Feb 03 2025 46 mins 32
Professional real estate investor, author and host of “The Real Estate Guys” Radio Show, Robert Helms joins us to discuss the nuances of mid-term, short-term rentals, and hotel real estate investing.
They highlight the impact of interest rates on single-family home affordability and the role of institutional investors.
Mid-term rentals cater to travelers like traveling nurses and digital nomads, offering higher monthly rents. Short-term rentals face challenges due to oversupply, but can be profitable with strategic planning. Hotels offer consistent experiences, with key metrics like occupancy and ADR.
Resources:
Join Keith and other faculty experts at the Investor Summit at Sea, a unique networking and learning event for real estate investors. Let the event organizers know if you want to have dinner with Keith during the event.
Show Notes:
GRE Free Investment Coaching:GREmarketplace.com/Coach
For access to properties or free help with a
GRE Investment Coach, start here:
Get mortgage loans for investment property:
RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE
or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com
Invest with Freedom Family Investments.
You get paid first: Text FAMILY to 66866
Will you please leave a review for the show? I’d be grateful. Search “how to leave an Apple Podcasts review”
For advertising inquiries, visit:
Best Financial Education:
Get our wealth-building newsletter free—
text ‘GRE’ to 66866
Our YouTube Channel:
www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation
Follow us on Instagram:
Complete episode transcript:
Automatically Transcribed With Otter.ai
Keith Weinhold 0:01
welcome to GRE I'm your host, Keith Weinhold, surprising facts about the institutional ownership share of the rental market. Then learn from a great guest tonight about how the midterm and short term rental models work and hotel real estate investing. Then you are invited to join us both on the most special real estate event that I've ever been a part of, and I'm going to return to it today on get rich education.
Since 2014 the powerful get rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being the flipper or landlord. Show Host Keith Weinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad advisors, and delivers a new show every week since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads of 188 world nations. He has a list show guests include top selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki. Get rich education can be heard on every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener phone apps build wealth on the go with the get rich education podcast. Sign up now for the get rich education podcast or visit get rich education.com
Corey Coates 1:17
You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education.
Keith Weinhold 1:33
Welcome to GRE from London, UK to London, Ontario and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith weinholden, you are inside this week's episode of Get rich education, where we aren't day trading, we are decade trading with gradual patient wealth accumulation through income properties, yet with a path that lets you live the good life of options and freedom when you're still young enough to enjoy it. Now, the shorter the period of time that your guest or your tenant stays at your place, the more that the word hospitality gets involved. Hospitality, that word has little to do with hospitals. It almost means the opposite. Hospitality means that you're now giving a warm reception to or entertaining guests or tenants. Well, that's something that you rarely do at a long term rental, but you do if you're a hotel real estate investor for sure, or maybe even a little in a short term rental, then you're in hospitality like valet parking, having a restaurant, a pool with a swim up bar, a gym, a concierge desk, or even having a lobby with travel desks of various tour companies. Right there. That's hospitality, and today as we discuss mid term rentals, then short term rentals, then hotel real estate investing, think about how the level of hospitality that you give increases as the duration of a guest or tenant stay decreases. Hospitality is one reason that long term rental rates for durations of, say, a year or more, well, they had the lowest daily rates and the least hospitality. And hotels with, say, a two night stay, have the highest daily rates and the most hospitality.
This week's show is presented by ridge lending group and freedom family investments. I mean Ridge is where I get all of my investment property loans, and where I do all of my refinancings. And perhaps you should, too, because they specialize in working with investor borrowers there, so they know just what you need and what you don't Ridge lending group.com, and then freedom family investments, that's where you can make a private money loan and get a higher yield than you can with a high yield savings account. That's where I invest a share of my own liquid funds for a passive 8% return, 10% return. And now this is new. They've got offerings at 12% or more. You can learn more by texting family to 66866, next, we discuss mid term rentals, short term rentals and hotel real estate investing.
This week, I'd like to welcome in a good long time real estate friend. He's been on the show here with you and I before. Besides being a deeply experienced real estate investor, he also hosts the terrific real estate guys radio show, which was a substantial influence on the launch of GRE more than 10 years ago. I mean, how many times have I suggested to you over the years that you give his show a listen? He also speaks with some of the best pipes in the industry. Hey, it's great to have back on the show this week, the incomparable Robert Helms.
Robert Helms 5:07
Hey, Keith, so good to see you. Thanks for having me back.
Keith Weinhold 5:11
Let me share with you. Robert is on a very short exclusive list of people that I credit for being where I am today, from how to host a professional show to being a Go Giver and Robert before we discuss mid and short term rentals in the long term rental world generally, just what's important to know in today's residential real estate market, you can take that anywhere you like.
Robert Helms 5:38
Well, I think the big picture has been all about the loans and the interest rates, right? We saw rates go up, not only a lot, but quickly, and then kind of come back down a bit. Now they're headed back up, and that just has a big effect on single family homes, primarily to folks who are living in the homes, because they'll make that decision based on the affordability of their mortgage payment and the rest of the costs investors Well, you know, we think a little differently. We're not limited by a specific interest rate will pay? If I can make 9% would I pay 6% sure, if I can make 9% would I pay 7% well, I might, and so on. So I think that that's something to watch this year. For sure. There's lots of reasons to expect that we're not going to see interest rates get back down into the twos and threes and fours like we wish they would stay. Probably shouldn't happen in the first place, but you and I took advantage of it, and lots of your listeners did as well. But I think that's kind of a big picture thing. And then the other part of it is, you know, the inventory. So when people have this locked in effect, which really doesn't have anything to do with their needs or wants, they have a new job or they have another child and they want to move to a couple of notches up in a neighborhood, they don't want to get rid of their 3.12% loan and have to buy another property with 7% so we see less people moving, therefore less inventory, total inventory now somewhere just around 700,000 or below, and that's lower than it's been for the average of the last 10 years. For sure, I think that has an effect, less people are moving because of the interest rates. But at the same time, you know, there are houses that trade every single day. People do have to move. They have life situations and so forth. And then real estate investors, of course, we just look for opportunity. If we can make a spread and we can be in a property long term where the tenant pays down our mortgage and not us, well, then we're interested at almost any interest rate.
Keith Weinhold 7:44
Yes, that interest rate lock in effect will persist another year. That continues to get diluted over time. Of course, though you and I both know that mortgage rates are still below their historic rate, but because of the recency bias, no one's really acting that way. By the way, the first ever rental property I bought had a six in three eights percent mortgage rate 20 years ago, and people were raving about what an incredibly low rate that was back then. But this constrains supply. And another thing that constrains available supply in today's market is more institutional players own rental property today we're talking about outfits like invitation homes and even the California State Teachers Retirement System. But one thing a lot of people don't seem to realize is that institutions like this own less than 1% of single family homes in the United States, and that's all institutions combined. And now if you just isolate that to single family rental properties, they still only own two to 3% so where we have this period of low supply and low affordability, you know, Robert, I think institutions, in a lot of these media headlines, they tend to get scapegoated or being a boogeyman. Oh, all these big players are buying up the homes, and that's why you can't buy one. But really, that's pretty overblown. So can you talk to us more about what the institutional entry into the real estate investing space has been like, which really picked up steam after the GFC about 15 years ago?
Robert Helms 9:16
Yeah, it sure did. I think that folks who were managing big sums of money, and the institutional money comes from all kinds of places, real estate, Investment Trusts, insurance, pensions, funds, and then just big old companies that decide to raise money to go do something, and that money saw opportunity said, hey, you know what? This is a short term anomaly, all these prices that went down after 2008 and 2009 and when a lot of mom and pop investors were very hesitant to touch the third rail of buying more property after what they had just been through, these institutions are like that. Institutional money is not very emotional, right? It's just looking at the numbers at the same time where the nuances of institutional funds is that they also didn't have a ton of real estate experience, and so it was quite common for a couple of years that an institution would come in, and they would typically work through local brokers, and those brokers would know the market a bit. But if you could generalize, you would say that a lot of institutions overpaid. But here's the thing, when you overpay in the moment, you don't really notice that in the long term real estate investment that these guys did, it's interesting. I've been to a couple of conferences I go to almost every year that 10 years ago was mom and pop investors. And today it's a lot of suits, not too many ties. They don't send. Tend to wear ties, but a lot of suits, a lot of folks working for various levels of these funds, and they're looking at real estate as an asset class. Now I'm going to argue their real estate's not an asset class like any other, because every share of stock, every ounce of gold, every barrel of oil that anybody buys, is discretionary. You never have to invest in the stock market, in the bond market and cryptocurrency, but you cannot sit out the real estate market. From an economic perspective, I don't have to own real estate, but I'm going to have to interact financially. And so it really doesn't operate like other quote, unquote, asset classes, but I think the big folks did figure out is that there is stability in real estate. There's not the efficiency they would like, and that's a good thing for us. We like inefficiencies in the real estate market, but more and more we are seeing funds being put together, even today, to acquire property. But to your point, and it's an excellent one, you see the headlines and you see the name calling of these big, faceless, nameless corporations. They're buying up all the inventory. They're not it is a drop in the bucket compared to what mom and pops own and will continue to own
Keith Weinhold 11:53
yes, and of course, I'm talking nationally. When I bring up those one two and 3% institutional share numbers, it's going to be lower in some areas, it tends to be a higher proportion of buying that the institutions do in Texas and also in a lot of southeastern markets, like Atlanta, Jacksonville, Charlotte and Tampa. Robert you have a good bit of knowledge and some involvement in the mid term rental market. We're talking about rentals of one to six months in duration. Here, can you talk to us about trends in the midterm rental market?
Robert Helms 12:25
Yeah, it's a fascinating area. You know, back in the day, these would be referred to as corporate rentals, so a corporation might lease an apartment and furnish it, and then they would have different people stay there over the years, so the corporation would be responsible for the lease. I had some tenants like this many, many years ago, and it wouldn't be up to me. It'd be up to them who had the keys at the time. And a tenant might stay six or seven months. A tenant might make four or five weeks their stay. And so the idea was they needed a place for these contractors who would come in and work for a period of time to stay. But hotels were a lot more expensive. Well today you see even the folks who got involved in short term rentals making a decision to invest in people like traveling nurses who come and stay for four to six weeks, or these clients who will come in and work for two months in this location, two months in this location, two months in another location. And so they will simply stay in a short term rental type of property for a longer term. And you know, the most expensive things when it comes to real estate or turnover in vacancy. So if we can get the tenant to stay longer and pay a bit of a premium, these are often furnished units, and they don't have to worry about much. And we've had a few opportunities where what started out as a three week rental turned into a six month rental, because sometimes when they bring these folks on these companies, don't know exactly how long they're going to stay, and it's been a great kind of marketplace. There's a few folks that specialize in it. But my experience is that a lot of the people that have gravitated towards midterm rentals used to be in the short term rental business, thinking they'd rent for one or two nights, and lo and behold, they get a client that would stay for a month, and they'd say, Hey, this is pretty cool.
Keith Weinhold 14:13
Some conversion rate there from short term rentals to these midterm rentals here, as Robert touched on, you do tend to get more monthly rent for a midterm rental than you do a conventional long term rental. You're going to have some experience for furnishing there. But Robert, you bring up a great point. You mentioned traveling nurses. And of course, here as real estate investors, we're often interested in who we're serving and what that demographic looks like. I also think of midterm rental clients or tenants as students in digital nomads, and oftentimes it's a person relocating where they just want to check out a place for a few months before they consider setting down roots in an area with a long term rental or buying their own place. So can you talk? More about the demographic that we're serving there, because oftentimes you want to follow their trends.
Robert Helms 15:04
Yeah, very much. So, you know, today, I think there's a lot of folks that can work from a variety of locations. They do need some things, they need quiet they need a good internet connection, but they will come and go for weeks at a time. And I also think that you see more and more employers looking to contract labor. They have a job to get done. They're not sure they want to bring on a full time employee with all the cost of benefits and onboarding and all that. So they find somebody in the niche that comes in for six or eight or 12 weeks at a time, and they're the perfect candidate for short term rental. But we also see folks that are between gigs. So I might have a six week gig, and three weeks later I have another six week gig, and the three weeks in the middle, I want to go somewhere that's kind of fun to hang out. And so you do see those kind of rentals as well.
Keith Weinhold 15:55
Are most long term property management companies open to managing midterm rentals?
Robert Helms 16:02
Yeah, good question. There are certainly those that are, but I think we're starting to see a specialty on the aggregator side, folks that are reaching out specifically to the kinds of people who are candidates for midterm rentals from the tenant side and looking to accumulate inventory. So that's been kind of a neat thing to watch. So the focus of most property managers, they're hired by the owner of the property. Well, these groups are really their their salary gets paid for by the tenant, and they're able to negotiate on the behalf of some of these groups, you know, a better rate, better terms. They may negotiate some flexibility and the time for these folks that don't know exactly how long they're going to stay, it's an interesting new area of management, for sure.
Keith Weinhold 16:52
Now, of course, we're concerned about a high occupancy rate in midterm rentals, just like we are any type of rental. What does one look for when it comes to advertising platforms. And this could be, you know, going beyond just a well known website. It might be, hey, if you have inroads with the local hospital system, oh, well, can you then funnel some of the traveling nurses, for example, into your midterm rental?
Robert Helms 17:15
Yeah, most definitely, it is a specialty niche, for sure, if you're after a robust rental solution. You know, many people in midterm rentals, like in short term rentals, the vast majority of short term rental owners are not making a killing. They are. They're liquidating some cost of what they consider their second home. So the average short term rental landlord has just one property, and that's a property they bought, probably not as a rental. They brought it as a second home, and they're discovering that when they're not there, they can lease it out, and that pays for some of the costs. But there are obviously a few folks who have cracked the code and figured out which markets and where the best opportunity is, and what size units it takes to maintain a really healthy occupancy, and it's the same for this midterm rental. It's a different kind of tenant. It's mostly not families, so it's not larger units with lots of bedrooms. It's also mostly not your higher end rentals with views of the water or up near ski resorts, it's in the bigger towns where there is employment, and that employment triggers most of the midterm rental business.
Keith Weinhold 18:29
You, as an investor owner, maybe your cash flow negative on your midterm rental or short term rental, however, you might be using it for a few weeks or months yourself and getting back more of the benefit that way you're listening to get rich education. We're talking with the host of the real estate guys radio show, Robert Helms, more when we come back, we discuss short term rentals, including, is there an air be in bust? I'm your host. Keith Weinhold,
hey, you can get your mortgage loans at the same place where I get mine at Ridge lending group NMLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than any provider in the entire nation because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. You can start your pre qualification and chat with President Caeli Ridge personally, start now while it's on your mind at Ridge lendinggroup.com That's ridgelendinggroup.com.
Oh geez, the initial average bank account pays less than 1% on your savings, so your bank is getting rich off of you. You've got to earn way more, or else you're losing your hard earned cash to inflation. Let the liquidity fund help you put your money to work. With minimum risk, your cash generates up to a 10% return and compounds year in and year out. Instead of earning less than 1% in your bank account, the minimum investment is. 25k you keep getting paid until you decide you want your money back. Their decade plus track record proves they've always paid their investors 100% in full and on time. And you know how I'd know, because I'm an investor in this myself, earn 10% like me and GRE listeners are text family to 66866, to learn about freedom. Family investments, liquidity fund on your journey to financial freedom through passive income. Text family to 66866
Kristen Tate 20:39
this is author, Kristen Tate, listen to get rich education with Keith Weinhold, and don't quit your Daydream.
Keith Weinhold 20:54
Welcome back to get rich education. We're talking about midterm short term rentals and hotels and hospitality with a long time friend of the show here, Robert Helms and Robert a few years ago, there seemed to be this word airbn bust that was beginning to be associated with Airbnbs. A lot of the difficulty in that market. So tell us, what was that all about, and where are we now with industry trends in the short term rental market?
Speaker 1 21:21
Yeah, great question, Keith. What I think happened is the allure of a short term rental, having a beautiful property that people would pay a premium on a nightly rate, sounded wonderful, and it was, and it worked for a lot of folks. But then what happened is, what happens people got the word, they got excited about it, and a lot of people started holding webinars, teaching classes, doing boot camps, and before you knew it, there was way more supply than there was demand. See, the hospitality industry is amazing. The hospitality industry employs 9% of all people in the world and accounts for nearly 9% of the GDP of our planet. Travel is a gigantic industry, and it's led by smart, big, storied institutions. So for folks to come and figure I'll just compete with them with my little apartment didn't necessarily turn out so well. So there was an airbn bust, and it is still lingering today. If you want to make a profit in short term rentals, you absolutely can, but you need to be super strategic. You need to think long and hard about where and what and why and how, because it's very specific. There are certain markets that short term rentals do very, very well, and there's a lot of markets, the majority of markets, where they don't. So as long as you're willing to study and take a look and be realistic and go kick the dirt a little bit, you certainly can get the upper hand. And the reason it's exciting is the average person who owns a short term rental is not professional in any way. They probably don't have too many other rental properties. It's not a big part of what they're paying attention to in their life. And they're simply trying to liquidate some of the costs of ownership. You know, I might rental here or rental there. And the way you can tell Home Away, VRBO, Airbnb, most of the hosts, the owners, make their calendars public, and so it's easy to tell how busy they are. It's amazing to me. I'll look at a marketplace and look at a property and see that month after month after month they're at a six to 8% occupancy, which I wouldn't be excited about myself, but for someone who's got a second home and they don't mind having people stay there for a few nights, they'll pay a premium for that. They legitimately can carve down a lot of their expenses just by renting six or eight or 10% of the time.
Keith Weinhold 23:58
Of course, the conventional guidance is before you buy a short term rental, you're really helping yourself out. If you have to fall back on turning that into a long term rental, it would cash flow. But of course, now you're really narrowing your criteria in what is going to work there. And Robert, when we talk about that demographic that we're serving, we touched on that in the midterm rentals. Who are we serving in short term rentals? I think conventionally, we think about vacationers and business travelers
Robert Helms 24:24
it's both of those things. I think that originally, people were certainly inspired by the vacation traveler who wanted to have a little more privacy, maybe their own kitchen, maybe a little more space for the dollar. And we still see that for a family, especially a family with small kids, staying at a hotel, ordering room service, eating in the restaurant, all that adds up. And if instead you can go to the grocery store and make breakfast at home, right, you can save the costs. And so there is definitely that clientele, but you also have people in short term rental that are visiting family. They're not really on vacation. In there, just going to an area for a short period of time. We see people that criss cross the country staying in short term rentals, two nights here, three nights there. And so it does have kind of a wide variety. A lot of the markets are very seasonal. Though. There are markets like Branson, Missouri that does really good at some parts of the year and not as well as other parts of the year. Then, of course, there's year round markets. So back to if I'm thinking about it with an investor's hat on, I want to be a little more specific, in particular about what and where I buy. But if I have single family house as my second home, maybe it's in a ski area, maybe it's in a beach area, and it's fairly expensive to maintain. Well, then considering renting it out on a short term basis might help the overall cost of maintaining that property.
Keith Weinhold 25:52
You know, my own personal experiences really started to get bad in short term rentals, when I would go stay in a place. And I think we've all seen those memes out there about, my gosh, I had to wash all the dishes and walk the owner's dog and still play some exorbitant cleaning fee. I think we've all kind of grappled with that at some point, but STRS are still a really viable investment for the majority of the operators. But yeah, Robert, most of my experiences in short term rentals recently, including showing up at a place where they had not done the turn. The cleaning person did not stop by. And, yeah, okay, they came over there properly. But it's like, you cannot unsee the mess that was left there before you were there. So I had a series of experiences lately that have actually steered me into staying in hotels more often. And hotels really fit my lifestyle pretty well. I like to work out at a gym. I like to have a gym on site. It's convenient to have a restaurant on site and so on. And you've been in the hospitality and hotel space serving that for a while. Why don't you talk to us about industry trends in hotels.
Robert Helms 27:03
Yeah. So travelers, to a great degree, love consistency. They want to be able to rely on cleanliness, on amenities, the very things you mentioned for sure. And so hospitality has a wide range, right? There's the lower end airport hotel where nobody stays more than a night, and it doesn't have a lot of amenities, and then there's the beautiful resort properties and everything in between. But what the hotel industry has done a good job of is providing a consistent experience, and that's what people crave more than anything else. You know, we would call a short term rental more of a unique or boutique or co chair kind of experience, and you don't know what you're going to get. You don't have that consistency. Some folks don't mind that, but for the majority, especially of business travelers, they want to know what they're getting. I can remember years ago, my sister wanted to take us on a family vacation to Maui. It sounded like a good idea. And then she was the one tasked with finding us a place, and decided we would stay at the Ritz Carlton and I looked at the Ritz Carlton website and said, Ah, you know, this is not exactly where I would probably stay in a she's a chiropractor. She says, in order for me to take a week off work, I'm losing $10,000 of the business. I'm not staying in some cheap hotel. I want to stay in a luxury hotel. And we did it, and it was fabulous, and I would stay again. So the point is, if you want to be able to work out, if you want to be able to have 24 hour room service, if you want grab and go that you don't have to walk outside in the cold or the heat, then hotels make a lot of sense, and it's not an either or. They're just both elements in hospitality. I would consider a short term rental property, a hospitality property, and I would consider a 1200 room, four and a half star hotel hospitality property as well.
Keith Weinhold 28:58
Sure. Of course, hotels aren't monolithic. There are so many different types. You might have a boutique hotel with a few dozen rooms to a large scale, something like you've been involved in. You've been in a large scale, ground up development for a hotel. And I don't know if you had a hope when you built your large hotel that a big chain like a Hilton or Marriott would buy it from you, or would brand it along with you. But that branding and that consistency of experience can be really important. That's something we especially associate with those larger hotels. So we have some of these things in mind. I mean, where does a new prospective hotel investor begin?
Robert Helms 29:40
Yeah, it's pretty difficult to get started, because the properties are big and expensive and risky upfront. So there's a terminology we use the hotel business, which is stabilization. And stabilization is when a hotel gets to the point where it's doing about the occupancy and rate that you would expect. Respect it too long term, and that might be anywhere from two to four years. Well, in the first year, boy, there's hardly anybody there. We have a 300 plus room hotel, and the first night we were open, we had two guests and 160 employees. So you don't have to be a rocket surgeon to figure out that that math doesn't work very well. Nor did it for the first month or the first year. Today, I'm happy to say it works a lot better, but you have to have patience. Now, there's a couple of ways you can get involved. Certainly, a smaller a boutique hotel. I stayed in a hotel a couple months ago that only had eight rooms. It was marvelous. And I thought, boy, you know, probably an individual owns this, but most of the hotel properties are owned by groups or syndications, and so that's another way to get exposure to hospitality. There's some things to love about hospitality, and to me, one of the same things I love about single families is you can find professional management, like folks that really know what they're doing, and create that guest experience that was perfectly possible for someone to buy a single family home as a rental. Maybe it's in their own town, and they want to manage it themselves. And you know, maybe at first that's a good idea, so you can figure out the game you've chosen, but ultimately, you want to hand that off to a professional, in my opinion. And in hospitality, like in multifamily, you have to, you have to have somebody come in with chops to be able to take care of it. And then there's the nuance of franchise which there are hotels that are just independently owned and operated. And then there's franchise hotels. And just like buying a franchise business, you pay a little more, but you get a lot. You get all the systems and the service and the training and the marks, and many cases, you get a big, dynamic engine that brings leads and fills your heads in your beds, which is what the metric we're interested in, in hospitality. And so when we started with thinking about it might make sense, the market we were in had no branded hotels, and we thought, Well, should we be the first? And after doing a bunch of research, I came to the conclusion that, well, it's going to cost something, and there's going to be a benefit, but I don't see it the benefit outweighing the cost. And we decided not to and then, lo and behold, through a strange set of circumstances, today, we are a branded hotel, and I'm thrilled about it. In hindsight, it was the right thing to do, but do understand that most real estate investors that I know are not going to qualify. It's pretty difficult to get a franchisee agreement with one of these hotel brands. You have to have some wherewithal, some experience. They're going to look at your assets and your balance sheet. They're going to look at more than you can imagine to make sure that you're worth betting on, that they'll put their story name on the outside of your hotel. But it does bring up another point in hospitality, which is there's just multiple streams of income in hospitality. I saw a study last year that showed that in the upper resort markets, the fancier hotels and markets you might go to that the average person whatever they spend on their nightly rate in the hotel, they spend 80 to 85% of that per day on all the other things associated with their stay. Now, some of those are going to be off campus, but the more that you can provide to the guests you've already brought onto the property, the more profitable it can be,
Keith Weinhold 33:25
from resort fees to valets and more. Yes, there certainly is plenty to add on there. Maybe the last thing in hotel investing is, if someone wants to get started, what should they even be looking at, as far as say, understanding some of the metrics, like rev Park. Can you give us a quick walk around that?
Robert Helms 33:45
Yeah, so if you're used to investing in apartment buildings or single family houses, you've probably seen the basic income formula. You know how to calculate for loss to lease and maybe vacancy and those things. Well, there's just a few more intricacies when it comes to hospitality, but it's not that difficult if you just think that you're renting every night instead of every month or every year, and instead of having my turnover be one tenant every two years, it's one tenant every four days. There's just a lot more to pay attention to. And so the most important metrics in the hospitality industry are obviously occupancy, how many nights our rooms are occupied? And then ADR, which is average daily rate, and that is the rate for a particular unit type on average over some period of time, typically a year. And if you were to multiply occupancy times average daily rate, that gives you a revenue per available room or RevPAR. RevPAR can be affected, and it's the primary metric that we drive to in the two ways, you can increase occupancy to increase your RevPAR, but in many cases, you don't need to increase occupancy if. The market will allow you to raise your average daily rent. We've just gone through in the last year that our occupancy is down about 2% for the year, and our average daily rate is up more than 16% so the math works that follow me on this with slightly less wear and tear on the units our owners are making more money. So it is a balance. It's not like I want maximum occupancy. Well, not necessarily. Hardest thing to manage for any hotel is a sold out night. Sounds like a good idea, but you have no wiggle room, whereas when you've got even 3% vacancy and something goes wrong in the middle of the night with somebody's unit, you can get them moved somewhere down the hall, not somewhere across town. So I would say there are some really great resources. If someone's interested in hospitality. There's a big company called the hotel valuation systems, HVs, and they have a lot of great tutorial information available if you're really interested. Go to a conference, a hotel conference, and you'll pick up the lingo pretty quick and meet some of the folks that are in the business. It is, historically, one of the highest return properties, but also a lot of high costs, and again, expect some negative cash flow at the beginning.
Keith Weinhold 36:18
Yeah. Well, it was great. And you brought up something that I had not thought about before, about how 100% occupancy could actually introduce problems in the hotel space. And of course, there are a number of other things to consider, surge pricing, high seasons, low seasons, an awful lot that we don't think about when we're renting out single family homes one year at a time. Well, Robert, that's been a great walk around talking about the institutional space, midterm rentals, short term rentals and hotels, and you and I have a great collaboration coming up together. Why don't you tell our audience about it?
Robert Helms 36:55
Oh my gosh. I am so thrilled that you'll be joining us again for our 23rd annual Investor Summit at sea. This event we do once a year, and by its name, you can probably tell that the majority of it happens on a cruise ship. We spend two days in beautiful Miami at a great hotel, then we jump on a luxury cruise ship for seven days. On the days that we're at sea, it's workshops and seminars and panel discussions and round table lunch discussions and all kinds of fun. And on the sea day, on the land days, we go have a good time together. It's extraordinary. You've been with us before, and I'm super excited to have you back with us on faculty, and excited that we're going to get to brainstorm a little bit with a couple other podcasters. So some of the OGS are going to be on this particular summit.
Keith Weinhold 37:43
Yes, it is June 20 to 29th this year, where we spend the first two days on land in Miami, and then we spend a week cruising to the Bahamas, St Thomas in St Martin. We're doing it on a beautiful ship, the celebrity beyond. So as one of the faculty members, you'll get to see me do a 50 to 60 minute presentation, a couple of lunch, round table discussions. I might be on a panel or two, and also host a table for dinner each night where participants like you rotate around at the tables, and that way you get to chat directly with most or all of the faculty members. That way. Yes, Robert, I was there in 2016 as an attendee. It's great to finally come back as a faculty member. I will be putting the second pepper on the necklace.
Robert Helms 38:29
All right. Well, it's gonna be a ton of fun. And the great thing about it is we have people from all over the world that come and you get in these awesome conversations. You know, you go to a one day or two days seminar, and you get to connect with some people, but boy, and this week, you're going to have a chance to meet all kinds of folks. And the faculty is amazing. Our mutual friend Ken McElroy will be back with us for his 12th year. Peter Schiff's going to be back with us again. We've got the George gammon coming. Brian London, who runs the New Orleans investment conference that you and I usually rub shoulders at, and ton more, just a really great time. And if you're serious about collapsing time frames, you can get more done in nine days on the Investor Summit that you can probably get of two years of just haphazardly going to conferences and watching webinars and listening to podcasts
Keith Weinhold 39:18
you will see what we mean if you attend, about putting a pepper on the necklace and what that is all about. I can tell you from attending in 2016 just one previous appearance there. It is the greatest real estate event that I have ever attended. It's really immersive. It's really fun. Of course, you get off on these ports, and there's a beach component to it as well. It's not a low cost event, but as I like to say, it's not cheap, but neither are you.
Robert Helms 39:50
It is an investment, that's for sure. I think it's important that you approach it that way, right? As investors, we demand a return. On our investment, and you should do that on the summit. Don't just show up and have a party time. That'll be great. It'll be fun. But be strategic about who you want to meet, who you want to hang out with, and who you want to learn from. The faculty is like no other. We'll have at least 15 faculty members. There's a couple more that we're working on, whose names you would know, but we are not ready to announce yet, but it's going to be so much fun. Oftentimes, the best people you meet, you meet at dinner, or you meet at the beach, or you meet out on deck. So we'd love to have you join us and tell you what, if someone is listening to your show, Keith, and they would love to have dinner with you. All they have to do is let us know that when they register say, you know, I want a chance to have meal with Keith, and I think we can make that happen.
Keith Weinhold 40:45
Oh, that's great. And, you know, Robert, it's rare. It's the type of event where, even though it's been nine years since I was there, you developed such a close kinship with the like minded attendees that, you know, I might see a some of it's a Facebook friend now, you know, Steve or Dave or something. And I'll always remember, oh yeah, I met Steve on real estate guys Investor Summit to see it's almost like a relationship you would have with, like, a long ago high school classmate, to be around each other for nine days and all these places. It just kind of brings this different element to it. You can learn more at Investorsummitatsea.com, and get registered there. You can see my smiling face in the faculty section along with the other faculty members. Remember, it's really about all the other people that you meet. You have any last thoughts about the terrific Investor Summit at Sea Robert?
Robert Helms 41:36
I would just say that in life, we tend to regret the things that we don't do a lot more than the things that we do. So get on board. You'll have an amazing time. No matter how great we say it is. It's better than that. It's like summer camp for the affluent, summer camp. As a kid, you didn't want to go, you weren't sure, and by the end, you were lifelong buddies. It's like that. It's investing on steroids. The photo ops are amazing, and you'll meet super cool people, plus you'll get the hangout with Keith and I. So I would say join us for the 23rd annual investors Summit.
Keith Weinhold 42:14
There's wisdom out there that says you should say no to more things in life, and in one tranche, that makes sense, and you also need to say yes to more things in life that fits the category. Here with the Great Investor Summit at Sea I really anticipated. It's one of my biggest events of the year. And Robert, it's been great having you back on the show.
Robert Helms 42:35
Thanks so much, Keith, and appreciate your listeners. Listening in today. Don't quit your Daydream
Keith Weinhold 42:42
Well, said.
Next week on the show, we talk about how to streamline the operations at your rental properties. Is it better to own rental property with, say, two bathrooms rather than one, or is that just another faucet that can leak and shower that can leak and toilet that can clog, and the pros and cons of allowing your tenant to have a pet in your rental unit, it's those sort of operational things and more that we help you improve next week right here on The GRE podcast, it's interesting about investing in a hotel to such a large scale that you can court major franchise branding, like with Hilton, Marriott Wyndham or Hyatt, which Robert has successfully done. And I have visited that property of his with him in person, and it's amazing what he's done there. And you know something, I have rarely met an American, or any global resident that is averse to staying at a branded hotel. I mean, that only seems to be an attractant. Now in the US, some people, they used to dislike franchise restaurants. I even remember people saying, Hey, we don't need another chain restaurant in my town. But I've never seen people scorn chain hotels and today, I mean, in the here and now, people seem to want both franchise restaurants and hotels. I mean today, you're more likely to hear something like hey. When is our town getting a Chick fil A? Why don't we have one yet? And of course, there is plenty of opportunities in these shorter term stay spaces without ever attracting a branding deal, major thanks to the terrific Robert helms today for his keen insight on shorter term rental real estate. This event, June's investor summon at sea is such a good time, and Robert really knows how to host it and make sure you have a good time. After doing it for more than 20 years, it is a rich, immersive experience with people, places, learning and. And relationship building. It's the type of experience that you just can't get from an Instagram reel. It does draw attendees worldwide, although most attendees were from the US when I was there that one previous time. When you register, if you want to make sure that you get dinner with me, let them know, and we'll make it happen, because we know that you haven't heard enough of my voice every single week for more than a decade now, right? In my opinion, it is the crown jewel of world real estate investing events start at Investorsummitatsea.com until next week. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream.
Speaker 45:46
Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC, exclusively.
Keith Weinhold 46:14
The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth building. Get rich education.com
