Latest / Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights / How Braydon Ross (AKA @MrAirbnb) Built a Short-Term Rental Empire

Transcript

How Braydon Ross (AKA @MrAirbnb) Built a Short-Term Rental Empire · Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights

0:00
If you can't sell free, you shouldn't be in business.
0:02
There are so many ways that you can build wealth.
0:05
I'd rather have 5 than 50 that I manage that I actually own.
0:08
I think AI will change the game. What are the three or four
0:12
things that are essential if you want to succeed in 2025?
0:16
Braden Ross is Mr. Airbnb, from starting at rent to rent to
0:22
working with developers across the globe to market and manage
0:26
hundreds of properties. Here, his thoughts on
0:29
regulation, essential tech, and why building a personal brand
0:33
can take your business to the next level.
0:36
Braden also shares how tequila helped him build a huge
0:39
following on social media. Brayden, you've taught thousands
0:49
of students, what are the top traits that you see in hosts who
0:54
make it big in the world of short term rentals?
0:57
Yeah, it's a loaded question, but I think it's consistent
0:59
across all businesses. And thank you for having me on
1:03
your podcast. It was fantastic meeting you in
1:05
England just this last weekend. And you you're obviously well
1:08
connected in the space. You've had some heavy hitters in
1:11
that room for the dinners and whatnot.
1:13
So shout out to you guys for putting that on to ask answer
1:17
your question. Yeah.
1:18
I mean, like my journey started eight years ago and it was one
1:23
of those things where if you had started Airbnb in doing that
1:27
2017, 2018-2019, those what I are, what I feel like we're the
1:32
golden years. Like you could list anything and
1:35
it felt like money was just pouring in.
1:37
It's gotten a lot harder now. So the biggest thing is knowing
1:42
how to understand what it is that you're selling and stand
1:46
stand out because what happens with the management side of
1:48
things and and Co hosting is anybody can do it.
1:51
Meaning when you have too much low barrier to entry, like
1:54
Airbnb, in a way, everybody has a home and a room.
1:57
Most people do not everybody unfortunately, but the ones that
2:02
stand out are able to create a compelling offer.
2:05
But this is a very, you know, networking type of business
2:09
where you go to these dinners that you held, for example, and
2:12
people will ask me like, how do you land these deals abroad when
2:15
you've never been there? Like we launched in Seoul, South
2:17
Korea last year. I've never been there.
2:19
It's doing the work over years and years and years, but also
2:23
showing what you've done and becoming sort of this
2:25
lighthouse, having people come to you.
2:28
And that's why social media is so important.
2:30
So the ones that are consistent, you know, most of them that I've
2:33
recorded testimonials with that have hit, you know, 1 to
2:36
$5,000,000 a year in bookings now and have 100 plus units or
2:39
50 to 100 units. There's multiple and I could
2:42
show a few out right now if you want to Fact Check them.
2:44
One's Alan with house PR in Puerto Rico.
2:49
They became one of the biggest on his interview.
2:51
He got 20 no's and then on his 21st or the 19th or 20th,
2:55
whatever it was, he reached out to a realtor and instead of him
2:58
pitching and trying to get his rental arbitrage, he had a
3:00
realtor help do that. So it created this forefront
3:03
when you create a barrier to people being able to get to you,
3:07
your time is more valuable and you see more professional as
3:10
well. And so, yeah, it's the ones that
3:12
stay consistent. But it's hard for a lot of
3:15
people to understand how much work it takes to be an
3:17
entrepreneur. You almost have to be a psycho
3:19
to be an entrepreneur in a way. So yeah.
3:21
So Allen's one of them. Another one actually is out of
3:24
Calgary, Canada, Alberta that I I'm friends with as well.
3:29
And his name is Brayden. He owns a company called
3:31
Nomadix. They scaled up to 80 to 100
3:34
units. They own now like 30% of their
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portfolio. It's taken them five years to do
3:38
that. I actually have one in London as
3:40
well. I could go on and on, but I
3:44
don't focus so much like I, I did a lot of the teaching in the
3:47
early days like 2018 to 2018 and 2019.
3:51
And then I actually focused on more of how do I scale this
3:53
business with entire buildings? And we'll get into that later.
3:56
So it's consistency and really just being a little bit of a
3:59
psycho to be an entrepreneur. I would definitely agree with
4:03
the psycho, but yeah, yeah, people don't realize that this
4:05
is a 24 hours a day thing. You never really stop when you
4:10
when you start a business. So when people are starting out
4:13
and they come to you for the first time, what are the most
4:15
common questions that they have at the beginning of their
4:19
journeys? Yeah, you know, some people
4:21
don't know what rental arbitrage is.
4:23
Even though it's 2025, How how could I possibly make money
4:27
using somebody else's property without even putting any of my
4:29
own money up front? Co hosting managing, which is an
4:32
incredible opportunity. But again, you have to prove
4:35
value first. So these are the biggest
4:37
questions is, you know, how do I set this up?
4:39
How do I get owners to trust me if I've never done it myself?
4:42
How do I build that credibility right?
4:44
Any service based business, one of my favorite things to do is
4:46
land my first three clients, offer it for free.
4:49
Make sure I target those clients to know that they have
4:52
connections and some sort of value that they can also provide
4:55
because I'm going to try and prove and build that trust with
4:57
them. And all I ask for is after 30
4:59
days, if they're open to giving me a testimonial and a referral,
5:03
I would love to work with them and I'll grandfather them into a
5:06
better rate and doing this, it works incredibly well.
5:10
If you can't sell free, you shouldn't be in business.
5:13
I think that's it. Yeah.
5:15
That's a nice way of putting it. Yeah.
5:17
Just to go back to the the rental arbitrage side of things.
5:21
There will be people out there who who don't really know what
5:24
it is and of course they will think that if they want to run a
5:27
successful short term rentals business, they have to own the
5:29
properties. Just explain to us what it is
5:32
and how potentially you can scale and build a business
5:36
without actually owning any properties in the space.
5:39
Yeah, it's quite amazing there. And there's been, let's go back
5:41
to students, students that are now five to seven years later
5:44
with four 2 to 400 rental arbitrage units in their
5:47
portfolio that are doing $1,000,000 a month.
5:49
But you know, with regulations coming in, that's really taken
5:53
some of the portfolio back. So to realize they, I'd rather
5:55
have less with more output than more with less output, it's a
5:58
headache. And I keep referring over to
6:02
different things, but the the rental arbitrage space, some
6:05
people will refer to it as master leasing as well.
6:09
When I started, and this is how I'll get into it, is I bought my
6:12
first property. I didn't rental arbitrage it, I
6:15
didn't manage it. I was 20 years old.
6:18
I got it when I was 21 and I listed in July of 2017.
6:22
I thought, how the heck do I get another property?
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I have no more money left. I'm like just out of school.
6:29
I'm trying to make this thing work.
6:30
And I was addicted to traveling. Like I can make money online
6:34
while my property's making money.
6:36
That was in Calgary and went on Rent Faster, which would be
6:39
where we, you know, we can rent flats as you guys would call
6:41
them. And I started calling owners
6:45
saying hey, I'd love to rent your place, meet with them in
6:47
person, but I would pitch them in person.
6:49
I got a yes right away. I didn't know what this was
6:51
called. I knew nothing about real estate
6:53
other than the fact that this is working.
6:55
I'm making three times more of my rents and I'm a super host
6:59
and it's booked like 95% of the year.
7:02
I made over $50,000 out of that first unit in the first year.
7:06
My, my condo should have only done $18,000 a year in long term
7:09
rents. So it was unbelievable.
7:11
Those were the golden years, as I said, and I was making double.
7:14
Now I convinced this owner that let me arbitrage this thing.
7:18
And so an arbitrage just so anybody, there's arbitrage in,
7:21
in everything. The biggest platforms in the
7:23
world essentially arbitrage. They kind of own nothing.
7:26
Airbnb is essentially arbitraging using other people's
7:28
properties. And they're the middleman.
7:30
Uber's arbitraging Facebook's arbitraging media space.
7:33
So what you do you're renting someone else's property with
7:38
their permission, which was my first mistake, which lost me my
7:41
second deal. I got permission but I didn't
7:44
read the bylaws. And in most a cities now these
7:47
major cities are starting to crack down.
7:49
Meaning it has to be your principal residence.
7:51
We can't do it in certain areas. So unless you have something in
7:54
your lease agreement which we could consider a lease addendum,
7:57
not financial or not legal advice as well.
7:59
Always consult a lawyer. But you'd have your master
8:01
lease, your company would be on the master lease, your LLC, your
8:04
incorporated company, and then you'd have your addendum, which
8:06
estates I, the owner and giving James permission to short term
8:11
rent my property on any home state sites that he wishes to.
8:15
And so that's what it is. You're renting someone else's
8:16
property, analyzing it in hopes to make a profit.
8:19
And it's a good way to grow. But in my opinion, in 2025, it
8:24
isn't the best way to grow. There's other ways to grow.
8:27
And I want to talk high level. I think everybody loves to talk
8:30
about arbitrage. They love to talk about Co
8:32
hosting but where I'm at now, almost a decade into this, I
8:36
think people should understand how to actually build wealth and
8:38
own property and accelerate that through creative financing such
8:41
as seller financing or VTBS and things like that, which is where
8:44
it really gets interesting. You do see some arbitrage and
8:49
rent to rent models where they say you have to guarantee the
8:52
the rental income for the owner of the property.
8:55
Now I always look at that and think, but that would be a
8:58
worry, you know, what if, what if the pandemic hits or what if
9:01
something bad happens and you can't afford the rent?
9:02
What if there's a flood? It it could be anything and you
9:05
might be on the hook for a lot of rental income that you've got
9:08
to pay the owner. So is that the biggest risk of
9:11
this of this kind of idea and this this way forward for for
9:14
people who want to get involved in short term rentals?
9:16
It's one of them, but it should be drawn up in your agreement
9:19
that you know one of the major companies that won't name them.
9:22
Save their butts because their lawyers had put in their
9:26
agreements that if the Dow Jones were to hit below a certain
9:30
level or a pandemic were to happen or a force measure that
9:33
was out of our control, we don't know.
9:35
We don't owe you rents. Another company that was worth 9
9:37
figures or in that mark went out of business because they were
9:41
over leveraged and they had to pay the rent, which they
9:43
couldn't do during, you know the C word COVID.
9:47
So it is one of the major risks. I think the biggest risk right
9:51
now is the government imposing all these regulations.
9:54
You have 0 control over that. If you don't know what you're
9:57
doing, you don't spend the money on a lawyer who can actually
9:59
keep you protected and drafted. A lot of these guys are just
10:01
starting a business. They don't have $5000 to go
10:03
spend on proper contracts so they are winging it right.
10:07
GPT is a lot of people's friend but it's a huge risk right now
10:11
and you have to do your due diligence.
10:13
Couple of the softwares I use of course is Air.
10:15
DNA is on their podcast too. Very good, very good to see kind
10:18
of what's the insights are, but I cross compare it.
10:20
I use price labs. I use air DNAI even use
10:22
aerobidics. If you're in the US, you can use
10:25
mash visor and one of the new ones that and shout out to them,
10:28
I have no affiliation is B&B calc.com.
10:31
Instead of a static pro forma, it's pulling from air DNA and
10:34
aerobidics and it allows you to actually see your ROV, your cap
10:37
rate noy, basically your investors score on any property
10:40
within seconds and it's like $40 a month.
10:43
So for pounds it's like £20 a month.
10:45
So your biggest, biggest concern is going to be regulations.
10:49
It's going to be what you said, like underestimating what you're
10:52
going to earn and think you're going to make all this money.
10:54
And now you're hooped, right? Imagine you go get 10 properties
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and he thought it was going to work.
10:58
A lot of people are using 0% credit cards, which is a whole
11:01
other topic. They're not using their own
11:02
money. Goodness me, frightening.
11:07
You mentioned before as well that the arbitrage model is not
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necessarily what you do today, so how was your thinking
11:15
switched recently? Yeah, Arbitrage was great.
11:18
When I, like kind of figured it out.
11:20
It was just me and a couple other guys at the very forefront
11:23
of teaching. So we was like, this is a great
11:25
model. I love to teach it.
11:26
I don't feel really right teaching what Arbitrage is in
11:30
2025. It's like, I'd rather give that
11:32
information for free. Look at Alex Harmozzi, he works
11:35
with companies that get to 3 million or a million EBITDA per
11:37
year and then they look at working with them and that's
11:40
where I'm at now. Like give all your good stuff
11:42
away for free like you do Actually you you give a lot of
11:44
your stuff and not all of it from away for free.
11:46
Pretty much everything. You understand that model, but
11:49
what you've built now is people are starting to respect you.
11:52
So you have you can go on your phone and you can bring people
11:55
together at the highest levels. So not many people are willing
11:57
to wait that long though. They want money now, they want
12:00
money today. But if you can hold out, yeah,
12:02
it's it's interesting. So arbitrage wouldn't be my #1
12:05
model. If I had to start today and I
12:07
had no money, it definitely would be the Co hosting model.
12:09
And what I kind of coined this term is called hybrid B&B, which
12:13
means, and you're going to need licenses in certain areas.
12:16
There's a high season and low season in most markets.
12:18
In high season, when you're making the most money, have the
12:21
owner STR rent that property. You can help run it, give their
12:25
first 30 to 90 days for free in lieu of just simply giving a
12:29
testimonial referral that will then later convert into a fee.
12:33
You're usually taking 25 to 30%. You can even hook them up at 15
12:36
to 20% for full service. Now, what you don't, what you
12:43
don't want to do is guarantee rents, especially if you're new.
12:46
So the owner is trusting you for free so you can prove to them
12:49
that this works. Started in high season, so
12:51
you're an All Star out of the gate.
12:52
So you don't want to start this in slow season.
12:54
The next thing is the owner's going to want to know, can I
12:57
make money in slow season? Of course, you can't guarantee
13:00
STR, so you need to look at what the rents are and you need to
13:02
figure out how much money the owner needs to make each month.
13:05
Once they can tell you what their monthly expenses are, if
13:08
the rent long term can cover what you need to make in slow
13:11
season, you can then help the owner do midterm rentals for
13:14
three to six months to get you through that slow season by
13:16
connecting with corporate housing companies or even
13:19
hospitals or insurance companies that then can place expats,
13:22
traveling nurses and insurance claims.
13:25
So. I mean, that goes back to
13:27
knowing your ideal guest, isn't it?
13:29
I mean, they're great, great direct booking strategies.
13:32
Really. If you know that your rental is
13:34
perfect for, you know, tradespeople and you know like a
13:37
couple of my rentals are near to an enterprise zone, get in touch
13:41
with those companies because you might find that they want to
13:44
save 1520% Commission on on airbnbbooking.com.
13:48
Yeah, yeah. So it's it's a play but you'd
13:51
also need licensing if you're going to handle leases and
13:54
whatnot. You're going to need a short
13:55
term real estate property management license in most
13:58
areas. It's a Gray zone in many areas
14:00
now for midterm but I would just recommend state compliant.
14:03
That's how I lost my second deal.
14:04
So what happened was I got the first arbitrage.
14:07
First one was I own second one was arbitrage.
14:09
I checked the little ticky box that says I read all the bylaws
14:13
HOA rules and it said no airbnbs.
14:15
I get a call from the owner like 3 months later and they said
14:21
that the building is going to be fining you like $200 per check
14:24
in because the guests keep going to the front desk.
14:25
I said what do you mean? So they don't allow Airbnbs.
14:28
I didn't know this but you had signed off.
14:31
So I lost my deposit, I lost my profits.
14:34
But it was a lesson well learn you my opinion.
14:36
I just created this thing on this trip here and I thought
14:38
huh, how much money have I had to lose to make X amount more?
14:42
And what I found across the board for entrepreneurs, none of
14:44
them ever won all the time. You have to lose more than you
14:47
win. And so I call it the 110 rule.
14:49
If you want to make a or $10,000, you have to give up and
14:52
lose 10 or $1000 hundred 1010 and and if you want to make a
14:56
million, it's $100,000. That's my opinion.
15:00
That's what I've had to go through myself.
15:01
So I'm talking from experience. There is a lot of sense there,
15:05
that's for sure. And yeah, I mean, you find it
15:06
here in the UK, you know, there's, there's a lot of like
15:09
mortgage lenders for example, who will not allow properties to
15:12
be let out. There'll be some developments
15:14
that won't allow, you know, if it's in a block of flats, often
15:17
they won't allow short term rentals, you know, for benefit
15:20
of other residents and all that kind of thing.
15:21
So yeah, you need to, you need to really, I don't know, look at
15:24
all the terms and conditions and read them.
15:26
It's easy, easy to ticket, isn't it?
15:27
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16:24
In terms of like rookie mistakes, and I guess that's a
16:27
rookie mistake that the terms and conditions.
16:28
Are there any like other things that you see over and over,
16:31
especially with new hosts getting involved?
16:33
Yeah, they're excited. And when you get excited, you're
16:37
blinders. You're like this, your tunnel
16:39
vision, so you're not looking left and right.
16:41
It's why it's important to go to dinners like you hosted if
16:43
you're invited. Of course, there's different
16:45
levels to that, but it doesn't matter.
16:48
Get yourself around, host. The amount of time and and money
16:51
you'll save just asking these questions to somebody who's been
16:54
through it, it's unbelievable. You got to get your ego out of
16:57
the way. That was one of my problems in
16:58
the beginning. I thought I knew everything.
17:00
It's all just a natural part. Like this is not a new story.
17:03
You've heard this a million times by other entrepreneurs.
17:06
But if you're already replicating what works, just do
17:08
it better. Good artist copy, great artist
17:12
steal. I think it was Picasso.
17:13
I might be wrong but not saying steal people's ideas completely.
17:19
But what I do whenever I go into a market, I'll go on air DNA.
17:21
I'll look at revenue filter out by 20 plus reviews.
17:24
I'll take a look at what is the best ROI per room type.
17:28
I'll look at my Rev Par, but most importantly, who's making
17:31
the most money and how much do those properties cost?
17:34
What's the lowest amount of money I could spend to make the
17:36
highest amount? I usually try not to touch
17:38
properties that don't make 6 figures a year now because it
17:40
becomes a headache. I'd rather have less than more
17:42
properties and it becomes just, it's too problematic.
17:46
But there's so many ways that people think that they need
17:49
money to get started with this. Now if I was to start from zero,
17:53
I would 100% just go on Facebook Marketplace, go on my local like
17:56
in the US at Zillow. And there's so many platforms
17:59
where you can connect directly to the owner.
18:00
You bypass the property management.
18:03
And yeah, it's going to take some cold calling.
18:05
It's going to take some outreach.
18:06
You can go on onlinejobs dot pH, it's a Filipino VA website and
18:09
hire Ava that does outreach for you.
18:12
But all you need is 3 clients, three clients to vouch for you,
18:14
3 clients to start making some money.
18:16
Sure, have a job, but in the meantime run some Airbnb's.
18:19
Once you've built enough credibility you can get
18:22
creative. I mean you can do syndicates
18:24
with friends. I'm not talking funds because
18:26
that's regulated, but syndicates.
18:28
You can do seller financing where you don't have to go to
18:30
the bank and qualify for a mortgage.
18:31
Like you said, mortgage fraud. People are saying it's my
18:33
principal home when it's not. You know you're breaking the
18:36
rules. Seller finance allows you to buy
18:38
the property, get the owner to finance you.
18:41
Call it 5 to 8%, maybe 10% down instead of 20, which a rental
18:44
would need and, and you're off to the races, but you could get
18:48
friends to use that money. You manage, take a lesser
18:50
management fee and then ask for equity.
18:52
These are the things that I'm doing now in lieu.
18:55
Let's be more aligned. You know, at 2-3 years, what
18:58
does it look like to make a profit?
18:59
What if we could sell this at a 20% profit for turnkey B&B, Like
19:03
a turnkey B&B where I'm not only managing, I might make 15%
19:07
instead of 30, but instead of taking 30, I asked for 15%
19:10
equity, I'll take a 1% acquisition or origination fee.
19:14
So if it's 500 grand, one percent on that, you're still
19:16
getting paid upfront for finding it and underwriting it and
19:19
looking at the data and then your friends are funding it.
19:21
And then you don't have to go to the bank.
19:23
You build the equity, you pull equity out at year three or five
19:26
when the balloon payments due and now everybody gets paid off
19:28
and now the bank's riding the loan.
19:30
There's so many ways that you can build wealth.
19:33
And that's what I mean today if I had to start over.
19:35
You don't have the credibility to ask friends for money, but Co
19:38
hosting is your cheapest way. Once you have those results you
19:41
could show your friends and start getting into networking
19:43
events. Start owning the properties.
19:44
I'd rather have 5 than 50 that I manage that I actually own.
19:49
Makes a lot of sense. You mentioned they're working
19:52
with developers, so you help developers sell and market
19:56
buildings using STR. So what's your approach when you
20:00
get a new property to making it irresistible?
20:04
Yeah, I've spent almost a decade building a brand.
20:07
So when I go to a developer, like most influencers will say
20:10
pay me 510 grand for a post, I don't do that.
20:12
I give them all the value upfront for free.
20:14
I say I have a hyper niche community, one of the largest in
20:16
the world for personal brands in the Airbnb space.
20:19
So I already have people that are interested in buying your
20:22
property units in the property and know what we'll actually do
20:26
a full audit of this. I, I'm trying to get the full
20:28
management rights to the whole building, which I've done now
20:31
actually got to go to Tulum next week.
20:33
So there's like a huge building there.
20:35
We'll manage the units for all owners that want our services.
20:37
But instead of getting 83 units, which is what this building has
20:40
across the world, I can get 83 units in one building even if
20:44
fifty of them decide to use us. I'm way more vertically
20:47
integrated. I have economies of scale.
20:49
I have cheaper cleaning costs in Mexico versus Canada or the
20:52
United States. So my margins are so much higher
20:54
and I can hire people at way higher or way less rates and get
20:58
way more staff to create a better experience.
21:00
So what I'm doing is my competitive advantage is I'm
21:02
like, let me put you in front of my audience.
21:04
Just like Host Planet, you could go and land these big deals
21:07
because you have that audience they would otherwise have to
21:09
pay. I don't owe 10s of thousands of
21:12
dollars in ads and try to target these people when it's already
21:15
there and it's a trusted brand. So what I'm doing now is instead
21:18
of just managing, I'm going, I really understand this market.
21:21
What if I could create an almost an agency out of this?
21:26
Think of Alex Hermosi's gym launch, but for developers, call
21:29
it developer launch. It's not what it's actually
21:31
called, but could work. And but I'm focusing on STR 99%
21:35
of these Realtors I talk to have no idea how to underwrite or
21:39
analyze a short term rental because the variable income, the
21:42
50th, 75th, 90th, they have no idea.
21:44
So they just say, hey, yeah, you're going to make all this
21:46
money. But they're, they're lying out
21:47
their their asses essentially just to make the clothes.
21:50
I hate that. And so I'll vet the project when
21:53
we build trust. I will then go and do like a
21:57
phase one, I call it 90 day approach to prove that the
21:59
marketing works. I'll ask for a retainer plus ad
22:01
spend and even before I do that, I'll actually promote their
22:05
project if I like it and not ask them for anything.
22:09
And then they're like, oh, this is awesome.
22:10
But I asked them for the management contract.
22:12
Then from there, a lot of regulations on the sales team,
22:16
but we'll actually look for some of the top real estate groups
22:19
and they'll handle the sales. So we have 3 pillars, marketing,
22:21
sales, management. Now the only pillar that I'm
22:24
really now wanting to focus on that I'm, I'm still learning is
22:28
actually the building components.
22:29
So we can have the entire vertical.
22:31
So build, market, sell, manage, retain, and then just get a wait
22:36
list going for the next 1. So yeah, eight years in this
22:39
business didn't happen overnight.
22:40
And I feel like I'm just starting.
22:41
I just got my PhD and now I'm stepping out of school.
22:43
So that's what I'm doing with developers.
22:46
Makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I like, you know, this, I
22:48
think going above and beyond, I think always providing that
22:51
value to the people that you're working with and just giving
22:54
stuff away, it builds the trust, right.
22:56
I mean, we, we definitely see that with, with host planet as
22:59
well. If you want to build
23:00
relationships, give it away for free, make it free and make it
23:04
so good that people can't believe it's free, you're going
23:06
to go quite a long way. So the, the students that you've
23:10
worked with, you know, between them, they've hit over $100
23:13
million in, in bookings. At what point in your journey
23:18
did you think I'm on to something here?
23:26
When I kind of backed off from coaching I thought it was great
23:31
that I could prove that arbitrage and Co hosting worked.
23:35
But in the golden years, like I said 20/19/2018 before it blew,
23:38
blew up. It still works you just it's
23:41
just harder. It was when I was like why
23:44
aren't hotels on Airbnb and I thought OK what the heck do
23:50
hotels use as a PMS? Do they even use a PMS?
23:53
Like, how does that work? There's no playbook, there's no
23:56
YouTube channels. But I thought, what if I could
23:58
get hotels connected onto the Airbnb platform?
24:02
That was 2019. A guy I knew basically said I
24:07
own a hotel, I'd start building the Mr. Airbnb brand.
24:10
And, and I thought, hey, what if I could actually just fill your
24:15
bookings? I'm not going to take anything
24:17
from booking.com, Expedia, none of that.
24:20
Well, what if I could optimize an Airbnb profile, find a way to
24:24
configure the Airbnb platform, which just simply didn't work at
24:26
the time. Why?
24:27
Because when you have a listing versus a hotel room, like I'm
24:30
sitting on a oceanfront, whatever queen bedroom, there
24:34
might be 50 of these in this hotel.
24:36
Airbnb's calendar only opens up per unit, so you have to
24:40
configure it so that it realizes how many units are still left.
24:43
And Airbnb didn't configure that way like Expedia did.
24:46
And so after many hours of me just playing around in the back
24:50
office and figuring this out, I realized hotels could scale on
24:54
the Airbnb platform because they don't charge a cleaning fee.
24:57
So that's also a huge plus. So when I marketed it, I would
24:59
put no cleaning fee. And I would also have four of
25:02
the best pictures, like a grid. And then in the middle, I'd have
25:05
super host badge and then no cleaning fee as well.
25:07
Please don't take all this, whoever's listening.
25:11
But what that allowed me to do, I realized that in countries
25:13
like Mexico and Dominican Republic, cleaning is so cheap.
25:16
I could get a villa clean for $40.
25:18
You can bake the cleaning fee into the management fee and
25:20
it'll hide it and spread it across the reservation on
25:22
Airbnb. So that's one way to do it.
25:24
Or you just simply mark it up or you just don't even charge them
25:27
for that extra fee by charging no cleaning fee.
25:30
And then when Airbnb started to introduce the host only fee and
25:33
you can mark up on the PMS through that Channel marker 15%,
25:38
you now really are are competing with a hotel model where they
25:41
all they see is the nightly rate and the tax if applicable.
25:44
And so I realized that if I could get 20%, even 15% on 50
25:51
units in one building that I don't even ever have to clean.
25:54
I don't ever have to do maintenance.
25:56
I don't ever the front desk checks them in.
25:59
Well, that's exactly what happened.
26:01
So it was like money, money, money, money, money.
26:04
And it was just crazy. And I'm like, I think I have
26:06
something here. And so I thought, why can't I do
26:08
this with resorts? What if I were to be the first
26:13
that I've seen Wyndham starting to maybe do this a little bit,
26:17
start putting entire resorts in Mexico, luxury, five stars, 5
26:21
diamonds. Some of them were five diamonds,
26:24
not all of them, but they were all five stars and four.
26:27
We never went to three. But what if I could do that with
26:31
three 4000 properties units and fill the void?
26:38
Well, that would be cool. I mean, that's, that's a
26:39
business model that's infinitely scalable.
26:42
And we actually ended up landing, and I don't talk about
26:44
this a lot anymore because I've pivoted because COVID was a shit
26:47
show. But I put two years of work into
26:50
this with, with another person and we got the deals.
26:54
We actually ended up landing a huge, huge deal with three 4000
26:58
units with one of the biggest resorts in Mexico.
27:02
Problem is you have massive board meetings.
27:03
There's like a million people that work in there and people go
27:08
to a resort, stay for a week, not a day.
27:09
So that was an issue. People go to a resort to have
27:12
all inclusive, not all inclusive.
27:13
So that was an issue people. And they also didn't have the
27:16
Airbnb host only fee implemented at that time at, at in 2020.
27:20
So that was also a problem. You could see the resort and you
27:23
didn't want to pay the 14.2%. So I learned all these lessons
27:27
and then COVID hit. Nobody could go to hotels.
27:30
And that that whole plan just basically was like, OK, maybe
27:33
maybe we should pivot. But yeah, eight years in now, my
27:37
focus is developers. My focus is owning the asset,
27:42
helping people also own the assets.
27:44
I only have two avatars. It's private clients.
27:47
We help them build their portfolio and then it's
27:50
developers. That's it.
27:53
What do you think the future of this industry looks like and how
27:57
do you think AI is going to impact this space?
28:00
I think Chesky was already talking about how AI, Brian
28:03
Chesky, the CEO for those wondering of Airbnb and founder
28:06
Co founder AI is going to be crucial.
28:10
I think it's going to be so intelligent that it'll know
28:12
exactly where you want to stay, how you want to stay, who are
28:15
you going to stay with foods you like to eat, and these big
28:18
companies are going to eat it up.
28:20
So these little companies that are in this space now, I think
28:23
we have two to three years runway like we did with
28:25
arbitrage, where you're part of the first, first herd of people
28:30
where these little companies could get acquired.
28:32
In fact, I was actually just with a buddy of mine in London
28:34
that you met. He has a company like that.
28:36
They're implementing AI. I think AI will change the game.
28:41
They'll be agents. There won't be people.
28:43
People will still want at that highest level, real people
28:45
serving them. They're just going to make
28:47
companies more money, more efficient, more profitable,
28:50
people happier. But the industry, the top 10%
28:53
are always going to stay on top. I think if you're buying not in
28:57
all markets, but you buy these little studios and whatnot,
28:59
they're flooded in most markets. You need to have something that
29:03
sleeps more people that doesn't replicate a hotel room because
29:06
people are going to hotels have location concierge amenities,
29:09
they can change rooms. They have so many advantages
29:11
over in Airbnb. So if you want to win, you got
29:13
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29:50
What are the trends that you've been seeing this year that you
29:53
think hosts and property managers need to be aware of?
29:57
The trends and positive and negative, I mean, it's a
30:02
positive and a negative. The, the regulations are
30:05
shutting people down. So they're not doing their due
30:07
diligence on that. But the trends are actually
30:09
like, let's put a monopoly board in the back and like even ours,
30:12
we, you know, we, we will put like more games, We'll put it in
30:16
house gym, we'll have the hot tubs, things like that.
30:19
So like I said, it's, it's really just based on the
30:22
experience and you do make so much more money.
30:24
But if you're managing for somebody else, what I find the
30:27
problem is the owners are so unsure that they're even going
30:29
to make enough money that if you don't what I call design your
30:32
client from the beginning, meaning they're buying the
30:34
property, they're allocating a budget, and then they're going
30:36
to Airbnb, catching them off guard in the middle of wanting a
30:39
long term rent, but convincing the STR they don't want to drop
30:42
twenty $30,000 or quid to do that.
30:46
So it can be difficult. So you really got to get in with
30:48
real estate agents. And that's your key to actually
30:50
scaling is partnering with real estate agents or collaborating
30:53
with them, in other words, and being their backbone to helping
30:58
them sell more properties. And so you can help underwrite
31:01
and analyze and find properties that they can sell to their
31:03
clients. And you manage it for them.
31:04
You're designing the client from the ground up.
31:06
So, yeah, that's that's one of the biggest struggles today is
31:11
you're getting saturation, people aren't making enough
31:13
money. Airbnb is losing market share in
31:15
terms of STRS because cities yeah, regulated.
31:19
If you were setting up a rental tomorrow, what are the
31:24
amenities? What would the property look
31:26
like, and what would the guest experience be like?
31:29
What are the three or four things that are essential if you
31:33
want to succeed in 2025? For me it's hot tub as a
31:39
Canadian hot tub. Like a games room sleeping more
31:47
people. So for SEO purposes if it's a 2
31:49
bedroom you want to sleep 6. If it's a 3 bedroom, sleep 8.
31:52
I like to have a pull out coach so that way people searching for
31:54
more are willing to share that cost without going too cheap.
31:58
I can raise my price and I show up in those search results
32:01
getting more views, more clicks and more conversions.
32:03
So I rank better. So it's being able to sleep more
32:07
people. And I use trundle beds in a lot
32:09
of mines, so two single beds, one will come out and that
32:13
helps. So it'd be like a games room,
32:14
hot tub and then sleeping more people.
32:17
Love it, makes a lot of sense. Also, for people starting out,
32:23
what are the the tools and the tech stacks which you think are
32:28
essential for people if they were starting tomorrow?
32:31
Yeah, one to three properties you can be on a simple PMS
32:35
system, but starting out right would be great.
32:37
Your big ones are obviously guesty and host away hospitable.
32:43
There's one in Canada. It's very basic, but it's called
32:45
IGMS. So as a Canadian, I would get
32:48
people to just sign up on there. It's like $20.
32:50
You're up and running per listing.
32:52
It's plug and play. So you need APMS if you want to
32:56
have your your your properties on Verbo, Expedia, Home away,
33:01
even Google vacation rentals which is being slept on now
33:03
people need to look at that. PMS #2 is going to be your RMS
33:08
or in other words dynamic pricing.
33:09
So revenue management system, price labs, everyone most people
33:13
use. So I'd recommend price labs
33:16
guest experience. A friend of mine created link
33:18
based. His name is Shiven.
33:20
So if you want to do upsells, you want to have your guide
33:23
books, you want it to connect with your front door lock, you
33:26
want it to do a guest identification, verifications,
33:28
rental agreement signing as well as deposits which you can keep
33:32
most of it. Then link base is going to be
33:35
one of them. And then I would say automating
33:39
your locks. Schlag and code is what most
33:41
people use for the lock noise and smoke monitors.
33:44
They use minute most people MIMINUT at least in North
33:47
America. And then I recommend having a
33:49
ring camera or any front door camera.
33:52
We could go on and on about the tech stack.
33:54
At a very basic level you need your PMS, your your pricing,
33:58
your guest experience app and then your automated check in.
34:01
But at a high level and referencing actual like
34:06
software, SAS and the space, go high level.
34:10
Go high level allows you to automate a lot of your back end
34:13
texts automated. Like I just created an AI agent
34:16
yesterday. In 5 minutes, anybody can call
34:18
it, my guest can call it and it'll answer the questions and
34:21
then get them and reroute them to a person.
34:24
Very easy. So go high level.
34:25
You can look into that more. Great tips there and a load of
34:28
brilliant shout outs. We should talk just a little bit
34:31
about your, your brand as well. Your, your image.
34:33
Obviously a lot of people know you're from Instagram where
34:36
you've got the the Mr. Airbnb handle somehow.
34:41
How important is it building a personal brand in this industry?
34:47
You know you can do it without it, which is crazy, and I think
34:50
a lot of people love that. Building a personal brand isn't
34:54
for everybody's contrary is that if Gary was in Gary V is in the
34:57
room, he'd slap me across the face.
35:00
Is it necessary? It's not necessary.
35:02
Is it worth it 10,000% if you do good work and you build a brand
35:07
that's reputable help enough people, yes, it's worth it.
35:11
It's gotten me in more rooms We're probably on the podcast
35:14
because I have a brand to be honest with you, it's like I can
35:16
promote it. You can promote me, you know,
35:18
and it gets you in those rooms. And so I, I do not regret it.
35:22
I've been able to work with some very high level influencers,
35:25
entrepreneurs in the space at a very young age and it's been
35:30
fantastic. Is it tough to be Mr. Airbnb?
35:33
And, and like this is another component to the question.
35:35
Yes, because it really narrows me down to the industry.
35:38
I'm not Mr. anything else Mr. Airbnb versus a Braden Ross,
35:43
which could kind of stretch out, but I've gone all in.
35:45
If you're not going all in on the one thing, why do you have a
35:48
backup plan? You're already thinking of
35:50
failure, right? So being that one guy that's
35:53
doing the one thing people like, what do you do?
35:56
I'm like, that's it. That's all I do.
35:57
I just do Airbnb in multiple ways in the space.
36:00
Building a personal brand is worth it.
36:02
Should you do it? I recommend it in 2025.
36:04
Yes, 100%. It's your new business card.
36:08
It's going to take a lot of time.
36:10
Good way to get ahead in your cheat codes is getting around
36:13
people that have a brand already and being able to give them
36:16
value for free, doing it for free.
36:18
In fact, I actually worked with a celebrity who's, you know,
36:22
toured with. Like he sees, he's friends with
36:26
Drake, he's friends with like they go on tour, they sell out
36:29
stadiums. I'm not going to name who it is,
36:30
but I basically gave value to them.
36:36
Somebody very close to him built a Airbnb business after a three
36:41
hour call, didn't charge him anything.
36:43
He invited me to his house out in LA when I was out there a
36:46
couple years back. And he's connected with
36:49
obviously celebrities. And so having like somebody like
36:54
that where you can, you can just build that.
36:57
Like I, I was just a young guy, you know, 2526 at the time.
37:00
I'm 30 now and just helping people.
37:04
But again, you can help people that have nothing.
37:06
You can help people that have massive value.
37:08
I think you should do both. But being affiliated with some
37:12
of these people are really like, how the heck do you get these
37:14
connections? Like I don't stay at home and
37:16
sit on my couch. I flew to London.
37:18
I met you the other day. Like I'm I'm you have to spend
37:20
the time and the money and, and really just getting around the
37:22
right people. So IA 100% would go all in on
37:25
it. But don't just shill anything.
37:27
Like I'm so thankful that you're not doing that.
37:30
And that's why I really wanted to emphasize like, I don't want
37:33
to be labeled as a coach. There's coaches teaching coaches
37:36
how to coach coaching. And it's like, that's fine to an
37:40
extent. If you've sold a business or
37:41
you're a practitioner, I think you should coach as long as you
37:43
really care about the end result, not just the money for
37:45
the people, but it's a fast way to make money for a lot of these
37:50
people versus like, I respect people that actually have built
37:53
a business and are going through the trenches of doing that
37:56
versus just putting information together.
37:58
I know I, I was a coach myself, but I was early at it, you know,
38:01
and there's I, I could have, I could have easily made a lot
38:03
more money coaching like millions of dollars.
38:07
And I chose to just do the alternative and give up that
38:09
opportunity cost to actually build the real business behind
38:11
the scenes. So when I come and give
38:13
something of value and information, it's how do you
38:17
build wealth by owning? How do you put a building on
38:19
Airbnb? How do you do international
38:21
business without going there? And so that's what I see as
38:24
value and teach their own every, they're stepping stones to it
38:27
all. But I think you should give your
38:27
best stuff away for free. Get people to a certain level,
38:30
then work with them. Yeah, there's there's a lot to
38:32
be said for giving stuff away for free and and just doing
38:35
favours for people. It's it's human nature.
38:37
Eventually they'll you'll get the favour back.
38:40
I think it's karma definitely in the business world.
38:43
What's a What's a fact about Mr. Airbnb that people might be
38:47
surprised about? I love playing my guitar and I
38:50
love tequila. Two fags.
38:56
I love my guitar and I love tequila.
38:58
I'm actually I, I love working out and I do count my calories,
39:01
but I'm, you know, right now I'm hanging out.
39:04
I started a trend a couple years ago.
39:05
I know this is totally off topic, but instead of doing ice
39:08
baths and rubbing my face with orange peels or banana peels is
39:11
the new trends going around right now.
39:14
I decided I wanted, I didn't know what to do during COVID
39:16
because it was like there my business was like the hotels,
39:20
they couldn't open anymore. They were shutting down.
39:22
So it was a Goodyear. Every Friday I'm like, you know
39:25
what? Who knows?
39:26
The world's going to keep going. What's happening.
39:28
I'm going to do tequila Friday. Every Friday, people that tag me
39:31
on Instagram and would buy them tequila shots around the world.
39:33
Some of them would just do it for free.
39:35
They're not becoming a trend where it wasn't like get shit
39:39
faced. It was go have a go have a shot
39:41
or two. I mean, teach their own go have
39:43
a shot or two. It's Friday.
39:44
I don't want you to you don't have to tell me that you're
39:46
you're counting on your calories and go in an ice bath and
39:48
reading and and getting up at 4:00 AM because that's not what
39:51
works for everyone. Just tag me on Instagram if you
39:54
want to have a tequila shot. And people were starting to tag
39:57
me all over the world. And actually that helped me gain
39:59
more followers too. But also it wasn't even that
40:01
wasn't my intent. It was to do something off the
40:03
cuff, off the book, something totally different.
40:06
And it worked. In fact, I stopped doing that
40:07
for a while. And who knows, maybe I'll bring
40:10
it back at some point. But it, it's something
40:12
different. And so I like my tequila and I
40:14
love hanging out with my friends playing guitar.
40:16
I just it, it's one of my favorite things in the world.
40:19
Guitar and tequila, love it. What a combination.
40:23
All right then, Braden, we've got a few questions to finish.
40:26
Favorite brand in the STR industry and why?
40:30
Favorite brand? Mr. Airbnb?
40:33
No, I'm kidding. I usually do caveat that by
40:37
saying accept your own and I didn't on this occasion, but
40:42
anyway. Yeah, you have to love yourself.
40:44
So favorite brand? I would say Airbnb.
40:52
I mean it's created. It's created the the pathway for
40:55
my life and many others. I would say it's Airbnb.
40:59
That's I think, yeah, I mean, I think that's, I mean, a few
41:01
people have mentioned Airbnb as a shout out before and I, I
41:04
usually say, well, we probably wouldn't be having this
41:07
conversation without it. So yeah, it's, it's a, it really
41:09
is a phenomenal brand. Next question then, an
41:12
individual in the STR space that you'd like to give a shout out
41:16
to and why. Brian Chesky the the I know it
41:19
sounds cliche but it it is true. If you listen to their their
41:23
beginning story, I think it was the first two years they
41:25
travelled to every host who joined the platform and met with
41:28
them and they had to do a relaunch like 3 times.
41:31
They were air bed and breakfast. It used to be just the air
41:33
mattress right in the middle of their apartment.
41:35
And that just shows the, the amount of, of, of willpower
41:41
these people have, these YouTube founders, these Uber founders,
41:43
like 2 years, most people would have quit.
41:45
These guys had to relaunch how many times?
41:47
But now look, you know, the sharing economy, the amount of
41:51
battles and fights they have to do.
41:52
People complain, I don't want, I don't want to give Airbnb my
41:54
business. You know, they're giving to you
41:57
for 3% of your host fee or 15, whatever you choose.
42:00
They're giving you insurance, they're giving you clients,
42:02
they're giving you the SAS, they're giving you the platform.
42:04
They're, they're, they're actually lining your pockets so
42:07
people can say whatever they want.
42:09
Brian Chesky, shout out to him. That's a true Mr. Airbnb.
42:14
Very nicely put. Final question then, number one
42:17
piece of advice to someone out there who wants to scale.
42:22
I'm doing it right now because I think one of my biggest issues
42:24
and I think a lot of us is delegation.
42:28
How do you scale? You got to prove yourself.
42:31
It's going to take time. I would say at least, you know,
42:34
around the two year mark, the 18 months to 24 months, you should
42:38
have enough consistent income coming in, like whatever it is
42:41
that you want to make. Some people, it's 5000 a month,
42:43
it's 10,000 a month, like enough to know that you're OK and you
42:46
have recurring revenues. So it's predictable, but scaling
42:50
comes from the amount of output you can have per action.
42:54
And So what I like is like, how do I get with a developer that
42:58
is at the forefront of building, he doesn't know what are the
43:01
best ROI amenities in a building?
43:03
How big should the rooms be? Where should they be located?
43:06
So if I can work with one person that can give me 50 units, my
43:10
output's a lot better. I'm not looking for the one
43:12
owner that needs to make that second mortgage payment anymore.
43:16
Did I start there? Of course I did.
43:17
I had to. I had to clean my own toilets
43:20
for the first like 6 months to a year to save the $50.00 and then
43:23
run to the other place the but that's OK.
43:27
But if you want to go quicker, you need to go after these
43:30
bigger deals and people think they're not worth it.
43:32
Like don't go make a fool of yourself.
43:34
But you'll be amazed at how far you really and your potential,
43:37
what you could do because there's a lot of people out here
43:40
that own a billion dollars in, in in real estate or $100
43:43
million hotel on the oceanfront. Somebody had to think of that
43:47
idea, get connected enough and do it.
43:49
It's happening every day. You don't just get into those
43:52
circles. The way to hack your way into
43:54
those circles is either be really fucking good at what you
43:57
do, be worth a lot of money, or simply affiliate yourselves
44:01
where you can give enough free value to people at that level.
44:04
And that's how I get in a lot of those rooms At the beginning was
44:07
how do I give enough free value to the people that have the
44:10
highest leverage? And it just worked out.
44:13
I never asked them for a damn thing.
44:15
And to this day I haven't. And it works.
44:19
Rayden Ross, Mr. Airbnb, thank you for joining us on the Host
44:22
Planet podcast. Been a real pleasure.
44:24
Yeah, good job James and everybody.
44:27
Shout out to James and host Planet.
44:30
The heavy hitters you had in the room the other night were
44:33
amazing and James is on to something.
44:37
I hope you enjoyed that interview with Braden Ross, AKA
44:40
Mr. Airbnb. Go check out his profile on
44:44
Instagram. Not many people in our industry
44:47
have built a personal brand as powerful as his, and fewer still
44:51
have done it through Tequila Fridays.
44:54
If you're looking for more free education, head to host Planet
44:57
dot Club, the fastest growing multimedia platform in the short
45:00
term rentals industry. We're proud to help hosts and
45:03
property managers supercharge their businesses by sharing a
45:07
wealth of free content. Head online to sign up for our
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newsletter, download our suite of ebooks, and listen to our
45:13
podcast series. Until next time, happy hosting.