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EP124: This Week in the World of Airbnb

Trump is on our radar again this week as his travel ban on refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries has left travelers stranded at airports all over the world.

Jasper is joined by Margot Schmorak, CEO and Co-founder of Hostfully, to discuss the details of Airbnb’s response to the executive order and tech executives speaking out against the policy.

In other news, Jasper and Margot cover Airbnb’s milestone in becoming profitable in the second half of 2016, a complementary service (Traveling Spoon) that offers travelers a meaningful cultural experience, and Jasper’s personal update regarding an exciting new investment.

Some of the topics covered

Article #1: Airbnb Offers Free Housing to People Stranded by Immigration Order

  • CEO Brian Chesky is soliciting volunteers to host people in need
  • Airbnb will subsidize the cost in locations where free housing is unavailable

Article #2: Airbnb Reaches Profitability

  • Significant because other sharing economy firms are still losing money
  • Uber lost 3 billion last year
  • Airbnb still has nearly all the $3 billion in funding raised
  • Success attributed to growth and lack of competition
  • Airbnb steals some market share from the hotel industry, but it is also expanding the market
  • 31% of users in the last 12 months switched from staying with friends and family
  • HomeAway’s pricing model and site design prevent it from becoming a true competitor

Article #3: Traveling Spoon, An Airbnb For Home-Cooked Dinners Globally, Launches With $870K in Funding

  • Offers home-cooked meals and cooking classes with the best home cooks around the world
  • Potential complementary service to market to Airbnb guests

Jasper’s Personal News

  • Investment in penthouse in Cali, Colombia
  • Building allows short stay rentals
  • Will provide high-end accommodations in an area where few are available

Resources Mentioned

Airbnb Volunteer Link to Host Refugees

Article #1: techcrunch.com/2017/01/29/airbnb-free-housing-immigration-ban

Article #2: businessinsider.com/airbnb-reaches-profitability-2017-1

Article #3: techcrunch.com/2015/09/16/traveling-spoon/

travelingspoon.com

eatwith.com

eatfeastly.com

Connect with Jasper

Email: jasper@getpaidforyourpad.com

Twitter: @GetPaidForUrPad

Instagram: @GetPaidForYourPad 

Facebook: www.facebook.com/getpaidforyourpad

 

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Complete Transcript for Get Paid for Your Pad Episode 124

Jasper:

Welcome to Get Paid For Your Pad, the definitive show on Airbnb hosting, featuring the best advice on how to maximize profits from your Airbnb listing, as well as real-life experiences from Airbnb hosts all over the world. Welcome.

Jasper:

Before learning about Aviva IQ, I used to spend so much time managing my guest communications manually. Now, with Aviva IQ’s easy-to-use automated service, my workload has reduced by 80%. Did I mention it’s free? Automate your Airbnb messages now at avivaiq.com.

Welcome, everyone, to this week’s news episode about Airbnb, and today I am very excited to be talking to Margot, and she is the co-founder of Hostfully. So, Margot, welcome. How are you?

Margot:

I’m great, thank you. Thanks for having me.

Jasper:

Yeah, it’s a pleasure. I’m very excited to be discussing the news with you, and let’s get right into it. Let’s start with what’s been all over the news over the last few days. We can’t avoid it. We can’t avoid talking about Trump these days, can we?

Margot:

Ugh! You know, I was preparing for this and I thought, “I want to talk about something that’s not Trump,” but then, there was actually some good news about Trump and Airbnb, so I hope we get to dive into that a little bit.

Jasper:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, why don’t you go ahead?

Margot:

Okay, yeah. Well, I don’t know if you saw, just over the last 24 hours, Brian Chesky said, on Twitter, that if you’re able to host refugees in need on Airbnb, you can sign up here, and Airbnb is going to provide free housing to refugees and anyone who’s caught up in the travel ban or not allowed in the U.S. So, I know it got a lot of responses on Twitter, a lot of play in the national news and here in the States. Are you seeing it elsewhere, too? It’s always hard for me, in my echo verse here in the United States, to know what’s happening outside of the U.S.

Jasper:

Yeah. No, I think it’s all over the news. You know, it’s funny because, initially, I was a little confused because, initially, I thought, “Well, stranded travelers, travelers who are not allowed to go to the U.S., they don’t need accommodation in the U.S. because they can’t get in,” but then I realized, we’re talking about the airports, because a lot of people already booked flights to the U.S. and now the airlines aren’t letting those people onto the planes.

Margot:

Yes.

Jasper:

I’ve been reading about this. I know in Amsterdam, for example, the KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, I know they’ve refused several people because they are not allowed to… I think they’re not allowed to let people board the plane if they’re not allowed to be in the U.S., so it’s a pretty nasty situation for a lot of people. Imagine you’re traveling from like Australia to the U.S., and then you have a stopover in Berlin or something… Well, I guess Australia’s not one of those countries, but… So, okay, let’s say you’re traveling from Iran to the U.S., and then you have a stopover in Berlin, and suddenly it’s like, “Oh, sorry sir, you’re not allowed to board the plane because you’re not allowed to travel to the U.S.” And I’m sure a lot of these people have family, right, in the U.S.

Margot:

Yes. And, actually, there was some confusion, too, because yesterday, (and I happen to know this because my dad is flying into town soon), Delta, which is the sister company to KLM, had a huge shutdown of their electronic system for two-and-a-half hours and they grounded hundreds of flights. So, in the midst of this immigration challenge in the Unites States that a lot of people were facing with the security in the airports, like they’re not even all together on exactly what’s going to happen, there was also this huge outage with one of the airlines.

So, you know, there’s protesters at the airport, there are all these extra security agents at the airport, there are lawyers at the airports, now there are travelers being stranded at the airports, and I’m sure all these people are getting stuck and not having a place to stay, so it is really cool that Airbnb is putting it out there that they’re happy to help. I’m sure they’re going to help a lot of folks.

Jasper:

Yeah, absolutely. I also saw that Canada is offering anyone who is getting stuck, they’re offering a place to live even, I think. I think that I saw something about the President or the, you know… Is it a President in Canada, or…?

Margot:

Prime Minister, right, Trudeau.

Jasper:

Right, Prime Minister, that’s the right word…offer to host older people that are not allowed to go to the U.S. now, which kind of reinforces the idea that Canadians are very friendly, which surprisingly, Canada is the one country that always gives me trouble when I try to get in.

Margot:

Oh, really?

Jasper:

Yeah. They always take me to a different room and ask me all these questions, they go through my… Last time, they even went through my phone, they went through my WhatsApp messages.

Margot:

Oh, wow.

Jasper:

So, it’s interesting. Their immigration, the border immigration, is actually very strict. But, that’s a different topic.

But, Airbnb, so people can register with Airbnb to offer free housing. You can volunteer your home on Airbnb, and also on lots of articles across the Web, so it won’t be hard to find it. And Airbnb’s even going to subsidize people if there’s not any free housing available.

Margot:

That’s right, yeah.

Jasper:

So, you know, that’s very cool.

Margot:

Yeah, and it’s kind of fun to watch it on Twitter, too, because you see some leaders from other big companies and financing institutions actually volunteer. Like this guy who I call on Twitter named Jason Lemkin, who’s really big in the SaaS world, volunteered to host folks at his home. So, basically, he’s a new registered, a new Airbnb host, and he’s offering to join in because of this political stance that Airbnb’s taking. So, it’s interesting to watch it both in the news and then also from person to person, especially on Twitter, which is a very strange place. But, it’s all good, I think. It’s all in the best spirit and that’s good.

Jasper:

Absolutely. Well, my house is already fully booked for the rest of the whole month, so I can’t really host anyone. Can you host someone?

Margot:

I’m hosting people right now. Actually, another company that was part of an accelerator program that we were in with Hostfully, two of the guys from UK and Kentucky are staying in my apartment now, so I can’t host anybody else either. I’m full up, yeah.

Jasper:

Awesome. Well, it’s good to see the reaction of lots of companies, and also governments, to this kind of crazy rule that Trump has implemented. Although, I have to say, it seemed that there’s a judge, I think, who decided that he wasn’t allowed to implement this rule in the first place.

Margot:

Yeah. There were a few judges. I think it was Judge Donnelly in Brooklyn that said that, and then I think it was in the Washington Dulles Airport in Texas where the head of the TSA, which is the Transportation Security Authority, just rejected the executive order from Trump and basically said, “I believe it’s unconstitutional and I’m not going to uphold it.” So, there’s just, I mean, it must be so crazy in that part of the world right now, where you have a lot of people who are trying to decide what the right thing is to do, and it’s not very clear, so expect to see a lot more chaos at airports. And all my friends who’ve been traveling over the last few days here, in and out of San Francisco, said that there are huge crowds there, so it’s just something that you should plan for if you are traveling or hosting, yeah.

Jasper:

What’s the purpose of this measure, because I just can’t see any good reason because, apparently, it’s to prevent terrorism, but I mean, having these crazy rules, he’s just creating more enemies, right?

Margot:

Yeah. I mean, if you look, there’s this great graphic chart that I looked at online where it showed the number of terrorist attacks in the United States that were due to immigrants from these countries, and all the refugees that are coming from Iran, Iraq and Syria, and Yemen, Libya, these countries that are on the ban list, they go through extensive one- to two-year processes just to get approved to come into the United States, and so it seems like a misguided attempt to prevent terrorists from coming here. And, really, what I think Trump is trying to do is, he’s trying to make people, who feel that there’s a terrorist threat, better, like that are Americans. He's trying to make them feel better, and I think that he’s taking really big broad stroke measures to do so because he wants it to be very dramatic. And, you know, if you look at the data, it doesn’t look like it’s going to pan out very well.

But, I’m speechless. I mean, I don’t want to get into it too much because it’s very upsetting to me personally, but I think that there are a lot of people in the United States who feel a lot of fear about others coming into this country, but it’s certainly not me and not anyone in my family, and there are a lot of other people that are wanting to welcome refugees and have them here, and provide a safe haven for those who are in need. So, we’ll see what happens.

Jasper:

All right, well, let’s move on to a more positive subject, which is about Airbnb finally reaching profitability. And that’s a pretty big deal, I think, because if you look at some other big start-ups, like Uber for example, Uber lost $3 billion last year, which is pretty insane to me if you think about, you know, it’s valued at $60 billion, but they lost $3 billion. It kind of makes me think of the boom at the end of the 20th century when everybody was investing in online companies and nobody was looking at how much money these companies were making. They were just looking at, how many users do you have, right, and all these companies, after the bust, all these companies…well, not all of them, but a lot of them went bankrupt and people lost a ton of money. And that kind of reminds me of that when I see these numbers.

But, Airbnb now has actually made a profit, and the article also states that they have nearly all of the $3 billion in funding that they raised, which, it seems like they’re in a pretty favorable position.

Margot:

Yeah. I think that has to do with the right kind of growth, right. I mean, if you think about the operating model of Uber versus Airbnb, I mean, Uber does require, probably, a more expensive approach to new markets, where I think Airbnb has been able to ride on home-sharing being a kind of natural and already existing thing that happens for travelers. I mean, even before Airbnb, there was CouchSurfing, and before that there was just staying with friends of friends, right. So, I think that in terms of how much money it takes for them to enter new markets, it’s a little bit cheaper, and they’ve been able to manage that really, really nicely.

And, I think for Airbnb hosts, who are the listeners of your podcast, this is really good news because you have the industry leader kind of putting it out there in the markets that they’re going to be around for a while, that they’re going to be able to invest in growth in a sustainable way, and that all the time and energy that their customers have put into coming onto the platform will be put to good use in the long run. So, I think this is great news for Airbnb hosts everywhere.

Jasper:

Yeah, I think so too, absolutely. And, I think also, one of the reasons that Uber’s losing so much money is because they’re fighting a very fierce war with Lyft, you know, where they’re both, like they keep lowering the costs and they keep offering more incentives, etc., whereas, Airbnb, I mean, it has competitors, you know. I mean, HomeAway existed before Airbnb, and there’s a bunch of other ones, but it doesn’t really have like a very close competitor, I’d say. I mean, there’s not really a second Airbnb.

Margot:

Yeah, I totally agree with that. Yeah. I mean, that’s one of the things that all these finance articles are saying, too, is that there’s… HomeAway’s large, but the pricing model for HomeAway is so different that they can’t really compete with Airbnb, right. I think that’s the primary reason. Don’t you agree?

Jasper:

Yeah. I think it’s also the design. I mean, I remember when I first started hosting, I looked at all these websites and I looked at HomeAway, and I just felt like, “Ehn, this looks old and…” I don’t know. It just didn’t appeal to me at all, whereas, Airbnb, the design and the user-friendly interface, and the fact that you don’t have to pay to sign up, (I think HomeAway, they charge listings), and I just felt like, “Okay, this Airbnb seems like a platform that is innovative, and it’s going to grow in the future and it’s going to become a major player, versus, HomeAway’s kind of like the Craigslist of the…how do you call that…the advertisement…”

Margot:

Yeah, yeah. Although, I wouldn’t say that Craigslist is not even as bad as HomeAway in some ways because HomeAway has a very, kind of a strict way that you need to interact with the booking site. You know what I mean? And at least Craigslist, it’s kind of crappy but it’s free, right?

Jasper:

Yeah, that’s true. That’s true.

Margot:

But, with HomeAway, like, these are experiences very specific for the old business where you pay a listing fee, and then maybe you get some money on the bookings, maybe you pay HomeAway some money on the bookings, maybe you don’t. You know, HomeAway promised to the streets, I believe last year, that they were going to transition almost all their properties off of the listing fee and onto the price-per-stay, but I don’t think… I mean, who knows how they’re doing with that, but that’s a really big milestone that they’re shooting for. They’re going to definitely slip a little bit in the market while a lot of customers transition there. We’ll see.

Jasper:

Yeah, I think so, too. And, well, the article also shows a graph of where global Airbnb users are switching from, and one thing in particular that I found interesting is that… I mean, everybody will understand that people are switching from hotels and bed-and-breakfasts, and other type of vacation rental listings, but one thing that’s really interesting is that people are also switching, like 31% are switching, from friends and family. And that’s interesting because that adds to the total market, to the total pie, right?

Margot:

Yes.

Jasper:

And one thing I’ve noticed, because I’ve looked a lot at the relationship between Airbnb and the number of hotel stays that are being booked in different cities because I’m always curious to see if Airbnb really hurts the hotel industry, and it seems like, you know, because Airbnb’s been the scapegoat for all these different things, like rising real estate prices, rents, the hotels are complaining, but it seems like, if you look at the number of hotel stays, it seems like they’re not really doing that much damage to the hotels. So, I always felt like, “Okay, maybe they’re creating extra demand. Maybe people that are traveling, staying at Airbnbs, they otherwise would have stayed at home or they would have stayed with their friends and family.”

Margot:

Yeah.

Jasper:

So, I found that quite interesting.

Margot:

Yeah. Don’t you think it’s a little bit of both? I think they’re stealing a little bit of market share from hotels, but I agree with you that they are expanding the market completely.

We did a little mini-study last year in San Francisco and actually looked at the number of nights in hotels over the years since Airbnb has been here, and yeah, there is a decline in the number of hotel nights over time, it was over the last five years, but in that same time, Airbnb grew a lot more than that. So, you’re right, the demand’s got to be coming from somewhere, so it’s not all coming from hotels.

Jasper:

Right.

Margot:

Yeah, I think it was like another 5% to 10%, actually, so it was pretty significant.

Jasper:

Right.

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Let’s move on to the next subject, which is actually not about Airbnb. It’s about Traveling Spoon.

Margot:

Yes. Well, there’s three companies that I just wanted to tell everyone about that are exciting, and I think, as Airbnb hosts, you’ll find interesting. These are all companies that are run by women who are in travel, which is pretty unusual, and being a CEO, myself, in travel, I’m always looking to connect with other women, so I wanted to highlight these three companies because they have a lot to do with your audience.

So, Traveling Spoon, it’s kind of like Airbnb for home-cooked dinners. And so, you can travel to different places in the world and you can learn to cook with someone who is a native cooker in that place. They’re not chefs. These are people who basically do a cooking class in their home. So, if you’re going to go to India… And, I mean, I actually did this. I didn’t do it with Traveling Spoon, but I went to India, I stayed with my friend in New Delhi, and I learned to cook with her cook because it was such a fascinating part of my travel experience.

So, my friend Steph and her co-founder, Aashi, are the leaders of Traveling Spoon, and last year they raised almost $1 million in funding. I have an article here from TechCrunch. And they, basically, are trying to bring this kind of authentic travel to the masses, and I think, if you’re an Airbnb host and you love to host guests and help them cook, and learn to cook your native foods, you should check out Traveling Spoon. Maybe you can make a little bit more money doing so.

Jasper:

Yeah. I think it’s a really cool complementary service that you can start on top of your Airbnb listing. I mean, you can even combine it, right?

Margot:

Yup.

Jasper:

You can even market your class, your cooking class or your dinner, to your Airbnb guests. And I’ve known about… I think this is very similar to EatWith and Feastly, which I’ve known about for a while, and I think it’s awesome. It’s a great way for people to connect with people in their local communities, and I think most people who do this probably don’t do it for the money. I think there’s a lot of people who are lonely, you know. Especially old people, they have a lot of time, they’re lonely, and you know, what’s cooler than having somebody who usually spends the evening by themselves watching TV or something, instead, cooking an awesome dinner and inviting people from all over the world to come eat with them, and making a little side income, as well. I mean, it’s awesome.

Margot:

Yeah, it’s great. It’s great. It’s good all around. I could totally see myself as being a customer and a host with Traveling Spoon. I have two little kids, so right now my time is pretty tight, but if I did not and I had more time on my hands, I could totally see myself using this.

Jasper:

Absolutely. I’m actually looking at… Unfortunately, I’m in Columbia right now. Unfortunately, they’re not in Columbia yet, otherwise, I would have loved to try it out.

Margot:

Yeah, I think they’re in India, and I think in Thailand maybe, some of the kind of big markets for travel.

Jasper:

Yeah, they’re actually in quite a lot of countries. They’re in China, they’re in Hong Kong, Greece, Mexico, Taiwan, Morocco, Nepal, Philippines, Vietnam – mostly Asia, it seems.

Margot:

Yeah, yeah.

Jasper:

I guess it’s maybe an Asian start-up? I don’t know.

Margot:

No, it’s not. I mean, Aashi is Indian, but I think she’s Indian-American, and I know they started in India because it was this idea that they had in business school. They got their original idea in India, so I think they started there, and then they quickly expanded to Southeast Asia because it was easy for them to kind of source in bunches. So, they actually go… Every cook that comes on board, there’s someone from Traveling Spoon who goes and meets them and checks out the place. So, they do a lot vetting to make sure that the experience is really good for travelers, which is one of the reasons why I feel like I can recommend it so wholeheartedly, because they do a lot of work to make sure that that’s a good experience.

Jasper:

Right. Yeah, that’s awesome. And Southeast Asia is also one of the most interesting culinary cultures, I think, on the planet. I personally love going to Asia, and the food is always amazing. I mean, it’s such a wide variety and they use all these different spices. And, also, the style of eating is very cool, right, where you have lots of little dishes and everyone just takes a little bit from whatever they want. It’s much more interesting than, for example, in Holland, it’s just basically a piece of meat and a potato and some vegetables.

Margot:

That’s true. I didn’t think about that.

Jasper:

You know, it can be pretty good, too, but I really love sort of the sharing style dinners that they have in Asian countries.

Margot:

Yeah, that’s true. I was just chuckling, too, because I’ve been in Hawaii for this accelerator program for Hostfully over the last few months and I’ve eaten tons of Japanese food, and just what you were describing, I just had a dinner like that which was a very modestly priced dinner. I think it was like $22 per person, U.S., and it included just tons of little dishes and beer, and it was just this lovely meal where everybody shares and the portions…not the portions, but the dishes are so tiny. It comes and you kind of think, “Is this going to be enough food for everybody?” But then, at the end, you’re completely full and satisfied. It’s a very different way of eating than in Europe.

Jasper:

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That’s cool.

Margot:

Yeah, yeah.

Jasper:

All right, well, to end this podcast episode, I actually have some personal news to share with regards to Airbnb. As many of you probably know, I’m selling my house in Amsterdam because Airbnb is kind of forcing me to do so with the 60 days’ maximum that they’ve installed on the website. I have a counter on my listing now and it literally says, “You’ve booked for 43 days so far this year, so you have 17 days left.” So, I need to get out, and that’s why, the last couple weeks, I’ve been on a trip, on a tour to find different places to invest in different countries where Airbnb is allowed because I don’t want to worry about regulations, and I really want to invest in something where I can just do Airbnb and no one’s going to bother me about it. So, I’ve, actually yesterday, made my first investment, or committed to making my first investment, here in Cali in Columbia.

Margot:

Congratulations!

Jasper:

Thank you. Which is really exciting, really exciting. Cali is the third biggest city in Columbia, and I found an amazing spot in one of the best neighborhoods. And it’s a two-bedroom/two-bathroom penthouse, and the great thing is that it has a rooftop that is part of the penthouse. And what’s great about this apartment is that it’s located in a building that’s owned by a real estate company. These are people from Medellín that I actually met a couple years ago, and they’re going to completely remodel the whole building because it’s four units. And because they own the whole building and they’re selling the units to people who want to invest in short-stay apartments, I’m not going to have any problems with building managers or homeowners’ associations and stuff like that because, in Columbia, most of the buildings, they don’t allow short-stay rentals. And so, this is really a perfect opportunity for me, I think. It’s also, I think, the only penthouse that’s going to be on Airbnb, because I looked, and there’s very little luxury accommodation in the city here.

So, yeah, I arrived a few days ago and I really love the atmosphere here. The people are super-friendly. The climate is awesome. It’s about around 85 degrees pretty much every single day of the year. And there’s a lot of fun to be had. Cali is the capital of salsa, so this will be a great place for me to learn, to finally polish up my salsa skills. So, yeah, I’m very excited.

Margot:

Yeah, those salsa skills are very important. I’m not joking, actually. They come in handy anywhere you go.

I was going to ask you, though, when you came, did you have the intention, did you look on Airbnb and kind of look at the market and decide, “I’m going to find a luxury place,” or did you kind of come on this opportunistically? What was your plan with that?

Jasper:

Well, I knew about these properties because I already saw a brochure and, I mean, the reason that I really think it’s a good investment is because I did some research on the Airbnb website and I just noticed that… And this is very typical for South America, you know, most accommodation that you find in South America is typically, it’s usually not a luxury type. It’s usually not high-end. You know, some other places, people have caught up, because I mean, Americans and Europeans, they typically want to stay in really nice-looking places, right, nice-looking apartments, and so, I think that, sort of that trend, hasn’t caught on here yet, right?

Margot:

Got it.

Jasper:

You know, people aren’t marketing their places that way.

Margot:

In that kind of high-end way, yeah.

Jasper:

Exactly, but, I mean, there’s a fair amount of foreigners visiting the city. There’s a lot to do. This is one of the best places in the world to do parasailing, for example. So, you know, I think that having a very luxury apartment, because the way they’re going to do the remodeling, it’s going to look really nice. I’ve seen apartments that they’ve done in the past because I’ve actually helped this company to optimize their listings on Airbnbs and I’ve created a video for them of all their apartments in Medellín, so I know exactly what those apartments look like. So, I think being one of the few people who actually has that high-end accommodation, and having a jacuzzi on a rooftop with a view over the city is pretty unique, so I think that’s going to be a big unique selling point for me.

Margot:

Yeah, and especially if you’re at the high end of the market and yours kind of stands out, there could honestly be 10 others like you, but you still will probably have enough of a differentiation point that you could get creative with how you get your initial customers. Like, you could talk to multinational corporations that have offices there where people are traveling, or other companies that want to hold corporate kind of event things, you know what I mean, where you could have a party, a small party, or something like that, host it in your place. So, there’s lots of great ways to get at that, not the traditional, you know, family traveling from another country, but more like the business traveler stay. I think that would really fit well with a luxury place. Yeah.

Jasper:

Yeah, absolutely. And another cool thing is that I’m going to have the bedrooms… They’re going to remove some walls and they’re going to make the bedrooms bigger because, in South America in general, the bedrooms are quite small because, typically, the families are quite large and they want to have a lot of rooms so everyone has a room.

Margot:

Oh, got it, yeah.

Jasper:

But, the tourist prefers to have a larger bedroom, right?

Margot:

Yeah.

Jasper:

So, the apartment, the bedrooms are going to be expanded, so it’s really going to be marketed perfectly for visiting tourists, especially from U.S. and Europe. You know, and then the price, I’m paying less than $150,000 for a two-bedroom/two-bathroom penthouse with a roof terrace in the best area of the city. There’s literally like 40 or 50 restaurants in a three-block radius. It’s really sort of the Beverly Hills of Cali, so to speak.

Margot:

Yeah, that’s great.

Jasper:

So, yeah, I’m very excited. And, by the way, if you’re interested in investing in Airbnb, I’m writing all my experiences down in a book that I’m going to publish later this year, but if you want to have updates about my journey, I also share videos on my Facebook and YouTube channel, and you can also sign up for updates on getpaidforyourpad.com/airbnb-investing. There, you can leave your email, and then I’m going to send out emails with updates on what’s going on, and all the investments that I’ve made, and pictures, and information. So, for those who are interested, they can check that out.

Margot:

Cool.

Jasper:

Awesome. So, Margot, thank you very much for joining today. It’s been a pleasure to discuss the news with you.

Margot:

Thank you. It’s really nice to talk to you, too, and congratulations again on your place. That’s really exciting. I hope I get a chance to check it out one day.

Jasper:

Yeah, well, you’re very welcome. The other cool thing is that when I’m actually staying there myself, because it has two bedrooms, I can either invite friends or I can host one of the rooms. I can put one of the rooms on Airbnb, which is pretty cool, as well.

Margot:

Exactly. That sounds great.

Jasper:

All right, Margot, thanks for joining. And thanks for listening, everybody, and hopefully we’ll see you again next week.