Welcome to the Financial Freedom Mastermind Group podcast . Here we're all about breaking free from the 40 to 50 year work grind and accelerating our journey towards financial freedom . Join us every Wednesday at 7 pm Eastern as we explore different types of investments that can fast track your path to financial independence .
We serve as a hub for connecting with fellow members during our sessions so you can share successes , ask questions and keep the momentum going .
Good evening everyone . This is Niyi Adewale , host of the Acaba Home Financial Freedom Mastermind podcast , and this podcast is for those who do not believe that we were put on this earth to work 30 to 40 years at a W2 , to hopefully retire at 65 and hope that that 401K doesn't run out .
This is for those that are looking to accelerate that timeline , build some investments and reach financial freedom at a much faster rate so we can actually enjoy it . And today I'm joined by our co-host , leibon how you doing .
I'm doing quite well , thank you .
As always , it is a pleasure Come on out , come on out , and we're bringing a guest to you . We just were working through a couple technical difficulties .
That guest is hopefully going to be joining here in a minute or two , but in the meantime , leibon and I are going to give just a brief background so that when they do join , we can kind of get this thing going . And the guest that we have joining his name is Rashid Ayodele . He's been in the investing space since 2002 . And this is actually him right here .
There it is Rashid . Perfect timing . Hey , I got it . Come on now . Perfect timing , yeah . So we are joined today by Rashid Ayodele , who's been in the investing space for 20 plus years .
He's an engineer by trade turned entrepreneur that has been in this game through a lot of the ups and downs of market changes in 08 to the pandemic to now and he's found a way to be successful in each of these different markets . Rashid , thanks for joining us . Yeah , you're welcome . How you doing guys ? Super good , super good .
So the way we do the Acavo Home podcast is a little bit different . We have individuals that are a part of this group that are joining live and toward the end of this , the last 15 or 20 minutes . We're going to open it up to a group discussion to allow individuals to join in and ask questions through the chat or to call in live .
But first we want to go through a bit of your story , rashid , and we want to start at before you even got into entrepreneurship and real estate . What were you doing when you got out of college ?
So right out of college or before college , I tried so many things in college with a buddy of mine . Try to hustle through college , like trying to open gas stations and car long trees , or just try different things while we're going to college . I had another buddy of mine he's late now I was an electrical major , I was an industrial engineering major .
So eventually we finished college and he tried different things and I was trying different things . I was going to the flea market to sell stuff he was trying to figure out to sell stuff online . So I just kept walking in the field . I worked for the Warner Robins Air Force Base , warner Robins , as an engineer out of college .
In the meantime I was still figuring out myself . You know what direction I wanted to move in . So I moved to Warner Robins , came back after a year , started working for Lucent Technologies , then went to Georgia Power and I bounced around . I was never happy , you know . I'd go to work , you know , just doing basic minimum . So eventually I started .
The pay wasn't good enough . It was like 40,000 a year as an engineer and I was never fulfilled . And so I was doing valet parking at night and stuff like that and eventually I needed something to replace , to get extra income . So I started selling stuff online .
So basically selling stuff , buying stuff from Ali Bobmer back in the day and selling on eBay and stuff like that , and eventually I started selling like . At that time I started selling like up to a million dollars of what the merchants are merchant as every year on eBay . So I was still working full time .
And then eventually I built a website with a couple of buddies of mine out of the country . So we built a kind of like an international pressuring company and people would order from basically Europe , from us and would ship to them . Eventually we started that and I started making this and money from that and I was working full time .
Eventually I got laid off one more time because that was a trend , then getting laid off after a year or two . It was like the same cycle . You know I was tired of that . So this last time I wanted to get laid off . As a matter of fact I told my brother .
I said I know you got to lay it off again , but can you please make sure my name is on the list ? I said , oh , you're such a good marriage . I said sure , because I was always scared to leave on my own Right . I would sell perfumes and during the break time I had bags to go take to the post office and I'm like , what are you doing ?
I'm just selling online . Eventually we did a website and I said , bagged down , I should ship from the basement and take it to work doing the work and mail it . So when I started full time we started doing what you call drop ship . So we said drop ship but a lot of I hooked up with a couple of suppliers .
They were shipping , I would sell the products and they would ship straight to my customers . So after that I knew , once that site started kind of like building up , I woke up one day and I went to my ebay account lights out For no reason .
They kind of like took me out for no reason because sometimes when you sell a lot the brands don't want you to sell certain things and they don't give any reason . They just kill you because they don't . You mess it up their numbers because I would sell them with low margins with volume . But I had a website as a backup . So we started growing the website .
Eventually I said I needed some kind of backup business , because I always have a backup business , just to get something happen to one here at once . So that's when I started my real estate , one at a time , like with a profit of every year I would pick up one or two , but back then I was doing just long-term rentals and stuff like that .
We want to dive in that real estate piece , but you said you kind of went through a bunch of different portions that I know individuals are interested in and want to learn more about .
The real estate is what we're going to focus on , definitely , but you mentioned wanting to be fired from the job and I went through a phase where I was actually wanted to as well and it's harder than you think . Like , if you don't want to , they're always laying people off . You want to do it stuff . Why did you want to get fired ?
What was going to be the benefit of that ?
Just to have . I wanted to control my own destiny really . That's why . But it's hard when you're not sure of what the future holds or you don't sure if this business is going to sustain itself . And that's when real estate came in .
So the story is kind of like getting to where the real estate starts , because I wanted something as a backup , because I knew at any time the business could go down for any reason . And that's where the real estate piece comes in as a backup . So I needed to buy one every year .
So I knew , whichever way , whatever happened , people would still rent right , rent a space . So I said I figure in my mind , if I get 10 units , that will set me up good . That was always on my mind . But I didn't know nothing about the short-term piece of it . Short-term rental . It was always let me get ran , let me buy a property .
Back then we could buy it for 40,000 , three bedroom , two bed , 40,000 . So I had to buy cash , one at a time like that . So that's when I started buying real estate and when I look back , I had a couple . But the problem was on long-term rentals .
I had problems with collecting rent after a while , just because of the types of property I was buying in the past . I attracted certain people that just you know . If I bought it up better area I could probably get better quality pool of people that would pay me on time . But when you pay 40,000 for a property , you get what you get .
So if you want to know how I started the short-term rental , it started like I bought . This is how I really started with Airbnb . So 10 years ago I wanted to buy a condo . I bought a condo and , done with it , I said I wanted to buy as a space another home from home in the city , done with .
It is like kind of like in the city , close to the city , in between . So I bought that property Right as when I was furnishing the property I said you know what ? I'm not going to be all the time , so what's going to happen ? And I didn't want to rent it because it was this nice new property for like 70,000 back then one bedroom . So I went online .
I'm like rentals , rentals , how can I run this part time ? And all kinds of keywords . This site comes up B&B . I'm like what's this B&B ? So what I did was I put it in real quick . I was so curious . I kind of like put it online and like after an hour I got a booking , but I wasn't even ready .
So I told the guy hey , hey , I was just testing it out , please don't come . I see , you got a couple of days . The guy said , no , I'm on my way , I don't care . I said I'll take it as is , we have nowhere to go . I said okay , fine , so I let him go in . The macro wasn't hung , a couple of things wasn't done .
They booked it and right when I finished I started getting back to back bookings . Oh , I said oh , wow , and this was . Nobody knew about B&B back then . This is what year is this ? This was 10 years ago . This will be 2003 .
Wow . So I'm noticing kind of a theme here . You've been kind of early in a lot of the online spaces because you mentioned using them as a backup . But even dropshipping , now it's common , it's known hey , get things shipped over , get things , but what kind of brought about that ?
And you being early on a lot of these things , like you were with the dropshipping ?
Is it ?
hey , I need a backup plan . Let me go look up Like pretty much seeing hey , what can I find ? I woke up in the middle of the night and just started searching for nothing . Searching for nothing , like just searching and searching . And what can I do ? And you , you just keep trying . You get something .
And you know , like right now a lot of people try to get into dropshipping and all that . It's so saturated now . But I'm still in a game . I mean , we have like over 400,000 customers . I started 10 years ago so it won't do . It's hard to get into now it's .
You know , we started early but anyhow , I had a couple of properties for for long term Reynolds back then and I said I had . So I had stuff in like Tonya Georgia and I was getting like $900 a month . Now my condo was the test was like the accidental test , you know , because I can't sit all the time I'm booking .
I'm saying you know what I'm , I wonder if I could get more out of like Tonya Georgia when I'm getting 900 . The ladies been there , she never , she hasn't paid me like three months . So I told her , hey , hey , you guys , you can just leave . And you know I'm not going chase for the money . You know , in my mind I wanted to try it out .
So I I tap the lot on a Georgia and I saw like Like crappy properties ready for like with a lot of reviews early people that started like not even French well , whole houses and people . They were getting like a lot of reviews and they were charging like hundred and fifty at night for crappy property .
So when she moved out Since I since I already did the camera research I switched that one into a rental , shutter rental , and it was making like grossing like three thousand back then Eight years ago . I'm like nine hundred to three thousand in when I pay off the expenses . I was and was paid off anyway .
It was a property I bought for 30,000 cash right , three bedroom to one half split level , the area not that desirable but good enough , clean and fixed it up . So I was grossing three thousand , thirty five hundred like that . So I'm like , oh shoot , so that's when the light bulb here . I say I gotta get .
I switched to more like that into Shutter rentals and then I was getting like a property every year . But if I did it the way I did , it was I didn't want single family , because I want to scale fast enough . So I would target like duplexes , triplexes and stuff like that , properties like that where I can have three units on one location .
So that way I can get to my goal of I have a many units I want and over the years that's how I just said it . Or I would get a house with a basement and say one unit upstairs and one downstairs , I'll be two . So I said you a lot of house hacking .
Would you , would you and I want to get into that house hacking piece . But you just mentioned something that was incredible . Right , you stayed consistent through the years and kept buying . Even though your strategy changed , you kept acquiring real estate .
My whole thing is it's got to be a bit of a mental shift when you look at the market today versus you know 15 years ago . When you're getting a house for 70k , you know 80k , 40k . So what kept you motivated throughout the years to continue purchasing as somebody that's been through that full cycle ?
I mean I always just be living power volume . So once you're in a type of business , you know where I was selling one item and I wanted to say , oh , if only I could sell 10 items or 20 items , it's all a matter of scaling . So I knew it didn't matter . I was ahead of the game and I knew I could make more , I could get more .
I mean , iro , I back then was like 300% , 200% like . So it's like you can't beat that . So it's like , oh , I gotta do is do more . If I do more , even , you know if the competition comes , you got more and then you got . You got . You bought properties as cheaper prices . So you know you could always , even if it gets more expensive .
You have , you know , portfolios , some cheaper selection of properties where you know you can make more money here . And the way I do it as a matter of fact is if I buy a duplex , I make more . It's two doors , three doors , and so I can . You compete with me when I say a lot of guys online they have a single family .
They know they can't compete , even if I buy the higher price , because I see that they're buying single family homes , one , one door , one mortgage . I'm buying , even if I get a mortgage and I pay $300,000 . I got three doors . I can , I can , I can Reduce the price to compete and kick everybody out and to kind of ask you a question now .
Obviously we started To get to this , you know , to get to as many units , to your point and all these most families . We had to start with one . What was the first one and how did we find it ? What made you want it , etc .
And I think it's internet just cut out . But what was that first property that you got and how did it go ?
So that was the latonia property , the three 20 half split level house . That was like the true test because I figured that was in a desirable area . As a matter of fact that that Neighborhood is old and you know just old neighborhoods like you would never think you nobody would come over there .
But it was all about Making a space kind of nicer , as long as it's safe and you know people can get past the safe , clean , safe and clean . And you know we don't have people walking around . We didn't have that .
It was just an older neighborhood neighborhood and I figured once my mind was actually figured that people just want a safe , clean space , doesn't matter how old the house is and it was still producing so that . So all I needed to do was buy Just a little bit better properties , you know , that's it . I didn't have to go into a posh area to to , to , to .
You know I need , I can just stay below a price , price mark to be able to compete . I didn't have to go buy a 500,000 dollar property thinking always gonna be , you know it's gonna make me more money . I just you know what properties that were kind of like very reasonable price . You know multi units , kind of like that .
The only downside to that is Buying those properties . Sometimes I track a certain kind of people . I don't know if you're thinking or if it's it's . You know , because it's like they . You know , if you say you bought in like Afaredi Georgia , a lot of times you're going to get people that can afford Afaredi Georgia . They're not going to complain as much .
Everything's going to go smoother . But if you go buy in the river there , georgia , the price is lower . They go give you a hard time . It's time every time . So you gotta know how to deal with people . You know , especially how people you know .
Hey , come on .
With that in mind I know we were talking about the lead up to this you mentioned something about One of the first failures that happened early on , right , and this is something if you're in this game long enough , it's not going to be all roses and sunshine , right ? You mentioned Um a deal where somebody tried to scam you , or what happened with that deal .
Oh yeah , it was some type of mentor . I wanted a mentor , right . So this guy Was a bigger brother . He just passed , like Last month , as a matter of fact . So he was buying properties . A lot of it was doing investment or whatever . I didn't know what he was doing .
So he came to church and he was trying to get people and said , oh no , you could buy properties and you could buy properties that was going to reg it . Would that worked ? I can't say that word again Regentsification . They know places , as you know . So buying there now , we'll get you in now .
In a year you go , it was gonna appreciate like 200 percent , you make money . So I'm like , oh , brother , yeah , yeah , I'm really interested . So if you got good credit , you will . You were like a , you know , ideal candidate . You got good credit , yeah yeah . Then he would like want to give you some incentive to do it .
I'm like I don't need the money , I just want to build a portfolio so I can have really say so . I bought two properties then and there were no good because they had over or praise the houses some kind of way .
That's back then where you could do all this crap and you you basically had a shell like nothing under a praise over a praise house , and they would put they would , he wouldn't help . You would put in like tenants , section eight , tenants and and the mortgage was never covered . Then it would give it a different . It was so , but I was naive .
I was 27 , 21 out of college , 22 out of college , and I kind of believed . Well , you know what my gut told me wasn't right . But it was people I knew . I said you know , this brother wouldn't never do me wrong . You know , blah , blah , blah .
But you become , you know , you just Put your guards down because you really know these people and you didn't think they would do that . So by the time I realized I'm oh man , I mean , I had to let the houses go . So that was before I bought the Latonia house . So I let it go . I was still doing my e-commerce business Back then .
I bought my those right before I was getting married . So before I let it go , I bought my main residence and then let us to go , so that I could you know , because if I did it afterwards I don't be we get my own prior residence . So I bought my residence , led us to go and after like six , seven years . That's what I started buying for cash .
And that was . That was like the oh wait , oh nine , roughly that time where everything was kind of going crazy .
It commerce that I could buy houses cash back down . You know so , but that was a rabbit . That was a rabbit to do it , you know . So , like , what we lack a lot of times in our community is mentorship . And you know , when you seek mentor and people , you know , look at a lot of bad people . That's going won't tell you the truth .
They just Selfish , and you know all they think about making a quick book . You know , and that's what happened .
And To kind of piggyback , because you guys mentioned earlier You're one of the few investors that we've kind of spoken to that's invested one long enough and two has survived 2008 , 2009, . You know , people are always constantly scared of investing . Even now we hear , hey , rates are super high . It's kind of tough .
Now's not a good time to invest or buy , but arguably 2009 was one of the worst times to buy buy everyone's metric , because markets down everyone's kind of down . What was your philosophy in kind of continuing and saying , hey , everyone else is wrong , I'm gonna keep . I'm a double down , I'm gonna keep buying to now where you just drop it .
But it only makes sense you buying when the House is a super low ? I showed a knee my house one day and I asked him to guess how much I paid for it . So it was one of those times where I bought the house for nothing . So , but it would only make sense if you have extra cash for it . So you gotta be ready for these things .
You know , at that time , a lot of people doing bad . I was doing good because I was an e-commerce . It didn't really , you know , I was Driving then , so I had a cash to do it . So that's why a lot of people were is known , because a lot of these deals you had to have cash .
Nobody was loaning anybody money , so I would buy one or two every year and it lasted for like Between , oh a , to like 2019 , 1112 . That's when it started getting better . By that time you could still buy with a loan , you know , for a little more . I wish you bought something like 11 , 12 , 13 . You'll be doing so good , you know .
So that's all it is you . I always go the other way . When people don't want to buy , that's when I buy . I go against the grain every time . It's made you money , hey , like right now the interest is high , it's better to buy now . People keep saying , oh , I wait till the interest goes low . But guess what ?
Once interest goes low , this little competition you can't get a quality of property you want . Each time you bid for it is gone . So now you buy it right now . You wait for interest to go low later and you could refi Because you don't have to compete against all these people .
Now you got time for a property that you're sitting there , your potential , you , you , you buy at an IRA .
But if you buy the right property you could cash flow really good and making sure , like in my case , I tried it by multi dwellings , two or three units , I know , even if I've been 20 percent , I'll submit money , interest , I'll submit money and I won't worry about it .
I only worry about cash flow and , as you know , and by when there's no competition , Agreed , agreed , I think it's .
It's sound advice . I mean , last year , while interest rates were still accelerating , I think we talked about it about a four unit up in snail bill , um , and my interest rate is above nine because I'm buying 1099 stuff .
But this year , with them cutting rates , I think I'm gonna be able to refinance that back to like a six and a half or a seven and that's gonna shave a lot off . So it's gonna turn a good deal into a great deal , right , and kind of make it keep going from there right , because at that time probably nobody wanted to buy it .
You had a clear shot to get it Because if interest was five percent , trust me , you got people in china . Mine you know . Yeah , I bid you .
I've worked with some clients in different , in different areas man .
I saw property like Two years ago when everything was going crazy . It was in snailville . I went onto the property . I mean , potentially I could turn this property into like a six unit .
It was just Older building but was just a bunch of buildings and I'm like you didn't want to like two , 30 , and I bid it like I was the first to get it but they wanted me to pay cash and somebody bid it Just 10,000 over and they got I was the first to say it , though I said no , I get it but it's because at that time a lot of people looking at
it the interest was low , you know , and that would have been a great catch loan . You know I would need to put like 150,000 but it would have been like at least five to six units the way it was set up .
I would have cut it in such a way that I get six million units and have people , you know , booking the FB and B style , just short-term it , and you know I only worry about long term . I like it .
I like it to that point . This is kind of accelerating toward the end of the story before we open up to the rest of the group , because I know there's going to be a lot of questions coming . But the short-term rental side right .
You're one of the individuals that I connected with and was super impressed and got some advice on just different items , because you own 20 plus short-term rentals and also co-host a couple as well .
How did you get into building that big short-term rental portfolio and getting it to the level it is now , and what are some of the top systems that you're using to help manage your portfolio ?
So I said I would look for the house , looking for the fastest way to . It's all about doors , I mean the units you got , you know . And , mind you , I know there's a research . I don't know if you know it .
I listen to a lot of the big time as the people with 2,000 units , 3,000 units , the average , what do you think the average uh Net profit is on a unit apartment or rental property ? What do you think that number is ?
The average across the us .
Yeah , like how much would it make ? How much would it make after paying a profit per unit that they own ? The average like how much in dollars amount will come to their pockets ?
100 dollars per door if you're doing long-term rentals , is that ? Is that right , or what ?
So it's about 250 250 is considered very good and that if you look , if you know , granca don't , granca don't . Also , granca don't does about 250 a door apartment , big time . And then I listen to other guys and it's always between 200 and 250 , but with it being the academic a thousand over it , two thousand over one door . Yeah , I mean on the property .
So you see the difference . So that's why I was trying to get as many doors as possible , because I was trying to get as many doors as possible as possible . But I would get properties with like three units , four units , in-law suite , somewhere , you know , in the suite of the garage , anything that qualifies as an extra space .
You know , like one time I had done A property . I told you about it . It was a house with a basement . So I was able to make two units out of the basement , a two , two and a two one at the bottom , and I turned the garage into another unit , making four units out of one house .
And it makes about maybe like 12,000 a month , you know , and are you getting these rezoned as multi unit ?
or are you just keeping them ?
Well , you know , a lot of times you just keep it as it is . If you start getting getting rezoned and everything is so much headed , you know A lot of times nobody's really saying nothing about this . You know you're not doing a lot of . You know you already got a basement . All you gotta do is just finish it out , cut it up . Yeah , yeah , I'm done .
You know , that's what people don't tell you because you know . But sometimes you gotta take a chance too , especially when you look at like the in-law suite piece right .
Like this is one where you could get it rezoned and kind of have the city come in . But they may pull other things apart , right , you know ? Just full transparency , right . What I've seen done is , when you have an in-law suite , the way that they look at a single family house will call it is that you need to have one oven .
It doesn't matter if you have all the other stuff . They're cabinets , right , counters , that could be a bar area , right , but it's the oven . And so if you have a two burner stove or an oven down there , it's just one of those things .
When you're selling the house , you would need to take that piece out , with understanding with the buyer , and then put it back after closing . Oh , you take the burn out , take the burner out , put it back after closing and kind of go from there .
Okay , I know we have a lot of people on right now that may have some questions for you , especially with your wealth of experience , and so we want to take a second to open it up to the rest of the group and allow others to join in .
Either a live call in and or drop your question in the chat , and we'd love to hear from you , mark , how you doing I'm doing well Can you hear me , we can hear you .
Oh good , good , I didn't have a Well phenomenal story , rashid , what you've gone through . I'm just getting started , I'm just getting in the game . So I'm kind of feeling like man I miss , I missed 10 , 20 years to get in the game , like , well , I'm just starting now .
So so what would you recommend for someone who's um , I'm purchasing my getting ready to purchase my second property . I'm here in Atlanta , um , and what would you suggest I do ? I have a um , two unit one house , similar to what you were talking about , with the in-laws apartment now , which is being Airbnb , but I'm looking for my second property .
What would you recommend in the Metro Atlanta area , I mean ?
for me as long as you have a or two or three unit situation , meaning a house with a basement , with a suite , in the safe , clean area . So a lot of times when I search a property randomly , without even an agent , I just go much . I do only units , I do the filter right and I just go wide like Atlanta and anything that pops up .
I take the address , I put it into a bmvcom and what that does it . It puts a kind of like a , it takes it out , it's takes it out on a bnb and I see I want to see what's going on in that area . So I want to see what other people are doing was in that area .
If I see a property or two in there , and then I dive into the feedbacks to see how many feedback they have . If they have one of them like 10 feedbacks , I know mine is gonna work . So all I gotta do is to match what they're doing or better . I try to do better and then I just make sure .
Then I go out to Google Maps and then what I do , without going to seeing the property , I I do like a drive-through , so I put on Google Maps . I want to see how clean the street is . I want to see this . Abandoned cars on the street and I go all the way out to like the main street like I'm driving it without going there .
I mean you could tell what a good property a good they would . It looks like you literally see people walking in white beauties , like that . You see people hanging out like doing like this , like I want that street , and that's not good , before you consider going to look at a property . That's situation , I mean , from the street .
Google Maps tells me everything I need to know and from my little research or a bnb tell tells me all I need to know . If you want to even go deeper , you can do all a DNA account , a DNA , all that dogs , yeah yeah right , there's another one . All the rooms come , I think .
I think there's another one that might be a little better called all the rooms . I haven't really looked at it . I've looked at it once and two times . You to see their numbers . If you want to do that , you can actually see how much you're making for nights , occupancy rates and all that . So it's just as simple as that , and so so how ?
do you ? How do you determine whether it's gonna be a bnb and long term rentals ? It just based on what you have in your portfolio .
I don't try to shoot for long term rentals .
I don't want to do it oh , you don't right now , you do long term rentals no , another option .
Okay , I sold you . The average Joe makes $250 after paying yeah , right , so and the problem is more than likely if you get a long term attendance , depending on where you get it at , I mean it's like a 50 50 chance . After a while they're gonna default . Anybody that I know that's don't really stay tells me this story .
All they didn't pay me yet it gives it leaves a back to see your mouth and I want to go . I've been through that . I bought a property like two years ago . It took me a year to kick them out , yeah , yeah . So once I got them out , I mean I brought it with it with the tenants in there and I couldn't get them out .
You know so that whole year , but I knew once I get them out , I'll try to start making tries , to start to make my money back yeah , so you don't see an issue right now with the Airbnb market being saturated around Atlanta ?
it is , oh it is .
Okay , it is . But , like I said one more time , a lot of guys are buying single family homes . What's the actual part is if you buy it . I mean , if you buy a three bedroom , two bath , you can only charge so much on 150 max . If you buy a property that has a studio apartment in the basement , now you can get three bedroom , two bath .
You get hundred dollars at the top , you get $80 at the bottom . You can split it up . Now you have two spaces . You can come be better one . One unit can pay your mortgage and one can be your cash flow . Okay , I try to do three , I try to do three . Three is it for me .
If I see a deal with three , I don't care what neighborhood is in it's , if I can get three unit out of a property , I'm golden . I'm not even going to worry about the competition because I'm gonna blow them out because they don't know . They still buying a single family homes . Like you know , you can only get max .
I don't care how nice it is , unless you're buying a bucket sometimes , but you're gonna pay bucket price . So now everything's high and that's what everybody thinks . Oh , let me get this nice housing you maxed out . But once you go in need knows , once you go in with a multi-dwelling situation , you can chop the prices down , you know , and compete better .
Once you do that , I don't think you have a problem well , thank you .
Thank you for the advice and the guidance . Let someone else ask a question appreciate it .
So we got a question coming out of the chat how do you manage your pricing for the STRs and any tools that you recommend ?
so for me , a lot of people use price labs and that's like the golden boy price lives . And there's another one I can't remember right now . Beyond pricing , you're pricing , but I'm old-school , I go manual because anytime I use those things they always they would do it on time .
And so there's a couple of guys on YouTube they they , they use those tools but they also go manual . So my first choice software management software is Gasty . I use Gastycom and with Gasty I go into the calendar and just every day I do this up multiple times in a day I'll go chop the prices down myself . I know at certain price .
You know I'll get a booking if I go so low . So I like to do my things manually and I said do it today because it only takes a few minutes . I go through the calendar , chop , chop , chop today's here , today minimums . You know you got to be dynamic . Your pricing and your money is your weekday . Your money is really doing the weekday .
Your weekend is not your money , meaning you're gonna get your weekends booked most times , but the weekdays think about it like this from Monday to Thursday , where a lot of people don't want , if you lose money Thursday four times in a month , you lost like 12 days . So what I do is I slash it half price .
If my normal prices 100 hours , I'll go as less 50 sometimes , just to get money in Thursday in . I Wait till two days before , like three days before . I See somebody's checking out Monday and I know the next person's coming on Thursday , friday , like on Saturday , I start going like 60% off .
No , no , I go like 40% off the day before I go I go my aggressive . So what ends up happening is somebody would take the four days at a lower price and Instead of zero I get $300 , 300 times four , 1200 four , meaning four weeks . But if you do it consistently and don't get , if you get zero on those weekdays , you're not gonna make anything .
So that's why I said to your weekdays your money .
True true , I did a good day's booked , because the weekends , to your point , regardless of really time of year , those weekends are pretty much Gonna get booked right with the weekdays . That's where you want to , especially in the winter time , make those adjustments right .
I personally am a fan of using some of the software right , and so I use like beyond pricing right , and there's ways where you can Extrapolate like a whole two months and you can focus on certain days .
So we'll take out the whole two months Right , eliminate the weekends and then adjust just the weekday prices a little bit lower , okay , in the winter time , to make sure we can you just focus on a weekdays with the which are with your , with your tool , right , so true , yeah , yeah , which is something I could be doing , and just focus on a on weekdays which ?
And they just keep reducing it , but sometimes you got to set the right ranges . Sometimes it would make it too high . I'm like no .
I don't want it that high . I want it lower .
That's a problem Because the computer is telling you no , you keep booking at $80 . No , I want to have $60 , but you set the range from 60 to 80 based to give you 75 . No , I want to go 60 . Right now I'm not playing games , let's go 60 . Be done with it . We ever take , I don't have to worry about that . Then I see , I see , I see it all booked .
I can show my calendar . It's just all you know . You'll see tight , I want it tight .
Hey , that is fair . That is fair . Any questions from the chat or call in questions . I'm not sure if it's a good question . I'm not sure if it's a good question , I'm just wondering . If it's a good question , rashid , what is ?
one piece of advice that you would leave our listeners with . When it comes to the real estate investing game , what's the one thing that we need to know today ? As far as getting started and also the patient , a Lot of times with these deals that I do , if you want the best deals , you got to put up some of your own money .
It's very hard to get a Tarnkey , a BnB property . You know that that just gonna just go , you just gonna take it over and you start right away . So a lot of times my turnaround takes as long as three years . Sometimes I'm sitting where I got , you know , get his people out of there .
I got to chop it up into pieces , like I've had a duplex that's on to like a fall unit . So I got to do a lot of you know Changes . And then you got to get a good team , the contractors . That those people will kill you Because they never , never did , never on time . You know they always Just slowing you down , you know .
So Once you have those people and you take your time , you get more , more margins , better arrow eyes . If you , if you have a little project , I mean you have to go crazy like I go . Like sometimes I go to the stud , I change everything to the stud and start over and make you what I wanted to be .
But you know , like you buy a house that doesn't have a lot of that , needs a lot of cosmetic work . You know , like , sometimes I would , I would take like a dining room and and change into , like an extra bedroom .
You know , like , like in the basement , or for example , how the property , like it was a basement with a one bedroom , but the the living was so huge I'm like I could put a dining room right here . Why , why do I need a separate dining room ? So what I did was , you know , put a door .
You know , put a door and close that dining room up and put a little bed there . So now I advertise as a two bedroom basement unit .
And to that question you mentioned , you had kind of advertised different units . We have a question in the chat which of the units gets books the most ? For example , one bed , one bath versus two bed , one bath , three twos , four twos kind of . What are you seeing majority of your bookings take place and what bed bath count ?
I think a lot of the smaller units they get booked faster Because they're lower priced . You know they get . You know most people travel solo or in twos . You know Less than four people a lot of times . So I'll say a bedroom , two bedrooms at a biggest . I do the big groups to .
I have some property that focuses on big groups so , but a lot of times is Two ones . You know , but don't go by a two , one by itself , buy a bunch of two ones in a building . That's when it makes sense , you know , and they , you can get it we need all the $80 here , $90 here and it adds up to $300 a night .
You know what it's consistent Small space . You know I like to do up the bathroom knife , so they , you know , in the kitchen and that's it .
Okay , okay , and we have one more question before we transition here . How are you setting up your units ? Where are you buying the furniture or using interior decorators ? How are you setting your units apart from a decoration standpoint ?
So I use a lot of online resources like I . For example , I use like now , use this LED mirrors in the bathroom . You know they only cost like $150 . But when people go to the bathrooms and they see the LED lights yes , some of them have Bluetooth .
I buy the ones of Bluetooth now and they go in there and they play a blue to and it's like If you go to a , so Amazon put LED lights , got in the mirrors and they look so nice . Little things like that Make your pop . So if you go to like Wayfair If you want to go local I do , I'll do you know rooms to go outlet , the one of Jimmy Carter .
They have a lot of good stuff , a cheaper price . If you want to be able to see it . What you're doing it's a decors and the big one is TJ , oh , ohm , goods . I get all my pictures and nice Omg's specific ones that have the high traffic . They have all the good stuff . If you want to actually see it and pick it up .
And I do a for for my , for my bedsheets and stuff that towels , I do Costco like I get bedsheets at Costco for 12 bucks , the good quality ones , and , and so I was stacked up on them and they sell the confidence for like 16 bucks .
I know I'm sleeping on them .
I Go cost for all those things . I don't go to Walmart . I used to go to Target . No , I said no , I go to Costco all the time .
I go to cost every week what supplies the furniture , like said rooms to go if you go , if you go on the Wayfair or like there's a , there's a Com has a lot of like Solid , yeah , I was good , so I get a lot of I and stuff from housecom . Yeah , so you know , and that's that no .
Rashid , we truly appreciate you giving us your night and spending it with the Acaba home financial freedom mastermind group , and we just want to know how can we help you with some of your goals for 2024 ? Whether it's different projects you're working on or something that we should click into , how can we help you ?
Well , very soon , here I'm gonna . I got told you I may start coasting because I get a request a lot and not turning down all the time because I'm doing my own 235 plus units , and so people keep asking me . And the thing is , I've been doing for three , four years , like I told you , I've helped a lot of people get properties , set of properties .
Go look at as my father last weekend . The guy was doing three units , he had me go to three different locations Connors , riverdale and a little one . So , oh man , she , when I finish , you gonna help me a lot . I need to start charging out this . I'm just help everybody . It's like you know , because I'm like this . It's like a lot of people .
I feel like if you help the next man next to you , that way is the way in our community we can build each other up . It's lack of information . People don't know these things and a lot of people don't get it to buy a property and start seeing the money and they said , oh the shit , I get it . Now .
There's a neighbor of mine he's actually African as well . He said I said , trust me , just buy this . He bought a unit indicator . It was old and he bought the place . It was three units . It was two in the basement , two units in the basement and one on top .
He paid like $300,000 for it and he said I went and said I said , okay , cut this out , put it back here and do this and he makes about . Let me see , I think it grosses about $8,000 a month and his monthly is like $2,300 . And you know , it's like oh man . I see it now , because even when he started he said oh no , I want $200,000 for the top .
And I said no , bro , you gotta come down . It's a power of the volume . You don't want to charge $200,000 a month and then you only get like six days . So I said you just gotta be . It's like see , the biggest thing is a lot of people feel like the property is what more ? So they never want to reduce the prices . Nah , till they get zero .
I'm like and it happens to me sometimes , even though I know this mentally I'm like , oh man , I did it again , even though I know it . So I try not to . I try to cut the prices down . That's like the biggest thing Cutting down prices where you need to . It's so hard to do .
Sometimes you be like oh , I'll help people saying oh , if I cut my prices , then refruits are gonna come in there and mess it up . Not really , most times they don't mess it up Even at cheaper prices . Every now and then you might get it like that , but most times you gonna be fine .
So ability to cut down prices when you need to , at the right time , is like the biggest thing To make this all work .
The last recipe Flexibility , agreed , agreed , not taking too much pride in that piece and making sure that you're getting it booked up and keeping the occupancy high , especially in the low season , which is that winter time .
So I guess my question is I may be co-hosting . So I mean , co-hosting is something . I know the process , I know that I might need a little bit of guidance . No , I'd say pricing and stuff like that . I don't know . I could learn it , though . I mean I have the resources to do things , but maybe manage processes , fine tune processes to make things smoother .
Sure , sure , and what we're gonna do is we have your contact info , as well as the gram , as well as your website , and we're gonna put that into the show notes .
So anybody that's looking to connect with Rashid after this , you're going to have his contact info on that piece and we can help try to blow up this short-term rental co-host business for you and we're gonna talk . So any conversations , anything that you need on that standpoint , hit me up . We can definitely work through that .
And no , we just appreciate you joining us here tonight and we look forward to- . We almost didn't make it the rest of our group .
You said what we almost didn't make it because I had to restore my computer 10 times .
I know , I know , hey , but we figured it out . We figured it out . I was going out to Chrome , but we figured that thing out .
You know , for some reason , like right before the call , I was so sleepy man , I fell asleep . I fell asleep , I slept , I slept , my wife was I set my alarm and I took my wife Just wake me up . If I don't wake up , she started waking up , let me know . She said you told me to wake you up .
I was like , oh shit , all right , to my base , that's all shit . Oh yeah , yeah , you right . You right , because sometimes with this Airbnb , I mean I have a lot of horror stories . I didn't even tell you guys , man , I've had a lot Like during COVID . I had like shootings . I had like people drug dealing , like I had a baby dying of property .
You imagine , yeah , this guy was neglecting his baby and baby started crying and I saw the camera was panicking , come to know it was starting to . He made the news it was starting to baby . I've had a lot of horror stories . I've had shooting where I had to go clean blood . So I've been through everything .
I've had a situation where listen to this a guy , the girl , checked in on my property , let the guy in around three o'clock in the morning and she calls me and say , hey , can you look at the camera and say , yeah , what's wrong , what's up ? I feel fun . I'm like you feel fun , what happened ? I feel like I've been violated . I say what ?
So I look into the camera and I see that a guy was coming in at three o'clock , but she let him in . Now the cops are calling me asking what did I see ? But I'm like you didn't have no code , why , you said .
She said , oh , I don't know if I let him in or not , I don't remember , but apparently she probably had something together and she forgot , or now she wants to get this guy in trouble . It's a whole lot of stories . So you gotta be careful with all the things that have cameras in place and no you know . But those things will happen all the time .
But I've just been through a lot of it . I had a teenager that got shot in front of my property . He came from Ohio playing B-ball with people and they came from another street and they shot him and he ran back to the house . So again , the areas that you buy in would determine this sometimes . Yeah , so I've sold a couple of properties in that .
I've sold a couple of years .
And just so that we can . That was gonna be my next question .
Yeah , look at them there . You know what you mean , Mark .
Let me not stand here .
I just told you like five stories in like a minute . Hey , yeah , I know .
We'll have to bring it back on how to avoid red flags , you know .
Yeah , no , we're gonna circle back to this we're hitting at time . We appreciate you joining , but we're definitely gonna bring you back on in a couple of months to circle back in some horror stories , cause I think people will get a lot of one . It'll make the situations they're going through seem a lot more ministerial .
And I try to tell some of mine to talk about it . Right , mine's bad .
But I thought mine was bad yeah .
But , rashid , we appreciate you man and we are gonna call it a night and we'll hit you up a bit later . But everybody , thank you for joining tonight . And again , we're gonna get his contact info into the show notes .
So feel free to reach out to Rashid for any advice , from short-term rental management or even getting started , and I'm sure he'd be happy to help .
All right , no problem , thank you guys . Bye everyone , bye y'all , see ya .
Join us every Wednesday at 7 PM Eastern .