How Co-Living Can 2X Rental Property Cash Flow with Clara of Coliving CashFlow

Mike Hambright (00:00.846)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. I am super excited. This is going to be an amazing episode. If you have rental properties or you’re looking for ways to generate more cashflow, my good friend Clara is here with us today. We’re going to talk about co-living. It’s a kind of a hot topic right now. It is probably one of the things that’s trending most in our industry in terms of like interest, because if you’re like me, you have a rental portfolio and they’re not cash flowing very well because you’ve got all sorts of challenges. Taxes are up, insurance is up, interest rates are up, affordability is down. And so this is a solution and this is a way for real estate investors.

to make two or three times more cashflow at least than you would make on a traditional rental. So you want to listen up today, especially if your goal is to build cash flowing mailbox money, right? So Clara, welcome to the show.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (00:43.224)
Ey gracias my friend, thanks for having me.

Mike Hambright (00:45.42)
Yeah, yeah, I know I’m excited about this. You and I have talked about this a number of times. Clara is a newer member in our Investor Fuel mastermind. She’s super passionate about this topic, and so she’s gonna try to push some of that passion onto folks that are listening right now as well. I think you’re gonna hear it in her voice. So Clara, tell us a little bit about you and your background, and then we’re gonna jump into all about co-living.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (01:02.478)
It comes…

Let’s say that my passion for co-living comes naturally and that’s geared by Colombian coffee. So originally from Colombia, I moved here about 12, 13 years ago to do my math, to go to business school. And I moved to Boston, so I’m based in Boston. And I realized, you know, like everyone understands the renders to them high. oops, said that, that’s okay. And all right, so when…

Mike Hambright (01:14.428)
Ha ha.

Mike Hambright (01:29.966)
You can curse, you can curse on this show, yeah.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (01:33.317)
When you wanted to lease a place as an international student, you had to pay first month, last month, security deposit, many times a broker fees of 4X rent for an empty place. if you come from a country, in my particular case, that is not equal to the dollar, it’s like, what is going on? And you cannot get up a studio by yourself. You have to find people to live with just to be able to afford the dream of having an education across the country.

higher education, so that number one, know, realizing of co-living when it was like that. But that’s a, after business school, I did two more technology, real estate-oriented startups. I realized that I’m not only at my work school, I’m early adopted of technology. So when Uber was just beginning, you know, back in the day, oh, you’re in a stranger’s car, like, oh, yeah, sure, like, I try different things, different new things. And if you relate to…

Mike Hambright (02:27.693)
Right.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (02:30.694)
to real estate and real estate in Boston particularly. Nothing has moved or changed. The conditions are the owner’s condition, the landlord’s condition period. But the needs of people in this generation are completely different to what requirements of rent are. Not only the four month payment, that now I think that’s only three, but being stuck in a 12 month lease when your job is no longer there or when your internship is only six months.

So there is no flexibility in leasing. There is no all inclusive furnished rentals. It’s very hard or very extra. So many things like that. And in my third startup, a student came to me. I was working in a real estate company in New York. And hey, Clara, what if we just lease an apartment and or like a rental, put all the furniture in, and then we lease by the room with all the utilities included. Two students like us, we came.

and for the duration of the school year, in this case was September to May. And I said, you know what, that’s genius. Let me give it a try. And we started with five and three. We started with eight units in January, know, with the snow falling, mattresses in apartments and whatnot. And in two weeks in January, we sold them out, of 25%, 30 % margin. Like, what is this?

Mike Hambright (03:27.309)
Right.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (03:56.647)
The demand was right there in January, which is the hardest thing in Massachusetts. So we started taking capital from there and we grew it into the largest co-living company by 2019. So I’m an OG in co-living. can’t… Grand Cheatman.

Mike Hambright (04:11.402)
OG, yeah. You know what’s fun? I want you to.

describe co-living in just a moment. But I think the interesting thing for people that are listening to this, think people are gonna have some epiphanies here. That it’s like, when I was in college, when I was in grad school, when I was out of those things, I always had roommates. Like I always kind of shared. Now, the truth is, is I didn’t own the real estate. And also the truth is, the burden was on me or my roommates to find other roommates that we wanted to live with. And so the opportunity here is this is kind of a mixture of what all

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (04:32.07)
Mm-hmm.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (04:42.47)
Correct.

Mike Hambright (04:46.928)
of call hoteling, Like renting rooms, essentially, and being a landlord and owning rental properties. But at the end of the day, as you know, and I think as you’ll share here today, the sum of the parts is more than the total if you just rented it to one person. I that’s why, like, I just think about this, we have an Investor Fuel event coming up in a couple days, as you know, we’re staying at a hotel, it’s 300 bucks a night. If you do the math on that, it’s like, that’s $9,000 a month, if I were to rent a hotel room for a month, and there’s no kitchen in

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (04:51.387)
Mm-hmm.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (04:58.533)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Hambright (05:16.948)
It’s just a little hotel room, right? And so the more you can kind of hotel, the more you can kind of rent smaller chunks of it, then it adds up to more real dollars. Yeah.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (05:24.87)
Correct, correct. So let me put it this way. I always, I have a YouTube channel, we can talk about later, and I start all my classes with the three Cs of co-living. You wanna have a successful co-living product, you need to think about the three Cs, which are cost, for you as a owner, and for your resident. Independently, the resident is a lower income, minimum wage, retailer, grad student, or luxury professional, whatever that is, the relationship with cost needs to be there. Number two, community.

Meaning, you know, when you have roommates and you have game nights and things like that, the more you get along with your roommates or your residents in the house, the tenure elongates. So sometimes that’s for people for reasons to stay one year, two years, whatnot. Three, convenience. What are the features that you have in your co-living place based on your audience? Because everything is marketing and convenience that make them for them as a no brainer to stay in your property, unlike the competitors.

When you combine good cause, good community and good convenience features, you have a winning co-living product. Everything else falls into place.

Mike Hambright (06:29.166)
And can you just, not to jump ahead too far, but everybody understands cost. It’s more cost effective for somebody to rent a room versus an entire house. I think everybody understands the community aspect of it. You’re going to have roommates there. Talk about the convenience. that having somebody that comes in to clean, do the landscaping and you don’t have to worry about, is that kind of what the convenience is? Like what are the typical things that are following?

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (06:48.646)
Also, convenience in the place has to be furnished. know, the amenities in the kitchen, the amenities in the kitchen, you know, put what people are using. A, air fryers, for example. Everybody’s into air fryers now. Do you have air fryer there? A, do you have enough counter space or kitchen space and, you know, pantries for everybody based on your area? And what are the other things that you can provide? Do you provide TVs in your room or not?

Mike Hambright (06:53.518)
furnished. Okay. Yeah.

Mike Hambright (07:01.292)
Yeah, right.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (07:13.21)
Do you have your clients are work from home or a student professional? Do you have a very nice desk with a very nice chair for them to do their classes at home and all of that? And I have other people that gives in a way a planet feasts month’s for the duration of the stay. Or even financial, know, a tool store for the financial progress, access to bank loans and assessments and all sorts of things that cost nothing to the owner but makes

Mike Hambright (07:22.414)
Sure, yeah, yeah.

Mike Hambright (07:29.803)
Okay, yeah.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (07:41.622)
makes your residents like, what is this? It’s phenomenal. Let me stay here longer. Independent of your target audience. Yeah.

Mike Hambright (07:45.708)
Right.

So we’ve talked about it a little bit here. Is there anything missing of how you would describe co-living? Like the co-living as a business, I guess as a business model.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (07:54.213)
Yes.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (07:57.765)
Yeah, well, you call it as a business model, I call it asset class. Why do I call it asset class? 10, 15 years ago, about 15 now, we’re getting old. No one knew what Airbnb was, or no one talked about short-term rentals as an asset class. Like, what, you know, these people, blah, blah, and look at it what it is now. When you think about short-term rentals, you think you pretty much collide with the word AirBnB, like in a minute, right? Same thing for co-living, everybody’s colliding, co-living with past.

Mike Hambright (08:01.741)
Okay.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (08:27.78)
with PaaSplit is the longer biggest lead generation source for co-living residents across the country. They are now like 32,000 rooms. They wanna be at a million rooms in their platform by 2030. And they’re growing at that pace. It’s a company called PadSplit, P-A-D, P-A-D, which is same, they are two co-living with Airbnb East to Charlton Rentals, just a very large.

Mike Hambright (08:41.902)
Who is that?

Mike Hambright (08:46.189)
PadSplit, yeah. Right. Yeah.

Mike Hambright (08:55.32)
Sure.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (08:57.284)
very large lead generation tool.

Mike Hambright (09:00.79)
Right. Yep. Okay. So what what what is there’s some obvious things here, but what why does co-living make sense? Like, why is the time right right now for co-living?

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (09:13.178)
So many things, and we can talk about A, market. So A, the rate of housing has grown in a way. know, what are the costs of a single family, what the cost of studio is, has keep up with the demand of the inflation and whatnot. But minimum wage and salaries have not grown at the same pace. If you’re fresh of college, you still make minimum wage, think in your state is what, $7.25? Half of the state, a lot of the states in this country are $7.25.

And but the place of the rate for a studio is no longer, they have to work sometimes, you know, two full-time jobs, even three full-time jobs to be able to offer a studio. So that’s not quality of life, correct? But hence, co-living to a solution that gives us a little bit more quality of life, better location for, you know, at a discount. you know, turn the balance. It’s like no brainer to take my money because I can pay my bills, I can pay my car, I can sleep more.

instead of driving three hours to work, I only can drive half an hour. So it makes sense just in demographic wise, the amount of people that can not afford or the requirements for a studio in the United States. And that’s what, let’s talk about 30 % of your annual rent or your annual income. For many people, let’s say, know, overdrivers, you work at supermarkets, you know, retailers, but also young people, they don’t have those resources yet. Or,

or they choose to spend it differently. Young generations of Gen Z, they rather have experiences that own property. So they want to be six months in Texas, and then six months in Florida, and then six months in San Francisco. So that is what called even enters and solve that problem.

Mike Hambright (10:55.574)
Yeah, so let’s come back and talk about why cut living makes sense for investors in just a moment. But one thing that I want to point out here is you’re kind of alluding to the flexibility of the model for a tenant. And so talk about that a little bit, because I know it’s different. They’re not necessarily signing a one-year lease. They become members, right? And that gives them the flexibility to move in and out of different properties. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (11:00.134)
Mm-hmm.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (11:17.382)
That is the model that PadSpit has for the residents to be able to have a lot of people in their properties. That’s how they do it. But that’s their model. That’s not necessarily the whole co-living sphere. So they just…

Mike Hambright (11:19.841)
Okay.

Mike Hambright (11:23.968)
Okay. Okay.

Okay, okay, okay. But when you talked about somebody wanting to live somewhere for six months and then move somewhere else for six months, I assume that even for you with your properties, you’re giving people the flexibility to move in and out a little more flexible than a traditional rigid 12 plus month lease.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (11:38.086)
Mm-hmm.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (11:44.369)
Correct, so my minimum lease here in Massachusetts is four months, the average is nine, again for the school year and things like that. And that’s pretty much everywhere, even for Pasco the average stay is about eight to nine months as well. Yeah, you gotta flexible because that’s part of the charm. Part of the charm is I’m not tied to a 12 month lease and if I go, know, people chase it because you’re breaking the lease, like that. They pay a premium for that convenience. They’re not paying less, they’re paying way more.

because the place is furnished, all utilities are included. In many areas, they take care of also the trash and the loan, it depends on your product. And the internet and whatnot, they pay a premium for that convenience or breaking the 12 month lease. But if you plan accordingly and you know the times when they wanna go, they wanna leave, they give you plenty of time to advertise and give you the next resident. And what we were discussing yesterday is even inside the same house, you can…

they get incentives for referrals, hey, send me a friend that you like to take these guys to your friend’s room, and I kick you X amount of rent, 200 from rent, whatever, they do it happily. So there are many ways as you grow your portfolio to take care of this, to be always have 100 % occupancy or very close to 100 % occupancy.

Mike Hambright (12:52.492)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Hambright (13:01.294)
Sure, yeah. So let’s talk about why co-living makes sense for the investor. Like we talked about the convenience for tenants. Let’s talk about why it makes more sense for investors.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (13:10.798)
Absolutely. Number one is pretty much the only asset class that is cash flowing in the current economy and in the current interest rates and in the current conversion rates and the current demand is the only asset class that has been growing nonstop in the country in the last two or three years. Why? Because we’re talking cap rates north of 8%.

10, 11, 12. I have one person that only does deals that are 12 % plus. Cash on cash, we’re talking about from 15 to 20 to 25 cash on cash. So the numbers are really solid. because the risk of vacancy, which is something that you have in every single rental, even when you flip or when you buy to hold single-family rentals, even multi-families, the risk of vacancies is highly, highly decreased by having multiple people in the house, even five, six, seven, eight, whatever amount.

You know what your base cost is. So you have two or three rooms, a full or three from half of it full, your pain you’ll cause, and everything else is gravy. So you know you’re sweating bullets at night.

Mike Hambright (14:16.374)
Yeah, you’re with a single family, you either have 100 %

Occupancy or zero percent. So if you have rooms rented out it might be half rented out, right? So yeah, that’s great And again, I think part of it is the the reason it cash flows more is you you could you could share specific examples of this I’m sure but a house that I might rent for $1,500 a month in Dallas for example Might rent might have five bedrooms that each rent for $600 a month. So I’m literally making three thousand instead of I’m making that up I’m sure you can share real-world examples, but the overall cash

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (14:21.028)
Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (14:35.558)
absolutely.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (14:47.024)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Mike Hambright (14:50.929)
flow the revenue on these is considerably higher than a traditional rental right

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (14:56.038)
Hence, the name of my company, Colleague in Cashflow. So I love teaching about this because once people see the mat, they cannot unsee it. You know what I mean? And like in Dallas, for example, when I have clients in Dallas and they have rooms from 700 to like a thousand bucks with private bathroom, right? So, and people they say because there is nothing more affordable in the market and they love in the house as well, they can cut off this per when I last place it. So.

to fridges, also to fridges good space, cashflow is really there. And if you’re a very busy person and you don’t want to deal with the hassle, you just hire a middleman, hire a local property manager, expert in co-living that can handle that for you. And my suggestion is always try to find a PM that does fixed price, not percentage space. When you have a fixed price PM that they do use the volume, it’s like absolutely no brainer.

Mike Hambright (15:46.54)
Yeah, yeah.

Mike Hambright (15:53.612)
I think one of the other.

One of the other awesome things about this model is I can tell you, having flipped hundreds of houses in my market, I, I always wanted to keep more rentals, but I just didn’t keep a bunch that just wouldn’t have made a good rental. like in my mind, my calculation was like, well, what will the rent be versus the market value? And, know, so I tended, I tended to buy, and I think most people tended to buy more of a small starter home that tends to cashflow a little bit better based on the cost. And it’s an entry level home. It’s like,

you know, but when you start to go to a little bit bigger houses and stuff, they historically, they traditionally don’t cashflow as well. But this model flips that on its head. So now people can buy a little bit nicer houses in a little bit nicer areas, a little bit bigger houses that traditionally wouldn’t make a good rental. But now in this model, they do.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (16:43.652)
Correct. One of my students, for example, she found a place, think, in South Carolina. It looked like a man came from the outside. She put 13 bedrooms in the eight bathrooms. And she’s cash flowing like a free cash flow, like $60,000 a year for one person. Yeah.

Mike Hambright (16:57.422)
Wow. Yeah. So let’s talk about markets. mean, does this work in every market or there’s some markets that this works better in than others? Even talk about like areas of town. Like this isn’t necessarily just, this isn’t student housing. This is, I mean, it could be, but it’s also work for general workforce housing. Right? So are there talk about markets and then talk about like areas of town. Does it tend to work better near a university or near a hospital or near something else or like, how do you think about that?

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (17:26.214)
Absolutely. There is no market wealth. This does not work. Why? United States has about 60 million people that cannot afford a studio or make less than $40,000 a year. And that’s what it is and that’s what it makes, So that is your natural client number one is affordable. The second client for you can be college students, grad professionals, young professionals based on the profile of your city. Where does it work? Works.

A, it needs to be closer to at least one mile or less. Walking to public transportation, not everybody has or need a car, so put that in mind. Number two, at least 20, 25 minute drive to centers of college, universities, hospitals, Military bases, centers of work, Amazon warehouses, you name it. If there is a concentration of work that is nearby, put one colleague in

Mike Hambright (18:24.482)
Yeah, that’s great. then city-wise, guess some cities are more affordable than others. I guess this probably has a tendency to work better in coastal markets that are way less affordable than say Des Moines, Iowa or Kansas City maybe.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (18:44.518)
You might think so, but it’s all related to how much money we can make versus cost of living. So it started heavily in my old time, the OG times 10 years ago, using private venture capital and doing a lot of multifamilies and doing a lot of arbitrage. Cities like Boston, New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, LA. Those cities have now morphed into more like a small mump and pups or use technology planes, you know, like a

Mike Hambright (18:48.556)
Yeah, that’s true. Yeah.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (19:12.89)
platforms that you can go and book. And that’s pretty much what is working in those cities right now. the other markets, like the Center for Passport, the HQ is actually Atlanta, and Atlanta Core. So cities that have a lot of them workers or a lot of people minimum wage, it works incredible. So Las Vegas, Las Vegas, all Georgia, in your state, for example, Dallas, Houston is growing tremendously.

pretty much everywhere, Charlotte, North Carolina, if you have young people moving there for a reason, know, hey, or Florida, Tampa and Jacksonville, and you know, near Orlando, all that base is incredible, also for Co-living, so no, it works nationwide, believe it or not, it works everywhere.

Mike Hambright (19:57.784)
works everywhere, Talk a little bit about, if you’re talking to somebody like me, it’s a landlord that has some current properties or flips houses and is thinking like maybe I’ll keep some of these. Talk about kind of how to do it right. Because I know what you do is you want to maximize number of bedrooms, that’s what you’re renting. And you have to kind of optimize kind of the…

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (20:05.979)
Mm-hmm.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (20:15.789)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (20:21.606)
Let’s do this.

Mike Hambright (20:22.178)
Co-living kind of the code the living room and living spaces is so it because I think a lot of people are like well And I told you this before we started I’m like yeah, I have a whole bunch of small rentals single-family Starter homes and you shocked me by saying that the square footage to start out that makes sense is way smaller than what I thought and so but I also know like well you could convert a Garage convert a dining room like there’s things you can do to kind of optimize so tell us like how to do it, right?

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (20:24.794)
Mm-hmm.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (20:30.574)
Mm. Mm-mm.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (20:48.774)
Okay, so think about the three C’s, the cost, the community, and the convenience. Even if you have the how to do it right, start with a place that has at least 1,200 square feet and 1,200 to 1,300, of course, more the better. The ratio people versus bathroom, ideally, is three to one. Four to one will be the top, but three to one is preferred, always. That’s in terms of people versus bathroom. And don’t be a shitty landlord. And what do I mean by that?

When you look at Silo or you look at Airbnb, right? So put yourself in your client shoes. When you look at Silo or Airbnb, you book a place because the photos are cool and the price is cool. So you gotta do the same in Colibri. Nice photos, you don’t put a dirty mattress, you know, with a metal bed in there and ask for a hundred bucks. Don’t be that, don’t do that. And create at least one space in the house. Either you close one of the common areas, that’s fine.

Mike Hambright (21:34.473)
Right.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (21:43.367)
but leave one for them to say hi to each other, to play cards or watch a movie together, whatever it is that it is, create a place for community. that’s, we have data and PassPlace finally agreed with me, and they have the data. Then when they get along and they have good community, they length of stay doubles and triples. Then you re- elongate. And that’s more money in your pocket, more, as you call it, middle box money, with no problem. So that’s how you do it right.

Mike Hambright (22:07.736)
Yeah, yeah.

And I know one the things that you’re doing now is you’re obviously you coach and teach people how to do this and kind of consult people as well. And I know that one of things that you’re doing is new construction as well. Right. So because you can like, as you said, as people would imagine, if you have a master bedroom that has its own bathroom, you can rent that for more than a bedroom where somebody has to share a bathroom. Right. So if you build it, you can control that where you could build it, where it’s basically five or six kind of suites where they have a bedroom and a bathroom.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (22:31.842)
Always, always.

Mike Hambright (22:39.34)
get more money for that right?

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (22:41.058)
Not only more money for that, but the length of stay is insane. It’s like 92 % compared to others because that’s pretty much like a studio just with a kitchen. And in some markets, some builders are putting micro mini fridges in there, even like a mini fridge, even like a mini microwave. And it’s like a studio and the rooms are good, rooms are big. I bet my personal bet is for post-build construction because I see the benefit, I see the numbers working.

Mike Hambright (23:00.13)
Yeah. Yeah.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (23:10.712)
much better. The demand for rooms with private bathroom rooms inside a common place is, and in many, depends on the size and the square foot, the way that people design, you can have a couple in there or something like that. So that is even more revenue, but you’re really helping them get a start place in life. You have to like it. So if you want to do this, doing this or training the right people to do it, which is part of my program. I train your PMs also to do it so you don’t feel like, it’s a hassle.

Mike Hambright (23:22.05)
Yeah, sure. Yeah.

Mike Hambright (23:30.05)
Yeah, you gotta be comfortable.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (23:39.399)
Well, it’s a hassle if you make it a hassle, right? You can’t really make it right. That’s part of the process. New construction rooms with private bathrooms and in certain cases, you can put one or two exits in there. It’s like the three aisles, like perfect for co-living.

Mike Hambright (23:58.67)
Yeah, because people get more comfortable if you I mean for anybody that’s had a roommate before or maybe a teenage child you realize I I don’t like sharing this kitchen with my son or my 18 year old son or whatever right but certainly roommates I’ve had in the past before I’ve always had I mean I’ve had you know up until the time I got married essentially I had roommates and I you know maybe some of them are listening I don’t know but I’ve had some nasty roommates before that are like I’m sharing a bathroom with some dude that’s like

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (24:05.827)
Ha ha!

Mm-hmm.

Mike Hambright (24:28.624)
even hair all over the place or whatever, right? So.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (24:28.902)
Yeah, totally. Let me ask you, you don’t mind, how old were you when you lived that, when you got married?

Mike Hambright (24:37.166)
We got married, so we’re about be 22 years old, we got married at about 30.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (24:41.83)
Okay, that tell you the of your clients. People from like 18 or 21 to 30, that’s your client, even 35. So it’s a lot of life.

Mike Hambright (24:50.018)
Yeah. Yeah.

And I think today people are, I mean, I don’t know what the average age to get married is. I don’t think, I think I was probably higher than average, but there’s also people that is, you know, are waiting longer to get married. You know, there’s a lot of, I mean, the time is right because affordability, I mean, the truth is, is I think there’s been a lot of discussion of like, is AI going to just destroy a bunch of like job markets for people? And I think the truth is yes, like, let’s be honest, it’s going to, it’s going to cause some people a lot of stress and this is a solution.

for their housing if they’re under financial pressure, right? I mean, we don’t want that for anybody, but at end of the day as investors, as entrepreneurs, we have to solve problems for people.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (25:25.798)
Correct. Correct.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (25:32.516)
You know jobs that AI cannot do? They cannot clean the toilet, they cannot clean the apartment, they cannot do the repairs for you, they can help you do the math, but that’s the one that stops. They can, as an investor, can automate your outreach, your property manager, your clients, many things, but they cannot take care of your residents the way that human person can be, and they cannot underwrite your clients. Yeah.

Mike Hambright (25:51.692)
Right. Sure. But I’m saying residents, if we, for the people that are out there that have entry level administrative jobs that are gonna that are competing with AI now, and they might have to take a lower paying job, they might not be able to afford the houses they’re in. And this is solution for that.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (26:10.522)
Yeah, so the market is way, way, way bigger than you think. We’re just starting to like scratch the surface in a way. Europe has leaps and bounds away from us. Asia leaps and bounds away. They’re like 30, 40, 50 years further than we are. One of the leaders in London, well, one of the leaders is the UK, London. They had built micro units, like entire buildings, 400 units or micro units, like at Micro Studios.

spectacular, like all belts and whistles. Asia, like, not even India, but I’m thinking about Singapore. You know, they have places with like 9,000, 10,000 Kulinmin units. And they are players, really big players, where babies compared to, very early stage compared to the rest of the world.

Mike Hambright (26:48.558)
Yeah.

Mike Hambright (26:55.094)
Yeah. So let’s just.

At a kind of high level, let’s talk about regulations and trending type things. There have been problems with Airbnb. A lot of people could do whatever they wanted and then a city just comes in and says, no, no more Airbnbs here and people are screwed, right? In this model, think you’ll be able to tell us where regulations are, but the cities and states are really up against the wall to figure out an affordable housing solution. I think they generally, as long as you don’t have like 25,

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (27:11.48)
yeah.

Mike Hambright (27:26.941)
parked in a front yard in a residential neighborhood or something like that like they’re they’re they’re tolerant of these things right

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (27:33.263)
I think beyond tolerant, now they’re partnering with Passplit and partnering and recognizing co-living as a solution for affordability. So many states are opening and including co-living between the affordable housing or the accessible housing programs is allowed. this is the core of the problem in regulation-wise, regulation-wise. For as long as I can remember, maybe for you, restriction was how many people that are unrelated can be together.

Massachusetts is four, I think New York is three. So how do you have a co-living home and be compliant with the law? That’s for everybody. And that rule, I think from the 1800s, is very ancient and it has taken a long, time for many states just to get rid of that rule. So I believe that Colorado did it, Washington state did it. There are about six or seven states that are getting rid of that, the latest being New Hampshire.

So it’s all the opposite. Instead of having the, know, what is going on here is, hey, we need more of this, let’s get rid of that rule. It’s being more welcome. But again, you have to do it right. Have to do it right, comply with regulations. I’m always saying work with the rule, not against it, so be smart. Use nice multifamilies that have four bedrooms or make it a three, four bedroom and you know, stack them up instead of doing a house with, you know, two exes and 12 people, right? That’s my play.

Mike Hambright (28:43.672)
Right.

Mike Hambright (29:00.366)
Yeah. Do you know what it is in Texas? mean…

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (29:02.214)
But also, it’s plain. You know in Texas, what is the interesting part? Houston has no zoning. So in Houston, they’re doing purpose builds, 10 tens. I just saw a 28, 28 in Houston. So in Houston, go.

Mike Hambright (29:20.054)
28-bedroom, 28-bathroom. That’s okay.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (29:22.208)
yeah, there is already finance and full construction going. I can take you anytime. but in Texas, by county by county, can you believe that? I believe Dallas is, one county on Dallas is not very friendly with Colleague, all of them are, everybody else is like, know, turn the other side. But every state has their own, Florida also state by county by county, Orlando, it’s like 20 people. But like Jacksonville has…

the city of Jacksonville has paired with pass, please, and allowed, and they have a little bit of a legal back and forth, and then they just say, you know what, fair housing. This is fair housing, you cannot go against fair housing. So it’s going the opposite than church rentals were. You’re not accessing, you’re not limiting access, you are opening access.

Mike Hambright (30:14.478)
Yeah. So Clara, this is fascinating. think a lot of people probably that are listening want to know more. I know you have a calculator that helps people evaluate a house to see like, you know, you might be able to figure out the market rents for a traditional rental, but it’s a little harder to figure out what it would look like as a co-living space. I know you have a calculator for that. I know you have some other information that you could possibly share. Where can folks go to learn more about you and this as an asset class and how you might be able to help them?

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (30:15.108)
Yeah.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (30:42.566)
Sure, absolutely. I’m happy and thank you for this. So I do a lot of free classes every Friday live in YouTube at noon Easter time. So just go to my YouTube channel, is colivingcashflow.com. I don’t think there is more like free information. A lot of people charge like 10K just to, you know, to learn how to, I don’t, like, you know, come learn like crazy. colivingcashflow.com in YouTube. And that’s also my website. And in my website, there is a link to subscribe to my newsletter.

my newsletter and beta for the calculator. So just go to my website colivingcashflow.com. If you really already like to move the needle in your asset, just grab 15 minutes with me or subscribe to my, I also do like a weekly deal flow for my buyers and people that want to, are ready to jump. 15 minutes with me, colivingcashflow.com.

Mike Hambright (31:32.054)
Yeah, it’s fascinating. Yeah, and I think the the calculator that you’re rolling out really helps because I’m curious. Like I have a bunch of rental. I know what my rents are. And I can you know, it’d be easy. It’d be great to go see like, if you if the if you converted this to co living, here’s what it would be worth. And I think it’s it’s fascinating for sure. So awesome.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (31:51.014)
Happy to give you like a little sneak peek to it, you’re open to it.

Mike Hambright (31:54.732)
Yeah, for folks that are interested. So I know you can find it on your website. So Clara, thanks so much for sharing your story with us and teaching us more about co-living. It’s a fascinating space for sure. And I think we’re probably still at the infancy, right?

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (32:09.702)
Oh, absolutely. And Mike, thanks for having me. I hope your listeners can open their mind a little bit to this asset class and think about the future and where they want to be five years from now. If you knew about Airbnb before everybody else, what would you have done differently in your portfolio? This is the same.

Mike Hambright (32:30.18)
Yeah.

Fascinating awesome. Well, Clara. Thanks again everybody. This is a fascinating space if you if you you know, think sometimes what happens with Real estate investors they feel like well right now is not a good time to keep rentals That is the prevailing thought right now in this market like my deal flows down You know, there’s every markets kind of has ups and downs and and there’s I think there’s been this assumption Historically that there’s a good time to keep rentals and there’s a time to not do it. But that is a traditional rental I think this is a is a very fascinating space. So

Make sure you learn more about co-living. It’s not going away. It’s a solution to affordable housing and it’s a solution to building up more cash flow for you as a business and as real estate investors. That’s why we’re here for sure.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (33:13.946)
Yeah, creating inventory. You’re creating more inventory than the same government can do regarding this solution. So you actually help them solve the problem and being paid to do it. it’s win-win for everyone. Yeah.

Mike Hambright (33:24.962)
Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. Check out the links down below everybody to learn more about Clara and Co-Living. Appreciate you for joining us today. We’ll see you next time.

Clara / Coliving Cashflow (33:34.651)
Thank you.