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The Hotel Investor Playbook
Welcome to The Hotel Investor Playbook, hosted by real estate investor and hospitality operator Michael Russell. Michael is the co-founder of Malama Capital and Howzit Hostels, and has built a personal real estate portfolio exceeding $20 million.
With an operator-first mindset, Michael brings a practical perspective to hotel investing. On the show, he breaks down what it actually takes to scale from short-term rentals into boutique hotels, covering deal sourcing, operations, capital strategy, and risk.
Each week, Michael shares real lessons from the field as he builds toward a $400 million real estate business, giving listeners an honest look at the decisions, challenges, and strategies behind the growth. Subscribe and follow along as he documents the journey in real time.
Episodes
83 episodes
This Contractor Built a $6M Hospitality Brand With $90K and Zero Outside Investors | Chris Broomfield E82
Most people assume you need outside investors, a big budget, or a prime location to build a profitable hospitality brand. This episode proves otherwise.In this episode, you'll learn exactly how one builder went from working as a contrac...
Stop Deferring Your Joy: How High-Performing Leaders Stay Sharp Without Burning Out | Mike Messeroff E81
You hit your targets. You built the business. So why does it still feel like something's missing?In this episode, you'll discover why deferring your happiness until the next deal, the next promotion, or the next milestone is quietly dest...
How 2 Women Turned a $1.2M Zillow B&B Into a $4M Treehouse Hotel (No Investors) | Ashley LaRocque E80
What if you bought a rundown bed and breakfast on Zillow, moved in the next day, and turned it into Colorado's first luxury treehouse hotel, all without raising a single dollar from outside investors?That's exactly what Ashley LaRocque a...
The $600K Treehouse Earning $200K a Year | Dustin Feider E79
In this episode, you'll discover how a single ultra-niche lodging unit can outperform a full hotel on cash-on-cash returns and what that signals for boutique investors paying attention.A treehouse designer whose work has been featured in...
The Hotel-to-Apartment Strategy That Turned $8.5M Into $18.9M in 19 Months | Ryan Sudeck E78
What if the most overlooked apartment deal in your market is already built, it's just flagged as a hotel?In this episode, you'll discover how a valuation gap between hotels and multifamily creates forced equity of 40 to 50% before you ch...
What a $75M Commercial Investor Wished He Knew Before Opening His First Boutique Hotel | Tyler Cauble E77
Experienced real estate investors make the jump into hospitality every year. Most of them underestimate what they're getting into.In this episode, you'll hear what it actually looks like when a seasoned commercial operator buys his first...
An STR operator's $4 million bet on building a boutique hotel in Colombia | Tim Hubbard E76
What does it actually cost to build a boutique hotel from scratch in a foreign country? More than you think, and not just financially.A short-term rental operator running 220+ properties across 40 cities is now three years into building ...
Under $1.5M in Revenue? You Don't Own a Business, You Own a Job | Greg Emmert E75
Most people who buy their first hospitality property don't realize they just bought themselves a 90-hour-a-week job. The difference between owning a business and being trapped inside one comes down to a single number most investors never bother...
The Revenue Expert Managing $125M Says You're Leaving 40% on the Table | Jasper Ribbers E74
Jasper Ribbers went from trading equities on Wall Street to traveling to 100 countries as a digital nomad, funding it all from a single Airbnb apartment in Amsterdam. Today, he manages pricing strategy for over $125 million in annual short-term...
What Hotel Investors Can Steal From a Land Investor Who's Done 400 Deals | Brent Bowers E73
What does a land investor who's done 400+ deals have to teach hotel investors? More than you'd expect.In this episode, you'll discover how the same principles behind finding off-market sellers, creating value through entitlements, and bu...
An Overlooked Strategy That Makes $7M Hotel Deals Actually Pencil | Ben Wolff E72
Fear of making the wrong move is why most aspiring hotel investors never get started. And ironically, that hesitation is costing them more than any mistake ever would.In this episode, you'll learn how one developer went from zero hotel e...
Former Hotel Analyst Built AI to Fix the Problem He Lived Every Day | Ziggy Hallgarten E71
If you're still tracking your hotel pipeline in Excel and spending two hours screening each deal, you're working harder than you need to. Ziggy Hallgarten lived with that frustration as an analyst, so he built the solution.In this episod...
How to Scale to 4 Hospitality Properties Without Raising Millions in Capital | Sam Degenhard E70
What if there's a way to scale a hospitality portfolio without having to own the real estate? For operators looking to grow quickly without raising millions in equity or navigating complex bank financing, the OpCo-PropCo model offers a compelli...
This 3-Step System Automated His Real Estate Business to 4 Hours a Month | Mark Podolsky E69
Most investors think they're building a business, but they're actually building themselves a job. The truth? If you died tomorrow, your "business" would die with you.A real estate investor who scaled from 80-hour weeks to just 4 hours pe...
How Small Hotels Use Staff Content to Drive Direct Bookings | Scott Eddy E68
Most hotel owners think the only way to reduce OTA dependency is to throw more money at Facebook ads or hire expensive marketing agencies. But the real solution isn't more budget, it's leveraging what you already have: authentic stories and sta...
How an Ex-Space Force Engineer Bought a $2.45M Motel With 10% Down | Jordan Malara E67
Most first-time motel buyers don't lose money on the purchase price. They lose it by underestimating CapEx, guessing on underwriting, and assuming they can "market" their way to higher occupancy. That's how people get smoked.In this epis...
How a Pilot Bought a $10M Hotel With Zero Hotel Experience | Curt Marker E66
Think you need hotel operations experience to invest in boutique hotels? That belief may be the only thing standing between you and building serious commercial real estate wealth.In this episode, you'll discover how a Gulfstream pilot ra...
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Attorney Reveals Why Most Hotel Syndicators Are Breaking the Law | Bethany LaFlam E65
Most first-time hotel syndicators are already breaking the rules; they just don't know it yet. If you've ever taken money from friends and family without the right structure, you may have accidentally sold securities. And if you're paying someo...
Stop Treating Your Front Desk Like An Expense. It's A Profit Center | Geoffrey Toffetti E64
Stop treating your front desk like an expense; it's costing you hundreds of thousands in property value. The biggest mistake boutique hotel owners make isn't about the property itself. It's ignoring the untapped revenue sitting right at your ch...
Why Most Investors Never Buy Their First Hotel (And How You Actually Can) | Brian Resendez E63
Why do so many people dream about buying a hotel but never actually close one?In this episode, Michael sits down with Brian Resendez, CEO of SVN Northwest Hotel Advisors. Brian has been involved in hundreds of hotel transacti...
Global Resort Design CEO: Stop Wasting Capex on the Wrong “Upgrades” | Scott LaMont E62
Boutique hotel investors often lose money in the same place: they renovate what’s visible, and ignore what actually drives guest behavior.In this episode, we talk about design as a business tool, not a decoration budget. The goal is ...
The 3 Distress Signals That Make the Next 12 Months a Buyer’s Market | Suraj Bhakta E61
Is now a terrible time to buy a hotel, or the best buying window you will get this decade?In this episode, Michael sits down with Suraj Bhakta, CEO of NewGen Advisory, a national hotel brokerage that has closed deals in 44 states. Suraj ...
7 AI Tools To Help You Buy and Operate Hotels (With No Staff and No Time) | Jake Heller E60
Click here to start your free 7-day trial of the AI for CRE Collective.Most boutique hotel investors are running lean. No analyst te...
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The Private Island Resort Built With Sweat, Not Millions | Odis Martin E59
Turning an international hospitality dream into reality sounds exciting, until you’re standing on a swampy patch of land in Belize, wondering how many years it will take to shape it into something guests will love.That’s where today’s gu...
How to Get Brokers to Send You Deals | Hunter Johnson E58
Most hotel investors struggle to get brokers to take them seriously. The result is the same handful of buyers getting the first look at every good deal while everyone else fights over leftovers.In this episode, Michael sits down with Hun...
