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The Hotel Investor Playbook
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.
The Hotel Investor Playbook
The $1 Billion Investor: Data Beats Gut Feel By a Million Miles | Neal Bawa E89
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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 growth
- Why one new hotel within a mile of yours can cut your ADR by $10 to $20 a night
- How he renegotiated a construction loan mid-build to save $3.5 million a year when rates nearly doubled
- The two U.S. markets he's bullish on right now, including one riding Big Tech's race for nuclear power
- How he runs a 30-person AI workforce off a $100 mini PC and $250 a month
If 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.
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