Episodes

Most hotel owners think the only way to reduce OTA dependency is to throw more money at Facebook ads or hire expensive marketing agencies. But the real solution isn't more budget, it's leveraging what you already have: authen...

Most first-time motel buyers don't lose money on the purchase price. They lose it by underestimating CapEx, guessing on underwriting, and assuming they can "market" their way to higher occupancy. That's how people get smoked. In this episode, you'll learn a simple, real-world way to sanity-check a …

Think you need hotel operations experience to invest in boutique hotels? That belief may be the only thing standing between you and building serious commercial real estate wealth. In this episode, you'll discover how a Gulfst...

Most first-time hotel syndicators are already breaking the rules; they just don't know it yet. If you've ever taken money from friends and family without the right structure, you may have accidentally sold securities. And if you're paying someone just to raise capital? That's another violation wait…

Stop treating your front desk like an expense; it's costing you hundreds of thousands in property value. The biggest mistake boutique hotel owners make isn't about the property itself. It's ignoring the untapped revenue sitting right at your check-in counter. In this episode, you'll discover how to…

Why do so many people dream about buying a hotel but never actually close one? In this episode, Michael sits down with Brian Resendez, CEO of SVN Northwest Hotel Advisors. Brian has been involved in hundreds of hotel transactions across the Pacific Northwest and brings rare insight into what separa…

Boutique hotel investors often lose money in the same place: they renovate what’s visible, and ignore what actually drives guest behavior. In this episode, we talk about design as a business tool, not a decoration budget. The...

Is now a terrible time to buy a hotel, or the best buying window you will get this decade? In this episode, Michael sits down with Suraj Bhakta, CEO of NewGen Advisory, a national hotel brokerage that has closed deals in 44 states. Suraj explains what he is actually seeing in today’s market, from t…

Most boutique hotel investors are running lean. No analyst team. No data department. No six-figure tech budget. Yet the demands of buying and operating hotels keep getting heavier. In this episode, I sit down with Jake Heller...

Turning an international hospitality dream into reality sounds exciting, until you’re standing on a swampy patch of land in Belize, wondering how many years it will take to shape it into something guests will love. That’s whe...

Ever wonder why some first-time hotel buyers close deals while others keep getting stuck? This week on the Hotel Investor Playbook, Michael Russell sits down with Hunter Johnson, President of Investment Sales at US Hotel Advisors, who has worked on transactions from boutique mom-and-pops to $80M ho…

Want to know what it’s like to go from short-term rentals to owning boutique hotels while still maintaining a healthy relationship? This week on the Hotel Investor Playbook, Michael Russell sits down with Mitch and Katie Ehly...

Looking for hotel technology that can actually increase profit and reduce expenses without hiring an IT department? This week on the Hotel Investor Playbook, Michael Russell sits down with Sue Graves, founder of Experience Al...

Ever dreamed of quitting your six-figure job to build real wealth through hotels? This episode shows you what it actually takes. Tim Ensmann, founder of the T.C. Hotel Fund, shares how he went from tech sales to owning a mult...

Ever wonder where the money actually goes in a hotel deal? In this episode, Michael Russell breaks down real estate syndications in plain English. How investors and operators really get paid, what fees are fair, and how to structure deals that build long-term trust. Whether you’re looking to raise …

When most people say they want to buy a hotel, it’s just talk. Jacobo Hernandez sold his entire $10M short-term rental portfolio, packed his car, and hit the road for 90 days to find one. He toured 35 hotels, underwrote 2,000 deals, and slept in random motels across the U.S. before discovering a hi…

We’ve all dreamt of quitting our bland corporate jobs to buy a hotel in Costa Rica… well, today’s guest did that. After leaving a private equity career in San Francisco, Bill Graf traded suits for surf towns and founded Onda,...

The hotel industry is changing: costs are rising, AI is here, and investors are getting more selective. This week on the Hotel Investor Playbook, we sat down with Bob Rauch, better known as The Hotel Guru. From starting out as a dishwasher to building and selling a 20-hotel management company, then…

Where is the hotel market headed in 2026, and how can investors succeed in a challenging environment? This week on the Hotel Investor Playbook, we sat down with Jan Freitag, National Director of Hospitality Analytics at CoStar. With over 30 years of experience analyzing hotel performance data, Jan …

The most powerful part of a hotel stay isn’t the design or the amenities, it’s the feeling guests take home. That’s the philosophy of Bashar Wali, one of the most candid and creative voices in hospitality, who's spent 30+ yea...

How do you turn a struggling hotel into a profitable asset? This week on the Hotel Investor Playbook, we sit down with Naveed Khan, co-founder of London Rock Partners, a hotel management and advisory firm that oversees everything from branded hotels like Holiday Inn to boutique independents and eve…

Few people have left a mark on hospitality like Richard Kessler. He started his hospitality career by helping scale Days Inn into a household name as the early CEO Then he founded the Kessler Collection, one of the leading boutique hotel portfolios in the U.S., which ultimately helped launch Marrio…

What if your first hotel deal could be funded almost entirely through Instagram? This week’s guest, Soli Cayetano AKA lattes.and.leases on Instagram, went from barista to building a $13M real estate portfolio in just four years. After exiting her residential investing business, she turned to hospit…

What happens when you buy a piece of land on a hunch and decide to build something that could last a thousand years? This week’s guest, Brandon Gore, has one of the most unique paths into boutique hospitality we’ve ever heard...