Speaker: [00:00:00] You do not wanna miss today’s show. Today’s guest has quite literally the largest network in the real estate industry out of anyone I’ve ever met in my life. He’s regularly interacting with Robert Kiyosaki and the Rich Dad Group. He puts on tons of shows. He has one of the industry’s longest running podcast, the Real Estate Guy Radio.

He’s been featured on Fox. On MSN, he’s had founders of Forbes and you name it, he is connected and he is a wealth of knowledge. So in today’s episode, we’re gonna be breaking down little bits of different pieces of what it takes to be a successful real estate investor and also what it takes to get you to the next level.

So stay tuned. You are not going to wanna miss today’s show.

Speaker 2: welcome back to the Short Term Rental Riches podcast. I’m happier you’re here again. It is an absolute [00:01:00] pleasure to have our guest on today. He’s someone that I’ve learned a wealth of knowledge from.

He runs. The real, one of the industry’s largest and most impactful real estate shows that exist. Um, and he’s just a wealth of knowledge. Robert Helms, welcome to the show. Hey Tim, thanks for having me. Great to see you, my friend. It is great to see you as well and I’m excited to, uh, just chat today. I mean, you really have had a really big influence on my life, I think, uh, I came across your podcast over a decade ago now, which is kind of crazy to think about, but over the years, gone to a lot of your conferences.

Uh, got to meet. You know, with you a lot. Um, and so it’s been really great learning from you and from all the, the amazing content that you put out there. Um, can you give us just a little bit of background, Robert, on the show and, and on all of your, all your real estate experience really. 

Speaker 3: Well, when the, uh, calendar flips over to 2026, it’ll be our 30th year of broadcast, which is [00:02:00] crazy.

When, uh, Charlie and I, my original co-host started the show years ago, uh, we figured, uh, we’d make a list of all the real estate topics and there were about a hundred. So we thought, well, if we do a show once a week, that’s two years. So that’s, that’ll be good. Two years will be done. And, uh, here we are 30 years later because of course, as you know, uh, things change.

There were short term rentals back then, but we didn’t call ’em that. Right. And there wasn’t a whole industry around it. And so because the market changes so much, you just have to stay up to date. So now for 29 years, we’ve been, uh, almost every week, uh, bringing in ideas and topics and guests and. Or ask the guy shows and all those things to try to help explain, uh, where the market is going and how to be positioned for it.

So it’s, uh, it’s great to be talking to folks who are interested in short-term rentals because there is so much opportunity still, uh, in that space, as you know. I don’t have to tell you that. Um, and you know, I [00:03:00] always think that before you’re, uh, uh, you were talking about before, you’re a short term real estate investor.

You’re a real estate investor, and before you’re a real estate investor, you’re an investor. Which means that you live below your means and you put, uh, aside some productive capital and you go do something with it. And as chapter one of Rich Dad, poor Dad teaches us the rich don’t work for money. They let their money work for them.

And that’s how we go out into the world and, uh, create these returns. But we, we, as real estate investors, we swim in the sea of, uh, all the other economic factors. So, you know, the real estate guys we’re. We’re front and center real estate, but we also talk about the broader picture. As you know, like our investor summit that you’ve been on many, many times.

We always bring in macro economists and people that understand not just real estate, but how markets work and how the Fed works and how money works and the things we sometimes take for granted. 

Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I, I, I, I would say if, if I hadn’t been going [00:04:00] to all of your conferences, Robert, or a lot in the past or just listening to this show, there’s so many things that I would’ve done differently and, and not in a good way.

You know, you guys just have such a. Such a wealth of knowledge, you know, interest rates, for example, I remember refinancing all of my properties. You guys were like, Hey, interest rates are going up. Uh, there’s no way around it. And now here we are years later in an environment that’s been higher than. Uh, you know, what earlier, new investors have been used to, but still historically low.

Uh, when we, when we look across, um, you know, historic numbers, you have met with and had so many amazing guests on your show, Robert, you continue to, I’m curious, um, you know, what’s one of the like mindset things that. You’ve discovered from your guests that maybe a, a newbie investor doesn’t, doesn’t have.

Speaker 3: Yeah, that’s a great question. You know, everybody brings something to the [00:05:00] table and I always wanna understand the guest’s perspective. So a comment they make can be taken in context. But I’ll tell you that from a mindset point of view, uh, they, they say, and I’ve not been able to find this quote, but they say, I’m a big quote guy, as you know, that Mark Twain said that you shouldn’t wait to buy real estate, that you should buy real estate and wait.

Meaning that over time real estate and investing in real estate heals almost all wounds because real estate as an asset is completely different than any other asset class. And this is one of the big mindsets, uh, to get square right, right away. So I’m asked to speak at lots of different conferences, not just real estate conferences, and I’m often representing real estate.

As an asset class. So there’ll be someone there who’s talking about metals, and there’ll be someone there who’s talking about oil and gas, and someone who’s talking about the stock market and someone who’s talking about crypto. And these are the different asset classes, except there’s a [00:06:00] huge distinction that no one ever makes except usually me on a panel that every single investment.

In oil or gas or the stock market or mutual funds or cryptocurrency, every single dollar you put into any of those asset classes is discretionary. You don’t have to buy a barrel of oil or an ounce of gold or a share of stock. It’s a hundred percent discretionary. You can sit out economically every one of those asset classes forever, but you can’t sit out real estate.

From an economic perspective, you’re gonna have to interact with real estate. Doesn’t mean you have to own a property, but if you don’t, you’re gonna have to rent one. Whether that means for a couple of nights or every month for your office or the home you live in, you cannot sit out the market. So for that reason, real estate is completely different.

It doesn’t really count as an asset class. Although arguably it’s one of the biggest asset classes if you look at the aggregate value, but it just behaves differently. I think you have [00:07:00] to get your mindset around that. And this is especially true for folks that have found real estate from some other background.

You know, I’ve been putting money in the stock market, or I’ve invested in silver and gold and now all real estate seems interesting. I’ll, I’ll jump into that. And they approach it the same way, but it’s not the same kind of an asset class. And so it also doesn’t react perfectly. Like no matter what I do today, it’s not gonna affect the price of a share of Nvidia.

I can yell at my computer screen, I can buy all kinds of chips. It’s not gonna affect that. But with real estate, there’s so many things we can do personally that affect the value of property. And two properties built by the same builder, uh, right next door to each other, don’t sell at the same price anymore because of all the things that have changed and make them unique.

So I think from a mindset perspective, it’s, it’s that part that real estate’s not like everything else. 

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. There’s so much opportunity with it. Um, [00:08:00] you know, uh, you, you wrote a book a long time ago. Uh, you wrote a book a long time ago called Equity Happens, which I, uh, was lucky enough to pick up a copy of.

Um, and that talks about one of the fundamental pieces of, you know, invested in real estate is that equity happens. Can you explain that a little bit more? 

Speaker 3: Yeah, so equity is the good part. It’s my favorite words. It’s the part of the property that you own. If you bought a hundred thousand dollars rental home, if you could find one of those and you put 20% down, we call that purchase equity, and the bank loans you 80%.

Now the house is still worth a hundred thousand, but your portion is only the 20,000 that you put down. And you could argue, well, if we sold it today, we’d have to pay some costs. So that 20,000 isn’t even 20,000. But the magic happens over time because over time, rents are gonna go up. Most likely the value’s gonna go up most likely not every month, not even every year, but over 10 or 20 or 30 years.

It’s virtually impossible to find a market anywhere in the United [00:09:00] States or most countries that if you bought a property at one day and sold 10 years later that it wasn’t worth more. You’d have to really look to find a market that is down. Over 10 years. So long-term real estate goes up in value. And here’s a cool part.

As your rental property goes up, your tenants, whether they’re renting by the night or the week or the month or the year, your tenants are paying down your mortgage when they make the payment to you and you make your mortgage payment. At first, it’s mostly interest, which is deductible and a little bit of principle, but over time the principle amount of the pay down goes up until, imagine a scenario where you’ve owned the property 30 years, the loan was 30 years.

The tenants have made that payment. Now they have paid off your loan and used to loan the house. You now have a hundred percent equity. So our point in equity happens is that the market gives you some equity. My house would’ve been value, but my loan didn’t go up because the house went up. [00:10:00] No, my loan’s going down if it’s amortized.

Uh, but also there’s other types of equity. One of my favorites is found equity, and that’s because as we mm-hmm. Alluded to with the stock price, there may be someone who needs to sell a house for a reason outside its current value, and they are become a, don’t want a motivated seller. So I’m able to acquire a property for a lot less than the market value, which means I found some equity.

You can also force equity when you buy the ugly duckling and you work to make it better. Sure there’s cost involved, but if you do it right, there’s even some profit margin beyond that. And so that way you can force equity. There’s developer, uh, or phased equity. When a developer builds a track of 200 homes, usually the first 20 sell for a lower price than the last 20 Do.

So if I buy early in that and I write it out to the end, then I’ve experienced phased equity. And then there’s the whole capital stack, which is all the money necessary for a property. As that capital [00:11:00] stack gets compressed and diminished, equity on the other hand grows. And so it’s just the part that you own.

And if you do it right, which means if you buy in the right places and you buy the right property and you manage it well, then equity’s gonna happen to you. 

Speaker 2: Yep. That’s awesome. That’s why we love real estate. Uh, I think that last piece that you mentioned there though, if you manage it right, is one of the really, really important factors because you can find equity, uh, you can force equity, you can have your tenants pay down your property over time.

But if you don’t manage your tenants well or if you don’t manage the project well, then unfortunately the outcome is not great. And I know Robert, you’ve. You’ve been involved in all sorts of projects, hundreds of millions of dollars of, of projects, of all different types. You also in the, the hospitality sector.

Can you talk to us a little bit about management and how important that is to the return [00:12:00] of an investment? 

Speaker 3: It is likely the single most important thing you need to buy in a right market and you need to have the right financing and you need to make sure you’ve done your homework about costs and all of that.

But management is where the rubber meets the road. And the example I like to give is you go out looking at houses with a realtor and he goes, oh yeah, these houses, these rent for $1,800 a month. And then you interview the property manager who says 1475. Because the property manager is the one that has to deliver the result.

And not that we don’t love real estate agents, but they don’t know it’s not their business to lease out the property. Mm-hmm. I they heard they were renting for 1800 or one guy paid 1800. Well, that’s the guy that moved out and forced a sale. And now if I’m gonna buy that house, I’m only gonna get 1475. I might wanna offer 1450.

So it fills up. So management is everything, and it’s not just in individual, uh, homes. It’s the same thing in apartments, it’s the same thing in retail and commercial. It’s the same thing. In hospitality, it’s the same thing. In [00:13:00] farming, the management is the operation. The tool is the real estate. So you can buy the world’s greatest tool, whatever that means for you, whether that’s a chainsaw or a fishing pole, or whatever your tool is.

But if you don’t learn how to use it. Or have someone who knows how to use it, then the tool does you no good sitting in the toolbox. And real estate’s just a tool to accomplish all these wonderful things. Appreciation and cashflow and tax benefit. All of those benefits only come if the property is managed well.

And so I think that for whatever reason, it seems like to me, especially single family homes, that the property manager is the least respected. And most important person in the whole shooting match. That’s true. They have to keep it full, they have to keep it working. Right. All those things. Uh, and meanwhile, you know, we’re looking at markets and running spreadsheets and talking to lenders.

None of that is gonna mean a hill of beans if you don’t have someone that manages the property well. 

Speaker 2: [00:14:00] Yeah, excellent point. And I think when we look at the short term rental industry, we see that. But on an, on a magnified level, because in the long term world, you know, you might have two properties, maybe you think it can rent for, uh, 1500, but your property manager is telling you 1300.

They have a lot of the insight. But in, in the short term rental world, there’s such a bigger range. You know, that range instead of being 13 to 1500 might be 1300 to 3,500. Uh, but it really does come down to. To the management. Well, let’s, well, it’s critical, it’s short term 

Speaker 3: because there’s another really interesting, and I think, important point for people that listen to your podcast, which is most short-term rental owners.

Are never gonna bother to listen to this podcast because they don’t take it seriously. They don’t think of themselves as investors. They have a house that couldn’t rent, or they have a vacation house and they’re trying to liquidate some of the cost. That’s not your competitor, right? That’s not good management.

That’s not even management. [00:15:00] The majority of short term rentals are not managed very well at all, which is why the majority of short-term rentals don’t make the owner any money at the end of the day. But this is not for you. If you’re listening to this podcast, you are learning all those distinctions that create true ROI because of management.

And it’s something I’ve watched you do over the years. Tim is really take it seriously. I mean, you’ve taught this stuff, you, you’ve figured it out by doing it, not by reading books and. Because of who you are, you share those ideas with other people. It becomes a, a, a amazing what you can do when not everybody’s watching the store.

And so I think it’s true for a lot of asset classes, you know, I’m in big hospitality and big hospitality. You wouldn’t think about just, you know, waltzing in one day and deciding to manage your own front desk. Yeah, I think I’ll just, I’ll be the bellhop today. No, I’m gonna work in the restaurant today.

You know, I, I can’t even get near the kitchen. I mean, they keep me out of there, [00:16:00] right? Because I’m not gonna add any value. Instead, you manage through systems and practices and procedures and policies, all of which drives me crazy. But it’s what creates the return. And so you don’t want to just have good management, you need to have way above average management.

’cause the average manager doesn’t do very well in real estate. So just don’t be ordinary. Nobody’s listening to this show because they wanna be average and ordinary, right? A few little distinctions. It doesn’t take hundreds of things. It takes just a few distinctions to be better than the next guy.

Speaker 2: That’s right. Yeah. Excellent advice, Robert. And, and thanks again. Yeah. For all the content that you put out because I think, you know, listening to shows like yours is what gives people, uh, an edge. You know, they’re studying, they’re staying up on the market. Um, we’re seeing a lot of changes right now, a lot that I’m super excited about.

You know, interest rates have come down a little bit. Uh, what are your thoughts on that? 

Speaker 3: Yeah. Gosh, this [00:17:00] is such a can of worms. I just love the fact that we used to be able to get interest rates of two and three and 4%, but I don’t think it’s coming back. I don’t think we should have had those rates.

That’s a longer discussion. But I think the reasons behind the fundamentals weren’t fundamental. I mean, it doesn’t make any sense. And like everybody, I was wallowing a bit when interest rates moved up. Not only did they move up a lot, but they moved up quickly. And then my buddy Kenny McElroy got in a conversation with me and he goes, you know, I was doing some math, which is something you don’t hear Ken do very often, but he said I was doing some math and the time that you and I have been in investing, so Ken and I are almost the same age.

He’s my slightly younger friend and uh, we’ve been investing in real estate about the same period of time. He says, during the time you and I have been investors, the average interest rate that we’ve paid when we buy properties is higher than the current interest rate. And this is when rates hit like seven and a half.

And I’m like, mm-hmm. You know what? You are right. If I go back and look at the properties that I bought 10 years [00:18:00] ago, those ones are great, right? The ones that were 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago, gosh, we were paying 12. 11. My dad was paying 16 and 18. You knew my dad. Um, PE people, people would just be amazed that we could make real estate deals work at those rates, but they did.

And so the point is, to me, rates right now seems super low. To people have only invested the last 10 years. They think rates are super high. So this is that mindset thing too. It’s always compared to what, it’s always based on your perspective, but I think if you can’t make the deal work at today’s interest rates, then the deal’s not gonna work.

It’s a great reason to consider short-term rentals because the same property can yield a lot more income. Now, obviously there’s more expenses too, but the expenses don’t creep up as much as the income does when you manage it well. So I’m not holding my breath for interest rates to go lower. However, having said that.

Here’s the cool thing [00:19:00] about real estate. I only negotiate the price of the property one time, but I can negotiate the financing as many times as I want to on one to four units. If the rate’s lower and it makes sense for me to refi, then I can do that if the rates go up. I’ll be happy I have the loan I got today.

So it is a moving platform. I think we’re gonna see a little more easing of interest rates, especially if a current president has anything to do with it. But in reality, the President doesn’t influence interest rates very much. It’s not how it works. So he may wanna scream at the Fed Chairman and say, lower the rates, but there’s more to it than that.

And so as we’re watching. Who makes loans, not the Federal Reserve. In fact, the rates that we hear so much about have nothing to do with interest rates. On, on mortgages, but they are informed by that. So business people, mm-hmm. Who make these loans are the ones that are looking at competition and demand and supply and their cost of capital and putting all that [00:20:00] together to create loan products.

And when you see those rates come, go down. That just didn’t happen by accident or because someone flipped a switch. That’s because they have studied the demand in the marketplace. I think we will see more and, and here’s the deal. Every half point in interest rate that we get some relief of has a huge effect throughout the economy.

All of a sudden, those houses you were thinking about buying do make sense. All of a sudden that refinance that you wish you could do, you can do and that’s gonna unlock lots of purchasing power. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. And there’s, there’s also some other things for, I guess, the less seasoned investor with interest rates that aren’t.

Totally obvious, you know, like we get to write off our interest as a deduction. Uh, if we look at inflation for example, and we look at the cost of money with interest, like what we’re paying for a loan is actually quite a bit lower, uh, than what it seems. And yeah. [00:21:00] So yeah. Um, great advice there, Robert, as always, uh, I think in the short term rental market, you know.

People got into a lot of short term rentals, not just as a sole investment. You know, a lot of people love traveling to a specific place and so they, they decided to buy a second home there hoping to, uh, generate extra cash flow. But that didn’t work out or hasn’t worked out in a lot of places where they saw big.

So I think with, you know, even just a small change in rates, some people that weren’t managing well, coming back to managing, uh, are going to be, uh. You know, sell some properties. I think some of these short-term rental old markets are gonna get shaken up just a little bit. Um, but those that are managing well will continue to manage well and, and earn more.

Uh, and that, I guess that leads me to another point. A lot of times when someone’s doing a really good job managing. Properties, uh, or investing or just getting all the pieces right. [00:22:00] They use up all their money and, but they want to keep investing in real estate. They want to keep finding short-term rentals and they want to keep finding whatever it happens to be, and they also attract more money because their friends and their family know that they’ve been doing a good job at it.

You’ve been teaching about syndication for. For years. Uh, actually I think that was the first conference that I ever went to, uh, of yours years ago. It must have been over a decade ago, but can you tell us a little bit more about syndication in the real estate world? 

Speaker 3: Yeah, it’s such a great tool. If you go around any town, you look at all the big stuff, the retail and the buildings and the hotels, very, very rarely is that owned by one gal or one guy.

Usually it’s a group of people that invest together, and the fancy word for that is syndication. So syndication is a way for people to pool their resources. Some bring the deal, some bring management, some bring expertise, some bring capital, some bring the ability to qualify, and you put that all together and.

Everyone [00:23:00] achieves more. So it’s not really that mysterious, but because you are raising capital from other people, it brings up two primary uh, issues. One is technical. That is its securities law in most countries that you now have to deal with, and that’s completely manageable. Um, but it is something you have to learn about.

And the other is just your mindset about. Taking other people’s money. And so you have to get over both those things. And I think if you have any trepidation about investing somebody else’s money in your deal, then you could be an excellent candidate. If you go, oh, no, line up and just write the checks, you’re probably not the person we need.

Because when you raise capital, is that a sacred thing? This is other people’s living below their means and putting their production in the form of an investment capital that then. Can go into your project and it works like this. I might be very interested in the idea of short-term rentals and [00:24:00] why not?

I can make better income. I can have fabulous properties in wonderful parts of the world, but there’s so much to learn in which marketplace and who’s gonna clean it, and how do I get the keys to people and all the stuff that you obviously know and most of your listeners know, but I might want to get exposure to short-term rentals by saying, could I put some money in a deal?

And on the other side, if you’re that person that you talked about where, man, I, I bought all the, the units I can until I either make more money or until these properties are worth more and I can refinance and get some more capital out of ’em, well then if you had more money, could you do more deals, is the question we ask people.

If you already are in a niche or a marketplace or you’re already. Doing the thing in real estate, if you could have more capital, could you do good deals that made return, if so, than you’re a candidate for syndication? So it’s, it’s on both sides. The passive person, this is a way I invest into sectors and markets that I have no knowledge of.

I, I, I have a premise that you can only know [00:25:00] about a half a dozen markets well enough to make a well-informed investment decision, but there’s more markets than that. So if I want exposure to a market type or to a geographic market, or a demographic market, and I don’t have the expertise or the experience myself, then I find someone who has that expertise and experience that I can invest passively with.

So if you’re a short term, uh, rental investor and you’re thinking, man, I could do a lot more if I had more capital. I will tell you there are way more people with money. Then there are people willing to learn and get up every day and do the hard work and find the markets and get management. There’s a lot fewer of those folks.

There is money everywhere and every day we print print billions more. So there’s no lack of capital at first. It seems like there is no, uh, where am I gonna get money? Well, there’s just money everywhere. So syndication is the tool most people use when they hit that hurdle that you talked about. I’ve run out of either my own capital.

Or my own [00:26:00] ability to qualify. I’m Fanny and freddi out. I have all the loans that I can get without, you know, having to put 40% down and paying 11% of interest. Okay, well then syndication is your next option rather than you having to supply all the money. You bring people along, and that’s a fascinating world.

It’s, it’s kind of the place that people can really start to scale. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. Um, do you mind, uh, talking about, uh, some of your experience in the hospitality sector and, and maybe how syndication has helped you through, through that? 

Speaker 3: Yeah, so early on, you know, I was always enamored. By, uh, nicer properties.

I cut my teeth on C class apartments. I was an onsite residential manager of a four eight unit apartment building a block from where I went to school. And, uh, learned a ton sitting behind that desk. And, uh, before I knew it, I had amassed quite the, uh, expertise. Tenant landlord law in the [00:27:00] fabulous state of California.

So much so that one of the first real estate guys events that I taught was called Landlord Bootcamp. And the whole premise was, you know, you buy a toaster, you get an operating manual, you buy a rental house, you don’t get nothing. And so we designed a one day course that was the a’s a to Z on what it takes to manage a property, not be a manager, but to be the owner, the asset manager.

If you will, okay, I wanna buy a rental house for all the reasons, but how do I take care of it and who do I have help and all that. And so we did this, this course, and, uh, I would get the most joy out of the afternoon. It was open q and a and uh, uh, the first time we did it and people were asked, well, how much notice?

And all the que, all the technical questions people have about renting, especially in a place like California very. Tenant friendly place. Mm-hmm. And I just knew all the answers and I knew the answers from not head knowledge. ’cause I, I read the manual, but Seat Knowledge, having been in that chair in that office for five years, hands-on managing and I went, wow, I [00:28:00] really do know this stuff.

We were doing a, an event once in, a guy asked me a question, I don’t know, 30 minutes in the q and a and I went. You know, I don’t think I know the answer to that. That’s a, that’s a good question. I, I have someone I can probably, you know, get the answer from, but I, I, I just didn’t know, and so two things happened.

One, uh, Paul, who you know, is in the back of the room running the sound, he goes, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you not know the answer to a tenant, landlord law question. But the second thing is that at the cocktail reception that night, the guy comes up, he goes, you know, you won me over the minute. You didn’t have the answer to my question.

Because every other question, you seem to know the answer of about this guy’s either making it up or it’s too good to be true. And so I tried to come up with a hard question. I go, well, you did. And he goes, but the minute you, you didn’t know the answer, you gained credibility. So that’s a great mindset that you don’t have to know every answer.

You have to know somebody that does. And so that led me on this long journey, which I won’t bore you with, but I did end up with some properties that were. Um, nightly and [00:29:00] weekly rental properties long before there was any such thing as Airbnb. These were properties in Cabo San Lucas, a market that I had learned about and liked, and that just turns out that a house that would rent for $1,200 a month would get $300 a night.

So there was a local manager there that, because it was a resort market, they had a few of these rentals, but not a ton. Uh, but I just got enamored by that whole model until I realized just how much management is involved. And so that led us on a, a search of looking for different markets that made sense and we ended up, uh, in a hospitality market, not because we, we chose to.

I always let the market tell me what it needs. So rather than pigeonhole myself as a single family investor or an apartment investor, or an office investor, I go and look for a need in a marketplace and especially an unmet need and see what is it that the market needs. And so several times that answer has been a product I’m familiar [00:30:00] with, but one of those times we found a market that had a ton of promise and potential.

This was, uh, about 18 years ago. And, uh, in hindsight. It was a market with a lot of promise and potential, and we look really smart for picking it 18 years ago, but it was as much luck as anything else. Uh, and yet what was missing was overnight rentals. There weren’t enough hotels. No one had been a hotel in this beautiful tourist market.

No one had built a hotel in 16 years. Well, how can that be? Well, because what people were building was condominium developments, and they would sell the condominiums and then run it as a hotel. Which is a valid methodology. The challenge is the market desperately needed hotels for single and couple travelers.

That’s what they needed. And everyone was building three bedroom, two bathroom condos with big kitchens and refrigerators. And the average person would stay there for a week and they put beer in the refrigerator and they’d reheat something in the microwave. And that’s about all they’d use the kitchen for [00:31:00] because they.

Came mm-hmm. To a destination where there’s stuff to do and they were out on boats and swimming and all the things not cooking. So I recognized that there was need, a need for an actual hotel. Yet I didn’t know anything about the hotel business except I spent a hundred nights a year in a hotel. So I, I started to delve into it.

And, uh, that has led us to having a branded hotel, uh, the biggest hotel by room count in the country. Um, not where we expected to be. But it’s another lesson, and that is that life takes you on these journeys and if you’ll pay attention, sometimes there are clues there. Instead of approaching it with, I know the answer, approach it with, I just need to ask the right questions.

What does this market need? Like, you know this, Tim, probably better than most short-term rentals don’t work well equally in every marketplace. Surprisingly, there’s a few markets that you wouldn’t think of as short-term rentals where they actually perform really well, and there’s some other markets that you would think, well, that’s an obvious place to have [00:32:00] short-term rentals, and it doesn’t work very well.

So it’s not about coming to the market with your idea of what you want to do. It’s let the market speak to you. 

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that, that’s great points. Filling the demand, you know, truly understanding, you know, in, in your, your case, what the guest was looking for. They weren’t looking for a kitchen, they were looking for a, a vacation.

Uh, and yeah, that’s, that’s certainly really, really true and the short term rental world, and I think very often overlooked. Um. You know, part of part of what gives us these insights, I guess, is just our network. You know what I mean? Knowing people in different places, knowing people in different industries and sectors.

And Robert, I gotta say, you probably have one of the biggest networks in the real estate industry from, you know, outta everyone that I know. Uh, and so that creates a lot of opportunities as well. We’ve got just a couple quick minutes left. You do a ton [00:33:00] of different seminars throughout the year. Maybe you could just touch on networking really quick and uh, and then we can close with some ways for people to make sure they can find you and find your content.

Speaker 3: Awesome. So I love going to events whether I’m asked to speak or whether it’s our event or whether I’m the master of ceremonies. I love going to events ’cause that’s where people are. And networking is not something to be dismissed lightly, nor is it handing out your business cards to every person you see.

I would rather meet the five right people at an event than meet 500 people at an event. And this took me a while to figure out. It’s like, well, isn’t it just a numbers game? Well it is, but not in the way you think. So when you are going to be with people of a like mind of any kind, whether it’s industry or whatever it is, you wanna be intentional about what, what you’re after.

What do I need? What’s missing? Or where could I add value? And how do I find that person? And if you think about who the [00:34:00] ideal match would be for you, and that could be a thousand things, but you know what that is, and you’re aware, then you will find it when you walk in the room. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, then you don’t know.

Now, that’s almost opposite advice to what I just said about markets. Let the market tell me what it needs. But my friend Robert Kiyosaki taught me one of the most interesting things I’ve ever learned, and that is he never walks on stage with a preconceived notion of what he is gonna talk about. He lets the room tell him what it needs.

Which sounds really weird. When he first explained that to me, I’m like, how do you let the room tell you? But now that I watch him and we’ve been friends for a quarter of a century, I, I watch him do, he just did this for us at an event. I, I know better to even ask him what he’s gonna talk about, nor do I give a, a, a topic that he’s gonna cover.

’cause he’s gonna let the room tell him. And it was extraordinary. And I’ve seen Robert speak so many times, as have [00:35:00] you, and it was one of the most awesome talks I’ve ever heard him give because he was just cognizant of who was in the room and what they wanted to hear. And so I think when you are networking with somebody, you need to have a system to be able to, because here’s what happens.

We meet, we have a good conversation. We exchange business cards. That might be the end of it, but it shouldn’t be the end of it. If we had a good connection. I used to watch my dad and my dad would ask for your business card, and then right in front of your face, he would pick up the business card and he’d be taking notes on the back of your card, right?

You probably saw him do this and he would say, oh, oh, tell me about that. And then he, if, if they anybody said anything, he goes, well, I, I, I don’t wanna trust my memory. Which says, this is important to me. And they, they never see anybody do that. And he would do that. And then he did the most extraordinary thing.

He would get back home or back to the office, and the next week he’d start making notes. And he would send off of an email or send someone a card or, right. He would follow up with people. And that’s the key. Yeah. So you’re not [00:36:00] gonna follow up with three dozen people. Or you’re, if you do, it’s gonna be some terrible impersonal email.

Rather find the two or three best prospects, whatever it is you’re looking for, and then make it a connection and, and my favorite place to do that is at live events, which is why at our live events, we always have a forum for people to interact and exchange ideas, information, and, and contacts. But be intentional when it comes to networking.

It’s not a numbers game like you think it is. How many of the right people can I meet, not just. How many people can I meet? 

Speaker 2: Yeah, be intentional. I love it. And every year you do a, a seminar called, uh, create Your Future, which is really being intentional with your life. Uh, maybe we can wrap up real quick, Robert, with just the best way where people can find you.

And if you have a second to tell us about the event, we’d love to hear about that as well. 

Speaker 3: It is like no other event I think anyone does. It’s crazy amazing. It’s the highest storm we do. It’s called Create Your Future, the 2026 goals retreat. [00:37:00] Uh, it happens the middle of January in Colorado Springs this year.

Uh, but it is all about figuring out what you want to do when you grow up. Most of us end up somewhere in life. We made a series of decisions that brought us to where we are and some of those have been great decisions and they’ve led us to mastery and they’ve led us to great investments and sometimes not.

And so the sooner you can really, really get clear. And focused the better. And that’s what this event’s designed to do. If you’re struggling at all with the direction of your life or your finances or your health or your relationships, any of that, this is not a realestate event. It’s a holistic look at you and the rest of your life.

Mm-hmm. Then, uh, check it out. You can go to goals retreat.com to find out about Create Your Future or go to the real estate guys. Our website is realestate guys radio.com. There’s a button that says Events Now, don’t get overwhelmed ’cause you’re gonna see a lot of events. Those are generally events that [00:38:00] I am invited to speak at, but you’ll also see the events that we do twice a year.

We do the Secrets of Successful Syndication, hard to say, but a two day workshop when I’m figuring out how to put those bigger deals together with other people’s money, uh, we do our annual Investor Summit, which is the crews. Uh, it’s a ton of fun. Mm-hmm. Uh, you’ll find that on the site. And then we do a, a few other events, uh, depending on, uh, what time of the year it is.

But, uh, come on out to Real Estate Guys event. You’ll get to meet cool people like Tim and you’ll get to, uh, network strategically. 

Speaker 2: Yeah. Thank you so much Robert. I know you could have talked about a million different things today. Uh, absolute pleasure having you on. If you’re out there and if you have not listened to the Real Estate Guys radio, subscribe, it is a wealth of knowledge.

Until next time, Robert, we hope to have you back on in the future and thanks again for coming on. 

Speaker 3: Thanks, Tim. Appreciate it.