He Doesn’t Own These Rentals (But They Helped Him Quit His Job)

Ashley:
Most rookies assume leaving a corporate job through real estate requires owning a huge rental portfolio. Ryan Dumka found another route. After managing restaurants and working at Microsoft, he was operating an out-of-state Airbnb on the side while his job and commute kept him away from his daughter for roughly 14 hours a day.

Tony:
So Ryan left Microsoft and partnered with a local operator who’d been cleaning his rentals. And by 2025, their company was managing 85 vacation rentals across three Arizona markets alongside a dedicated cleaning operation. And Ryan has now expanded into a laundromat as well. So today we’re breaking down his first Airbnb, the financial decision to leave his W-2, the economics of managing properties he doesn’t own, and how real estate related businesses have helped him build financial.

Ashley:
This is the Real Estate Rookie Podcast. I’m Ashley Kehr.

Tony:
And I’m Tony J. Robinson. And with that, let’s give a big warm welcome to Ryan. Ryan, thanks for joining us on the podcast today.

Ryan:
Thank you guys. That was exhausting just hearing that.

Ashley:
Okay. So Ryan, take us back to before real estate investing. What was your career? What was your life like before you even knew real estate investing was a thing you could actually do?

Ryan:
Yeah, so I used to manage Cheesecake Factory restaurant locations, one in LA. And then after my wife and I were married, we moved to the Phoenix area and I managed one out there. Hated life because 11, 12 hour days was the expectation. And the place that I worked at was near the football stadium. So we would get people that would come there to drink, they’d get drunk, they’d go to the game, they’d come back and even get me more drunk. And I wanted to get out of it. And so we moved back to California and I got a job at Microsoft running their retail store in Los Angeles. And I love that job. And then COVID sort of shifted everything. So my background is more like hospitality/technology and that’s sort of how I got into the Airbnb side of it, just kind of dabbling.

Ashley:
So you started to become curious about short-term rentals and what eventually made you pull the trigger on buying an out-of-state rental?

Ryan:
Yeah. So this whole thing is kind of a full circle moment for me because I told him this story, but I bought my first Airbnb in 2019 and then in 2021, my grandfather died. He lived in Florida. And my mom and I, we flew out there, we loaded up a U-Haul and then we drove it all the way back. And on the ride home, she’s watching Young and the Restless on the iPad. I’m listening to Real Estate Rookie and we had already had our first Airbnb at that point. And then I was just like, “I can do this. I can get another one.” And I had gotten the systems and everything tight with our cleaner out there. I was enjoying the guest experience and learning about automation and the software of it. So I was like, “Let’s buy our second one.” So the house that we originally bought in Phoenix when we got married, we sold that one because it was a long-term rental and I think we cash flowed 200 bucks a month on it, but we had a hundred grand in equity.
And I was like, “You know what? I can do more with this money.” And so we bought our second Airbnb out in the other Arizona market that we’re in, and that’s what sort of snowballed everything. So you guys were a big part of that. It was a pivotal moment there.

Tony:
Yeah. I mean, 2019, that was pre the Airbnb craze. Even if we go back to that first deal, why Airbnbs? Why that specific market? Because it wasn’t that big of a deal at that point.

Ryan:
So it was July 4th weekend in 2019, and my parents have a vacation home out there and we had a bunch of family come by and one of our family members has this house just down the street. It’s a manufactured home, four bedroom, two bath. And she was telling me when we’re not in town, we’ve been Airbnbing it out. And I’ve stayed at Airbnbs and so I knew the process, but she’s like, “We’re making a killing.” And in my mind I was like, “It’s a double wide. There’s no way you’re making a killing.” And so I did some research and that’s when I picked up the podcasts and started reading a lot of books on it and then toggling or dealing with AirDNA and Zillow and all that stuff. And so I remember I went to my wife and I was like, “Hey, I found this property.
It’s great location. It is a manufactured home, but the house, the lot in front of us is vacant. And then there’s the Colorado River right there. It’s prime location. They’re asking 150.” So I was like, “I think –

Tony:
150,000?

Ryan:
Yeah.

Tony:
Oh, wow.

Ryan:
I know. I’m old. But we put an offer down and I remember I called my wife at work when I was at Microsoft and I was like,” Hey, I got the realtor. She’s sending over the agreement. I’m thinking we offer this and then we’ll go through the house and we’ll find some of our furniture that we just want to get rid of. We can put that at the Airbnb. “And she was at work too, and she’s like,” Oh, we’re really doing this. “I was like,” Oh no, yeah, we’re doing it. It’s perfect. “And so we signed everything. And then I remember I filled up a U-Haul from California and took all of our – Unwanted furniture. Yeah. It wasn’t unwanted. We needed it, but I was like, if we’re going to furnish a new rental, I’d rather put the new stuff in our house and then we can put the used stuff out there.
And it was same thing, a diamond in a rough, white walls, and I turned it into a little vibe. And I think the first year it grossed like 50 grand on $150,000 purchase price. And so that’s when I was like, oh, I can do this. I mean, it didn’t last and stay that great, but it became pretty profitable.

Tony:
Walk us through the acquisition numbers. It was 150. So how much did you spend on down payment closing costs and what did you spend to get it set up?

Ryan:
Yeah, so we bought it for 150, 158. And because it’s in another state or kind of further away, we were able to buy it as a vacation home. I don’t know if I should say that.

Tony:
Yeah.

Ryan:
Okay. It was a vacation home. We did use it, so don’t come after me. It was a vacation home, but we put 10% down. So we took some savings and put 10% down on that one. And then with everything furnished, I think we probably put another 15,000 into new TVs and new furniture and stuff like that. So for 30 grand, we had it up and running and it was pretty solid from there.

Tony:
That is incredible. A $30,000 investment and you guys, obviously this was gross revenue, but you guys grossed 50 grand in the first year. Just ballpark, what was the mortgage on $150,000?

Ryan:
$900. $900. And I think we probably cleared two to $3,000 a month after it all, which was pretty cool. And in 2019, it did become our COVID escape when everything sort of shut down. And my oldest has some good memories there, she thinks, but it was a very personal house and we actually sold it to get the laundromat for the down payment on it.

Ashley:
Yeah, we’ll definitely get into that because I’m curious about that. But then you had purchased your second short-term rental. So tell us about that acquisition.

Ryan:
That was sort of coming off of that road trip and then just looking at the overall, our financial picture. And I was like, we got a hundred grand in equity on this house. For 30 grand, we got this bad boy set up and ready to go and it’s all set up and good. Let’s take this $100,000 and put it into something nicer and bigger. So we bought a house on a golf course out there. It’s a very –

Ashley:
This is

Ryan:
The same market? Same market. Okay.

Tony:
And what market is it?

Ryan:
Whohead City.

Tony:
Wullhead

Ryan:
City. So it’s about an hour and a half, hour and 45 minutes from Vegas, but it’s on the Colorado River. The other side of the river is Laughlin, Nevada. So the casinos and everything are just 20, 30 minutes away. And so we bought that. We did a 1031 from that townhouse that we had into the second one, which is a fun process if you’ve never done it before. It’s kind of scary. And then put a hundred grand down on that one. That one we actually had some savings built up from the first house. So we went a little harder on the design and decor on the second house. And that one we got set up and we had two rolling.

Tony:
I just want to say, because what you just said is a strategy that I feel like more people should try and leverage. It’s like, “Hey, we’re going to hustle and scrap our way into this first one.” But then the first one, once it starts doing well, helps you fund the second one. And you’ve got one and two that then help you fund the third one. And there’s this snowball that starts to happen as the portfolio grows because you guys didn’t need the money from the properties.You’re already living and surviving from your day job. So it’s like just keep stacking that cash away as best you can to help you put fuel on the fire to keep that flywheel spinning.

Ryan:
Well, and it was tempting too, because once we had both of them going and COVID had sort of settled down, I think between both houses we were clearing eight to $10,000 a month in revenue. And I’m thinking I’m commuting or working at Microsoft, I could just rely on these ones and call it a day. And I’m glad I didn’t do that right out of the gate because that would’ve been a little scary with seasonality and things like that too. But it was tempting to see the money coming in and be like, “Let’s just quit our job.”

Ashley:
So at this point, were you guys managing them both yourselves or?

Ryan:
I was. Yeah. My wife was in with the… We had a newborn I think at that time too. So we have two daughters, so she was sort of dealing with that and this became my pet project. I was really passionate about it. And I had gotten really tight with our cleaner out there too. I remember in the beginning, the first cleaner I found was on Facebook and I would see her at our first Airbnb on the Ring camera walk up to the house at 1:45 and there’s guests coming at 3:00 and she’ll leave 45 minutes later and she’s like, “All right, it’s clean.” I’m like, “There’s no way.” She didn’t take the laundry offsite. She did it there. There’s no way. I can’t even do that. And so it became a stressful thing for me. And so then my uncle who lives out there full-time, he had this girl named Sarah who cleaned their house every two weeks just as her normal housekeeper.
And so her and I met at that house. I walked her through everything, told her about the hospitality and staging side of it where towels would get rolled and she already kind of knew. And we developed a really good relationship working together. And that’s when I was like, after our two, I was like, “Okay, this is easy peasy a little bit. I can not stress and the systems are rolling and everything like that. I can just deal with the guest communication.” And then obviously COVID shut everything down and life changed.

Ashley:
What about for any maintenance that you needed on the house?

Ryan:
We have a long history of that being our vacation town growing up. So we had people that we knew out there if there was an issue and stuff like that too. That was stressful obviously when you don’t have a lot of those supports to help with plumbers, electricians and handymen. Thankfully, both houses after they were set up were pretty, I don’t want to say maintenance free, but they’re pretty solid. They didn’t need too, too much. And we had a good eye with the cleaning team too.

Tony:
I just want to make sure I’m tracking. So the cleaner that you end up finding, that you’ve now built this great relationship with, she had never cleaned short-term rentals before?

Ryan:
She might’ve just dabbled into it and started. I know that she was cleaning. She had just started her business as the cleaning company out there and I know she was cleaning my uncle’s house. That’s how I got referred to her. So I think she might’ve just started or it was right around that same time, but I believe I was one of the first ones that she sort of picked up and then I kept that thing busy, man. 11 o’clock people were checking out. Three o’clock they’re coming back.

Tony:
But I asked that question because it was the same thing for us out here in Joshua Tree where a lot of our properties are, is that we had a hard time finding a really good cleaner in that market. And our handyman’s daughter had just had a baby. She didn’t want to go back to a regular job, wanted some more flexibility. And we were like, “Have you ever thought about cleaning Airbnbs before?” And she was like, “I haven’t, but tell me more.” And we sat down with her at one of our properties and walked through the process. And now she cleans literally all of our Airbnbs, her and her team. So I just say that to say that for the rookies that are watching, sometimes you have to manufacture your own team. If you can’t find the right person, at least in the short-term rental space, if you can train someone to do the things you need them to do, you can bridge that gap because some markets it is a little bit harder to find the right people.

Ryan:
Absolutely. It’s funny you say that because I just had a call with the pool guy who cleans all of our properties out there, because obviously pools, that’s the top amenity out there. And he called me when I was on my way back from Havasu and he goes, “Just checking in, how’s it going?” I was like, “How are you, man?” And he’s like, “Good.” I was like, “How many routes are you cleaning now in your team?” He’s like, “We got 175 a week now. We started with just year five.” And he’s gotten into pool construction. So now they’re doing 12 pool builds. And I think for me, it’s cool to see Sarah’s cleaning company really grow and become something and her become something. And then Cody out there with the pools. It’s

Ashley:
Just cool

Ryan:
When it becomes this growth that’s –

Ashley:
Everybody’s growing,

Ryan:
Everyone’s succeeding. Yeah. I mean, that’s how I’ve always sort of been. There’s plenty to go around. I’m not going to fight with you about stuff. That’s not my type.

Tony:
So just the timing gap around between deal number one and deal number two, how quickly did you go from one

Ryan:
To – End of 2019 was the first one, and I think beginning of 2021 was the second one. So year and a half. If you include the escrows, probably a year and a half.

Tony:
And then COVID hits.

Ryan:
Yeah. Well, COVID hit during the first one. So end of 2019 was when I closed on the first one and then COVID hit and I remember being panicked like I’m going to have to juggle two mortgages because the calendar was empty and we had nothing going on. And so that’s when my wife and I, we put out on Facebook like, “Hey, I know people are locked down and it’s scary time. If you want to use our house in Bullhead.” I was still busy. Go ahead and use it, just pay the cleaning fee. I wanted to keep her employed so she could at least do that. And then we had a few people hit us up on that. And then I think we spent a month out there with our oldest and enjoyed it and made some memories there. And I did little projects around there to kind of spruce it up, but it was scary.
And then I would say probably May, April, May of 2020, Californians got restless and wanted to travel and couldn’t fly on a plane. Yeah. And it’s a resort kind of town three, four hours away. So they would just drive out and
That’s when 11 o’clock checkout, three o’clock check-in, it was busy.

Ashley:
So at what point did you decide that you wanted to actually leave Microsoft?

Ryan:
So I didn’t decide. I was sort of forced. So I used to, like I said, manage the Los Angeles Microsoft store. If you’ve seen them before, they looked like Apple stores, but Microsoft. We would get older people that are like, “Is this where I can get a genius here?” And we’re like, “No, wrong store.” And so they shut that down for COVID and then our team got pushed to remote work. So then we became an education sales support, but the organization wasn’t really going anywhere. I don’t know if you remember the chip shortage for the computers. We were supposed to sell computers, but we didn’t have computers to sell because there was a chip shortage. So I sort of saw the writing on the wall that this isn’t going to last long. And so they gave us an opportunity to take a three-month severance or
Continue to just ride it out and get disciplined for not performing at your role with the expectation you had. And I told Kelly, I think we were at five or 10 properties at that time, because I remember at one point working from home, I had Microsoft here and I had the Airbnb stuff here. So I’d be on calls, everything. I’m like, “Uh-huh.” And then I told her, I was like, “I think, babe, if I take these 40 hours that I’m here, I really think I can do something with it. I’m getting emotional over it.” But I did. And we left, I think at 10 properties. I left Microsoft. I had a three-month cushion. The Airbnbs weren’t booming quite like they were at that point, but they were still doing pretty solid

Ashley:
Stuff. What year was

Ryan:
This in then? October 2021. So we had the second Airbnb in the beginning of 2021, and then October 2021 is when I left Microsoft. So I had pretty much until – And you were

Ashley:
Managing for other people then? Those were with the other – Five or 10. Okay. And

Ryan:
We can get into what

Ashley:
Our little pitch

Ryan:
Was for that at the time. That was fun.

Ashley:
Because I think that played a huge role in you being able to leave your job and not have to actually acquire more properties that you found a different route to do that.

Ryan:
I mean, in retrospect, I wish I kept that W-2 a little longer if it were possible, even if COVID never happened, because then I could have continued to grow my personal portfolio with that income. But yeah, no. And I think part of it too was my mom was sort of a little concerned buying our second property in the same market. And she was like, “What if it gets oversaturated?” And then when we started the company, I was like, “Well, if it gets oversaturated, I’ll get a percentage of yours, a percentage of yours.” And that was sort of my backend deal. But yeah, I left 10 properties, I think, under management and put my head down and we went to work.

Tony:
Let’s talk a little bit, Ryan, about the transition to management because it’s more of a business. It is a business, right? It’s not your own property. So you have to do the job of keeping the guests happy. You have to then also do the job of finding the property owners and keeping them happy.

Ashley:
I think it’s harder. Yeah,

Tony:
Right. Between a rock and a hard place, right? Yeah. What was the light bulb moment that made you decide that, “Hey, let’s try managing for other people as another revenue source?”

Ryan:
So I did have Sarah in my ear. So Sarah’s cleaning business was growing with the Airbnb stuff as that sort of – And

Tony:
This is your cleaner, right?

Ryan:
My cleaner, who had her own cleaning company. So she, towards the end of my time at Microsoft, was saying, “We should start a business. I mean, your house is always booked. It’s never left trash.You seem to really enjoy this. We should start a business.” And I think I was so focused on holding onto Microsoft and seeing how far I could take that, that I didn’t really give it too much consideration. And then once it started to get clear that this isn’t going to last long, that’s when I was like, “All right, let’s figure this out.” And at that point, I will always remember our first pitch that we did to one of her cleaning customers, Jay, who was a great guy. I made a PowerPoint, Microsoft, I made a PowerPoint and we were mapping out how we wanted to do it. And originally we had different tiers of management where it’s like for 10% we’ll do this, for 15 we’ll do this, for 20, we’ll do this.
And then he, I think, was just sold on her and my enthusiasm about our passion for the guests, the hospitality side of it, and that’s what sort of sold him. And then once we got the social media going, and then we had Sarah continuing to get leads on the cleaning and Airbnb side, so we had that going on. Obviously, I had local friends and family in town that knew what I was doing then too. So anytime they were talking to somebody about that, they would refer them to me. We got really tight with realtors out there. So then I was in too with AirDNA. And so if there was a realtor out there that has a customer that was looking to purchase a short-term rental, I would give them a whole report on this is what it could generate, this is what it could do.
And then because I already had skin in the game and expertise with the design side of it, I also gave them ideas of you could do an accent wall here, you can add a –

Ashley:
Had you been doing your own design?

Ryan:
Yeah, for my houses. Yeah, yeah. So I turned both of mine into a vibe and I think that made them stand out. And then we got really tight with the professional photographer in town too, so he started referring us to people. I mean, we sort of set ourselves on fire and then thankfully we got leads and it attracted people then.

Ashley:
Did you have any competition at that point? Were you kind of the only ones or was it just other big companies that don’t have a great track record? Or what did that look like as far as the competition you had in that market? I

Ryan:
Would say both. We had the legacy realtors that were, they had their wonky websites with their Snowbird vacation rental stuff. There was one or two that sort of popped up, but I think the thing whenever I’m talking to a potential owner of mine is you’ll get a lot of people that do real estate and then sort of moonlight with the property management Airbnb side of it just to sort of stabilize their income, which I get, I understand, but it’s not their passion. They’ll drop a guest for a showing because they know the money on that deal is going to be more than this. They don’t have the passion for the hospitality side of it. And whereas this, with us and our team, this is all that I do. This is my bread and butter, this is my passion. And I think that’s something that gives them comfort is they’re not a distraction from what my main job or my main gig is, which is real estate.
So there’s a lot of those, not just in my market, everywhere, especially as interest rates went up and realtors had to figure out what to do next. That was, I think, a niche that some of them started to get into.

Tony:
It sounds like a lot of your initial growth was relationship based, right? Yeah. Because were you running any ads to try and get homeowners? It was just all just you networking with people. Just

Ryan:
Instagram.

Tony:
So if there’s a rookie who’s listening to this podcast and they’re like, “I want to do what Ryan did, this kind of grassroots gorilla marketing type strategy,” who should they go to first? Should they hit agents first? Is it maybe going to cleaners and saying, “Hey, I’ll give you…” Who should they hit first and what should that pitch look like?

Ryan:
Solid question. I would go directly to the owner of the property. And so I was actually talking to a buddy about this yesterday. If his wife wanted to jump into what I’m doing, I would go on Airbnb and I would find a property that is a diamond in the rough, maybe the photos are taken with an iPhone and they’re just terrible, and offer to re-shoot the house for free in exchange for letting you manage the house for a year. Or if it’s got bad reviews, reach out to the owner and say, “Hey, I can help. I got a background in hospitality,” whatever the case may be. You can look at a house that’s just basic, but the bones are there and say, “Let me manage this house for a year and I’ll do two accent walls for you and have it re-shot and photographed, and that’s how I can get my foot in the door.” I think for me, it was easy because I had two of my own that gave me that sort of initial credibility.

Ashley:
You had a little portfolio

Ryan:
To present to that. Yeah. I had a use case that I could show them of like, “Hey, this is what I’ve done.” I mean, you could even start, I mean, if you are business minded, start a cleaning company and start advertising on Facebook groups. I mean, in certain markets, I would imagine finding a good cleaner is really hard. Start a cleaning company and then you’ll start to get inquiries for people that want their Airbnb cleaned and opens up the door for more conversations like that.

Ashley:
Now, when you find these owners on Airbnb, are you just messaging them through Airbnb or are you actually going and skip tracing their phone number and sending them letters or anything?

Ryan:
I would try skip tracing because I think Airbnb has some safeguards for advertising and stuff like that. But look for the ones that they’re the diamonds in the rough where you can see, because you maybe are familiar with the area that it’s got the bones of the amenities that guests are looking for, but the photos are terrible or they’re all very dark or it’s just whatever. Or like I said, they have bad reviews or even you look at their calendar and there’s not a lot of bookings on the upcoming calendar and you say, “Hey, let me show you how I can add value.” And then you get in exchange, let me manage your house for a year and show you what I can do.

Tony:
At one point we were thinking about scaling up property management for other people. And the marketing idea that I had and we executed on this was I went into, I think I used AirD&A or Price Labs, and I was looking at larger properties, like five bedrooms and bigger, and I reverse sorted by review score. So all the lowest reviews are up top. And I don’t know if you guys know this, but on Airbnb, there’s the guest favorite badge and top 10% homes and all these things to show the top performers. But there’s also the inverse of that where it says this listing’s in the bottom 10% of homes in this market. I didn’t know that.

Ryan:
Oh my

Tony:
Gosh. This listing in the bottom 10% of homes in this market. And I took screenshots of that from their listing. Oh, brilliant. And I put it on a postcard and I said, “Hey, I don’t know if you know this, but your home’s in the bottom 10% of listings. If you want to talk about how we can improve that, give us a call.” Dude,

Ryan:
That’s brilliant.

Tony:
Yeah. And we didn’t really execute it. I wish we would’ve done more, but it’s such an easy sell because it’s like you’ve got this great property, the bones are great, but you’re in the bottom 10% of all the homes in your market. So I love the gorilla style marketing going straight to the owners.

Ryan:
When you got to figure out what your strengths are, for me, I liked doing the accent walls and creative design and stuff like that. So I could have said, “Hey, I think if you put an accent wall in your living room or did something cool here, depending on what your finances are, maybe you split the cost with them or you do it yourself in exchange for a one or two year agreement with them, if that’s your niche. Or if it’s just, I’m great at taking photos and I’m great at social media,” leveraging that and saying, “Hey, I’ll take niche photos of your house and I’ll do X amount of posts per week, day, month, whatever, in exchange for letting me manage your house.” You’re showing them how you are going to put some skin in the game too, and you’re going to make them more money at the end of the year while taking the pressure off of having to be by their phone all the time.

Ashley:
What’s the biggest headache managing other people’s properties? What is an issue that we think of long-term rentals like, “Oh, the toilet’s plugged at 3:00 AM. I don’t want that phone call.” What is that for you as a manager?

Ryan:
Oh, this is going to get me in trouble. I would say some of the owners that don’t have the right sort of expectation for what we do, they’re maybe a little too involved with the emotional side of their property, which I totally get. A lot of our owners, it’s their vacation home. Their kids have memories there and all that kind of stuff too. Some of them don’t have just the right expectation that there are going to be people sleeping in your bed. And I think trying to explain to them the difference between wear and tear and guest damages, I can’t file an Airbnb claim for your water heater that exploded.
I can’t. I wish I could. Stuff like that. But I think that we have a solid group of owners, and it’s random. It’s not a bunch of different investors that are just buying portfolios. It is most of the people that it’s their vacation home and they know that if there is something going on at their house, we’ll be there quickly. For some of our houses that have a propensity for parties, even some of the neighbors have our phone numbers so that they feel like, “Hey, if there’s something going on at this house, I have someone I can reach out to versus having to call the police or the city.” And it gives them sort of a feel of control and a voice in their community too.

Ashley:
Besides that, is there anything in your management agreement with the owners to set expectations that if someone is listening to this podcast, they want to start co-hosting, what are some things that they should be putting into that management agreement to defer any of these headaches that you’re talking about?

Ryan:
Definitely. So our agreement, I mean, I don’t want to say it’s non-binding, but if a couple months into it an owner’s like, “I don’t want to do this,” I’m not going to fight them over it. What I would say is, especially with the evolution of Airbnb and their fees, I would put a clear example of how the pay structure works with how are you getting your 20%? Where’s it coming from? Is it on top of a pet fee? Is it on top of an early check-in fee? All of that. I would put exactly the services you’re doing. Are you putting the trash to the front every week? Are you bringing it back? Are you paying for maintenance stuff? Are you paying for supplies and toilet paper and perishables and stuff like that? Have it just all laid out so that there’s no confusion. But I will say there still will be confusion.

Tony:
Just one last question for me on the referral side, because I think that’s the part, because there’s probably a lot of people listening right now who’ve already built one or two or three Airbnb portfolios themselves and they want to do what you did where they step out of their day job and management can really bridge that gap because it’s faster to create that cash flow, but they’re just like, “Where do I go? How do I get sted?” So we talked a little bit about going straight to the owners. That might terrify some people, just like cold calling someone and trying to unphone them. You think you know me. I’m thinking of you. I just want to name drop Ashley. That terrify Ashley. But you also talked about going to realtors in that market, and I think that’s really smart because we as investors already have the skillset of analyzing properties in a way that an agent doesn’t.
So what’s the pitch to the agent and what service are you actually offering to them? Just how are you opening up that conversation with them?

Ryan:
So for the agent, I would say first and foremost, I don’t have a real estate license, so you don’t have to worry about me taking your customer or stealing your commission on that. So I’m going to stay in my lane on the rental side. You can talk about appreciation, the offer and all that kind of stuff. But if you use me correctly, I can help you potentially close this deal because I can show them and sell them the vision on what this property could do for them that you can’t. And so that’s been huge. And then with AirDNA, if you get a subscription, you can print the report on a specific property that they’re interested in. Or what we did is we went on Canva and built out a one-page template, and then it’s branded with our information on it too. And then we show up comparables.
We pull the same numbers from AirDNA, but I think now that we have our own direct booking website and data, we can look at like, okay, this property is showing $45,000 in gross revenue, but I have a property just in that same area that’s doing 52. So I’m probably going to put… We have our own sort of numbers that we can add into that too, but I would say just positioning yourself as a resource for the realtor and not a threat.

Tony:
Are you calling them on the phone just out of the blue? Are you DMing them on Instagram? How are you getting in front of the agents typically?

Ryan:
I had a realtor friend out there that we are really tight with in both markets actually, in Havasu and in Bullhead City. I think now that we have the footprint we have, there’s realtors that’ll hit us up. You can leverage Facebook groups too. There’s different ones in different markets with… I mean, Big Bear’s got a big one for property owners of short-term rentals. Lake Havasu has a massive one too. So I mean, being in their face of like, “Hey, let me help you.” You could cold call them, you could pop into an office, you can do an analysis on a property that you see active and even approach the realtor and say, “Hey, I made this for you. If you know anyone that’s wanting to buy it as a vacation rental, I can give them the details and do it that way.” And it doesn’t take a lot of time to make it.
It’s 15, 20 minutes.

Tony:
I love that approach. And it’s already listed like, “Hey, I did this for you already. I’m not

Ryan:
Going to

Tony:
Charge you.”What are they going to say? No, I don’t

Ryan:
Want it. Do you have any other customers that are wanting to I have short-term rental. I’ll do the exact same thing. I’m not charging you. Again, I’m not a realtor. I won’t take your money, but I’m here to help.

Tony:
Okay. So going back to you actually transitioning away from Microsoft, you’re at five to 10 listings under management at that point, and you take this severance. I remember the first day that I went full-time into real estate. Terrifying. Terrifying, angry, and you’re like, “Holy crap, this is real now.” Do you remember your first day?What did it look like and where were you focusing your time?

Ryan:
I think the first day I was probably elated to be leaving Microsoft because it was stressful towards the end. So I’d wake up and I’d be like, “I’m going to take this day.” I mean, obviously be on my phone, but then it was like, “Wait, I have a paycheck that’s going to run out here soon. I got to get to hustling.” And so I do remember that time and it was scary. And I think for the time that we got to 10 properties, maybe up to 30 or 40, it was me. So a lot of the guest communication, I remember my wife, we’d be at family functions and I’m on my phone. I mean, you can automate as much as you can, but if a guest is locked out or has a question, it’s on you. And so especially putting out fires, if we’re at a family function, a dinner out with friends, it was me.
And it did bring, I don’t want to say we didn’t fight, we did have fights. And my wife at one point was like, “Sell the business and just be done.” And thankfully I was able to find space to hire a virtual assistant and it really helped me out with the automated side of things. And then she would reach out to me if there was an emergency, but it allowed me to offload some of those duties where I could be present for her, for the kids and everything like that.

Ashley:
That’s such a hard area because it’s like, okay, my option is I either go back to a nine to five job where I’m not at anything for those hours or I can be at everything, but I’m not fully present. And it’s like, what is actually better?

Ryan:
Yeah. Well, and I tell buddies that have jobs that are like, you think that I just can control my time and I can, it’s a benefit of being able to control your time that I can do and go wherever I want. But I tell them I pretty much gave up 40 hours a week at a job to work 24 hours for myself. And it can be very scary if you don’t have that sort of mindset or at least sort of structure set up where you’re starting from scratch without a job and then have to build it up. But thankfully I was able to do some of it while still being at a W2 job.

Tony:
There’s a Scott Galloway who’s profgene, he’s got all these different podcasts. I saw this clip from him once and obviously successful guy, runs a really big media company. And he said this thing about balance that really stuck with me. He was like, “You can’t necessarily have both at the same time. If you’re in the throes of really growing your business, balance just isn’t going to be there.” In the example that he gave, he’s like, “The moments in my life where I was doing really, really well financially, I was totally out of balance, not in the best shape of my life. Everything wasn’t working the way I wanted to, but I was doing really, really well.” And on the inverse, when everything else is going really well, typically my business isn’t doing as great. So it’s like there’s this teeter that we’re typically on, but I think if you can make it through that initial, it’s like what’s the metaphor?
A rocket ship uses 80% of its fuel getting out of the atmosphere and then what’s out of the atmosphere can kind of coast. Very similar for starting a business. Have you experienced that for you

Ryan:
Too? I still did. And I would say, I mean, you probably feel it too, having kids, you don’t have a choice but to find a balance. And I think that, not that my kids don’t allow me to pursue what I really want to do, but I feel like obviously if I didn’t have them, I would probably be going harder at growing my business and not worrying about anybody else. But on the flip side, I don’t know that I would have the ambition and drive that I have if I didn’t have them. So it’s this kind of catch-22 dynamic where… And then obviously I don’t want them… It’s still a struggle for me sometimes too. I don’t want to be the dad that’s always on their phone shushing them when I’m on a customer call and stuff like that. So I’d say in the last year, I’ve probably been better at setting boundaries of I’m offline.
So if you have something, let’s handle it now.

Ashley:
And that takes a while to get to that point to be able to do that. That’s not going to happen overnight.

Ryan:
But buying an out-of-state laundromat, I mean there’s definitely some headwinds. Yeah, let’s talk about that. I’m going to be facing here soon.

Tony:
I mean, so you grow the management company to, you said 85 properties under management today. And then you make this transition to buying a true small business and you’re still in the process, you haven’t closed yet. So knock on wood, we cross that finish line. But what was it, Ryan, that made that feel like a logical next step for you?

Ryan:
I mean, I feel like some of my business ideas are very Forrest Gump based. It’s just like that’s the next thing you just do.You want to start a shrimp company, you start a shrimp company. We had the management company and then it was like, well, wait, the guest is also paying this cleaning fee. I want a slice of that too. And so then we started the cleaning company out in Havasu and then we have an amazing team out there, but they’re doing laundry for the Airbnbs out of a garage and it’s not a great experience for them. I mean, especially my manager out there, she’s trying to take time off. So is

Ashley:
It just you put appliances in

Ryan:
There? Yeah, in the garage and we got racks and everything out there and make it happen. And then now it’s like, okay, I want to grow bigger, but we’re not going to be able to pick up more houses to clean doing laundry out of a garage. We need a facility. So then it’s like, let’s get a laundromat. A laundromat, they’re known for having a high success rate. They obviously have their ongoing traffic because it’s open to the public, there’s wash and fold. But then on the flip side of it, I have a home base now to do all the laundry. So instead of just doing the Airbnbs from the cleaning company, maybe we can pick up commercial companies to start doing their laundry for hotels or whatever out there now that we have the facility and the team. And then it’s vertical integration, but even at the laundromat, my plan is to put QR codes and advertising for the cleaning company around like, “Hey, do you need a quote for a cleaning company?
Scan this QR code.” It’s all sort of going to work hand in hand, I think to eventually feed hopefully the management company because that’s where a lot of more of the margin is for us. But I definitely, I mean, I’m excited about the laundromat. I hope it pans out. Our team’s really excited and pushing for it too, so we’ll see.

Ashley:
How did you find it? Was it listed for sale?

Ryan:
No, I pretty much stocked.
There’s two in town. One of them is, it’s a new and fancy one. It’s on the south side of town where more affluent people are. There’s the golf course and it’s on a great main strip of the highway. The one that we’re looking at is, it’s already existing, but it’s in more of the up and coming side of town where the houses are probably not as great. It’s got more apartment complexes, which is perfect for me. Great street visibility. I don’t think I saw it on Buy Biz, Sell or anything like that. I think I just looked at the location and I didn’t get in touch with the owner, but my realtor friend out there, I think that’s what it was where I was like, “Hey, what do you think about this spot? I would love to.” And she’s like, “I think it was recently on the market.
We can maybe re-approach them and see. They pulled it off if there’s a reason behind that.” And I think when they originally listed it, they listed it for 950,000. And so last year, a year ago, I offered them 750 and there was a no. I mean, I even offered owner financing if they could, but I think they’re wanting to do the 1031 thing into something else. And then finally I got really heartbroken and then it came back on the market and I offered them seven and now we’re in escrow on it for seven.

Ashley:
So even lower than what you offered

Ryan:
Before? We’re a terrible person saying that.

Tony:
But they still said yes, right? They still said yes.

Ryan:
There’s a lot of hurdles with commercial and with a laundromat. Thankfully I had the network out in Havasu, so our handyman has previous experience doing commercial washer and dryers for a

Ashley:
Hospital. Oh, fixing them?

Ryan:
Fixing. So he’s our guy. I was like, “Oh, perfect.” So he went and inspected all of them. Our guy that we use for all the HVAC and air conditioning is out in Havasu, he did the inspection for me. Same thing with the plumber. All of them gave me discounts. My handyman didn’t even want me to pay him for the inspection, but that’s the cool thing over the years of building up that network of people where I’m thankful for them and the ability to have them at my use. And hopefully it grows their business too.

Ashley:
Well, that’s the thing. It’s not like you can hire a home inspector to go into your laundromat and your commercial building to actually do a home inspection for you. You have to find all of these specialties and line them up.

Tony:
You mentioned that the management business has better margin. I just want to focus on that piece because at 85 properties, what’s the booking revenue ballpark across the portfolio?

Ryan:
Last month was our biggest month. We did $650,000 in booking revenue. I think if you don’t include, I don’t know if my business partner will kill me for saying this, but if you don’t include reimbursements for handyman supplies and stuff like that, we invoiced about $120,000 just on booking revenue. And then of that margin, I would probably say 20% of that is overhead for VAs and stuff like that. So the rest is just banked. But we are in a seasonal kind of thing. It doesn’t go like this and like this, but obviously last month was the biggest month for summer and everything like that. So we do have to sort of keep that in mind and not go and buy a boat and a truck and all sorts of stuff like that.

Tony:
So what does the team look like today within the management company? Because I’m assuming at 85, you mentioned a VA. Is it just you and one VA that’s running all 85 of these? Not including the cleaning side, but just operationally, what does it look like today?

Ryan:
So we have four VAs right now that work pretty much around the clock. So there’s always someone on. And then we have two local teams. We have a team in Bullhead City and we have a team in Lake Havasu. Lake Havasu has two full-timers out there that trade off on jumping in for the cleaning of the Airbnbs if they need to. And then management for Bullhead, we have obviously Sarah. We have a bookkeeper out there and then an additional person to help with running things around and managing the cleaning side and stuff like that too. So we have two teams there and then a remote team.

Ashley:
That’s a great idea. Do you have that in your markets like a helper?

Tony:
No, no, no, no.

Ashley:
I think there’s also a word for it. After the cleaner comes in, they come in. Oh, property inspector? Yeah. Yeah. Is that kind of what they do here?

Ryan:
They all sort of work in the hybrid cleaner management role. They wear both hats and I think they get paid from both companies too. So they have the eye for obviously the cleanliness stuff, but if the air filters need to be changed, they know they need to do that. Propane tanks swapped out for the barbecues and things like that too. They’ll let us know if the pools look terrible and then we reach out to our pool guy out there and he sort of handles that too. Group chats, a lot of group chats.

Tony:
Are you guys using Breezeway? Do you use Breezeway?

Ryan:
85

Tony:
And

Ryan:
You’re not – I tried Breezeway. I couldn’t do it, man. Really? No, I couldn’t do it. Interesting. We use pretty much our stack is hospitable, PriceLabs.That’s how we used to. Yeah, PriceLabs. And then Microsoft, so Teams, that’s how we all communicate and work together is through Teams.

Tony:
Interesting. So for those who don’t know, Breezeway, it’s a short-term rental specific software that basically allows you to manage your cleans and your maintenance. Our portfolio is 20 some odd, which is less than your 85. And dude, I couldn’t imagine running hours without the checklist. So if a cleaner’s turning a property, what’s the verification step that you guys go through to validate, “Hey, did we do this? Did we do this? Did we do that part?”

Ryan:
I mean, I don’t want to sound like they just know. The cleaning companies each use the same sort of cleaning software for… So at the end of the invoice and when they’re done, there are photos attached for not just us, but for the owners that are getting the invoice. They see what the house looks like and all that kind of stuff. And then with being integrated in Teams, if there is something wrong with a property or broken, we have timestamped photos. We take that, we have our own sort of maintenance channel that we are creating tickets and stuff like that through. But Hospitable has our direct booking website. I don’t know if Breezeway. I haven’t looked too much into Breezeway since I looked two years ago, but they have our direct booking website on there. They have the Schleg software automated on there too. But I feel like we started with Hospitable and we’ve just sort of grown with it.
And they

Ashley:
Just always have new things that are coming

Ryan:
Out too. Yeah, they

Ashley:
Do. They

Ryan:
Have their own dynamic pricing now, which is kind of cool. But yeah, we’ve just kind of grown with it.

Tony:
Yeah. Okay. Now you mentioned earlier about your first pitch, you had three different layers of service that you offer. And then as you asked the question of like, “Hey, what is it that you’re offering and how does that pitch look like?” So today, what are the actual services? Like you said, who’s taking the trash out? Who’s paying for maintenance? Just walk us through what the agreement today looks like if someone wants to replicate what you’re doing.

Ryan:
Totally. So we do all the guest communication before, during, and after their stay, smart lock coordination. We create a house manual for them, like a digital one and then a physical one. Maintenance things, we communicate them. We also have our guy that he can just handle it and we’ll add his invoice to our invoice at the end of the month. The trash, yep, every week that goes out from us. Our team brings them back. Air filters once a month, those get swapped out because it’s a heavy HVAC kind of town. Propane tanks, we’ll swap out. We usually keep two at a property, and then when the cleaners are there checking, they’ll lift one and if the empty one is out, they’ll take that back with them. And then next time we come, we’ll swap it out. The pool service, we don’t do the pool service, but if a guest is checking in or they’ve checked out and the pool looks terrible or the jacuzzi looks terrible, we’ll communicate that to the pool guy so that he can get it on his route schedule too.
In the summertime, we do have all of our pools on twice a week service, which is great because some of them get hit pretty hard.
I mean, that’s pretty much the gist of it.

Tony:
Are you guys covering all of the expenses for the owner and then invoicing on the backend?

Ryan:
Within reason. If it needs a whole new $8,000 air conditioning, no, we’re not doing that. But usually our rule of thumb is $300, but we go over. There’s just some owners. I got a buddy who we manage his Airbnb. He’s actually my boss that I used to work for at Microsoft.

Ashley:
Oh really?

Ryan:
He bought a house in Bullhead and sort of gave me carte blanche to design and furnish it. And it’s probably one of our best performing ones. But I remember a couple months ago I hit him up and I’m like, “Hey dude, I’m really sorry, but we had to put a new refrigerator in. It was $800.” And he was like, “Why are you calling me?”
But then there’s some owners that the guests use an extra roll of toilet paper, they want to know about it. I would say that’s the hardest part of my job is not just knowing and understanding each owner’s expectations, but also communicating that to our team. Because sometimes if I’m doing something, some of our owners don’t want to be bothered. Some of them want to know everything. And there’s some owners where a guest will message us and 20 seconds later the owner’s messaging us in the group chat as well. So it’s like the expectations and how they vary, that’s the hard part to communicate and sort of offload.

Ashley:
Now, Ryan, before we wrap up here, what is next for you? You got the laundromat coming up, but let’s say next five years, do you have anything else in your roadmap?

Ryan:
I want to learn as much as I can on the laundromat. I think this laundromat, it’s going to be different for me too because it is a public and community good that it’s doing. So I’m reaching out to some of the local homeless shelters out there. And one of the things that’s really important to me is if there is a family in need out there that, especially with kids, just go do your laundry for free. As a parent, if you can clothe your kids, but making sure they have clean clothes, if you’re trying to get them off to school while dealing with your own stuff, that’s huge to me. So partnering with them and finding opportunities to give back to the community itself, because I don’t want each community thinking that Airbnbs are just coming into town and gathering all the money and not doing anything for it.
There’s a bakery in town that I want to partner with too that I’ll have the standing order every Tuesday, you guys just drop off donuts at the laundromat and it’s just going to be Donut Tuesday or whatever it is and it’s free for everyone that wants to

Ashley:
Come. What Gym Planet Fitness, they do pizza.

Ryan:
Pizza. Yeah. And then when we were initially putting in an offer, I got my girls and I was like, “Hey, I want to do a kid’s corner in here. I want to make it cool where kids, their parents are doing laundry.” Then I had to explain to them what a laundromat was for a while, but they designed the kids’ corner and
I think Scholastic has a subscription you can get for 50 bucks a month and they’ll just ship you random kids’ books. And so it’ll be a give take. We’ll just put books out and it’ll be a cool place where kids can kind of… That I think is where I’m being led at this phase right now is this has been really cool that we’ve been able to do, but now I want to give back and figure out how to find opportunities to win-win for the community. But also if you’re a business owner and you’re trying to do something, maybe finding a way where we can find a win-win partnership there. That’s what sort of my five-year goal. And if it comes out, we’re doing three to five more dirty laundry locations. Cool.

Ashley:
I love that and I love those ideas. I have a wine and liquor store.

Ryan:
Oh yeah,

Ashley:
That’s right. And it doesn’t make any money. You don’t

Ryan:
Give out free samples,

Ashley:
Right? I love being able to do things for the community. I sponsor a ton of golf tournaments and things like that for the local dance and everything. So that to me is so fun to be able to do through a business, but we can’t exactly have a kid’s corner in the liquor store.

Tony:
But

Ashley:
We got to be the champagne sponsor at a high school for their gala and stuff. So there are still fun things to do.

Ryan:
There’s a ton of that. And again, it goes back to just the Airbnb side of things. There’s plenty to go around in this world. I’m not going to fight you on the nickels and dimes. I think we can find win-win solutions for… I sound like a politician. I think we could find win-win solutions, but I think there’s a lot to go around. And

Ashley:
I think

Ryan:
There’s a lot of people that want to do something for others that just don’t have maybe the opportunity to do it. And if I’m able to use the gifts I’ve been given to do it, that’s where I’m at. And I think it’s good for, I mean, you have kids too, small kids. I think it’s good for your kids to see you doing stuff like that too, where you’re not going to take your kids to Skid Row, but at least them seeing you do stuff to give back for the community and give back to your fellow man, I think that’s important.

Tony:
Ryan, if you think back to you right before your last day at Microsoft and you think about where you are today, do you feel like you’ve achieved the level of freedom that you were looking for?

Ryan:
Maybe from my mindset at the time at Microsoft, sure. I think that I’m… Yeah, I mean, I can go to the beach right now if I wanted to. I mean obviously I have to figure out picking up the kids, but I mean, I’m able to wake up with my kids, make them breakfast, help them get to school, drop them off at school, go to the gym, do what I got to do during the day, pick them up and then take them to their activities. I think that that was more the goal for me was to be present and not to get into part two, but I didn’t have that growing up with my father and my parents. So being the present person and parent is super important to me more than just the fancy cars and all that kind of stuff too. I wanted to be there with my kids and I wanted to not miss a lot of those opportunities.

Ashley:
Do you think that also changed for you what your idea of freedom was back then compared to what it is now? Yeah. You don’t think that’s what you’re going to want or they have an idea of it, but you think, “Oh, I can travel the world. I can be in Europe for a month. That’s financial freedom and stuff.” But actually it’s those moments with the

Ryan:
Kids that are – And that’s cool if you can do that. I mean, that is cool if you can do it. I don’t think that was my goal at the time. I mean, even when Microsoft was still operating out of the store, I mean, I’d leave my house at 80 AM and I wouldn’t get back until 8:00 or 9:00 PM. And I knew that I can’t, especially if we’re going to have a second one, I can’t do this. I have to figure something else out. And I think that’s where I had my eyes open with buying an Airbnb for the residual income. Whereas if there is a role that maybe I could work part-time, I at least have some side income and it sort of snowballed into this. But being present for my kids, that’s, I think, been my focus. And it’s a catch-22 because I know that I want to go and I probably could open up more laundromats and pick up more houses and stuff like that too, but not that they’re holding me back.
It’s just I want to be dad first.

Ashley:
Well, Ryan, thank you so much for joining us today and coming out to Tony’s studio. We really appreciate it. Where can people reach out to you and find out more information about your journey?

Ryan:
Yeah, so our company is called Desert Concierge Management. We’re on Instagram. All of our properties are on there. We’re pretty active on there. Laundromat, TBD, it’s called Dirty Laundry, so hopefully I can get it off the ground in the next month or two, and then look out for that.

Ashley:
Hey, well, thank you so much. And everyone listening, thank you for joining us today on this episode of Real Estate Rookie. If you’re not already, make sure you are subscribed to our YouTube channel, and you can follow us on Instagram at wealthfromrentals and @tonyjrobinson. We’ll see you guys next time.