Justin Stoddart
Welcome back to The Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I’m your host, Justin Stoddart. Today’s episode is going to be one of the best, I’m promising you that because of today’s guest, his name is Brian Page. He is the, in my opinion the world’s foremost expert on creating passive income streams through Airbnb. We’ll get into a little bit more about that I’m so excited to introduce him. Let me remind you that the purpose of this show is to help you think bigger when I can have people like Brian pouring into you pointing to all of us, our thoughts expand and as our thoughts as our thinking expands, our actions tend to follow suit as our actions follow suit our results follow and also our impact follows and that’s my ultimate passion is to help each and every one of us lead a life of greater impact than we would otherwise. So if you’re interested in getting more show notes updates on these shows go to think bigger dot real estate there you will find amazing content with people like Brian page. So let me first and foremost say Brian, I know you’re a busy man and I’m so appreciative of you making time to be on the Think Bigger Real Estate Show.
Brian Page
No, thank you for having me here. I really appreciate it.
Justin Stoddart
For for those that don’t know, Brian, let me give a kind of a brief background here. Brian, you became a millionaire while in your early 20s through residential real estate investing. 2008 hit and it was a little bit of a different scene for you wasn’t it? Yes. And like many of us that were in the real estate industry, I was a builder at the time. High times turned to low times quickly. And I know for you personally, you probably like me, have a lot of ambition and we’re okay just kind of settling with you know, like the market will come back it’ll be okay, you began to look for other ways to get to your goal faster. For those that don’t know Brian’s story. He began teaching people and himself scaling an Airbnb business and I want to emphasize the word scaling because not many people have done that right they purchase a property they Airbnb it they save up some money they purchase another property they Airbnb it. That’s a great way to get rich slowly. Brian has created a way where you can scale and actually have hotels all around the world without you necessarily owning the real estate underneath it. It’s a fascinating model. You’re going to love this episode. I just want to also make special mention here that Brian has worked with heavyweights like Tai Lopez, Grant Cardone, Kevin Harrington, Dean Graziosi, like some of the biggest and brightest names in real estate, Brian has been featured by those individuals, because of his expertise on this very topic, the the BNB Formula. So with all of that said, let me thank you again, Brian, for coming on the show. And let’s dive into how do you make money on Airbnb without owning property? I’m sure people are like, “Now wait, what? You can you can make money through Airbnb without actually owning the property? Please tell us more!” Teach us how you do that?
Brian Page
Sure.Well, I kind of stumbled into it. After going through the whole real estate crash. Around 2008. I stumbled around for a few years trying to figure out something that I could do to make money. And I really wanted to create cash flow. That was the thing that was all about I was a rich dad poor dad fan, I believed in creating cash flow was the way to be financially free. But I didn’t really have the ability or the desire to go buy property again. So I was making a little bit of money with my spare room in my apartment, I had a two bedroom apartment I was renting. And that was doing okay. But it wasn’t until a fake encounter with a gentleman on a plane on a flight. I sat down next to this guy and very wealthy guy that started kind of giving me some advice. And he said, you know, if you could get a whole bunch of these properties on Airbnb, you can make a fortune. And I said, Well, duh, yeah. But I don’t, I don’t have 20% down, I don’t want to go buy property again. I’m kind of double that. They said no, no, you can just control property. If you can control property, then you can do whatever you want. And so that kind of started the whole, the whole journey for me on Airbnb.
Justin Stoddart
Interesting. So this gentleman helped you to realize that you to control property, you don’t necessarily have to own property.
Brian Page
Yeah, you don’t have to own it. And Airbnb doesn’t care if you own the property or not when you go to list it. So I found that I can control it two ways, I can either lease the property, get permission from the owners to then put it on Airbnb, or I could partner with the owners directly, where I can say to the owner, hey, look, you’re going to make more money working with me than you would with a normal tenant. And I’ll show you how to do it. It’s no extra work for you. And we’ll split the profits. So there’s a couple different ways to do it. But ultimately, what allows you to do is go faster. So you can get properties very, very quickly. And it allowed me to do over six figures, my first six months on the site, and over 300,000 my first year, and I had many, many students have done the same thing. I have students that have earned way more than me on Airbnb now, which is pretty crazy.
Justin Stoddart
And you know, the interesting thing, I actually read the chapter of a book that you had written on this very topic. And the question that came into my mind is, why, if I’m a, if I’m a property owner, right? Why would I? And you answer the question in this book, but I’m gonna have you answer it for the audience. If I own a piece of property, and I could lease it out to long term tenants, versus you, who’s going to simply sublease it through Airbnb through Airbnb, to short term tenants? Why would I choose you over a long term tenant?
Brian Page
Yeah, that’s a good question. Everybody asked that question. And when I first started meeting with owners, that was the very question I had to solve in my head. Because most people were just saying no, to me, they didn’t really understand the idea or get it. But they were actively looking for a tenant. So what I figured out after meeting with, you know, dozens, and now hundreds of people face to face, kind of pitching this idea, I realized that really, most owners are only concerned with two things. And I had a whole bunch of rental properties myself, I was a landlord for many years real estate investor. So I was only looking for two things. And that was somebody who’s going to pay the rent on time, without any hassle. And somebody that’s gonna respect and take care of the property, not cause any problems with the property. If somebody could show me they’re going to do those two things, then I would generally be open to renting to them. So it’s pretty easy to show people look, I’m going to pay the rent on time, here’s my references, here’s my previous landlords, I’m going to be responsible. But a lot of times people will be like, well, what’s the advantage with going with you versus just anybody else? So I had to start thinking of that. And I started, I started realizing that with Airbnb, there’s a big difference between guests and tenants. And all the problems that you think about with being a landlord are usually related to tenants. So for example, I always play this game with owners, I would say, I’m going to say a statement, and I want you to tell me if it’s an owner, I’m sorry, I want you tell me if it’s a tenant or guest that would cause this problem. And I would say, okay, somebody leaves their car in the driveway, and unblocked and takes, you know, starts doing oil changes, leaves car parts everywhere. Would that be a guest? Who’s coming in for two nights that probably Uber to the property? Or would it be attended? Well, obviously, you know, it’s a tenant, pets destroying the property or digging holes all over the yard, that’s going to be a tenant or guest. Well, my guests don’t have pets. So that’s never an issue. Somebody who goes and modifies the property, they start installing things, or painting weird colors on the interior, all those kind of things that happened. Somebody having a, an ex, boyfriend, ex girlfriend, show up and kick the front door. And I mean, these kind of things happen all the time with tenants, but they don’t happen with guests. And the main reason is that guests don’t see the property is there, they don’t look at it as like, this is my property, and I own this, they’re just passing through. So there’s a totally different mentality when you explain that to owners, they understand, Wow, my property actually might be taking better care of with these guests. And that is the case, you have a cleaning company coming in every couple days, every two or three days, I have a professional cleaning company coming in, so that the owner actually gets to see the property when if they want to see it. And that’s not the case with tenants, you also don’t have to deal with evictions, you never have to evict the gas because they don’t have any rights to the property. a tenant does have rights to the property. So there’s all these benefits when you start explaining it to an owner, then it’s like they kind of get it. And they may, they may still say no, but you don’t need a whole bunch properties to really earn big money on every day.
Justin Stoddart
You know, it’s it’s fascinating. I think about the last time I stayed in a hotel is about a month ago. And I barely I mean, I slept in the bed. That’s it, right? My wife and I actually on the North Shore of Hawaii, chose an Airbnb over a hotel. And again, we did not want to be in that very BNB for very long, we wanted it to be nice, but as soon as the sun was up, we were headed the beach, right? We had other things to do. And so you’re right, it’s very different being a guest over being a tenant. And when landlords can get their head around that of like, wait a minute, you’re telling me you, you’re gonna have nothing but guess and no tenants, it’s a very appealing offer to a landlord
Unknown Speaker
It’s appealing. And then the thing that always speaks with anybody is money. So the last, the last thing that I always last card, I always play as money. And it’s like if they say no, I say, Well, what if I can make you more money than what you’re actually asking? You’re asking $1,000 a month for this unit? What if I get to 1200 1300. And oftentimes, I’ll pay I can pay more because I know that property on Airbnb can be worth $3,000, a month or more. So I know if I pay a little bit extra to sit since the deal. It’s worth it to me. Now. That’s one model. Now the other model is not doing leases at all, which is just where I’m approaching you as you’re the owner. And I say Hey, why don’t you let me list that property and Airbnb will try it for 30 days or 60 days, there’s no long term commitment. And, and I’ll split all the profits with you above and beyond what you’re already asking. So you’re already going to make $1,000 a month, and then we make another $2,000 a month, we’re going to split that 5050. And you got to do nothing, nothing at all. And if you don’t like me, you don’t like the way it’s going. Just tell me to take a hike. And we’re done there. And so it allows me to get into the property without having a lease. Now I do make less money, yes. But it’s a way to get in with virtually no risk. There’s no risk no money out of pocket, I’m not gonna giving them a deposit up front. So there’s really no downside for me as the as the Airbnb or, and there is an upside for the owner. So it’s a win win.
Justin Stoddart
Love it. Now, let’s talk about why why would somebody allow you to Airbnb? Why would they just do it themselves? Obviously, there’s a certain landlord you’re looking for that hasn’t done this? Do you find that as soon as they sniff out? What’s going on here that they want to end your lease and they want to take it over themselves? Or do they find a really kind of long term partnership? In working with you?
Brian Page
That’s a good question. I met probably with hundreds and hundred people now face to face. And I’ve never had somebody yet look at me and say, Oh my gosh, that’s a great idea. Why don’t I go do that I’m going to take it off the market right now and do that. The reason being if an owner was, was savvy enough to understand that the potential most of most owners don’t know how much you can actually make on Airbnb. And they also are willing to do it. But if they were, they would have already done that they wouldn’t have put it on the market. And we’re talking about only talking to owners who already have property for rent that’s on Craigslist, or it’s on Zillow, or it’s on, you know, they’ve been assigned in the front yard, or it’s in the local paper, we’re already looking for people who are actively searching for tenants. So most owners that they’re going to do it, they’re going to do it anyways. And they usually think it’s a lot of work. If you don’t have a plan in place, you don’t have a system, it can be a lot of work. So you got to put yourself in the mentality of the average investor. And a lot of people listening right now might be investors, you know, we have other things going on. If you’re an investor, you probably don’t own just one property, you probably have a career, you probably have other investments, a lot of things that you do, the last thing that you want to think about doing is starting a new venture with Airbnb. So if you can show the owner that the owners is looking for the rent, they’re just looking like, Hey, I just got this unit empty, I gotta get it filled, I gotta get it filled. Now, that’s kind of the best kind of what they’re thinking that’s what they need. So I don’t really worry about even if an owner were to say to me, Hey, I’m going to do it myself, I’d be like, great, more power to you. I’ll go on to the next property, because there’s millions of properties every day being listed for read. I mean, there’s all they’re always out there, and they’re always available.
Justin Stoddart
You know, and I think you bring up a really great point, Brian, and I want everybody listening this to recognize, like the definition of a business, right? It’s it’s a, it’s a series of processes and systems, right, that produce money, I should say, processes, models, systems, and people that produce money without you necessarily having to be the one pulling the levers and turning the wheels. And for you to make that distinction of like, wait a minute, this is an investment property for you. It’s a business for me. Do you want to start another business, you really want to manage all of that create your own processes, your own models, your own systems? hire more people to do this for you? Or do you just want to continue to be a passive investor and earn more money and have your property better taken care of, then I’m your solution. I’ll run my business on top of your property, and it’ll be a win win for both.
Brian Page
Yeah, I’m glad you said that. Because some people, they misunderstand what I teach because I if you’re interested in starting Airbnb figured out how to do Airbnb for the first time, I can help you do that. That’s not really what I teach. Anybody can do that. It’s not that hard to go to go set up property or room on the site. What I help people do is build businesses, build a system, build a system that’s scalable. So you get a whole bunch of these things on Airbnb, and that’s where the money starts getting bigger and, and being able to, to remove yourself from situations you’re not doing the day to day tasks. Because I don’t want to create a job for myself. I was working 4050 hours a week in the beginning when I had a bunch of these listings, because I couldn’t figure out how to how to systematized and I couldn’t figure out how to automate it and get out of the day to day. So now what I teach people how to do is get the first property, then get their second thing, get their third and then start automating those properties, and then continually adding and adding and adding to the portfolio. So I just got an email today from a student mine, she’s on her 12th property. She told me she netted $246,000 I think it was in the last 12 months. And she done it with no leases doesn’t own any property. And she was a she was a bartender and a college student when she started she’s 26 years old. So so just gives you an idea that it’s it’s huge numbers can be created, cash flow can be created, but it can be done very part time, she works very hard time doing this. So that’s what I’m about. I’m passionate about making money, but not exchanging all my time for it. And helping people build businesses on top of other people’s real estate investments. It’s a win win for both. I love it. What’s the risk? Obviously, as you think through this, you’re essentially securing leases, right with landlords, and then you’re building the business on top of that lease. Yeah. What’s the downside? How do people insulate themselves against having a bunch of leases that right that they can’t pay for? Yeah, well, there with any least there’s going to be some risk because you’re actually signing your name on legal obligation to pay that rent for the next 12 months. So I always tell people, look, if you’re not comfortable doing that start the other way, start with partnering on a property, I started with a room, a second room in my apartment, and I knew how much that little room was making. So I knew if it’s making this much money, then that little one bedroom apartment down the road is going to make at least that much, which is more than what they’re charging me for rent. So I knew I felt comfortable moving to the next level. So So as far as risk, yeah, there could be some risk of signing a lease, but everything’s negotiable. Everything’s renegotiate, if I got into at least one time in two months in, I found out the property wasn’t going to work. And I went and got another tenant for that owner brought that tenant to them. That was a perfect selection and said, I’m sorry, I just can’t stay in this lease. But here’s your guy, this is the guy that you need to let take over the lease, and they let me out. So everything’s ready to go. And, but if you want to avoid any kind of risk leases, then you can look at partnering. And then as far as the other risk, I guess you’d call it a risk, I can see my poster behind me take the risk. Risk, definitely the most people because if you’re going to put money into a business, it’s always a risk. But this is something where you can put in a very small amount of money to get something going that could actually pay you daily cash flow. And I don’t know many businesses like that. And it’s also the kind of business where you can break even in the first 30 days. So if you if you, for example, have $1,000, rental $1,000 deposit, that’s $2,000 let’s say it’s a furnished property, then even if you spend a little a few hundred dollars more on a few things you’re going to put in that unit, let’s say it’s 20 $500, you could quite feasibly bring in 20 $500 on a on a $1,000 a month rental the first month. So you broke even maybe made a little bit money that first month, and then every month after that you’re profitable. So it’s such a small miniscule risk, I don’t consider it a risk compared to say real estate flipping, which I’ve done many real estate flips and other real estate deals where if you make a mistake, you might actually come out of pocket, you know, you can make a bad mistake by property. That’s, that’s not a good selection Are you overpay for it. It’s a low risk, side hustle, you can start but then you can also grow that into a real business.
Justin Stoddart
So on that note, I mean, what one other questions probably coming to mind, obviously in some of these, you know, different cities where people are at, or they’re hearing about, like cities coming in and making changes to Airbnb policies, right short term rental policies, homeowners associations doing the same? I think you probably answer this to some degree when you said things are negotiable, right? Something changes, you go back to the owner say this isn’t working anymore. Is there anything else people should know about? And of course, there’s no way we’ll get through all of your content in this interview. But but just kind of briefly touch on that of like, when? How do you navigate right when city like city ordinances etc.
Brian Page
Okay, so this is one of the things that, that I wasn’t even sure how to answer because I only knew my local area. When I first got started, I started teaching people, I’m not taught thousands of people in 30 different countries how to do this. And as my number of students started growing, they were at all kinds of cities. So they were in cities, where it’s not even really allowed, like San Francisco or New York city proper. There are places where what I call red cities, or red zones, where home sharing or short term rentals is really just not allowed. It’s very difficult, if not possible to do. So I started doing some research, we hired a research firm over the course of six months that research the top 2000 cities in the US now that no 2000 cities is every city, every town over 30,000 people in the US, we put on a spreadsheet. And we basically classify them as his short term rentals allowed or not allowed. And we found that 92% of towns and cities in the US, for example, allow home share. So 8% dope. But what was interesting is even in those 8% of cities, I still have students there that were killing it, I got students in San Francisco that are killing it. In places like Denver, or New York City, they’re still doing well. And I couldn’t figure out how they were doing it like are they breaking the rules? Some people are, but are they doing it without breaking the rules? How are they doing this? So what we found is that they were just simply going around the red zone. So if you take a city, any city like Atlanta, Georgia for Atlanta is not very easy to do short term rentals in. But Atlanta is made up of 20 different metro areas. So if you live in downtown Atlanta, you can simply get your car and drive in any direction, 20 minutes, and you’re in another town, nothing municipality. So you just go where the opportunity is, if you don’t want to break the rules. Now, with that being said, half the cities that are read do not enforce the rules at all. So do what do with that what you like, but um, so it’s quite frankly, just like any real estate, you got to go where the opportunity is you got to go where it’s zone correctly. But thankfully, for nine out of 10 cities, it’s going to be totally fine.
Justin Stoddart
Now as I was reading about you prior to us connecting, I thought to myself, I remember back to my days playing Monopoly as a youth. And I remembered it seems like the person that always want is the person that got hotels, right. And it was a, it was a painful process. To get to that point, right, you had to get the right property, then you had to have enough cash to put a house on it and then trade up to a hotel, right. And what I see you having done here is to shortcut the the means and methods by which you have hotels all over the place.
Brian Page
Yeah. Yeah. I look at it as a distributed hotel. Because the hotel mate, let’s say has a 10 room hotel, where you can have 10 units, but they’re all over the place. So these rooms, hotel rooms are distributed. So yeah, it’s kind of like being a hotelier In fact, the Airbnb book, somewhere behind me on the shelf. It’s an Airbnb story. They call it citizen hotel years. So it’s the idea that any citizen now can can run their own little hotel. The downside of that it’s it’s a great thing. It’s very lucrative. The downside is that when you run a hotel, you got to have a front desk, you have somebody to manage those guests and manage all the stuff that happens and all the requests, and I need more towels and all that kind of crap. So luckily, that can now be outsourced, you can actually set up your virtual front desk. And that’s what I love to teach people how to do. So how to run your hotel, how to have a front desk and managing that hotel, where you’re the owner, but you’re not the operator. I don’t want anybody to be the operator, I don’t want somebody to be like I did. I did what you said right? Now, I haven’t no time because I’m running all these Airbnb. I’m just specialize in teaching you how to do literally work the three, four or five hour workweek, and be able to make significant income doing it.
Justin Stoddart
And before we get to the signature question of the show, which I can’t wait to hear your answer to, for those that have watched the show. Now what I’m talking about, and I’m going to ask you what you do to continue to think bigger. But before you answer that, I just want to put a plug in here on how you get more information on Brian Brian page again, Brian page book. com it’s at. It’s a it’s a brief audio correct, Brian, tell us a little bit about the book.
Unknown Speaker
So brianpagebook.com is my audio book. And what I’ll do in the audio book is walk you through, and I’ll talk about every single one of my properties, what the numbers are specifically, so you know what the numbers are, I’ll explain more about how I got the owners on board. And then how I started to scale it. It’s basically my whole story. And it’s $2 killer audio book, if you don’t like it, let me know, refund your money, but you gotta listen to the whole audio book and, and then get more information on what I teach.
Justin Stoddart
Awesome stuff, please do yourself a favor, spend the $2. That’s half of the cost of your latte, like this morning, maybe a third of the cost of your latte anyway, a great investment. And again, I want to kind of frame this in the sense that this, the audience that has attracted this show is oftentimes residential real estate agents, real estate professionals, you might be thinking like, this isn’t a little bit in competition to what I do, here’s what you need to know is it by surrounding yourself, again, with big thinking people with the best ideas on the planet, you are going to be able to show up to your clients more as an advisor, as an expert, as a knowledge worker, not just as a customer service representative here to market and sell their home. Yes, that’s important. But that cannot be the baseline to what you do. You have to expand your knowledge, you have to expand your network. And people that do that, and recognize the abundance in doing so will position them selves at work with the best clients out there. so appreciative of what you’ve shared today, Brian, again, let’s move to the signature question of the show, which is there’s no doubt that you are a big thinker, right? That’s why you’re on the think bigger real estate show. And we’re so proud to have you here. Obviously, you’ve surrounded yourself again, with some of the biggest names in real estate. You’ve been featured in ink, Entrepreneur Magazine, Forbes, like some of the biggest magazines out there have highlighted you and your strategy. In addition to all of that, what does a guy like you continue to do to think bigger? What do you do to continue to expand your possibilities, please teach us.
Brian Page
try to get uncomfortable. I find that whenever I’m uncomfortable, I’m pushing my boundaries. And I’m doing something that’s outside of my skill set and usually out some definitely out something outside of my my comfort zone. So I remember a mentor of mine said, make being uncomfortable your new comfort zone. So I’m always pushing myself, I’m doing things actually this month that I’ve never done before. I’m doing my first live event mastermind event. So I’m very excited about that. And and then always constantly looking for something that when I start feeling it’s it’s a little uncomfortable. For me, it’s something that I essentially I have to do. And I just read this quote today I want to share this quote because it actually fits with what you said just I just read it earlier this morning. This is by Dan Penn, I don’t even know if I know who Dan Penn is, but I love this quote, he says “When I get uncomfortable, I know that I’m making progress.” So for me, that’s kind of the thing that’s that’s that’s the easiest way to tell where the edge is, for me, is as soon as its uncomfortable, I push into that. And I think that’s the best way to start thinking bigger. And if the dreams that you have the vision you have for your life does not make you a little bit uncomfortable, those are probably too small of goals, that’s just my personal opinion should probably increase those a little bit.
Justin Stoddart
You know, I found that human happiness is oftentimes very correlated to their growth, people that not growing or typically very unsatisfied, and very unhappy. Whereas people that are growing and stretching themselves, I believe that it’s it’s consistent with their even spiritual DNA, right, that were designed and made to grow. And when we don’t grow, we feel it. And we’re unhappy as a result. And I think what you’ve shared reminds me of a quote that “Everything you want in life is outside your comfort zone.” And I really appreciate we’ve shared, this has been mind expanding, and I’m extremely grateful for you taking the time and the effort to come and pour into this audience. I hope that everybody listening today has at minimum had your own vision and your own possibilities expanded. I hope as well as you go find Brian, follow Him and seek out his content, if nothing more than to help you be a better real estate advisor and potentially unlock some passive income for you that may be right under your nose. So Brian, I want to thank you again for coming on. And it’s been a total pleasure.
Brian Page
I wanted to let everybody know if this is is Airbnb things not for you. I have a lot of great content on entrepreneurship, business inspiration, that kind of stuff. You can find me at at @bpagester on Instagram, Facebook anywhere, really. And you might want to see some of the content I put out because it’s it’s stuff that I’ve learned over the last few years. It’s really helped a lot of people on their journey.
Justin Stoddart
I love it. Yeah, just a big thinking guy like you will help all of us in whatever endeavors we’re on and working towards. So my final request of everybody listening today, and you’ve made this a lot easier for us, Brian, which is three words, its “Go Think Bigger.” Brian, it’s been a total pleasure. Thank you again for joining us. Thanks, everybody for tuning in.