From Banking to Luxury Rentals: Blake Chami’s Inspiring Journey

Dylan Silver (01:31)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s is a 2023 Clemson University graduate with a financial management degree focused on investment painting and the founder of Riverside Real Estate Services, a luxury short term rental company based in Jupiter, Florida. Please welcome Blake Chami. Blake, welcome to the show.

Blake Chami (01:53)
Thank you so much for having me, I really do appreciate it.

Dylan Silver (01:56)
It’s great to have you on here. I always like to start off at the top by asking folks how they got into the real estate space.

Blake Chami (02:03)
Okay, great. So my father does have somewhat of a background in building a portfolio of assets through his tile distribution company. These are all commercial properties. And once I saw this from when I was younger until when he sold his company, I just witnessed his portfolio through and through, and it definitely piqued my interest, especially as I grew older. That was the first exposure I really did have into real estate. And then throughout college, I did take a few real estate investment

courses as well and this also further peaked my knowledge into it but the main thing was how am I going to get into it and that was a question that bugged me for quite some time.

Dylan Silver (02:46)
I want to ask you about the getting into the real estate portion because I think you mentioned investment banking and going to school and that was really kind of maybe the forefront and then real estate happened. I think many times people go into their career field and then they pivot once realizing maybe they don’t like it or they realize you know I’m really passionate about this but you found out I would say early on you’re still in school that you had a big passion for real estate.

Blake Chami (03:13)
Correct. Yeah, it is pretty funny to say that my emphasis was investment baking and that I did pivot to real estate. ⁓ Basically what happened is I saw somewhat of a flaw in the market ⁓ as most people see on Instagram and other social medias nowadays. It’s called the Airbnb arbitrage model. And you know what? I decided to pursue it. ⁓ I learned so much off of it and I will forever be grateful for that.

anything and I wouldn’t be where I am today without those mistakes and I was able to pivot my perspective from there into the management side.

Dylan Silver (03:53)
Now I want to ask you about starting a business while you’re in school. What was that like? Did you know that it was going to take the form that it is today or was it, hey, let me see what this looks like and then get my feet wet in this.

Blake Chami (04:06)
Yeah, so it’s all about just taking action and that’s what I learned. ⁓ So many people nowadays and this happened to me pretty frequently is I have such a great idea over here. I want to pursue this idea but then the following day they’re like, ⁓ I’m going to do it the next day, the next day, the next day and on. ⁓ Eventually I just decided to dive in and say, you know what, I’m going to create an LLC and with this LLC I do not know what I want to do with it yet. I have no clue.

if I put my money into something, I know that I’m gonna have to follow that and really pursue it. So that’s what I did was take action and off of that LLC, I had a few different business ideas that I wanted to pursue, but then I really didn’t narrow it down to the real estate sector of the market.

Dylan Silver (04:55)
Now, before we were, before we happened to the podcast, we did talk about how your real estate journey kind of evolved. And it sounded like it started from the arbitrage space. Is that right?

Blake Chami (05:05)
correct it did.

Dylan Silver (05:07)
And so I’m familiar with the arbitrage space. work often with investors and I’ve thought about it myself. I think it sounds it sounds great. Right. But then you also have to go through and get a deal under contract. You have to make sure that everything is agreeable and then you’ve got to make sure that it’s being covered. And then also Airbnb could go away. Right. People can have Airbnb taken away from them. So now you could be I’ve spoken to people this has happened. Then they’re

responsible for it they don’t have the same type of model to use. So when you were getting into the arbitrage space and then pivoting away from that into the rental management space, they’re kind of on a similar playing field, right? Did you see this as because the arbitrage space had a lot of issues or were you just seeing so much opportunity in the rental management space?

Blake Chami (06:50)
Basically what I did throughout the arbitrage, compliance was definitely one of the bigger issues, especially in Pompano Beach. That took quite some time and when you’re signing a lease, ⁓ you know, within a week and then you gotta get it up and running, compliance can take significantly longer than most people think. ⁓ So that took us about, I’d say two weeks to a month, which already we’re in the hole right there. And throughout that time in the arbitrage space, you have to factor in

certain items in that home that are broken that you need to repair. If the AC goes out, you need to send an HVAC and just that fee right there could just cut your cost of the reservation that just came in. so what I realized is this model is great, but for the market that I was in, I was struggling and not being able to generate enough revenue to keep my head above water. And I realized that, you know, I don’t have enough funds coming.

Dylan Silver (07:33)
Right.

Blake Chami (07:49)
in

right now that I think I’ll be able to make it through at least six months of this lease because I started in off-season. So with my back against the wall I needed to pivot my perspective and I saw the management side because I was able to mitigate my risk and just focus on generating as much revenue for our clients as we can while keeping their home in five-star condition. And by doing this I was able to generate those funds, take that cut, and then put it back into the arbitrage model in order to

to keep my head above water throughout that lease.

Dylan Silver (08:22)
So that is actually a great example of, you the difficulties with the arbitrage space. You mentioned it was difficult with compliance. And I’ve spoken with so many people that similar thing has happened to. I want to say I spoke with an attorney in Arizona who bought multiple for arbitrage. He was arbitraging all these deals and then he wasn’t able to do it because Airbnb was no longer allowed in the area. And it’s like, well, what do you do at that point? And you have to pivot.

⁓ I think the rental management space is niche and then you’re in even niche down more granular in the luxury space and you’re in South Florida as well so there’s no shortage of that. What was the first couple of months like going into that space from the arbitrage space?

Blake Chami (09:09)
So the first couple of months, the big thing that I had to focus on really was sales, driving sales. I don’t have any sales experience. ⁓ Like I said, I had an investment-making background in financial management. I really had zero experience in sales. So besides the arbitrage deal which I was able to negotiate, it was fairly new to me. And the first couple months were tough, don’t get me wrong. But the first client that I did sign in Jupiter, Florida

It was this little two bed, one and a half bath home. And I’m very grateful for this opportunity because without that, that was the first real success I saw. And that’s what grew the company what it is today.

And throughout those first couple months, mean, it was all sales, like I said, finding prospects, calling every no is closer to the next yes. And after that first home, I was able to use it as leverage. And that is the biggest key that I had because nobody wants to be the guinea pig when it comes to managing a home. So by saying I have this home under management, showing it to other potential prospects, I was able to slowly build up the business. And then was fortunate.

Dylan Silver (10:11)
Right.

Blake Chami (10:22)
enough. I think it was the second or third month in, ⁓ one prospect came across my desk that I called and he’s still our client today, a phenomenal, phenomenal guy.

He really liked that we’re a small up and coming company. He actually saw himself in me with his business that he started a few years ago. And even though I had to decrease my management rate significantly to manage not one, but three of his homes with minimal experience, I was able to do so. And that was really the first big step that Riverside took.

Dylan Silver (11:34)
I want to ask you, want to pivot here Blake, and ask you about the luxury space out there in South Florida. Are these all short term, so 30 day stays or less? Are these longer term? What is the typical stay at these rentals?

Blake Chami (11:48)
So we do advertise all of our homes as the short-term rental, which is under 30 days, but we do have a variety of returning guests here and there that…

We’ll actually like to book the home and it will still be through our direct booking platform, which is technically the short term with the higher premiums. And they’ll book it for a month, two months, at most even three months I’ve seen. But we do tailor to our clients like I said, and if our clients want ⁓ to stop doing short term rentals and they want to do a midterm or long term, we can pivot to that strategy as well because I’m a licensed realtor in the state of Florida and I can operate.

Dylan Silver (12:28)
So when we’re talking about the luxury space and we’re talking about short-term rentals, one of the things that I ⁓ heard and hooked onto when you were saying is you have your own booking platform. So is this separate from like VRBO, separate from Airbnb, or is it they will land on maybe a landing page and then it directs them to one of those platforms?

Blake Chami (12:47)
So yeah, it is completely separate of VRBO, Airbnb, Booking.com, et cetera. And this can be viewed right through our website.

And basically by doing this, it cuts out all the guest service fees on the respective platforms. And by doing this, not only is the guest getting a cheaper rate than on these listing sites, but our management company is taking home significantly more. So we’re basically cutting out the middleman by doing this.

Dylan Silver (13:20)
I want to ask you about creating a platform like that. mean a lot of competition, right? So you’re competing with maybe the Airbnb, the VRBO, the short-term rental space, and they’ve got kind of an established market share. When people are searching for short-term rentals, how are they finding your page versus some of the other, maybe more established, right?

Blake Chami (13:42)
Exactly, so it’s all about the brand and that’s something that I spoke about earlier is when we’re rolling out our marketing campaign this next August, it’s just to increase the exposure of our brand. So more eyes equals more bookings. And basically on every respective listing site that we are on, it gives you the option for your profile to not only put your logo for Riverside Real Estate Services, but also have a description. So within this description, I basically advertise

my services in it. And whenever they’re on Airbnb VRBO, they see who the host is, most people will click on that, they’ll see the details, and I’d say the majority of people when they see this, they’re gonna search up Riverside Real Estate Services in the search bar. And from here on, they’ll realize this is significantly cheaper than the listing site because we’re cutting out the guest service fees.

Dylan Silver (14:37)
So you’re seeing, I would say, fairly unique ⁓ returning guests with some level of frequency. So people who’ve stayed previously are coming back.

Blake Chami (14:46)
Yes, and that is my main goal for every experience of our guests because not only do we want to give them a five-star experience, we want them to tell their family about it. We want them to tell their friends. And then when they come back, we can also give them discounts if they’re able to generate other bookings for us. So this is part of our referral program.

Dylan Silver (15:08)
Now I know that your offices are based out of Jupiter. Are your clients all throughout Florida? Are they centered in the South Florida area? Do you have clients in the West Coast of Florida as well? Are you thinking about expanding out there?

Blake Chami (16:01)
Yeah, so currently all of our homes under management are from Ormond Beach, Florida, all the way down to Pompano Beach. And we are looking to expand further south down to Miami, ⁓ ideally over to Naples. And something that is currently in the works, which is very exciting, is going out to Park City, Utah.

Dylan Silver (16:21)
Okay, so different area entirely. ⁓ Are you a Utah guy? you like the weather and the environment out there?

Blake Chami (16:24)
Correct.

Yes I do. grew up ⁓ always going out west. My family loves it out there as well. I’ve always gone to Colorado and Utah mainly and when I’ve been out there I’ve just been able to see these vacation rentals, these luxury homes like our service down here, but the premiums that they’re able to charge are significantly higher. But one of the main issues out there is competition.

There are many other significantly larger management companies. So we’re working on an edge which we think will definitely benefit us and able to sign these other homes that currently aren’t under management out there.

Dylan Silver (17:08)
Blake, I want to pivot a bit here and ask you about all that goes into ⁓ management. Are you primarily focused on one asset of the management or are you doing cleaning and everything that entails and hiring out the contractors for that as well as online or is it one element of that?

Blake Chami (17:27)
Yeah, so we take care of everything from top to bottom, which includes the cleaning and the contractors. We coordinate the cleaning and the contractors, but we do not have our own team in-house. So basically top to bottom ensures this. We receive a booking from a respective guest for a respective home. This guest then checks in and throughout their stay, we’re monitoring them, making sure that everything’s okay with these frequent automated messages that we give them.

them to ensure a five-star quality stay. When this checkout occurs, our project coordinator and our cleaning team go to the home. When they’re there, our cleaning team make sure that a five-star cleaning occurs. And then our project coordinator, who is honestly the most important position in our company that I think, not only checks to make sure that the home is in five-star condition, if the guests left any marks, let’s say broke a vase, who knows little accidents happen there.

but he also ensures that the cleaners do a five-star cleaning. So we have a guy that’s doing a double check to make sure that our service is up to the highest quality that we advertise. And from here, we then make sure that the respective guest that was just there, the Taurus development taxes are remitted to the county if needed. So our team takes care of that as well.

Dylan Silver (18:53)
our rooster just went off in the background. I’m in Dallas. don’t know if you… He sometimes makes an audible appearance. you know, one of the interesting things I think about the Airbnb space is there’s so many… shouldn’t say Airbnb. The short-term rental space is there’s so many ⁓ opportunities for tangent businesses. I know people who do purely the online listing. I know people who do purely the cleaning services. I know people…

Blake Chami (18:55)
I heard that.

Dylan Silver (19:20)
who are in charge of both. And it sounds like you’re very full service and then also looking at being a value add even beyond that where you’re creating kind of a longer term relationship with these folks to the point where you’re saying, let’s get returning guests coming, which I think is very rare.

Blake Chami (19:39)
Yeah, no, I completely agree with you. And it is very important to just build a strong reputation, not only with homeowners, but guests. Because we’ve even had guests that say, we love this experience so much. We have a home in South Florida, and we would like you to manage it. So by going the extra mile throughout just every step of the way, Insure is just a top tier service.

Dylan Silver (20:03)
Blake, we are coming up on time here. Where can folks go if they would like to maybe reach out to you or learn more about your business and maybe get in contact with you?

Blake Chami (20:13)
Yeah, so if you’re a homeowner in South Florida and your home is not generating as much returns as you would like, feel free to reach out to us at www.riversidereservices.com or tap into our Instagram at Riverside RE Services. ⁓ Through here you will be able to access our website and you can contact me directly. Please also fill out our form on the website to see what your home can generate.

Dylan Silver (20:42)
Blake, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.

Blake Chami (20:45)
course, thank you for the opportunity.