How To Take Advantage Of The Exploding Airbnb Market In Your City With Kyle Stanley

Welcome to the Next Level Income show, where it's our goal to take your income, your investments and your life to the next level. I'm your host, Chris Larsen. Get your free copy of our book@nextlevelincome.com click on the book link. Today on the show, we have Kyle Stanley. Kyle is the host of the Fearless Investor podcast and an Airbnb expert. You're not going to want to miss this show. And I even loved it so much that I went out and bought his course for myself because my wife and I have an Airbnb in our house that we run here in Asheville, North Carolina. A lot of people ask me, Chris, I'm just trying to get started. What areas should I investigate? Should I do fix and flip? Should I buy a rental? I always tell them, check out Airbnb. It's a great way to make larger profits than doing a large term rental. And Kyle Stanley in the show today is going to talk about how he went from $0 a month in passive income to over 20,000amonth by using his proven strategies. Again, you're not going to want to miss the show, so stay tuned and and listen after this short message. Today's show is sponsored by Money Insights and their investment optimizer strategy. In my book, I share how I use the same strategy starting over a decade ago to invest my money in two places at one time. This strategy has been used by the wealthiest for generations for estate planning, minimizing taxes, preserving wealth and increasing stability for their investments. Now you can do the same thing. In addition, you can build a plan to build an emergency fund, pay for college, fund a business plan for retirement, and ultimately optimize your total financial picture. To find out more information, check us out at the banking link@nextlevelincome.com Kyle, welcome to the show.

Hey, Chris, thanks for having me.

Absolutely. So we were talking beforehand. You're getting ready to travel to Austin. It's one of the things I love how the business that you've created has allowed you to have just this amazing lifestyle. So for the audience that is starting to listen here, share a little bit more about your story.

Yeah, I mean, long story short, I was an entrepreneur before I even knew I was an entrepreneur. In college, I was creating different types of projects that led me to my career of being a sports anchor, got into being a sports anchor, realized very quickly about probably just a few months of doing it, that I didn't like taking orders from other people and liked having creative flexibility and being able to do whatever I wanted and create whatever I want. And so right around the two year mark, I started my own business out of sports anchoring. Try and really, Chris, just from there, I mean, just to kind of sum it up so the audience doesn't get bored here, uh, I tried about three or four different things that were either my own businesses or like an entrepreneurial type of business. And it just really, it built me up to how to create the skills of where I'm at today with real estate investing and an Airbnb manager and operator. And so I can say that all those other ones, quote, unquote, failed. And I just talked about this on my good friend's podcast, Travis Chappell, the build your network podcast. Just, you know, failure does not identify you. It's quitting that identifies you. And for me, like, even though I kept on going through these failures, I was learning the failing forward thought, you know, just like what John Maxwell talks about. And so then today, you know, since basically 2000, middle of 2019 was when I really like turned on the light bulb with Airbnb, I'd kind of been dabbling in it for a few years. But 2019, I was like, let's do this thing. And from 2019 to November of 2020, so that was roughly 17, 18 months, we went from one air unit to 25 and netting over $20,000 a month. And all through the methods that I teach, which is owner arbitrage. And, and yeah, it's been completely life changing. The big thing is that, you know, we've created a lot of systems too, that make it almost completely passive. I say almost because there's anything that you can really be successful at that's completely passive. So it's been a wild ride the last year and a half, man.

No, I love it. And I had a great time on your podcast, which I encourage listeners to check out. We'll have that in the show notes here. And if you've read my book, and by the way, if you haven't got my book, I mentioned it in the intro here, but you can check it out@nextlevelincome.com, just click on the book link. What I talk about in there is how we specialize in multifamily. But a lot of people come to me, Kyle, I coach some investors that are getting their start and they say, well, how do I. I can't go buy 100 unit or 200 unit apartment building today. Kris, how do I get, how do I get there? Should I go buy a single family rental I'm not a huge fan of single family rentals, and what I tell them is that you should check out Airbnb. My wife and I just built a house here in Asheville, North Carolina, and we actually designed the Airbnb in the house. It's been phenomenal. It's been phenomenal. And. And I will. I will tell you if you're listening, I so enjoyed talking to Kyle that I went out and bought his course immediately after I was in on his podcast. So we'll talk a little bit more about how you can get that later. But, Kyle, tell the listeners why you decide to focus on Airbnb instead of, you know, doing fix and flips or some other area of real estate.

Yeah, well, I mean, the funny thing is, in January 2019, when I said yes to real estate, I had been doing Airbnb as a house hacking method. Not as creative as you create another unit in my. My home. I just really had been doing a room out of my house. And then I said, you know, cheaper, by the way.

It's cheaper than what you did, than build a new house, I can tell you.

Yeah, yeah. You know, but it's also. The reward is not as high either. So, you know, you. You have the trade off, but, you know, Chris, to, like, dive deeper into that part of the story, I. My dad had hit really tough times with his health and went into Hospice in September 2018. And that was right around the time that I was like, man, am I doing what I'm really supposed to be doing? I mean, that year was gonna be my highest salary. Well, salaried, plus, you know, the things I had going on. I'd made, like, $75,000 that year. I was 31 years old, and I was like, it's like, okay, that was a decent year, but I'm working my butt off. I don't feel like an entrepreneur. I feel like these jobs just own me. And so I just did a lot of reflection there and started listening to Bigger Pockets and Cardone Zone and all that kind of stuff. And I really, like, figured out that real estate was the thing, but I just couldn't figure out how to get in. And then I went to a Fortune Builders event in January of 2019, and it was all about fix and flip and wholesaling. And I was like, yeah, this is it. Like, this is the stuff that. These are the skills that I've developed to be able to be really good at something, and this is that something. And so I said yes to real estate. On January 6, first deal as a fix and flip under contract in February and first year flipped four and also did one wholesale. But it was right around all of that when I was like, hey, I got this place that I'm going to, Burr. For those of you that don't know what brrrr is, it's buy rent, rehab or buy rehab, rent, repeat, yada, yada, yada. And so I was like, well, instead of a regular rental, why don't I try, like Airbnb on this? And that was when I started doing more research on Airbnb, and then I heard about this arbitrage model of not even having to own the house, and I was like, oh, my gosh, I had no idea. I. You had to, like, own the home? And then I started thinking about it. I was like, yeah, you know, when I first started in Airbnb, they didn't ask me for the deed of the house. They didn't ask me who's on title. All they said is, what's the address? And so it's just like, man, this light bulb went off and I said, okay, my plan before was this, you know, flip to houses, you know, burr a few houses, maybe get a few subject to with creative terms, and just keep building up this 200 to $300 per or passive income. Then I saw Airbnb and I said, why? I can make over $1,000 per month per unit, and I can just accelerate this thing so much faster. And sure, it's going to take a little bit more work, sure it's going to be a little bit more turnover and everything, but I started looking at the pros and cons, and I was like, I would much rather, especially in California, I would much rather be an Airbnb host than a regular landlord. And I actually just did an entire podcast, and on that, if you check it out on my Fearless Investor podcast, I talk about the reasons and the differences between regular landlord versus Airbnb host and how, yeah, it's a little bit more work, but the ways in which you're protected and the ways in which you are able to do this thing, it's way more exciting to me. So, yeah, I'd say at the end of the day, man, it was really that it was just acceleration and just not having to deal with all the land BS that you have to as a regular landlord for very little pay.

No, I think it's a fantastic method. And for those of you listening that have heard of Ron Legrand, if you haven't, he talked about these methods of buying subject to renting it out. And to me, I'm a big fan of arbitrage, which is, is doing something where you either limit or eliminate the risk and you still get a reward. And I think it's a fantastic method. And I like Kyle, that you teach more than just, oh, just only do it one way. You talk about different strategies because different markets are. Or different markets necessitate different strategies. So I think it's fantastic. But again, it's something that is just a huge opportunity in the future. So in our book, I talk about how we identify different markets where we buy multifamily properties. I talk about why I moved to Asheville, North Carolina. And 15 years ago, I had all these different criteria that I said, okay, this is why I'm moving here. Kyle, share with the audience. What markets do you own in and why those markets?

So the first one was my own backyard here in Fresno, California. I started it as the house hacking when I lived in Arizona. And then when I moved to Fresno, I was like, oh, no one comes to Fresno. So Airbnb is not going to work. So turns out a lot of people come to Fresno. And what I've learned in this whole process is that most places that are, call it, you know, a hundred thousand people or more are more than likely going to work as an Airbnb. So don't overthink your market too much. But I would use a resource called Air DNA. That's a really good one. And then we also have a profit calculator on our website, fearless.com you can just download the profit calculator. And by using those two tools, you can really start to see is this a viable market for Airbnb? And then from there, like the biggest thing I would say is do you want to be in a, in a market where it's a roller coaster and like, you know, July, you can call it $10,000 and then in January you're making $2,000. Talking about gross numbers, by the way. But to me, like, I, I think those work. I know a lot of people that do that really well. Those are the vacation type areas. Those are the ones that, like, when you look at the Southern California areas, the, some of the places in Florida, Nashville, Hawaii. Not Hawaii. Hawaii is probably going to be year round. But when you look at this, you see Georgia.

Yeah, I know. People, yeah, Augusta people like, hey, I rent my house out, you know, for the, you know, for the tournament every year and I pay my mortgage for the year. It's amazing.

Exactly, exactly. So, and those are great ways to be able to house hack your home. Or, or the other side is for me, I'm in Fresno, California, which to me is a need market, not a want market. So it's. People aren't really coming here for vacation. They're coming to Fresno because they have to, not because they want to, to be honest. So, you know, they're family, they're coming from business. They're coming because, hey, I want to go from LA to San Francisco, but I don't want to do that entire eight hour drive in one day. So let me stay over for a night. No. And for that reason, I don't have a whole lot of fluctuation on both rates and my occupancy. So month to month I kind of, I'm going to make. So you really need to decide, like, do you want to be in a vacation area or do you want to be in a area where there's just consistent demand? And I always say, like, start in your own backyard. Learn it, master it. Even if it's a room out of your own house, the basement that you turn into, you know, a man cave and a place for someone to go and stay. You know, at least you learn the process and you understand the problems, you understand the processes, you understand the teammates that you need in order to say, okay, now that I've got this mastered and I'm making a little bit of money here in my own backyard now, how can I go market that's really profitable with this and just duplicate what I'm doing here and know how to be able to systematize that in a different market? So that would be my recommendation.

Yeah, so you just said a word there, systematize. So, you know, I'm, I'm, if I'm listening and saying, okay, you know, Airbnb, it sounds great. I don't want to vacuum, I don't want to clean. I don't want to get a mask and a biohazard suit on and spray chemicals, you know, with, with COVID and make sure I handle all this. What. How do you systematize this? How do. Have you scaled this, Kyle?

Yeah, so first of all, I'd tell them the same thing. I don't want to do that either. So, you know, I really use a, an acronym called mass, or if you're thinking Spanish, it's moss mass and it's Master Automate scale. And that's what I talk about with my course too. We're teaching you how to master automate and scale an Airbnb business So mastering it. For example, one of my new business partners and also I forgot to tell you, I now own Airbnbs in Arizona as well. So that's another market that we just jumped into. He's over in Arizona and he was like, hey, you know, right away, like, how do we, how do we automate this? How do we automate this? And I was like, I need you to do it first. You need, you feel that pain of like, okay, here's how it's done. And now I can teach it to someone else. But I hate this so much that I need to automate this and I need you to feel that pain before you go out and try to bring someone in. So you master it yourself. That means you clean a couple times yourself. You set up the place a couple times. You're communicating. Yes, a couple times. Then automating it. There's a lot of great ways to do that from technology that some third party companies have from Smart, BNB and Beyond Price, some other CRMs that are great for Airbnb and vrbo. And then scaling it though. I mean, like to me, once you found a way to take from, okay, I was putting 10 hours a week into one property. Now I'm putting one hour a week into one property. Now it's like, okay, I can add and add and add and know that I'm not going to be spreading myself thin. And that's what our course talks about. And showing you how to be able to bring in the right people, the right automations, the right systems within the house that has just taken so much time off of our hands just by creating things that are easy for our cleaners, easy for the guests to find, easy to understand. And you know, we used to have to get emails or messages all the time on the app. Hey, what's the WI fi information? Hey, this is happening. What do we do? And now we have options and ways that guests can tackle their own problems without actually contacting us. So, you know, you find that this can be a really, the business as long as you treat it like a business.

Yeah, no, absolutely. And that's, that's one of my favorite sayings is begin with the end in mind. So if you're listening, you're saying, hey, I want to, I don't know where to start in real estate. I don't have a lot of money. You know, what Kyle teaches is the ability to go out and build a strategy that's going to help you scale a business and ultimately run it like a business, not turn it into A job for yourself. And I know that's what Kyle and I really enjoyed talking about this. And that was one of the things, Kyle, you know, you talk about, you know, your father getting sick, and when my mother got sick and ultimately passed away from cancer, that was a turning point for me, too. And it was that point and being introspective and thinking, okay, am I really. Am I really doing what I'm meant to be doing? Or is everything really clicking on all cylinders and, you know, I being the father, the husband, you know, the mentor and the person that I'm meant to be. And that's when we shifted into multifamily. So I think those experiences in life really give us opportunities. I appreciate you sharing that.

Absolutely.

So what are some pitfalls? Do you have any interesting or crazy stories that you can share with the audience from your couple years now in the Airbnb business?

It's not as crazy as you would think. That's the biggest question, right? Everyone's like, oh, my gosh. And there's a couple Facebook groups. One of them is like, Airbnb hosts vent. And, like, it's just a place where literally all Airbnb hosts just go on and vent. And then the people who are, like, just looking to get into Airbnb accidentally get in this group, and they're like, oh, my gosh, I'm never doing this.

I'm never gonna go on that Facebook page.

Yeah, I wouldn't do that. So, like, I'll be super honest. I'll give you some. Some real bad stories and then. But I want. I want to share, like, how we were able to figure this out to keep these kinds of guests out. So, you know, in the beginning, I was knocking on all the doors, my neighbors, letting them know what I was doing. Here's my number. Don't call the cops. Call me if you hear a loud party or something. And then, you know, one day I wake up and there's 10 text messages from all the neighbors saying, Heard three gunshots at 3am last night. And I was like, oh, my gosh. And so I called the guest, and they were like, yeah, we heard that too. We were wondering where that came from. And I was like, every single person that I got a text from that it came from you. I find gun, gun, like gun holes or bullet holes in my house. You're paying for that. And so essentially, one of the. The end up telling me it was just someone who was doing celebratory. Looked like a. It was like someone's birthday or Something and they were just shooting it up in the air, which, like, scary still. Yeah, you know, we, we evaluated that situation. We were like, okay, what were the red flags? Red flags were no reviews. The red flags were they lived within about an hour away from home. And so these are things that now we can kind of see as red flags. And how do we tackle that? And so now we have a really strict pre qualification process where based, knock on wood, we've been able to eliminate most parties. Now New Year's came around. We had one of our 25 units, had one party. We'll call that a win because, you know, New Year's is just gonna be one of those times. It's really tough to see if someone.

And that was your unit that you actually live in yourself, right, Kyle, that had that party.

Yeah, that was actually me. I threw the party. But, but, you know, there we. We've eliminated these issues. A gathering information. And here's the thing too, like, I think most people look at that and the people who are doing this as a hobby, they, they hear, oh my gosh, gunshots. I'm shutting this thing down as an Airbnb. They hear Covid, oh my gosh, I'm shutting this thing down as an Airbnb. They hear taxes in my city on this shuts down as an Airbnb. And they go to long term rentals. And, and that's, that's to me, like, again, like where you get to that point and you say is, is this one failure going to define my business or is it going to make my business take this leap forward? And for us, it was, I'm just, I'm in this problem solving mindset of what do we do to eliminate guests like that? And in 2020, we literally have had, in 25 plus units, some turnover combined. We've had three parties in this entire 20 year. And so to me, it's like, you know, we went from all these issues, learning from it, and now we rarely have those issues. And I think that's the important part.

I think that's fantastic. And my younger son was talking to me last night. So my boys are 9 and soon to be 11. They like to play, you know, these interactive video games. And have you seen this? Like, they have YouTube channels now where these kids play video games and kids love watching this and these guys are making all kinds of money. So my younger son goes, dad, I want to be a YouTuber. And he started last night for the first time recording himself. And he was terrible. And he kind of got upset. And I said, look, buddy, I said, you're not going to be great when you start. And he's like, he's kind of like, no, no. And I said, look, I wasn't the best podcast host. When you start, you just got to know that there's going to be some challenges. So if you're listening, listen to what Kyle says. There's going to be challenges if you're starting any type of business, especially if people are involved. And whether you have to hire them or find customers, there's always going to be something. So just go into it, eyes wide open. And that's why Kyle's on the show, is to share with you all that there are ways to do this. There are people that have done it. Again, that's what we talk about. People ask me what the best advice is. If you're doing something, find a mentor. That's already done. It's. Allow you to shortcut, you know, the. If there's an educational hurdle in terms of investment there, it's going to come back to you in spades. And trust me, you don't want to. The long term rental deal, I have plenty of horror stories from that as well. So.

Yeah, well, and just to add you there, Chris, I mean, I think it's cheesy, but it's. I mean, you just have to remember your reason for why you're doing this. And if getting a $10,000 a month of passive income is going to be able to leave your job and to be able to spend time with your kids and your family, then is one party that upsets one neighbor worth just in your dream and that the answer to that should be no. I mean, if it is, then it's. Your dream just isn't strong enough. But I mean, yeah, as a regular landlord as well, because we do have houses that are not in great areas that we don't do as Airbnb, we do as a regular rental. It's a pain. Like, you know, and you're you. If Airbnb, if I have an issue with Airbnb, I'm like, well, at least, at least I'm making like two grand a month on this thing after expenses. There's like, if I'm only making a hundred dollars, two hundred dollars for something as a regular rental, and I gotta, you know, take a call at 12am I'm not happy about that. So I'm right there with you. I don't, I do not like being a regular landlord.

Yeah. Now I've been through it 15 years took call my honeymoon dealing with a tenant issue. And yeah, it's a challenge. So again, you know, it is a business. This isn't, you know, this isn't just free money that starts showing up. You have to go into it intentionally and figure those things out. So if somebody's listening today, Kyle, what's your advice? If somebody says, this sounds great, where do I start?

Yeah, first of all, my podcast. We talk about Airbnb all the time. That's a great start. The Fearless Investor. We've also got a YouTube videos that will show you how to get started in Airbnb. But to me, just like anything, you need to have either education or a mentor. And even if you do education, if you don't have someone to go to and ask those specific questions, then you're going to have missing pieces that can cost you thousands and thousands of dollars. I'll give you a great example. In my flipping business, I signed up with education, but I found a local mentor. So I paid a lot of money for education. It gave me the foundation, the understanding. But then when I went and saw a house, I knew that a local mentor, someone who knows the zip codes, knows what to look for, knows the contractors, and can lead me to some great contacts as well, was going to be really valuable. And so to me, um, that's why I created my course. Um, it's not just a course, it's group as well. So we do live Q&As on our Facebook group, where people will ask specific questions and they get specific answers based on their situation. They can post questions at any time too. And I'm answering on a daily basis. And so I think it's really important that you know, you don't even have to get my course. But if you get a course in Airbnb, you should be getting one that with some one on one or group coaching as well, so that you have that mentorship as well.

Agreed. And again, I mean, I spent tens of thousands of dollars on coaching just in the last year alone, but I can tell you it made me a multiple of that. So, yeah, if you're listening, if you want to get the course, we're going to have a special link and a 20% discount in the show notes that you can get. You can check that out. Kyle, when you're not out there building your passive income streams, growing your Airbnb business and helping out, you know, your students, what do you like to do? What do you like to do on the weekends?

A lot of things. I love to travel. Like you Said going to Austin, Texas for the first time here. So that's going to be fun. Love golf, love friends, love being with family, going to church. I volunteer over at local Rescue for dogs and pit Bulls. And I love growing, man, I just love listening to the podcast, love listening and reading books that are going to help me expand my mindset. And I'd say that's the biggest thing that's changed about me in the last probably 10 years is just, well, not even, it's been like seven years, but I started reading again and listening to podcasts right around 26 years old. And just that little bit of growth every day has made such a huge difference.

That's awesome. And that's what we love to do here at Next Level Income is helping educate people and give them the opportunities to achieve financial success on your own. So I appreciate you sharing with your audience. One more question here before we let you go today, Kyle, what advice you just mentioned going back to your 26 year old self where you started reading. What advice would you give your 25 year old self if you could go back over a decade here now?

Well, I don't know about 20. Well, 25. Yeah. Actually 25 would say exactly what I just said now, which is get a mentor. Because I was doing failing businesses thinking I didn't afford to hire a coach, when in reality hiring a coach would have cut off so many years of problems that I had. And then Chris, I mean I was working 60 hours a week, making $25,000 a year, owning my own business. It was horrible. I did that for about four or five years. But then if you went back like even, and this is something I'm passionate about, that I want to start teaching to local entrepreneurs here in town once, like Covid allows it, If I was 16, 17, 18 years old, I would teach myself about what passive income is because no one teaches that in school. And you just think you got to exchange time for dollars. And when I heard that term passive income for the first time at the age of 26, I felt like I was robbed of an opportunity much. I mean, I talk to people today that are 40, 50 years old and still don't know what passive income is. And I think that's an absolute crime and a reason that our nation is in so much debt. So to me, yeah, 25 year old self, get a mentor. 18 year self get passive income, dude, it's huge.

And I mean that is exactly what I teach my clients. We have this accumulation theory which says, hey, put some money in the stock market every year and it's going to grow at 8 or 10%, which isn't actually true if you look at the statistics. Most investors get 3% or 4% and then, hey, let's hope you can take 4% out when you're ready to retire. Nothing bad happens in the market market at that time and you outlived your money, which I think that's just, you know, that's a terrible way. I have an MBA in portfolio management, and I think that's a terrible way to teach people. You know, if you want true freedom, listen to Kyle. Grow your passive income streams that will allow you to focus on your true passion, make the biggest impact in your life, and have the freedom to do what you truly care about. And I love that you're living that every day, Kyle. I love everything you're doing for those that are working with you. And thank you so much for sharing that with the audience today.

Thank you, Chris.

Absolutely. Enjoy your trip.

Thanks.

Hey, Chris, here again. I hope you found this episode valuable. Now, I have one more gift for you. If you haven't gotten my book Next Level Income yet and would like me to send it to you in the mail for free, then go to nextlevelincome.com and click on the book tab. If you fill out the form on that page, I will send you a copy of my book and cover all the shipping costs as a thank you for being a podcast listener. Also, please, like share and take 90 seconds to give us a rating on Apple Podcast.