The Hotel Investor Playbook

Why Most Investors Never Buy Their First Hotel (And How You Actually Can) | Brian Resendez E63

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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 transactions across the Pacific Northwest and brings rare insight into what separates buyers who close deals from buyers who stall out.

You will learn:
 • The real reasons most buyers never get their first deal
 • How successful investors overcome fear, uncertainty, and inexperience
 • Why third-party management opens the door to bigger and better hotels
 • What it takes to build the right team before you buy
 • Why larger assets often perform better and are easier to operate

If you want a real look into how hotel investing actually works, this episode will give you the perspective and confidence to keep going.

Follow and share the Hotel Investor Playbook so more people can learn how to invest in hospitality assets the right way.

About Brian

Brian Resendez is the Senior Vice President of Hotels at SVN | Bluestone & Hockley, specializing in hospitality brokerage and land acquisition across Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. With a diverse background spanning hotel operations for brands like Westin and Doubletree, commercial finance, and real estate, he offers a holistic perspective on complex transactions that goes far beyond typical brokerage. Brian recently closed a record-breaking 26 hotels in a single year, pioneering innovative hotel-to-housing conversions through Project TurnKey and actively advocating for diverse ownership as a Board Member of the Latino Hotel Association. He is dedicated to serving owner-operators in the $2 million to $20 million asset class, focusing on long-term relationships and operational fundamentals over simple transaction volume.

Connect with Brian

Connect with Brian on LinkedIn or by email at brian.resedez@svn.com.

Visit their website: https://www.nwhotelinvestor.com/

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Michael Russell:

The Hotel Investor Playbook, your guide to building wealth and freedom through hotel and hospitality ownership. Welcome back to the Hotel Investor Playbook. I am Michael Russell, co-founder of Malama Capital, and your host. On this podcast, we talk story about everything you need to know to make money investing in hotels and hospitality assets. Today, we're diving in to a big question, which is why do most people never buy a hotel, even when they want it so badly? What do successful investors do differently? My guest today is Brian Recendez, one of the top hotel brokers with SVN commercial real estate advisors in Portland, Oregon. He has been in the middle of hotel transactions across the Pacific Northwest for many years and has watched hundreds of deals come together, fall apart, and push through. And he is going to share his perspective on what separates people who finally break through from those who give up. Let's dive in. Great. Thanks for having us. So, Brian, look, you've watched a lot of people try to buy hotels over the years. And when you think about the people who never actually close one, what usually stops them?

Brian Resendez:

There's a variety of factors. I think for some people it sounds sexy and enticing to own a hotel. The reality is that it's a 24-hour day, seven-day-a-week business. It is an operating business that changes its income every day, day after day. Like a triple net investment or another type of investment like multifamily, where you know what you're going to earn every day, every month. Hotels are a lot different than that. There's a lot of people out there that, as they're doing their due diligence, they come to a realization that wow, this could be a little bit tougher than we expected. I think that is probably a thought or idea that comes into people's heads as a first-time buyer for people that are experienced in the business that have been doing it for quite some time. The trend, especially for, I would say, mid-tier hotel of limited service, select service properties versus economy and boutique. A lot of those, a lot of those owners now tend to use management companies. So they don't have to go through the day-to-day headaches of operating a hotel. They leave that to the management company so that they can go out and seek other assets that meet their financial needs. Wow.

Michael Russell:

I'm so glad you said that. There can be a little bit of polarization here. So one of the aspects of folks that have had success in short-term rentals, that are thinking about scaling up into hotels, a lot of them come from the background where they've been managing these short-term rentals themselves very well. And oftentimes, short-term rentals, if you don't manage them yourself and you hire a third party, not always, but oftentimes they don't do as great of a job. And that can be very difficult, especially for those folks that are like curating these incredible experiences. And so the idea and the concept of buying a hotel in theory is like, oh, well, it's just like I was zoning short-term rentals, but I'm scaling up to a bigger operation until they get to the point of what you just described, which is holy heck, this is a 24-hour type job. There's a lot of moving parts here. And so the introduction at this stage, at this scale, of a third-party property manager, to me, that is a way in which people can actually go and buy hotels and not be married to their work because they're outsourcing a lot of the heavy lifting to professionals. But that does oftentimes it works contrary to their nature. I'm one of those people. I started with short-term rentals. I was able to walk away from my W-2 job and I was able to become a full-time real estate investor because of the income from my short-term rentals. But when I bought my first hotel, it was a reality check that I wasn't prepared for. And now, as I'm looking at buying other hotels, specifically in your region of the world, I'm looking at one in Idaho. I'm having the same dialogue with myself, which is should I self-manage or should I hire a third-party property manager? And I'm going to be honest, this is a difficult topic for me. I don't want to give up control. I can do it the best. I can make it the most special. I can do everything myself and make sure that the guest experience is as amazing as possible until I think about how much work it is. And then I get an analysis paralysis. So I want to dive into this a little bit. How does one in your experience who is looking at being an investor, how do they go and identify a third-party property manager that can actually provide the level of service and experience that they require in order to provide that top-level experience that they they feel that they could do if they were doing it on their own?

Brian Resendez:

Well, just to go back for a moment, I think what you said in terms of a lot of people entering the short-term rental space, it's an excellent segue to owning and operating a hotel on their own of multiple units, whether it's 20 units or greater, or 10 units or greater, or 60 units or greater. I think the popular thought is that you're always going to perform better as an owner operator behind the desk, mostly because you care and you're working towards making that customer experience the best that you can and you're able to serve the clients directly versus having third-party management. But there are a variety of third-party managers out there that fit every segment. We've talked to people that only work on larger assets, some only focus on luxury. On the other end of the spectrum, there's other people that only focus on recreational properties. What's important, I think, in every case, with whomever you may be working with, whether it's a broker or a management company or a lender or insurance company, you got to feel comfortable with who you're working with based on their own experience, their problem-solving skills, and their efficiency in terms of getting on the same page with you as the owner, with themselves, as the management in this case, and with the client and making sure that their needs are met every single moment of the stay. Yeah.

Michael Russell:

Well, what I hear you saying, and how I'm taking this, is one of the biggest obstacles for folks to actually pull the trigger. They go and they analyze deals, they evaluate this, they think about it, they really want to do it, and then they get scared and they get in analysis, paralysis, and they pull back and they say, you know what, this is too much for me. I'm going to go back to investing in short-term rentals, and which I know and I'm familiar with. But at this stage, leveraging the resources of a full-time professional third-party property manager is a real way for folks to scale up without having to know it all. And once they pursue that and once they hire a third-party manager, it might be the perfect marriage, but the reality is third-party managers are hired on a contract basis. If after a year or two and you've got enough experience now observing how they're doing it, as an operator, you can always hop back in. You can always let the third-party manager go and start to operate on your own. But if I think about the person that is graduating, that is looking to buy their very first hotel, I do strongly think, hey, it's a good idea to hire a third-party manager. And I think that's where having a sophisticated, knowledgeable, experienced broker in your corner is a really good idea. Like what you provide as a broker is not just, hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna find you a hotel. Look, this day and age, technology, you can go and you can search Crexy and you can, you know, figure out ways to get in touch with hotel owners independent of a broker. But what you can't do is you can't consolidate decades of experience, know-how, knowledge, resources, and most importantly, like contacts and Rolodex of people that you have experience with. You you just you don't get that without a broker who can provide that. Can you maybe provide an example of where you are able to assist someone from a buyer's perspective, buy not only their first hotel, but kind of work through some of these unknowns and how you're able to kind of connect them with people that could assist them to facilitate an idea of buying a hotel into actually executing it?

Brian Resendez:

Absolutely. We're engaged in that right now. We uh just opened escrow on a property about a week ago. It is a select service property. The franchise would not allow the buyer to manage the property post-closing. We don't expect to close this until the first quarter of 2026. The reason for that is the buyer has not had experience in owning and operating a hotel. This will be their first hotel asset. However, they are well qualified in terms of experience in running and managing and operating other businesses. In this case, we knew a third-party management company that was very well equipped to assist in this transaction. In this case, that management company goes a step further than just management. They're assisting with the financing, they're assisting with the due diligence. And we just we knew that group, that we knew that that group was kind of an ideal fit due to geography, due to experience within that same brand franchise family. So as we connect the dots, we also have to think of how we can be efficient for ourselves, but also for those clients that we serve. In this case, the seller of the property, in this case, the buyer of the property, and making sure that the franchise and lender are both satisfied. That means bringing in the right team. In this case, that management company was very well equipped to make that happen.

Michael Russell:

Hey guys, quick favor if this episode is helping you, text it to one friend who is either trying to buy a hotel or owns and operates one already. Sharing the show is the best way you can support what we're building here. Now, back to the episode. Okay, I want to unpack this a little bit. Can you provide some details like how big, how many keys, how many doors was this hotel purchase, and in general, where is this property located?

Brian Resendez:

Yeah, I can't give too many details, but it's I will say it's in the Pacific Northwest, it's between 60 and 80 keys. It is got a long history of being a very stable asset, and that's where we're at with it right now.

Michael Russell:

Okay, perfect. So Pacific Northwest, you mentioned the owner has never owned a hotel before.

Brian Resendez:

The buyer has not owned a hotel before.

Michael Russell:

That's right. The buyer. Okay, the buyer has not owned a hotel, but 60 to 80 keys, that is a that's a big old operation. Where does the buyer live geographically compared to where the hotel is located?

Brian Resendez:

They're probably within an hour driving distance.

Michael Russell:

Okay, I was asking because what happens is if you're a buyer and you're only looking for properties that are within a close distance, I was curious if it was possible that this owner was maybe at a state or far enough away, because sometimes what holds people back from being able to buy a hotel is that they're only looking at hotels that are in their own backyard. But this piece about the property manager that really kind of connected the dots for me because that opens up a much larger playing field. If you can hire a professional property manager, you're no longer limited to just what's in your backyard. Now, in this case, hey, the owner is about an hour away, so it is right there. But 60 to 80 keys, that's no joke. That also brings up the point of like if you're graduating from short-term rentals and you're only looking at 20 key hotels, there's a lot more opportunity at much larger scale. And not only is there a lot more properties to review, but the financials oftentimes will be much better at a at scale. The larger properties actually perform much better. And so this concept of going and buying your first hotel, it can be so intimidating when you think about, oh my gosh, 60 to 80 keys. That seems impossible. But with the help of a property manager, again, these are things that you can do to really catapult yourself to that next level to get you over that hump. The topic that we're trying to really unpack here is what prevents people from buying a hotel. One of them is being, like I just said, limited to properties that are only in close proximity. And number two, not having the experience to take on larger properties. So they end up not doing anything. They just settle for something small and sometimes financially that doesn't even make sense. So that limits their opportunity, their buying opportunity. So I want to talk a little bit about kind of your role and your background because you have a history of staying disciplined and staying in your lane. In commercial real estate, I feel like sometimes there's a lot of shiny ball syndrome. There's a lot of different asset classes that seem to be all the rage, and people can ping pong from, oh, that seems good, this seems good, that seems good. But you've stayed constant and steady in your lane of hotel investing. You haven't looked at all the other areas of commercial real estate asset classes. And I guess since you're known for being disciplined, I want to understand how did you develop that discipline? Um, like, take us back in time. Like, how did you develop the discipline to be specific with hotel investing?

Brian Resendez:

Going back very deeply, I got very lucky, very supportive family, great foundation. Got to see a great example of my mom and dad just waking up every day and doing what they needed to do to get our family fed. And dad was an entrepreneur, he had a couple of hair salons in Houston, Texas. He was a great example, as was my mom, about just staying in your lane. There was a chance for him to expand, and he thought that by expanding too large, he would lose grip or lose some of the relationships that he had built with some of the clientele that he had served for many, many years. Dad passed a few years ago, but there were people that had been with him since he was in his early 20s. So 40 years of time with some of these people. And it's all based on these very deep relationships and trusts. Moving forward in college, I didn't quite know what I wanted to do. I ended up going to the University of Houston, got a bachelor's degree in hotel and restaurant management. And then I stuck around for a master's in lodging administration, thought I was going to work as a general manager in a hotel. At some point, I decided that that's probably not exactly what I wanted to do. And after bouncing around between several places, New Orleans, Colorado, Seattle, I ended up in Portland. I met somebody that was in the real estate game. I said I was interested. That was in 2004, and I decided to go and meet with this person. They said, if you really want to know how to do real estate properly, understand finance. Because 90% of the brokers out there know nothing about real estate finance. And that's going to give you a leg up and a better understanding of how you can best assist your clients. He was right. I still believe in that today. I decided after a few years, I really didn't like doing mortgages. I really liked doing the real estate. At that time, we were mostly doing real estate residential stuff and flipping houses. That was with this other gentleman that I was working with. I did that for a few years. And then in 2007, I decided to fuse the background of the hotels with the real estate and try to go after hotel owners in the Pacific Northwest to see if we could serve their needs. It took a long time to get there. But basically, we injected ourselves into the community of hotel owners. We never let them shake us. And one of the best stories I have is going to a conference here locally and handing out my business card to people. And one guy came up to me and said, I don't know who you are. I don't know why you're here, but I see you're trying. I don't have time to talk right now. Give me your card and let's meet next week. And when I went to go meet with him, I printed out every single hotel listing I could find online. I put it in a binder and went to him and said, uh, this is what I see that's available. I'd like to represent you. And he said, None of this is for me, but you should call these two guys. I said, Okay, I'll do that. Those two guys said, None of this is for me, but you call these two guys. And the web grew from there. Finally, we did find somebody to work on some properties with us, and that was our jump start. From there, we've gone on to maintain our relationships with those people still today. Uh, and that was almost 20 years ago. One of the biggest, most important things about this business is figuring out what is real, what isn't, and not get distracted by that shiny ball on the corner. We have clients that are involved in both hotels and in multifamily. Sometimes they'll ask us if we want to work on this multifamily deal. Almost every time the answer is no. There's occasional times where we might work on something, but in general, no, because, like you said, we like to stay in our lane and like to be the expert in our asset class in our geographical area. Sometimes we'll have lenders approach us saying, we want to work with your group, we'll offer you a referral fee. We never even take them. Even if even if we're able to assist them, I want everybody we're working with to make the most amount of money. I don't want to get into their pocket, mostly because I don't want them getting into my pocket either. And we hope that whenever an opportunity comes up for a hotel purchase, because that multifamily guy has a friend or a client that owns a hotel but they don't know what to do with, that they're calling us. And it's happened multiple times within our network.

Michael Russell:

Yeah. Yeah, I think in this business, you need to be hyper-focused, but you also need to be extremely resilient because a lot can go wrong. Everyone wants to celebrate the success. I think that you see a lot on the internet, whether it's on Instagram or elsewhere, people are always bragging about, hey, I've just accomplished this. But what we don't see is all the hours, days, months of just slogging away trying to get deals done. And a lot of times those deals fall out. Are there any moments that you can think of in which it demonstrates what it really takes to be successful in this business as it relates to just being persistent and resilient?

Brian Resendez:

Yeah, I would say the best example was when the pandemic hit in February of 2020. We had nine deals in escrow. We were just doing fantastic all the way up through that time frame. But I mean, the rug was pulled out from under us, all but one of those died. They just fell off a cliff, and we were at a point where we didn't quite know what we were going to do. At that same time, we had a call from a gentleman who said, or, you know, Brian, I own a hotel in town. You and I have talked before, but what you don't know is we run a nonprofit trying to get homeless people off the street and give them a second chance. We were in need of hotels. So we we went down that road a little bit further with him and he said, basically, I want you to get out to all the hotel owners in Oregon and see if anybody's interested in selling to assist in trying to get homeless off the street and give them a second chance. That only popped up because this gentleman had been receiving our emails. He had been, you know, we had talked with him, we had met with him. I had no idea that he had this other thing in the background. But I was a perfect fit because we had already been engaged with owners around. The state for many years. So we ended up selling an additional 14 hotels on top of the 13. Uh, those 14 were sold to individual investors and converted to housing. So we were just in the right place at the right time, but we were also able to recognize an opportunity in a time when nobody knew what the hell we were going to do next. But throughout 2020, we were out there on the road knocking on doors, telling people what we were doing. I'm very, very proud of the fact that we were able to get many of these owners into escrow without having any sort of earnest money down when we opened escrow because that is always a requirement. In this case, because the market was so unusual, I was able to use our experience and our history to convince and compel some of these owners to trust us enough to engage and manage the deal to the finish line if we could get it to the finish line. They did not all work, but in the end, we closed 26, 27 hotels for housing. And I'm very, very proud of that.

Michael Russell:

There's a lot there that we can unpack, and I want to go back. So you referenced during COVID that you lost seven deals in a week. Is that correct? Eight, eight, eight deals in a week. What did that feel like at the time? And how did you react?

Brian Resendez:

I mean, it was devastating. Knowing that you're doing everything right, you're managing your clients' expectations. But these things that you can't control now have to be managed. And how can we do that while continuing to perform the best way we can, but being honest with our clients about what's happening, happening in the market. Michelle, my licensed assistant and I had to have some very deep come to Jesus moments about what is next? How do we stay in business? One of the things that we did back in 2015, I went from being a just a self-owned Brian Ricendos owns this brokerage to forming an LLC. And when we formed an LLC, we each became employees. And since then we've gone on to have other employees in our team. But by having those right pieces in place, it allowed us to it allowed us to apply for PPP, EIDL at low interest. I think the PPP was ultimately forgiven. EIDL is still in place, but that's a low interest alone. It's easy. Doing the right things and having the right formation of the company early on, the unintended positive consequence of this is that we did it right from the beginning, and we were able to benefit from that by allowing us to apply for these things that really assisted us. And then, you know, we decided as a team that we just need to continue to forge forward and wake up and do the right things because we had already been spent so much time positioning ourselves in the market to be the market experts. And we knew that at some point everybody has to buy or sell.

Michael Russell:

Yeah. Well, look, I really want to hone in on that moment because I think COVID serves as a great case study. But every investor is going to hit turbulence, whether it's during COVID or maybe some of the listeners right now are going through their the middle of their own version of this, independent of what we have going on in our lives right now. Hotel investing can be difficult. And what I really want to know from you is how did you just buckle down and persevere in in the midst of all that uncertainty?

Brian Resendez:

I think the answer is much more simple than people may understand, but I have a responsibility to protect my family, I have a responsibility to protect my employees, I have a responsibility to those people in my market that have come to trust me. And I couldn't let them down because as they're feeling the tension and stress of what was happening at that moment, I had to stay level-headed. Now, it wasn't always like that in the background. There were probably moments of me pulling my hair out, maybe shedding some tears about what the hell we're gonna do, but that's probably not the part I was sharing with everyone else.

Michael Russell:

Yeah. Now I think this is so important though, because what you're sharing with us, I I believe it's universal. It's not just limited to hotels, but as entrepreneurs, we are constantly struggling with uncertainty. I think this is a quote from this guy who owns the Utah Jazz. His name is Ryan something or another. And he's just like relatively young billionaire that had success in tech and then bought the Utah Jazz basketball team. And I think the quote was something along the lines of being successful as an entrepreneur is really just how much pain you can tolerate. Can you tolerate more pain when everyone else is looking to give up? Can you just keep going? I think that's what really separates those who are successful from those who are not, is just perseverance. And after all these years working in the hotel-specific brokerage field, what patterns do you see in people who consistently get deals done versus those that don't?

Brian Resendez:

Tenacity, relationships, doing a fair amount of due diligence, ridiculous amounts of due diligence. I would say the most successful of the hoteliers here, they're successful for getting the transactions done because of the things that I said, and having the right team in place. Their attorney, their broker, their insurance person, their mortgage person, lender, all the above, management companies in some cases, CPAs, etc. All those are very important. But I think that also is a good characteristic for just operating these properties, having a lot of organization in place. It's it's great to get excited about a property or an opportunity, but if that opportunity is like it peaks, it's going to have its valleys as well. And I think that if you are able to just stay disciplined and level-headed and look at this as an investment and not get overly emotional about these things, that's a better recipe for longer-term success. I think that applies in so many ways to so many other categories of business. And certainly being disciplined, certainly as an entrepreneur, being able to take more punishment, that's a big deal for me. And for the employees that work on my team, I don't want them to feel any pain. Or I want them to feel less pain, I guess, than I have to feel. I've never wavered from that. Like I but also I want them to feel the successes in the biggest, best ways that they can. And I'm constantly praising them for the work that they do.

Michael Russell:

Quick break. If you're not using AI for your business, you're going to get left behind. And if you're overwhelmed by it or don't know where to start, you need to check out Jake Heller's AI for CRE collective community. I'm a paying member and it has been a game changer for me. Jake shows you exactly which tools matter for commercial real estate and how to use them to underwrite faster, tighten up operations, automate the busy work, and make much better decisions. The trainings are simple. The community is active, and you can bring your real questions to the weekly round table and get direct feedback. There's a link in the show notes that gets you your first week free. Full transparency, it's an affiliate link. So I do get a small kickback if you join, which helps me keep creating episodes like this. Check it out after the show. Well, I think what you're describing is developing a solid mindset so that you can overcome the emotional turbulence that is involved in any business, but especially in entrepreneurship and specifically hotel investing. And you've shared publicly that you've got a morning routine that really grounds you. I'm I'm curious, I want to dig into this because I think being consistent in mindset mindset practices or being mindful is important. What does your daily routine look like? And what does that do for your mindset when things get tough?

Brian Resendez:

Well, Michael, it comes and goes. I like to wake up early, go for a walk for about two miles, no headphones, no podcasts, no noise. As the sun is coming up, I like for it to be quiet, walking on my own or walking with the dog. I'll come back and do a light routine of movement, whether it's on a rower or a stationary bike for about 20 minutes. And then I like to get in a in my sonic. I like to spend about 45 minutes in there generally saying prayers. I think some people might think it's a little odd, but to me, I do believe very strongly in manifesting what you are seeking in life personally and professionally. I have a prayer that I've said to myself for years that continues to modify. And part of that prayer is just a reminder to be disciplined, to focus on the goals, to constantly be in the service of others and to do it in ways that don't that keep our reputation, our very, very good reputation in place for the very long term. There's a second prayer that I like to say it's an abundance prayer. It's something I found on YouTube. And it's probably kind of silly for some people, but it works for me. And currently I'm actually mentoring a few other SVN advisors in different states. And one of the things that we uh really encourage, almost demand, is that they need to come up with their own prayer and they need to listen to the abundance prayer. I think it is important to be able to wake up every day and think about like, how do I get going? Because as an entrepreneur, we wake up unemployed every day. And in if we want to be out there cashing a check, then there is a long process to get that done. And for us, it's the long game. It's not like residential brokerage where we're closing a deal in 30 days or 45 days. Our average closing time frame is probably, it varies, but I would say it's probably about 120 days. And that's from the time we open escrow. Everything that happens up through the time frame of negotiating escrow, that could take anywhere from a couple weeks to months.

Michael Russell:

Yeah, no, I hear you. And at risk of jeopardizing my own audience here, but I there is some value in unplugging a little bit. I I realize probably a lot of people listening to this do so on their morning walk or maybe on their drive to work or in the gym, wherever they may be. But you know, sometimes take out the earpods and just go for a walk in silence, and you'll be surprised how thoughts can just come to you when you're you're going for that walk and that morning ritual and you don't have the distraction of music or a podcast. I found that that can be extremely beneficial. And the process of concentrating thoughts in a clear direction. I don't care what religion you subscribe to or participate in, the process is universal. When someone prays, they're putting intention and thought into an outcome. I've had tremendous success in just having intentional thoughts and doing it consistently. And I think that that's a simple but practical tool that a lot of our listeners can apply immediately, especially those that are maybe feeling like they're struggling right now. Maybe they're feeling like they're defeated because they haven't found that deal yet. I want to know with that thought what's a tactical takeaway that a listener can apply this week if they're feeling defeated because they haven't found a deal yet. What would you tell them?

Brian Resendez:

There's one gentleman that we're talking to right now. He owns one hotel, and the rest of his properties are timber properties, and he wants to sell his hotel. There was a death in the family. It's time to now sell this property, and he's gonna use those funds to buy another timber property. And he said, Brian, I really want to find something else. But like my grandfather and father told me, you got to look at a hundred deals before you find the right one. And so for anybody out there looking, you know, certainly as a broker, we want you to come to us. We want to get it right the very first time, but that's usually not the case. I think most people really need to take some time to dig in. I'm a member and a board member of the Latino Hotel Association, and we have some annual conferences. So and one of the things that we tell these our attendees that want to get into hotel investment is you have to have the right team. You got to look at a lot of deals. We also encourage people to take uh limited partnership positions, maybe instead of investing a million dollars into a property on their own, maybe they invest $100,000 or $50,000 as a limited partner. So you can start to see how a hotel functions in terms of their finances and average daily rate and occupancy and marketing, and what are the things that are put in place so that you can understand what really is hotel investment?

Michael Russell:

Yeah, no, that's so true. I think that as you're starting out, that is one of the easiest ways to gain insight into the mechanics of investing is through either mentorship or passive investing into a syndication in which you get access to view how it's done. I know that I've done both of those. I've invested in mentorship and I've been a limited partner investor in multiple syndications where I've learned exactly what you described, Brian, the mechanics behind how an investment group approaches a deal, how they handle situations, how they overcome them, challenges. It's it's a great way to invest a limited amount of money and to gain great perspective. So those are great points that you you've made.

Brian Resendez:

I wanted to go back to something that you had asked about in terms of discipline. And this is probably not going to apply to the majority of people, but there's something that I've been giving some thought to. In my daily routine, the ideal day is you wake up and you do the workout and prayer routine. Then I'm working with my team basically from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. And then I like to reserve the evenings for time with my family and friends and also playing music. I like to play music. It is something that I've had in my life for a very long time. In junior high, I didn't know what elective to take in sixth grade. And I had a friend that was going to play viola. I decided to play violin. I stuck with it for seven years throughout junior high and high school. If you were in the orchestra, maybe you weren't as cool as the, you know, the guy that was on the football team or whatever it may be. I never let that phase me. With playing the violin for so many years, there's so much discipline that has to go into that. And I think that was one of the foundational things for me, knowing that every day we had to go in and and play. And then we had to stay after school, I want to say maybe three days a week for an hour or so practicing with the orchestra. And it was just constant and constant and constant and constant and constant. And that constant like effort to do that, not just for myself, but for my orchestra, for my team, put that type of engagement in my head that I'm not just here to serve myself, I'm here to serve the other people around me. And I need to show up and I need to do the right thing for them. I think that has been kind of a long-lasting thing for myself. And I am so happy and so proud that that was instilled in my mind.

Michael Russell:

Wow. No, that is so good. It just really resonates with me what you just said, and to each their own. But for me, a couple of things that I took away. In this business, if you're gonna do something like try to go and buy a hotel, there's gonna be a lot of self-talk in which you're gonna question Am I doing, am I really doing this? Is this the right thing that I should be doing? And you're probably gonna wonder, well, what are other people thinking? Well, screw that. Just like whether you know, you're playing, you're in the the band or you're playing the violin, a musical instrument. If it's not the cool thing to do and high, who cares? Right? You're focused on what you want to focus on and just tune out all of the noise and distraction. Forget what everyone else thinks. Number two for me was the discipline of just staying consistent, practicing your musical instrument day in, day out, learning how to get better, just building stacking skills day after day as you get better and better. That's what it takes in this business to get a hotel, to be able to buy your first hotel, for example, you gotta just stay persistent. I um exchanged a text message with someone that I respect the hell out of, hadn't been in touch with them in a couple of months, and I just reached out to him. He was able to buy a hotel last year, the year before, and now he's moved on. He's he's buying small businesses. And I'm just kind of following along on LinkedIn as he posts things. But one of the things that really resonates with me that he did to be able to buy his hotel is number one, he had a job, he had a regular W2 job where he's expected to work 40 hours of work week. And while he was fully employed, each morning he cut out two hours out of his day from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. every single day. You talked about you got to look at a hundred deals to find one. That's exactly what he did. He went online, he called brokers, he called owners day in, day out for months. The amount of rejection and discouragement that and negative self-talk that you have to endure is we don't often talk about this, but it's really important to bring this to our attention because it's almost like when you have the thought and you realize it, then it's its weight and its power just dissipates. When you just go, Oh, I recognize that that's a negative feeling and you power through it. But staying disciplined, forgetting about what others think, and and just being persistent, those are the keys to to being successful in this business. Any last notes before we wrap this up that you want our listeners to anything you could share that would be valuable for our listeners to take away?

Brian Resendez:

Okay. Well, one of the things I just wanted to add in here is that when I decided in probably around 2005, 2006 that I wanted to fuse the hotel background and the real estate background to sell hotels, I approached a few of the larger companies to see if maybe they would want to hire me as the local broker. And these are very well-recognized commercial real estate firms. And for whatever reason, they didn't want to have anything to do with me. I don't know why. I mean, I had all the credentials, bachelor's and masters in hotel restaurant management, logic administration, experience in the industry, worked in multiple states, like seemed like I would have been a shoe-in, but they just didn't want to have anything to do with me. And my opinion at that time was screw these people. They don't see the benefit and value of who I am and what I'm capable of. I'm gonna just do it on my own. So sometimes we'll say that some of these brokerage companies are like order takers. Somebody calls them up from Wall Street and says, We, you know, have a portfolio of 100 hotels and we want to sell five hotels. Here's the order, take it, and that's it. I've always felt like I have to work harder than the rest of them. There is no reason why a Mexican from Texas moves up to the Pacific Northwest and knows nobody and can inject himself into the hotel community and get them to trust me, provide me with the financial information. I can seek out people that I gain their trust as well to act as mentors to help me understand how do I evaluate and put together an opinion of value and then get them to trust me enough to list and market their property for sale. There's no reason any of that should have happened, but I stay true to my original thought that I just got to work harder than everybody else. It is the ongoing effort that I've never wavered on. We started a long time ago by doing this routes project. We literally go out on the road handing off a letter to everyone saying this is hand delivered by Brian Recendez. We'd like to talk about your hotel when you're ready, and we have other properties available for sale. We did that in throughout Oregon and we got a really great amount of business out of it. That was 15 years ago. I still do it today. I think this year so far, we've stopped at at least 200 hotels. Maybe, maybe closer to 300 hotels. And we have a list together right now that we're intending on stopping by quite a few more, I think another 150 at least by the end of the year, and then probably another 200 and Q1 of next year. So we're still getting out there. And I know it's old school, and sometimes I wonder if it's even worth it. But I believe the effort and the tenacity and the work that I put into this is recognized. And we're going to keep doing it because we want to maintain our market share and we want to keep doing the best job that we can for everybody. One of the first hotels we ever sold, I remember it's a guy by the name of Roger Braun. I don't even know how I met him, but he said to me, Brian, we've been talking for a little while, maybe a few months. And I found this that is right up the road. It's a teardown. The listing agent doesn't have any idea what she's doing. Her husband owns it, but I want to tear that hotel down and build a multifamily deal. And so I went to go visit with him and his wife. And his wife had been a realtor for like 20 years. And at a later date, when we closed the deal and he was in the process of tearing it down and building this multifamily deal, he said, Hey, I don't think I ever told you, but I had a discussion with Jeannie after you left that day. And she said, Roger, I don't know what it is about that guy, but he's got it. He's got it. So you need to trust him and do business with him. And there's been a lot of those moments throughout my career, and and I just I'm grateful for every one of them.

Michael Russell:

Well, unpacking what you're saying is that the key to success was a combination of persistence and people skills, right? This is a people business. The effort that it takes to go and walk into 200 hotels. And I'm right now going through that. I'm picturing myself doing so. I'm getting physically anxiety. I'm getting anxiety thinking about the feeling of rejection of someone saying, uh no, get out of my hotel. I want to speak with you. It's like, oh my God, like I I can't even imagine. But you continue to do so. And I think that you're on to something there because look, everyone wants the easy route these days. And look, we talk about AI all the time and how AI is. I'm I'm guilty of this as well. But the reality is I'm on my third acquisition, right? I own two hotels and I'm right now under contract to purchase the third. All three of these hotels were acquired by physically knocking on a door, walking in, and asking to speak with the owner. And I'm not saying that that is the way to get every deal done, but it's the act of just putting yourself out there, being vulnerable, and working on personal relationships. That's what this business is about. Personal relationships and a combination of work ethics. So I what you just said is pure gold. I appreciate you sharing that.

Brian Resendez:

I think one of the one of the things that seems to get lost is the fine art of listening, knowing when to shut up and listen and take notes and put yourself in that person's shoes so that you're able to assist them in the best possible way that you can.

Michael Russell:

Brian, thank you so much for coming on. There is so much wisdom in what you've shared today. I truly do appreciate it. If our listeners want to get in touch with you to either get help buying or selling a property, how can they get in contact with you?

Brian Resendez:

Sure. Well, we're definitely on LinkedIn, Brian Recendez. You can also reach us through our website. Um, we have a few versions of names on this, but the easiest one is nwhotelinvestor.com, nw like northwest, because we're based in Portland and we serve people in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. So nwhotelinvestor.com or at brian.resendez at svn.com and happy to help.

Michael Russell:

Awesome. Yeah, of course, as always, we'll put that in the show notes. So this has been great. In summary, here most people never buy a hotel because they stop too soon, right? Investors who really break through are the ones who stay focused, stay patient, and just keep moving, even when deals fall apart. So to our listeners, thanks again for tuning into the hotel investor playbook. We will catch you all again next week. Aloha,