Accessible Airbnb Investing: The Untapped Short-Term Rental Market | Zack & Colë Alexander

Zack and Colë Alexander (00:00)
Our Airbnbs are actually located in Phoenix, Arizona.
If you search wheelchair accessible Airbnb in Phoenix, we are the top four listings. That’s because there’s nobody else. So it’s a very underserved market. And the disabled travel business is roughly a five billion dollar business that’s not being catered to. Just because people are disabled doesn’t mean that they don’t want to travel. They want to travel just like everybody else.

But they don’t have the options or the accommodations, or the accommodations are not being explicitly described in detail enough or photographed or vetted enough for them to know that it’s safe for them to travel there. So we’re trying to disrupt that.

Quentin Edmonds (02:14)
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I’m always excited when I can give y’all two for the price of one. I’m always excited when I have couples on, because

one of the things y’all know I love is when we get to peek through other people’s experience. We learn from other people’s experience. Y’all know I often say healing happens in community. And a lot of us need some healing in our business, need some healing in the industry. If we can build a community, the healing is going to come because somebody—it may give you a remedy to what you’re going through. I’m so excited today to have on with us… and I’m going to let them explain what it is that they do.

I’m so excited to have Zack and Colë Alexander here. How are you two doing today?

Zack and Colë Alexander (02:58)
Yeah, we’re doing great. Thanks for having us.

Quentin Edmonds (03:01)
How are you? Did you say—yes, I did. So my wife, she says there’s “and you” people. She said you say hello to somebody, and sometimes people just say—you say, “How you doing?” They say, “I’m doing good.” But sometimes some people say, “I’m doing good, and you?” Colë, I thank you for being an “and you” person. I am doing good today, so I appreciate that. I’m excited again to have you two on. Thank you for your time.

And I am the type I like to dive right in. So I would love for you to tell the people what’s your main focus these days. If you don’t mind, give us a little origin story, how you got into the space that you’re in. And then tell us what markets you’re operating in, like the markets that you’re serving. I’ll leave it up to y’all. Y’all have the floor.

Zack and Colë Alexander (03:40)
All right. Yeah. So about two years ago we purchased our first investment property. It’s actually two units side by side. They’re twin homes, if you will. And they were turnkey short-term rentals. So we kind of got to buy into an already operating business, which was a great way to get into real estate without having to figure it all out. We had a great

seller that helped us walk right into that. And the thing that was so important to us about these two specific units is that they were wheelchair accessible. So we’ve been directly touched by disability in our family. So it was very important to us. I’ll let Colë talk about what else we’re doing on the next phase of real estate.

Quentin Edmonds (04:21)
Yeah.

Zack and Colë Alexander (04:22)
Currently, we’re working on a forty-acre development. We’re working towards a hundred and eight units, mixture of multifamily and single-family homes. The goal is to make them accessible and inclusive above ADA standards. ADA standards are great, but they’re very baseline. They don’t work for everybody. So the goal is to make sure that there’s a universal bathroom on the first floor of every home,

wider hallways, wider doorways, zero-step entry, because we believe accessibility should be the standard. A lot of homes just are not built with that in mind. So as you age, you have a surgery, you break a bone, sometimes you have a tragedy—your home all of a sudden doesn’t work with you anymore. And depending on how it was built, sometimes it can’t even be retrofitted to what you need, and retrofitting is quite expensive. So

our goal is to start implementing a standard of accessibility in the way homes are built. And with that, we built the idea of OONAH, which is our other business company that stands for Our Ongoing Network for Accessible Humanity. And there we hope to create a network for people to be able to come to see vetted either short-term rentals, places that you can rent to live in,

and various other things that we hope to build in within that company.

Zack and Colë Alexander (05:36)
Yeah. So like builders or people who are vendors for products, just things like that, where they’re not exploiting the disabled community, where they’re providing a service because they care about the community. Obviously, everybody’s got to make money. We all understand that, but we want to make sure that it’s for the right reasons. Yeah. So and that’s really what we’re passionate about with our Airbnbs and with our housing project that we’re working on.

Our Airbnbs are actually located in Phoenix, Arizona.

If you search wheelchair accessible Airbnb in Phoenix, we are the top four listings. That’s because there’s nobody else. So it’s a very underserved market. And the disabled travel business is roughly a five billion dollar business that’s not being catered to. Just because people are disabled doesn’t mean that they don’t want to travel. They want to travel just like everybody else.

But they don’t have the options or the accommodations, or the accommodations are not being explicitly described in detail enough or photographed or vetted enough for them to know that it’s safe for them to travel there. So we’re trying to disrupt that.

Quentin Edmonds (07:29)
First, thank you for taking us through the mission, taking us through the journey a little bit. I really love your mission. This past weekend, my parents have three biological kids. They adopted five kids at one time. Yeah, right. For the first time in a long time, all of us went out to breakfast, to brunch together,

and maybe just like one was missing. And my dad’s 72, my mom’s 69, and both of their birthdays are in September. So we’re celebrating their birthday. Me and my wife have been actively with them trying to—looking at houses. That’s exactly what you’re talking about, right? They have moved their bedroom from top floor now to the ground level. And like you said, to outfit the house is just—

Zack and Colë Alexander (08:10)
Yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (08:10)
not even worth it. That’s why we’re looking for—exactly.

Zack and Colë Alexander (08:13)
Yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (08:14)
I think your mission is big, and I think it’s pertinent. It’s very, very pertinent. And I know that, but I just have to chime in and—

Zack and Colë Alexander (08:20)
Well, we appreciate that validation. Yeah. No, that goes a long way.

Quentin Edmonds (08:24)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I appreciate that. And I’m going to love asking y’all this. I ask everybody that comes on. I make the statement, I say destiny has no wasted moments, right? We are learning from every leg of the journey. Like we understand our why pretty much from our life’s experience, right? My mentor’s saying, when you know who you are, you know what to do. Destiny has no wasted moments, nothing’s random, I don’t believe.

We’re reinforcing the people we are today based on the wins and the losses. I would love to know throughout this journey, what has it revealed to you about yourself? Discipline, humility, patience—like what has this journey showed you about you?

Zack and Colë Alexander (09:02)
All the above. Go ahead, my love.

Quentin Edmonds (09:04)
I would say for me, I actually stole this from my mentors. My mentors always say that real estate is a vehicle. And I always thought I was more of a creative type of person, that I’d end up in music or something more creative. I do love helping people,

and I care a lot about people, but I did think I would end up in a creative field. Zack dragged me into real estate, to be quite honest with you. He really was just like, “We need to get into this.” And I was like, “I don’t know. I’m not a numbers person. I don’t really care about that stuff.” So once I finally bit into it and took it on, I’ve learned that

there is a lot of creativity within it. And because real estate is a vehicle, you can use it to help other people and you can do things with it that are above and beyond what you ever expected. With that, once we stepped through that door, I feel like my thought process and mindset of what I’m capable of personally and us as a couple has expanded astronomically.

I have a lot less self-doubt and a lot less limitation on myself. And I feel like we can accomplish anything. It might take a really long time. It might take two days. Sometimes things happen really quick. But either way, it is something that has been a massive caveat. And it’s also been great for our relationship, too. I think a lot of people look at couples in business and they’re like, “God, that must be really hard. You guys must

argue all the time.” And I would say it’s the complete opposite. I feel like it’s driven us to be closer together. I don’t think a lot of people have the opportunity when they work at a regular nine-to-five to spend this much time with their families and their loved ones. And that is priceless. So real estate really is a fabulous vehicle for so many things in your life. Come on, talk to me, Zack. I mean, Colë knocked it out the park, but talk to me, man.

Zack and Colë Alexander (10:45)
I agree with my lovely wife. Being able to work and build something with my wife… and our family is very involved. My parents, her parents are all very supportive of what we’re doing. It took a while for them to catch on and like see the bigger vision. They’re like, “No, you need a nine-to-five, you need a secure job, you need this.” But

they’re starting to see that vision. And it’s been amazing to be able to share that story with people and show that you can do it, too. Like you can step out of your comfort zone and build something for yourself and for your family to get away from the rat race. And I think that’s the—

that’s the American dream, if you will, is to get away from the rat race. We’ve been conditioned that there’s only one way to success, and that’s just not the case. And I think that everybody that we surround ourselves with has really been the caveat to that. It’s like if the people around you are bringing you down, then you remove yourself from that situation and you start to open your eyes to that. You start to see people in a different light.

You start to understand what values you have, and you start to assess, “Do these people’s values match mine?” And if they don’t, then you move on. And it’s okay that sometimes you have to leave people behind that are no longer serving your life. And that’s okay. They served a purpose at one point in time in your life, and that part of the story has closed. And you just move forward and you move through that. And

some of the people that I’ve been lucky enough to work with through another company that I own through transportation is high-net-worth individuals. And surrounding myself with high-net-worth individuals, I started to think differently. And that’s what brought us into real estate was just thinking differently and surrounding yourself with the people that you want to be like. If you want to be in that successful, entrepreneurial mindset, you have to surround yourself with those kinds of people.

Yeah. So I think that’s really what I’ve learned about myself is that some of the people in my past that I love very dearly are not the people that serve me anymore, and that’s okay. And we move through that and we just keep moving forward.

Quentin Edmonds (13:31)
Yeah. So well said, Zack, man. And actually we’re going to put a pin there because I like to end the conversation talking about relationships. So we’re going to come back to that because I think everything you said was chef’s kiss spot-on. So we’re going to come back to that. I do—so we have people from different walks within the real estate space. So I want to see if I can give them something practical from your experience, from your lens. We know having healthy systems, healthy operations in place

are key, right? So I would love to know maybe what’s one operational thing that you guys have put into place, let’s say like the last year or two, that has really helped you be successful at what it is that you’re doing.

I would say financial organization. Making sure that we’re really keeping tabs on everything that’s going in and out just because of the tax implications. We’ve learned that maybe the hard way,

Zack and Colë Alexander (14:20)
Yeah. Yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (14:21)
but just tax implications, just making sure you’re very, very organized on that front, because that can really come up behind you quietly.

Zack and Colë Alexander (14:29)
Yeah, setting up a corporate structure, making sure that your business is set up in a way that actually protects you. Most people think, “I set up an LLC, I’m protected from lawsuits.” That’s just not the case. You have to set it up correctly. And I think the only way to learn those kinds of things is to pay to play and be a part of a community or a mentorship to get somebody’s time.

When people look into mentorship, there’s so many gurus and stuff out there online that who’s the vetted one? Like back to what we were talking about earlier. Who’s the vetted one that we want to give our money to because we want to invest in ourselves? And people are like, “Well, why would I pay you? Why can’t you just give me the information?” I’m not going to give you information for free because what if you don’t use that information? So now I’m wasting my time. So I think that’s really what it comes down to is understanding that.

You pay for these mentorships to have somebody hand-hold you because they’ve been through this experience and they’re trying to save you time and money, but also make sure that you’re set up to protect yourself, like the tax implication thing. We’ve been there, done that, and we’ve made mistakes. And it doesn’t mean you can’t recover from your mistakes, but—

Quentin Edmonds (15:34)
And our mentorship taught us how to deal with those mistakes. What to do in the future.

Zack and Colë Alexander (15:39)
Yeah, we can’t talk enough about mentorship. We really do love it, and it was a huge risk and financial commitment to get involved in a mentorship, but it was totally worth it.

Quentin Edmonds (15:51)
But if you make a mistake, a financial mistake, you’re losing that money anyway. So you might as well pay a professional to walk you through it.

Zack and Colë Alexander (15:59)
Yeah, absolutely. And then one other thing that I think has really been important to us that took us a long time is consistency in everything that you do. Just sometimes it feels like it’s taking forever to pay out. Like, for instance, social media. We’ve been posting on social media consistently for a year and a half, and it’s just now starting to gain the traction that we’ve been looking for for the last year and a half. And

but now it’s starting to—we’re starting to gain the right traction. And that’s what consistency—a year and a half sounds like a long time, but it’s really not.

Quentin Edmonds (16:31)
It’s going to pass either way, so you might as well just do it.

Zack and Colë Alexander (16:33)
Yeah. Yeah. So just going at it, and if you don’t have a target, you’re going to miss every single time. Yeah. So you have to have something to aim at.

Quentin Edmonds (16:41)
Yeah. So from somebody that’s over here that’s married, I know y’all got healthy communication because y’all talked about taxes and laughed. Y’all looked at each other. She graciously rubbed you on the shoulder. And y’all laughed. I’m like, yeah, they got some really good healthy communication.

Zack and Colë Alexander (16:57)
Yeah, yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (16:58)
All that is great. I appreciate it. I mean, everything y’all said was just spot-on with so many gems.

I appreciate y’all’s lens at the way y’all are attacking this and coming at it. What’s next? Like what’s the next real goal? What are you looking to solve or scale next?

Zack and Colë Alexander (17:13)
OONAH, yeah. So we want OONAH to be the parent company of really what we’re doing, because that’s really our mission is Our Ongoing Network for Accessible Humanity. I mean, that is really what it is for us. And our housing project is with some business partners that we have, a couple of people I went to high school with, and

they see the vision, but it took some time selling that to them. So if we can drive home this brand and this network, then it starts to be a recognized name at home. That’s a standard, that’s really what we want. Because, Q, like you were saying, your family was looking for a house, you guys were looking at modifying your home, and now you have to look for a whole new house.

Had that home just been built with this in mind, your family wouldn’t have to worry about moving at their elderly age and then disrupting their entire life. Yeah, all their memories, all that—

Quentin Edmonds (18:07)
Probably love their house.

stuff. And they got it for dirt cheap back in the day, too. But anyway, yeah. Investment.

Zack and Colë Alexander (18:14)
Yeah, right.

Right. And so that’s what we’re trying to teach and build upon is that you don’t want to disturb people later on in life. And everybody is going to be affected by this at some level, at some stage. So that’s really our goal is to build this as a household brand that’s recognized nationwide, worldwide.

Quentin Edmonds (18:37)
Keep building more multifamily, more single family, buying plots of land and trying to build a standardized version of these houses.

Zack and Colë Alexander (18:45)
And profit. Everybody wants to make money. We understand that. We’re all in business to make money, but building houses doesn’t have to be just all about the bottom line. You can build houses with humanity in mind. Yep. And that’s really the goal.

Quentin Edmonds (18:58)
I love it. So OONAH—I think I heard Our Ongoing Network and I got lost somewhere… or Accessible Humanity. There we go. Love it.

Zack and Colë Alexander (19:06)

Yeah, O-O-N-A-H.

Quentin Edmonds (19:08)
All right. So like promised, I’m coming back to this relationship thing, man, because I love what you said about relationship. I always look at relationship as community—common unity, right? People who are in unity with a goal in mind. You talked about it, and I want you, if you don’t mind, expand on your philosophy, your

thought when it comes to building healthy relationships within business. How important is it to you? And what are some of the communities or people who have helped you guys be successful within that relationship world?

Zack and Colë Alexander (19:40)
I think authenticity is number one. Yes. Authenticity. And I think that me and her both agree on that. That if you are just truly your authentic self, you will attract the right people. Yes. It may not be tomorrow. It may not be six months from now. But I promise you, if you just stay true to who you are, long as you are a good person, that authentic self

will attract the right people to you, and it’ll just happen naturally. Yeah. And when it comes to community, Colë, go ahead and tell what community we’re involved with. Yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (20:15)
Yeah, we’re in Flip Tribe. It’s Kamahai and Tristyn Kalama’s mentorship group to teach you how to flip, all things flipping. And they are in a very expensive market in Hawaii, so they understand it’s much more expensive than Phoenix, right? But Phoenix is really expensive for us, too. So it’s nice to have that mentorship to know people are struggling with these same things. But within that community, we are constantly

staying close with all of our peers. And I think that’s really important is staying involved in relationships that are doing the same thing as you, because it keeps it at the forefront of your mind. You’re constantly talking about it. And then when you make friends with these people and they have these struggles, it’s not like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I can’t talk to some of my friends about some of the things that I deal with because they just wouldn’t understand.

Keeping close with your community of people you build along the way, making sure you nurture those relationships, is very important as well. You never know when they might need you or you might need them. Yes, sir. Yes. So there’s a proverb that I often say that I think just highlights what you guys are doing. It’s a proverb that says, “When you refresh others, you in return will be refreshed.”

I think at the foundation of any sustainable business is servitude. So when you are looking to refresh people, offer something that’s refreshing to them, I just believe that it’s got to come back to you. You’ve got to be refreshed financially, holistically. Like I just—and I just see it with you guys’ vision. And I think that’s why it’s such a healthy communication between you two, because I think y’all—the vision is right, the mindset is right.

I really, I really, really appreciate y’all coming on.

Zack and Colë Alexander (21:52)
I appreciate you having us, and we really enjoyed chatting with you. So thank you so much.

Quentin Edmonds (21:57)
Absolutely. Listen, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you?

Zack and Colë Alexander (22:05)
Yeah, so we’ve got a couple of different ways you could do that. Probably the best way is via Instagram on several of our different Instagram accounts. But, too—

Quentin Edmonds (22:14)
Give—

Zack and Colë Alexander (22:14)
Yeah, but our main Instagram that you get to know us and who we are as people is going to be @builtbythealexanders. And that shows all of our facets of what we’re doing. And it gives you a little insight into who we are as a couple.

It’s not just strictly professional. Yeah. And then I would say @oonahhq, O-O-N-A-H HQ, is really the big mission. And we’d love any support that anybody’s willing to give us on that. Yes. But yeah, for collaboration, work together, reach out to us on @builtbythealexanders.

Quentin Edmonds (22:46)
Yep. And that’s on Instagram and TikTok. Same handles. Gotcha. Listen, y’all. Listen, I just want to say three things to you sincerely. One, thank you for your time. Like, I think time is our most precious commodity. You could have been doing anything in the world, but you gave us your time, and I think that is very, very valuable. Thank you so much for your time. Secondly,

y’all stole my word. And this is what I always say: thank you for the gift of your authenticity. Thank you for the gift of your integrity. I would even say the gift of your vulnerability, because I believe our stories plant seeds for people. And we never know when that seed is going to take root. We never know when it’s going to grow, but the seed is still cast. And so I believe y’all sprinkled some real seed for people today. So thank you for that. And lastly, thank you for the way you guys think. Thank you for your mindset.

And bringing that mindset to this platform. I appreciate y’all.

Zack and Colë Alexander (23:36)
Coming on.

Quentin Edmonds (23:40)
Thank you for your time, too. Well, listen, y’all heard Mr. Zack, Ms. Colë. Get in contact with them. That information is in the show notes. So please reach out to them. Definitely make sure you’re subscribed here, because I promise you we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people, just like Zack and Colë. Again, I appreciate y’all so much for coming on. And everyone else, listen, y’all have a fantastic day.