target numbers and you're satisfied, I'll take, let's say, 20% on a two year or 25% on a one year agreement.

00:10:46:07 - 00:11:09:22

Speaker 2

I don't make money until you do. Are you open to that? You just land. You could potentially land a deal with no money invested other than having a business. And you've called a landlord and you spent $0 on marketing. And let's say you do that 100 times and you land 20 deals on a 30 day trial and half of those convert, you got ten deals and each of those made 40K in a year, you have 400K in revenue brought in at 20%.

00:11:09:22 - 00:11:34:23

Speaker 2

You've now made, what is that, $80,000 in a year minus any fees, expenses. And I know that's really quickly for people that are like, I don't know what you just said makes no sense. What you're doing is you're offering you're offering services to people that are unaware that they can make money and do this, like in a way where they could potentially make more money and have a more flexible schedule.

00:11:34:23 - 00:11:49:16

Speaker 2

So if their family wants to come visit, they don't have a tenant in there. So you just got to make sure that the area the city allows you got to get the right licenses. You want to work with landlords that know what's going on. If you're going to rent the property, they have to be in the know in writing, not just verbally.

00:11:49:26 - 00:12:11:09

Speaker 2

And then also just checking with the building like I had to learn the hard way. So, you know, for anybody that's like, what's AirDNA? Maybe they just found you like you're going to use AirDNA mostly to go and actually analyze that data so you can punch in using their rentalizer, without even paying anything to test it out to see what on average what that property could earn.

00:12:11:09 - 00:12:23:09

Speaker 2

So anyways there's a lot of information it in a short form that I want people listening to be like, holy cow, I could take this info and go out and actually build a business on a shoestring budget.

00:12:23:09 - 00:12:39:27

Speaker 1

I love that. Yeah, that's exactly that's what this is. This is all about. It's like sharing these stories of innovation and entrepreneurship. And I can definitely see like, like you said back from when you were a young kid looking for that way to make the money. You have a lot to offer our audience. So thank you for sharing those stories.

00:12:39:27 - 00:13:00:06

Speaker 1

And it is it is amazing how many times we do hear people say, you know, like just being able to show the potential, right, to use the data to paint a picture of what's possible, how that impacts their ability to operate their business. Right. Absolutely. So solutions like rentalizer glad to see. Thank you for being a lot a long term customer for us.

00:13:00:06 - 00:13:02:00

Speaker 1

Braydon, love that! I have been.

00:13:02:00 - 00:13:36:25

Speaker 2

And I'm not just saying that like I actually genuinely have been. I see, you know, just how many people have started to talk about AirDNA and it's almost become a household name and STR data and real estate investment research. You know, it's like I think that you guys have, you know, you really proven as a company that people can trust you and they're willing like, you know, some people may say, oh my God, $100 or $200 or $50 to unlock a city's data is a lot, but it's really not when you're investing in your business because those data insights gives you a God's eye view, you know?

00:13:36:25 - 00:13:38:00

Speaker 2

Yeah, it's just worth it.

00:13:38:00 - 00:13:53:25

Speaker 1

Yeah. And it certainly, certainly feels like a big responsibility for us. But, you know, the intention always is for folks to take the guesswork out, right? Like it's not a finger in the wind, it's the ability to use actual data to get there. So I love that. Thank you. You're doing a better job of plugging the product. I don't know if you want

00:13:53:27 - 00:13:59:17

Speaker 1

To come work on my team. I mean, I got a place over here too, if you want.

00:13:59:17 - 00:14:25:26

Speaker 2

Yeah, well, I'm just. Yeah, I know. It's just helped me a lot. And I wish, you know, I wish I was better at understanding the data when I started. But this is why I had to make the mistakes. So your listeners don't have to make as many mistakes. And I've taught hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people. I've reached hundreds of thousands and millions of people around the world with my message and the cool part is hearing like some testimonials that I've had and being like, you know, I have a, I have a guy and I'm going to namedrop.

00:14:25:26 - 00:14:43:08

Speaker 2

His name's Allen. He was one of my students from three years ago. They had to go through the pandemic and build this business. Well, holy cow. So many businesses in this space went out of business because they were locked into leases they couldn't afford or just expenses they couldn't afford anymore they were able to. They've scaled up to 70 properties.

00:14:43:18 - 00:15:05:07

Speaker 2

He told me. He landed his deal on his 21st. You got 20 no's, then reach out to a realtor. A realtor introduced, I believe him to his first client, which he then rented that property, signed a lease and then did arbitrage. And they're down in Puerto Rico. Allen consistently updates me. I just did an interview with them and they are currently at when I interviewed them, they had 49 properties, 21 going live.

00:15:05:07 - 00:15:30:18

Speaker 2

This was three months two/three months ago and they had $2.2 million in bookings at a roughly a 20% margin. And they said they will hit about three or 4 million on pace. They said over the next year to two years, do 10 million a year in bookings, eight figures a year at 20%. Right. So if they made 1000000 to 2 million a year in just under five years of creating a business that started with just one month's rent and security deposits and furnishing, it's crazy.

00:15:30:18 - 00:15:49:02

Speaker 1

Oh, my gosh. I love that story. Yeah. And I think that's one of the things that I really admire about this business is just, you know, it has a low barrier to entry, right? So there's this opportunity for folks if they do it right. And like you said, it's not like the roads are paved in gold and it's just like easy peasy.

00:15:49:03 - 00:16:10:06

Speaker 1

You've had a lot of trials and tribulations, some of which we're highlighting. But, you know, of course we're doing it in a short amount of time. So of course, it's not as easy as just setting and forgetting. But, you know, again, lots of opportunity for folks here. Well, Braydon, obviously, you know, you've been sort of, you know, innovating in this space in a lot of ways.

00:16:10:29 - 00:16:18:19

Speaker 1

So what what do you have to do now? Like, where are you operating? Are you are you still based in Calgary or have you branched out?

00:16:20:10 - 00:16:40:28

Speaker 2

Yeah. And I'm originally yeah, they started with in Calgary originally started doing this business there like this was not this was not supposed to be in my opinion, this wasn't what I thought I'd be doing. Just like most things that happen, it falls in your lap and that's becoming great like. When I started teaching, I don't like to just be like, Oh, I know how to do something without doing it.

00:16:40:28 - 00:17:02:17

Speaker 2

I'd rather do it than teach the model and stay consistent in the business. And so when COVID hit, I didn't know really what angle to take myself, so I was like, Oh, the world shutting down. There's so many policies, people can't travel. And it just was like, okay, what do we do now? Nobody wants to really learn how to do Airbnb or short term rentals in a pandemic.

00:17:02:17 - 00:17:27:09

Speaker 2

So I had to sit back and like most of us, was kind of like twiddling my thumbs for a while going, Do I have to like completely pivot and change lanes? I took a step back and really ended up as of as of late focusing on my health because I feel like if I could get my health at it like as close to, you know, there's no perfect but as good as I could being an athlete in my younger years, as we get older, it's you have to really be on top of it.

00:17:28:19 - 00:17:49:15

Speaker 2

Then I could really perform and really find new ways. And so ever since being a little kid, I was like, I want to innovate and find new challenges that other people haven't figured out yet. And what that was is, okay, there's a pandemic. How do we pivot and stay under this umbrella? And I thought, okay, there's going to be tons of hotels and tons of resorts that don't have bookings, right?

00:17:49:15 - 00:18:15:28

Speaker 2

They have Expedia and Booking.com and all these other platforms, you know, that are able to get them bookings. But what if, you know, you could put them on Airbnb? And I believe as 2018, Airbnb started introducing a connection with I can't remember the website site, not site minder, I can't remember. But anyways, they introduced this connection and it allowed boutique hotels that they would select or they'd go through a qualification to be put on there.

00:18:15:28 - 00:18:38:23

Speaker 2

So any days that they weren't booked from Expedia, etc., they could show available on the Airbnb calendar. So now you could actually get bookings through Airbnb and if you wanted to not add a cleaning fee, you didn't have to because now there's in-house, they do housekeeping in-house and you have that concierge service. So integrate those two synergy or create a synergy between the two methods of hotels and short stays in people's homes.

00:18:39:08 - 00:19:08:17

Speaker 2

And you have this kind of perfect on perfect, imperfect formula. So that's what we did. And we ended up training a guy who could speak Spanish, a couple other people. And and it ended up turning into well, I could share a little bit more info now. We ended up landing some larger clients in the in the Mexican region, Mexico region and between Puerto Vallarta, Cancun, St Barts, where else?

00:19:08:27 - 00:19:28:27

Speaker 2

Cabo. We landed some five star luxury resorts and collectively they were able to give us a couple thousand units. And what we do is we market those days and it's taken us years just to get the contracts in place because there's so much hierarchy there when you're dealing with these huge companies and then also marketing, the days that are not booked.

00:19:28:27 - 00:19:48:00

Speaker 2

So what we do is we’ll market, we’ll market those days and then we'll take a percentage on the middle. So it could be, let's say, 10 to 20%, even 5%. Imagine just 5% on a thousand nights, booked at $200 a night and you're not having to you're not even having to go and furnish the place, clean it. It's always going to be zoned.

00:19:48:00 - 00:19:51:00

Speaker 2

There's never going to be a change in those regulations because it's a hotel.

00:19:51:03 - 00:19:53:05

Speaker 1

Good point. Good point.

00:19:53:05 - 00:20:08:06

Speaker 2

Right. So there's another way to do this. I don't recommend starting there. I recommend you go and you start by doing the arbitrage, the co-hosting, because you're not going to convince a hotel that you can do this if you have no results prior. It just doesn't make sense. If you do great, you're a good salesman, but you need to know what you're doing.

00:20:09:20 - 00:20:26:24

Speaker 2

So anyways, that's been that's been the years and years that I've taught tons of people around the world from the from the UK to Australia to Canada, the United States, and just pretty much everywhere, not everywhere, but a lot of places. And people are like, well, what if what if it doesn't? I can't do this in my own city or my own backyard

00:20:26:25 - 00:20:46:21

Speaker 2

Most of our units, we aren't even physically there. I'm actually currently setting up units in Austin, Texas. I was just down there, we were filming for a TV show and we were talking about short term rentals and the guy who is hosting me says, Hey, I'm I know a couple people that might be interested in doing this and they're doctors, right?

00:20:46:21 - 00:21:07:28

Speaker 2

So they have all this extra cash flow and investment properties. Okay. Well, how do you set up an Airbnb? When you're not there? You find people that can help you with the furnishing, the staging, and you can do the pricing dynamics marketing. The photographer goes and it's doable. So anyways, I know I'm rambling a lot here, but I want people to understand they don't have to physically be there in their own backyard and there's lots of opportunities.

00:21:08:01 - 00:21:32:24

Speaker 1

I think that's so great. I know. And I'm going to circle back like even at the beginning of the not ramble the good advice you're giving people and it's also it's just so wonderful to hear your success story. Right. And of course, sort of get in deep on how you got there. But yeah, absolutely. I mean, I would say like one of the pieces of advice that Scott Stratford, our founder, has always given people is like, don't, don't go and invest in the place like that.

00:21:32:24 - 00:21:49:24

Speaker 1

You want a vacation. And right, like, I mean, it works for some people where they, you know, invest in a property, they buy it and they use it half of the year. And then the other half there, they're renting it out. But he's like, they'll go where it makes sense, right? Like look at the markets and see where demand to travel is going.

00:21:49:25 - 00:22:08:29

Speaker 1

See where you think, you know, you could have a competitive advantage. And so, yeah, I love that. And I love the I love even just the concept, Braydon, of like focusing on health, right? Like I think that's something that a lot of folks in the hospitality industry forget because we're caregivers. Right. And I'm using the we maybe. I mean, I'm not in the hospitality,

00:22:08:29 - 00:22:31:18

Speaker 1

I'll be I'll be honest. But like for folks, you I mean, when you started right. Cleaning your own toilets and things like that, it's it's very easy for hospitality, folks, I think, to forget to take care of themselves. So I love that that PSA is a very good one. And then, yeah, I'm just really struck with like sort of that innovation and that sort of blending of worlds between hotels and STR’s and right like.

00:22:31:18 - 00:22:50:13

Speaker 1

And truly how the hotels are starting to sort of get wise is that Airbnb is just another OTA, right? It's a distribution channel for them. It's another way to get eyeballs. A side note, I'm I think I might be going to Cabo or Cancun, so I don't maybe we should talk more. Maybe we should talk more. I need to.

00:22:50:13 - 00:22:51:27

Speaker 1

I need to plan my spring break.

00:22:53:12 - 00:23:12:16

Speaker 2

Well, there we go. We we have clients also in Tulum in those places. And it's not just hotels like there's we you know, we actually just recently again a lot of this as you grow comes through like referrals like you can have paid an organic marketing cool, but like referrals are much easier to close because the person referring, they're already going to put in a good word.

00:23:12:16 - 00:23:32:23

Speaker 2

So the person just trusts you more. So they have to know like and trust you. So we have like a couple penthouses in Tulum and they're gorgeous, right? You can invest down there, for example. I'm not saying that's not financial advice, but you can go pick up a condo for 100, 200,000 U.S. Up in Canada in some places and even, for example, Toronto.

00:23:32:23 - 00:23:48:29

Speaker 2

It might cost you $1,000,000 and you can almost earn, let's say, based on what AirDNA could tell you roughly almost as much as something that costs you a million for one fifth the price. So it's like be smart about your investment just like Scott says where it makes sense go to that if the numbers aren't going to lie, people lie.

00:23:49:06 - 00:23:50:21

Speaker 2

The numbers just don't, you know.

00:23:50:21 - 00:23:55:28

Speaker 1

Ooh, I love that. You want to come work for me. I love this.

00:23:55:28 - 00:24:09:24

Speaker 2

I'm happy to share whatever I can do. This is just coming from, like, literally experience in years and years. Like, you know, I couldn't have told you this at year one, year two. Like, it had to come from years of just grinding and grinding. So just like anybody that's in any business.

00:24:09:29 - 00:24:31:14

Speaker 1

100%. Yeah. And I think that's great that now people can take advantage of your your knowledge and you know, again, they don't have to learn the hard way. You've already done that for them. They can take advantage of your wisdom as they get their start. So so tell me, what is it? What's your favorite part about teaching? Like, sort of how have you gravitated towards that work as well?

00:24:32:26 - 00:24:53:25

Speaker 2

Yeah. And it's funny, I actually stopped almost completely stopped teaching when the pandemic hit and I realized that like, how am I going to teach something people don't necessarily want to get into? So I had to figure it out and pivot myself. And, you know, I built a course and all those things. And just as the pandemic hit, I'm like, Nobody's going to want to do this, so I need to figure it out.

00:24:53:25 - 00:25:15:12

Speaker 2

And that's really when we started to adapt more so into getting into the hotel and the resort side. But teaching has been wonderful. The law of averages, you know, not everyone will be successful because not everyone will put in the effort. You can give people as much information as they need, just like AirDNA. You can give all the data, but doesn't mean somebody's gonna to pull the trigger and make it happen.

00:25:15:12 - 00:25:34:15

Speaker 2

And it is what it is. But for anybody listening that actually wants to make it happen, it's just consistency over time and having a target. If you consistently go towards a target and you're one step closer every time you put an effort towards it, you're going to hit something eventually. Likely so, yeah, it's taken people years to kind of get those results.

00:25:34:15 - 00:25:54:07

Speaker 2

And I'm hearing it now like at 50 properties, 80 properties, 100 properties, and it's multimillion dollar businesses. And I go, Hey, do you want to exit? Are you interested in selling this company? Because that's a whole other topic. I spoke with a lady she sold or she sold her company, right? So I think it was a I can't give exact numbers, but they're doing a couple million a year or something like that.

00:25:54:07 - 00:26:13:11

Speaker 2

And a company came and acquired them. And there's big players in this space and there's a possibility to actually build value within these contracts. Let's say you have 100 clients on a two year agreement that are on auto renewal and you can see the future pacing roughly of what the median would be on those contracts, because you've already proven it from the past to your track record, right?

00:26:13:19 - 00:26:34:24

Speaker 2

Well, now the homeowners A) are making more money. You're making money. And let's say you wanted to increase the value on that property. Somebody as an Airbnb or a real estate investor might come in and go, Hey, I'd like to either buy that property from the homeowner for an increased value and you can take it over. So however you want to delegate that, I don't know if your license is a real estate agent, but sell it for an increased premium.

00:26:34:24 - 00:26:48:27

Speaker 2

That's something new. I'm like, This is super interesting. People are starting to realize or you just sell the whole company and be like, I just, let's see, exit for a couple of million bucks right now. You're like, okay, now I got a couple of million bucks. Maybe you go buy your own pieces of real estate. You're building that equity.

00:26:48:27 - 00:27:10:00

Speaker 2

And I recommend you have slow, medium and fast paced or sorry, slow. Yeah. No, sorry, short, medium and long term short would be you're like your income. If you could get daily income, then you had your medium, which might be like monthly or every couple of months you've invested in something and then you're long term, you're investing in, let's say, properties from the short term income and leveraging short term income to buy your own properties and build equity.

00:27:10:00 - 00:27:29:21

Speaker 2

Because if you could buy. let's say you buy a property every year for like five years, you're going to be a multimillionaire over time. You just will because property always appreciates over time and doing it quicker through Airbnb, if that's possible, using AirDNA, it would be perfect for anybody listening. This is like an actual way to become a multimillionaire, you know?

00:27:29:21 - 00:27:47:19

Speaker 1

I love that. I can see why you were so good at teaching and you have a lot of great advice to give folks. And I think you hit the nail on the head, right. Like it's it's a consistency over time and like making the incremental yeah. Incremental moves. It is great. Braydon, it's been such a pleasure to talk to you.

00:27:47:19 - 00:28:07:12

Speaker 1

And you have given our listeners such great advice, really interesting for them. To hear more about your story, I want to do two things before I let you go. I stopped torturing you. One, let's start with the good stuff. Where can people find you if they want more of the good Braydon knowledge? Where do they go?

00:28:09:01 - 00:28:37:15

Speaker 2

Yeah, I'm active most on Instagram. I should be active on more platforms, but that's my that's the. So it is it is pretty difficult. You really got to be consistent. But yeah, Instagram just that. Mr. Airbnb, that's what I'm currently under. So no spaces underscores numbers, nothing. It's just M-R-A-I-R-B-N-B. And if you heard me from this podcast, just DM me AirDNA and I'll send you my affiliate link.

00:28:37:15 - 00:28:55:25

Speaker 2

But, but DM me AirDNA so, I know you came from here and yeah, I'm happy to to respond to the people I can get back to. I can't always get back to everybody, but I try to do my best and I just appreciate everyone's time, your time for having me on here. And it was short and I just tried to give you five years of experience.

00:28:55:25 - 00:28:56:14

Speaker 1

I love it.

00:28:56:18 - 00:28:58:07

Speaker 2

15 to 30 minutes, but.

00:28:58:17 - 00:29:21:28

Speaker 1

That's going to be my new pitch for the cast is going to be five years and 30 minutes or, you know, ten years, 30 minutes, whatever you can squeeze in. All right, Braydon, before you go, we like to end the podcast with a fun who where game. All right. So besides yourself and AirDNA who would you recommend a host listen to for advice.

00:29:24:28 - 00:29:27:01

Speaker 2

In the Airbnb space? Or business?

00:29:27:03 - 00:29:29:28

Speaker 1

Either. I'd say I'll give you either.

00:29:31:13 - 00:29:52:16

Speaker 2

One of my favorite people to listen to is Alex Hormozi He's starting to become super prominent on social media. If you haven't heard of him they built him in is I think they're engaged now or wife. Yeah I think they are married him and Leila built a $100 million business in two and a half-three years And he just drops his motto is, I have nothing to sell you.

00:29:52:16 - 00:30:10:25

Speaker 2

He tries to give you as much free advice as possible. I'm going to plug his thing. Just I think it's just Hormozi, H-O-R-M-O-Z-I on Instagram and it's just short form content that just teaches you this guy's level of business knowledge. I use it especially in sales when I'm negotiating with homeowners or whoever in life.

00:30:11:12 - 00:30:28:04

Speaker 2

And because he understands how to build a nine figure business, you know, and hopefully I think he you know, he's on track to do ten figures, eventually become a billionaire. I think they're giving away all their money too to charity. Wow. Which is absolutely incredible. He's only 31, 32 years. He's got a while. I think.

00:30:28:06 - 00:30:29:08

Speaker 1

He's got a while, probably.

00:30:30:00 - 00:30:39:19

Speaker 2

Just crushing it. But the level of knowledge this guy has is unbelievable. So Hormozi on Instagram, I don't know if you'll ever see this, but if he does cool I’ve never met him.

00:30:39:19 - 00:30:42:04

Speaker 1

we’ll tag him in it.

00:30:42:04 - 00:30:50:18

Speaker 2

He puts up more content, you know, than than most people. So yeah, that would be my business advice. And for the person I listen to consistently.

00:30:50:18 - 00:31:02:12

Speaker 1

I love that. All right. Next one, what? And I know you covered a few of these, but what do you wish you knew before you started your short term rental business?

00:31:02:12 - 00:31:20:12

Speaker 2

What I wish I knew is I actually don't regret buying my first property because I had the ability to do so and I had control of actually being able to go ahead and earn all the money that was coming in. And it gave me the ability to not have to be micromanaged from the homeowner wanting reports and all these things.

00:31:20:13 - 00:31:47:05

Speaker 2

Right. But something I wish I knew prior was having a mentor, but there was really I couldn't find a mentor back in 2017 in this space. So it wasn't much out there. Now there is, but it would be. Yeah. Like I took massive risk and I don't regret it, but I also wish I was more calculated by finding the people had already been there and I didn't do a good enough job searching for those people, even if it was a digital relationship.

00:31:47:14 - 00:31:48:27

Speaker 2

So I would find a mentor.

00:31:48:27 - 00:32:02:26

Speaker 1

That's great advice for everyone in life. All right. So let's say you could have started in any market and you didn't you had unlimited budget. You could have spent $1,000,000 on a down payment. Where would have you bought your first property?

00:32:04:16 - 00:32:26:21

Speaker 2

So it's it's not actually it's it's a really tough question because obviously there's so many great spots, you know, Hawaii being one of the huge markets that's it's expensive, but ROI is there. But it's also very restrictive of is what I've read. I have friends that you know or people that I know that operate in that space, but it is restrictive.

00:32:26:21 - 00:32:52:18

Speaker 2

So what I would do is I would look for the cheapest properties with the highest ROI. So I'm going to be looking down and probably in like South America, areas of the Caribbean, Caribbean however, everybody's like both in Canada, Canadia, I call it Canadia, Canadian versus America. We say Z and Z differently. And so anyways, I would look in those areas, just like I said, you could go pick up a property, let's say Playa Del

00:32:52:18 - 00:33:12:04

Speaker 2

Carmen or Tulum could be $100,000. But if can make you 30 a year. Well, damn, you've pretty much just paid back that property if you put it all back into the property, assuming that's after tax in like three and a half to five years, you know, with interest. So it's like you could go and take property one, pull equity out of it, go get property two.

00:33:12:05 - 00:33:29:24

Speaker 2

So I would look at those areas where it's the cheapest, but I can get a similar ROI. It doesn't mean just because I live in Calgary, I have to buy a half a million or $1,000,000 home. That to me that doesn't make as much sense unless the data is there. That shows me and I actually unlocked the stats for Calgary and I did find some huge properties.

00:33:29:24 - 00:33:46:04

Speaker 2

That were doing multiple six figures a year on Airbnb and they were multimillion dollar homes. But I would take that chunk of change because most people don't. Well, everybody doesn't have unlimited money. But if you get creative and you have a group of friends, maybe you don't have the money, get the money together, go buy property, one in a cheaper area.

00:33:46:18 - 00:34:11:15

Speaker 2

And and there's going to be so many deals, I feel, that are going to come up because of the rising interest rates right now. People are going to have a massive opportunity to make a lot of money. People want to travel, but also there's going to be homeowners that can't afford their home anymore, unfortunately. So there's going to be opportunity for you to come in creatively if you have to and have the ability to make a ton of money and also, you know, help a lot of people travel through Airbnb and and sites like that.

00:34:11:15 - 00:34:33:16

Speaker 2

So Airbnb is just my favorite because it makes it easy, you know, just the platform, the marketing, the insurance, all these things that are covered, like it's just easy to use. So coupled with AirDNA, it's kind of this perfect formula for you to come in and you have the opportunity and resources. Just listen to this to go and actually go start this business right now for free, like not for free, but with the information was free.

00:34:33:19 - 00:34:54:18

Speaker 1

At least we're giving the information away for free, right? For for local barrier to entry. I love this. We certain it's certainly inspired me and I'm going to circle back with you on this whole where am I going in Cancun? Obviously. Braydon, again. Thank you so much for joining me. This is you are my first guinea pig on this new format that we're doing.

00:34:55:07 - 00:35:09:09

Speaker 1

You exceeded expectations, my friend. Thank you so much for offering such great advice to our listeners and they know where to find you. Mr. Airbnb on Instagram and let's keep in touch. I want to see what's next for Braydon Ross and next year.

00:35:10:25 - 00:35:12:27

Speaker 2

Yeah, I'm excited for everybody listening too.

00:35:12:28 - 00:35:14:05

Speaker 1

Thank you. Thank you. Yes.

00:35:14:21 - 00:35:15:14

Speaker 2

Thank you so much.

00:35:15:14 - 00:35:16:15

Speaker 1

Appreciate it. Cheers.