CFD 602 – What To Do When The AirBnB Business Changes

April 2nd, 2020

Kyle Stanley is the host of the Fearless Flipping podcast where he educates new hungry real estate investors about best practices for getting started. Kyle is also a master with AirBnB and believes it's the best form of almost-completely-passive income in today's economy. 

Podcast Highlights

  • Who is Kyle Stanley? 

Kyle doesn’t like the term “serial entrepreneur”, he prefers the idea of FOCUS (focus on one course until success). Kyle had to make a lot of adjustments over his career based on his skills and what he enjoyed. Kyle started out as a sports anchor in Colorado for a local news station, started a sports videographer company, and moved into the MLM world where he got his first taste of the idea of passive income.

In 2018, Kyle’s dad’s health took a turn for the worst and ended up in a hospice which led to Kyle slowing down and reflecting on what he really wanted to do with his life. He began to listen to podcasts on real estate investing and found the idea to really resonate with him which was how he ended up getting involved with fixing and flipping homes.

Coincidentally Kyle had been house hacking his home with an AirBnB business without realizing that that it would also count as working in real estate. Once he really started to look into what else he could do with an AirBnB business, Kyle went from earning $1000 a month to $15,000 a month over the span of five months in 2019. Even in the days of the coronavirus Kyle’s short term rental business is still doing very well.

  • Why videography?

Being a sports anchor means being a one man band so Kyle learned a lot of different skills as part of the job. He also learned that he didn’t particularly love being on the news and he saw an opportunity to make videos for athletes to help them get into college. He took what he learned working in news and put it into a business that he believed he could thrive in, but lacking mentorship at the time was a serious downside.

  • The Passive Income Transformation

Kyle hadn’t even heard the words passive income until he was 26 years old. Kyle’s model for entrepreneurship was his father who ran a very successful business, but running the business meant extremely long hours. When Kyle got older he realized that his father was a slave to his business, something Kyle did not want to be, and it wasn’t until Kyle started working in the MLM did he get exposed to the idea of outsourcing and making a business more passive.

Getting around people on a higher level that had learned how to create systems that can automate income is what first changed Kyle’s mindset around business. The missing piece was something that he was passionate about and real estate ended up being the key.

Kyle now helps more people in the short term rental industry than he ever did pushing vitamins and supplements.

The big thing for Kyle when he got started flipping properties was helping people get a better return on their money. Creating all the job opportunities at the same time was a nice bonus as well.

Kyle is also a numbers person, so analyzing a deal and crunching the numbers makes him excited. When he started looking at AirBnB as a business and he found that he could make $20,000 to $30,000 on one project, life changed overnight.

Getting comfortable with the reality of earning on a monthly basis what you used to earn on a yearly basis is one of the first mindset shifts that you have to get through when it comes to real estate and short term rentals. 

Generally speaking, most entrepreneurs never actually become entrepreneurs. They want to have control and are actually technicians in their business with the work dictating their life. 99% of business owners essentially just own their job. The great thing about real estate is Kyle can take the talent out of it and teach it to people.

Until recently, Kyle was only putting in an hour or two a week of work to manage 11 different listings, the majority of which was communicating with his personal assistant. The majority of the skills involved in the business is basically outsourcing particular tasks, which is much simpler than trying to teach someone something like how to sell.

  • Is the short term business model dead?

March 12 was when everything became real for Kyle. He got 11 cancellations that day and then a short two days later got hit with another wave of cancellations. He realized that he needed to plan ahead and figure out the worst case scenario for his business in the event that things shutdown in his area. Right now Kyle is only focusing on month to month rentals for locals who need a place to stay. He started contacting realtors, loan officers, and pretty much everyone he could to let them know that he’s looking for month to month renters to weather the storm. He managed to adapt his business to the current situation and is now back in the green.

It’s not that the AirBnB business/short term rental business is over, it’s just different and you need to figure out what you need to do to adjust. It takes time and work to adapt but it can be done. Kyle has managed to change course in a way that allows him to avoid switching completely over to long term rentals.

  • Kyle’s Takeaway

In the next 24 to 48 hours, spend the time crunching the numbers and figure out what plan B and plan C looks like before you jump into anything. You need to understand the dynamics of a deal beyond the numbers and if it can still work out if the coronavirus breaks out. Having someone by your side that can help you make decisions is also a huge benefit. Mentorship and guidance is one of the most important things you can have in life.

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