🏠 $700K/Year Renting Places He Doesn’t Own

Most people think you need to own real estate to make money from it.

Author

Tim Richard
March 06, 2025

🏝️ I Just Got Back From Vacation, and This Kept Bugging Me…

I just got back from vacation and I couldn’t shake how much the Airbnb was charging per night compared to how much a monthly rental would be in the same area.

I kept thinking about the Airbnb arbitrage business model I had heard about—where people rent apartments long-term, then list them on Airbnb and make way more than their rent.

That’s exactly what Richie Matthews, owner of istayusa.com, did.

He scaled this idea from one unit to 60 units, generating $2.5M per year and $700K in profit—without owning any property.(source)

👉 In this email, we’ll cover:
💰 How much he actually makes per unit
🏠 How he picks the best properties
📢 How he gets Airbnb bookings consistently
⚡ The biggest challenges (and how he handles them)
📈 How he scaled to 60+ properties

Let’s dive in.

Most people think you need to own real estate to make money from it. But what if you could rent an apartment like a normal tenant—then turn around and rent it out on Airbnb for a higher price and keep the difference?

That’s exactly what Richie Matthews, owner of istayusa.com, did.

Instead of buying properties, Richie used rental arbitrage—he signed long-term leases on apartments and then sublet them on Airbnb for short-term stays, pocketing the difference.

For example:
🏠 He rents a 2-bedroom apartment for $2,500/month
💰 He lists it on Airbnb for $250/night
📅 Booked ~20 nights per month = $5,000 in revenue
💵 Expenses (~$3,500 including rent, cleaning, etc)
💰 Profit per unit: $1,250–$1,500/month

What started as a small experiment quickly turned into a business managing 60 rental units, generating $2.5M per year and $700K in profit. (source)

Here’s how he did it:

🏠 How He Makes Money

💰 Revenue: $5,000+ per unit/month
💵 Profit per unit: $1,250–$1,500/month
🏘 Current Portfolio: 60 rental properties

🚀 How He Got Started

  • Found a vacant apartment in San Diego and convinced the landlord to let him lease it as a corporate rental.

  • Invested $4,300 in IKEA furniture to furnish the space.

  • Listed the unit on Airbnb and made back his entire investment in six weeks.

  • Repeated the process—adding three more units in the same building.

Then, COVID hit. His events business collapsed, and instead of panicking, he went all in on short-term rentals.

Over the next six months, he scaled to nine units across different cities, negotiating leases with landlords who needed reliable tenants.

📢 How He Finds Properties

✅ Focuses on 2-bedroom apartments (more demand vs. studios, lower costs vs. houses).
✅ Uses AirDNA & Mashvisor to analyze local rental demand.
✅ Targets cities with:

  • Strong business travel (corporate hubs, HQs, big office spaces).

  • High mid-term rental demand (traveling nurses, military, relocating professionals).

  • Year-round tourism (steady demand, not just seasonal).

📢 How He Gets Customers

📌 Airbnb & Vrbo – His first and biggest traffic source.
📌 Direct bookings – Built his own booking website. (istayusa.com)
📌 Furnished Finder & Hello Landing – Secures mid-term tenants like traveling nurses.
📌 Partnerships – Works with relocation companies, military contracts, and businesses.

📦 Systems That Let Him Scale

Once he got past 10+ properties, he realized he couldn’t do everything himself. So, he built a team and systems:

🔹 Hired a local operations manager to oversee units.
🔹 Hired virtual assistants (VAs) in the Philippines to handle guest communication.
🔹 Trained in-house cleaners instead of outsourcing to expensive vacation rental companies.
🔹 Uses Minut sensors to monitor noise and prevent party problems.

🚧 Biggest Challenges

1️⃣ Getting Landlords to Approve Subleasing
Most landlords don’t allow Airbnb rentals outright. Richie had to negotiate corporate leases and prove he was a responsible operator.

2️⃣ Managing the Business at Scale
Running a single unit is easy. Managing 60 requires:
✅ A local operations manager for oversight
✅ Virtual assistants for guest communication
✅ In-house cleaning staff to maintain consistency

3️⃣ Navigating Changing Laws
Some cities are cracking down on short-term rentals. Richie diversified by adding longer-term rental platforms and securing corporate housing contracts to stay ahead.

📊 His Biggest Lesson?

He didn’t quit his job to go “all in” right away—he tested a single unit first.

Once he proved the model worked, he scaled quickly and focused on profitability over revenue.

Hope you all enjoyed this one. If you want to look further into this model I have included my sources and some interviews below. Have a great Thursday.

-Tim

P.S. This newsletter is brand new, and I’m still tweaking the format. I make this for you, so I’d love to hear your thoughts—what you’re enjoying, what could be better, or anything you’d like to see more of.

You can simply reply to this email and let me know your thoughts. Thanks!

📖 Sources & Further Reading

If you want to dive deeper into how Richie built his rental empire, check out these resources: