Welcome to Boostly Podcast Episode 581.
In this Boostly podcast episode, Liam interviews Danny Rusteen, an author, influencer, and super host on Airbnb.
Danny has been involved with Airbnb for over a decade and has written a new book called Profitable Properties, which is focused on short-term rentals (STR).
Liam and Danny discuss the STR market's performance and its associated terms like Airbnb bust.
Danny explains that some influencers bought an Airbnb in a not-ideal market, didn't manage it the right way, and didn't negotiate a good deal.
So, they went public and said, “my Airbnb is not what I thought,” which led to the term “Airbnb bust.” Danny's book is aimed at people who are interested in making money through short-term rentals and covers everything from finding a profitable market to pricing direct bookings.
Liam asks Danny about the book's title, and Danny reveals that he went through many different options before settling on Profitable Properties, a title he arrived at after asking his community.
Danny's book is currently available for pre-sale.
Here's the video for this episode:
Timestamps (audio)
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Transcript from the Episode
Intro
[00:00:00] Liam: Thank you for joining us on the Boostly podcast. We got a very special guest and uh, today we are shining the Boostly spotlight on somebody who I'm a major fan of, who I've read his books. He's a super host, um, on Airbnb. He literally wrote the book on Airbnb. Uh, he's an influencer. And a bestselling aurthor.
[00:00:19] And today we're gonna be talking about a new book, which he has, uh, finished writing and is, is gonna be sharing with us today. And we're gonna be diving into why he's done it, what the book's gonna be about, and, um, just some cool tips to, to share with everyone. So thank you very much for, for joining me today.
[00:00:36] Let me introduce, uh, Danny Rusteen and, um, welcome along. He's coming all the way from, uh, whereabouts are you today, Danny?
[00:00:43] Daniel: I am, uh, today I arrived in. Vancouver Canada. I arrived yesterday and I'll, I'll actually leave tomorrow.
[00:00:51] Liam: I know. Um, I know you're always traveling and that's one of the brilliant things about your books is that there are tips from firsthand as a guest as well as a host, which is, which is gonna be cool.
[00:01:00] So can you give yourself an introduction and share a bit about the journey for, for people who may not know ya?
Daniel intro
[00:01:06] Daniel: Yes. Yeah, sure. Worked. I used to work at Airbnb back about 10 years ago at this point, and then I, I left and I, my life got more entangled with Airbnb. I started a property management company. I started traveling on Airbnb permanently.
[00:01:24] I still have that property management company. I have passed 2000 nights as a guest in 2018. I, I wrote this book, which, um, I'm very, uh, very happy about you said that you read it, so that's, that makes me very happy as well. And then I started, I bought a, I bought a house, an international real estate investment in Medellin 2021.
[00:01:52] And so I've been documenting that on my social channels. And then in October of 2022, I just, I, I didn't really ever want to write another book because it was a lot of work. A lot of work. This one, and something hit me in October where I just, everything kind of clicked and I thought, all right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do it.
[00:02:11] I'm gonna write a new book. And it turned into this. Which is a 400 page mega book, which took way more time than the last one. Um, a little bit nervous, but it's, it's, uh, coming on presale in, in a couple weeks, and it's a very broad, uh, well, it's brought and specific about all things s t r from finding. The finding a profitable market all the way to pricing direct bookings, which is, which is your specialty.
How do you feel about the STR market is performing?
[00:02:41] Liam: How do you feel about the way the STR market, the short-term rental market is performing and, you know, terms like Airbnb bust and
[00:02:47] Daniel: why I believe Airbnb bust, by the way, I love it because it, it, uh, Airbnb has become too associated with easy money, passive money. What has that done? That's a very sellable idea.
[00:03:01] And you make a lot of money on Airbnb, on short-term rentals if you know what you're doing. And it's not tremendously hard to know what you're doing, but if you go into it with that mindset, you're not gonna do well. And what happened, I believe, is some influencers got onto this idea as well. They have some extra money.
[00:03:17] They bought an Airbnb, they bought an Airbnb in, in a not ideal market. They didn't manage it in the ideal way, and they didn't make much. They probably didn't, you know, negotiate a great deal either. And so they went public to their audience and they said, oh, my Airbnb is not what I thought and. That's where it came from.
[00:03:37] I believe
[00:03:38] Liam: the title, profitable Properties is an interesting one. Why did you go with that title? I
[00:03:45] Daniel: asked my community for, so the title, I will say the title and the cover took me a combined one month and one month of intense thinking. Probably I overdid it, you know, probably I overdid it. I'll just be honest.
[00:03:58] But, uh, I. Felt like I had to get things right, and I hope I did. But I went through a bunch of different titles. Um, and, you know, there was, I asked my community eventually, and, and there was some, you know, one title I wanted was the, uh, title of a famous podcast, for example, not yours, a different one. But I was like, oh shoot.
[00:04:18] Um, that was my favorite title. And then I had some controversial titles, you know, that I, that I didn't go with. This one was the least favorite of the four i I asked my community on this was the least favorite by. But I went with profitable properties because it's about, I, I wanted to separate myself from Airbnb.
[00:04:36] This one is, this one is, Airbnb is still the leader in short, in short-term rentals, but this is more global. Uh, this is more. Broad spectrum about how to turn, because nowadays what we're doing is we're, we're looking at from the step, from step one, where's the most profitable market, neighborhood, profitable property, how do I manage it?
[00:04:57] And then when you sell it, you're selling it as an s t r that's very different than 2018 and before. Mm-hmm. And so I, I, I really wanted people to focus on, The more, you know, it's not just Airbnb. A part of, a big part of this subject is direct bookings as well. You know, we're running our business, we're running our Airbnbs as a business in 2023.
[00:05:18] And so that's the reason why.
What was it that inspired you to produce the book
[00:05:20] Liam: What, what was it that inspired you to produce the book? Why, why now? As I, you know, is, is it the, um, as you mentioned just then you've, you were very connected to Airbnb. What is it that's changed, do you think, over the last sort of five.
[00:05:37] Daniel: The main thing that's changed, I just touched on it, is that.
[00:05:42] Five years ago, 10 years ago even, you would Airbnb what you already had. I had a sofa in my sofa in my living room. That's all I had. And I had three roommates. We Airbnb that if you had an in-law unit, you happen to have an extra, you know, extra house. A lot of people, you know, one of my first, uh, PR managed properties was this very wealthy couple.
[00:06:03] And they, uh, what'd they do? They moved houses or something, and their mansion near San Francisco, in, in the hills in the North Bay was available. And they normally wouldn't do this, but, um, they just had, they had a house available and they're like, okay, well why, why don't we Airbnb, what we have 2023 and beyond?
[00:06:23] People are building, there's a construction site in front of me. You know, I wonder if it's Airbnb. A lot of, some of these construction buildings, they're, they're marketing it as, And then when you go to sell, you know, if you. If you have tangible, uh, or I guess intangible assets like email addresses, et cetera, a website that gets visits to YouTube, that gets visits, Instagram that gets visits, that has real world value that someone will pay for.
[00:06:48] So as we reach
[00:06:49] Liam: towards the end of these, Danny, we'd love to just do a couple of, um, closing questions. Not so much about the book, but, um, what advice would you give yourself if you were starting out in short-term rental? Today, 2023. Oh. If I was
[00:07:00] Daniel: starting out today, what advice would I give myself? I would talk more.
[00:07:04] I would talk about the mindset that you need to be a successful Airbnb host. I think the mindset solves. All problems. And I mean that all problems. And I, I came upon this idea, uh, years ago when I was just, I was just selling, I sell, you know, as, you know, online optimization, so I'll go on and I'll change your online listing and that, you know, to make it highly converting.
[00:07:32] And I realized that that was only kind of half the battle because the hosts. Their mindset was not correct in that they weren't having, they weren't actually good hosts. They weren't providing good experiences. And so I, I offered a different product where it's, it's more inclusive. I, I'm looking at everything.
[00:07:49] I'm changing everything. I'm helping them. I talk with them one-on-one to try and set them up for success. And so what is that mindset? That mindset is the, the maybe, you know, a lot of people who start off in str, they have jobs, they're an employee, they have a nine to five, that's fine. Nothing wrong with that.
[00:08:08] But when you're a. S t r owner, you're a business owner and you need more of a business mindset. So you need to shift from an employee mindset, which is doing your, your job right now to more of an executive mindset, which is thinking to the future and more strategic planning. Yep. That's what I would
[00:08:25] Liam: say.
[00:08:26] Yeah. Nice. Thank you for that. And, um, so true. I, I, um, I speak to a lot of hosts and most of the time they are still in a full-time job. And a lot of the time I spoke to somebody today who said, Hey, I feel like I've replaced my job with a job. And you go, well, Is like that at the start, you know, when you're hands on, but ultimately it is about that forward planning and looking at it from a, a helicopter sort of perspective of the whole business.
[00:08:50] Um, what superpower would you say that you've got, if you've got a superpower, a talent or something which you excel at?
[00:08:58] Daniel: Uh, I'll say, I would say I can be, let's say a. Chameleon in terms of, um, interactions. Like if there's a kid with me, I'm a, I'm an uncle now. I've got six nieces and nephews. I could be very silly.
[00:09:16] But if it's like, uh, you know, if it's my mom or someone else's, you know, mom or dad or grandparents, I can change my like intellect to match them. And I think, and uh, I, I, yeah. So I think I can connect with people I suppose. That's cool.
What mantra or saying resonated with you
[00:09:34] Liam: I like that. I like that a lot. And finally, our question, which we always ask is, what mantra or saying resonates with you and why?
[00:09:41] Daniel: Hey, I keep a document on my computer with a bunch. Mattress and sayings. Most of them, I forget to be honest, but the one that popped into my head and has popped into my head frequently. Is, I forget where it's from exactly, but today it's something like, today is the first day of the rest of your life and it's a good, it's a good perspective to have cuz you don't want to, you know, be at the end of your life and be like, wait, what happened?
[00:10:07] All the regrets, I think about that often. What, what, what would I regret if I didn't do that or didn't do that? Can I, and can I, should I have done something different to be more fulfilled? Yeah, that's a.
[00:10:19] Liam: It's very hopeful and, uh, true. We can, we can be who we want to be, can't we? Day to day, which is cool.
[00:10:25] So, uh, Danny, thank you so much for sharing today. Just for everybody listening on the live and also on the podcast as a reminder, um, where can they go to find the book or find more about yourselves?
[00:10:37] Daniel: They can go to, uh, it's, it's gonna be sold most places online anyways, but Amazon is a, is a fine way to go.
[00:10:45] You can search my name, Daniel Rustin, or you can search out profitable properties and the book should come up. I appreciate, um, pre-sales and I'll just say, uh, you know, I'm an indie author, which means I don't have a, uh, a traditional publisher. I do everything. I do the marketing. Uh, I hired a proofreader.
[00:11:04] Um, but you know, all of it is, all of it is. Under one roof, so to say. Mm-hmm. And so if you do buy this, first of all, I appreciate that, uh, very much. Uh, and reviews are as, as an Airbnb host, as a short-term rental host, whether you're doing direct bookings on Google, we know how important they are. For an indie author, they might be even more important because I'm up against, you know, Goliath with a lot of budgets.
[00:11:27] So I do appreciate reviews. You don't even have to write anything. Amazon appreciates that you could just gimme a star review. Uh, that does
[00:11:35] Liam: help more than you know. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, Danny. So we'll add that to the show notes for sure. And obviously if you're watching this on the live, that will be coming soon.
[00:11:43] If you are listening to this on the podcast, then it's imminently about to go live as, uh, we are doing this in. Uh, in sync with the book release, which is gonna be cool. So Danny, thank you so much for spending your time with us today. Really appreciate the tips you've shared and also to find out more about the book.
[00:11:59] I'm excited to find out more about it and, uh, yeah, just, um, uh, thank you for, for sharing all information. Um, that's bye for now from us having a blast.
[00:12:09] Daniel: Gonna get it on the Bruce Lee podcast. Bruce Lee led Bruce Lee cuz it's so hard. On the tee is loose leaf picking up those rhymes. Don't write it, just do it.
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