YouSaid · the spoken record

Robert Abasolo

lines on the record: 66
first: 2022-08-07
most recent: 2022-08-07
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“People are going through. You can go and talk to people, connect with people there. Biggerpockets on Instagram and on YouTube. And yeah, I mean, oh man, I don't know. I may have overpromoted literally everything on this planet, but ultimately, I think if you're looking for a foundation in real estate, consider listening to the bigger pockets real estate show. I mean, we talk about everything and everyone and we talk about all the different asset classes and niches and everything like that. So I think if you're looking for a way to dip your toes in the water, that podcast will do it.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, I would say real estate books would be David Green's book, Burr, The Buy Rehab Rent, Refinance Repeat book, is really great. That one actually applied to me a lot as an Airbnb host because it talks about building systems and how to do it out of state and how to hire contractors and everything. And it's actually more applicable to Airbnb than you'd think considering it's a remodeling book. I don't read a lot, to be honest. I watch a lot of content. So if you want to, you know, follow me along on my ADHD entrepreneurial journey, you can go over to the raw built channel on YouTube. You can follow me over at raw built on Instagram. Host camp is my Airbnb mentorship program. If you're interested in learning about that, hostcamp.com. Some of the tools that we talked about today, Price Labs is one that I use for pricing, dynamic pricing. Guestie for hosts is one that I use, that property management system that I use. And obviously the bigger pockets forums, if you actually want to connect with people and learn about what other”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Really, I would say half of them have that effect on me where I'm like, oh, that's right, I should talk. But they're just so good. Everyone is so good that comes on the show that it gives me a little imposter syndrome, if you will”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, there are a few. We did a show with Ed Milette not too long ago, and I just thought that that was, oh man, that guy is smart, man. And he had a lot of great wisdom to say he was kind of one of those people that, do you ever have like a podcast guest that's so good that you sort of forget that you're doing a podcast and then they stop talking and it's your turn to talk? And you're like, oh, that's right, we're doing a podcast. That's kind of how it was with Ed Milet where I was like, oh, that's right. I should talk now. That was a really, a really, really, really great one. This actually will sound very cheesy, but it's genuinely very, very true. We did a show with Brandon Turner. That one just came out. And that was like my first real in-depth conversation with him. And it was all about social branding and like how to use that in your benefit in the real estate world and stuff. And I thought that was really cool. And I was like, wow. And he is exactly who I had hoped he would be. And it was just very like, I don't know, it was really, really cool to just see to be in the room with Brandon, who like helped pioneer this space. You know what I mean? And I thought that was really cool. We've had a lot of guests on the show.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Turner, and then we're talking about me. Like, I don't understand. Can you just give me a little bit more context? And they're like, have we like this and that? And I was just flabbergasted. I had no idea what was in store. I just couldn't believe it. I got that phone call and I was like, I don't want a show. A show would have been cool, obviously. And they didn't end up picking it up, by the way. So that's fine. I wasn't really bummed even 1%. I actually didn't want it. After they called me, I was like, oh my God, if I could do bigger pockets, like that is truly, that is better than a show because it's like I'm actually talking to people that like need the advice versus people that are just, I don't know, watching my show on some random Southwest flight.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He's just saying that because I really didn't do a good job. And I had a lot of people that reached out to me immediately after the show aired. A lot of people followed me. A lot of people sent me nice messages about like, man, I didn't know you could do this and all that stuff. Tony Robinson, like another co-host on the rookie show, was like, bro, you killed that. And I was like, oh, man, really, thank you so much. I really needed to hear that. So that was like my story, right? I was like, okay, I guess that's my thing. Maybe they'll have me on some other time. And I was shooting a pilot for HG TV like back in October. And we were kind of in the final negotiations for that. And I was just like, yeah, okay, it'll be cool to have a show. But, you know, there were some complications there, I think. And then, yeah, I got a phone call like that same week. And they were basically like, hey, would you be interested in becoming the, you know, like possibly filling in for Brandon Turner? And I was like, me? Like, what do you mean? What do you mean fill in? And are we talking about the same brand?”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My Super Bowl bucket list, right? Like, if you could send Rob to the Super Bowl in his respective world, what would that be? And it was to be a guest on the bigger pockets real estate show. And when they reached out to me, I want to say it was about a year ago. I am a, dude, I was like through the roof. I was like, oh my God, like I'm going to be on the bigger pockets show. This is crazy because I already had my YouTube channel and is relatively established, but this was just such a new level of pride that I could possibly be showcased on a show like that. I was really excited and I had all my things prepared. And I was like, if they asked me about YouTube, I'm going to say this. And if they ask me about that, I'm going to say this. And I had it all prepared and it didn't go anything according to plan. And I remember being like, wow, man, I really beefed it on that one. And at the end of that episode, Brandon Turner was like, you know what, Rob? This is an amazing episode. And I think some lives will be changed based on what you said. And I was like, okay, thanks, man. And I was like, no.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Space. Now, obviously, real estate like Brandon Turner, David obviously influenced me a lot, but I didn't have a mentor. And so if I can play that role for somebody, then I think that's pretty gratifying.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Try to teach everything I wear my portfolio on my sleeve, if you will, because I just know what it's like to be a lonely short-term rental operator. And I had my business partner. But aside from us in the trenches together, there weren't a lot of people to communicate with. There weren't a lot of people to learn from. Short-term rentals are a little competitive. Everyone's nice to each other, but they're like, don't worry about where I'm investing. I'm not going to tell you anything. A lot of people keep stuff close to their chest. And for me, I just think that there's enough out there for everybody. And if you win, I win. You know what I mean? So it's a really great testament to me to just teach people because it's also just very touching and moving that people reach out to me and say, I've had people reach out and say they've quit their job because of starting their short-term rental business that they learned from my program or my channel or anything like that. And when people send me those DMs or emails, I'm like, I'm really moved by that because I'm like, great, I'm so glad I could do that for somebody because I didn't have someone to really do that for me in the short term rental.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I didn't have anyone to teach me. There wasn't a YouTube channel called Raw Built at that time. And I was listening to bigger pockets. And the reason I know so much about real estate is because of what I learned from the podcast, right? What I learned as a listener, not even as a host, just as a listener, what I learned in like the forums and getting in there and connecting with people. But there wasn't a lot of literature on short-term rentals. A lot of the real estate world and education out there, just general real estate education, long-term rentals, multifamily syndications. And so I really like I struggled. I had to learn stuff the hard way, man. I really did. And so I always tell people that I learned the hard way so you can learn the easy way. And so I'm really transparent on my channel about how much money I make. If I've lost money, what kind of properties I have, where I buy them. I'm transparent to a fault and I probably will be a little bit more protective of certain information because it's becoming more of a privacy issue at this point.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes and no. There are a lot of legal strategies there. I will say if you're interested in learning more about this, we did a podcast interview on the Bigger Pockets real estate show with an attorney named Brian Bradley, I think. And he talks about all the types of trust. There's like domestic trusts. There's international trusts. And then there's like hybrid trusts. And there's just different ways to register your properties to give you different levels of protection depending on how much you want to spend to protect yourself. Yeah, so I don't know. There's a few different strategies there that I am not legally qualified to answer, but yeah, I mean, I've got to trust my personal situation. That typically doesn't apply to a lot of people as well.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah, it's a little less than that. It's like 45 days, I think. So basically, like, let's say you buy a house, we'll call it like, let's say you buy it for half a million, and then it appreciates two million, and then you sell that house, you have a profit of $500,000, and you would have to typically pay capital gains on that $500,000 profit. Now, with a 1031, you can take that $500,000 profit and basically go and reinvest it in another property and defer that tax that you'd have to pay. Now, if you sell that property, then you would have to pay those taxes unless you.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's just so much more tax gymnastics that you can play, I guess, with the real estate game and how you do things. Like, I think that enables me to grow my wealth a lot faster through leverage. You can do a cash out refi with real estate, right? If your house appreciates a million dollars, you can go out and get 75% of that if you own it outright and get a $750,000 home equity line of credit. You can do a cash out refi and do the same thing. You can't really do that with stocks and crypto in the same capacity. You can stake your crypto, I guess, but then if it goes down in value, I think it's called being liquidated or something like that. You could lose a lot of that crypto. That stuff's not really going to happen in real estate. If I go out and take out, if I do a cash out refi and there's a correction, the house is no longer worth that. I mean, I still have the money that I took out of it, right? So personally, yeah, I mean, it makes sense to diversify and I am. But there's just so many more tools available to me through real estate that I'm”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Only because of the dip in the stock market, because right now would be a great time to get into the SP 500, which I'm maxing out my 401k because I'm self-employed. I got an SCORP and I have a retirement account through that. I max that out, right? I pay as much as I can to the S&P 500. It's the only one I really care about. They've done the due diligence to get all the best numbers there. So I'm like, yeah, I don't have to research it. Same thing with crypto. I want to buy a lot of crypto right now because Bitcoin is so cheap. So to answer your question about like should I be thinking about it? Yes, in order to just like diversify a little bit, but know in the sense that the stock market is really illiquid in certain capacities. Sure, you can sell your stock and get that money back. But the capital gains that you have to pay on that are going to be crazy. Whereas on real estate, there are a lot of tax strategies that you can enable to where you may not have to pay taxes because you can defer them through like a 1031, for example.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“With like a 15%. I'm so happy with that. Younger me would have said that's bad. Today, I'm like, it's not as good as I had it, but it's still a relatively good return. So that's what I consider bad. Anything less than a 10%, I haven't had any of those yet.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know what, man? Not really. Actually, let me clarify a lot of my properties have been acquired over the past five years, and the cash on cash returns on a lot of those properties have been between 30 to 100%. Like it's really crazy. Like my tiny house is a really great example of it. Glamping is another great example of it. Spending $3,000 on a tent and making like 80 grand on it. It's insane, right? Nowadays today, like I am targeting deals that are 20% cash on cash return, which is a lot less than what I was getting before in like the glory days. Right now with the way interest rates are, I might be getting like a 15. And then in an apocalyptic scenario, like a 10% cash on cash. And so in my mind, if I had told younger me like, oh, it's a 10%, I would have been like, oh, God, don't show me that. That's a horrible deal. But now that I'm a little bit more seasoned in the investing world, 10% is still really good. 10% is like, if I can get that, it's like, that's the goal standard, right? But if I can double it with the short-term rental or 1.5%.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That we're not making houses fast enough. The houses aren't there. People are buying houses. And so that makes me feel a little better because if I felt like we had a housing overage, I guess, instead of a shortage, then it'd be like, uh-oh, like, what are we going to do? Fact of the matter is everyone is still competing pretty aggressively just to get into an investment property or just even like their own primary residence.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So it seems scary when you put it that way, right? Like, oh my goodness, like, I have to spend 125 grand less in order to pay the same amount of interest. Like, oh man, this is a bad deal. But the question you have to ask yourself is, what will that house be worth in 30 years? Is it going to be worth double? Is it going to be worth triple? Probably. Like the equity will still be favorable no matter kind of like the difference there in price. As far as where we're heading, I'm not really sure. I mean, I would like to think that, A, like the actual pricing is softening because we did get into a moment there where people were just paying like, especially in the smokies, like 50 to $200,000 over because they just were like, yeah, this is it. Like the glory days. And I was like, no, man, don't ever pay $200,000 over that. Rarely made sense in any economy. But kind of where I think things are going right now is at the end of the day, like there's one really big problem in the US, and it's supply just straight up, it's supply.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I wish I knew that answer 100% simply because, like, you know, if I did, then I could really make some very smart decisions. I'd rely on the fact that understanding there are dips and there are peaks. And I've invested a lot in the peaks, right? But I'm actually looking to invest more right now. And I think that honestly, the number breakdown that you just gave us sort of exemplifies my point. So like you said, if it goes down 25% to 375, the interest is still basically the same, right? That's one component of looking at this equation is, okay, the interest is, you know, you have to have a better deal here for it to like, you have to have a better deal today at the higher interest than a year ago, right? The first interest rate you gave. But that's kind of looking at it one way. But I think the other way to look at it is lessen the interest that you're paying overall in what that house is going to be worth in 30 years.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Really strategically think about it consistently, the good deals will typically help kind of mitigate the bad deals that you might have over the course of 30 years.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The behavior of people, it ends up being awash in a sense. And I want to clarify that a bit. Like two or three years ago, there were a lot of people that were saying, like, oh, we're in a bubble. Like, I'm not going to buy now. It's the top of the market. Well, interest rates were three, four percent. And now home prices might be softening a bit. But now the interest rate is higher. And because the interest rate is higher, you'll technically spend more money in interest. But you paid less for the house. It's kind of the same thing. Like if you had just invested both times, it's the same thing. And so instead of trying to like time the market and really be like very precise, the best thing you can do is never overpay, never spread yourself too thin, have reserves to cover any kind of storm and just do it consistently forever. That is it. That's the secret. That's the really obvious secret that a lot of people just don't really think about. It's like you might have a good deal. You might have a bad deal every so often. But if you”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That is going to grow into millions of dollars, right? And real estate is exactly the same way. You can't really get into it expecting, oh, man, I'm going to make so much money today and then in two years I'm going to triple it in four years. It's not bad to goal set. But if your exit strategy is three to five years from now, you've already lost the game. You have to think of your exit strategy 20 to 30 years from now because that's the only way to ever quote unquote time the market, right? It's by having more time in the market. So I think for people that are looking to invest right now, there are a few ways to do it. But at the end of the day, you just have to work a little harder for your deals. You know what I mean? Like interest rates right now, I think they're finally, I think they came down recently and they're around six, six and a half percent for investment ones. For investment ones down from like seven, I'm sure it's going to go back up here pretty soon. But with that said, like you just have to work harder for a deal and you have to negotiate harder for your deal and you can't overpay. If you really kind of examine.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, look, everything is very cyclical, obviously. And historically speaking, we have peaks, and then we have dips, right? And the only way that you can ever circumvent that, right? Or like the only way you can ever really beat the dips and, you know, like, I don't know, be successful in real estate is to invest consistently and not have a two to three year trajectory. A lot of people think real estate is a get rich, quick scheme. And it's like, oh, I'm going to make money so fast. I'm going to be a millionaire overnight. That's not true. at all. Like you have to think of real estate as the long game. Just like your stocks, right? Just like your 401k portfolio, for example. If you invest $1,000 a month every single month for a year and you make a 10% return on that, like just say perfect, you know, like let's say the average great year, whatever, you're going to make $120 on that. That's not really a lot of money. It's not going to make you super, super rich. But if you do that for 30 years,”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Really like that. And so I was able to get into several properties from those types of agreements. And it was just using other people's money. Now, if you're starting out, you may not be able to negotiate a 50-50 equity split on that. You might have to start small. You might have to take 25% equity and they take 75 and you have to pay them back first before your equity vest. That would be one way to do it. But for me, I've really found partnerships and joint ventures and other people's money to be a very successful way for me to scale up pretty quickly.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And they say, okay, this property will cover the debt service, so we'll lend to you on that. Another way would be my favorite way, how I was able to scale up pretty quickly, and that's OPM, other people's money, partner with people and they can pay and acquire the property and your payment to the partnership is sweat equity. You know, my first two partners that I ever worked with, you know, I used to put myself out there on Instagram and say, oh, I'm doing these Airbnbs. Like, look at this. I make this money, this Airbnb made $2,000 this month as a dream come true. And I was like very proud of the small successes I was having in short-term rentals. And I would have people reach out and say, hey, I see that you're making good money. I hear this is very lucrative. Like, how can I get involved with this? And I would say, well, hey, if you can buy it, I'll help you find it. I'll do all the communications with the realtor, the appraisals. I'll furnish it and I'll manage it. And I won't pay myself back until you get paid back fully. That was back when I started the terms of that are a lot different now. But a lot of people, they...”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I've done a few kind of creative solutions. One way would be, similar to what you were talking about, I'll use my LA house, for example. I've got a home equity line of credit on that thing for $120,000. If I actually redid the application or whatever, I think my home equity line of credit would be closer to like half a million dollars. So if I can't qualify for a home, I know that I could take out a HELO and just use that to buy a property, rehab it, and then go and do a cash out and get that money back. That would be like one way to do it. Another way to do it would be what's called a DSCR loan, a debt service coverage ratio. And that's where they basically, instead of qualifying you based off of your DTI, your debt to income ratio and qualifying you off of your like income, they're qualifying you based on the projected rental income of that property. So if I am self-employed like I am now, it's a lot harder for me to get a mortgage from a bank conventionally. But with the DSCR loan, they don't even look at my self-employment. They look at the projected income.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I feel like you know my POV here and you just want to rile me up. But it is important and I hate hot tubs because they are just the thing that everybody wants that everyone gets mad about that causes the most issues. So look reports say all right reports do say you make more money every single year with a hot tub. You can add as much as $39 to your ADR, your average daily rate if you have a hot tub. With that said, you must ask yourself, how important is that extra $39 a night? Because oftentimes The hot tub's gonna break it's gonna flip the breaker. It's not going to heat up fast enough. It's going to be a little green. There will be one leaf in there. There will be a guest that doesn't know how to use it and they break it. And a lot of refunds will come out of it, right? But most of the time it's like a net positive thing. But man, if you kind of like look at the side of my head here, I've got a few gray hairs and they've all come from hot tubs, like from the maintenance and the mitigation I've had to do with hot tubs.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so for me, like the niche that I'm always trying to target is what can I build so that I just own it and like I'm not going to rile too many people up over. And then I also try to be in a place where there is already like a needed, it's like a need for more short-term rental housing, like the Smoky Mountains, for example. There are 3,000 cabins, million people go every single month. There's just not enough supply. So for me, I'm always like, okay, can I like invest there and contribute to the tourism economy there? And that economy is very friendly to it because that's how they make their money. I don't know if there's like really a right or wrong answer here, but I do at least give it thought”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know, man. My neighbors, like, they kind of like it because they all Airbnb too. Because when you think about the common person in a neighborhood like mine, for example, in LA, we were just trying to make an extra couple thousand dollars a month. And like that's literally what both of my neighbors are doing. They both also have bonus spaces under their house. And it's like they make a couple thousand dollars a month from it and they love it. And I think that most Airbnb operators are doing that for me. I don't invest a lot in metropolitan areas. Honestly, sometimes for this reason, because I think it's just easier to say like I invest a lot in glanting stuff, for example. No one can really get mad at me for opening a glamp site. Like it's a cool tent out in the middle of the desert and or like a cool treehouse or whatever. I'm not really taking any supply away from people. And so people are usually less mad at me for starting like a glamping site. And same thing with new constructions. Like I built my tiny house in Joshua Tree. I guess you could argue that quote unquote it was taken from your like taking that stock, but I built it for myself.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, my TikTok comments have certainly had discussions with me. You know what? I think looking at the numbers, it has a little bit smaller of a percentage than people make it seem. Like I think people, like no one's really on the same page here, A, when they're against me, right? Like half of my TikTok comments are like, you're causing housing prices to skyrocket. And then the other half are like, you're decreasing property values. And I'm like, can y'all just talk and like agree on like what you're mad at me for? Obviously, he's going to contribute to taking some housing stock out there, but it's a pretty small percentage. Like the last report I read was, I mean, closer to like a one to three percent mark, which is obviously like not insignificant because one to three percent of the housing stock is like really, really, really high, but relative to the amount here. But it's not really quite as, I don't know. I think there's a little bit of a agenda there sometimes with bringing down hosts. Like, you know, they're like, you're ruining neighborhoods and taking things. I'm like, I don't.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Investment strategy is I just diversify the heck out of my listings. I've got 14, 15. Oh, I guess, like I said, I've got 35 listings or so because of that 20-unit hotel. But outside of those, we'll call it like 15 listings. I live in the same state as one of them, and they're all over the place, you know, like literally like four or five different states. And I've just diversified so that I know, hey, if Joshua Tree really just completely lays down the hammer and they don't want me to be in short-term rental operator there, okay, I've got a couple options, convert to long-term rental, sell it, whatever, but at least I've got 14 other units across the country that I can rely on to pick up the slack.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so if Severeville, Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge tried to limit that, they would effectively be sort of cutting off the income of all of the residents that live there and depend on that income. I think these vacation destinations are a really great place to pay attention to because typically, you know, if they do impose some kind of regulation, there will still be ways, not around it, but ways to comply with it. Joshua Tree is a really great example of this. It was kind of the Wild West out there for the last like five years or so. But now they've imposed regulations that only allow a owner to own two properties out there. And so, you know, that kind of cuts back on how much you can do. But now if you know the rules, at least you can play within those guardrails, right? I actually think sometimes it's a little scarier to play in a place that hasn't even regulated it at all because then all of a sudden it might say, oh, you know what? We ban everything. And then you're like, oh, shoot, I have a whole portfolio here. So personally, mine.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I wouldn't say there's like a particular kind of place, but I definitely think areas that are in the national park state park kind of category are going to be those places because you got to understand national parks, they make their money on tourism, right? And so if they limit how people can, like the accessibility people have to lodging, which is usually very limited in these areas, then they know that they're going to be cutting off a large part of the tax dollars that we pay to them. So the Spooky Mountains is a really great example of this because the entire economy is boosted literally by 13 million people going there to visit, right? The handymen there get paid from all the short-term rental operators. The contractors get paid from there. The cleaners get paid from there. Literally, every aspect of that economy is boosted by short-term rentals. Now, of course, there are regular residents there, but those residents are often vendors or subcontractors for short-term rental operators.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Nice trailer that's going to lose value over time. And that makes a lot of people mad. But I can't make everybody happy, but all to say anything on wheels is a depreciating asset doesn't mean it's not a good business, but it's not necessarily something that's building wealth other than the argument of saying, like, yeah, you use your cash flow to invest in other things.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Subsidize it. If you want to buy, if you want to have a truck and a Prius like I did, great. You can rent those on Turo and at least break even on those. Or if you want to have a Ferrari or a Lamborghini, I know people that do that too, and they make really great money on Turo because they rent out their stuff for like $1,000 a day. So it's a really interesting way to subsidize it, I think, to really scale that. I mean, there's some obvious issues here, right? There's like the depreciation of your car. It's not an appreciating asset, which is why I always end up going back to my first true love real estate, like buying things that are an appreciating asset. Anything on wheels is not really an appreciating asset. And that's sort of where there's a little bit of dissonance with some of the things I say on my channel, like the tiny home community. I always talk about, hey, look, my tiny home in Joshua tree is on a fixed foundation. And because it's on a fixed foundation with a fully permitted structure and it's got the certificate of occupancy and all that, it's a real living breathing piece of real estate. A tiny house on wheels is just a really”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The other. I had like a truck and a Prius. I was like, oh, these are going to be great options. But it always landed on times where I needed one or the other. So I figured out to really scale on Turo, you probably want like three cars. And just a car outside of it. You know, like your personal car and you can rent them out. And that's where you can really start making money. I think it's a really great business. It's an interesting business if you're somewhat of a car fanatic and you like to have cars but you don't want to pay for them. That's ultimately what the sharing economy comes down to in my opinion. The reason I have Airbnbs is because I like to have properties that I don't have to pay for. You know, I bought a luxury like $3.25 million luxury house with David Green and it's an amazing dream come true and I don't really have to pay for it, right? Other people are paying for it. Outdoorsy if you want an airstream, airstream is going to cost you between $50 and $80,000 to buy. And if you don't want to pay that, you can just rent it out to people when you're not using it. And guess what? You're not going to be using it for like 99% of the year. So if you can make a little money, great.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so there's a company called Outdoorsy, and they're sort of like their trailer RV version of Airbnb. I haven't actually done it. I would like to do it, but I have nowhere to park the RV. But I think it would be really fun. I've been wanting to do it for a while. Not because I have a strong desire to, but I just, what I like to do is make information accessible to people as much as possible. And that's a big passion of mine, like just being on the bigger pockets platform, right? Like I get to talk to a lot of people and teach them how I did it or YouTube or TikTok or Instagram. I like to teach people. And so with something like Outdoorsy, for example, I sort of want to do it just so I can be like, all right, I've failed so that you don't have to. And I think it's a really cool way to do it. I've done Turo before. Turo was a little bit more of a grind for me because I only had like one car and like when I rented it out, I was having to bum a ride for my wife and then I'd have to Uber when she wasn't around and ended up being a wash. And then I got two cars. And, you know, whenever I rented one, I needed.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For you. You don't have to do it. So these eclectic towns have some reason for people to go to and you don't have to market them. And then lastly would be vacation destinations. So these are going to be your beach towns, your lake towns, your mountain towns, anything where people are just going, right? They're going to hop in their van with their family and drive or tourist destinations like LA would be a tourist destination because there's Disneyland and there's also Hollywood Orlando Disneyland. You know, I talked about Mother's Disneyland, but some would prefer to just go to like the human species Disneyland. So that would be like the four areas that I think determine a good, like there's a good jumping off points, I think, if you want to start getting into that Airbnb or like rental property game.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Knees yet, but this is kind of like my next strategy moving forward. But they're kind of these small towns that just have some kind of draw to them, like something magical about them or something enchanting about them, right? Like really great example of this would be Eureka Springs in Arkansas, right? It's like this little small town that's like very touristy. It's like this long one or two mile road and there's all these little shops. I just went to another place in right outside of Denver. I think it was like Pueblo and same thing, right? It was like pretty much identical to Eureka Springs. Julian outside of San Diego. It's like this cool little town where people go apple picking. There's like really great pies in the fields, all that kind of stuff. Outside of Austin or Dallas, there's like Waco. It's right in between, right? So Waco is like been popularized by the late, great Chip and Joanna Gaines, obviously, like, you know, it wasn't super popular before that show. And it's growing and it's exploding from a tourist standpoint. People go there. They did all the marketing.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So there are four main places that I find myself investing in. There are national parks, state parks, vacation destinations, and eclectic towns. Now I don't really have to talk too much about national parks or state parks. We all know what those are. But the reason I like them is that their nature's Disneyland, right? You know, like you don't have to market the Grand Canyon. You don't have to market the Smoky Mountains. Smoky Mountains, it's literally eight hours away from half the U.S. population. 13, 14 million people visit the Smoky Mountains every single year. That's over a million people a month, just over. There are 3,000 rental cabins in the Smoky Mountains. So if you really look at how many people are visiting every single year compared to the actual supply of cabins, there's a discrepancy, right? And so that seems to be the case in a lot of these national park and state park areas. So that's why I found myself investing in like Smoky Mountains, Joshua Treats, stuff like that. But I also really like eclectic towns. Eclectic towns, I don't have a lot of properties in.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Automate your supplies, right? If you set up an Amazon subscribe and save subscription, you can automate paper towels and toilet paper to be delivered every single month. And so you can also automate communications with your cleaners. If you don't want to be texting your cleaners, do the right property management system or do the right product or service, you can actually pay like, I don't know, $10 a month or something like that. And it will shoot over a calendar link to your cleaner so that it syncs up with their calendar and they know when people check in and check out, they can get an email sent to them. They can get a text sent to them. So really, I don't ever hear from my cleaners unless something is wrong. If something is broken, if something is super dirty, if something needs maintenance.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Coming up in a month. I'm going to jump it up to $300 a night. Oh, shoot. Someone just booked my place for $99 a night yesterday for that festival because I didn't really think about the festival until after they booked. I could have made an extra $500 there, right? That's sort of the pricing dilemma that a lot of hosts go through. You can actually work with a like an automated dynamic pricing tool that will give you the optimal price for your Airbnb given the supply and demand of the market on any given day. So if they see that it's the season where everybody's coming out to LA, for example, it's the hottest season in LA, they know to drive those prices up because supply is probably going to be pretty limited. So that's one way that I was also able to automate my business instead of having to leave reviews, which is something you have to do with every guest, I'm able to automate that through the same thing, a property management system where not only can it just auto generate the review for me, but it will also send them a message and say, hey, if you enjoy to stay, will you please leave a review for me?”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Found is there are things I can automate. So I was able to automate, for example, my messaging, right? So instead of sending a message to my guest when they confirmed a booking, when they checked in to check in on the midst day, to check out, to leave a review, that's five messages that you're going to send to one guest, right? If you have, let's say 10 guests in a month, that's 50 messages to one property. Now, if you have 10 properties, that's 500 messages that you're going to send. So what you can do is actually use a property management system that will basically template, you know, like a response or like template like a check-in message or template like a checkout message. And so you obviously want to tweak those to be in your voice and everything like that. That was one thing where I was like, oh my goodness, I didn't know you could do this. This is amazing. Another component of my short-term rental business that I was really in the weeds on was changing the prices of my property. I was like, oh, you know what? I'm not being booked this week. So I'm going to drop it down to $99 a night. Oh, hey, you know what? I think there's a festival.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, you know, there are some people and some gurus in the space and stuff like that that are like, yeah, it's completely passive, you know, and it's not. I mean, it's not totally passive, but it can be pretty close. I think it's like at the end of the day, if you hire a property manager, for example, for your long-term rentals, that's completely passive, but you are going to pay a management fee on that. Short-term rentals are the same way. I mean, I could hand my properties over to a property management company, but they're going to charge me anywhere from 20 to 30 percent, which is significantly more than a long-term rental. And it is because there is more work. I'm a big advocate of self-managing because I think that you can automate enough to sort of understand the business and enjoy the business. So when I was first getting started, I was messaging guests. I was texting my cleaners. I was arranging everything. I was ordering supplies. And that kind of stuff does work when you have one property, but as you start to scale and grow, things start slipping through the cracks pretty quickly. So for me, what I”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, this kind of goes into the whole me being self-imposed brokenness, I guess, is the best way to put it. Like, I didn't have to be this way, but growth mode for me for the last five years is kind of where I've been at. Like growth mode, like how do I grow? How do I grow? How do I grow? And then, yeah, like the harvesting component of it's like the way you grow is by taking the money and using that to reinvest. I probably could have paid myself a little bit earlier, but for whatever reason it just, I was able to be so frugal and live off of my W2 income that, yeah, just for me, it's really cool to grow your monthly cash flow. That was like a really cool thing for me. And I really liked that. And the fact that I could get to 25,000 dollars a month and not ever actually take away from that, that was like a cool thing for me. That to me has been a great joy to be like, yeah, that's a number I'm really proud of.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Comes a moment where it's like, okay, 25 grand a month, that's really cool. I'm going to stash that away. I'm going to keep investing it. But then you look over and you're like, oh my goodness, like the actual value of my property is actually, I've made more of that way. And if that happens over the course of your portfolio, like your portfolio in 30 years is going to be worth double, triple, right? It's going to be worth so much more. And ideally, you get both. But what's really going to add to that final net worth number, if that's something that you're adding to, is the overall appreciation. So it's a little bit of both. But one becomes more important at the end once you realize that the generational wealth you're building comes from appreciation.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And moving over to the appreciation side because you quickly realize that cash flow makes you rich, but appreciation makes you wealthy. And I'll give you an example of this. I worked my butt off for the last five years to build my Airbnb portfolio. And I got my cash flow up to about $25,000 a month, probably more now, but let's just use that as the benchmark. $25,000 a month times 12 is $300,000 a year, which is amazing. It's so cool, right? Like I did that, I tripled my salary just with the Airbnb. Now, consider this. In the last year, if you take the appreciation of all of my properties, all 14 of the units, 15 of the units that I had, they all appreciated $400,000. I actually got $100,000 more added to my net worth from the appreciation of my Airbnb properties than the actual cash flow of it. And so it's not about one or the other. You want both.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And you're a pretty good one, and you're like us, right? You're like me, you're cheap. Then at a certain point, you cover your expenses, even if you start making more money, you don't necessarily want to spend it because you're a good real estate investor that's cheap, broken, frugal. And so for me, there came this point where I was like, well, you know, here are my expenses and I don't really want to pay myself for real estate. And so I did everything I could to now use my cash flows to supplement the growth of my portfolio. And I think a lot of people that I know, they're usually pretty strict on their budgeting in real estate. Most real estate investors are like, I really respect that we as a community, like we thrive on brokenness because we just want to keep chipping away at the dream. And so at a certain point, what becomes more important in my mind is appreciation. And that's why I say this is a bit of a sliding scale, because you start off on the left here, a cash flow. That's so important. But as you grow in your journey and as you progress, you know, let's say linearly, that little slider starts moving over.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You're going to make more doing that than this job that you went to college for, my mind would have exploded. I wouldn't even have believed you, right? Like it would have to be me telling younger me and being like, I time traveled here, you know, because it's just so it's not something I could comprehend when I was younger. So when you start thinking about that newbie investor, they start dreaming like, okay, how can I make 50,000? How can I make 60, 70, 80,000 dollars a year, you know, with real estate so that I can quit my job? And so because of that, every time you add a property to your portfolio, every time you add, you know, units, you know, more doors, right? You're starting to kind of math everything out and say, okay, that's an extra 200 bucks a month. That's an extra $1,000 a month. And so you're just focused on how you can get from zero to $10,000 a month. That always seems to be the magic number for a lot of people because, you know, not only do they want to leave their job, but if they can make six figures, it's a really great achievement. And so $10,000 a month, you can do that, right? But there comes a point where if you're a real estate investor,”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Job. They want to leave their W2 job so that they can just be their own boss. They can be an entrepreneur. And real estate is a very clear way to do that. And so when you're making $50,000 a year, for example, like I was at a certain point, well, it's not hard to figure out how you can make $50,000 a year in my niche, on Airbnb, right? My tiny house, the tiny house I was just telling you about in Joshua Tree, the first year it grossed $83,000 for the year the profit after all of my expenses, after all of my property taxes, cleaning fees, repairs everything, $57,000. Now, my management on that is less than an hour a week because it's new construction. A lot of stuff doesn't go wrong. It's like really, really great. And if I had told younger Rob that, hey, you're going to be making $57,000 a year doing not a lot for this little house that you.”
2022-08-07 · We Study Billionaires · TIP467: The King of AirBNB w/ Robert Abasolo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT