Zeona McIntyre is earning $10-15k a month through her portfolio of vacation rental properties and her co-hosting service for other property owners. All this has afforded Zeona financial independence at a very young age, as she built her operation largely by piggybacking on the growing popularity of Airbnb. With a small team, some smart decisions, and some online tools, Zeona now manages her business from her home in Boulder, Colorado relatively hands-off.
What’s her destination?
- She wanted to achieve early retirement by age 30. She is well past that, and now struggles with whether she should keep growing or just enjoy life.
How much money did she get started with?
- Got started as a side hustle with very little money. She sublette the apartment she was renting as a short-term rental (rental arbitrage). While she doesn’t recommend doing that now, that’s how she got started.
- Bought her first property using a private loan.
How long did it take for her to educate herself?
- She learned while doing. AirBnB made it very easy to get started and she just “learned by doing”.
How much time does it take her now?
- It’s not entirely passive, but you can outsource and automate things as you achieve scale, typically 3 plus properties.
- Cleaning and unit turnover is where most of the work is and it’s the first thing you’ll want to outsource.
Could she do this from anywhere in the world?
- Yes, as long as she had access to the internet and co-hosts in place.
What you’ll learn about in this episode
- How Zeona McIntyre got into real estate investing
- Where Zeona McIntyre first got started with short term rentals
- How Zeona McIntyre got started with AirBNB arbitrage of the place she was renting
- What's her ultimate goal?
- How she educated herself on operating a short term rental
- How to evaluate a property for a potential short term rental
- How to finance the purchase of a short term rental without bank financing
- How passive is it to operate multiple short term rentals
- The negatives of being an Airbnb host
- What team members do you need to hire to run an effective short-term rental business?
- Tips on furnishing a short term rental
- What does it typically cost to furnish a short term rental
- Some of the challenges of dealing with insurance companies on short term rental properties
- Zeona offers a consulting service for people interested in becoming short-term rental hosts/investors.
Subscribe to The Road to Family Freedom
Help Us Out!
Help us reach new listeners on iTunes by leaving us a rating and review! It takes just 30 seconds and instructions can be found here. Thank you so much! We really appreciate it!
Links from the show
Redfin.com
Zillow.com
Trulia.com
AirBnB.com
Guesty.com
Hostfully.com
Slice
Proper
Tweetable Topics:
