A 32-year-old turned her side hustle into a multi-million dollar rental empire. It all started when she made a deal to list and rent her neighbor's barn on Airbnb Inc (NYSE: ABNB).
Building The Business: According to a CNBC report, Jamie Inlow's vacation rental business "Be Still Getaways" runs 119 properties in Virginia that brought it $2.28 million on Airbnb and another $600,000 on other platforms in 2022.
The idea for the business sprung from the success of a deal she struck while touring her neighbor's property. When the neighbor showed Inlow the unfurnished apartment space the previous owners had left in the upstairs section of his backyard barn, she was immediately intrigued.
She came up with a business plan and told her neighbor that if he gave her $2,000, she would furnish the place and list it on Airbnb to generate short-term rental income.
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He agreed, so Inlow launched Be Still Getaways, listed the location and went to work managing the listing and marketing the place online.
It wasn't long before it started generating profits, which the duo split down the middle. Two months after first listing the barn apartment, the property was drawing booking demand on a daily basis.
Shortly after, they decided to team up on a second listing. Upon continued success, Inlow started looking for more potential partners who wanted to do the same thing.
By the end of 2020, Be Still Getaways was managing 20 properties and Inlow was spending 30 to 40 hours a week on the business on top of her full-time job.
In 2021, Inlow hired a cleaning staff and someone to oversee operations. Then she purchased a property management company and expanded her portfolio to the coast of Virginia. In 2022, she quit her full-time job and started paying herself an annual salary of $72,000 from her side hustle turned rental business.
Today, both her and her husband work full-time for Be Still Getaways and make about $150,000 per year. The company manages short- and mid-term listings, as well as hotel properties, and has eight full-time employees and another 60 workers who help out part-time.
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This story is part of a new series of features on the subject of success, Benzinga Inspire.
This illustration was generated using artificial intelligence via MidJourney.
