Escaping the Drift with John Gafford - From $35K Bet to 7-Figure Airbnb Empire - Linda Kim

Episode Date: April 14, 2026

On this episode of Escaping the Drift, we sit down with Linda Kim: entrepreneur and Airbnb arbitrage expert who turned a bold $35,000 investment into a thriving seven-figure business.After walking away from an unfulfilling relationship and a traditional 9-to-5 career in tech, Linda shares how she rebuilt her life from the ground up: taking massive action, trusting her instincts, and going all-in on a business model many claimed was “dead.” Today, she operates multiple high-performing Airbnb properties across the country and helps others do the same.We dive into the realities of Airbnb arbitrage, how to find profitable deals, and what separates those who succeed from those who stay stuck. Linda also opens up about mindset, risk-taking, and the internal shift that pushed her to stop playing small and start building real freedom.If you’re ready to bet on yourself, break out of the cycle, and learn what it takes to create income on your own terms, this episode is packed with insights you won’t want to miss.💬 Did you enjoy this podcast episode? Tell us all about it in the comment section below! ☑️  If you liked this video, consider subscribing to Escaping The Drift with John Gafford *************💯 About John Gafford: After appearing on NBC's "The Apprentice", John relocated to the Las Vegas Valley and founded several successful companies in the real estate space.➡️ The Gafford Group at Simply Vegas, top 1% of all REALTORS nationwide in terms of production. Simply Vegas, a 500 agent brokerage with billions in annual sales Clear Title, a 7-figure full-service title and escrow company.*************✅ Follow John Gafford on social media:Instagram ▶️ / thejohngaffordFacebook ▶️ / gafford2🎧 Stream The Escaping The Drift Podcast with John Gafford Episode here:Listen On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7cWN80gtZ4m4wl3DqQoJmK?si=2d60fd72329d44a9Listen On Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/escaping-the-drift-with-john-gafford/id1582927283 *************#EscapingTheDrift #LindaKim#AirbnbArbitrage #EntrepreneurMindset #RealEstateInvesting #FinancialFreedom #WomenInBusiness #PassiveIncome #SideHustle #WealthBuilding #StartupStory #BusinessGrowth #MindsetShiftSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Back again, back again for another episode of like it says in the opening, the show that gets you from where you are to where you want to be. And today, live in studio from one of my favorite places in the world, Orange County, coming all the way to Vegas. This is a person who changed her stars through the miraculous business of what's called Airbnb arbitrage. Now I know some of you might be hearing this and saying, oh, I heard that was dead. That doesn't work anymore. Well, listen, this is a person that's rolling a seven-figure income that's, says it's not, and I want to hear all about it on how it still works and why it still works and why it still works. So ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the program. This is Linda Kim.

Linda, is that accurate? Yes. Did I freak you out? Was I too loud? Not at all right. I amp you up. You're ready to go? You're ready to go? All right, cool. So tell me, give me a little color on the back end of your story, like how you got to be you. Yeah, so I pretty much grew up, born and raised in Seattle, Washington. My parents were- I'm going to push this a little closer. You're good. So my parents- were immigrated from Korea. They were in the same job post office for 30 years. And so I kind of grew up in that, no, I didn't really have a growth mindset.

I kind of just did the same thing for so many years. And just, you know, being in the cycle of that rat race. And so I moved to California during COVID with my ex. And just over, it was not the healthiest relationship. But something at that point, I felt like, okay, I don't want to keep doing the same thing. And I just feel stuck. I want more of my life. Were you guys married?

Yes. Okay. You're married. Yeah. Married with kids and I just felt like this is going to be my life forever. And I didn't, it just didn't feel right. And my best friend passed away and I felt like it was kind of a wake-up call of, do I really want to do this for the rest of my life?

Did you feel like your life wasn't yours? You weren't controlling it? Yeah, exactly. And I knew I was settling. I just felt like, even though I was in beautiful, you know, Orange County, like you know, I loved it, but I still didn't feel fulfilled. So. Yeah.

Was it you? All right. So, so you make a change. Now, a new question, because I don't know. When you were with your ex, was he the primary breadwinner at that point? Is that how that was? No, so we actually were both in tech. Both were in tech. Okay, cool.

I missed it. See, I didn't hear that part. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so we were both in tech. But he wasn't very growth-minded. And once we split, I just felt like I just kind of pursued bigger things on my own. When you say you were in tech, what did you do? I was a creative director for like Amazon, Microsoft, video game companies.

Okay. Cool. Yeah. So, but even doing that, it wasn't really what you wanted to do. Yeah, because I was climbing the ladder and I got to the point of director and I felt like, oh, this is so cool. But then it's like you reach the cap of your salary and you can't, you know, go higher and then you feel like you're working all that time in meetings. So I felt like, I want to make more money fast. And so I started looking on Google. I'll never, I'll never forget. I was working for a national real estate or national restaurant

chain and I got promoted to a certain level within that chain and the vice president of the company called me and just said in his snarky way of congratulating me he said get your resume ready. Oh. And I said, why? And he goes, nowhere else to go but out. Like this is as high as you're going to go. There's nowhere else to go to out. And he was right.

I mean, I was like, I was like, ooh, that's a terrible thing to hear. But it's accurate. And it happens so often for people is, you know, if somebody else is controlling that you're of your life, you know, as far as what your job title is, what your income is, what you're allowed to do, yeah, you do hit a ceiling. You do hit a place where this is all you can do. So yeah, you know, and it's when you realize that, it's normally not a good day. Yeah, exactly. And I got laid off too, right after I started my Airbnb business. Yeah. Yeah, that's the worst too. So yeah. So you said you got on Google, what'd you find on the old Google? Yeah. I was like,

I was like, I had this drive to make a lot of money fast and I didn't want to, well, because you know, all the things of drop shipping, flipping houses and all these other things. And then I came across Airbnb Arbitrash and that was one of the many things. Something about that just intrigued me more. And then so I just kept getting pushed those mentors on, you know, Instagram that keep sending you the ads. Yeah. Once you hit your, yeah, once the algorithm picks up you want something to get them all. Exactly. Who did you settle on as a mentor if you don't mind me asking? Yeah, his name is Chris Troy. Okay. I don't know Chris. Yeah. But he had built this multimillion dollar business. He was in his late 20s. He's pretty young.

And his lifestyle, I just felt like, oh, my God, I want to do that. And obviously, I didn't know if it would work. But I ended up investing with him. And it changed my entire life. Okay, cool. So when you talked about, you made the jump to invest with him, how much it, mind me asking how much investment it was? It was $35,000.

Oh, that's a lot. Yeah, yeah. That's a lot. And thank goodness you didn't invest that in the Amazon drop shipping thing because, dude, a lot of people did spend that much. It got burned on that thing. Oh, my gosh. That was, yeah, that was a really bad business.

Okay. A lot of those people that were spinning up those stores for people and making a lot of false pretense changes. I mean, do you see anybody advertising that anymore? That's true. There's still people coaching people how to do what you do. Nobody's talking about spending up Amazon drop shipping. That's true. That's a good point. Yeah, because it was just a scam. So that was a lot.

So talk to me about that because most people again, like that number is pretty big, right? That's a big chunk. It's not like a little bit of money. What was that decision like to make that investment? Yeah, because he was charging the most out of anybody. And I don't know why. Because, you know, most people, some people might go off price. Oh, well, this one's 10K.

I'm just going to go over here. Something about him spoke to me. I don't know if it was, I don't know what it was, but it was scary because I'd never invested in coaching. I never went to networking events at that point. I was in my 9 to 5. I rarely socialize. Yeah.

So somewhere, somehow that just came to me that, to like, it was just my good instincts to say yes. To say yes. Yeah. And it was more like he was taking applications. I'm taking 10 people a month. And I just felt like, oh, he's not going to get back to me probably. I'll just apply for this thing and go on with my life. Do you think in retrospect now that might have been a sales pitch?

Probably. That might have been a takeaway close. I'm just saying, I'm only taking 10 a month. I'm pretty sure. Look, this is all I'm going to say. And no offense to Chris, I'm sure he's a wonderful dude. But if there's a line of people that are willing to give me $35,000 for what I know, I'm not getting to the 10th person and saying, no,

No more of you $35,000 people. I'm not taking anyone else. Yeah, something tells me that might not be accurate. But good for him, dude, good for him. And it worked out. So God bless, good for everybody, right? So tell me about his system versus what you do now. Are you working exactly what he told you to do?

Or have you tweaked it a little bit? Is there a little angle on? Like, what's the difference? Yeah. How I run my business? No, just from what you learned then, right? Like you obviously started doing exactly what he told you to do. So like what was the premise?

Obviously, we're not going to go through the whole thing. But what was the premise of this business for people that don't understand the concept of Airbnb and arbitrage? And then I want to talk about how you put your little spin on it. That's a really good question. Because I think a lot of mentorships, people feel like, oh, I didn't learn the right way or I didn't learn enough. I learned, I really learned everything in a short period because I got my properties in the second week of the coaching class. So it was super fast and I was still in my tech job. And so I learned everything from setting up my business to negotiating and pitching to the landlord.

Where do I go look for properties? And then I acquired properties, set them up, everything, SEO. Yeah. So I had a running business at the end of like. In two weeks. Or, well, I got my properties on the second week of class because it was a pitching class. So I went out and started calling thinking, oh, this is going to take me a while? and then I just got him and I was like, oh my God.

Was everybody else having the same kind of success? You were in the group or just you? No, I was the only one that started business from that cohort. And then one guy started later. Okay. Yeah. Good. Yeah.

So funny. Dude, I say it all the time, man. Education without action is entertainment. And they're way more entertaining things you could probably could have sat through. We're spent $35,000 on, right? But people, I never, people do it all the time. They spend money on courses. They spend money on things.

They buy books and then they just don't ever take action. What do you think is different about you versus everybody else that makes you an action taker? I love that question. I kind of think about that. I don't know. I just had this fire inside of me after going through my divorce. And I just felt like that that thing that I told you about that, I just want to do something

with my life. And it was always inside, but it just never came out because I was with that person that wasn't like that. So I think by then I felt like, okay, I put $35,000. I'm going to do everything it takes to make this happen. And I was literally tunnel vision from that moment. Okay. Was that, okay.

So let's go, let's go a little deeper here. Do you think that was because you wanted to show your ex you could deal with Adam? Or was it a competition that you wanted to beat him? Or was it, what do you think it was? That's a good question. It actually wasn't.

No? Yeah, I think I just always liked that. It just was, I just had my own freedom to kind of go all in. And if I find something that I really want to do, I will give it, 100%. You're all in it. Yeah. So it's not. Yeah. But it's, I don't feel like that with everything, though.

But so what, okay, so what does something have to do to make it worth you're all in? I don't know. I think there's just this passion for it that just comes out of nowhere. Even my coaching program and I just have so much passion for it that I'm like, everything is all into that right now. Yeah. Yeah. So it's just that one thing that really like ignites me. Okay. Yeah. So next question. As somebody that is all in when they're all in, how do you deal with people around you that are not? Oh. Yeah. So, so. I used to be around a lot of that, a lot of people that weren't like-minded, and then I kind of wouldn't be. But now I've tried to be around people that are aligned and like-minded, and they're

doing better than me. So I feel like I need to do better to catch up. So now I'm really, yeah. And how are you finding those rooms? Yeah. So it took over time I was going to a lot of networking events, a little bit less now. But I was going to conferences, events. And then I would just kind of meet people here and there. And I'm sure you know that the more you do that, the more you easily filter and you can kind of see what's not aligned. So now it's a group of people where they're just really doing amazing things, including Shane and yeah. Yeah, it's funny. You want to get to a point very quickly where you're like, I want to be polarizing for people because I either want you in or out as quickly as possible. I need to sort you very quickly. Very quickly,

I need to sort you. So let's talk about that a little more because, so you talk about going to networking events and that sort of stuff. How are you finding these? What are you seeking out when you're looking for them? How many of them are you going to? Yeah. So obviously, like I said when I was in my nine to five, I never went to even one. Because you didn't have to because somebody else telling you what was going on today. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I never had that. But in California, I just started well, I was invited by, do you know Apollo? Do you know, Apollo? I don't. He's an Olympian. He used to be a speed skating. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I do know who he is. Yes, I do. Yes, I do. Yes, I do. So he is one of my childhood friends, but we're a real good friends.

And he invited me to this party in L.A. And everything just happened from there. And I met so many people from that one, going to that one event. And one thing led to another, and I just slowly getting invited to things about like entrepreneur events. And that's how I would find them, just one person to another person and another person. Okay, well, let's talk about that. Because obviously you're good at networking if you're getting invited to other places. So what is your, I'm curious what your process is for.

going to a network event. Yeah. What's your process? Yeah. Okay. So I used to, when I wasn't going, the thought of going and talking to strangers actually wasn't, like I wasn't, like I felt like I was scared to do that. Right.

Yeah. But now I don't. I love going. I would, I'll go by myself all the time. So my process is I'll see what kind of value I might get from that event. Now I'm a little bit better, but like what kind of people are going to be there? What is the industry? and if I've gone there before, obviously, I'll go back if I liked it.

So it really depends on who I meet there. That's what I'm saying. When you meet people, what's your plan? How do you go about it? Do you have a system that you use? Like you're walking the floor. You're at the cocktail party. Everybody's here.

What are we doing? Yeah. Tell me about Linda's process when I walk in the floor. What are we doing? I think, I don't know. I think sometimes you kind of can tell. It's not always visual, though. But you kind of sense people's energies or how they're moving in the room or what

they're talking about. all kind of listen, kind of in the background, see what they're talking about and see, oh, I can connect with that. Okay. And then I'll kind of go up to them and start talking to them and make conversation.

You're kind of 45 degree, you're kind of 45 your way into the conversation. Yeah, yeah. And drop it in, okay? I like it. I have a very, I have a process when I go to network. I'm an absolute process because this is,

and I'll tell you what it is. First of off, my secret weapon is my wife because my memory is terrible. I like really quick. I'm terrible with names. so I take her with me as often as I can. And as I introduce people, she's taking notes behind me. She's writing down in her notes.

We have a shared Apple note for whatever event it is. Like tall guy, brown suit was talked about this. His name is Fred. Here's what he does. So I'm really listening to them and I'm not trying to sit there and go, Fred blue suit, Fred blue suit, Fred blue suit, right? I'm not doing that. So that's number one.

But I find the best networking thing that I ever did was, or I ever learned, was when I walk up to people and everybody's in that, walking resume mode, right? I'm always like, I ask people to say, tell me about you. And they're like, oh, I work at so-and-so, and I do this and blah, blah. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Not where do you work? Tell me about you.

You're married. You're single, your kids, whatever. And that question, it's like watching a record skip. People are just like, what? Oh, yeah, no, I'm from someone. So I've got wife and three kids. They have been this, because we start asking about themselves. They're like, this person really wants to know who I am as a human and not just read my

resume. And I found that to be incredibly effective. Do you have any little networking tips like that? Like something that maybe you've done in the past that is because to me, the reason I do that is because I find it's more important to be memorable than have a good memory. Yeah. I really like that.

I want to be a member of you. Yes. And you know, like people like it when other people are interested in who they are than what they do. So I can see why you do that. But I also try to bring a personal angle to it. So obviously one of the things. is this the conversation. What are they talking about in that moment instead of going up and just

saying, oh, what do you do for work? I'll either relate to them on what they're talking about at that moment. Or you push off. Oh. Or you push off. Yeah, you're not even, or you're, or you're only interjecting yourself in conversations where you know you can bring something to the table. Oh, no, no, no. It just depends on who it is. But yeah, I'll either try to join their conversation or, you know, like, yeah. Or you compliment that on something that is genuine. Obviously, you're not going to fake it. But yeah, try to find something where you can relate on with these. each other. I think that's really helpful. That's cool. Yeah. Are you part of any like paid mastermind groups or anything like that? So I did my mentorship and then after that I hired a business coach.

I hired another, I did another mastermind. Yeah, so I've done a few since that. You've done a few. How important do you think that that is to what your success? Everything. I think it's so much, especially coming from the nine to five mindset. Yeah. It just helps so much that books. It totally change everything for me. All right. Well, let's have says this. So breaking out of the nine to five mindset into an entrepreneurial mindset, what advice would you give to people that need to do that? I would say, well, I would say hire a mentor or a coach. I think it's so helpful to expedite your success. Because if I tried to figure out Airbnb on my own, I wouldn't be here today. I don't think I would have followed through or I wouldn't have been as, you know, have done it as well. I would say he

actually made us read certain books. What books? Rich Dad, Portad, all the classics, you know, atomic habits. Is it compound effect? Or yeah, all these different books. Think. Think and grow rich. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All that stuff. So doing that just maybe me read more and more. And I just kept kind of, it's not like brainwashing, but you're really training your mind to think differently. No. No. Dude, I tell people all the time, I think it's so much more important what you put in your ears and what you're in your eyes and what you put in your mouth. People are, you know, and now so many people are on just a steady diet of just the next reel or the next story or whatever. It's just this mindless, numbing scrolling that, yeah, you absolutely, if you just change

what you're digesting with your brain, you can completely change your thought process. Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit more about Airbnb arbitrage because for those of you don't know what that is. I'll let you explain it. What is it? It's pretty much when you rent a property from the landlord and then you put it on Airbnb. So you're not purchasing your get getting properties on to Airbnb by renting. Yeah. And you disclose everything to the landlord. You tell them it's a corporate rental. You're very upfront with them. You don't you don't go tell them you're going to be living there and then turn their house to Airbnb because that can cause problems. Exactly. Right. So well, what are so because now, you know, of course, let's talk about this because everybody saying,

Airbnb is dead. It's dead. It said, it said, it said. Why are people saying that and why are they wrong? So I had this conversation with some people, and we noticed some of the people that are saying that, not everybody, but some of them are trying to get other people to invest into their program. Maybe they're doing RV parks or they're doing pad splits. Yeah, or house wholesale. They're like, oh, don't do that. Come do this. Yeah. Yeah, I have a saying, which is I never buy the protest sign, the person that's telling me about the protest.

So I kind of, I kind of get it. It's fine. But have you seen, I mean, obviously there's markets where. it's become really oversaturated. You've seen a lot of legislation in certain markets come down at Orange County's dreadful now for Airbnb. It has gotten tougher. So have you pulled out of some markets and moved into other markets?

Like what changes have you made with the markets as they change? Yeah. So one of the facts is they said that last year, Airbnb had $90 billion in booking still for 2025. So I feel like, okay, the Airbnb is dead. I'm like, well, it's such a huge industry still because everyone's still going to need a place to go stay if they don't want a hotel. And then so the thing with the market is that I always research ahead of time. And so I operate in areas that are allowed. And obviously the nice thing about if it isn't is that you're not owning it.

So you can easily just take your stuff out and go to a new city. How long of a lease are you signing on these properties? One year at a time. One year at a time. But every landlord has renewed it every year. They always renew. Yeah, because they love it. What's your best market?

Well, so I do Southern California, Orange County, L.A., and then I was seeing Houston, Texas. Okay. They're all doing really well. Very cool. What makes a good Airbnb? I would say something that looks nice. So I learned from my mentor. He does luxury Airbnb.

So I learned to do single family. And I think that's part of the things where other people didn't find success. They maybe they're doing a bunch of apartments or. Yeah. But if you do single family nicer looking homes, you can make a lot in the right area. But I think, do you think you have to make them unique? Do you think there has to be something really unique about the house that makes it stand out? Like, wow, that looks like a cool place.

That's a good question. So my houses don't have, they didn't have the, like fancy pools or amenities, but I designed them well and to look nicer. Are you them or no? No. Yeah. It's just nice furniture. And then it just gets bookings right away.

I just get spoken around the way. When you're penciling a deal, right? Walk me through penciling an Airbnb arbitrage deal. Walk me through it. Let's say I want to do one in Houston, Texas. What am I looking for? What do the numbers need to look like to make this a good deal? Yeah.

So you're going to go look for a house that obviously looks nice on, you know, go through Zillow or wherever you're looking at your listings. And I'm sure you obviously know real estate, but look for something that's not dated, that's something you would want to stay in that looks attractive. It doesn't have to be, obviously, super high in luxury, but something nice. And then more bedrooms, the better. So you're going to make more, you know, three versus five-thirty-year-a-per-thirty-per-per-

minimum three. Minimum three. Five is like three. Five is ideal. Yeah. Yeah. So if you have a four-bedroom with a den, I always convert the den because then you make even more money. And then you're going to take that house. And then typically you want to make double the rent.

So if the rent is $4,000, you want to profit $4,000. Minimum. Got it. Yeah. And it, yeah. So is there, there are there websites where you can look at projected Airbnb rates, right? What are those websites?

Air DNA. Air DNA. That's what it is. Yep. You can look at that. So you're looking, you won't do anything less than a projected 50%. Now,

when you're penciling the deal to do the investment in the furniture, what are you penciling out? Is it a price per square foot? What do you look? How are you running those numbers? Yeah. So it's about, you want to spend about three to four times a rent.

So that's on average. Okay. Yeah. And I figured a way to do it where you're not spending, money on super high-end luxury furniture that's super expensive. But still making it look nice. So there's that balance of... Just by finding places like IKEA to buy stuff?

Yeah, or not IKEA, but... I don't know. I'm just telling it out of it. No, no, that's a good question. So not... Well, you could do IKEA for some stuff, but in generally, even places like Wayfair... Overstock, yeah. Yeah, nowadays, there's so many options of nice furniture that's not super crazy expensive. Yeah.

Yeah. No, I agree. There's a lot of options and things you can do. Yeah. Now, you're not altering these products. You're not doing wallpaper. You're not doing, you're not doing paint. You're just really just doing artwork and literally furniture and housewares. Yeah.

Yeah. But when I first started, I got one house by Disneyland. That was a little more dated. And so I was, I did kind of paint some stuff. But after that I was made a little kitsier. Yeah, yeah. Because it by Disney. Yeah.

Or, yeah, you know, kind of updated the kitchen a little bit. But now I just get homes that are kind of more ready to go. Yeah, ready to go. So you're doing this across the country. How do you handle this across? Like, how do you have to go to Houston and actually go buy all this stuff and put it in the house? Or do you have shopping lift managers hire them locally?

How do you handle that? Yeah. So I could have had my team go set it up, but I like to just go in there. But it only takes me a weekend. So I'll just go in there, have all the furnisher shipped, hire everybody to come in the weekend. And we just set everything up. At this point, do you have like a shopping list that you have that you can plug and play?

You get a house. Like, you don't have to sit there and toil over Wayfair for 10 hours. You just, this is my couch. These are my chairs. You just know what works and it's good. Well, I could do that, but I try to make them a little bit different. So I do kind of shop around. Okay.

So you do that. Is that part of what's fun for you then? Yeah. Yeah. It is a little time consuming, but some stuff I'll reuse, but sometimes I want to make it new. So yeah. And that's my other business too. I do that for other people?

I was going to say, do you fancy yourself a little bit of a designer then? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anybody that's a real estate line, we all fancy ourselves designers at this point. Like, no, you need to go with the Taj Mahal stone, not to try out. We all know. We all fancy ourselves as fancy. So you actually physically go there and set these things up. So from the time that you take the lease, right, I take a lease.

How long are you normally up before you or getting your first booking? What's the, what's the run by? Yeah. So I was in Texas or I was trying to get one before 2026. That was just my goal in my head. And it was about three weeks, was it like the first week of December, first or second week. And I was like, oh my God, I'm running out of time. I got to, you know, I just want to get this. And so I found one right before, like within two weeks. So we negotiated. I signed the contract,

ordered everything and flew out there. So I think about two weeks. Okay. From lease to. Is that your standard of what you have is two weeks from least to being running right? It has kind of, how do you get furniture from Wayfar in two weeks? That's crazy. It comes in like two days now. So is it. Are you old? Are you, is that that obviously plays a factory and how quickly you can get this stuff, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And what do you buy the house bars?

You just go to like Target and just bang it out? Well, that's stuff to Target or Amazon. Oh, yeah, yeah. That kind of stuff I kind of already have a list of. You just have a list of and you can reoccurring and just bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, and it's good. Lights or plates. Yeah, exactly. It's your plates.

Okay. Tows, you know, it's all the same stuff. All right. So so many people now are trying to manage like their properties off Airbnb, off the RBO. You have sites where they can book directly for you on your stuff? Do you have your own site? I, I'm creating one, but I haven't had to rely on it yet just because Airbnb's been. pretty good. What split do they take Airbnb? Well, I think they changed it now to 13%. Okay,

what was it? What was it? Before? I think before the, you had the guests would pay some of that, but now it's all the host fee. I'm not sure why they did that, but yeah. Yeah, because $90 billion isn't enough it sounds like that. So you've got to make a little money. Got to get to revenue. Yeah, exactly. So they can get their valuation up, which is, which is that works. So you're trying to make, so when you say I want to make twice the rent on the, on the, is that net or gross? That's net. Well, so let's say, let's say you got $12,000 on Airbnb, then you pay the $4,000 rent. Then you profit eight.

So it's like, okay. So you're trying to make a net. You're trying to make a net eight. Is that in that? Yeah, yeah. So that's, but that's really not net net, because that doesn't include utilities or anything else. Yeah, yeah. That's just your gross top line after Airbnb's money.

So if you, if you're running for four, you want to bring in 12 on Airbnb. If you, if you're running for four, you want to bring in eight. Because half of that goes to rent. Right. Okay. Okay. Okay. Sorry.

I don't know how we got the math screwed up. I know. So you're estimating $8,000 is what you want to bring in. So you're getting four. And then by the time utilities and everything else comes down to that, what are you normally left with? Utilities only a couple, few hundred. Okay.

Depending? Yeah. All right. But sometimes it even goes like by Houston House, it's $4,000, $3,900 for rent for a five-bedroom, which is great. Better than California prices. And so what the highest, that had 11,000 net profit.

Wow. Yeah, last March. So how many, well, let me ask you this, though, because there are months when you lose, right? Yeah. Not so far. It depends on the market. Not so far. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so you haven't had any losers. How many houses do you have doing it one time? So I've acquired nine total of single family. So nine single family is going. But now I'm restructuring my Houston properties. Okay. Yeah, yeah. How are you restructuring those?

So I was testing the market. over a year ago because I'd never been there. And I tried two different neighborhoods. One did really well, the one not as well. So I moved everything to the other. To the other than that. Yeah. Why Houston?

Everyone asked that. It's so random. But I had a friend show me around and they had really lenient regulation. So I was like, okay, maybe I should try it here. Right. And it did really well. And it just worked out. So it was literally just a crapshoot.

Yeah. Well, I did air DNA too. But part of it was just looking at the neighborhoods. How accurate do you find air DNA to be? That's a good question. I think it can be a little hit and miss, but it's been pretty good so far. Yeah, like anything else. Yeah, because you don't want to go for something that has 40% occupancy.

You don't want to go really low. But if it's like 60, maybe. Yeah, that's like your thing. You're looking for 60% occupancy. Yeah, 60, 70. Okay, cool. If somebody wanted to get in this and starting just first day, what would you recommend them to do?

Well, I would hire a mentor just because I did. We already asked that, didn't we? Yeah, I already asked that question. Yeah, I did hire a mentor. I mean, actually working, but just do the same thing you're doing. Just find a landlord that's willing to let you do it and run the numbers. Yeah, yeah. How much capital do you think they need to have to get into this?

I would say first month rent, deposit, money for furniture. And so if you're looking at a house, it's probably in around 25K. Okay, so you're looking at, yeah, because you've got, okay, you have the lease, the deposit. And you said three to four times the deposit is what you want to put it in furniture. Yeah. And how it goes. Okay. And then, yeah, and then you're up and kind of running in two weeks with booking.

Yeah. How long does it take, I don't even know how long it's take everybody to process the money. Is it instant? Oh, for the bookings. Yeah, is it instant? It's pretty quick. It's once they come. I think it's once they get there.

Okay. It's pretty fast. You get it very fast. Yeah. Have you ever had anybody trash a house? Oh, no. No? Okay.

Well, yeah. How are you dealing with cleaning? Just find local cleaners that will go. Yeah. Yeah. I've been lucky too because every CDF go, I have one team that does everything because they want the business. Yeah. Yeah.

So do you, I found that there's those businesses have been popping up quite a bit with they'll find them. How'd you just googled in that market like Airbnb help and they are helping you? Yeah, or I'll look on Yelp or ask agents for recommendations. Yeah. Yeah, and they've been great. Oh, that's smart. Yes, it's on autopilot because you have the same cleaner. They have their schedules like texted to them. Yeah. And you just show up and then. And you haven't seen a drop off at all. So you're like, just just really confused what these people are even talking about. That's Airbnb is dead. Yeah. I think it really comes down to design location and saturation. How many people? Yeah, yeah. So if you, if you, if you sit your

apart, I think you're going to do well. Okay. Wow. That's cool. Let's talk about your coaching program because if somebody's listening to this, like I want to learn more about this. Like, walk me through your coaching program. Yeah, so it's pretty much everything from, I start with mindset too, because obviously you know it's so important. If you go into that without it, you're just going to have a hard time.

Yep. So that setting of your business, your LLC, your website, how do you go pitch to a landlord to get properties? And I had one person consultation the other day. They said, oh, I took another coaching program. It's been four months, and I don't have one yet. And so they don't have property. So I teach you how to use, yeah, learn all that stuff.

Because I don't think people always teach it the right way. Yeah. Yeah. So that is so important. And then obviously setting up your listing, how do you design it? I think I'm only one of the coaches that teaches how to design. I don't think there's a lot out there. That makes sense.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's like, that's how you make your money. Yeah. So I teach all that and then SEO pricing strategies, everything. So when you say SEO, like we'll talk about what you mean by that because isn't everything going through Airbnb. So you're trying to show up better on your B&B? Is that what are the,

let's talk about that. What are the tips and tricks for showing up better on Airbnb? Yeah. So even. I wasn't even where that was a thing. Yeah. Yeah. It's listing optimization too. Even something like your response rate. I don't know if people know that. If your response rate is low, they're not going to push your listing to the top. So even something like that will help you. So how do you make sure you have a higher spot? Do you have VAs that are managing your, yeah, the VAs that are managing all your inbounds? Okay, so you're not missing anything. Yeah, exactly. I didn't in the first year and I missed some of the stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Where are your VA is located? In Philippines?

Yeah, but they work U.S. hours. They're right there. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. It's amazing how much help you can get a great pricing. Exactly. We've kind of, we've leaned away from the Philippines. now. I'm really big on, I love Columbia and Venezuela. Oh. I love high, yeah, because there's great English speakers. It's really close to our time zone. Yeah. So you don't get that sometimes occasional groginess that you get from the Philippines. So yeah, I love, I love those markets for V. Oh, where do you find that? Like from those countries? No, you're just going upwork and then whatever you need done. And then you can literally just specify what countries you want on Upwork when it's the job.

Okay. But you'll find good. And they're good. I found the pricing is, it's, it's, it's is better than the filter. Oh, wow. These are good people. They're happy to have the jobs and they work hard and do a good job. So I like that very much as we go that around. Cool. So if they want to join your coaching program, how do they do it?

Yeah. So I have a website, B&B Mastery Society.com. And then I do a free consultation calls with people just to make it's the right fit. Make sure it's the right fit. And then, yeah. Awesome. Well, dude, Linda, I am so grateful you came in. I love the story.

I think you're crushing. good for you. That's awesome. Airbnb is not dead. You can still make money. And listen, if you want to get into real estate, this is kind of, I mean, if you want to cash flow it, you're obviously not going to get any appreciation. You're not going to get those benefits. But if you want some flexibility on maybe is this a good deal, maybe is it not a good deal, you're not speculating markets. If you're worried about the real estate market going down, hey, maybe this is a way to do it, right? Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Such a great way to get in with low capital and low risk. Yeah. I love that. Well, thanks for coming by.

if you listen to this, if you're in a place where you're not happy with your current corporate life, take a chance, do something different, do what Linda did, jump on it, go out there, find a path because there's a ton of them out there and there's a way that you can change your trajectory. We'll see you next week.