From Amish Farm to Real Estate Mogul | Elam King’s Unconventional Journey

Christian (00:00.764)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. Today I am joined by Elam King. Elam, it’s an absolute pleasure to have you on the show, my friend. I’m super excited for you to share the audience on your background, your resume. You’ve been doing a lot of stuff. I mean, you’ve done Airbnb, you’re currently doing fix and flips. Seems like you’ve been all over the place since 2007 when you first house hacked your first seven bedroom home. You and I were speaking offline before we started recording, so.

Elam King (00:24.878)
you

Christian (00:28.816)
Welcome to the show, my friend. Why don’t you just introduce the audience, who you are, your background, and just how you got here.

Elam King (00:36.014)
Yep. Uh, Yulam King from Lexar County, Amish country. I actually grew up Amish. Uh, had I ended up in this show? I don’t know. I saw a Facebook ad. I’m like, okay, sure. Bingo. Done. Uh, and have I been over to the place? In some ways, yes, but I always keep coming back to real estate. Once I did my first deal, that was, there was no turning back. So, and interesting thing is, uh, here a couple of weeks ago, um, one of our properties,

Christian (00:53.362)
Right.

Elam King (01:05.39)
was filmed by and htv crew it’s going to be premiered on htv here next couple months so that’s exciting some amazing things in place it’s very very unique

Christian (01:18.738)
Very interesting, very interesting, very cool. So I know you had a really good run with Airbnb. You built a really great portfolio. Why don’t you kind of explain your process of how that even started and what eventually that turned into for you?

Elam King (01:34.806)
yeah so I I think when I spend money how can I get it back you know I’m not your average consumer where like I mean hey I grew up I grew up on mission I still remember the day when my dad came home with one of those little think it was a 9.6 volt Makita drill and I was floored what you know now we got

or you go to store and pay 50 bucks or 100 bucks for something like that. I mean, I’m similar calibrate. I don’t know if they’re even on the market anymore. They’re like cheap, cheap now. So I didn’t grow up on luxury or just spending money. So that’s the mindset I still have. And so when I do spend money, how can I get that money back? So we bought our first property in 2017 and I started thinking about it. like, well, I’m paying rent.

I just gotten married like a year, year before. And I’m like, all right, I’m paying rent. How can I have my own place? I didn’t even know what real estate was. What’s real estate? But anyway, someone brought this house to me and it had three exterior doors. I’m like, bingo, I can live in one part and rent the rest out. So it was a seven bedroom house, renovated the whole blessed thing.

you know three thousand square feet my first you know my first renovation variation projects and i can see the whole thing yet it didn’t go as expected but we don’t know so then that was just beginning of the of the everything at one time we were probably managing about ten million dollars worth of real estate managing some for the people

It wasn’t near all our own. We were mentioning for the people. And then in 2024, March 19th, we’ll forever remember that day as a horrible day. We woke up and our whole Airbnb account is suspended. And it took me a full month of calling into Airbnb every day. Airbnb customer service is useless. And that’s an understatement.

Elam King (04:00.142)
completely useless other than just canned responses. So that was, 2024 was a very traumatic year. It was, I mean, that was not one of the businesses that was the only business I had. It was our only livelihood and it evaporated overnight. Now we were able to pivot and do some things and.

you know continued a chair revenue but it was kind of lost cause and eventually come on so you’re on my okay what am i doing uh… is this what i should be doing and starts to look at it so okay maybe it’s time to just let go and let it just all go and look somewhere else so that’s when i started to fix influx uh… i still love

unique spaces. And I think there’s a lot of future there. But unfortunately, it seemed like the best thing for me was to just let it go, maybe give myself some time to heal, maybe come back stronger in the future. And that is actually one key thing about 2024. You can look at that as a setback. I think it was a setup.

Christian (05:09.894)
Right, right.

Christian (05:18.29)
Mmm.

Elam King (05:21.294)
I think it’s just a stepping stone to something a lot better. The Airbnb, show term around to Airbnb management is brutal. It is one of the toughest businesses, I think. Because people, it’s a glorified babysitting, glorified daycare in a lot of ways. mean, sure, you have a lot of guests who are great, but you have, it just takes one to…

Christian (05:21.456)
Why do you say that?

Christian (05:36.338)
Mm.

Elam King (05:51.692)
destroy everything i mean we had one time around for my life they they threw a party and they came after me they would have me on the ground i don’t know if they would killed me but they would have knocked me out they were mad because they were violating house rules i approached them about it and hey what’s going on here and it all went wonky from there so that’s just it you know they weren’t full

Christian (05:56.799)
my gosh.

Christian (06:05.34)
Wow.

Elam King (06:21.122)
there weren’t wrong but it’s just that’s the type of stuff that happens and to scale it is is somewhat difficult unless you have really really good people around you but the margins aren’t that amazing unless you really get into the right niche and like your average niche or average your average operator the margins aren’t

Christian (06:39.889)
Okay.

Christian (06:46.972)
Very interesting. Yeah, I have heard, you know, there is a lot of clawbacks and drawbacks to the Airbnb model, right? And I do see how it can be almost daunting with the day to day, you know, managing the operations of that with, you know, the headaches and the problems that you have to deal with that, right? mean, you know, that’s now you’re, I mean, here we are in 2025, you know, you’re, you now are pivoting in a new direction with viewing, fixing flips, right? So why don’t you share, you know,

Elam King (06:48.92)
So.

Elam King (07:06.125)
Yeah.

Christian (07:15.974)
what that experience is for you. You and I were chatting offline that it is more in the beginning stages, but how’s that going for you and what are your goals to take that business in the next five years?

Elam King (07:27.918)
yeah so uh… actually have three in colorado right now one just came on the market other ones coming on the market this week and another one here next two weeks so we kind of did a push so get those sold and then do another round uh… and i’m one closing tomorrow as in selling it that one went well uh… well

Christian (07:54.354)
Congrats.

Elam King (07:55.886)
Depends on what you call well. mean, dealing with contractors and everything and getting it done is sometimes a pain. But the numbers came out great. I had a number in mind, I said, well, if I hit this number, maybe it’s just a wash, which stinks, but so be it. But we can get to this number. But we actually are 22,000 and some over that number, so we’re good.

So that was great. It went under contract in a couple days, quite a bit of rasking. And that’s in Lancaster County. Well, not Lebanon, but surrounding Lancaster. The market here in Southwestern PA is just nuts. Just nuts, But yeah, so I’m partnering with some other people. My role is fast, just turning into…

finding the funding and helping find the properties and then another partner his role is well it’s me and one partner working together on finding them another partner and I are going be working together on funding them so we’re almost set up with a fund a fix and flip fund that then we’re to raise capital for and then there’s another guy that manages the construction from beginning to the end or the rehab

Christian (09:20.082)
Very cool. So you’ve got a pretty good team set up right now. That’s awesome. That’s awesome.

Elam King (09:23.508)
Yeah, yeah, we’re all pretty excited. We’re all kind of more in the beginning stages of doing this together. We’ve all done it ourselves. Between all of us, we’ve probably done, well, a few hundred flips.

Christian (09:37.714)
Wow, wow, yeah, so you got a lot of experience there, right? I mean, that’s, yeah, right.

Elam King (09:39.518)
So yeah, it’s like, look, we know we’re done, you know. We just had to figure out how to, actually the thing that was a learning curve is to do it remotely. So we’re setting up to where we can go anywhere in the States and you know, and start up in that area. And it’s just gonna be, okay, where are the best markets?

Christian (10:06.864)
Yeah. How are you able to pivot and be able to set that up to where you’re able to do it virtually in different markets?

Elam King (10:16.526)
Yeah, well, I I did some around here as well, but the ones in Colorado, I just had connections. And I’m like, and he’s like, Hey, will you bring money? I’m like, well, I just had this business blow up, but then we sold a couple of our properties at a really good profit. I wasn’t expecting it. had one, it was a seven bedroom house and kind of out in the middle of nowhere. was a great vacation rental.

Christian (10:23.164)
Got it. Okay.

Elam King (10:46.542)
And then my realtor was like, hey, I think I can probably list it for 850. And I’m like, how about you list it for 895 and you list it for 895 and it sold for 915. So can’t beat that. So I like, so I made quite a bit of money when we had it and then made a bit when we sold it.

Christian (10:58.354)
No, can’t. Right. Absolutely.

Christian (11:08.998)
Yeah, yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Okay, well, cool, man. Well, I’m interested to know too. mean, let’s kind of rewind a little bit. I know you house hacked, you know, your first seven bedroom house back in 2007. And you did mention that was actually one of your best deals, ultimately in your career. So I’m curious, I mean, how did you kind of set that up? And then also what did you learn, you know, from that experience?

Elam King (11:35.342)
Yeah, it’s probably not my best deal anymore, but it was here a year or two ago. yeah, definitely still one of the better ones. I’ve had one deal where I lost money, but that’s, you you win. I’ve won more than I’ve lost, but yeah. But for that one, we, in seven bedrooms, we lived in…

Christian (11:41.746)
Mm-hmm.

Elam King (12:03.362)
So we moved in and we had a kitchen.

Elam King (12:08.557)
a kitchen and a bedroom, that’s what we had. And a bathroom that was half functional. And I’m like, I’m tired of paying rent, let’s move, we can make this work. We had one kid, he was a couple months old. No, six months, seven months, like that. And then, so because we three exterior doors, we had our exterior door, and then what we did is we closed doors and put up bookshelves.

Christian (12:12.369)
Wow.

Elam King (12:38.894)
so it then function as a two, two units, two different Airbnb units. I mean, it wasn’t legally more than one unit, but the city didn’t care because we’re living there. But on Airbnb, we listed as two different units. So we had a one bedroom, one bath and a three bedroom, three bedroom, bath. And it, you know, yeah, sure. I put time into it and all that. but it wasn’t like.

Christian (12:59.132)
Very cool.

Elam King (13:07.854)
crazy. My wife cleaned it usually or I did sometimes too. Um, cause we were right there, but it made, it made quite a bit of money for us and then we sold it at a pretty good profit as well. Uh, year, almost two years ago, I think. Yeah.

Christian (13:14.994)
Uh-huh.

Christian (13:24.22)
Very cool, very cool.

Elam King (13:25.934)
So it was great. We eventually was like, all right, we’re going to move because our second born is a very, very noisy chap by nature. We love him to pieces, but he makes a lot of noise. And so it became a problem to where our guests could hear him and they’re complaining. I’m like, hey, let’s just, so we found another place nearby, moved and then sold this one. So, you know, it worked.

Christian (13:40.967)
Yeah.

Christian (13:51.676)
Got it.

Elam King (13:54.382)
But there’s a season for everything and that season has kind of came to a close. I’m like, I might be making $30, $40 an hour on this property, but maybe there’s better things for me to do.

Christian (14:08.9)
Mm-hmm. Right. Absolutely. That makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense.

Elam King (14:10.382)
But for that season it was was was great. It was awesome

Christian (14:16.37)
Sure, sure. I’m curious, Ilan, know, talking, transitioning here to mean going back to your Airbnb, right? I mean, I did hear, you you went through a lot. mean, 2004, I mean, you said you almost lost, you know, almost everything and the income just dried up overnight. Right. There was a lot of people that have been through very hard times, you know, either similar to that or, you know, everybody’s dealing with their own.

Elam King (14:33.454)
2024, 2024.

Christian (14:44.144)
you know, external, internal struggles in business, whether that’s personal life, whatever it may be, right? mean, I’m curious though, what was going through your head, you know, throughout that time and what gave, what gave you the drive to say, you know what, I can still pick myself up, dust myself off and I can start cleaning again and I can build something even better than what I had before.

Elam King (15:09.09)
Yeah, well I still remember that, with this whole Airbnb thing is I had, I found an attorney that, that fights Airbnb for a living. My case is, my case is unfortunately too common. And Airbnb is playing the game, they don’t care. They do not care as long as they can win. So they said it was because I was submitting fake

claims and not returning security deposits. It’s like, well, not submitting fake claims, they’re all true. And yes, there are a couple of people that didn’t return the security deposits because what are security deposits for, right? So anyway, we were going to fight Airbnb and then we realized part way into it, it’s you know, it’s might versus right, we’re not going to win. And the day that he told me, he’s like, hey,

The good thing at being at the bottom is you can always look up. I’m like, well, thanks, dude. So yeah, but what got me through it, I mean, trust me, I was afraid I’m going to lose my shirt. And the thing that was the most difficult for me to think about was what if we would lose our personal home too, and then my kids have to go through it.

Christian (16:15.536)
Yeah, really.

Elam King (16:40.59)
there was rough uh… you it wasn’t like that lasted long i started seeing my way through what we can do and we sold some properties and this and that other thing uh… but we were hemorrhaging money and yeah we had just spent a bunch of money on on scaling the business we were just ready to blow this up and then it actually blew up but one of the things is i uh…

Elam King (17:13.983)
I am a strong believer in the goodness of God. That got me a long way.

That doesn’t mean life is easy. That doesn’t mean you get everything handed to you a silver platter. That’s not goodness. That’s just spoiled. goodness, in the end, everything works out for good. Your ultimate good is the end goal. There’s a song that I listen to at times.

Jason Gray, love will have the final word. So even though the chapter may end in sorrow, the book will end in laughter. What I’m experiencing today is not indicative of where things are going end up at. In fact, pain…

Pain is a gift.

Christian (18:17.052)
It is.

Elam King (18:18.19)
it, cause pain awakens you to all that, all the goodness that life has for you.

Elam King (18:28.94)
I don’t know how to explain it better than that. And I had my personal moments. I literally went to a great graveyard close by and symbolically buried my seven-year-old child. Because that’s how the business was seven years. And I’m like, OK, I give it up.

for something better.

and you know ask me a year man but we’re you know we’re still we’re still we’re not still not through the woods but it’s definitely getting better and better each day

Christian (19:04.999)
Yeah.

Christian (19:14.758)
Right.

I think that’s…

Elam King (19:17.962)
It was a…so I know…so business failure…you people are like, you know, focus on the numbers. True. That is true. And there’s a level of where you get where you have to focus on the numbers, don’t get all emotional about stuff, don’t let…you know, keep focusing on the numbers, keep focusing on the vision, and don’t let your emotions get swayed all over the place. So there is truth to that, but at the same time…

My 2024 was a deeply personal experience. So many people said to me, why don’t you start your own OTA? I’m like, are you crazy? One, the market’s not asking for another OTA right now. But maybe someday I’ll come back with a very different business model that I’ll actually be competitive. And I have some ideas. I’m just not ready to focus on it.

Christian (19:51.142)
Mm.

Christian (19:59.729)
Yeah.

Christian (20:14.098)
Mm-hmm. Right, right. Fakes and flips is the focus right now. Right.

Elam King (20:20.716)
Yeah, and I can be passionate about it. love real estate. love, you know, making properties pretty. I love the process, but it’s not, it’s not like I’m doing fix and flips because I think it’s the greatest thing in the world. I think it’s awesome and I can get really passionate about it, but it’s, it’s the stepping stone right now.

Christian (20:34.961)
Yeah.

Christian (20:40.626)
I like that. I like that. So I’m curious too, know, Elam, I mean, what is your current buy box criteria that you and your partners are looking for? Are you guys more looking for full guts, more lipstick jobs, you know, very simple, know, painting some drywall or, you know, what kind of deals are you guys looking for right now to take down?

Elam King (20:56.652)
Yeah.

If the numbers make sense, the numbers make sense.

Christian (21:03.098)
Okay, I like that.

Elam King (21:04.982)
Now we do prefer that they, you know, moving them fast, you know, buy them rehab for a month, put it back on the market, you know, two months after originally purchasing it or sooner, which is the last two in Colorado. I think less than two months we were back.

Christian (21:08.732)
Mm-hmm.

Elam King (21:25.358)
Yeah, it was less than two months we’re back on the market. And it went on the market like 10 days ago. We’ve had a number of showings, but still waiting for that offer. But currently we’re focusing on Eastern PA and the Colorado Springs. But again, we’re open to moving to new markets. We’re not chomping at the bit to move into a market right now because we want to take one pocket and grow it, take the next pocket, grow it.

Christian (21:28.113)
Okay.

Elam King (21:55.388)
so, yeah.

Christian (21:58.864)
No, makes a lot of sense.

Elam King (21:59.896)
But actually our biggest, probably our biggest thing is so we’re setting up a fix and flip fund. It’s going to be a max of five million. So if we can raise $5 million, we can do hundreds of flips.

Christian (22:13.202)
Well, let’s talk about that, right? Because I know you and I were talking offline. I mean, so where, how are you orchestrating that? What does that look like? How can people, you know, really get involved with something like that?

Elam King (22:24.416)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, hey, reach out to me. My Facebook handle is Elam Z King. E-L-A-M-Z-K-I-N-G. So people can reach out to me and I’ll get them to the right direction. We’re even doing some where we’re partnering with people. I have a deal or two.

right now where I brought in partners, you know, we partnered on the deal. So there’s different ways, but essentially what we’re looking for is two different people, well, I should say three, three types of people, but primarily two people who can bring money. It’s like, here’s money. I don’t know what to do with it. Good, we’ll take it. We’ll make it do the work. We have the systems and the people. And then another thing is,

finding deals now we have our we have our areas of funding deals but we can always get better and then the third would be is if there’s a new area you know each each pocket that we go to we still need to people on the ground even though from the correct even from the top level we’re staying all virtual but it’s finding the right people on the ground yeah so

Christian (23:34.534)
boots on the ground.

Elam King (23:46.326)
I mean, if there would be someone for an example, like, hey, I know whatever, Timbuktu in Arizona, I don’t know if the place exists, but Timbuktu in Arizona is a really good spot. I don’t have the money. I don’t want to be responsible for everything, but I’m willing to help like on the grounds, of like, keeping my eye on things. Hey, let’s talk. That, that’s, that’s my.

Christian (24:11.89)
Very cool.

Elam King (24:14.978)
But the primary thing we’re working on right now is the funding. It’s all but launched and then… Yeah. The ideal investor would be is like, look, I have money. I don’t know what to do with it. I want to make more money with it. I don’t want the stress of managing this stuff because… Yeah, fixing flips aren’t easy. They are not easy. And also there’s…

Christian (24:41.434)
anybody that says they are is not lying. So yeah.

Elam King (24:44.238)
There’s also a huge learning curve in how to do it well and profitably. Like, you can get screwed over by contractors. Contractors, they’re the worst. I love the guys, I need them, but it attracts people who are out to get you. Get your money. So you have to watch them.

Christian (24:54.417)
Yeah.

Christian (25:11.152)
Yeah, so how is the relationship with your contractors now? I do you have some type of vetting process you make them go through to where, you have like a basically like maybe like a trial period to where, you know, you kind of see how their communication is and just kind of see how their work is or like, how are you, how are you vetting your contractors and your relationship with guys?

Elam King (25:28.75)
Yeah. So that would really be a question for Steve, the, uh, the guy, the project manager guy, that one of the partners, um, cause he’s doing most of that, but I can still speak because he had done lot of myself. You know, you, you see what they, what they’ve done. Um, you give them a smaller project, you give them very clear parameters. This is what your, what is required of you in this whole grand, you know,

remodel here’s yours and this is what we want you to do here’s your checklist and then once you’re done we’ll pay you and then you know we also have an inspection so it’s like uh-uh you didn’t do what you’re supposed to or hey good job you got it here’s your your paycheck so that that’s I guess that would be post the vetting but the vetting is just you know look at their experience maybe some referrals or references and just

Just see they can do what they said they can do.

Christian (26:30.726)
Thank you for sharing that. think it’s really important, you know, by you do sharing that too, because there are a lot of people even in the audience that maybe you’re just not familiar with this process and they don’t understand they they’re about to maybe embark on that journey, maybe doing their first flip. And if they can avoid some of these problems, it’ll definitely save them long term to set them up for success.

Elam King (26:50.808)
There’s two mistakes that easily get made. One is you give them the whole thing. Or you just give them like whatever. It’s not clearly defined. That’s the one thing. And the other thing is not having a deep rolodex. In other words, you hire someone and they’re the only person who can do what you want them to do, hopefully.

But then if they end up not actually being worth their their salt, then you’re screwed. But if you have a deep Rolodex, you know, you have four Framer, four, four Framers and five drywall guys and two flooring guys, whatever. Otherwise you end up and say, crap, this isn’t getting done. And then you’re wasting time on a fix and flip. Time equals additional costs.

additional holding costs. So just an example on the two that we did recently in Colorado. It was a $40,000 flip or a $40,000 rehab and a $55,000 rehab and we got them done in 46 weeks.

Elam King (28:13.07)
because boom, we gotta go. We don’t want we don’t want to, costs, you know. So that’s, and we’re just getting started. Like we want to build this up. Look, we can go in there and there’s a, I forget what the show is, but there’s a show out there where a house was flipped in like 12 hours. No, it was a show, right? And would it be worth putting everything together to make it that efficient? I mean, what they did in the backside of that to make that happen.

Christian (28:13.65)
Very cool. Yeah.

Elam King (28:42.222)
probably not worth it but it’s still like well it’s possible so we can start doing fifty thousand dollar flips in you know three weeks and do it efficiently then let’s do it

Christian (28:43.858)
Yeah.

Christian (28:54.416)
Right, absolutely. No, 100%. Right, right. That makes a lot of sense, man. That makes a lot of sense. There’s definitely such valuable information that you’re sharing. I couldn’t appreciate your time enough, Ilham. Fortunately, I wish we had another 30 minutes to an hour to speak on, but fortunately we don’t. But man, I just want to, again, just give you my applause, the fact that you were, again, able to…

Elam King (28:56.078)
or 50,000 dollar rehabs.

Christian (29:19.964)
to pivot from your experiences and just not let that be your story. And ultimately, I’m just wishing you nothing but the best in your future endeavors, you and your partners. And I’m also, we’re gonna put where people can find you in our descriptions as well, so they can reach out to you. But again, it’s a pleasure having you on today’s show, my friend, and wishing you nothing but the best.

Elam King (29:43.416)
Thank you,

Christian (29:45.092)
Awesome, awesome. Well guys, hope you enjoyed today’s show as much as I did. And as always my friends, we will see you on the next episode.