Profitable Properties with Daniel Rusteen

Thank you for joining us on the Booster podcast. We've got a very special guest and today we are shining the boostly spotlight on somebody who I'm a major fan of, who I've read his books. He's a super host on Airbnb. He literally wrote the book on Airbnb. He's an influencer and a best selling author. And today we're going to be talking about a new book which he has finished writing and is, is going to be sharing with us today. And we're going to be diving into why he's done it, what the book's going to be about and just some cool tips to share with everyone. So thank you very much for, for joining me today. Let me introduce Danny Rustein and welcome along. He's coming all the way from. Whereabouts are you today, Danny?

I am today. I arrived in Vancouver, Canada. I arrived yesterday and I'll actually leave tomorrow.

I know, I know you're always traveling and that's one of the brilliant things about your books is that they're tips from firsthand as a guest as well as a host. Which is, which is going to be cool. So can you give yourself an introduction and share a bit about the journ any for people who may not know you?

Yeah, sure. I worked, I used to work at airbnb back about 10 years ago at this point. And then I, I left and I, my life got more entangled with Airbnb. I started a property management company. I started traveling on Airbnb permanently. I still have that property management company. I have passed 2,000 nights as a guest. In 2018, I wrote this book which I'm very, very happy about. You said that you read it, so that's, that makes me very happy as well. And then I started, I bought a, I bought a house, an international real estate investment in Medellin 2021. And so I've been documenting that on my social channels. And then In October of 2022, I just, I, I didn't really ever want to write another book because it was a of work, this one. And something hit me in October where I just, everything kind of clicked and I thought, all right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna write a new book. And it turned into this one which is a 400 page mega book which took way more time than the last one. A little bit nervous, but it's, it's coming on pre sale in a couple weeks and it's a very broad. Well, it's broad and specific about all things str, from finding the. Finding a profitable market all the way to pricing direct bookings, which is, which is your specialty.

How do you feel about the way the STR market, the short term rental market is performing and you know, terms like Airbnb bust and why.

I believe Airbnb bus, by the way, I love it because it. Airbnb has become too associated with easy money, passive money. What has that done? That's a very sellable idea. And you make a lot of money on Airbnb on short term rentals if you know what you're doing. And it's not tremendously hard to know what you're doing, but if you go into it with that mindset, you're not going to do well. And what happened, I believe, is some influencers got onto this idea as well. They have some extra money. They bought an Airbnb. They bought an Airbnb in a not ideal market. They didn't manage it in the ideal way and they didn't make much money. They probably didn't negotiate a great deal either. And so they went public to their audience and they said, oh my. Airbnb is not what I thought. And that's where it came from.

I believe the title, Profitable Properties is an interesting one. Why did you go with that title?

I asked my community. So the title, I will say the title and the COVID took me a combined one month and one month of intense thinking. Probably I overdid it, you know, probably I did, I'll just be honest. But I just felt like I had to get things right and I hope I did. But I went through a bunch of different titles and, you know, there was, I asked my community eventually and there was some, you know, one title I wanted was the title of a famous podcast, for example, not yours, a different one. But I was like, oh, shoot, that was my favorite title. And then I had some controversial titles, you know, that I, that I didn't go with. This one was the least favorite of the four I asked my community on. This was the least favorite by far. But I went with Profitable Properties because it's about. I wanted to separate myself from Airbnb. This one is. This one is. Airbnb is still the leader in short, in short term rentals, but this is more global, this is more broad spectrum about how to turn. Because nowadays what we're doing is we're looking at from step one, where's the most profitable market, neighborhood, profitable property, how do I manage it? And then when you sell it, you're selling it as an STR. That's very different than 2018 and before. And so I really wanted people to focus on the more, you know, it's not just Airbnb, a bar. A big part of this subject is direct bookings as well. You know, we're running our business, we're running our Airbnbs as a business in 2023. And so that's the reason why.

What was it that inspired you to produce the book? Why now, as you know, is it, as you mentioned just then, you've, you were very connected to Airbnb. What is it that's changed, do you think, over the last sort of five years?

The main thing that's changed, I just touched on it, is that five years ago, 10 years ago, even you would Airbnb what you already had. I had a sofa in my sofa in my living room. That's all I had. And I had three roommates. We Airbnb that if you had an in law unit, you happen to have an extra, you know, extra house. A lot of people, you know, one of my first managed properties was this very wealthy couple. And they, what they do, they moved houses or something and their mansion near San Francisco in the hills in the North Bay was available. And they normally wouldn't do this, but they just had, they had a house available and they're like, okay, well, why, why don't we Airbnb what we have 2023 and beyond. People are building. There's a construction site in front of me. You know, I wonder if it's Airbnb. A lot of, some of these construction buildings, they're marketing it as Airbnb. And then when you go to sell, you know, if you have, if you have tangible or I guess intangible assets like email addresses, etc. A website that gets visits, YouTube that gets visits, Instagram that gets visits, that has real world value that someone will pay for.

So as we reach towards the end of these, Danny, we love to just do a couple of closing questions, not so much about the book, but what advice would you give yourself if you were starting out in short term rental today, 2023?

Oh, if I was starting out today, what advice would I give myself? I would talk more. I would talk about the mindset that you need to be a successful Airbnb host. I think the mindset solves all problems. And I mean that. All problems. And I, I came upon this idea years ago when I was just, I was just selling, I selled, you know, as, you know, online optimization. So I'LL go on and I'll change your online listing and that, you know, to make it highly converting. And I realized that that was only kind of half the battle because the hosts were, their mindset was not correct in that they weren't having, they weren't actually good hosts, they weren't providing good experiences. And so I, I offered a different product where it's, it's more inclusive. I'm looking at everything, I'm changing everything, I'm helping them, I talk with them one on one to try and set them up for success. And so what is that mindset? That mindset is that the maybe, you know, a lot of people who start off in STRs, they have jobs, they're an employee, they have a 9 to 5, that's fine, nothing wrong with that. But when you're at STR owner, you're a business owner and you need more of a business mindset. So you need to shift from an employee mindset which is doing your, your job right now, to more of an executive mindset which is thinking, to the future and more strategic planning. Yep, that's what I would say.

Yeah, nice. Thank you for that. And so true. I, I speak to a lot of hosts and most of the time they are still in a full time job. And a lot of the time I spoke to somebody today who said, hey, I feel like I've replace my job with a job. And you go, well it is like that, that start, you know, when you're hands on. But ultimately it is about that forward planning and looking at it from a helicopter sort of perspective of the whole business. What superpower would you say that you've got? If you've got a superpower, a talent or something which you excel at?

I, I'll say, I would say I can be, let's say a chameleon in terms of interactions. Like if there's a kid with me, I'm an uncle now, I've got six nieces and nephews. I could be very silly. But if it's like, you know, if it's my mom or someone else's, you know, mom or dad or grandparents, I can change my like intellect to match them. And I think, and I, yeah, so think I can connect with people. I suppose that's cool.

I like that. I like that a lot. And finally our question, which we always ask is what mantra or saying resonates with you and why?

Hey, I keep a document on my computer with a bunch of mantras and sayings. Most of them I forget to be honest but the one that popped into my head and has popped into my head frequently is I forget where it's from. Exactly. But today it's something like today is the first day of the rest of your life. And it's a good, it's a good perspective to have because you don't want to, you know, be at the end of your life and being like, wait, what happened? All the regrets. I think about that often. What, what would I regret if I didn't do that or didn't do that? Can I? And can I, should I have done something different to be more fulfilled? Yeah, that's a big one.

Yeah, it's very hopeful and true. We can, we can be who we want to be, can't we? Day to day, which is cool. So, Danny, thank you so much for sharing today. Just for everybody listening live and also on the podcast, as a reminder, where can they go to find the book or find more about yourself?

They can go to. It's, it's going to be sold most places online anyways. But Amazon is a, is a fine way to go. You can search my name, Daniel Rustin, or you can search out profitable properties and the book should come up. I appreciate pre sales and I'll just say, you know, I'm an indie author, which means I don't have a, a traditional publisher. I do everything, I do the marketing. I hired a proofreader. But you know, all of it is, all of it is under one roof, so to say. And so if you do buy this, first of all, I appreciate that very much. And reviews are as an Airbnb host, as a short term rental host, whether you're doing direct bookings on Google, we know how important they are for an indie author, they might be even more important because I'm up against, you know, Goliaths with a lot of budget. So I do appreciate reviews. You don't even have to write anything though. Amazon appreciates that. You could just give me a star review. That does help more than you know.

Thank you. Thank you, Danny. So we'll add that to the show notes for sure. And obviously if you're watching this on the live, that will be coming soon. If you are listening to this on the podcast and it's imminently about to go live as we're doing this in, in sync with the book release, which is going to be cool. So Danny, thank you so much for spending your time with us today. Really appreciate the tips you've shared. And also to find out more about the book, I'm excited to find out more it. And yeah, just thank you for sharing all information. That's bye for now from us.

Having a blast. Gonna get it on the Bruce Lee podcast. Bruce Lee like Bruce Lee because it's so hard and the T is loose leaf making up those rhymes. Don't write it, just do it loosely.