Hey, today I got Rich Sombers in the house to talk about how boutique hotels are taking over the Airbnb game. Along with him, I've got my favorite co-host, Brian Dilla, aka the bald guy. What's up, boys?

Brian, what's up, dude? Brian, thanks for having me. Excited for this conversation today. I was last here. I think it's been like almost 3 years, man. Time. Yeah, time flies. It was summer of '23, so, um, yeah, two and a half years ago.

That's crazy. Time flies, dude. Yeah, dude. It's been cool watching, um, everything you're doing with the hotels and all of your programs and everything else. And so I'm excited to to get the update because, uh, Airbnb is really hard and I've been kind of sounding the alarm on it for a while, but now I think more and more people are coming to acceptance that unless you're just really, really good at it, it's, it's really hard.

Yeah. No, 100% man. Um, yeah, I've been I've been saying this for a few years now. I got in the Airbnb game back in 2019 and from '19 to like early '22, uh, you could just buy a four-bedroom house anywhere, put some IKEA furniture in there and do pretty well. But I tell people now that I get in the Airbnb game, I'm like, "Guys, Airbnb is going away in a lot of markets around the country. We saw what happened in New York City. We saw what happened in San Francisco. We saw what happened in LA. I live in San Diego. Uh, they slashed the Airbnb supply from 17,000 listings to 5,500. There is 8 million Airbnb listings in the world today. And as Airbnb goes away, it's bringing more demand to the boutique hotels. Uh, people are still going to travel, but the days of the millennials, the Gen Zers wanting to go travel at the same and stay at the same hotels that our parents or grandparents once loved, you know, the big branded hotels, the Marriotts, the Hyatts, the Hampton Inns, those days are over. Just like the restaurant industry, people are really favoring these experiences, these boutiques, these one-off vibes that they can go and share with their friends on Instagram."

Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting about the restaurant industry. I was reading the other day, um, I think what's his name? David Chang, big famous chef. He was talking about how the the restaurant industry is changing so much now because these Gen Zers aren't drinking. And you know, alcohol is like their biggest margin. You know, it's like $20 for a cocktail which cost like $2. Um, and because of that, restaurants are struggling because they got to make up the profit from elsewhere and the only other way to do it is just to charge more for the food and nobody wants to pay, you know, $50 for a chicken. So, it's like they they don't really know the answer because they've never experienced people not wanting to drink.

Yeah. I'm I'm friends with a couple, uh, uh, really good restaurant operators out there in San Diego. And if you look at all the trendy neighborhoods in San Diego, I'm sure same thing here in Vegas. Um, if you go down the Vegas strip, you know, any good restaurant, they don't start in a second one with the same menu, the same brand. It's usually the same restaurant group, but it's a completely different menu, completely different brand. Um, and that sort of thing. And and that just shows what what people want in today's uh environment. It's kind of like, uh, Tulum where that one group owns like the whole strip and they're all just different hotels, restaurants, like all this stuff. But, um, I think it's called Rosa Negra if I if I remember correctly. But, um, anyways, let's let's get back to hotels and and I mean with boutique hotels, you know, restaurants and amenities and all these things play a role in it. Yeah. Like what are you defining as a boutique hotel?

Uh, by definition, a boutique hotel is, uh, any hotel that's non-branded. It's non-flagged. So, it's not going to be a Hampton, it's not going to be a Ramada, an a Marriott, a Hyatt, but, uh, it's independent and then also by definition, less than 100 rooms. For us, you know, we're really targeting stuff that's 60 rooms and under.

Okay. Why?

Um, because that's where we're finding a big gap in terms of where we can buy these properties. They're underperforming. They're more likely to be owned by mom and pop ownership. Um, and, you know, the mom and pops right now, there's 40 million retirement baby boomers that are, you know, happening in the in the country right now between now and the next 7 years. Uh, a lot of their hotels are tired. They haven't been renovated in decades. They're not using any technology. They're not on all the OTA marketing channels. Uh, and they're certainly not using AI. And so, in that 60 room and under kind of, uh, price point, we can come in, buy them at a discount, and force a lot of appreciation. Often we're 2x-ing, sometimes even 3x-ing the value of these properties in 18 to 24 months.

Yeah. You know what I like about that model too is unlike Airbnb where you know you're a single family home and you're tied to the value of the properties around you whether they're Airbnbs or not.

Yes.

You know you're you're now in commercial where you can it's a business.

Yes.

You know at the end of the day they're buying a business. So my

And real quick, once you realize that formula, um, you know, if you're an Airbnb investor right now listening to this, um, you know, no matter how much your single family home makes as an Airbnb, uh, you know, it's going to be tied to what the comps are selling for across the street on a price per square foot basis, generally speaking. Yeah. But once you learn that commercial real estate, uh, you know, formula, NOI, net operating income divided by cap rate, um, you know, it's hard to go back to the residential stuff. So, the more we can increase the income, the more we can decrease the expenses, the more we can force our appreciation. Uh, which is why we love the boutique hotel game.

Yeah. Do you guys have a minimum amount of rooms? Because I mean, I know you don't want to be above 60 because you're seeing a gap there and you know, the big boys are all, you know, higher, but I mean, I I assume you don't want like a five unit or a 10 unit. Like, you don't really get economies of scale.

Yeah. So, there's a couple kind of like, uh, reflection points, um, within the number of units. So, you can get away with something small like seven, eight, 10 rooms if you are going to operate remotely with the self-check-in, self-checkout model, uh, without any sort of like on-site staff outside of housekeeping. Uh, that keeps the expense ratio low. Now, once you get a little bit bigger or if you have a hotel that's not conducive for, uh, a self-check-in, self-checkout model and you need front desk, let's just say maybe you're in an area where you get a lot of walk-in traffic, a lot of walk-in reservations, you need some sort of front desk component. Um, you need someone greeting the guests and that sort of thing. Once you get there, you really want to be north of 30 rooms to have a little bit more economies of scale.

I've never heard of anyone walking into a hotel and checking in. Like I like I see it on the movies and like hotels and stuff. You got a room for the night, but like I don't know who's in a town and they don't know where they're going to sleep that night and like just doesn't look on their phone and book.

I've actually done that. So I did a Cali trip and we stopped in Santa Barbara and I couldn't find anything on Airbnb. For some reason, everything that was listed on Airbnb once you try to book it, it wasn't available. So then we just went to the beach and then we started just going into.

But you didn't go on like Priceline or something and just look for a hotel?

No, everything everything was booked. For some reason, we couldn't book it. But.

But that was on Airbnb. Did you look at like actual hotels?

Like all the websites. We ended up finding like a little boutique hotel. It's It wasn't 60 units. It's probably like 12 or something like that.

When you. And those are the areas where you're going to see it a lot. So, we have a hotel in, uh, Bodega, Bodega Bay, which is an hour north of, um, San Francisco, Bay Area, uh, Sonoma Coast Wine Country, but a lot of people traveling up and down Highway One up there. And, uh, they're like, "Hey, cool beach town. Let's stop. Let's get a room here. Let's let's call it quits for the day." And there's only five boutique hotels in the entire kind of market, you know, and so you get a lot of drive-through traffic in those kind of areas. But dude, I'm with you. I'm like, I've never once just walked into a hotel and said, "Hey, do you need vacancy?"

Yeah. I'm like.

Old people, too. Like, if you get old people that are kind of driving around, they'll probably stop.

Older people. Yes. Yes. In in that region, you do see some older people that are retired kind of driving up.

I'm going to Vegas. I'll find something. And I don't I'm not going to use my phone. I'm just going to start walking everywhere.

And we we did a C we we did a Cali trip last year and then we did like a trip across America.

Dude, you're always in California, brother.

Yeah, exactly. So, but we did a trip across America. We went to Denver, St. Louis, all these places. And I just drove straight there and I looked for cool stuff and then just booked a hotel there.

So, do you mostly buy in California or you like buying all over the country?

The number one thing that we look for is areas that have tight Airbnb regulations. And so, uh, for us, we're California coastal. Uh, pretty hyperfocused on that. We like supply constraint areas in California that don't have a ton of oversupply of other hotels. I made the exception a couple times to go outside of that. Um, but it's only because the deal came through a personal relationship. Um, and it was too good for us to pass out pass through rather.

How much do you make owning these hotels?

Uh, from a cash flow perspective or in terms of appreciation?

Uh, I would say like net cash flow.

Cash flow. Yeah. Um, so for for us, we always underwrite for a stabilized double-digit, um, cash-on-cash return after we stabilize the asset and refi our money out. Um, but the one thing, the three things that we really look for is is this: We got to buy in a good location. We can't replace the good the location. So for us, we love beachfront stuff. Uh, we like areas in California to where people are always going to be traveling. Um, the last thing I want to do is go buy an area, uh, a hotel in an area where there's, you know, pawn shops, liquor stores, gun stores, and people just don't want to travel there. Number two is we need to buy below below, uh, market value. So I need to I need to come in at going a good going-in cost basis. And then number three is we got to have a clear path to add value. If we can have all those three things and it makes sense, we'll do the deal. And then, uh, as soon as we stabilize and refi our money out, we always underwrite for a double-digit cash-on-cash return, uh, post-stabilization after refinancing our money out.

So you're trying to get everyone's capital out with the refinance.

Yeah.

And then just keep it yourself.

Yeah.

Well, no, no, no, no. We our investors stay in these deals. Yeah. Yeah. But we just like to recoup a lot of our capital, which kind of juices the returns. Um, but it also means that we are able to force a lot of appreciation and really increase the the NOI. And there's a lot of different levers that we can pull, uh, in order to do so. For example, um, everyone in America today, if you go stay at a hotel, I don't care if it's a a one-star hotel or five-star hotel, everyone's expecting to pay some sort of fee.

Yeah.

Um, Hotel Del Coronado. Blackstone just bought that not too long ago. Uh, they did a $500 million renovation.

I stayed there like, uh, 3 months ago.

Yep. Gorgeous hotel, right? It was great. Right on the beach.

Yeah. They just had finished the big renovation, they told me.

Mhm. And this is why we like to buy stuff that's beachfront is because, um, those hotels always have high demand. You can charge high ADRs for them. Uh, but Blackstone did a $500 million reno and, uh, they just did a refi on that asset. And, uh, guess what that thing valued at?

What?

$1.7 billion.

Wow. 1 for 1.5 million a door.

That's crazy. That's crazy, right? Million a door.

Uh, it was, I want to say it was around 700.

Yeah. So they're in for two.

One, two. It just valued at 17.

Yeah. I mean, there's so many rooms in that freaking hotel. It's huge. Um, no, it was a good experience over there. But.

But anyways, what I was saying with the amenity fee, uh, and these fees that people are expecting to pay, uh, I was at Hotel Del with my girlfriend during the holidays, cuz they do like the ice skating on the beach, you know, during the holiday season, which is pretty cool. Uh, but we're sitting at the, uh, the hotel bar right there in front of the ice skating rink where we're closing out for dinner. The bottom of the receipt, they have this little fee there. And, um, and it, it, the fee actually is like a 1% fee on everyone that's dining there, getting drinks, but it goes towards the renovation, which is crazy. So, anyways, what we do with all these hotels is we'll put in an amenity fee at the hotels. And so we'll f we'll find a way to include, uh, some sort of like free breakfast. Um, sometimes we'll leverage our housekeepers to bring that in. Uh, we'll typically put in like a fire pit, jacuzzi, uh, some sort of amenities, surfboard rentals, beach cruiser bike rentals. And by doing so, we can implement an amenity fee. And let's just say for simple math, we, you know, implement a $20 a night amenity fee. And let's just say a hotel is a, you know, a 24-room hotel. Um, we're looking at 365 nights in a year. And let's just say that we average a 72% year-round occupancy. Uh, we're now increasing the NOI by $126,000 just by implementing that that fee right there. Like I said, guests are already expecting to pay it. You're actually, you know, producing and, uh, you know, giving them some sort of accommodations out of it. So, you're enhancing the experience. But at a 7% cap rate, we're increasing the value of that asset by $1.8 million. And so, you know, that's one example of how we're forcing a lot of appreciation with these hotels right now.

But I guess like for let's just use that 24 example, how much does the owner actually make after all expenses from owning that property?

Uh, yeah. So, like I said, the cash-on-cash, we like the low double-digit returns. Um, and then we like to force a lot of appreciation in terms of, you know, increasing that NOI. If you want to look at like a return profile, um, like I would say when we we underwrite these deals, we typically have a 10-year target hold period because I don't know what's going to happen in the short to midterm. Um, as far as, you know, where we are in the rate environment. We've been in a high interest rate environment for 48 months now. Um, and granted that the Fed just came out and did three rate cuts to end 2025, but we'll see where this leads us. Um, but anyways, I want a long-term window. So, I believe the way to build true long-term wealth in real estate investing is to buy in good locations. Let time do its thing. Let inflation do its thing. And let's not forget the Federal Reserve has printed, uh, 80% of the money supply since 2020. Now, a lot of those chips have been off the the playing field with the high rate environment, but as the rate environment normalizes, and it will normalize at some point, we're going to see a lot of that money reenter the arena. But to answer your question, 10-year time, uh, time horizon. Um.

Well, I guess Brian's looking for like more specifics. Like if let's just say the 24 units going for, what are they going for per door right now in these markets?

As far as the sales comps?

Yeah.

So, um, in California, uh, most of the sales comps on average, you're going to look, uh, you're you're going to see stuff trade between the 200 and, uh, 300 a door, kind of range.

Okay. So let's just use like a, uh, 20-unit building in Cali. 300 a door is a $6 million valuation. My guess is you guys are trying to pick it up at 200 a door.

Yep.

You know, knowing that you can push it to 300 a door.

Yep.

And then maybe you're all in at 250 a door and you know, you got a current value of 300 a door.

I guess Brian's question is once you have debt in place and obviously it takes time to stabilize it and get those values. It's not going to happen overnight, but like, uh, what is the cash flow on that at the end of the day at, you know, call it a $6 million property that's leveraged at, call it 80% of value. You know, we're at, you know, what is that, $4.8 million loan, $6 million value.

Yeah.

Is it like apartments where it's kind of like you break even and you're forcing appreciation and then the money's made when you like sell later?

No, it's not. It's It's very, uh, the cash flow is a lot higher than like multifamily. Um, and then it's seasonal as well. So, obviously, like in your peak seasons, uh, summer season for a lot of markets, you're going to have a big boost. Um, and then slower seasons are going to be like your January, February for most markets, especially in California, uh, unless you're like in a ski area. But I'll give you like an example of a couple deals we've bought. So, um, the first one I ever did was a small 10-room beachfront hotel. And if you're listening to this right now, uh, and you're in the Airbnb game, like this is a deal that that anyone that's done a couple Airbnbs could easily transition to.

That's good.

So, 10 rooms, beachfront hotel up in an area called Shelter Cove, California. This is up by the Oregon border. Gorgeous black sand beaches, hiking trails. You can look at the property up online. It's called the Black Sands Inn. Um, and you go to blacksandsinn.com, check it out. But anyways, uh, this was built in 2003, mom and pop ownership. They had owned the asset for 18 years. Uh, they had this is the only piece of real estate they ever owned and they weren't using any booking channels. So they weren't on, uh, hotels.com, Booking.com, Expedia, they were not on Airbnb. The only thing they had was a direct booking site. Um, they never had exceeded $180K in gross revenue topline in any year. And, uh, they seller financed the deal. So they sold it to us for 1.5 and some change. They seller financed 70%. So we put 30% down. Um, to give you perspective, they had acquired the asset for 1.9 and some change 18 years prior, even with all the inflation, uh, and appreciation organically here in California.

And so we picked it up for 1.5. We put about 450 in. So we're all in for just under two. Um, and we took the revenue from 180 to almost 600 in about, uh, 12 to 18 months through our renovation, better marketing, better tech, AI. Um, and then one thing we also did with that asset is we took the innkeeper suite. We don't need an on-site innkeeper, uh, to manage these smaller hotels. A lot of these boutiques will have an innkeeper suite, which is often the nicest room on the property. Often, uh, full living room, full kitchen, sometimes even two bedrooms. We'll take that manager's payroll, we'll operate it remotely. So now that payroll expense drops to the bottom line. We'll renovate that manager's unit. We'll bring it online for additional revenue. So we took the revenue from 180 to almost 600, bought the property for 1.5 and some change. August of 2022. In August of '23, it appraised for 4.5 and some change. So, we 3x-ed the value there with that asset.

So, that's kind of like what's possible with with these these smaller boutique hotels. Now, we're doing a little bit larger deals. Um, like the one in.

But that 600K, let's just say that's bringing in, what will the net cash flow be on the 600 revenue?

Yeah. NOI on on that asset is going to be in that kind of 320 to 350 range.

That's good. And that's and that's because we operate it remotely. Now the asset.

That's paying the mortgage and everything too.

That's before debt service.

That's before debt service. So how much is the debt service on the 350? Like.

So on average for hotels, you're going to get about a 65% uh LTV and right now with the rate environment for hotels, uh, you're looking at around 6% interest rate for stabilized perm debt.

Is your goal. But but hold on, hold on, hold on. Just I mean, cuz the viewers, but Brian and I keep talking about rentals and stuff.

I have this conspiracy theory, just so you know, that rentals don't make money.

So like, as far as cash flow goes.

As far as cash flow. That's your conspiracy theory.

Yeah. I'm the conspiracy theorist that believes rentals don't actually make net cash flow. Net net after mortgage, after taxes, after capex.

Everybody hates them in the comments.

I I agree. I agree with that, especially in certain asset classes. Like I I own some multifamily stuff and, uh, like we've we we sold, uh, a couple deals like right before the rate environment went up. And these like 1960s products, they never cash-flowed the entire time we had them. Plumbing issues, and, um, you know, these syndicators came in and like paid crazy amounts of money for them right before the rates went up. I'm like, damn.

But, um, but I I agree. Um, I think the one caveat to that is is still Airbnb is in the right market.

Yeah.

Um, like I got a I got an asset in Scottsdale luxury that that does really well. Um, and I think I think buying boutique hotels in the right area, uh, can do very well from a cash flow perspective. Other asset classes like industrial, I don't know. Yeah. Um, I'm not an expert in those asset classes. But I will say, um, you know, but hotels done right is is the one caveat to that.

But if if but just to finish this thought, right? Like let's just say, uh, so the debt was refied at $2 million cuz that was the all-in and you got this $4.5 million or if you took more cash even out of it, then the payment's higher now. So it's like the the mortgage on a $2 million loan, $2.5 million loan in commercial right now is probably.

Well, we could do the math right now. So let's just say $10,000 a month. Let's just say a $2 million loan at 6%, you're going to pay $120K in in interest.

Yeah. Principal, taxes.

So with that NOI being, you know, 320, 350, um, you could you can afford to, you know, go up a little bit more in leverage. Um, they're all looking for about a 1.35 DSCR coverage ratio. Um, and that's going to be, you know, give you a little buffer to cover the debt service and then a little bit more on top. Um, so, we'll see. It's going to be a very interesting year with with the right environment. Um, we'll see, you know, how this kind of shakes out. But dude, if you would have told me, uh, or any real estate investor for that matter, that we would be in a highest interest rate environment for 48 months, the rates would essentially double.

Yeah.

Um, and we wouldn't see this crazy freaking recession.

Mhm.

And this collapse, I would have thought you were crazy. I mean, wouldn't you agree with that?

Yeah. No, it's been brutal.

So, is your plan to acquire all these hotels, like build this big, uh, portfolio, and then sell then cash out? Is that the play?

So for us, um, so we have a fund. This is the first one. We we, uh, we have six hotels that we own in the fund. We're going to put four more in this one and then close it, start fund two.

So each fund will have 10 boutiques.

And then when we get to kind of that 10-year target hold period, we'll go to the marketplace. Um, and we have two exit strategies. So number one, all the hotels are individually branded. They all have their own direct booking site, their own Instagram handle, so we can exit individually to individual buyers, or, uh, we can package them up and and go to market with a portfolio of 10 cash-flowing boutique hotels, um, in California. And by doing so, we would attract more institutional buyers that will pay a premium for the economies of scale. Those institutional buyers in the hotel game are not interested in one or two of these things. It's just not big enough. But a portfolio of 10 will attract, um, some of these larger buyers.

Yeah, because now you actually.

Big hotel combined. But I think like to to wrap up the thought, it's like even on that deal, which is a super good deal, um, you know, in the grand scheme of things, the property after debt servicing and everything might make $100,000 like.

After everything.

And but it but it went up in over $2 million of value.

Yeah.

In, you know, three years. And so this has kind of always been my point with rentals, even before the rates went up. I was saying this back in 2020, '21. I'm like, look, you can go after cash flow, appreciation, but appreciation is always going to be far better. Yes. In the long run, right? And it's like, all right, cool. You know, it makes $10,000 a month and that's like the best 10-unit ever, right? Cuz we're talking on a beachfront property, you know, like hotel. We're not talking like multifamily. Um, cuz most multifamily guys, we had Cardone coming on later, but I know even guys like Cardone, GC, let's go, baby.

I'm going to ask GC. I'm like, how much do your rentals make?

Yeah. Yeah. But like Cardone, I I already know for a fact like they have to put down so much equity to to get it to even cash flow a little bit.

Yeah. I think they buy them cash, don't they?

Right. That's what I'm saying. Like some they got to even buy cash just to get them to like cash flow.

And so this is kind of the thing. It's like you're either going to just play the long game, even with the best of the best rentals and like, you know, you're playing the 10-year time horizon of like, hey, in 10 years we expect this thing to be worth $8 million, you know, whatever the number is. And and that appreciation is so much greater than any amount of cash flow. That's where the big pop is. And I I completely agree with you. I think so many people try to get into real estate investing today and they think like, hey, I'm going to make.

I'm a retired baby.

Yeah.

I'm like, dude, like real estate real estate investing is a long-term, a long-term game. Like with all the hotels we're buying with Summers Capital, like in our investors get paid first. We're the last to get paid. We get paid when we go and exit these deals down the road. And so like you need to have active income. I tell people that all the time, like you got to figure out a way to make active income within the real estate game, uh, to supplement the long-term stuff. And I think the, uh, the opposite, uh, play of that is you got a lot of business owners out there or maybe like content creators that, um, are good at creating active income, but they're not good at investing it. And so I think if you can have a business that creates active income, you can have a, uh, online persona or a brand, a personal brand that creates active income and then you park that active income into these assets, um, that you can hold long-term in good locations. Let time do its thing. Let inflation do its thing. I think that's the secret sauce.

Yeah, I agree with that.

Brian, are you gonna buy a boutique hotel? What are you gonna do?

Well, it sounds like they don't make money for the operator. So, no. But like, let's say someone's listening to this. So, I I'm friends with the Real Estate Robinsons. Do you know them?

Yeah. Tony and Sarah.

Yeah. Tony and Sarah. So, Tony and Sarah were buying a bunch of Airbnbs in in Joshua Tree. And then eventually they recently got into boutique hotels. M. So, it sounds like there is more potential for someone to make a living off that cash flow, but it sounds like they need to be like smaller units and you have to be the one operating them. Is that right?

Um, I would say that it depends. I think I think like the example I gave you, the Black Sands Inn.

Yeah.

You know, that's a great example for someone that's, you know, done a couple Airbnbs, go sell one or two of them and 1031 exchange into something like that. You could get that deal for a relatively cheap down payment, you know, and now you own a beachfront hotel with 10 rooms. It's commercial real estate. Um, and, you know, like that asset, like, you know, for some people, $15,000 a month.

Yeah. Exactly.

That's a lot of money.

Exactly.

You know, if you don't have a team, you don't have employees.

Um, some people live a pretty minimalist lifestyle and and that's a lot of money for.

Living in one of them.

Yeah. For real.

Right? Um, but like, you know, for for someone like myself or like Ryan, yourself included, like, shit, I got a I got a freaking massive team. I got payroll. We got vendors. Like everyone gets paid, but you, you know, sometimes and they all get paid first before you do at least. And so, um, yeah, you got to figure out a way to bring in active income. And so it really depends on on how you want to go about it. Like, do you want to be small and boutique or do you want to build a big thing and have massive payroll and all this sort of stuff, you know?

Yeah. I think the the fight that Brian has had.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz we've just done all these these re we just started doing this co-host thing about the last three weeks and people are like liking it or not liking it depending on who you talk to.

Streams on, but um.

When you say co-host thing, what do you mean?

I've just had him as a co-host on every podcast and then sometimes him and I don't even have a guest and we just talk.

I listen to your guys' 2026 or 2025 year-end recap. That was a good episode.

There we go. Leave a comment. You know my name or did you know me as the bald guy? Oh, actually, we knew each. Never mind. Damn it. You've DM'd me a couple times when you were in San Diego and so I I knew who you were and, uh, I was following you so I I knew who you were.

People People referred to him as the bald guy.

Yeah. I just They're like, "The bald guy sucks." They're like, "The bald guy makes sense." There's like no in between.

Yeah. You're you're either really.

You guys You guys had a really good conversation about, um, you know, closers and, you know, having closers that.

And you just told us you're like, I started closing myself.

Oh, yeah.

You see, we're pretty right on this podcast. We're like, sales people suck. He's like, "Dude, buy it all myself."

It's like, yeah, and I've gone I've gone through all the progressions of like using third-party sales and bringing it back in-house. I've gone through all these closers. And I'm like, dude, the amount of time that you spend as the founder, like babysitting the closer, getting on follow-up calls, and it's like, dude, like, you might as well just jump on yourself and host them yourself. It's a lot easier. You know what I mean? And so, I don't know. And you make a lot more money. So, um, I don't know. It's a it's an evolution process, but, um, you know, it's it's it's part of the game of being an entrepreneur and, you know, building something and, you know, you got ups and downs and obviously there's unlocks that come with it.

Yeah. And, uh, when you have those unlocks, it it feels good. And then, you know, there's other seasons where shit gets really heavy. Yeah. And when shit gets heavy, it gets pretty lonely. And, uh, you got to really dig deep and you got to you got to figure things out. And, uh, you know, I the one thing I do know is is happiness stems from growth and progress. And so I was a, uh, 11-year government employee as an air traffic controller before I got into business and real estate. I didn't know anything about business or real estate until I was 33. And, uh, the one thing I've learned is is happiness stems from growth and progress. And so the more we grow, the more we progress, the happier we are. Uh, regardless of all the ups and downs.

Got it.

Yeah.

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Yeah. I just think the big thing that Brian and I both want people to know is like this idea that people were sold for the last 20 years, Bigger Pockets and all this stuff of like, you know, just buy a few rentals and you like you're good. Just you'll retire in five years. It's like no, you're not. Like it's just it you you will retire off rentals over a long period of time, but it's just the cash flow is the hardest part today. The appreciation is is where the money's at.

But, um, the rate environment will will help that.

Yeah.

Um, but yeah, I feel you. It's not it's not what it, uh, you know, I got in the game listening to Bigger Pockets episodes and they're just like, "Hey, go buy a couple rentals. So, you're going to retire $10K a month and passive income. Go post up on the beach and everything's going to be gravy." Um, but honestly, like I think that false hope is what gets you in the game, you know, it got me in the game. And, uh, you know, the truth is obviously a lot of ups and downs. Had I known it would be this hard as an entrepreneur, I probably would have never left air traffic. I would have never quit, you know, um, and got into this to begin with. So, it's like that false hope is actually like kind of a good thing because it get it gets you in the game, you know?

I I have said that before, too, where I'm like, I would rather not know all the problems and just like go into it like, bro, this is going to be so easy. And then you're like, this is not easy. But now I'm too far along. Like, I'm too heavily invested. I got to just see it through.

Alex Hermosi calls that uninformed optimism. I think there's a level that's good. Informed pessimism is like once you like, oh, this is really hard. And then pessimist. Bro. I learned that in sports. I remember my freshman year of high school. I went to the first day of baseball and I didn't know that the day one of practice they're just trying to get rid of the weaklings, bro. So, we're on the football field. I'm like, first off, why are we on the football field? Like, I thought I I signed up for baseball. What What are we doing at? And I showed up. I thought it was a meeting and I'm in jeans, Jordans. Um, I had the rubber bands on my pants. Nice. You know, I was that guy. And then I had a big jersey and I was like 14 years old. Like, bro, I'm about to be the guy out here. I'm like, what, but what are we doing on the football field and it's hot, you know, this is Vegas in September. He's like, all right, everyone on the line. I'm like, okay, I'll take off my back. Like, what are we doing, bro? We start running 100 yards just back and forth non-stop. Dude, this is going on for like. At first I'm like, "Okay, this maybe will last like 10, 15 minutes." Bro, it went like an hour and people just kept dropping off like every 10 minutes. By 10 minutes. Dude, had I known like walking out there that that was about to be what I was going to walk into, I'd be like, screw this, dude. This is not what I signed up for. But I was already in it. I'm like, "Bro, I'm 30. I don't know when this is going to end, but."

Yeah.

How much did you guys make playing baseball?

No money.

Uh, I mean, I was making $1,200 bucks a month playing baseball.

That's crazy.

I made $6,000 a year.

And And I did that for eight years. So I made, uh, 8 times 6, I I made $48,000.

Playing eight years.

Wow.

I made $48,000 yesterday. Which is crazy because I I feel like a lot of these kids that are on the come up in baseball, you know, um, to to have the right training facilities, to have the right mentorship, um, that stuff costs a lot of a lot of money.

Oh, yeah. My parents invested so much money into me.

You know what I think is a hot take? Rentals are the thing of the past, but college is the thing of the future.

Now you're a fool.

No.

Why do you say this?

Bro, these college athletes are getting paid crazy paid. It's not college is the thing of the future. It's still sports is just going to get you paid. But I'm saying like now there's a real reason for people to send their kids to college. Like back in the day it's like you're going to get free college. Now some of these contract.

But the college athletes that are getting paid is is like the top 2%.

But still, before they were making nothing.

Yeah. But they were going to get become a pro. It was just a stepping stone. And think about like like these people that are coming from lower income neighborhoods and stuff like that and they're good at sports. Now they're going to have the mindset of like, dude, I can go to college and make a lot of money where before they're like, I'm going to go to college and like get a degree. This.

Yeah. Well, no. I mean, these these I really don't think it changed anything.

I don't know. I disagree.

You weren't an athlete, but I'll tell you as like athlete, a guy with authority, like these guys were first off, before NIL, already getting paid. Okay. Number one, they're getting paid under the table.

Were they?

Oh, yeah.

Damn.

Bro, who did we have on here recently? Um, the. Oh, I'm not gonna say. No, I'm not gonna say, but we had a guy. We have a guy in M19. Yeah. Who was on a national championship team. Uh-huh. I won't say which because.

Yeah.

I I don't want I'm getting. But I was like, Alabama.

There's not many. And he I was like, "Bro, cuz back then we were talking about NIL cuz we're like, you know, similar age." And I go, "Yeah, how was it back then before NIL? Were people like getting paid the way they are?" Yeah. And he goes, "Oh, yeah." Like it was always happening. These dudes with these making money with the NIL. It's kind of crazy like these these U head coaches of these big programs have become like capital raisers. So I just I just had the head coach of, um, San Diego State men's basketball squad, Brian Dutcher, on my podcast. And he's like, "Bro, all I do with my time now is raise capital." That's all he does. The more funds the more they can raise, the the better the players they can recruit. It's it's it's the same thing.

So back to the real estate stuff. Um, you know, I I've talked a lot about my my different difficulties, uh, with the market over the years just, uh, you know, I lost millions, uh, on my house flips and things and, you know, praise God that I was able to get through it and pay back investors and other stuff. Um, but, you know, like I mean, I still have a couple bad deals right now and it sucks and it is what it is. Um, like I I've just I just, it was a million lessons all condensed into just a very short period of time. Yeah. Um, and we talked about it on the podcast. You referenced for some things and different stuff, but like what have been some of the biggest lessons that you've had to learn the hard way?

Yeah, out of curiosity, when you you mentioned a couple of those those deals that went bad, what was the biggest mistake looking back?

I think there was two main mistakes. Mistake number one was that, um, at least in terms of the house flips, I just had too much, uh, too much risk exposure. So, I was flipping 50 houses, you know, at a time when the the market changed. And unlike, you know, maybe a long-term investment where you can wait it out, you cannot wait out a flip. You actually lose money the longer you wait. There is no waiting it out. And and these flips that we have in Vegas, they do not cash flow. So, you can't even refinance and keep it. Like, you'll be negative a thousand. If you're, uh, your, uh, DCR, it needs to be, you know, 1.5 or whatever.

Bro, this these are like 0.5. So, it's you can't even there is no second option other than to sell it and take it out.

Is the, um, the co-living thing an option for some of these these flips that that can't sell?

But they still wouldn't refi.

Because they're not going to give you that income.

Income. I see what you're saying. So, it's not even.

To renovate it.

And yeah, I'm going to renovate it to have 20 rooms and, you know, whatever.

Yeah. And furnishing costs and all that, which doesn't make any sense. So anyways, my biggest mistake number one was that I just kept exposing myself to that.

Much risk, even though I didn't have to. Like it was one thing when that was my only source of income, and it's like this is the only way I make money. Therefore, it is what it is. I got to just keep taking risk.

But at that point, I had all these other businesses that were making money, and in many cases, more money.

Mhm.

And yet I'm still over here with this massive risk.

Yeah.

That I'm holding for no reason, just because I'd always done it. And and that's what always was what I did. So, I just didn't properly adjust to my new situation.

Um, I would say the second thing was, uh, the big other mistake I learned was, I mean, yeah, going into the capital raising side on the fund. Um, we started a fund, and so we bought maybe like five deals, and four out of five have been great. One's been a big old nightmare.

What asset class is this?

Multifamily.

Okay.

And literally bought every single one of them at the wrong time. Um, so praise God that four or five are actually good because, you know, first one we bought was the end of '21, the rest were in '22, and that's when everything changed.

Um, you bought them on on floating debt.

Um, everyone was different, but some, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

But, uh, we already exited one and actually got double-digit returns, and so that was great.

But you have a co-GP on those that are operating the deal. Who, who do you work with?

Um, I got multiple guys, um, on every deal is different. Like, basically, the GP would bring me the deal, we would raise, and that's how we do it.

Got it.

But long story short, um, what I realized going through that situation was that, uh, I'm just like, dude, you know, as the GP, you don't even make that much money because if, if we're running in a typical fund, 80/20 or 70/30 or whatever, you know, you're making 20% or 30%. Um, but, you know, you're in charge of managing everything. And, you know, then if you have a co-GP, you're splitting that. And I just kind of looked at it all and I'm like, dude, I can just make more money elsewhere, you know? Like, why am I having to raise all this money and then manage all these units and like all this stuff? And it's just like, and I'm not to say funds are bad. Like, you run a fund. Lots of successful people run funds. Actually, the, you know, the richest, biggest companies in the world run funds, Blackstone and all this stuff.

But I just kind of realized it wasn't what I want to do long term.

Um,

So.

I'm a control freak, so I, I could never like partner like that and then raise capital and then just like put it in someone else's hands. That's that's me personally.

But, um, you know, I, I agree with you as a, as a, as a syndicator or a GP, like you're getting paid last. You get a little acquisition fee. Um, we don't even that eats up just your overhead for the years of managing no money. We don't take an asset management fee.

Um, our investors get paid first. We have a preferred return. Yep. And so we don't make our money till we exit. And for us, it's a 10-year hold period. And so that's why I'm like, you know what, what supports all my payroll is my active income.

Exactly.

It's not, it's not the hotels.

Yep.

Yeah.

And that's the point I'm, I'm making to people. It's like, I'm not a hater. I've just literally done everything.

Exactly.

Like, I know what it is. So, Brandon Turner on my podcast real quick, and he, at the time, he owned a lot of real estate.

A billion.

Yeah, it was like a lot. And I was like, "Dude, how much do you make from your rentals?" He's like, "Oh, nothing." I was like, "You own a billion or a thousand units and you don't make nothing?"

A lot of those multifamily guys have been pretty quiet lately. They were talking big game back in 2021.

Yeah.

Um, but a lot of those guys, like, you know, I, I host an ongoing real estate meetup in San Diego.

Yeah. And a lot of those, uh, multifamily guys, they don't come to our meetups anymore.

Yeah, Brandon's still doing good, but like, yeah, there is a lot of guys that I've talked to and know that just completely went under.

Well, and that's the thing, too. It's like, you know, the market dramatically shifted, and most, most, I don't know, most, so this would be an exaggeration, but I mean, if you bought in '21, '22, you're probably underwater. It's just,

Yeah.

what it is.

We, we, uh, we bought two larger deals in '21 out in Greensboro, North Carolina. The Arbor's Townhomes, 150 units, and then Timber Creek Apartments, also in Greensboro, 145, um, unit garden-style community, co-sponsors with, with, uh, my mentors. But those two deals, uh, Freddy Floaters, interest rate environment doubled, our debt service with the, uh, lender-required reserve essentially tripled our debt service. And so, you know, 18 months into those deals, we had to refi into, you know, five, five and a half fixed. Um, but the good news is we didn't have to put cash in. One of them we were able to do a little cash out. We bought them well. We still own those today. But, you know, um, obviously our time horizon and our expectations have, you know, had to be tapered because of those deals, and it's part of the learning curve as well.

But what do you think is the biggest thing you learned over this span, the last bunch of years doing this?

Um, couple things. So, uh, in particular, the hotel game. Uh, for me, I think as the progression, uh, has like kind of shifted as a real estate investor, I, I want to buy in like sexy locations because, as you mentioned at the top of the show, um, a lot of the money in real estate is, is when you sell, it's the appreciation. It's not the cash flow. And early when I got in the game, I was buying like C-class apartment buildings in like the Midwest, Cincinnati, Indianapolis.

Oh, yeah.

And, uh, you know, it's like a little cash flow, you know, workforce housing type of tenants, a lot of problems.

Um, but now I'm like, dude, like the money's not in the cash flow. So I'm like, I want to buy in like sexy locations on the beach. Um, and I want sexy assets that like we want to hold long term. And and that's that's kind of how my progression has shifted. Um, now I think the biggest risk to hotel investing is, uh, is when you're when you're buying these hotels, you're shutting down the properties to do these big renos. It's not like a multifamily deal where you're renovating, you know, four or six units a month and you still have, you know, decent occupancy. A lot of these hotels, you're shutting down the entire property for three months, four months, six months.

Nobody wants to stay at a renovated thing going on in a luxury hotel.

And so there's no income coming in. And so you still have your fixed monthly expenses, insurance, property taxes, your debt service. Um, and then, um, you know, contractors can disappear, you can go over timeline, the city can stop you. There's a lot of things that can go wrong. And and that, that's the biggest risk going into these projects. Luckily, we've, we haven't had any, uh, major issues with renovations.

Um, and then, uh, I think the biggest mistake I've made, um, in the boutique hotel game is, is really a shift in, in kind of how we're buying. You know, looking at the deals we have now, we can kind of see now which ones are the better performing ones and which ones are a little bit more, like we got to push and pull on them a lot harder to get them to perform. And the best performing deals that we have right now are the ones that are in good locations but supply-constrained areas, meaning there's only so many other hotels in the market. And so, you know, for example, Bodega Bay,

we have a 44-room hotel up there called Hotel DGA. And we went in there, did a nice job with the renovation. We're one of five hotels in the market. The other four hotels are all mom and pop. They're all very like tired. And so we can do a nice job with the renovation, implement the tech, implement the AI, and, uh, and really command a nice lift in terms of ADR.

On the flip side, um, hotels in Del, which is probably our most congested hotel, great neighborhood. Uh, it's in the Little Italy neighborhood here in San Diego, which is where I live. Um, been there 8 years now. Our office is also co-located there in our podcast studio. Great location, right? But there's thousands of other hotels in San Diego. And so, um, when you're a boutique hotel on a Monday, Tuesday night, um, without a bunch of, you know, amenities, and you have these waterfront, uh, hotels downtown like the Marriott, the Hyatt, um, with all the amenities, and they're charging $129 a night, how do you, how do you compete with that, right? In terms of creating these big lifts for your renovation and like these big ADR lifts in areas that are well-located but very supply-constrained. And so moving forward, that's solely what we're targeting. So I want to get into Catalina Island, for example. Love to get in that market. Um, other supply-constrained areas along the California coast. I'd love to do another deal in Bodega. Um, but that's probably my number one, um, learning lesson that I've learned thus far.

How many units do you have? Um, how many rooms across the different hotels?

I don't know off the top. So, uh, I can tell you the Lodge is 40, DGA's 44, um, Black Sands is 10, Zindel's 24, we have the Surf Break in San, which is 18, and then we got, uh, Hotel Era down in Tulum, which is 10.

Dang.

Oh, you got one in Tulum.

Yeah. And that, that came through a personal relationship.

But, um, you know, for the remaining four that we'll put into this fund, it will be California, coastal, and our, our core markets. We made the exception twice to go outside of it. One was the Lodge up in Lake Shastina, Washington, that came through, uh, our bridge lender. They repossessed this deal back in November of '23, and they came to me in November '23. They said, "Hey Rich, we just took this asset back from the developer. It was a 2021-built deal." And they said, "We got to get off our books by the end of the year. We think you guys will be the perfect buyer. We can sell it to you at a discount." Um, and so we moved quick. We closed December of '23, uh, 4.87, 87 after the seller credits, 40 rooms, essentially new construction, about $120 a door, um, below replacement cost, and then, uh, to give you an idea, when it was developed in '21, it last appraised for 7.5. Um, and so good deal on the buy side, but, you know, our core markets are California, so I really want to stick to that.

Yeah. You know what I like about the boutique hotel space versus Airbnb? Like you guys have different rules than Airbnb.

Mhm. You know, like, I don't think you can be, can you really be shut down from operating a hotel?

You can't. So, you know, in a market where there's already licensed for it, Airbnb rags are gone, um, or they, they get taken away for whatever reason, like you have commercial hotel zoning, zoned for nightly rentals. And that's another thing I see a lot of guys online, they're like, "Hey, like I want to, I want to buy this multifamily deal as an apartment building and I want to convert it into Airbnb. Like, what do you think?" I'm like, for one, you know, if the regulations ever change in the city, like that's going to suck. Number two, no commercial appraiser is ever going to give you the value for the nightly rentals because it's, it's a multifamily property. It's zoned residential. But number three, you know, there's not really a feel-good component that comes out of buying a, a multifamily deal and then kicking out all these families to do the short-term. Like, there's no way that you're going to feel good about yourself doing that, you know?

Yeah. So what are the ways that, I mean, obviously, you know, when you mentioned your biggest lessons, you're like, hey, you know, know the competition. You know, if Marriott's over there for $100 a night and they kill it, they got all, everything anyone could ever want, you're just not going to beat them.

Um, two would be, and I, I guess one and two are very similar in that, hey, don't have, like, like just don't have competition. Try and buy where there's very little competition. I mean, to me, that makes sense. Uh, when I bought in Big Bear back in 2017, uh, I started buying Airbnb. It was like a new thing. Nobody was doing it yet. Um, and literally, I just remember looking on Airbnb. I'm like, "These all suck." Like, it's really not hard to stand out. Um, and mine killed it for like five years straight. And then when more came on the market, mine had aged, you know, and I had renovated them, and they'd been stayed in literally like a thousand-plus nights. My occupancy was like, literally 95%. It was insane. And, um, shout out to my property manager, by the way. She's great. But, uh, yeah, I mean, you think about that, like there was probably over a thousand stays at each one, and so they have been worn, dude.

Um, and so I noticed it kept getting harder and harder to rent them and our rate, and, you know, more competition came on board. I'm like, am I really going to go do another full rehab on this five years later because they've just been beat to crap? Um, cuz especially too, it's like, your climate matters as well. Like, in, in Big Bear, it's literally like snowing and all this stuff, and people are coming in with their snowboard stuff and, just is what it is.

So did you, you still, uh, you still have them today or do you sell them?

Um, I still own a couple, but majority of them. And look, this is why I say like, for me, anyways, rentals were were great in that front. Like, they all doubled, some even tripled. I sold them, made a killing. Um, no regrets. They were awesome. And it was also a different time. I also cash-flowed like crazy during that time. I mean, I bought a property, my very first Airbnb, it's 2017. Bought it for $200,000. Two-bedroom, one-bath cabin. Um, put like 30 into it. So, I'm all in at 230. My mortgage was like $1,400 a month. It rented for $4,000.

Self-managed. Was very easy.

Um, so it was killing it. Then the next one I bought, same deal. I bought it for like 230, put like 50 in it, so I was in it for 280, and that one rented for like $7,000.

Mhm.

And it was just like absurd numbers. Um, but, you know, some of it is the, uh, just the economy. Like, like tourism numbers are down right now versus where they were in 20, 2021 was the peak.

Um, the Fed had just, you know, printed a ton of money. People were going, getting out, a lot of traveling. So everyone was making money back then. Um, and, uh, and right now it's, you know, the numbers are down, but also, you know, look at the economy as a whole. It, it's not supposed to be easy right now for a lot of business owners. Um, you know, you think about, um, you know, how the everyday American recoups on on liquidity. It's by refinancing their primary house. And so I don't care if you're a doctor, an attorney making $400, $500k a year. You probably still have kids in in a private school. You probably have an expensive mortgage. You probably have a couple car payments. And even those folks need to re-up on liquidity, and no one's been able to refinance their their home for, you know, four years now. And so, um, you know, I think liquidity is at an all-time low. Um, you know, credit card delinquency and credit card debt is at an all-time high. And so, you know, people, the first thing they cut out is is going to be travel. It's going to be the luxurious things, the nice things. Now, on the high end of of travel, um, I just had the, the director of, uh, hospitality for CoStar Analytics on one of my community calls, and I was interviewing him, and I was asking him like, "Hey, like, what sectors within the hospitality are least affected right now?" And he said the luxury is least affected because these folks that have a lot of money, they're still going to go travel. They're still going to spend, uh, money on the nice things. Um, but the middle of the bell curve for all hotels is kind of that, you know, mid-ass, kind of like two-star, three-star type of product. And that's where the most competition is. If you go on the high-end stuff, you know, the Hotel Del and Coronado, uh, you see these, like, landscape hotels, these like really cool, well-designed, like vibe hotels. There's not a lot of competition, uh, for those items. And so those ones are still doing pretty good right now.

Got it. So, what are other ways that you could really make a boutique hotel stand out? Because I mean, if you're on the low end, really, you're just trying to do self-check-in, you're probably not adding too many amenities because it's just, uh, hard to get economies of scale, I would imagine.

Yeah. And if you're going to have a self-check-in, self-checkout model, it's hard to do the amenities if you don't have someone on site, um, to really, you know, obviously service those amenities and that sort of thing. Couple things we're doing to stand out and, uh, really separate ourselves from the competition right now in the hotel game. So, number one, we use an AI revenue management platform that does anywhere from 100 to 200 AI pricing adjustments throughout a 24-hour period, similar to how the airlines do it based on supply and demand.

Yeah, revenue management is huge in the hotel game. A lot of these mom and pops you're going to buy from have static pricing. So, they're going to have a weekday price and a weekend price, and they might have a slow season and a and a busy season, and they just set it and forget it.

That's the first thing I look at. Um, and I know if, if they got static pricing, that's that's an easy lift for us. Um, the other thing that we're doing to stand out right now is in 2025, I went all in on AI. I implemented an AI concierge in every single one of our hotels. Um, each of these AI concierges will have a different name and personality based on the market that the hotel is located in. They will text the guest in blue iPhone message using emojis, stagger response times, even intentional spelling errors, so it feels like a human component. They will text the guest with check-in instructions, uh, helping them with check-in instructions. They'll, uh, restaurant recommendations, things to eat at the restaurants, uh, daytime activities like hiking trails, but even driving five-star reviews on Google, bringing additional revenue in the form of early check-in fees, pet fees, and even additional, uh, room nights. Um, but the cool thing is this, the guests are pinging the hotel clients here text via text if they need, you know, the room's clean, they need towels, they have issues, whatever. And then our AI is plugged in real-time with our CRM. So at the end of every single month, we collect all that data real-time at all the hotels and we can say, "Okay, these are the biggest constraints for the month. Let's go solve these biggest constraints in terms of operations to improve the quality of service." And so that's been a big lift for us. And dude, we're spending $1,200 a month per AI concierge.

Oh, wow.

I mean, it's a huge lift.

What is it called? Or did you make it yourself?

So we have a, uh, we have a, uh, actually one of our investors, he's, uh, shout out to, uh, Efim. So, he's got this, uh, AI, uh, bot company, and it's called AI Integrators.

Oh, okay.

Um, and, uh, they implemented all that stuff for us. You can go to AIintegrators.com/richummers if you want to check out, um, check them out. But if you're in any business right now, um, you can implement an AI, uh, bot into our business, which is pretty cool.

That is really cool. Especially the blue text message. That's big.

Yeah, it's big. It's big.

Yeah.

I would say if you're a real estate investor right now, business owner, you're not using tech, you're not using AI, uh, you're not using social media, like, dude, it's going to be hard to compete with with those of us that are.

Yeah. What do you think about that? Right? Cuz, um, I remember the first time we ever met was, uh, personal brand stuff and everything we were doing.

And, you know, your brand's grown a lot over the last bunch of years doing podcasts and everything else. Like, what do you think is is going to happen with brands and social media?

Um, what do you mean specifically? I mean, obviously, um, it's a good thing for any business, right? If you want to go raise capital or start hotels or whatever, like it's a good thing. Um, and all three of us here have personal brands that have helped us build our businesses, but, um, I guess, is it too late? Is it, um, harder, easier? What are your thoughts on it?

So a couple things here. I think AI is is really shifting the game here. And so I think, um, the way to really stand out in 2026, 20, 2027 and beyond with people having AI clones now. You see a lot of people on social media writing AI scripts. Um, uh, the way to stand out is to do long-form content like this, um, live events. Long-form content is is really going to be the way to stand out, be authentic.

The other thing is this. All these platforms right now, if you look at TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Threads, YouTube, uh, and then the long-form, which is going to be Apple Podcasts, Spotify, primarily. If you look at all those audiences, and you're a business owner right now or a real estate investor listening to this show, out of all those audiences, hands down, the most intelligent audience, the most sophisticated audience, the highest net worth audience, the ones that are going to become your best clients, the action takers are going to come from the long-form YouTube videos, Apple Podcasts, Spotify.

They're not sitting there scrolling 30-second TikTok videos.

Yeah.

Um, I don't have investors that can stroke a $250,000 check scrolling TikTok. I don't care if I grow on TikTok right now.

The one thing I will say is this. The way the algorithms are shifting is very important. So what worked two, three, four years ago to grow on social media no longer works today. Um, all the platforms, they want to keep people scrolling. And so they know the way to keep people scrolling is to show them good content. And so regardless of how many followers you have, if you don't put out good content that people want to share and see, they're not, they're not going to give you views. And so the old game used to be volume. The new game is not volume, it's quality, and it's split-testing everything. And so we have this entire funnel. Um, Dan Martell uses the same thing. Um, I'm good friends with Sam Gotet, his creative director. And I'm working with the creative director for the first time this year, Brian Cochran. And so the way we run everything is completely different. And so we'll run a podcast like this. Um, and right after the podcast is over, my my media team will chop up all these clips and they'll test it at scale on TikTok and test it at scale on Instagram trial reels. I don't care if I grow on TikTok. The truth is, I don't have investors on TikTok. Um, Dan Martell doesn't care if he grows on TikTok either. However, TikTok makes a great testing platform because it shows your your content to like 90-something percent non-followers. And so if the non-followers engage, then you know it's a good clip.

If the non-followers don't engage, we'll kill it.

And so you'll see a lot of clips on my TikTok and my Instagram trials that never make it over to the other platforms, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube Shorts, etc. And so we use TikTok as a testing platform. It's a very sensitive algorithm.

Mhm.

But I'll give you an example. So like we could have a clip from this podcast right now, right? And you could take the the same exact video and the same exact video and just have a different three-second hook on the beginning of it. Rip both of those on TikTok, come back 48 hours later, one will get 150,000 views, one will get a thousand views. The thousand-view video, we table it, it's not the winner. The 150k, we enhance it and then put it on all the different platforms. And by doing this, we're putting out consistent content that's been proven out. We're not shooting from the hip. We already know people are going to engage with it. And that is the secret sauce. That is what wins today in the content arena. And that's how you grow. That's how Dan Martell is growing. I mean, the dude came on my podcast two years ago.

Mhm.

He had 170k on Instagram. This is Dan Martell two years ago. Today he's got north of 2 million on every single platform and channel, and I think he's crossed like 10 million total all in two years. And this is like the number one thing that he does. We're running this playbook right now, and we're growing really quick.

That's that was great insight, dude. That was one of the best insights we've had on here so far.

Yeah.

There we go.

But besides my rental thing.

Yeah. But yeah, that's that's a little bit of game on on on that right now. Um, what about, what about audio? What about growing your audio listeners? Because I think you have a big audio audience, right?

Yeah. Um, you know, one thing that we're actually going to start doing, um, is Spotify actually syndicates like podcasts now. So we're going to start, uh, basically uploading all of our podcast episodes directly to Spotify, and then from Spotify, they'll upload to other platforms. But they're rewarding, uh, podcasts for doing that and like really promoting like new listeners and like putting our stuff into new, new stuff. So we're going to start, or we still use Buzzsprout.

We do too. We do too. So we're going to switch it up a little bit and, uh, see what that looks like. But, um, yeah, I, I really think podcasting is is really the way of the future, man. So, um, I'm excited for it. But do you think in 2026, someone should still start a podcast?

100%.

Really?

Oh, dude. If you're a business owner, a real estate investor listening to this right now, and you don't have a podcast, like, I, I think it's, it's undervalued attention. Brian, I'll put it to you like this, bro. So, in 2019, because people come up to me all the time, they're like, "Yo, Rich, like, I'm late to the podcast game. Must be nice. I missed that boat." I'm like, "No, no, no, no. The podcast game is just getting warmed up." So, in 2019, we had 274 million podcast listeners worldwide. We just ended 2024 with 504 million listeners worldwide. So, the number of podcast listeners worldwide is doubling every single five years like clockwork. It's undervalued attention. I think the extreme example of this is is look at Joe Rogan. The dude's done three episodes a week for 18 years.

Damn.

He might be the most powerful dude in the world right now. Has the ability to pick up the phone and call presidents, ex-presidents, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, any celebrity, professional athlete, movie star, or musician, and they'll all drop what they're doing to go hang out with Joe. It's not because of his UFC stuff. It's not because of his stand-up comedian stuff. It is because of his podcast. And so I think it's a, it's a platform that's undervalued right now, and I think everything's really just going that direction. It's hard to build trust with a 30-second TikTok, 45-second Instagram reel, but if you can get people to go listen to your podcast, it's a huge bonus. Also, you know this, like the biggest hack of the podcast is not just leads for your business. It's not just the ability to hire and retain better quality people. It is access to other individuals that you otherwise wouldn't have access to. It puts you in the right rooms. I can't count my podcast either in the conversation or the recording where I'm like, "Damn, that was so good. I'm going to implement that into my business and my personal life today."

And you never know what kind of doors or opportunities those relationships will lead to. You know this, uh, just as well as I do. Um, but here's the other thing, bro. A lot of my podcast guests have become clients of mine, investors of mine.

I've had people come on the podcast and before we even start recording, they're like, "Hey, I'm going to invest $100 grand with you." So, like, there's so many benefits of having a podcast, even if you don't have a ton of downloads or listeners, like it's still freaking like, it's such a huge ROI. I think it's the biggest ROI lever you could pull as a business owner today if you are not making the kind of money that you want to be making. And it's the best leads. People that listen to your podcast, like those are leads that are like, they're ready to rock. They're warmed up, dude.

Yeah. You know, I always tell people like, um, you know, the thing that makes people buy is trust. And the only thing that trust can be built on is over time. Like, you don't just trust somebody after hearing them for 30 seconds. Right? You don't even trust somebody after hearing them for 30 minutes. But, you know, they call it like the seven-hour rule. You know, if somebody spends seven hours with you, they'll do business with you. And so it's like, all right, how do we get as many people at seven hours as possible? Well, podcast.

Yeah. Long form. Yeah. Um, so I've been kind of like, uh, running that mantra for a while. And like, even, uh, I was looking at our stats the other day, and the, the grand scheme of doing this just on YouTube. I mean, I don't know what it, what it is when you count audio too, but it was like almost 5 million hours over the life. So you're like, okay, people have watched what I've had to say for five million hours, just on YouTube. And you're like, "All right, clearly like people don't listen just to listen. Like, they've gotten something out of it to keep listening."

So, um, yeah. And, you know, M19 even taught me that, you know, we were talking about my golf mastermind, and I was like, you know, when I launched it five months ago, uh, I launched it and just had this crazy instant success. And many of those people were like, "Bro, I've been listening to you for years. There was just never anything that you sold that I wanted. You know, they're not real estate investors or, uh, interested in whatever else I was doing, but the moment there was something they had interest in, they're like, "Bro, I'm in."

That's a great insight.

Yeah. Probably for you, too. There's probably more products and stuff that you can come up with that your current listeners just don't have.

Yeah. Honestly, like, um, like silver to the M19 thing, and by the way, congrats on that. I think I think that's awesome what you're doing. Um, is is we rolled out this, uh, this yacht workshop. And I was thinking like last year, I'm like, how can I leverage the boat to like, um, help more people and like, you know, build a bigger thing? And so I was like, you know what? Let's do, let's do some yacht workshops. And so the last Friday of every month, um, we're doing a yacht workshop on personal branding, uh, that's really tailored towards business owners, real estate investors that are looking to scale their personal brand via podcasting, social media, ideations, formats, all that good stuff. Um, and so that's been a really good kind of lead magnet. And so, you know, I, I encourage all listeners that are listening this right now. It's like, hey, like think creatively. Like, what is a really unique lead magnet that's contrarian to the marketplace that no one else is doing?

Yeah.

And, and, and go test that and see if there's demand for it. And you don't have to go all in. I'm a big fan of just testing stuff. Go on social media and see if there's demand for it. If there is, lean into it. If not, then like, table it.

You know, you don't need to spend a lot of money or a lot of money and time, like, you know, coming up with the perfect plan. Just go test it.

Yeah. It's funny because, uh, I tested the golf thing for years before I ever made it an official business, and it was always successful. It just, every time I would do it, people would buy it, and it was great. And then, um, after the success of it, I started thinking, cuz people are like, "What if I don't like golf? Like, how do I take this same idea?" And I was like, "You could literally do it with any kind of like hobby or passion, right? Yachts, cars, watches, hunting, guns,

Pokemon cards.

Pokemon cards. Literally, you could do it. Anything. But now granted, rich people, if you want to attract higher-level people, like certain things, right? And so clearly golf is one of those. Yachts would be one of those. Cars would be one of those. Um, if you enjoy, um, you know, cycling or something or hiking, like, yeah, a lot of people enjoy that. So you don't really kind of know who you're going to get on that front. But, uh, yeah, there's just different things that rich people like.

Yeah. Uh, out of curiosity, with the podcast right now, I noticed you guys are doing a lot of clips. Not clips, but a lot of shorter, like 10, 12-minute segments of other longer conversations.

Yeah. Yeah.

Uh, how many are you guys putting out a week right now?

So I told the team last year was our worst year on social media, and I kind of just looked at the numbers, and it was directly correlated to the amount of times we posted.

So we posted half the amount of times, like, on YouTube, um, than we did the previous years when we got the most watch hours. So I said, "Just freaking post twice as much."

Yeah.

Um, and do the clips and everything else. And now I can already see it starting to rebound back the way it was.

Um, so, yeah, I mean, my goal is I want to post 200 times this year on YouTube.

On YouTube.

And these are long-form videos.

Well, I mean, one,

Yeah, this is definitely one. Um, call it a one of those clips would be one too, that are 10 to 15 minutes, but not shorts.

Yeah. Yeah. Not shorts, long videos.

So that means we got to do four a week. As long as we hit four a week, that's 200 posts, and we should hit the numbers we want.

And what's your strategy this year with short form, like on Instagram specifically?

Um, we do about three, maybe four, uh, a day.

Okay. And, you know, what's interesting now is like, because I kind of am known for different things at this point. Like we have, I'm like, "Okay, one golf video a day." Yeah. One real estate video, one Christian video, one business video.

Just keep it centered.

Yeah. Because like, sometimes they'll just put out like 10 Christian videos in a row. And I'm like, if somebody came to my page, they'd be like, "Is this guy like a a pastor or like, what does he deal?" Right. Yeah. And if you do 10 golf videos in a row, they're like, "Wait, does this guy do business or like, is he just a golfer?"

Um, so it's like, they have to be intentional about, you know, spreading out like who I am because I am all those things. I golf every day. We run the nonprofit. I like buying real estate. I run businesses. Like, they're all part of me.

Um, but they all don't define the only thing I do.

Yeah. That's something that I've kind of had to like hone in on is is like, I want to build an audience of people that have money. Real estate investors, business owners, people that are into growth mindset. And so it's like, how do you do that? Well, it's like, you got to talk about money. You got to talk about business. And I think it's good to have some other things. Like I love boating, so I talk a little bit about that. But, um, that attracts rich people. Rich people like boating, too.

Um, fitness mindset. I think that's that's big as well. But, um, I heard, I heard your guys' podcast, um, the 2025 year-end recap, and I heard you say that you, you only want to bring on like guests on the podcast that can spit some game and,

There you go, Rich.

You're on, baby. And so, um, I'm like, hey, but I'm with you on that, cuz every time I, I bring someone on my pod and I'm like, you know, I'm like, kind of running a little dry 30 minutes in. I'm like, having to carry the conversation a little bit. I'm getting bored. If you're getting bored as the host, the listeners are probably getting bored, too.

Oh, yeah.

Um, and you can tell by like, if you go through like my podcast, like how long they were based on like how juicy the information was. Um, and some people come on and they like surprise you. You're like, damn, I didn't know this guy could spit like that. You know, this guy was, um, but the one thing I noticed with with the guests that come on, and I think this is an important takeaway for your audience, the guests that come on my show that that are actually growing on social media, they actually have real brands and audiences. They have another gear when the lights come on. Like they almost like come out like another, another personality, showman. It's a little bit entertaining. Like, you're [ __ ] entertaining a little bit at the end of the day.

Yeah.

And you have to turn it up a notch. And you either have it or you don't. And I, I think some people, they have it. Some people just don't.

Bro, you funny story. You're talking about Dan Martell.

Yeah.

I've, I've told this story before, but, uh, first time I met Dan.

Mhm.

Okay. Back then. Okay. And you said he had like 170. Back when he first started. Nerdy. Back then.

Well, he had like 80,000.

Okay.

And, uh, lots of guys with 80,000 will reach out, want to be on the show. I'm like, "Who's this guy?" And one person was like, "Hey, you know, you got to meet Dan. He's this cool guy." I'm like, "Uh-huh, whatever." Another person's like, "Hey, you got to meet Dan. He's this cool guy. He's coming to Vegas. He wants to meet you." I'm like, "Yeah, whatever." Finally, my friend Pete reaches out to me. He's like, "Ryan, this is Dan. You need to meet him. You're going to love it. He's coming to Vegas. Just do it." I'm like, "Fine." Like, I've, I've heard enough. And I, like, I said, I didn't know anything about him. He wasn't putting out like all this content. Like, literally, I know nothing about him.

Um,

So then he comes, and, uh, we do the show, and, and what made me remind is what you just said of like, sometimes these people surprise you. Once again, I know nothing about him at this time. And then like, I was like, "Bro, you are like the smartest guy I've ever talked to." And, um, I was like, "Bro." And so we got done with the episode. I was like, "Bro, I am so sorry that I just kept ignoring you, bro. Like, I wasn't big-dogging you or anything. Clearly, like, I shouldn't be big-dogging him. And I was just like, I just get hit up so much all the time. And like, if I never heard of you, I really just say no."

Yeah.

Like, I literally people I watch, like, I usually reach out to people I want to have on, or if someone big reaches out that I've watched, I'm like, "Oh, yeah. Let's roll." So I just didn't know who he was. So, anyways, afterwards, uh, there was this event happening at Topgolf, and I was like, "You want to just go?" He's like, "Yeah." And then we hung out, and then I was like, "You want to speak at WealthCon?" He's like, "Yeah, let's do it." And then like, we've just been buddies ever since. So we've done a lot of things since. But it's always a funny thing because, uh, at that time too, he was like, "I really want to see how you're running things because I'm trying to build my brand." And so, um, yeah, he came on, and I mean, dude, he's like you said, he's crushed it. But, uh, I think right after he hired Sam and these other guys, and he's like, "Okay, I need a team." I was like, "Bro, you're trying to do this like you don't, you ain't going to grow if like you're just not really taking it serious."

How big is your team? That's a good question.

So, I have a, I have one, uh, videographer who's on retainer. He's not on payroll, but he just comes in to shoot. And then I have a, I have two full-time editors, and all they do is is clip, like shorts, and test them.

What I found, uh, and I'm sure you guys have found this too, is like, there's two types of people that are on the media. They either like to shoot or they like to edit. It's typically not both. Um, and so, so we hire people that love to edit and they don't really, they don't really care to shoot. And so that's all they do full-time is like 40 hours a week in the office is just literally test clips, um, on TikTok and Instagram trial reels. And, um, and I'll bonus them out based on number of views. So at the end of every month, um, any video that gets a million views, I'll bonus them a thousand bucks. Any video that gets half a million views, I'll bonus them 500. 250,000 views, 250. Um, and so now when we get out an episode like this, they're like fighting over who gets to chop up the best content, and they're also spending like an extra, you know, 15, 20 minutes on the best book. They're Americans, and they, they work full-time, uh, in my office. They're like, one of them has a college degree. Um, they're like, very sophisticated and and very intelligent. Um, but yeah, they're, they're full-time in the office with us.

Got it. Which, I honestly, dude, I don't, I can never do the [ __ ] uh remote like people chopping up clips because I'm in the office, and, you know, whenever there's a good clip, I'm like, "Hey, like, I'll just walk over to the desk. I'm like, "Hey, let's move this. Let's move this."

"there." And then send it to me and I'm going to post it right now.

"Um, it's just a lot easier to kind of like, you know, communicate what what you're looking to do."

"Yeah."

"You know?"

"Yeah."

"What do you What do you guys have here?"

"Uh, you can tell."

"Yeah. I mean, I have like five guys right in there."

"Yeah."

"Um,"

"and Tiffany."

"And Tiffany. Um, you know, I have Justin, my producer, and uh, I actually just started something with him that I never done before, which is similar bonus based on the the metrics that I value, which in our case is watch time. The number one metric I care about is watch time. I don't care about views. I don't care about anything. I just care about watch time. Because once again, if people just spend a lot of time with you, they do business with you. That's all I care about."

"Um, so he's bonused on that. And then um, I got one person who just chops up clips so he has to do three to four a day. Um, then I have another person who just does ads. I have another person who just does golf long form and then the other who does just YouTube long form."

"I love it. I love it."

"So those are the four people and then Justin oversees all of them."

"I love it."

"And Tiffany."

"And then Tiffany's my assistant. She's a jack knife. She does."

"Let's go Tiffany."

"Get her to do roofing credit. She uh Tiffany makes a mean. Tiffany.com."

"She makes a great espresso. She's switching the podcast. She books our M19 trips. She books our nonprofit events. She books, you know, we got our mastermind this week. We got uh"

"She took my cat."

"Got rid of one of my cats and she took"

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"I did not know that."

"Yeah. She's awesome."

"What about I know we got to wrap up soon, but like how is it like dating and then being so successful? How old are you if you don't mind me asking?"

"Uh, it sounds like you're single. Are you single?"

"I'm married."

"Okay. Married guys, don't ask me that."

"Well, we always wonder like because usually it's like hard for men. What I've noticed it's hard for men to find someone once they're successful"

"and they're single."

"Find someone when they're broke."

"I'll say this."

"We didn't have enough time to get into it with Maria."

"Yeah. And why why do you say that though? I think because successful people's standards are just so high and then they"

"Yeah. I think I think standards become so high and then they start worrying that people are dating them for their like riches."

"Yeah. So for one, I have a girlfriend right now. We live together. Um, shout out to my girlfriend Press. She's amazing."

"But I will say that as I've grown cuz I mean I was 11 year air traffic controller. I was working nights, weekends, holidays. I didn't have anything to offer,"

"you know, and so"

"I didn't have anything to offer."

"Exactly. Yeah. and and and so"

"just this tatted up dude."

"And and so and so I you know through this evolution over the last six years I've noticed that like every time I have been single like through those six years like the the quality of woman that I can attract has gone up. It's gone up and up and up and up."

"and so you know that's been cool to see and it's also validation that like hey like you're growing you're progressing um and I do have more to offer right and so that's been kind of cool but um yeah it's it gives you more options. Now also say this on the flip side. I think being single as an entrepreneur, business owner, real estate investor, you're raising capital, you have a lot of people depending on you, team members, a lot of responsibility in this game. And being single with all the distractions is not like the best recipe. Um, it can be a very dangerous thing. And so I've grown the most. Uh being in a relationship that's conducive. Like my girlfriend hasn't drank in 500 days. Um, I'm in a season of sobriety. I do a lot of seasons now of like 75 days, 100 days of sobriety. Um, and she supports me in the business. I'm putting in, you know, 12 to 14 hour days. Um, often working Saturdays and Sundays and she completely supports that right now. Um, and so, you know, being in a relationship where someone supports the overall vision and the overall goal um, and holds you truly accountable to reaching your full potential uh, and turning your dreams into reality is is one of the biggest cheat codes out there."

"Do you think um I mean I don't know your guys' future with marriage or anything like that, but do you think kids and stuff"

"would change that? Are they on the horizon or"

"Yeah, dude. So, uh, we just got our first puppy"

"and close. Nice."

"We just got our first puppy."

"The same thing."

"Uh Golden Doodle. She's 8 weeks. We brought her home on Friday and she's amazing. Um, but to answer your question, I want to have four kids and so"

"Oh, yeah. Let's go."

"I I would like to get engaged this year in 2026. Um"

"Okay, good job, Rich. It's on fire right now."

"I want to have four kids."

"Rich, I I have I have news for you. You get to control it. You just get to buy a ring and do it."

"Yeah. And I I've waited this long. I'm I'm 40 and so I've waited a little bit. Yeah. But but she's 24 and so so I think I think it's"

"Let's go Rich."

"Yeah. She's 24. So she's young enough to kind of like, you know, bring the four."

"She wants like five or six."

"Nice."

"So um that's that's the next chapter, next season for me. So I'm excited for it. And um, you know, I'm I'm 40 now and I think it's it's time for that that next"

"Can I give you some advice?"

"Yeah. Yeah. Let's hear it."

"So Brian has his fifth kid on the way. I've got four. Do you really? Yeah. Five. So we"

"you guys me. How old are you?"

"34."

"Okay. You're guys are young."

"Yeah. So"

"we know a lot of guys that just got married. Okay. Right. Yeah. Yeah. We want to help you out."

"Yeah."

"And none of them listen to us. None of them. Like literally zero. I'm like, "Guys, wait. Do this." But they're not financially well off either. They're just"

"Yeah. But it's not a financial issue. A lot of guys get married because they they want to get served. And that's like the complete wrong mindset. I'm not saying these guys, but I'm noticing a lot of guys want to get married cuz they're like, "Well, she's she's going to cook for me. I could have sex, you know, all these great things, right? But that's not the right mindset when you're getting married. Like, what can I get?" Right. But"

"married guys that are going to get married, they need to go to marriage counseling before they get married. M yeah,"

"like have the hardest of the hard conversations pre-marriage. Don't just hope that because you guys are so physically attracted to each other and you think you love each other so much that it's all going to work itself out. Don't do that. Go to the marriage counseling. There's five Fs."

"Finances, food,"

"uh"

"I was thinking of a different one."

"Yeah. No, food, family, faith."

"Okay."

"Uh and uh I forgot the last F."

"Intimacy."

"Intimacy. Yeah, physicalness, right? I think it starts with a P. But the point is finances, like what is the clear expectations on who's paying for what? Is her money yours? Is your money hers? Who's paying for the mortgage? Who's paying for this? How much savings does this person have? How much debt do they have? What's their credit score? Like all these tough questions? I'm sure you have, but for the listeners, you need to have these questions before you get married. Don't wait till after."

"It's like a business acquisition."

"Yeah. It's like a business ac you got to underwrite the deal. You got to eyeball the house and be like, "This looks good."

"I like this."

"No."

"Yeah, that's really good. Um, I I'll definitely do that. Um, to think about everything that can go wrong, you know, before you get into it."

"Exactly. Um"

"yeah. Where do we align on They get scared to have those conversations cuz they think it's going to be shaky. So they're like, "Uh, let's just not"

"We do these uh weekly check-ins every Sunday." And uh those have been really good. So we we'll start like, "Hey, like you know, just two to three minutes like just state of the union. how you feeling mentally, physically, um, and emotionally right now, you know? And then she'll talk for 3 minutes, I'll talk for three minutes, and it's like, hey, like,"

"how can I best support you this coming week, you know? Um, were there any times this week where you noticed like um, you know, my act to get your attention or need something? There's all these things and and it's just it's a 20-minute kind of thing. There's a there's an agenda, but these little like uh check-ins weekly are so freaking good. So, if you're listening to this right now and you're like um, you're in a relationship, like dude, these 20-minute check-ins are so good just to sync up and make sure you're on the same page, you know?"

"And family, too. Family is the other half I missed."

"Yeah. Well, I would add to that like that the check-ins are great once you're in marriage, but like what you're talking about is pre-marriage. And I I'll add to that, right? You said faith. Like,"

"yeah,"

"that's a conversation that most couples don't have, but like once you have kids, you're like, man, how do we want to raise our kids? Do we want to go into like a Christian private school? Do we want them going to church? You know, okay, family. You know, you dealt with this. It's like, okay, what does her family,"

"you know, bring to the table? What is mine?"

"Do we got to live near her parents? Like my my wife is Mexican,"

"right? So, Mexican people,"

"adults, they still submit to their parents. Like, it's a big thing in the Mexican community where like it doesn't matter how old you are, your mom and dad are the authority. And I'm like, dude, why do we got to listen to your dad? Like, what the hell? Like, yeah, 30. She's older than I'm like, why are we listening to your dad? But, you know, like are do they need to live around the parents? Like, are the parents like are you expected to take care of the parents? Like all these"

"holidays like who's, you know, and then like for her when we got married, we lived with her parents and she didn't want to move."

"And for them, that's normal. They're like, "Dude, we want you guys to stay." I'm like, "Bro, like we got to go."

"Yeah. For anyone listening, it's it's great advice. But, uh, anyways, Rich, I know you got to get out of here. get to your next thing."

"We got we got Bradley in 6 minutes,"

"baby. Brad and you got Big G in a little bit."

"Cardone is coming."

"We're ready to go. But um uh where can people find you?"

"Uh everything's on Instagram, rich summers. If you're interested in investing passively, summerscap.com/invest. And if you're hearing this right now and you're like, "Hey, I'm doing the Airbnb thing right now and this sounds like the next logical move for me. I want to buy a boutique hotel." Uh, you can go to hotelinvesting.com. We got a community of hotel investors. Yeah. Hotelinvesting.com. We bought it for 3500 bucks a while ago. And uh I was like, "Dude, good,"

"bro. I respect good domains."

"Yeah. Yeah."

"That's legit."

"But anyways, we had a community of hotel investors. Uh 120 members, 55 hotels bought and operated by our members. Hotelinvesting.com. We help them with the A to Z. How to find the deals, source the deals, and operate the deals."

"Hotels.com."

"Oh. Oh, and if you if you if you want like the podcast format, go check out my podcast. Ryan's been on there. Uh, the Rich Summers Report, Apple Spotify."

"Hell yeah."

"There we go. All right, guys. Go check it out. We'll catch you on the next one. Peace."

"Let's go."

"Selling to rich people is easier than selling to broke people."

"Yeah,"

"like 100%. Literally cost us millions tolerating."

"It's easier to make a lot of money at once than it is to make a little bit of money over a long period of time."

"Retirement is not biblical. It is nowhere in the Bible"

"that you stop working and just chill. Yeah, that's not biblical."

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How to Get FILTHY RICH in Real Estate (This Scales Faster Than AirBnB Ever Could!)

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