721: $1k a Month with your First Co-Living Property

Summary

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The Side Hustle Show Episode 721

$1k a Month with your First Co-Living Property

Host: Nick Loper
Guest: Sam Weger, Scale Your Co-Living Real Estate Podcast
Release Date: February 5, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode explores how co-living can be a highly profitable and impactful real estate side hustle. Guest Sam Weger shares his journey from simple house hacking to owning and passively managing over 200 co-living rooms while addressing the affordable housing crisis. Sam digs into the nuts and bolts of the business, legal hurdles, juicy horror stories, and actionable how-tos for getting started—even with low capital.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Is Co-Living and Its Financial Potential?

• Co-living involves buying a large house and renting out rooms individually, often converting living spaces into extra bedrooms.
• Traditional advice: cash flow of $100–250/month per unit. Co-living commonly produces $1,000–2,000/month per house.
  • Sam Weger: “We won’t even look at a co-living home unless it produces $1,000 a month in cash flow. I would say the average is closer to two grand.” (01:17)
  • Some students report $5,000/month from a single, large house.

2. Finding and Converting the Right Property

• Focus on square footage, not just bedroom count.
  • Rule of thumb: 1,500 sq ft = 4 bedrooms; add a bedroom for every additional 250 sq ft.
  • Convert dining rooms, basements, etc., into bedrooms.
  • Sam: “The biggest thing you need to look for in a home is square footage because you’re looking for size...1500 equals 4. And then every 250 square feet that that house gets, that means I find an extra room…” (02:50)

3. Legal Hurdles & Workarounds

• Zoning and occupancy rules often limit number of unrelated people under one roof.
• Creative solution: structure tenants as a “club” membership rather than standard leases, modeled after similar tactics used by large co-living companies.
  • Sam: “We create an agreement that is not a lease agreement. We form a club...the club has hundreds and hundreds of members. The private club rents the house and the members get to use the house.” (05:25)
• Laws are evolving; e.g., Colorado now prevents cities from restricting unrelated adults cohabiting.

4. Best Locations and Market Factors

• Evaluate “co-living friendly score” (local attitudes, enforcement risk) and affordability gap.
  • Avoid anti-co-living cities (Nashville, Sarasota are strict).
  • Focus on cities where studio apartments are out of reach for those earning $15–25/hr, but not so cheap that co-living holds no value (e.g., small towns with $400 apartments won’t work).
  • Sam: “You’re looking for a city where a studio apartment plus utilities is out of reach for people who make between $15–$25 an hour after taxes.” (09:39)

5. Acquisition & Financing Strategies

• Most start with a primary residence loan, as low as 3% down, then house-hack; after a year, repeat for next property.
  • Alternative: buy with intention to move out after one year, then convert to full co-living.
  • Creative tactic—“invoice authorization”—have the seller fund rehab at closing by negotiating a higher price, but have rehab costs paid out of proceeds.
  • Sam: “We get the seller to pay for the rehab, and we’re successful in probably 95% of the cases in doing that, even on the larger rehabs.” (13:47)

6. Ideal Property Checklist (16:58–19:58)

• No HOA: Avoids restrictive rules and legal headaches.
• Neighborhood fit: Prefer B-/B-quality, working-class areas with relaxed parking, no “white picket fence” uniformity.
• Large square footage: 2,000–2,500+ sq ft optimal.
• No amenities/pools: Stick to essentials for affordability, easier maintenance.
• Proximity to major employers: Within commuting distance of large workplaces (airports, warehouses).
• Parking: Need ~2/3 as many spots as bedrooms. Bonus for walkable public transport.

7. Pricing, Tenant Types, and Room Setup

• Charge each room at 70–80% of local studio rent.
• Accept singles, recently opened up to a limited number of couples (prefer private bath and extra parking).
• Common areas are furnished; bedrooms left empty for tenant personalization.
• Staging and clean, attractive common areas critical for marketing.

8. Screening and Managing Tenants

• Use in-person interviews, background and eviction checks, income verification (2–3x rent).
• Label kitchen shelves/fridge space per room. Strict no-personal-items-in-commons policy.
• Regular professional cleaning; personal left items boxed and trashed if not claimed.

9. Community & Challenges

• Some homes develop strong community; others are more introverted/quiet.
• Memorable story: Sam married two former tenants who met in his co-living home. (29:13)
• Issues happen (“peanut butter theft,” personality conflicts, parking headaches, utilities, even bitcoin mining), solved with detailed house rules, cameras, and policies.
  • Sam: “We give everybody one free transfer. If it’s a really big issue, we’ll just be like, cool, we’ll transfer (to) another house completely free.” (36:45)

10. Scalability & Management

• As you grow, can hand off to co-living management companies (15–20% of rent roll); niche is now supported by specialist firms.
• Important to have robust systems, especially above six bedrooms.
  • Sam: “If you’re going to do a 10-bedroom home and you’re not going to live there, there’s some systems you need to have in place.” (40:12)
• Guest’s company only manages for students currently, but notes growing market of co-living property managers.

11. The Mission: Making an Impact

• Addresses the US affordable housing shortage (7.3 million units short).
• Offers cheaper living options and positive communal/social effects; can help combat social isolation and address the affordable housing crisis.
  • Sam: “The room will become the new apartment...If you become a co-living investor, you’re providing a housing option for people that is cheaper than the cheapest thing. So, therefore, you are an inventor of cheaper price points.” (24:12; 43:59)

12. Sam’s Final Advice

• Get clear, commit to one path, and go “all-in”—then put blinders on to avoid shiny object syndrome.
  • Sam: “I think at some point you need to lock yourself in a room for as long as it takes and just say, which one am I gonna go all in on?” (46:41)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On cash flow (01:17):

  "We won’t even look at a co-living home unless it produces $1,000 a month in cash flow. I would say the average is closer to two grand."
  — Sam Weger

• On property hacking formula (02:50):

  “The biggest thing you need to look for in a home is square footage because you’re looking for size...1500 equals 4. And then every 250 square feet that that house gets, that means I find an extra room…”
  — Sam Weger

• On legal workarounds (05:25):

  “We create an agreement that is not a lease agreement. We form a club...the club has hundreds and hundreds of members. The private club rents the house and the members get to use the house.”
  — Sam Weger

• Mission-driven perspective (43:59):

  “If you become a co-living investor, you’re providing a housing option for people that is cheaper than the cheapest thing. So, therefore, you are an inventor of cheaper price points.”
  — Sam Weger

• On commitment and focus (46:41):

  “At some point you need to lock yourself in a room… and just say, which one am I gonna go all in on?...choose and then blinders.”
  — Sam Weger

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:17 — Co-living cash flow potential
• 02:50 — How to assess and convert properties for co-living
• 05:25 — Legal strategies to operate in restrictive zoning areas
• 09:39 — Market selection & target tenant demographic
• 13:47 — Seller-funded rehab strategies
• 16:58 — Property selection checklist
• 21:03 — Renting to couples, singles, and special populations
• 24:12 — Preparation, marketing, and staging homes
• 33:18 — Tenant horror stories & house rules
• 40:12 — Managing at scale, property management options
• 43:59 — Social mission & affordable housing impact
• 46:41 — Final advice: pick a lane and stay focused

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Action Steps & Resources

1. Learn More & Free Training:

   • Check out Sam’s website: scaleyourrealestate.com
   • Free 5-day co-living challenge for hands-on guidance.

2. Listen/Connect:

   • Scale Your Co-living Real Estate podcast.
   • Other Side Hustle Show real estate playlists: land investing, Airbnb co-hosting, rental arbitrage, house hacking, etc.

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This episode is an essential listen if you're seeking a real estate side hustle that combines solid cash flow, scalable potential, and genuine social impact. Sam’s practical tips, personal journey, and transparency around both the rewards and headaches of co-living make for a comprehensive blueprint for action.

Transcript

[Nick Loper]

My guest says this is the fastest and most impactful path to wealth in real estate and he's breaking down how it works, starting as a side hustle. The path in question is called co living. This is getting a big house and renting out the rooms individually. So what started for him as a simple house hack in 2011 has grown to a portfolio of over 200 rooms, passively managed and addressing affordable housing from the ground up. From scale your co living real estate podcast and scale your real estate.com Sam Weger welcome to the side Hustle Show.

[Sam Weger]

Nick. I'm so excited to be on the side Hustle show. Thanks for having me, brother.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, I'm looking forward to kind of learning right alongside the listeners here because the traditional real estate investing advice that I've been given is single family home, you know, three bedroom, one or two bath, nice, you know, working class neighborhood, long term lease type of, type of strategy here and aim for a cash flow of 250 bucks a month. The co living model aims to like 4 or 5x that on a monthly basis. So you ultimately need fewer properties to meet your income goals. Yes. So what's, I mean what's realistic here in terms of income? Paint is the picture in terms either from your own example or from some of your community students.

[Sam Weger]

When I grew up in real estate world, I remember Brandon Turner, some of these guys that were part of this bigger pockets community, which is a really big community in real estate, would say, hey, if you get $100 a month in cash flow per unit in, that's good, that's what you're looking for. And I remember thinking like, holy cow, for me to do that, I have to get hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of units to actually create any income with co living. It really is not. And then I mean, just as a side note, I was listening to a podcast with Brandon Turner recently because he has $1 billion in real estate. I think it's over 10,000 units. And he said my cash flow from $1 billion in real estate is and I quote, a couple thousand dollars a month. And I was like, that's too little man. That's too little. Because we are here, obviously people listening to your show, we want to create some cash flow. So we won't even look at a co living home unless it prod thousand dollars a month in cash flow. I would say the average is closer to two grand and you'll see spikes. You're managing yourself. This could be even, even more because you're, you're taking out what you would normally pay to the manager and keeping that for yourself. So I had a student come to me recently and said, Sam, I have a 14 bedroom house that I self manage that I put a large down payment. I think she put like 30 or 35% down, so her loan was less. And she said after all my expenses, my net cash flow is $5,000 a month. I was like, one house? She's like, it's 14, it's 14. People share. This home is this huge house. And I was like, so that's a spike. That's like the craziest I've seen.

[Nick Loper]

It might as well be an apartment building at that point. Yeah, I'm thinking like fraternity house, sorority house. Like nothing is built anymore with 14 bedrooms. Not even, you know, it'd be rare to find a six bedroom. Like where are you finding this stuff? Or how do I start the shopping process?

[Sam Weger]

Yeah, we give people a formula. It goes like this. If you bring me a 1500 square foot house, somewhere in that 1500 square feet of that house is four bedrooms, you might as well say, well Sam, it's actually only two. Well, by the time I get done with adding a wall here and a wall here and a closet here and a closet here, I'm going to have four. Just because I know that square footage for co living. The biggest thing you need to look for in a home is square footage because you're looking for size. Size matters when it comes to co living because you want to spread people out and everybody have their own private room. But we're converting a lot of these spaces. We're taking dining rooms and living rooms and basements. And so 1500 equals 4. And then every 250 square feet that that house get, that means I find an extra room in that house somewhere. So 1500 is for 1750 square feet of a house is going to be five rooms somewhere in that house. And I just know this because I've looked at thousands of thousands of homes. 2,000 square foot home is going to be a six bedroom. So if you bring me a 3,000 square foot house, that's going to be 10 rooms. So it's really just the matter of the size and how you can convert and lay out the space that everybody has a common area where they can get together and there's a kitchen and there's a living room and they co eat and co work.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, it's wild to come up with 10 rooms out of a 3,000 square foot house. But maybe it's.

[Sam Weger]

It's feasible for context. I grew up in a 1900 square foot house and I'm one of eight siblings and two parents. So 1900 square feet, 10 people. So for me, this is why it wasn't crazy for me because I was like, everybody's like, oh, that's crazy. You're packing people in there. I'm like, yeah, guys, you want to see packed? Check out my house that I grew up in. Like, that was packed four people to a room. Parents slept in the basement, you know.

[Nick Loper]

Okay, so it's not like off the shelf. There's some customization require. Like, so finding something that fits the square footage requirements and then bringing in the contractors to add the walls, add the closets, and make it into a co living house.

[Sam Weger]

Yeah, the only thing that's off the shelf is if you do ground up construction, which I'm doing right now, that is where you can pretty much build it exactly how you want. How many bedrooms you can put in all these private baths. But that is a unique person that really wants to go through the year or two years of a process to get all that has to happen to get a ground up done. So yes, in any. Every other case, it's customization. It's adding walls, it's adding closets, it's sometimes even adding bathrooms.

[Nick Loper]

Do you run into like zoning requirement or like zoning regulation issues and be like, none of this wasn't zoned multifamily. This was supposed to be a single family neighborhood.

[Sam Weger]

Okay, so we went.

[Nick Loper]

We're going here in the first 10.

[Sam Weger]

Minutes of the podcast. Let's go. Normally this is towards the end of the podcast, but. But that's a very common question and it's a big topic, which is why I kind of side. It was like, okay, let's go here. So yes, a lot of cities have restrictions around the number of unrelated people in a home.

[Nick Loper]

Okay.

[Sam Weger]

In some cities it's two, like, no. Which is stupid because that means if you're not married to your girlfriend and you're living there, you cannot have anybody else in that home because they would be completely unsearched captive too. So some of these rules, some of these restrictions were very outdated. The way that we get around these rules, it is a good faith legal argument for how we can still operate in these cities. And basically what we do is we create an agreement that is not a lease agreement. We form a club. Think of like a fraternity club or think of like a country club. I don't know if anybody ever remembers. I think this was a State by state rule, when if you ever went into a place that didn't have an ABC license, but they wanted to serve you beer and wine, you would just buy a $1 membership at the door. And now you were a member of the club so they could serve you alcohol. It's like basically like a similar hack. You're a club and that club has hundreds and hundreds of members. And that private club rents the house and the members get to use the house. And so it's a structure. And I help my students set all this up and do all this because that's the way we do it. And it's how the biggest companies in co living in America do it. That is our way in the interim to have 12, 10, 11, 8, 9, however many people live in a home and share that home. The long term strategy is that these rules completely unconstitutional in my opinion. You're telling me that I can live in a home with 50 of my cousins, not against the law, but as soon as I have three unrelated, it's against the law. There's a whole like and there's a lot of lawsuits out there right now that some of the bigger companies are taking and fighting and appealing. And their whole goal is to show like this is just discrimination at the highest level.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah. And with all of the drama surrounding housing affordability, like you can definitely see over the long run this stuff gets fixed at the legal level. But in the near term the workaround is to get your club, get your entity structured, set up.

[Sam Weger]

And I'll add this one thing to it I think is really important. Colorado, the state of Colorado, which I know you're out west, just came and the governor basically just agreed with this whole philosophy. He was like, guys, if eight adults want to act like a family in a home, yeah, we shouldn't like that. So the governor of Colorado just make it made it illegal for any local jurisdiction to regulate the number of unrelated people in the home. Making Colorado potentially the most friendly co living state in the entire United States right now without any workarounds, which was pretty cool.

[Nick Loper]

Okay, more like broadly geographically speaking, does it make sense to start wherever you are? Or are there certain cities, certain metro areas that are more conducive to this than others?

[Sam Weger]

We look at two things and this is going to sound like I'm speaking out of both sides of my mouth because I just gave everybody the workaround. Now we look at two things before we go into an area. One, what's the co living friendly score of that area? So it's like Wait, Sam, I thought you just had a workaround. We do, but even if I have a workaround, that's a good faith legal argument. Do you want to go into a battle with the city of Nashville? Because Nashville, for example, has come out and been like, we hate co living and if we ever find co living homes, we're going to shut them down. I mean, Nashville is just like annoying like that Sarasota. Same way.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah. I mean, it would be the neighbors ratting you out when they see why. Why are there eight cars in front of this house?

[Sam Weger]

Yeah, yeah. You've got to think through parking. A lot of times neighbors will call a city on them if they don't have good systems for the trash cans and the grass. Like simple things for running a good co living home. But can be a little more complicated. Right. If someone's a new landlord.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah.

[Sam Weger]

So that's the one thing we look at. The second thing we look at is what is the price? Like, basically, can we cash flow in this area? If you go to San Francisco, you can do co living, but you're not going to cash flow as much as if you're in Dallas or Charlotte or Tampa or Phoenix or even Jacksonville. So there are some cities that there's still solid demand for affordable housing, but the real estate is at a good, still affordable price. Now you don't want to go to a place that's too affordable. I had a student come to me the other day and they wanted to go to some small town in the middle of Nebraska. And I went and I looked up what a studio apartment costs in Nebraska. And a studio apartment was like 350, $400 in this little tiny town. I'm like, guys, co living has no value here. Like, even if you make $10 an hour, you can afford something on your own. So like, no one's gonna do this so that there's a sweet spot.

[Nick Loper]

Okay. That's important. That's the primary competition. Like where your tenants would alternatively go to lowest rent. Studio or a one bedroom. Like that's kind of where they would be looking instead. Okay, so comparing that price with what potential rent could be.

[Sam Weger]

That's exactly right. You're looking for a city where a studio apartment plus utilities is out of reach for people who make between 15, $25 an hour after taxes. Because in every major city there's tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people that are in that minimum. I'm calling that minimum wage. I know that's not actual minimum wage, but they work at Airports, they work at Amazon warehouses, they just, they work at Walmart distribution centers, they work at Target, they work at Starbucks, they work at all these places. And if a studio apartment is on average, say In Charlotte, it's 15 to $1700 plus utilities, they'd be spending 80% of their money on the studio apartment. So they have to look for other options. You're looking for those areas where there's a percentage of the population that make the minimum wage, usually in a city that are outpriced, and that's where you want to be.

[Nick Loper]

Okay, you can make it work in higher cost of living areas, but just adjust the math accordingly or adjust the cash flow expectations accordingly. Okay, what is typical in terms of purchase price, startup costs, construction costs. Like all of a sudden there could be a barrier to get into the business.

[Sam Weger]

Yeah, for sure. The way I started this, I mean, and the way I recommend everybody start this, to be honest, is you can use, if you have a W2 and you have some income. I got my first home with a primary residence loan, which was 3% down. So it was 3% at that point. I mean, the home was $150,000. So I think what's 3% of all is. What is that five grand? You know, not a lot. So this is, this is house hacking, right? So I lived in the home and I rented out the other rooms. But then you're allowed in the United States to get a new primary residence loan every year. So then one year and one day I went back to my mortgage guy and said, I want another primary residence. I'm moving. He said, where are you moving? I said, I'm moving literally down the street. He was like, why? I said, because I'm gonna make this home a co living home now. And I'm into a new home. And he was like, well, I guess you can. It's completely legal. And that one was 5% down. Right? So. And I had a student come to me and there may be some people listening to this and being like, sam, that's a cool strategy for less money in the deal. But like, I have kids, I have a family. There's no way I could, I could move. And I had someone come to me. And he came up with the most brilliant idea. He said, I'm going to do a prime. I'm going to move into a home with my family. We're going to live in it for a year. No roommates, no housemates, but I'm going to buy it specifically for co living. When one year and one day Happens I'm moving out because that's where I don't want my family to have to live with anybody. And then I'm going to do all co living in that home and, and we're going to buy another primary residence loan. He said he only needed like three homes to reach his like low level of financial freedom number. His like basic level. He said, so I'm going to do that three times. He's like, and look Sam, my current plan to retirement is 30 years. He's like, if this gets me there in three, I'd be willing to move three times in three years to make this happen. And I was like, dude, that's really cool and creative.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah. What's the sacrifice you're willing to make sure.

[Sam Weger]

Yeah, exactly. So primary residence loan is the way to do it. Obviously there's all kinds of different types of loans. So yes, at some level you're going to either need a partner, you're going to raise that capital, you're going to need to save that capital to buy that first home. Then you're going to need to convert this to coloven at some point. Right. You need to put up walls, you need to put up closets, and you're going to maybe need to take a half bath and convert it to a full bath because you never want more than three people sharing one bath. That's just the rule of thumb in coloring.

[Nick Loper]

Okay.

[Sam Weger]

And in order to do that, you're either going to need the capital that conversion can be. My first home, it was $4,500, but more, more accurately now it's probably closer to 20 or 30k. $30,000.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah. In terms of the rehab or the construction.

[Sam Weger]

Yeah. Now we have a strategy. I'll just mention it briefly here. It's called the invoice authorization. So here's what we do for our students now because I have a lot of students that don't want to put out that capital. This is something we teach. If you're selling me your house, Nick, and it's, I'm just going to pick a round number. It's 100 grand.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, it's like 19. It's almost 2,000 square feet.

[Sam Weger]

Yeah. So let's just say it's a six bedroom house. You're selling me your home. It's, let's say you're selling to me for 100 grand and I negotiate 20k off. So I negotiate buying it for 80 and I'm just making up numbers instead of you giving me that 20,000 a discount. Like okay, I'LL give it to you for 80 grand. I just, I just come to you and I say, hey, man, I'll buy for 100. Just write my contractor a check for 20k at closing. Would you do that? And you're like, yeah, I guess as long as I still get my 80k. And I hope people are maybe kind of following these numbers here. So we have a strategy now for all of our students that by co living, we get the seller to pay for the rehab, and we're successful in probably 95% of the cases in doing that, even on the larger rehabs.

[Nick Loper]

Okay. So it's all the same to them. It's just a way to. To roll it into the financing, basically.

[Sam Weger]

That's exactly right.

[Nick Loper]

Got it. So now you're just paying monthly for that construction cost instead of paying that 20, 30 grand up front to move walls around.

[Sam Weger]

That's exactly right. Yeah. You're kind of wrapping it into your. Whatever your loan is, whatever interest rate your loan is. 6.5%, 7.5% is, in essence what you're paying, but it's, you know, it's going to be amortized over 30 years.

[Nick Loper]

Got it. More with Sam in just a moment, including what kind of neighborhoods to look.

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[Nick Loper]

And so if I'm firing up Redfin nearby, maybe not nearby because the housing is kind of crazy in this area, but I probably want to look for something without an hoa. Like does it have to be more like. No subdivision. It's got to be kind of standalone because just imagine the neighbors on the homeowners association started to be like, yeah, again, why do you have 10 cars out in front here?

[Sam Weger]

If I could give your listeners a little checklist, I would give them these, I'd give them these five things to look for. So number one, no hoa. Nick, you're right on the money.

[Nick Loper]

Which is probably a checkbox for a lot of people doing house shopping anyways for rentals.

[Sam Weger]

Yeah, you don't really want to be in an HOA for rentals. Yeah. So no HOA is big.

[Nick Loper]

Sure, sure.

[Sam Weger]

All my homes were initially in HOAS and I got sued by an HOA for like $365,000 over co living. And I was like, you know what guys? I was just thinking about selling that house. I kicked everybody out the next day. I sold that thing so fast. So it's like, why don't you. I don't want to deal with this. So no tway.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, it's not worth, not worth the fight. Okay.

[Sam Weger]

Second thing is we're going to call it neighborhood Fit. Neighborhood Fit is really simple. It's when you go through that neighborhood, does everybody's grass look perfectly mowed? Is there any street parking at all? Or is the. Is this a, Is this a. Everybody's got their white picket fence and it's Perfectly done neighborhood. If so, run. Going to another neighborhood, somebody's grass is a little bit long and it doesn't look like anybody cares. Somebody else is parking their work truck in their front yard. Somebody else is parking on the street, working on their car a little bit. It's a B minus. If you're into real estate, there's these terms they use, B minus, B plus neighborhood. But it's a, it's a working class neighborhood with homes a little further apart. Early 2000s, late 90s, you know, late 1900s, that's what you want.

[Nick Loper]

So my kids say, oh, the late 1900s, what was it like? Did you have, what did rich people drive in the 80s? A horse? It's like, come on people, we had cars.

[Sam Weger]

I just, that came out of my mouth and I was like, wait, did I say that right? Late 1900s. Okay, it is late 1900s neighborhood fit.

[Nick Loper]

Uh huh.

[Sam Weger]

Square footage, we already covered that. That would be number three. So just you're looking for a large home. I don't look at anything less. Nothing less than 2,000 square feet. Nothing less. I mean preferably 2,500 square feet or bigger. So that's key. The fourth thing you're going to be looking for is no pools or no amenities, right? You just want basic housing. You don't need a pool. So we do no pools. And then you're looking for what we call a commute's distance. A commute's distance means you are within a commute's distance. Now every city has a different definition of what a commute's distance is, but a commute distance to local employers that have a ton of employees that make between 15 to 20 to $25 an hour. So that could be Amazon warehouse. Airports have tens of thousands in any major city of those, you know, someone that makes that, that income range, Amazon distribution centers, all of that. You're looking for a commute distance.

[Nick Loper]

Okay?

[Sam Weger]

And then the last thing I would say is obviously the biggest one maybe is parking. If it doesn't have parking and you don't need 100% parking, if you have a nine bedroom home that you're going to convert to nine bedrooms, you don't need nine parking spots, you need six. The formula is 2/3, 2/3 the number of bedrooms to parking spots, you might say, well why is that possible? Why not 100? And the truth is like someone's taking the bus, someone's got a scooter, someone is at grandma's house. Some you have one room vacant, there's an ecosystem Someone works first shift, someone works third shift. So it's just you never have everybody there all the time, and only a certain percentage of the people have actually. Actually even have cars. Got it. If I could give one bonus one, it would be public transportation. If you're walking distance to public transportation, that's a huge plus for this type of a home.

[Nick Loper]

Okay, this is definitely a helpful list of criteria and then kind of on you to look at your different financing options and say, okay, net, net, it's going to be $5,000 a month in terms of my payment, my taxes, my insurance, my utilities. And then I got to go out and fill the house for 6,000amonth, and then I make my $1,000 in margin. Is that kind of the next phase.

[Sam Weger]

Of this, to underwrite it, you mean, just to kind of like understand what the numbers are going to be? Is that kind of what you're referring to?

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sam Weger]

I mean, there's a whole calculator.

[Nick Loper]

Do a comp with like, okay, a studio is $1,000 a month. So I'm going to be at 800 per bedroom. Or like, what's typical, 70 to 80%.

[Sam Weger]

Actually, you hit it. Whatever a studio price is, you're going to be 70 to 80% of that range for a room.

[Nick Loper]

Okay.

[Sam Weger]

Now that varies because, like, if you have a huge room or a private bath or something like, these things vary the price of a room. But you know, kind of as a general rule of thumb, you're going to be 70 to 80% of what a studio apartment will be go for.

[Nick Loper]

Are you primarily renting to single people, or do you have couples coming in, too?

[Sam Weger]

We recently just opened up to couples, actually. The home has to have enough parking for them. We prefer them to be in a room that has a private bath versus a shared bath. They pay a little bit extra, and they both have to be on the membership agreement. But yeah, we just. And that can work really well. So we do allow that. We don't allow any kids. There's liability around that. And then we only try to allow one couple per home. So it's not like couple, couple, you know, five couples in a home. It's right now our standard is one. Now we may open that up, we may allow two per home, but so far it's been working out well.

[Nick Loper]

Oh, this is one of, like our, like, mid-20s regrets or early-20s regrets. Like, we moved to California early career, we had a couple other sets of couple friends where it's like, we could have had such a better place if we pooled our resources, all lived under one roof and we probably had a much better time than all trying to scrape together rent for our own places. It's like, oh, I don't know, there's something to that. A friend of mine speaks really highly of this entrepreneur house, the hacker house that they had like in San Diego. It's like, oh, we have four or five dudes in one bedroom, or not one bedroom, but in this house. We brought in this chef every week who would make us power smoothies and we'd just be hacking away at our laptops. That actually sounds perfect for early 20s. I want to go build something. So I could see how this would appeal to really different niches. There's the service worker community, but there could be student housing. Maybe that brings up another issue. It could be assisted living.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

Maybe.

[Nick Loper]

I don't know if you want to play in that area, but it could be the sober living house. Like there's different models underneath this co living umbrella.

[Sam Weger]

There definitely are. I've got a buddy who has kind of an entrepreneur house in Phoenix. He's got three of them. And yeah, I mean to even join you've got to fill out like a six page application. They're doing cold plunges every morning at 5am I looked at that, I was like, dude, I don't even. I'm a pretty intense entrepreneur, but that is like more intense for me. So he has a little harder time filling it, but he gets a vibe. I mean these people pay extra, they stay. They've got this amazing community. So you absolutely can create that.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, it's like your own like personal like mastermind group built in.

[Sam Weger]

That's what he does. He does like masterminds in the evenings. Like it's pretty badass. I think to scale this to multiple, multiple, multiple homes in one market. I think it's good to go after what I think is the largest population that needs this and that's workforce. It's. But it's the lower income workforce and I think that's how you'll fill your home fastest. But you mentioned all those niches. You got nursing professionals. One of my students recently just opened one for veterans only. So like that's kind of cool. You mentioned the sober living houses. That's kind of a different niche for sure.

[Nick Loper]

Okay.

[Sam Weger]

I'm trying to think of what assisted living, assisted living in these homes can be, you know, with some sort of around the clock care. It's sort of a still a co living kind of model where you've got five, six Seven, eight people that are elderly that are in a home. So many ways to kind of tackle this strategy.

[Nick Loper]

Where do you go next in terms of marketing the home to fill it with tenants or maybe even before that, like prepping it with, you know, great staging photos or like, I don't know what else goes into it to make it market ready.

[Sam Weger]

You know, we only furnish the common areas. When I first started to come up with this concept, and obviously sharing homes has been around for as long as people have existed. So it's not like I invented the concept of living together, but I was definitely around, at least in the United States, when it was starting to gain traction and people were like, co what? Living together with who? And still that's the reaction we get. But I mean, it's definitely more acceptable now. This was. I bought my first home 14 years ago, so it's like first co living home. So when I was there, people, it wasn't really a thing. And somebody reached out to me from Berlin and he said, he kind of, he said, sam, in the United States, he goes, in Europe, we already all live this way. Yeah, they're very common. We have building codes that are specifically for coloring. He goes, but in America, he goes, I trust me, he goes, mark my words, the room will become the new apartment. And I just thought that was such a cool way of saying it, like, that's the way we go. So I want people to move all their own stuff into their own room. I don't want to have it furnished and it feel like a hotel or an Airbnb. So we only furnish the common areas and then the rooms. And obviously, yes, staging that common area really well. Fully furnished kitchen, getting good photos, and then just blasting it out on all the places that you can list. A room for rent is the next step if you want to fill this thing, right? There are so many places now that this is gaining popularity. There's so many places that you can list. You can list. Zillow just created a spot specifically for room for rent. Roomies. Roomster, Facebook Marketplace is a good place. Believe it or not, Craigslist is still a good place. And now there are other big tech companies that will allow you to, you know, place your home on their platform, similar to like what you could do with Airbnb, you know, so there's one called Pad Split, there's one called Common, there's one called Homeroom. You can, you can kind of place your and get leads that way. So yeah, then you get out and it's just Kind of like you rent anything else. You want to vet those people really well. You want to make sure they're a good fit for your community. You want to make sure they've got the income. Just think of you're renting anything out. You want to make sure that person that rented out is going to stay for a while, is going to pay the rent and it's going to not cause problems in that home.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah. And you just look for like 3x income to rent or, you know, any other must check this box and you know, red flags to avoid.

[Sam Weger]

I mean, obviously some of the obvious stuff is like, we'll do a background check and they can't have any violent history. We'll do an eviction check. They can't not have any evictions in the last five years. Maybe we look seven years, I forget, you know, you're going to do a vibe check. All of our members right now, we still meet in person to show them the home. We just ask them, we do a little interview of them. What's a day in the life of? Have you ever lived in co living? So we'd love for them to have had some shared living experience because they're going to be sharing space and it's nice for them to have that. You can call their previous places that they lived and just get that. If you really want to go deep the references of their previous landlords. Hey, how were they as a member? Did you kick them out or did they leave? You know, kind of thing. So we'll do that. What are the red flags do we have on people? I mean, someone who's just rude or kind of combative. If you have a very, very type A personality sometimes. That doesn't always go well with co living because, like, we like the homes where like people like work.

[Nick Loper]

Okay.

[Sam Weger]

We look for two and a half times revenue, actually. I mean, we'll do 3x is great, but we'll look for sometimes even two or two and a half times. I mean, sometimes you're dealing with people that are making 15 bucks an hour and they need a place to live. And so $700 a month or 750 or 800 is significant. Or maybe they're on a fixed income, Social Security, they're on disability sometimes that too.

[Nick Loper]

Okay. You mentioned furnishing the common areas. Are you also doing the Airbnb thing of like, well, here's 10 plates and 10 cups and 10 sets of silverware. Like you doing kitchen stuff too? Or it's like everybody brings their own.

[Sam Weger]

We used to let people bring a lot of their own stuff, even though we would furnish it based. But what happens is the common area just ends up becoming a dump. Someone's like, I got a couch. Can I bring it? And so now the rule is absolutely zero items in your personal space. We'll give you a labeled cabinet that's like room one, room two, room three, whatever. We'll give you a labeled shelf in the fridge and a labeled shelf in the freezer.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

Okay.

[Sam Weger]

And we have a new refrigerator for every six people. So one refrigerator fits six people. That gives us six shelves in the fridge, six shelves on the door. And then same with the freezer. Right. Side by side is usually better than over under for this type of arrangement. And so, yeah, that's. You give them that. That's where your personal space. Otherwise, wait, can I put my shoes at the door? Absolutely not. And we have cleaners that come in, professional cleaners that clean the common space once or twice a month. And if they see some personal items, they put it in a box. If it's still there, they throw it away. And the next time they come, if it's still there, because you want to walk in that home and it to be clean it to smell good, you don't want people leaving their stuff everywhere. So you got to kind of hold to a real fast rule there, or else it can get out of hand really quickly. And then when you go to show an empty room, they're like, I don't want to live in a dirty house. Like, you need to look good, right?

[Nick Loper]

Yeah. Have it well presented and make sure everybody's abiding by those rules. Kind of picturing like Harry Potter, like the Gryffindor common room. Do you find people hanging out, like, in the living room, and it's like, oh, we have a crackling fire or watching the game and we're hanging out. Like, that would be like. Like one end of the spectrum. Hey, we're all friends. We just, you know, you know, we were strangers, but then we met and now we're hanging out and it's like. Or is it like introvert city? Like everybody just going, head down. I'm going back to my room now. Yeah.

[Sam Weger]

I think the truth is the common areas get used less than we would prefer. We'd love the crackling fire to be the vibe.

[Nick Loper]

Okay.

[Sam Weger]

And there are some homes that that is the vibe. They do a barbecue every Friday. They get together, they watch Wrestlemania in the living room together. I mean, there is that happening. I lived in co living homes for 13 and a half years. So, like, I, you know, and my housemate, I remember the day he pulled me aside and I knew him pretty well. He was like, hey, remember the party you hosted for the housemates I met and the girl that came over, we're getting married. Like, he had developing this relationship. He's like, we want you to marry us. Cause we met at the party that you held for that. It's like, I was like, I go, I get my, you know, I get ordained online. I'm like, heck, yeah, I'm gonna be a pastor and marry this couple, you know? So, like, that's an extreme version of, like, it can. That stuff can happen. And I'm still in touch with them to this day. Like, that was 10 years ago, 11 years ago, 12 years.

[Nick Loper]

But on the other hand, there's people dealing with people, and there's going to be, hey, you stole my peanut butter. Or like, there's got to be drama. Like, what kind of stories do you have on that side?

[Sam Weger]

Yeah, I'll give you a horror story if you really want a horror story.

[Nick Loper]

We'll be back with Sam right after a quick word from our sponsors.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

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[Sam Weger]

Because I want people to look at this strategy realistically. Now, I will say this before I tell the horror stories. 98% of the horror stories can be avoided if you let in the right people. But letting in the right people is a skill you develop over time. So you get it wrong a decent amount and then you got to kick people out, which is something else. The membership agreement's up with.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, well, I mean, imagine even. Well, now you're on the hook for your $5,000 a month payment. You're like, I got to fill these rooms because if they're not filled, I'm losing money. And so, like, yeah, I can see how you'd be like, I'm going to accept this tenant that I otherwise maybe wouldn't and hope they work out.

[Sam Weger]

In my first call of man, I just did that exact thing. I let this guy in. I raised the rent 100 bucks. And he was the first guy to say he could pay it. I was like, he could pay it. He's in, right? So I let him in. I didn't do a background check, didn't have agreements. And this guy ended up being this guy that would knock on my door at like 2am in the morning. I was living in the house at this time. And he'd be like, sam. And he would just say the weirdest stuff. You know, your vice is gonna kill you. Just like, like, he was like being a preacher at my door at 2am it's just the weirdest, weirdest vibe. I was like, I gotta get this guy out of my house.

[Nick Loper]

Trying to get into your head.

[Sam Weger]

He was trying to get in my head. He was like, I know what you Do. I was like, oh, my gosh, this guy's creepy as heck.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

But then other.

[Sam Weger]

I mean, you'll get other situations. All of our homes are co ed, so like, you might get three or four girls that don't like one of the guys in the home and then make up a story about him. We got, you know, three or four girls got together and didn't like this dude. And they made up a story that he grabbed a knife and, like, came after them. And we were like, really? He grabbed a knife? Or was he just, like, cutting the cucumber in the kitchen when he was making his dinner? Like, so in those situations, sometimes you have to make a call. You've got to go, okay, do I kick all four girls out? Do I kick the guy out? Because otherwise you just create dissonance in the home. So that's one example. That's one story. Another story might be simple. Like, John ate my peanut butter. I had a whole thing of cinnamon rolls, and he ate them all.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, yeah. Just. I mean, it's. I mean, the office fridge, except even tighter quarters. You know, it's like, hey, who's. Who took my sandwich?

[Sam Weger]

Totally. That's why. That's why we now put cameras in the common areas. We have cameras recording 24 7. We can see what's going on. We can go back. We can solve some of those issues. A lot of this stuff is solved with good systems in place. You'll get stupid stuff, like people parking in front of neighbors. Like, that's. We had recently an issue where someone, like, brought a SEM semi truck. Like, he drove a semi truck and he parked it in the neighborhood, but he blocked off, like, the other neighbor's driveway so they couldn't get in. And they were pissed and they called the city. So, like, we had to deal with that. And we're like, dude, you can't bring your semi truck home. Like, you need to go park that somewhere else. This is not a semi truck neighborhood. So now we have rules around that. And, you know, you'll get people flushing weird stuff. So now we put in rules where, like, we can charge them if we can. They flushed stuff they shouldn't have flushed and the sewer backed up. Now we can charge that to the home. Like, it's kind of been an iteration of just like, okay, bitcoin mining. Like, someone bitcoin mined in the home. Like, you know how much electricity that takes? Because you're the one paying for the electricity.

[Nick Loper]

Oh, yeah. They're like, hey, utilities included. Let's go.

[Sam Weger]

So you're like, hey, dude, like, sorry, no new rule to the house rules.

[Nick Loper]

No bitcoin mining within reason.

[Sam Weger]

You know, like stupid stuff like that.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, yeah. Building the manual as issues come up.

[Sam Weger]

That's exactly right. So those are some of the stories you got to kind of be aware of. And have good house rules on the front end so people know you will get kicked out immediately if you break these. No weapons. Some dude just brought a loaded like Glock and just like forgot that he left it on the couch. So one of the other people in the home who was like deathly afraid of guns found it and was just like freaking out. Like, what do I do? There's a guard in our house. We were like, no weapons. If you're a police officer, keep it in your car. Just little things like that that get annoying. I mean, every once in a while you'll just get someone that's like, I don't like John. And you're just like, cool, just avoid them. But like, we give everybody one free transfer. If it's a really big issue, we'll just be like, cool, we'll transfer another house completely free. If it's like, there's a bunch, there's tension.

[Nick Loper]

Is it typical to sign people up for like a 12 month term?

[Sam Weger]

Yeah, a year? Yeah. 12 month term.

[Nick Loper]

Okay. Do you find like, is it typical to have a pretty good renewal rate or do you find people kind of graduating out as they level up in their career and stuff?

[Sam Weger]

There definitely can be some turnover, but I mean, right now 40% of our members have been in over three years, with some people as long as four and some people as long as five. Five years. So it's home.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

Yeah.

[Nick Loper]

It's kind of the dream as a landlord is to minimize turnover and minimize vacancy.

[Sam Weger]

Yeah, well, there can be more turnover in an environment like this than say if they're renting their own place or they're renting a whole house themselves. So we're launching this initiative where if they stay past a year, they actually make a little bit of money. Like we actually have, we actually pay them to stay, basically.

[Nick Loper]

Oh, we're going to try it.

[Sam Weger]

We're going to see. It might be 10 bucks a month, but like, and then every six months they get a check or whatever because to these people, 60 bucks, 50 bucks, 100 bucks, make 50 bucks an hour. That's, that's not nothing. And so we're going to launch a little like, be a good member initiative and stay past your initial term.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, like a loyalty punch card.

[Sam Weger]

You Know exactly. That's exactly what we're trying. Yeah, I'll let you know how it goes. Let's circle back around in a year or two.

[Nick Loper]

Sure. So started out living in the house yourself. Hey, I'm going to rent out the other rooms, I'm going to live in this one house. Hacking and then eventually leveled up and you're doing it locally and so you're still able to kind of manage but now you're overseas and still managing the portfolio. And I thought I saw you, you also have a management company and so it's like all kind of hands off at this point. And so this is kind of where it can go down the road as you build up this portfolio of assets, this recurring cash flow and, and have it be hands off.

[Sam Weger]

Yeah. And it doesn't even mean that you have to build your own property management company. There now are property management companies that if you say look, I've got a nine bedroom, ten bedroom co living home, I mean there was none of these by the way, when I first started I'd go to people and be like, would you manage my four bedroom home? And they were like four different bedrooms. I was like, yeah. They're like, yeah. No. And I was like, dang. So I built my own company out of necessity and now it's big and now it's got a whole team and it's a bunch of, you know, it's got a big payroll and but it's. Now it's a company that managed it for me, all my properties and everyone else's. So you don't have to do that if you have the right connections now you can just. There's companies out there will manage your one home manager, two homes and they'll do a good job. Well, my company is one of those now I only manage for my students right now just because there's so many people that want us to manage and I want to, I don't want to like expand it to some global or nationwide company. But that's an option. Yeah, it's easier to do now than ever.

[Nick Loper]

Okay. And that's like 10, 12% of the.

[Sam Weger]

Rent roll or 15% probably is typical for co living. Typical property manages 15%. If you're lower than that, if someone's doing it lower than that, they either a don't know what they're doing or they're just going to be bad. It's just, and that's just that, that's just the truth. Every once in a while you get a property manager that wants to quote unquote, get in the space and they'll be like, we'll do it for 10%. You're like three months later, they're like, yeah, this is more work than we thought it would be. This is not that. So yeah, you're looking at 15% to 20% for someone to manage a co living home. Well, that has more than six or seven or eight people in it for them to handle member concerns, maintenance, filling, lease up agreements for them to handle the whole gamut. That's standard for the industry. Typical for the industry.

[Nick Loper]

Okay. And there are more and more companies doing that these days than there were just because it's become more of a. More of a thing.

[Sam Weger]

It is. And it's difficult. There's nuances to it. It's not that it's so much difficult as much as it is just that like if you don't know what you're getting into, things just blindside you and surprise you, you know. So you've got to have the right things in place to kind of do it correctly. But yeah, I didn't have all that when I first started. I just started renting out rooms in my current home. So it's like you can start anywhere. But if you're going to do a 10 bedroom home and you're not going to live there, there's some systems you need to have in place for that thing to run really smoothly.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, yeah. Any good blindside stories, mistakes, surprises that are safe to share other than the.

[Sam Weger]

Guy picking up the knife? Let's see. I would not manage myself unless I just loved management. So I think I would try to find the best person to hand that off to. And again, I couldn't do that because there weren't people to do that for me. So I had to build my own company and had to do a lot of it myself. You know, only now in the last three, four years am I able to be completely hands off and live in Colombia and have it all taken care of. But that wasn't first eight years I was very involved. Even last couple of years I was involved in that company, helping rebuild it because we fired our property manager and had to get a whole new team. But like, there's weird things that happen in co living that just don't always happen. You know, someone's waking up in the middle of the night screaming like that's a big deal in co living. Someone's doing that in a single family home in the middle of nowhere, like nobody cares. Scream all you want on your single Family home that they rented from you. It's not hurting the home, but that's a big deal. If someone's. Okay, I'll tell you a funny one. This is a good ending. My team reaches out to me. This is recently. This is like, literally in the last three weeks, Sam. Okay? Like, someone's been shooting up heroin in the bathroom. There's blood everywhere. There's blood on the shower. There's blood on the thing. And, like, you know, like, when. When you send a cleaner in to deal with blood, you can't just send any cleaner in. You got to deal with, like, the guys, they got to come in in the hazmat suits and this. So it's like $8,000 to clean up blood, right? And they're like, we're kicking this guy out immediately. We're getting the hazmat guys in there. I was like, guys, how much is that guy to cost? I don't hear anything from my team. And I just gave him the thumbs up. I was like, do whatever you got to do. Get this freaking guy out of there. What the heck? He hit a vein. He was shooting up. Okay, I'm on the next meeting with them, like, a week later. I'm like, guys, whatever happened to the room? They were like, oh, we forgot to tell you. I'm like, yeah, what happened? They said it was just hair dye. He spilled some hair dye that was red. That looked like blood. I was like, you guys didn't think to, like, tell me that? I was thinking about this all week. They're like, yeah, the cleaner actually just, like, charged you 150 bucks, and it was good. So there's a good story, but, like, you gotta deal with that stuff, right? And you gotta deal with that.

[Nick Loper]

I hope it really was hair dye.

[Sam Weger]

It really was. It really, truly was hair dye. Like, that was actually how the story went down. It was hair dye. They didn't have to. No Hazmat suit, guys, whatever. And we actually let the guy stay because we weren't able to get ahold of them. We just made this big assumption. So the cash flow can be insane. I mean, literally, I feel like I need to say this now that I've told some of these horror stories. Like, literally, you could have three homes, and you could replace a W2. That's less than 100 grand, right? You can have a home that's producing to 2500 2K a month. If it's run, that's with paying property management. Now, if you're taking the 15% and you're managing it yourself, you're taking the 15 or 20%, you're managing yourself, boom, one or two. So you can get there in a really cool way. Is there nuances? Yes. Is it hard? Yes. Is there some of these challenges? Yes. Do you have a lot of systems in place for this? Yeah, but those are some. I don't normally tell this many horror stories on a, on a podcast that I'm introducing people to.

[Nick Loper]

I think it's really important to showcase both sides, right? Like, yes, there's money to be made here, plus all the benefits. We didn't even talk about, like, of owning real estate and taxes and depreciation, all of that stuff. And look, you can replace your income with three properties versus, well, if I'm making 100, 250amonth from a single family rental, like, I'm going to need dozens of these things to get to the same level. So different levels of complexity. Like, you're dealing with more people, more people, more issues. And so it's like putting the systems in place to put some guardrails around that I think that makes sense. And I appreciate the transparency and like, look, it can be really great, but don't expect it to be, you know, rainbows and unicorns 100% of the time.

[Sam Weger]

And can I talk just for a second about the mission of it too? Because I think that's important for people to walk away from this podcast.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, go for it.

[Sam Weger]

600,000 people will be homeless in America tonight. I'm not saying all of that is due to affordability, but that's a freak ton of people in America. A lot of that is. Some of that is due to affordability for sure. There's mental health. There's some other issues, right? Obviously there's. We are 7.3 million affordable housing units short in America. We are not building. People are saddled up with more debt than ever before. They're spending a greater percentage of their income on housing, which means that their quality of life decreases. So I lived in co living when I made 100 grand in my business because I wanted to, like, go live a great life. I wanted to go buy gifts for my family and travel. I didn't want to spend 50% of my income or 30, 40% of my income on housing. So the mission behind this is you're providing, if you become a co living investor, you're providing a housing option for people that is cheaper than the cheapest thing. So therefore, you are an inventor of cheaper price points. You literally are an inventor. You're putting something on the market that did not previously exist. And you're hopefully doing it in a way where it's clean and it's quiet and it's safe. And so that is why cities love us. That is why not, not all cities understand us, but once they do understand us, they love us. Right. And so this is a really big key to solving affordable housing. And the last thing I'll just say is the Surgeon General of America can came out and said that social isolation, the effects of social isolation on our culture today are equal to the smoking 15 cigarettes a day. That's the health effects of what happens when someone feels isolated and socially. And so when you bring people together in an environment, yes, there can be conflict, but you also are bringing people back into community. But we're bringing back the shared economy, which I think has a lot of benefits. And so I love that, that honestly has kept me going when this has gotten hard is I want to do something good with my money. I want to, of course, I want to create a great return. I want to impact the world. I love to be a part of businesses that I feel like are making a difference to those underserved. And this is, this isn't luxury apartments, which they're building tens of thousands of luxury apartments in Charlotte because that's what makes money. I'm serving, I'm serving a population that really, truly needs it. And that to me is heartwarming. In addition to the money.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah. Take existing housing stock and turn it into more units. And I think that makes a lot of sense. How can people find an affordable, safe, clean place to live? Well, you've got the Scale, your co living real estate podcast. You've got scaleyourrealestate.com check out the free five day co living training over there. Sam, what's got you fired up this year? What's next?

[Sam Weger]

We're going to keep buying more co living homes. We're going to double down on the education of this and getting the word out. So I really appreciate Nick, the opportunity to share this because we're going to, we're going to share the word with people that this is a way they can create income and it's a way they can change the world and really do something good for the world, good for America.

[Nick Loper]

Well, very good. Check Sam out. We'll link up his resources in the show notes. Let's wrap this thing up with your number one tip for side Hustle Nation.

[Sam Weger]

When I was looking into doing things outside of my business, it was so overwhelming with the options. Right. I Could do this, I could do this, I could do this. You're listening to this. Code Living sounds good. I'm listening to the next podcast that Nick does. This sounds good. I think at some point you need to lock yourself in a room for as long as it takes and just say, which one am I gonna go all in on? And then once you go all in on one, you just put in your blinders, you kind of stop listening that you like. Literally, when I went all in on co Living, I'd go to these Mastermind events and people would be talking about Airbnb and storage facilities and this. And I was just like, sam, no, no, I'm doing this until it succeeds or it fails. And then I will switch to something else. Right? And I think so I think that that blinder, like choose and then blinders choose and then stop listening to all the other noise is really what supported me. So if someone is listening to this and they're like, this seems like something I'd like to choose. We do do a free event. It's at www.scaleyourrealestate.com. it's a five day challenge. It is truly, totally free. There's no, you don't even have to buy anything. It's I'm live. I do about 10 hours of training on co living and by the end of that, you could have everything you need to literally just jump into a co living home. And so if you want to get.

[Nick Loper]

On the waiting list, it's scaleyourealestate.com scaleyourrealestate.com Very good. We'll link it up. Choose and then blinders. I think that's very important because I'm the person who at once have done pretty well. It's staying in my lane. Look, I'm going to produce this show. I'm going to do it for a decade. But it's really dangerous because every time I talk to people like yourself, it's like, oh, shoot, why don't I do that? Or how come I don't have a vending machine route? Or did you know you can make money doing this and it's dangerous from that perspective? But I like this call to pick the thing, go do the thing. There's a million different paths you can go and at a certain point you just got to decide anyways, if you're into real estate as a side hustle. Speaking of different paths, you know, it comes in a bunch of different flavors. We talked co Living today. We've covered a lot of other ones on the show, including land investing and Airbnb co hosting and creative financing and rental arbitrage house hacking. All that stuff. So I put together a real estate playlist of those side Hustle show episodes. You can grab that for free in the show notes for [e-mail] coliving or just follow the show notes link in the episode description. It'll get you right over there. But that's your real estate themed side Hustle show playlist. Really cool collection of strategies to go build some extra income. A big thanks to Sam for sharing his insight. Thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone. Side hustlenation.com deals is where to go to find all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place. Thank you for supporting the advertisers that support the show. That really does make a difference. But that is it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you're finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend. Fire off that text message. Hey, did you know about this? Have you heard about this? That's a big help as well. Until next time, let's go out there and make something happen and I'll catch you in the next edition of the side Hustle Show. Hustle on the.