How Alex created financial independence through investing in STRs (Ep572)

In this episode of “Get Paid For Your Pad,” I had the pleasure of interviewing Alex Sabio, a successful investor in short-term rentals. We delved into various aspects of the hospitality industry and shared insights that can benefit aspiring entrepreneurs like you.

One key point Alex emphasized was the importance of offering a unique and hyper-local experience to guests. He spoke about his practice of delivering local goods, such as seasonal produce or specialty items, that showcase the region's distinctiveness. This personal touch has been highly appreciated by guests, who value the authentic and memorable experience.

When it comes to investing in short-term rentals, Alex provided valuable advice on scaling the business. He stressed the significance of documenting processes and creating a playbook from the very beginning. This allows for smooth expansion and management, even when you're self-managing properties from a distance. Hiring virtual assistants can further alleviate the workload and ensure efficient operations.

Networking emerged as a crucial factor in starting and growing a short-term rental business. Alex highlighted the importance of attending networking events and connecting with fellow investors. By engaging in conversations and building relationships, you can gain valuable contacts and insights that can lead to potential partnerships and growth opportunities.

Despite living in Southern California, Alex shared his reasoning behind investing in locations like Alabama and Eastern Tennessee. High prices and increasing regulations in his local market led him to explore more profitable and less restrictive areas. Through networking and trusted realtors, he successfully identified and acquired properties in vacation-oriented markets.

Reflecting on his journey, Alex emphasized that operating short-term rentals is more than just real estate—it's running a hospitality business. Dealing with guest feedback and challenges requires resilience and a focus on the bigger picture. By prioritizing profitability and freedom, entrepreneurs can overcome obstacles and achieve financial independence.

Looking to the future, Alex unveiled his latest venture—a 76-unit hotel in Northwest Arkansas. Collaborating with other investors, he saw an opportunity in a less saturated market and aims to create a boutique experience for guests. The property's expansive grounds offer potential for further development, including amenities like pickleball courts and food trucks.

Overall, this episode provides valuable insights into the world of short-term rentals and investing in the hospitality industry. Alex Sabio's experiences and advice serve as inspiration for aspiring entrepreneurs, including myself, who seek success in the lucrative realm of vacation rentals.

Jasper Ribbers:
What's up everybody? Welcome back to Get Paid for Your Pet. Today coming to you from Idylwild, California. Beautiful Idylwild. I'm up here getting my hands dirty on our projects, the renovations on our projects here, which is about to complete pretty soon. So we're gonna be launching FreeWild, which I'm really excited about. And today my guest is Alex Sabio, and he is pretty close actually. We just find out he only lives an hour and a half or so. away from Ida Bout in Southern California. He works in healthcare and he has 20 years of experience in real estate and in the last three years, he's moved into short-term rentals. He has invested in six projects. So lots of things to learn from Alex. So Alex, welcome to the show.

Alex Sabio:
Jasper really cool to be here. I'm coming full circle because when I first started learning about short-term rentals, I was listening to your podcast all day long. Didn't listen to music for like two straight years. I was just consuming knowledge. So really surreal just being here.

Jasper Ribbers:
That's awesome, man. That's awesome, and I appreciate that. So yeah, tell us, give us your background. Like you bought your first property 20 years ago. It's just pretty amazing. So tell us about that journey.

Alex Sabio:
Yeah, you know, I wish I had a better story to tell people like the gurus tell you, where they scaled to zero to 100 units in like one year. But to be honest with you, that wasn't my story. And I think my story is very similar to the vast majority of Americans who tried this out. So I started close to 20 years ago, buying single family homes. I was buying them out of state and kind of made a lot of mistakes along the way. And I think my issue was that I was very comfortable at my job making a nice six figure salary with benefits, medical vacation, all of that. So I never really put it on steroids. And a lot of these properties I was buying were a quote unquote revenue neutral. So I wasn't making money on them. So if anything, I was just kind of breaking even. And it wasn't until COVID hit where I really just, it kind of lit a fire under me to really get to financial freedom. I'm a respiratory therapist, so I'm in healthcare. And during COVID, that was absolutely miserable, to be honest with you. We were overworked, understaffed, nobody's fault. It was just, we didn't have enough equipment and none of that. And I just couldn't see myself doing that for the future. I didn't, like, we all take COVID lightly now, but back then we didn't know where it was going. And so I started buying short-term rentals. 2020, almost three years ago today, and fell in love with the hospitality business and found a way to get to financial freedom through short-term rentals and hospitality.

Jasper Ribbers:
That's awesome, man. Why did you move into short term rentals?

Alex Sabio:
It really was a necessity when I looked at where I felt like I needed to get to financial freedom. Buying these single family long-term rentals, I was profiting maybe 100 bucks, 200 bucks. My ran down properties would be like $500, but every so often it'd need a lot of work. So not really that much profit. And I remember running into an investor and she was telling me, oh, I'm profiting like $24,000 a month on just three properties. And I said… well, tell me more, what is that all about, right? And so the more I started diving into, it was like, oh, this is probably something that will be right up my alley and something that I'll really enjoy. So I kind of fell into it, just really networking and talking to as many investors as possible. And at that time, I was like, oh, that's what's gonna, that is my financial freedom number to help me get out of working here in the hospital.

Jasper Ribbers:
So it was really the profitability of short-term rentals versus long-term rentals that drove you

Alex Sabio:
Absolutely.

Jasper Ribbers:
to start investing in that. And then, so three years ago, you started investing in your first short-term rental. And how did you find a profitable project? How did you know what to buy and how to design it, how to furnish it, and all that stuff?

Alex Sabio:
Yeah, I think I was too ignorant. I didn't know what I didn't know at the time. So really it was just networking and finding as many people and talking to anyone that wanted to speak to me. Cause at the time, nobody's wanting this to meet anywhere. We're all kind of online zooming and just meeting people online. And so I just remember like hearing people talk about this area until I reached out to that agent. But at the time, Jasper, I was trying to buy apartment complexes. I was trying to scale up my single family portfolio. And the numbers I was looking at with those, you're talking like buying something for $1.2 million in the Midwest, that was gonna profit me maybe $40,000 a year, right? And then when I was looking into short-term rentals, the first one I bought was about $625,000. And the agent at the time said, well, you'll probably profit that with this. And I'm thinking, well, that's like half the price. And not only that, I don't have to partner with anyone. I could buy it all on my own. And not only that, there's these amazing tax benefits associated with it. So when I looked at the numbers, it made more sense for me just to buy that single family home versus buying this large apartment complex, which was twice the price. And we would profit about the same, so.

Jasper Ribbers:
Mm-hmm. Sure. And what about the casino? One thing that we always talk about is like, okay, shorter rentals typically are more profitable than long-term rentals, but there's also a lot more work. Right

Alex Sabio:
Yes.

Jasper Ribbers:
now we have to communicate with guests, we have to do the check-ins, the cleanings,

Alex Sabio:
Yes.

Jasper Ribbers:
the maintenance, like all that stuff. So how did you, how did you make, because I know you have a full-time job, right?

Alex Sabio:
Yeah.

Jasper Ribbers:
So like, how did you take, did you take that work on, on top of your job?

Alex Sabio:
Jasper if I knew all the risk associated with it, I might have been scared off and like I said I think I was too ignorant with the fact like the one thing we never outweigh is all the risks we all look at the profit, but we let we don't look at the risk and Luckily what happened was right away like within three months My wife was able to retire from her W2 job because of the profits We were generating from this one short-term rental not only that there were tax advantages to her retiring And so my wife was able to retire and then she kind of took on the guest communications and everything. Um, and actually we found that we really enjoyed, uh, doing a lot of it. Like, obviously there's a lot of stuff that we deal with. We're like, Oh man, that was just a headache and a pain in the butt for the most part, like I would say 98% of the things that we do, we enjoy it. So we did do a ton of research. And all the apps and software, but thinking that all those apps and software will make it passive. This is a business and it's gonna be a lot more work than anticipated, but you know, like I said, we actually enjoy most of it. There are some bad days, but it's all right.

Jasper Ribbers:
Sure. So let's talk about, you know, we're talking about profitability right now. I can imagine in 2020 when you first got into this investing business in short term rentals, interest

Alex Sabio:
Yeah.

Jasper Ribbers:
rates were a little bit lower. You

Alex Sabio:
Yes.

Jasper Ribbers:
know, prices were probably a little bit lower too.

Alex Sabio:
Yes, yes.

Jasper Ribbers:
So, you know, it was a bit easier to find those profitable deals. Like how do you… Well, in today's climate, are there still profitable deals out there, you think? Or is it just really difficult?

Alex Sabio:
was definitely night and day. Back then, three years ago, I could have picked anything and we would have been profitable. And I kind of kicked myself for not buying more right up front. I was buying these brand new builds and they were taking forever to build. And so my cashflow, I was waiting for all the cashflow. Right now, you have to do something, what you're doing there in Idlewild, you could definitely find something profitable and something that makes sense. It's just gonna need more work. You're going to need to be a lot more sophisticated in what you do. Because there's definitely a lot of guests that are looking for an amazing experience. I think so long are the days where you can just put anything up on Airbnb because there's nowhere else to rent. People are looking for a unique experience, something that's very hyper local to the region. And I think that's what you need to do. You really do need to think outside the box.

Jasper Ribbers:
Yeah. That's something that we talk about quite a bit on this podcast. How, you know, in the last 10 years, like I remember when I started in 2012, it, you know, you didn't have to do anything, right? You just like, you have a space boom. You

Alex Sabio:
Yeah.

Jasper Ribbers:
put an Airbnb and it's like, it was, it

Alex Sabio:
It's

Jasper Ribbers:
was

Alex Sabio:
booking.

Jasper Ribbers:
crazy. Yeah. It was crazy. Like if people were just happy, if they, if you opened the door, they were happy, right?

Alex Sabio:
Right.

Jasper Ribbers:
Like you have a bed in the shower and like people like, wow, this is amazing. Obviously that has changed quite a bit. So that goes into my next question of like, you know, what's how in today's environment with the expectations from the guests and the amount of supply that's, that's out there, like what are the most important factors in turning a, a home or a property into a successful short term rental that's, that's driving profit.

Alex Sabio:
Well, number one, it has to be clean and you have to have amazing reviews, right? And so we like hyper focus on customer service, right? And then not only that, what we do at all of our cabins and all of our beach homes, we try to make it Instagrammable. That's really like we, when we go in there and purchase the property, we're like, we're thinking where can people take pictures and, and post them online. And that's what we're really trying to do is just to create these memories. Like in every single property, one real simple thing that everyone could do right now is in their home is just put the name of the city up somewhere. Like that's something really cheap. Like my places are in like Gulf Shores, Alabama. And we have like these murals that say Gulf Shores, Alabama. And so we want people to take family photos right in front of those. That's something extremely simple that they can do.

Jasper Ribbers:
Yeah, so it's such a good point, turning it into an inceremonial experience. Because these days, that's just kind of what people want to do, right, when they arrive on a holiday destination, vacation destination. Like, the first thing is like, pull out the iPhone and, you know, take a story of it and just kind of impress, you know, impress everybody

Alex Sabio:
Yeah.

Jasper Ribbers:
at home kind of thing.

Alex Sabio:
Yes. Yeah.

Jasper Ribbers:
And I noticed it, you know, I noticed it in myself too, like when I, uh, when I'm just looking at some Airbnb's in Mexico. So I'm planning to go to the beach for a couple of days for my birthday, which is in two weeks. And I'm just noticing how I am selecting, I'm looking for something that's like really cool, whether it's like an infinity

Alex Sabio:
Yes.

Jasper Ribbers:
pool overlooking the ocean, whether it's like

Alex Sabio:
Right.

Jasper Ribbers:
a hot tub that looks really cool or I want something. special, right?

Alex Sabio:
Right.

Jasper Ribbers:
I just do not want to stay in some cookie cutter type of place that doesn't has nothing cool about it. And so it's interesting. And I recognize that I'm willing to pay quite a bit extra for that factor, right?

Alex Sabio:
Yes.

Jasper Ribbers:
And so I love what you're saying of like, hey, you know, for every place that we have on Airbnb, we got to think, okay, if our guests are coming in here, like, what's that one thing that they want to take a picture of? and put on their Instagram, right?

Alex Sabio:
Yes.

Jasper Ribbers:
And to your point, it doesn't have to be like, you know, a $20,000 pool or like a $10,000 hot up, or it could be something as simple as like just a cool, like riding on the wall with the name of the city so people can be like, look, I'm in this place, right?

Alex Sabio:
Yes.

Jasper Ribbers:
Or a mural or something like that. So that's a good point.

Alex Sabio:
Yes, something hyper local. One of the other things we do is we have this service where we deliver local goods to our guests. So instead of just having the generic coffee or whatever, we tell our company, whatever is in season, whether it's honey or something like that, that says something very local to that region. Guests really enjoy that.

Jasper Ribbers:
Yeah.

Alex Sabio:
I mean, that's what I would do. If I'm on vacation, I'm not wanting something generic. I have a track home. here in California. I don't wanna go stay somewhere at another track home. I want something very unique to that region.

Jasper Ribbers:
So let's go back to the investing side. For people that are listening to this, and I'm sure it sounds very attractive to a lot of people of like, hey, my wife was able to retire because of my first STR, like I'm sure there's people listening right now who are like, hey, you know what? I wouldn't mind retiring a little early. What are some tips for people to get started with investing in short term rentals?

Alex Sabio:
So if you're gonna start, do it with the mindset that you're gonna scale into like 10 or 20 units, right? Because I think my biggest issue was when I bought one, I bought a second, then a third one, then I'm like, in my mind, it's hard to keep the menu in my head. Like imagine if you're running a restaurant and you're the only chef there. And then all of a sudden you're having to scale these different restaurants, but you haven't told anyone the menu. Right. And so now what I struggle with is after buying the fifth one, I'm like, Oh my gosh, I need to write the playbook down. And so now what I've done is I've written the playbook down with the mindset that I could easily hire someone because I'm, I'm self managing my short term rentals from 2000 miles away. It doesn't matter whether I'm 2000 miles away or 15,000 miles away. And so what I do is I hire virtual assistants now to help me with the business. to take a lot of the load off. Because like I said, this is a business and it's actually a lot more work. But you can hire people at a very affordable price to help you run your business. So really, right away, day one, when you do acquire your first one, is just start writing the process down. And there's going to be so much stuff that you look back and you're like, oh my gosh, I wish I would have wrote that down. And I have it to the point where it's so detailed. that if my virtual assistant were to quit today, I should be able to hire someone right in and they should be able to function very well, day one. So that's my biggest advice to people like just starting to scale their business. As far as like starting out, networking is gonna be your biggest ROI by far. And the thing is going to these networking events, just talking to as many people as possible, you're gonna find something that's gonna stick to you. You're gonna be like, I really relate to that, that's something I wanna do. Versus just jumping on the first thing. We all have this FOMO going on right now. There's all of these headline clickbait things that just because someone's being successful in one area doesn't mean you should be following them too. But just try to meet as many investors as possible and then you're gonna get so many contacts and so much information that way. And that's

Jasper Ribbers:
Yeah, 100%.

Alex Sabio:
free to do, right? Going to these networking events. A lot of times they're free, you might have to buy a drink or two, but like

Jasper Ribbers:
Yeah.

Alex Sabio:
I said, biggest ROI out there.

Jasper Ribbers:
Yeah. Very good point. You mentioned that your, most of your properties are in Alabama. Like why did you choose Alabama if you're living in Southern California? Doesn't it make more sense to just kind of find something in your backyard?

Alex Sabio:
Crazy right Jasper if you told me four years ago I'd be investing in a beach in Alabama I didn't even know they had beaches man. What are you talking about? Right or in Eastern Tennessee because I'm in the Smokies like half my properties are in the Smokies. I didn't even know where the Smokies were right but it wasn't until I like kind of opened my mind up and started looking but I live here in Southern California and the prices were really high and one thing that always scares me is regulations like right now they're trying to pass a 15% tax. on short-term rentals on top of all the other taxes that we pay. And so that stuff really scares me. Living here in Southern California, there's so many visitors like, we should be investing here. This should be the best place to invest in a short-term rental because there's so many people going to Disneyland or all of these other places. But to me, I just get really scared of all those regulations. And to be honest with you, it might be a little lazy to where I don't want to jump through the hoops and figure them out. And so I just choose not to, and I invest in these vacation destination markets and have been doing very well with it. It's been, it's been pretty easy actually. So compared to, I don't want to deal with the HOAs and these different cities coming, putting the hammer down on you. So.

Jasper Ribbers:
Right. But how do you like, if you were, if you've never been to Alabama, you don't really know the market well, like how

Alex Sabio:
Yeah.

Jasper Ribbers:
do you find like something profitable, but then also like, you know, you got, you got to have some people on the ground as well. So how do, how do you find the on the ground staff?

Alex Sabio:
Yeah, that's with me. It's really been networking. Like I went to I was just a networking machine for three years. I still am. And, and that's kind of how I found Alabama. Like I started in the Smokies and I helped so many investors start their own short term rental business. And then a lot of people were like, hey, if you're ever gonna look into another market, you should take a look at this market. And if you ever need people, I have good people there. And so I've bought a lot of single family home longterm rentals, sight unseen. I think I bought like a dozen of them sight unseen, but I never did that for a short term rental. At least at the very minimum, I went to the area so that way I could understand the area, walk with the realtor. They kind of showed me the regions where I should invest in. And that's kind of how we targeted it. So

Jasper Ribbers:
Mm-hmm.

Alex Sabio:
I went based. I use my realtor a ton. finding that relationship with the realtor that you trusted went a long way.

Jasper Ribbers:
And what are some of the biggest learning lessons like from the last three years for you?

Alex Sabio:
that it's a business, it's much more of a business than it is real estate. Like I've been a real estate investor, but here you're actually operating a hospitality business. And there are stuff that guests are gonna say and do that are gonna drive you up the wall. At a certain point, you just have to let it roll off the shoulders and then move on. There's another guest coming in two days. Like you can't dwell on what, you know, the complaints that they had or issues that they had. You just gotta move on. And if you hold on to those things too long, you're not gonna scale. If you really think about all the stuff that you had to deal with, you're gonna be like, well, that's too much of a headache. Really focus in on the profitability and what you can do with it, the freedom that you can have with it, and focus in on that and you'll be okay.

Jasper Ribbers:
Mm-hmm. So do you have any other learning lessons that you could share?

Alex Sabio:
Um, well, the one thing is I started scaling up to, like I said, I think having the software to like I use Asana, that's a free app where I write everything down. I wish I would have done that a lot earlier and I would have scaled a lot faster had I done that.

Jasper Ribbers:
Yeah, I mean, that's a really important one too. Documenting everything from the beginning, like creating those systems, creating those SOPs. And it doesn't have to take too much time really, right? Because there's all these tools right now, you mentioned Asana, like we use ClickUp as our task manager, but just like recording a Loom, and if you've

Alex Sabio:
Yes.

Jasper Ribbers:
never heard about Loom, You should get Loom as soon as possible. It's a, it's basically, it's a free tool that you can use to record your screen. You can also record yourself and you can, as soon as you done recording, like there's a link that you can immediately share with people. So,

Alex Sabio:
Yes.

Jasper Ribbers:
and then you can build a database of Loom videos and you, it doesn't take much more time. If you're, let's say like you're creating a new Airbnb listing, you just turn the Loom on. And you record the entire process and now you can give that to your VA and say, like, Hey, look, this is how I create the Airbnb listing. Right. And

Alex Sabio:
Right.

Jasper Ribbers:
then they can take that and improve it and, and so on. But it's, it's so important to do that from the beginning because that's, it's such a challenge to do that. Once you're at 10 units and everything is in your head and

Alex Sabio:
Yes.

Jasper Ribbers:
now you're driving yourself crazy because it's too much work. And we have a lot of, a lot of students that come for our Ledges X program actually are in that spot when they come to us. And now like you're already overwhelmed, so you don't have time. And now you have to go back and document everything

Alex Sabio:
Mm-hmm.

Jasper Ribbers:
and hire your virtual assistant or your executive assistant or wherever you wanna

Alex Sabio:
Yes.

Jasper Ribbers:
hire and do those three things at the same time is very challenging. But if you

Alex Sabio:
Yes.

Jasper Ribbers:
do that in the beginning, it's much easier. And then even if you're not gonna scale, it's still really nice to have that, right?

Alex Sabio:
Yes.

Jasper Ribbers:
Because it helps you as well. Because like sometimes you forget like, hey, how do I do that? Again,

Alex Sabio:
Yes.

Jasper Ribbers:
I forgot, you know, and they're like, oh, well, let me watch this Loom from a year ago. And then I don't, you know, you don't have to think about it. So it's regardless if you want to scale, I think it's always good to have that documentation.

Alex Sabio:
Absolutely, yes.

Jasper Ribbers:
Tell us a little bit about what's coming up for you in the near future. I know you recently purchased a 76 unit hotel, which sounds pretty crazy. You know,

Alex Sabio:
Yeah, you're right.

Jasper Ribbers:
that's a huge project. So how'd you get into that? And like, tell us about that deal.

Alex Sabio:
Well, like I said, before I started short-term rentals, I was trying to get into multifamily apartments and that just wasn't happening. So I did want to scale my business eventually. And I fell in love with the hospitality industry and that's how I really wanted to scale. And looking at how many Airbnbs or short-term rentals I needed to purchase, I was like, this is daunting. Like you're going to purchase one at a time. And so what I did is I teamed up with a… a few other investors and we purchased a hotel in Northwest Arkansas. And Jasper, if you told me to locate Northwest Arkansas a year ago, I would have not been able to do so, man. So you know, it's all about networking with other investors and these other investors were telling me about the area when visited, absolutely loved it. The one thing about hotels is it's extremely difficult to get into, right? There's only so many hotels for sale. The ones that are for sale, like that are publicly listed don't make sense. They don't pencil out. So it's really difficult. So the thing is there's less chance of you like getting into a saturated market. Like we, we hear about saturation with short-term rentals. That's really difficult to get into hotels. Like your competition is really not there. Right. And so the 76 unit hotel, what's exciting is just where we talk about the profitability. We purchased it for $3.6 million. and it appraised for $6.5 million day one. It was a 2008 bill that didn't need much work. The one thing we're gonna do is after about a year, we're gonna take off the flag because it's a wind dome right now and create a boutique experience, a more unique experience. And like you said, people will pay for that. People will pay a little bit more. And we're in a region where, you know, there's not a lot of that going on right now. So we can definitely be like one of the first ones.

Jasper Ribbers:
Wow, that's awesome. When is it opening up? Are you guys doing some renovations on it?

Alex Sabio:
No, so it's been, it was like a cash flowing business before. And so we just continued it during the negotiation process. They said, Hey, you got to stick to the brand for, I believe 15 months. So we did that, you know, so I think we closed in April. We've been operating ever since and it's booked. It's like constantly booked, which is exciting.

Jasper Ribbers:
That's awesome. And what kind of experience are you going to create? Cause I'm thinking of like 76 unit hotel. That's a,

Alex Sabio:
Hmm.

Jasper Ribbers:
you know, that's a very, that's a different type of project than when,

Alex Sabio:
Yes.

Jasper Ribbers:
you know, like we do, like we have like, you know, our four cabins here and building another five or so. But that's a very, you know, it's just such a large project. Like what kind of experience do you think you can, you can bring to the

Alex Sabio:
Well,

Jasper Ribbers:
property?

Alex Sabio:
it was built in, yeah, it was built in 2008 and it looks like it, like all of the decorations look very much like it, like teak floors. You know, it looks very like just generic. And so we could easily renovate the hotel rooms itself. You're talking each room is like 300 square feet. So that's the simple part. But the thing is the reason why we like this hotel is there's like 1.5 acres of land, just grass on the side. And so we can actually build more units if we wanted to. And so in Northwest Arkansas, it's the mountain biking capital of the world, or at least they branded themselves that way. But there's a lot of mountain bikers, so we can create something unique on the side there. Um, we've talked about putting pickle ball, like pickle ball is something like very new and hip. So we have that much land. We have so much land there. We can do something special.

Jasper Ribbers:
Yeah, pick a ball. Pick a ball is really taking off. It's interesting because outside of the States, what I'm noticing is, um, there's this other, there's other thing called pedal. Have you, have you heard about pedal?

Alex Sabio:
No, no. Ha ha

Jasper Ribbers:
So

Alex Sabio:
ha.

Jasper Ribbers:
it's just funny,

Alex Sabio:
Similar.

Jasper Ribbers:
like, pedal is similar to picket ball, where it's basically, I think it was that both these things were invented because people want to play tennis, but it's really hard.

Alex Sabio:
Yes.

Jasper Ribbers:
And so they're like, let's, let's think of a game of tennis. That's easier.

Alex Sabio:
Right.

Jasper Ribbers:
And then picket ball and pedal came up. Um,

Alex Sabio:
RAID

Jasper Ribbers:
but so I think that's a great, I think that's a great move. Like the pedal courts are popping up, like mess rooms in Europe,

Alex Sabio:
Yes.

Jasper Ribbers:
in, in central America, like in Panama, where I was just was for two years, like they're, they're everywhere now. So.

Alex Sabio:
Right.

Jasper Ribbers:
That's definitely like could be the next hottest Airbnb amenities. I have a pickleball court.

Alex Sabio:
Right, and we actually have a Starbucks on our lot. So we have so much traffic that comes through. And I think when people see, like pickleball's new, right? And so when people see that, they think of like, oh, that's a new thing that they got going on. It's like the trendy thing. So that's, we have a lot of ideas in our mind. We have tons of parking. We could put like, we could invite food trucks to come by. So that's something we've been working out with some of the locals there.

Jasper Ribbers:
Awesome. Sweet man. Well, you got some exciting stuff going on. That's really cool.

Alex Sabio:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jasper Ribbers:
Any last thoughts before we wrap up the podcast?

Alex Sabio:
No, see, I'm a healthcare worker and healthcare workers were burnt out before COVID and they were even burnt out more so after. And I could tell everyone that it doesn't have to be that way. You could create financial independence on the side. And then when you look at me, I'm still working a W-2 job full time, but I do it because I enjoy doing it. A lot of us got into healthcare because we really had the love or passion because we wanted to help people. But a lot of times like politics got in the way or short staffing or whatever the issues were, but it doesn't have to be that way. And you look at life a whole different when you're working there, not for the money.

Jasper Ribbers:
Hmm. That's great. So you're planning to continue to do your job for quite a while.

Alex Sabio:
A little bit longer, you know, having the hotel and all these short-term rentals, you know, you're really busy. And then where is the passion after that? So my passion is helping other healthcare workers expand their business and start investing in real estate. So that might be something where I look into getting into.

Jasper Ribbers:
Yeah, that's awesome. And sweet dude. Well, uh, congrats on your success. Like amazing, amazing to hear what you've been, uh, what you've accomplished in a very little time, well, not, uh, not as little time as the zero to 101 year gurus, like you said,

Alex Sabio:
Right.

Jasper Ribbers:
but, uh, but still like pretty impressive, uh, what you've done, so, uh, congrats, thank you for sharing, uh, your experience on the podcast today and, uh, well, since you live not far away from me, so I'm sure we'll, we'll be able to hang out at some point in the future.

Alex Sabio:
Yeah, yeah, Jasper. Thanks for having me on. Really excited. Thanks.

Jasper Ribbers:
Absolutely. And to the listeners, thank you for listening. We'll be back on Friday with another episode. So see you then.

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