KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Transitioning from Real Estate Agent to Global Hospitality and Wealth Investor

Episode Date: September 23, 2026

Summary:Guest Deanna Lee shares her evolution from a traditional real estate agent to a global wealth builder specializing in hospitality and boutique hotels. Agents will learn how to shift their identity from transactional sales to visionary business ownership by creating "white space" for strategic thinking. The episode covers the "Utopia Method" for property selection, the "BRRR" model for scaling with limited capital, and the importance of surrounding oneself with high-level masterminds to manifest large-scale international investment opportunities.

Welcome to Next Level Agents, the podcast that's all about breaking barriers and building empires. I'm Kevin Kaufman and together with my crew bringing you straight up fire. Interviews with top tier agents, game changing thinkers, plus the strategies and mindset shifts to dominate in real estate. Whether it's personal growth, leadership packs, or next level tactics, we've got you covered. So tell me, what does the next level look like for you? Buckle up because we're about to take you there right now. I'm thrilled today to have Deanna Lee join us, and we have a fascinating topic, I think, because I think your story, Deanna, is so incredible. So welcome.

Thank you. I'm happy to be here. We're going to talk today about going from broken to beautiful and how you have taken your life and a role that you were playing in your professional pursuits, which started as a realtor, a real estate agent, like many of us are, and really created a masterpiece and are building a global empire in investments and building such an amazing legacy, both for yourself and others. So I'm really excited to just have you share your story today. Thank you. Thank you so much for the moment, for the time to share. It has definitely been a journey and a transformation. So yes, ask me questions where you want me to start or do you just want me to jump in? Well, let's talk a little bit about the

beginning stages. So you're a real estate agent, you're working with buyers and sellers. Were you like Uber successful? Were you earning millions of dollars a year? Like, what was that life like for you? Ah, very good question. So I got into real estate well before I became a realtor. I was a, I bought a duplex when I was a single mom. I fight it. I didn't have a lot of money. And I knew that buying a duplex came with a tenant. So I will always still tell my kids, my assistant, anybody who works for me, the young people in the world, your first property is not your dream home. Your first property is a multi-unit, a fourplex, a duplex, anything like that, where you can start to create wealth and have somebody else pay for your mortgage, right? So you don't have to come from a lot of money

or being super successful in real estate. Like I said, my first home was a duplex and I was a single mom and a bartender. I started in real estate since since as old as as young as I could hold a hammer. At eight years old, I was on rooftops, laying shingles, actually, crawling through addicts. My dad and uncles would build homes. We'd move into and put them up for sale, built the next home, house hacking before house hacking was even a thing. So that's how I was raised, learning how to see value from the ground up and how everything was built from a very young age. So I knew I would be in real estate. I've been in real estate from all. avenues. However, entering real estate, I entered real estate in 2009. Seems like a great time to

become a realtor right after the 2008 crash. But hey, if you come into the bottom, all you can do is go up. And so, yes, I was transactional in real estate. I did really well. And I was treating my investment properties as a hobby, as a side hustle. I had some long-term rentals, right? That duplex became a second duplex. That first duplex became the second duplex, which became the first short-term rental. And that came from the flood. It's funny, like every time we have these destructive situations, these what we call breakdowns, if we look in hindsight, that breakdown was a perfect setup for the next phase. And then whenever we level up into the next phase, there's chaos, what I like to call the messy middle. And so my focus is on shortening that messy middle so that

We can level up again and again. And so, yes, that flood had me turn that property into my first short term rental. And when I fell in love with that, I fell in love with hospitality. Then it was just a matter of telling myself that I am no longer a realtor. I am in hospitality. But real estate is the perfect jumping off platform to accomplish anything that you want to accomplish all of your dreams. Real estate allows so many different opportunities. And so I will always have that in my back pocket.

I think that's so cool. What I've loved about our conversation is just the spirit of possibility and that mental shift that you made from having your first short-term rental, which was kind of a result of some unfortunate circumstances, right? You had to navigate through that. But then your mindset shift was, I'm now in hospitality. And I think that's so important because I think a lot of us grow up and were in these roles that are defined by certain parameters and we sort of adopt that as our identity and we stop thinking impossibility. Yes. So once you were in the short term rental and about what year was that, Deanna? My first short term rental was just about a decade. I don't know. I can't believe it's already been almost a decade. Yeah. So you've been in real estate for

six or seven years. You'd had that first duplex that you occupied as a home and then kind of outgrew that, move to the next property. And so now you're in the industry six or seven years and you're like, okay, I'm going to do short-term rentals. So that would have been around 2015-ish, which was a good time for short-term rentals. So how did that business grow and how did you transform from there? That was great. So we grew, I was working out of the Burr model, if you're familiar with the Burr model,

where I like to get properties for free. That's something that I have never had that full 20, 25 percent down. to put on a property. I've never had that $100,000, $200,000 to put down. And if I did, then that would be the only property that I would get. And then that would be it. Right. I think a lot of us find ourselves there. Like, all right, I saved up for my down payment on this investment property, and now I'm done. I only get one. And that's not how I think. I like to buy more or scale. And so I would use the Burr model, which was buy rehab rent, refinance, repeat, do it over and over again. And so that's another strategy that we'll talk about. There's lots of strategy.

in real estate. So don't get distracted by the noise, but that's how I did it. And so I would use the Burr model and then I would put tenants in there and then do the next one. And then that even became a hamster wheel, right? Every level up suddenly brings its chaos and it's another job. And you're like, wait a minute, this can't be it. And so then when I pivoted into the short term rental, I call it the Burrster, right? The Burr model converted into the short term rental burster. And that created an extra level of income, right? You can earn almost double what you can on long-term rentals, and it requires a lot more operations, a lot more management. So you really have to have the heart for it. You really want to enjoy that as well. And then I pivoted even up into the boutique

hotels, experiential, luxury experiential retreats in hotels. But the thing that caused me to double down on the short-term rentals is full-time realtor, mom, burning the candle at both ends, right we're full-time real estate agent we wear like 15 different hats in this business right we're expected to be all the things financial advisor CPA although we're not we're still expected to answer these questions we do we tend to burn ourselves out we're burning the candle at both ends and i remember saying i wish i could just sit on the couch and do nothing and i'll tell you be careful what you wish for the universe's letter and on a trip to southern utah with my family i wrecked my dirt bike and I shattered my leg.

Oh, no. Emergency surgery, months of recovery and suddenly I was forced to stop. And in that moment, that pause gave me clarity. It really was another one of those destructive moments that ended up being a blessing. It caused me to slow down. And when you slow down and you take the time to have a more expansive view to have different perspective, you start to notice things. And in that time, I realized I couldn't go out and move.

knock on doors anymore. That was my bread and butter. I mean, I had my driving for dollars list. I was ready to go when I broke my leg and I was like, wait, how am I going to go knock on all these doors? That's what I do. And I realized that the only thing still bringing me income were the short-term rentals. And so I doubled down on short-term rentals. And that's the beginning of the end of this story. My poor husband would come home from work. And I would say, so today I bought a condo in Mexico and a duplex downtown. You're like, I mean, your phone, give me your computer. Peter, what are you doing? But that was when I had the time, the white space in your calendar, let's say.

And when you create that white space in your calendar, you create that time to be that visionary CEO that you were meant to be, right? I think Robert Kiosak, he talks about the quadrants. And he talks about, are you self-employed or are you a business owner? And that's where I went from being a self-employed, side hustle, short-term rentals on the side, create a little bit of income, and real estate agent where that's also very transactional. self-employed to building a business that can operate with or without me. That's the goal, right? More white space in the calendar so we can dream and create something amazing. Absolutely.

I love it. And I love your positive outlook on each of the hurdles or setbacks or or things that you had that didn't go the way that you might have dreamed and what you turned them into. So when you had this leg injury, thankfully you're recovered and now you have this downtime. What was your portfolio of rentals at that time? So at that time, I actually had about four or five long-term rentals. I can't even remember that. See, that sounds about right. We, we actually cycled through most of those.

So we took the time when things are not, when things are not working well, we don't panic. We repositioned. So we looked at which properties are bringing in income, which ones would be great as short-term rentals, and which one are better long-term rentals. We anticipated a cycle shift in 2019. We didn't know what was coming down the line. And so we sold a few of those that were long-term rentals and purchased other properties.

It would be great short-term rentals. So that's what we did then. In that moment, when I had the time and I had the white space in my calendar to reposition and really strategize, that's when we decided to buy properties in different seasonalities. When people say you want to have a balanced portfolio, a lot of times everybody wants to buy in one location because it's easy, right? You can go and you can visit, especially if it's in your backyard or in your neighborhood. That actually creates more work.

And what we like to do is cover the downside. So we now own properties in different seasons so that when a winter property, when our Caribbean properties are busy, then our lake properties might be slow. And then when our ski properties are busy, you know, then our southern Utah property might be slow. But then come summer, then our lake properties and our southern Utah properties are busy. And the other ones are a little slower. that balances out the volatility of a short-term rental market.

So knowing how to cover that downside is really important when repositioning these properties. Well, I love your vision on that and looking outside just one distinctive market because a lot of people talk about when it comes to investing, only investing in things. And I think that that's prudent advice on the surface. But if you dig a little bit deeper, you had established a model of finding, I presume, distressed properties and putting in the work. a lot of sweat equity to go find those seller, negotiate deals with them, take that property on, make the capital investment and the sweat equity investment to improve the properties,

and then with the Burr strategy, you're refinancing those because you've now increased the value of that property, and then holding them as rentals, which then became more profitable that you said moving from long-term rental to short-term rental. Exactly. So now you've got a portfolio of a handful of these properties. and then you said, okay, I'm going to take the next step into luxury hotels and experiential properties. How on earth did that come together? So that is also part of the repositioning, right?

So as we're looking at what's profitable, what's working, balancing the different seasons and the different economies and creating a risk mitigation plan because this started to come into play in the boutique hotels and experiential retreats. I bought the first boutique hotel in 2022, 2020, 23 time. We bought lamb in southern Utah to build out a glamping retreat. And we bought a hotel in the Caribbean and the Dominican Republic to restore. I started out, yes, like you said, the Burr model was I took something broken. I made it beautiful. And then I also became broken. I had to transform in the process as well. And having that perspective made me realize, okay, there are a few things to think about. Yes, we look at, I can transform Araya, which is our beautiful resort in the Dominican

Republic, Araya Resort, and the things to consider are speed to market. So there's something to consider with, yes, I absolutely love to take something that needs to be fully restored and work my magic and bring that restoration, that transformation to light. But something that's something to consider is the speed to market. What I thought I could do in four months, took 18 months. Yes, I cried in the jungle a few times during that project. It's beautiful. It's open. And things to consider as well, we bought new construction in Mexico. So you're moving in and everything's brand new. Everything's working. And you can just list it and start making money right away. And so we took that pivot from the short-term rentals that needed to be remodeled.

And that was a necessity because we could come in with no money out of pocket, right? So that was, that's the progression. But once we're able to buy these other properties and negotiate creative financing, the pivot to the boutique hotels, what I realized was it's simpler. When you have 11 properties and they're all over the world, or even if they're all in your neighborhood, you have 11 short-term rental properties, each one needs its own operating system. it needs its own operations team. It needs its own maintenance. It needs everything. And when you buy one hotel, it's all in one space. So do you want one hotel with 11 doors, 15, 20 doors? You just have to manage one hotel manager. And those are always already run like a business, right? You're almost forced to set it up like a business. Well, you are. It's a hotel. You wouldn't even consider

setting it up any other way. But for some reason, everybody hopped on the short-term rental bus in 2020, 2021, and we're doing it as a side hustle because we can because it's easy enough to call a cleaner if you have one or two. But you can't scale chaos. So if you don't have those operations in place, when you go from three to four to five to ten, you've suddenly scaled chaos and guess what happens? Even the chaos. Yeah. That's... Scaling chaos is such a good phrase and I think that occurs in many areas of life, not just in investing for sure. Yes, exactly. So having that pivot up to the luxury experiential hotels and retreats. We saw that it was time when people were driving to continue to have those experiences where people were not allowed to travel,

and yet they still wanted to. And we had some weird markets that we definitely pay attention to, right? We have the revenge travel where people came from everywhere and had to travel. Now it stabilized again. And a lot of people are saying, oh, the short-term rental game is over. It's not true. It's time to reposition again. It is time to offer the The experience is no longer about heads and beds. It's no longer about just providing a place to stay. It's the entire experience from the moment that they land at the airport to the moment that they end their trip and everything that happens in between. Because if people are about experiences these days, that's what's important.

I still agree with you. And I think it's really cool how you have thought of the details of that experience from start to finish. How did you originally even discover that a boutique hotel in the Dominican Republic was an opportunity for you? Ah, yes. So this comes, that's a great question. And it's about who you surround yourself with. Being in the right groups, being in a mastermind, being surrounded by people who dream big like you do, right? You don't think you're crazy when you have these crazy ideas. And it's how you are known. I have a mentor and you as well. We have a mentor Matthew Ferry. he talks about what are we known for.

And so speaking about what you want before using discernment, let me put that in there, speaking about what you want in the right groups, if I were just to speak to everybody about, hey, I want to buy a hotel somewhere, hey, I'm buying these properties in Mexico, if you tell people that are not the right groups what you're up to, they'll talk you out of your dream. So it's very important. Speak what you're intending. Speak what you're manifesting. So people know what you're looking for.

and what your intention is, what you're manifesting, but speak it to the right groups. So I would say being in the right groups with people that have greater perspective than you do and can show you your blind spots that you don't see. And also who know you, know what you're up to, know what your challenges are and know what you're looking for. So then it's not just a matter of the opportunity coming to me. The opportunity shows up in your network and suddenly somebody in your network will call. So that's a long answer to your short question.

A small group of, I think, seven people that were in our mastermind went to this resort in the Dominican Republic and had their own little mini mastermind. The owner came to them and said, who do you know that wants to buy this resort? All of them at the same time. Deanna, call Deanna because for 10 years. Yes, I said that. For a decade, I wrote in my journal, a home on the coast by the sea, a wellness resort on the coast by the sea. and I would share that, share these intentions with my group, with my network, and eventually somebody was present, I wasn't presented the opportunity, they were presented it and they knew

exactly who to call. So it's about speaking about what you're intending, speak out loud, what your dreams are. A lot of people tell you to keep them secret until you get there. But no, you've got to talk about it, but talk about it in the right rooms with the right people that will support you and provide you with the resources that you may need. That is such great advice and your story just illustrates not only the power of intention and being clear in your own intention and then sharing that, but being connected in the right rooms with the right people and having the right people around you because it influences our result. And it's what you were known for in that group of people. It's what you were known for.

And so then the opportunity came. So did you just have a giant stack of cash waiting to go buy a hotel in a foreign country? No. In fact, if you could look at what people say, would you do this different? Of course, if the world were linear, I would raise the money first, then I'd go find the hotel, and then I would remodel the hotel, and then I would open it, and the world would be perfect. But that's not how opportunities come. So you can be hard to say yes when that opportunity comes.

We had just purchased 123 acres in southern Utah in December of 2022, and in January of 2023, I got this phone call. And I was like, wait, we call it the Dominican D.2. because we were going to build the southern Utah glamping retreat. And we're like, wait a minute. Okay, that land is still there. Let's go take on this project in the Dominican. We can get this done real quick.

And it's right. But no, I didn't have files of cash in the bank. In fact, we negotiated with the seller and we were able to negotiate a seller finance with over the course of what did we do. So we negotiated a 0% seller finance for five years. So we find the not only the perfect property, but maybe you've got a landlord who's a tired landlord that just doesn't want to deal with it anymore. She got hit by a hurricane.

I can't imagine how hard that must have been because she had just done a couple years of restoring this project and getting it ready to go. And she didn't have insurance. So when she got hit with that hurricane, when I talk about risk mitigation, that's it. So then at that point, she was tired. So finding that tired landlord, finding somebody, and that's not taking advantage. We're actually able to save them from. the situation that they can't see a way out of, and we're all to win that way.

And so then we put in the money to remodel it, restore it, and everybody wins. So you don't need piles of cash in the bank. And in fact, hotels are simpler because they are looked at as commercial loans, right? Interpol is a little trickier. We couldn't get a loan for that one. We had to get creative finance. However, in the U.S., commercial loans, they don't look at you as a personal guarantee. They look at the property.

Debt surveverage ratios. You can do that on single family homes as well, as long as the property will cover the mortgage with the income that is going to generate. There's a ton of great programs out there where people can buy these properties without having to have a pile of cash sitting in the bank. I've never had a pile of cash sitting in the bank. I intend to one day, one day. I love that, though, that you continue to think impossibility and not limitation.

And you had zero experience owning a hotel in a foreign country. what gave you the belief and the vision to see opportunity here? Obviously, it aligned with your intentions and what you'd been writing in your journal. But what gave you the belief to go endeavor this on your own when it was something that was so completely foreign in a place that wasn't super familiar, different government, different things, just in terms of like all the logistics of renovating a property like that. I'm sure there was many layers of complexity to that. So what gave you that confidence and belief to go do? this. Yes, you're right. There are many layers of complexity in this project. And it was a combination of things. One, I no longer would just say yes to everything. It has to fit in our box, right? It has to fit in our method, which is, I actually call it the Utopia method, which is to buy unique properties in trending destinations where we can improve occupancy and revenue. We can work on, we can negotiate a stellar price. We can increase revenue and we can add amenities. And so following that Utopia method, one of the biggest things is along the path of progress.

I found a way to time travel. This place in the Dominican Republic was at the end of a peninsula where tourism was booming and everything else had been built out. But this one town was still that fishing village from, I wanted to say, 20 years ago after living there is more like 50 years in the past. And so we're able to capitalize from that, right? The tourism all around is booming, so it's not something new for the area, but we were voted. And so then it also has to be trending. We were voted number one, the town was voted number one trending destination in 2024 by trip advisor and travel and leisure.

So we knew that it was up and coming. Then I didn't, I don't know that I would have leapt into this, like jumped into this first if I didn't have international experience. But we had already, we already owned four properties in Mexico. We had dealt with new construction. So I wasn't new to international construction. I wasn't surprised by delays. I wasn't surprised by those sort of things that come with all kinds of construction,

not just international. That just adds that layer of complexity. So I knew that I could take that on. And I also was being mentored by an amazing developer, Guberto, out of California. And I was surrounded by people that I knew that if there was something I didn't know how to do, I had people in my network that would know how to do it. That gave me the belief that we could pull this on. Yeah, amazing. Well, I think it's just absolutely incredible what you've accomplished. It's fun seeing great people win. And I love how you share your story and your enthusiasm and opportunity with the people around you so that they can participate in the journey as well. For somebody that is, maybe they're not even yet investing in real estate or maybe they're just getting started or they have one or two properties, but they have a big vision. And this calls to them. They're like, I would like to do something that's a leg.

legacy project like what you've created, what advice would you have for them in taking those first steps and really prioritizing what's most important for them to expand what they want to do and go seek opportunities like this? That's a great question because that first step really is the hardest one, right? Making that decision to decide to do something and then getting out into the internet. There's so many, so much information out there that it's information overload. and if you're not careful, you'll get buried in the noise and nothing will happen. So I created a masterclass. So I would say come to my masterclass.

It's free. And I think you'll have a link in the show notes on how to join the wait list. We will. Watching that in a couple of weeks. And the reason I created this is not just to speak about short-term rentals, is to speak about the entire buffet of real estate. And it's called How to Unlock Your Magical Ability to Create wealth in Real Estate. And so that's where we'll go deeper into all the different.

different things. We talked for a second about the Burr model. We talked about a DSCR loan and all of these acronyms that you're like, what is she even talking about, right? Look at the buffet, see what's available to you, and then see what resonates. You may want to do long-term rentals. You may want to invest in a portfolio that's run without you needing to be there. You may want to be completely passive. You may want to be hands on. And so coming to that masterclass is four hours. We're going to have a bunch of different experts on there. We're going to have a real estate expert. We're going to have finance experts. We're going to have myself talking about what I do just to show the buffet. And it's free and it's informational, but it's information with gold nuggets. I can't tell you how many of these classes you

sit in for an hour or two and you're like, what did I just do for the last two hours? Like, you're going walk away with actionable steps and clarity on what resonates with you. And that's, that'll help clear out any of the noise. And then you can say, okay, yes, it's long-term rentals or it's definitely short-term rentals or forget that. I don't want to buy short-term rentals. Let's just buy the hotel. And we'll have avenues or pathways that you can take from there. For example, I have two pathways, one from that mastermind is I have a program where I do teach busy short-term rental owners how to get out of the messy middle, how to get some of that white space back in the calendar so you can get back to being that visionary CEO that you were meant to be.

And at the end of that, we're doing a six-week boot camp and it's actionable and it's, hey, these are all the things you've got to clean up in your operation. We're going to do it. We're going to get it done. So it doesn't become a to-do list. It actually gets checked off your to-do list. And we're going to end at Araya Resort and have a vision week where we show you what it's like to own a boutique hotel behind the scenes and everything on-site boots on the ground

and be able to create your own five-year vision or maybe you'll get it done in a year, but be able to create the plan from a more of an open mind space so that's not all cluttered with the chaos, right? And then the other option is that you'll find that we have, I created, I've been doing a capital raise for ownership in our entire portfolio that's already created. So what we found is some people come to that master class and like, this all sounds great, but I just want mailbox money. I don't want to put it in any work. I don't want another job. And that's what it could be is another job. And so they invested in like the destinations. And that's an opportunity for accredited investors to own these beautiful properties and luxurious, beautiful

trending destinations all over the world without the headaches and managing. So we have a few pathways that we can take people on the master classes to show you the buffet. and then you get to pick and choose what interests you. Oh, I love it. And I love the contribution and how you've created opportunities for people to explore what's important to them and then also to participate if that's something that calls to them. So I appreciate that. And thank you for your contribution today, for sharing your story and for sharing the masterclass

with our community. I know that's going to be amazing. I'm excited about that. And we will put your contact information in the show notes so people can reach out and get in touch and I'm excited to connect you with our community. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time. It's been a pleasure. That's a wrap for this episode of the next level agents. I'm Kevin Kaufman, and we've just drawn some serious heat with my crew to level up your real estate game. What does the next level look like for you? Subscribe to the podcast now so you don't miss a single strategy

and head over to next levelagents.com. Check out our events tab so you can find out all the information on our next virtual and in-person mastermind calendar. Let's keep this momentum rolling. See you next time.