Within two years after starting, Zeona Mcintyre found herself living off of the income from running just a few Airbnbs. Then she had to make a decision…
Zeona grew up in Hawaii and worked as a tour guide for awhile. Then she moved to Boulder Colorado to study massage. Zeona heard about this new thing called Airbnb and became interested. When a roommate moved out in 2012, she thought that she would try Airbnb on the spare room. Her tour guiding experience made it kind of a natural fit. It worked so well that Zeona started renting out her room as well. If both rooms rented she would clear out and trade a friend a massage in exchange for their spare room or couch. Then she rented another apartment just to Airbnb it. Her previous work did not bring in huge pay checks and so Zeona was comfortable living on little income. She would clean the places herself and the income was far in excess of her rent. By 2014, Zeona knew the Airbnb market well. She bought her first place and hit a threshold where she was able to live off of just a portion of this rental income alone. She was even able to pay off $50K in student loans along the way. In a rather condensed timeframe she had hit financial independence.
Financial Independence! Now What?
“There was 2 years after I hit my FI number that I was just kind of retired.” Zeona explains that she was doing just the bare minimum to manage her life. 5-8 hours per week to keep the properties going and she had a lot of free time to cook and bike and hang out with friends. One friend advised her that she is young and has a huge opportunity with something that works. Why not grow it?
Growing an Airbnb Empire
Over the next 5 years Zeona bought an average of one home per year. She used leverage to increase cashflow. She also started managing other people’s Airbnbs for them. Today she owns 6 properties and manages 20. It is an empire of sorts.
From Money To Mission
“It’s not all about making money. You know, I am kind of past that in a way.”
Zeona is a blogger and the story above is what she is widely known for. It is an amazing story about financial transition. However, a question that I am very interested in is what happens then? How does this journey change your life? What does a really kind and thoughtful person like Zeona focus on after hitting the financial equivalent of a grand slam?
Zeona has most recently been dedicating herself to a variety of efforts. In her own words “Some of the stuff doesn’t seem like it fits that well, but then the blog is still mine and my life.” She continues that it’s nice to have a discussion that acknowledges “…yeah you are a person and you have other interests. It’s not all about making money. You know, I am kind of past that in a way.”
More Than An Airbnb Superstar
When we start our talk Zeona has just returned from “pouring” with a couple friends. She practices a form of Taiwanese tea ceremony. She appreciates it as a consciousness practice. It is one of her many interests that all seem to involve community and a pull toward being an agent of good in the world.
Zero Waste
Zeona was recently talking with a friend who mentioned being “zero waste”. This friend went on to explain that she creates just one small jar of trash a year. It hit Zeona at an interesting time because she had been frustrated by the amount of trash that her and her partner had been creating and had been asking questions about her own impact on environmental sustainability. She now calls this her “geek project.” Her and her boyfriend have reduced their trash by over 90% as a sort of awareness exercise in consumption. As we talk, Zeona brings up the challenge of inspiring curiosity and sharing tips on this topic while also not sounding judge-y or creating guilt in others and yourself. We all want to improve and at the same time “…we have to figure out how to live in the world still.”
Freedom and Prison
Zeona has been volunteering with an authentic relating group in prisons. It is centered around understanding communication, managing conflict, and actively listening to more deeply connect with yourself and connect with other people. As she talks about this, Zeona points out how many problems in the world are actually rooted in conflict from poor communication and poor understanding. Applying this in prisons has been a powerful example for her in understanding how bad things happen in the world and how good and beautiful people can end up locked away. It is an interesting examination for Zeona working with the incarcerated since she explained that a huge value in her life has been freedom. This is why she got into early retirement is so she could feel more free.
A Pivotal Moment In Her Life
During our discussion, Zeona pauses and reflects back on when she had first reached her financial independence and was semi-retired in 2014. Her friend was encouraging her to seize the opportunity and scale it into a larger business. At that point she had to make a decision.
“I think back to that moment a lot now and I wonder if that was the right choice because I have created something now that doesn’t need all of my time but it needs a lot more of my time. I don’t know if that’s what I want exactly.” So much of it was about money. Zeona explains that there was a time she thought that money would be safety. Growing up, she had seen her parents struggle with money and wanted to do something different.
Today, Zeona describes a change of focus. “I think for a long time I was very money focused because there was a goal to get to. Now when people talk to me about money it’s not as interesting because more is nice but it doesn’t really make sense at a certain point. It doesn’t change my life that much.” Early on for example she wanted to be able to eat out a lot. Now she prefers cooking at home more frequently. Especially in light of her recent sustainability focus, Zeona doesn’t have use for more money all that often. “We just don’t think about it that much. That is not what drives me.” It puts her in a strange spot as a real estate personality.
Creating a Mission
Zeona is preparing for an upcoming presentation at a real estate investment conference and she can just tell by the conference materials what the overall vibe is going to be. The conference is about building giant real estate portfolios with a singular focus around making money. Zeona does have a genuine love of properties and hospitality that comes through when she talks about it. However, today it may be more love of the game than about money. She describes friends who came up with her and they both hit 20 properties together. Then those friends pulled away and are now at 60 properties or more. How much more could I be if I did not stand in my own way? “It is easy to get caught up,” she explains. However, it is not what Zeona wants. She has graduated beyond a mindset of scarcity and money as security perhaps to the beginnings of a mission to make her business work for her rather than throw off as much cash as possible.
Zeona talks about focusing on quality over quantity and more balance in her life. She is particular about clients that she is taking on shifting toward taking on only premium properties with owners that she can work well with. She is thinking about ways to optimize and simplify to make her process more enjoyable for her as opposed to more profitable. This might involve more hands on interaction with guests and a more direct attachment to the experiences that her properties are creating for others. Zeona even mentions being willing to go back to cleaning properties occasionally or being involved in a small town rental where there is a sense of community. There is a sentiment to give back to the community that has given her so much.
Financial Independence Airbnb Style
Zeona points out that her financial independence did not come from the traditional path of piling up savings in an investment account of broadly diversified index funds and then living off of the dividends under the 4% rule. She never experienced that because she kept constantly re-investing everything in additional properties. Her net worth is tied up in leveraged properties and income. It is an interesting Airbnb phenomenon. Zeona explains that with traditional real estate investing, it may take 10-15 properties to replace one’s income. However, an Airbnb can make $4-5K per month off of just one place. Zeona has a friend who simply Airbnb’d her own place and then moved to Thailand. She was effectively “retired” living on a portion of that income. Zeona describes how in the short term rental world a sort of forced adjustment to financial independence thinking happened really quickly for some who rode the Airbnb wave during the booming growth.
How To Live Life After Financial Independence
When you graduate from college, everything that you had been working for is done and there is this transition where you wonder what the hell you are going to do next, explains Zeona. Financial independence is similar. What do you work for now? You no longer have any excuses as to why your life is not what you want it to be.
7 Years ago Zeona viewed money and working toward financial independence as safety for herself. Today she is thinking about community and about balance in her life. She spent over half of a decade building a profitable business. Today her thoughts turn to how to best wield it to serve both herself and others.
Today, Zeona is able to run her business from almost anywhere with a laptop and a cell phone. Because of this she is often on the move undertaking some interesting adventures in life and finance. Stop in and say hi or follow along at: ZeonaMcintyre.com.
This is #2 in a series where I talk with others living personalized and intentional Lives that look very different from the norm. Check out more conversations from living outside the maze here.
