How Palavi turned a failed rental into a booked Poconos Airbnb

0:00 this is the story of how pavi went from zero real estate experience to owning a short-term rental in the Poconos Mountains that generates $80,000 per month and this is all while working a full-time job and raising two kids and in this deep dive we're going to break down her journey first we're going to go over how she turned to failed Airbnb into one of the most booked spots in the Poconos next we're going to go over the exact steps she used to set everything up from choosing the right Market to building a solid local team we're also going to discuss what she's doing to scale her portfolio even further these interviews used to be part of my pay membership but I decided to share them here on YouTube for free because these strategies are just too valuable to keep private my was I build a $15 million real estate portfolio and make $400,000 in net profit for my airbnbs with that being said let's jump right into it all right we got pavi here um on the podcast thank you so much for joining pavi for those that don't know know who you are if you want to give us a brief background and then we'll kind of get into your whole airb journey and all that so uh let's get started there so I'm palavi I'm based in New Jersey and I am honored to be part of this podcast thank you for the invite of course so I know you prepared some slides so let me um actually pull this up on my end here and then we'll share this here so you can kind of get through it so um I just basically jted a few pullets down to give a brief background about myself I've been born and brought up in India came here in 2006 to do my masters in biomedical engineering along the way I also did my Executive MBA I worked in a

1:18 medical device company for about 15 years as I mentioned I'm based in New Jersey I'm married with two kids five and 2 years old right now which we were talking their handful which is fun and has its own challenges um the reason I started looking in real estate investment was about in 2022 was really to Achieve Financial Freedom after being working in a medical device industry for so long it was like all right um what's my next challenge and that's kind of drew me towards looking into real estate investment and I stumbled on your real one of of your in um Instagram reals and I it just clicked with me the genuiness with which you speak and the stepwise approach that you provide to help people educate and learn about what it even means uh for a newcomer like me who didn't know anything uh it was very helpful so I started following you that's where it really started I would say I read a few books and then I went and I got my real estate license uh just studying at nighttime after work after putting kids to bed in October 2022 and I we invested and we bought our first multi-unit January 2023 that's a two unit place

2:37 right here local in Jersey in our backyard and after that uh it was just you know it came to us that in order to get to financial Independence we need to have a higher rate of return which uh as you know with your 40 long-term rentals like it's it's great security but at the same time the rate of return is slower hence we decided to take a bit more risk and go into the shortterm rental and we started looking into the Arbitrage again just not even knowing what that means so learning everything from your uh YouTube channel from the Instagram reals and so on and then I also this is this is now March of last year which is when I signed up for the school so you had an offer going on and I think I was just one of the very few people who joined the group I remember how small it was at the time to now how big it is uh so I joined I took that leap of faith I was like this is going to be worth it again because I found your content so helpful I was confident that I'm going to find this helpful as well so I took that course never regreted dive through all the content that you have shared everything is so well organized and I really just followed that as my checklist I really went about all right this is my step one I need to create my

3:54 LLC all those things and just went step by step to then get to our short-term rental yes I but please feel free to ask more questions yeah no um great stuff um and I think you know your journey stor is you very similar to you know mine and some others that are you know kind of interested in uh you know real estate right because uh you know like you said the long-term rentals have been great and that's kind of the foundation that I've been able to build my portfolio on a lot of you know different learnings throughout that but you know I I I needed something that could accelerate that cash flow quicker um and this is kind of the route that you know took me and so U I know you know we'll talk about digging to the numbers for the property that you you purchased but this last bull Point kind of is interesting so I know you know a couple guys were very rude so like did you have any experience cold calling or if you can just kind of briefly tell us your experience with this with this person that you you mentioned here yes absolutely so my initial plan was to Arbitrage and I started looking into North Carolina initially I thought I was stuck in the analysis paralysis to get to the market and then I finally picked a market where we know someone and we have always wanted to visit good reviews and so on so I started calling landlords in that in North Carolina and the guy he picked up the call and he was um he was rude and it was good for good experience

5:13 for me because he was like I have 180 araban Beast so I know what you're doing now at this point I was still very early in the game so I was trying to stick to the the script that you have provided not reading it by the lies but still not so confident on what I'm saying I'm saying I'm I'm a corporate business person like I wasn't I I didn't know what I'm really saying right like I was nervous I was like I know exactly what you're trying to do and I have 180 airbnbs and you need to do more homework in understanding what the rules and regulations are and I'm like oh that's really great you have 180 year bnbs like I don't care you're rude to me but you have 180 year bnbs and he's like yeah but I don't have time for these calls and you need to really call the county first so again my my take away from that was yes he was rude but I got a very important nugget which is the state short-term rental could vary from the county short-term rental could vary to municipality to the level that if there is if the house is in a HOA then they can change the rules anytime on you so that was very very important learning from me that came and also wake up call that I need to practice more before I get on these calls and um so going forward from there I started making sure I understand the rules much much better

6:33 before I spend time calling the landlords yeah I think that's really important because a lot of people you know and I I get like there's a a fine line between analysis paralysis and just kind of shooting from the hip and just going out there making calls but I like that you didn't get discouraged when you know this guy called you out was being very rude you took that as a learning experience and now you know you got a property up and running that's going to do very well so there's there's it's very interesting like like this just small tweak or small dire that you go can you know end up leading into you're not doing anything versus you creating this huge you know massive portfolio so um I think that's something that a lot of people can take from uh you know from your story yes for sure so from there as I dug more into it North Carolina was really not our Market because of the rule and how it was changing and so I went a little further I looked into Seattle and we almost signed also a deal in South Carolina instead and it all started with Arbitrage calls which were uh for South Carolina it was almost ending up into a purchase as well because the person was interested to get out for their where they were in their life another key point that helped me a lot as now I was more confident to call the landlords because I knew the rules and when they asked me about exactly what I'm trying to do I leverage your name so that helped me a lot as well right because I don't have a brand I'm

7:51 starting out but you have a brand this the show has the brand and so I leveraged that brand I was like hey you know this is this is the Mastermind group I'm part of if you want to check me out go check it out on Instagram go check it out on Facebook and they did and they were like all right this looks actually very interesting I'm not interested to do this right now but maybe someday I would like to join this group and do it myself so so that was another very helpful to your point a pivot and a good learning experience we ended up not going that route because I learned in Seattle the Airbnb rules are now different than all the other rules you have to own the house to rent it out which I didn't know and in South Carolina it was it would take us a connecting flight to get there so we were back basically on the drawing table saying that since we're just starting out let's just look into a market where we can get to God forbid if there is an emergency let's see if we can just get to with one flight away instead of two connecting flights and taking 8 hours to get there so that's how we ended up in our backyard in pocos Mountain got it okay so we'll get through you know setting this up here in in a second um so it sounds like you know you were trying to go the Arbitrage route at first right and you were you know had a couple of you know hurdles I think a lot of people at that point would have just given up and be like oh like this

9:08 business model doesn't work uh you know we've kind of already tried a bunch of different you know times so how did you overcome that portion of like you know like this is this isn't for me this doesn't work to you know kind of continue to pushing forward like what was like your North start or just kind of your thought process into overcoming that it was really so my why is really getting to the financial Independence and and again since we have a multi-unit a long term I knew I want to try and experience something different something new so I knew it has to be a short-term rental so it was just no I was just trying to figure out what is The Learning Experience from every one of those experience like I said I have learned a lot from each of those analysis of deals I got an okay for Seattle and on South Carolina from coaches because the numbers made sense but like I said be backed out again only because we it was a bit too far for us now having said that now that I have one up and running and I feel a lot more confident I am open to going farther because that's what this whole thing is about it doesn't have to be in our backyard is good to start in the backyard as a learning experience because there's just so much goes on so many details but once you have it up and running and the systems are set we're

10:25 ready to explore out so yeah really my why is what d drove us both of us me and my husband to keep pushing forward love it yeah and that's that's the hardest part you know when you run cuz every business no matter you know entrepreneurship you're going to run through hurdles right and it's about those moments where you're going to say okay I'm just going to give up because this doesn't work it's too hard blah you know all these other excuses but if you have that strong enough why then you can just continue pushing forward even through those hurdles and that's exactly the reason why I wanted to create a community like this where we have like-minded individuals helping each other motivating each other and also learning from each other to be able to you know get to that point so you know really important you know little details there um so yeah let's shift gears a little bit so I know you said you know you you got the a property in the Pocono so like what made you kind of hone in on this specific Market you know and what were the things that you liked about it uh to go and select that yes for sure so Poconos is two so this is just 2 hours away from home we can just drive there it's also something that we have gone ourselves for vacations and stuff so again we know that area has a lot to offer and and those were the really two main reasons as I started looking into rentals there weren't so many rentals which is what Brew us towards purchasing a property instead of renting a property okay so let's kind of go into this here

11:43 um I think the next slide kind of shows you about setting up your first property so let's just uh hit the slides here and then just if you want to just kind of go through you know how you decided to set everything up like your ideas behind everything and all that yes for sure so it um I was I have to say like it it did take take us some time we almost spent uh a month or two at least 6 weeks every weekend driving up there to look at a lot of different properties with our Realtor until we found this one so the I was trying to find something unique there are a lot of short-term rentals in this area again looking at the rules was a key point a lot of the rules are literally different from our property to if you drive 5 minutes away in another Township the rules are completely different so it was very important to have a local realtor who was familiar with the rules and how it's changing that helped us a lot and then the second thing I was driving for is um all the activities it has to offer in the neighborhood so this is literally a walk away from the lake and and we can almost see it during winter time so we just joke about it as well that is only Lake View in winter but um those were the main criterias when we saw it and um it when after we closed the deal it I have from my real estate experience I know uh an interior

13:04 decorator who helped us design so she helped us pick the colors for the exterior she helped design the Interiors as well doing it the next time I would recommend following the templates that already there on the platform because it did get a bit more expensive that I did not budget it for learning experience uh and then um in terms of purchasing all the inventories we went went to Wayfair we got a discount from the interior designer for that and then Amazon a lot of other stores all modern all those things and I hired local people again um so for to help set up the furniture and whatnot so right this is how it looked in the beginning and then we changed everything got it um yeah I mean obviously you did a great job on the property here so you know if we switch back over to this one you know the pictures look amazing um you know the hot tub the fire pit and all that so you know maybe you can talk about you know what so maybe it was you more your interior designer but what made you want to go the interior designer route to help you you know furnish this place U versus you know going with someone else yes it was just lack of confidence I would say I just at first felt like I don't know what I'm doing and I knew I need to color the exterior although at

14:22 while selling the realtor said that they painted everything it's brand new but I just didn't like the color or the feel of it so I wanted something more unique that would stand out in the pictures and hence uh I work with someone who is already on the team again like I said budget-wise it went off the grid of what I expected but other than that she was very helpful to pick the color palette and then also design the rooms and stuff yep um I mean pictures look great turned out awesome so yeah I mean this these are the number breakdowns and so let's kind of go a little bit into uh you know like the first couple months of you going live so so I know you mentioned before a call that it was kind of during a slower time but it looks like you're still cash flow positive which obviously is great and we'll dive more into the numbers here but were you kind of nervous like what was kind of your strategic plan go you know launching it you know having that in mind that it's we're going into slow season um I just wanted to get the place up and running as fast as we can and we worked on everything on our own so after we closed the property in August 2023 we spent basically next 2 3 months going there every week can just working on it by ourselves once in a while I would hire some help to set up the furniture and whatnot but most of the work we just did it by ourselves which again I would

15:41 recommend for someone who wants to learn the process in getting started it was a good learning experience for us the most important thing that came out of it is I got to know a lot of locals we would go on a Friday we would spend the whole weekend there I would attend the church on Sunday I got to know people and that that's where I found my awesome cleaning team my edac person is a member in the same church I mean I I just got to know so many people my neighbor right like all of these people so now I felt more part of the community uh my neighbors are so amazing uh because we have built that relationship like if there is any any package sitting outside she would just give me a call and uh she would tell me that hey there's a packet sitting outside would you like me to take put it inside like very supportive uh before we purchased this house we have heard the prior owner did try to run it as a short-term rental and it did not work out they actually uh had a party with teenagers and they got cops got called and whatnot like there were troubles from the neighbors right so that was another good thing that happened us taking that 3 months to set it up and spending every weekend to like establish that relationship with the locals knowing what the Nets are in the local market like this fishing company is close by and is like hey you know I

17:00 called him and I'm like can you give me something unique for my short-term rental and I will drive the business towards local businesses and so we were able to work that out that if you come stay here you'll find this unique thing with our with mindful Retreat and so on so it really helped us in that respect and then when we launched it yes it was a slower season but I wasn't thinking in that way I was just like let's get it in the market and it helped out because January February I did not realize it's a very highy skiing season so we did get a lot of traffic in January which pleasantly surprised us because it was recently launched and it was fully booked which helped me to get um not only all five star reviews I was uh I got the title of um some some some highly recommended the one with olive leaves on the side that Airbnb does and then I also recently received the super host title so it was it it was all good stuff that happened March was very slow but I'm looking forward to the summer which is usually the peak season that I'm yeah I think you mentioned a lot of really key things there um number one you found your solid boots on the ground team because even if you live 5 minutes away you have to have a good cleaner a good handyman you know in case of any damages the cleaners obviously are going to be there multiple times per week for the checkouts and so having that team be there and building and not just picking

18:19 the first person that you find on Google but really vetting them and making sure cuz they're going to take care of your property just as well as you would right if you have those incentives in place you know paying them well paying them on time and just kind of communicating that well like that goes a long way into you know building that trust but another interesting like thing that you mentioned was you you know you realized before you purchased it that it was a you know failed short-term rental before and so there's so many people in the group that have gone you know picked up a property from a failed Airbnb and then they came in you know added you know the design elements all the other things that we go over in the in the program and they turn into a successful one so what what would you say you did in order to you know essentially first of all go over get over that fear that okay this was a fair fair fail d being B before what am I going to do to make it a successful one and then the steps that you took to you know make sure that it was going to you know be successful um knowing my neighbors uh and also setting up very strict house rules so we have the minute sensor installed and then I in my um description for the property it very clearly says no party allowed if I am getting a larger group of nine people or something thing I would send a separate message that this estate where you're going to be staying has very strict no party policy and you know we

19:38 don't want to disturb our neighbors and so on so I make sure I do go that extra mile to make sure that the rules are kept in place and but I I also have this experience where I myself made an exception to my house Rule and that was a bad experience where I actually did not have a good guest so it was again a good learning piece that I should stick to my own rules and not make any exceptions but that's basically how we got the courage to still take it and run with it so yeah let me share my screen here and then let's kind of start breaking down the numbers this is the stuff that I'm sure people are really interested in so you kind of have everything broken down from January February March of when you went live so if you want to kind of break down the numbers here you know as far as you know payments you know net income and then what you're kind of projecting as we get into the summer I know you said the the summer months and as of this recording we're April 10th so you what were you projecting in the summer and also just kind of break down what you've gone so far yes for sure so January as mentioned January and February are really the peak season February really surprised me because February is when I picked up more days in the week than just the weekends which you can see helped us in terms of the overall revenue and then uh after deduction of expenses um the cash flow as well but um in terms of Summer I have my cleaner team so my cleaners have

20:56 they manage about 15 different houses and I really trust them uh they they live there they're local they are literally 5 minutes from my home and they have told me of how busy the summer gets that every single day is going to get booked so since this is my first time I honestly don't even know what to expect but I'm it it's definitely going to be Crossing at least 8,000 to 10,000 Mark for sure in summer times yeah I mean at the current rates right now just like looking at this like you're getting $500 a night you know on like a you know quote unquote slow season and I I know some you know properties in this area and like they get some big numbers so I think you'll be over the five figureure Mark pretty easily um come the summertime which I'm sure you're excited about after all the the hard work you put into it after seeing the March numbers yes I am looking forward to it yeah yeah and like every Market you know there's no perfect market right there's always going to be es and flows the market conditions and so kind kind of planning for that and understanding like okay if I launch in you know let's say January and that's a slow season you you can kind of expect that cuz there's a lot of times where people will launch and they're like I'm not getting any booking it's like what's wrong with my listing it's like there's nothing wrong with your listing it's just you're just in slow season everyone's going to be slow right and then you you basically I always take take a look at the 12-month Aggregate and that's going to really show you if your property is actually

22:13 performing well or not is by taking the last 12 months data instead of you know relying on being like oh well it's this property is not going to work out because I launched you know during the the slowest time of the of the year um you want to take it I always take a look at the yearly you know revenue and just to see how my properties performing and then from there you can make that decision right so yes absolutely and then the other piece I would add is in addition to the revenue and yes cash flow is good there's a whole piece about investing which is your property our property is getting uh appreciated over time and I I was just looking because now I'm back looking for Arbitrage deal quote unquote I I made two calls today morning already for anyone who's interested in Arbitrage so I noticed my own property has appreciated in last five months and I was like wow that looks like a good number right in five months that's one piece and then the second piece is I was able to write off a lot of these expenses that went in in upgrading the property from my taxes in March which also helped us so like I said there is one piece about cash flow which is good but then there's another piece about investing and building that portfolio and holding it for a longer term to get the benefits of appreciations and write offs and stuff yeah 100% I think a lot of people you know I always recommend you know 95% of people go the Arbitrage route just

23:31 because it is less Capital intensive but it's a way to build up your cash flow but the reason why me and you you know the people that are interested in real estate they get into because of the tax benefits they get in because of the appreciation plus the cash flow that's kind of like the the secret sauce of Why Real Estate so powerful is because it pays you in so many different ways but a lot of times people don't have the capital to get to get going and start started right off with um you know purchasing properties that's the end goal right but there are so many benefits that go into owning properties so that's why I always say you know start with Arbitrage if you can and then go into you know purchasing properties cuz that's where the real money is made and that's where you can just kind of let it you know right out and then over the span of years and even like you said you look back five months and you already seen how much your properties are really appreciated in that short amount of time but you know imagine what's going to be you know 10 years from now right for sure yes and and this is what I've learned so far in my journey is there is not one cookie cutter answer or way for real estate investing right everyone's journey is going to be just stored different and so we got to all figure out our own paths and as I said we purchased this one but now I'm looking at arbitraging it because I'm low on that investment piece right now we just closed so again there is no right and wrong answer it's all what worked best for you and um we figure our own way through it yeah love that so let's go back into okay setting

24:48 it up um so yeah let's kind of go through kind of like you know what your key learnings were here and then you know we'll kind of you know go into wrapping this up yes for sure so I we covered a few bullets from here already making connections with the locals cleaners is the most important piece like my roof was leaking in February although it's winter there was rain with the snow so my cleaner literally she called she was like oh don't worry about it I already called a roofing guy and there's somebody who's going to come in with the material she sent him the pictures he's going to come in and fix it up on Friday and so it's just the convenience piece and once you establish that trust it it goes a long way one of the thing that I I am doing with my team which um so instead of them sending me pictures after every cleaning piece is done we actually do a walk through so before my guest is going to check in we do a video walk through she calls me on the WhatsApp and she literally just walks me through the whole property and we check on everything and that gives me the sanity that is the latest because the usually we do our walkthroughs 2 hours before a guest is coming in and she would just like mop the floor with nice smelling oil whatever and it's it's it's worked out great so if you if whoever is looking for advice like that's one way to look to establish that

26:05 good relationship with your team foot on the ground and um yeah once you have that trust then it's going to go a long way so treat them well yeah 100% that's a perfect example of why the cleaner is so important because you know if that person wasn't there you know video you taping or videoing the entire property telling you about the roof like how you know like who knows how long that would have been there your guest would have come in they would have complained and so that's really a key important and hu like a perfect example of why the cleaners are so important to have um and making sure you have a good one um so you know love that yeah so kind kind of looking ahead into the rest of this year let's talk about you know some of the goals that you have I know you mentioned a couple here but let's kind of go through and walk through what your thought processes here so I am looking to again as I mentioned I'm already making Arbitrage calls um at first I was going back and forth on let's find a new market to Arbitrage and then it was I think in one of your videos you you talk about how you own about the whole street right and that was like a light bulb moment for me I'm like yes I should look at another Market but why not just stay in my own Market since I have such a good team of cleaners and everyone I know electricals I know everyone in the market now so instead of trying and creating a new team another place why not figure out if I can find Arbitrage deals in the same Market it's going to

27:24 be tough but this is where the patience also comes in that just keep on making the calls and it's a numbers game as you see in your classrooms it's a numbers game it's going to collect so just staying put that's my goals yeah for this year love it and I'm sure you'll you know you're well on your way to getting there you know love to see all the success you've had so far so to wrap this up what would you say to someone that's you know looking to start their own Journey whether that's you know any you know business airbnbs Etc there is no perfect time to do it it's never easy it's never meant to be easy so just take actions and work hard and it will pay off awesome Pabi thank you so much for hopping on sharing you know the intimate details of your business congrats on all the success you've had so far and I'm sure you know there's more along the way so excited to see where you're at here in a few months thank you Preston thank you for your time and thank you for setting this up thank you for doing what you're doing it has helped me it has helped thousands of us so thank you for helping all of us achieve or work towards our Financial Freedom goals um appreciate it a lot awesome yeah really appreciate those kind of words okay talk to you soon Lobby see you take care bye okay