The Hotel Investor Playbook

Michael Russell
  • 5.0 (71)
  • Investing
  • Updated Weekly

Welcome to The Hotel Investor Playbook, hosted by real estate investor and hospitality operator Michael Russell. Michael is the co-founder of Malama Capital and Howzit Hostels, and has built a personal real estate portfolio exceeding $20 million.With an operator-first mindset, Michael brings a practical perspective to hotel investing. On the show, he breaks down what it actually takes to scale from short-term rentals into boutique hotels, covering deal sourcing, operations, capital strategy, and risk.Each week, Michael shares real lessons from the field as he builds toward a $400 million real estate business, giving listeners an honest look at the decisions, challenges, and strategies behind the growth. Subscribe and follow along as he documents the journey in real time.

  1. 5d ago

    The Follower Count Myth: How One Resort Went From $30K To $300K A Month In Direct Bookings | Dustin Baker E96

    Dustin Baker runs Hidden Gem Media, a performance marketing agency built to pull hospitality brands off the OTAs and onto direct bookings. By his account, one client resort went from roughly thirty thousand dollars a month in direct bookings to somewhere between two and three hundred thousand. His explanation for that jump has almost nothing to do with follower count. In this episode, Michael Russell and Dustin work through the difference between search traffic and discovery traffic, and why a business built on OTA and Google demand runs into a hard ceiling it cannot spend its way past. Dustin lays out the economics: what an effective commission actually includes once you add agency fees, ad spend, and any offer layered on top, and how that number compares to the 15 to 20 percent an OTA takes. He gives real thresholds: roughly five thousand a month in ad budget against fifty thousand in monthly room revenue, and ten thousand against a hundred thousand, and he is direct about the properties this does not work for. Michael's own hostel is one of them, and Dustin explains on air why he turned that business down. They also get into why calendar availability, not audience size, is what eventually drives ad costs up, why Dustin would hand an influencer's budget to Meta ten times out of ten, and why he would steer most owners away from crowdfunding a resort through pre-sold stay packages. If you are running an experiential property and you have been meaning to get serious about direct bookings, this one gives you numbers to work from. If you found value in this episode, take 30 seconds to leave us a review here. It helps more people find the podcast and keeps us bringing on great guests. Connect with Michael on Instagram or LinkedIn. Email Us at info@hotelinvestorplaybook.com Visit the Hotel Investor Playbook Instagram Invest with Malama Capital Submit a deal

  2. Sep 1

    $1 Billion SBA Insider: How To Buy A Hotel With Just 15% Down | Carly Whitney E95

    Carly Whitney is a Senior Vice President at Business Finance Capital, a certified development company, and in thirteen years there she has been across more than a thousand SBA transactions. By her own count, that adds up to roughly four billion dollars in sales and refinances, with just over a billion of it in SBA dollars. Her answer to how much a hotel buyer actually has to bring to the table is fifteen percent. In this episode, Michael Russell and Carly break down the SBA 504 program from the ground up. Why a hotel counts as a special purpose property and shifts the standard 50-40-10 structure to 50-35-15. How one loan can cover the purchase and the property improvement plan together, financing up to 85% of total project cost. What the long-term fixed rate looked like at the time of recording, how the 504's ten-year prepayment penalty stacks up against the 7A's three-year, and where the 51% owner-occupancy rule actually bites. They also get into the 20% ownership threshold that triggers a personal guarantee and what that means for anyone raising capital, the $5 million SBA cap and how green improvements stack around it, the new citizenship rule that can disqualify an owner holding as little as 1%, and why a seller's tax returns are the hardest document to pry loose on a hotel deal. If you are looking at your first hotel and the down payment is the thing standing in the way, this is the financing conversation to start with. If you found value in this episode, take 30 seconds to leave us a review here. It helps more people find the podcast and keeps us bringing on great guests. Connect with Michael on Instagram or LinkedIn. Email Us at info@hotelinvestorplaybook.com Visit the Hotel Investor Playbook Instagram Invest with Malama Capital Submit a deal

  3. Aug 25

    Wall Street Trader Turned Hotel Broker: The Deal 40 Brokers Couldn't Close | Amiti Bhow E94

    A 33-key Art Deco hotel in Miami sat on the market for five years. Forty brokers tried to sell it and failed. Amiti Bhow, Vice President at NewGen Advisory, finally got it done, not because she found a higher price, but because she found a buyer with certainty and clean terms. In this episode, Michael Russell talks with Bhow about what actually closed the Marlin, a hotel with a recording history that includes Beyoncé, Pharrell, and Bob Marley, and why the ownership group she calls "hobbyists, not hoteliers" left real money on the table in OTA spend and revenue management. They get into the barbell shape of today's hotel market, where capital is chasing ultra-boutique experiences on one end and practical extended stay on the other, and what that leaves for hotels stuck in the middle. Bhow also walks through adaptive reuse, converting aging hotels into student housing, behavioral health facilities, or senior care as the baby boomer generation retires, and the underwriting checklist she uses beyond the spreadsheet: demand generators, incoming supply within a two-mile radius, and PIP cycles. If you're evaluating a hotel deal, or wondering whether your property fits where the market is heading, this episode lays out the intangibles that actually separate a deal that closes from one that sits for five years. If you found value in this episode, take 30 seconds to leave us a review here. It helps more people find the podcast and keeps us bringing on great guests. Connect with Michael on Instagram or LinkedIn. Email Us at info@hotelinvestorplaybook.com Visit the Hotel Investor Playbook Instagram Invest with Malama Capital Submit a deal

  4. Aug 18

    The PhD Economist Who Buys Hotels and Turns Them Into Apartments | Alexander Cartwright E93

    Alexander Cartwright is a PhD economist who left a tenured professorship to buy distressed hotels and convert them into workforce housing through his company, HotelSHIFT. His business rests on a simple valuation gap: hotels trade at higher cap rates than apartments because their income is considered less durable, so the same building can be worth dramatically more once it's rezoned and leased as multifamily instead of run as a hotel. If you're looking for a corner of hospitality investing with less competition than traditional multifamily, and want to understand the zoning, financing, and tax mechanics behind turning a hotel into housing, this episode lays out the real playbook.   If you found value in this episode, take 30 seconds to leave us a review here. It helps more people find the podcast and keeps us bringing on great guests. Connect with Michael on Instagram or LinkedIn. Email Us at info@hotelinvestorplaybook.com Visit the Hotel Investor Playbook Instagram Invest with Malama Capital Submit a deal

  5. Aug 12

    Why This Fund Ditched US Real Estate For 18% Appreciation In Portugal | Dan Daly E92

    Dan Daly runs a fund that invests in boutique hotels across Europe, and on this episode he makes the case for why, in his view, Portugal beats the US on nearly every number that matters. According to Dan, property there has appreciated roughly 18% year over year versus 1.8% in the US, and a 30-year mortgage runs about 3.5% against 6.5-7% here. That gap, plus a much lower cost per square foot, is why his fund stopped looking at US deals altogether. Instead of buying property, Global Investment Partnership invests in the operating companies that run boutique hotels in Portugal, hotels that are already refurbished, licensed, and cash-flowing but undermanaged. Dan walks through the specific leaks he looks for (unclaimed cleaning fees alone can run $25-35 a night per unit) and the five-year path the fund creates to permanent EU residency for investors and their families. We also get into managing a portfolio spread across the US, Portugal, Madeira, and Andorra from a laptop in Los Angeles, and where Dan sees his exit. If you found value in this episode, take 30 seconds to leave us a review here. It helps more people find the podcast and keeps us bringing on great guests. Connect with Michael on Instagram or LinkedIn. Email Us at info@hotelinvestorplaybook.com Visit the Hotel Investor Playbook Instagram Invest with Malama Capital Submit a deal

  6. Aug 5

    AutoCamp CEO: From Five Broken Airstreams to a Hilton Partnership | Neil Dipaola E91

    Neil Dipaola bought five wrecked Airstreams off Craigslist in 2012 to use as affordable housing in a Santa Barbara mobile home park. Today those trailers have grown into AutoCamp, a nine-property outdoor hospitality brand backed by Airstream, partnered with Hilton, and targeting 100 properties and 10,000 rooms within a decade. In this episode, Neil explains how AutoCamp raised close to $300 million to build out its real estate portfolio, why he structured the business as three separate companies (real estate, brand, and operations) instead of one, and how that decision now gives him multiple ways to grow or eventually sell the brand. We also get into how the Hilton partnership actually works, why the AutoCamp team rejects the word "glamping," and how everyday investors can now buy equity in the brand for as little as $1,000. If you're building a hospitality brand and thinking about how to structure it for growth or an eventual exit, this is the playbook. Exclusive Listener Offer: Save 20% at all AutoCamp locations when you book through the link below: AutoCamp | Nature's Boutique Hotel If you found value in this episode, take 30 seconds to leave us a review here. It helps more people find the podcast and keeps us bringing on great guests. Connect with Michael on Instagram or LinkedIn. Email Us at info@hotelinvestorplaybook.com Visit the Hotel Investor Playbook Instagram Invest with Malama Capital Submit a deal

  7. Jul 28

    $500 Million Hotel Broker: Why Your Franchise Flag Might Be Capping Your Hotel's Revenue | Chris Kilcullen E90

    Chris Kilcullen has spent three decades in hotels, closing more than $500 million in deals as a senior broker at Avison Young. He's also sold franchises, brokered acquisitions for a REIT, and now built his own hotel concept, so he's seen the flag question from every angle. In this episode, he and Michael dig into the real math: why a commodity economy hotel can lose 30 to 40 percent of its value the moment it drops its brand, and why a well-positioned independent or boutique property can out-earn a branded one because it isn't capped by what guests expect to pay for a templated room. They also cover how Hilton and Marriott are using new soft brands to pull independent hotels back into their loyalty ecosystems, the F&B concept Chris is building to fix the one thing every guest complains about, and why some aging economy hotels are worth more converted into workforce housing than they are as hotels. If you found value in this episode, take 30 seconds to leave us a review here. It helps more people find the podcast and keeps us bringing on great guests. Connect with Michael on Instagram or LinkedIn. Email Us at info@hotelinvestorplaybook.com Visit the Hotel Investor Playbook Instagram Invest with Malama Capital Submit a deal

  8. Jul 14

    The $1 Billion Investor: Why Now is a Good Time to Buy | Neal Bawa E89

    He's not a hotel investor. He built his career in multifamily and self-storage, growing a portfolio that peaked near $1 billion across more than 4,000 units. But the way he underwrites deals, ranks markets, and raises capital works across every asset class, hotels included. That's exactly why he's on this show. Data beats gut feel by a million miles. That's his rule, and in this episode, he breaks down the two metrics he checks before touching any deal, the same ones that predict a hotel's performance as reliably as an apartment complex's. In this episode, you'll discover: The two metrics, jobs and supply, that predict a market's future better than population or income growthWhy one new hotel within a mile of yours can cut your ADR by $10 to $20 a nightHow he renegotiated a construction loan mid-build to save $3.5 million a year when rates nearly doubledThe two U.S. markets he's bullish on right now, including one riding Big Tech's race for nuclear powerHow he runs a 30-person AI workforce off a $100 mini PC and $250 a monthIf you're underwriting your next deal on comps and a hunch, this conversation will show you what data-driven investors track instead. The ADR stat still lands, it's just doing its job in the bullets instead of the opener, so nothing was lost by cutting that paragraph. If you found value in this episode, take 30 seconds to leave us a review here. It helps more people find the podcast and keeps us bringing on great guests. Connect with Michael on Instagram or LinkedIn. Email Us at info@hotelinvestorplaybook.com Visit the Hotel Investor Playbook Instagram Invest with Malama Capital Submit a deal

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About

Welcome to The Hotel Investor Playbook, hosted by real estate investor and hospitality operator Michael Russell. Michael is the co-founder of Malama Capital and Howzit Hostels, and has built a personal real estate portfolio exceeding $20 million.With an operator-first mindset, Michael brings a practical perspective to hotel investing. On the show, he breaks down what it actually takes to scale from short-term rentals into boutique hotels, covering deal sourcing, operations, capital strategy, and risk.Each week, Michael shares real lessons from the field as he builds toward a $400 million real estate business, giving listeners an honest look at the decisions, challenges, and strategies behind the growth. Subscribe and follow along as he documents the journey in real time.

Information

  • Creator
    Michael Russell
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    97
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Hotel Investor Playbook
  • Show Website
    The Hotel Investor Playbook

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