• Zeona McIntyre assumed real-estate investing was out of reach for her because of the upfront costs.
  • But she was able to get her foot in the door by starting with Airbnb and renting her apartment.
  • Eventually, the money she made doing short-term rentals helped her afford her first property.

In 2011, Airbnb was four years in the making and picking up speed, but still very much a start-up.

That's when Zeona McIntyre first heard about it through a friend who managed to fund a year's worth of travel by renting his New York City apartment on the platform.

"He told me he made $50,000 off of this apartment that he didn't own," McIntyre, who was a massage therapist student in Boulder, Colorado with no savings at the time, told Insider. "That really hit home because, at that time, that was like a starting tech salary. I'd never seen or made that much money, and you could just do that off of an apartment?"

She decided to see if she could replicate what her friend had done in Boulder.

Starting with what she already had: a 2-bedroom apartment 

Getting into real-estate investing in some way, shape, or form typically requires upfront cash — for a down payment on a property or to fund a "rental arbitrage" project. That's why McIntyre assumed becoming a property investor, or even a homeowner, was not for her.

"I've always loved real estate but it just felt so far away," said the 37-year-old investor and realtor, who now owns nine properties according to settlement statements viewed by Insider. "A lot of people have this idea that if you're going to invest in real estate, you have to have money to make money, or your parents have to have done it so you know how to do it. My parents never owned anything and it just felt impossible."

zeona mcintyre
McIntyre currently owns nine properties in five different states.
Courtesy of Zeona McIntyre

However, when she heard about Airbnb, she saw an opportunity to make money by working with what she already had: a fully furnished, two-bedroom apartment that she rented in Boulder.

McIntyre already had a roommate to help subsidize her own rent. But when that roommate moved out in 2012, rather than finding another one, she decided to list the space on Airbnb. She figured, "if it doesn't work I'll just get another roommate. It's not a big risk for me and I already have the furnishings, towels, and sheets. Why not?"

She quickly realized that doing multiple short-term stays was much more effective than having one, long-term roommate who paid rent every month. 

"It turned out to be so good that I started renting my room and going to stay with friends or pet sitting so I could be in someone else's house," recalled McIntyre, who was simultaneously wrapping up her massage therapist program. "I was like, 'I need to do more of these.'"

Borrowing $4,000 to rent a second apartment

McIntyre was making enough money from her Airbnb project to cover her monthly bills at the time, she said: "I was being very scrappy and cleaning the apartment myself so I could keep the cleaning fee, and all of that was enough to just live very simply." But it wasn't enough to build up savings of any kind, let alone buy a property of her own.

She decided to rent another apartment, but she didn't even have the savings to do that, which would require putting down a security deposit and buying furniture to fill the space.

That's when she took out her first loan, she said: "I borrowed $4,000 from my dad and that was enough for a little bit of furniture and a security deposit."

For the next two years, McIntyre rented four bedrooms across the two apartments on Airbnb and lived in whatever room was vacant on any given day.

"I would just go back and forth," she said. "I spent about two years living out of a suitcase just bopping around. That's definitely something that's easier to do when you're young. It's not for everyone."

Plus, while she found it more lucrative than setting up a long-term rental, it wasn't always as simple. With less regulation back in 2012, she didn't have as much of an issue getting permission from her landlords to list the apartment as she might have today. Still, not every landlord agreed and, during those first couple of years, "I had gotten kicked out of a couple apartments," she admitted.

Owning her own space, she realized, would eliminate that issue. 

Buying her first property

After about two years of living between two apartments and listing each individual bedroom on Airbnb, McIntyre had built up enough savings to buy a small, one-bed, one-bath in Boulder. 

However, she didn't necessarily have the track record to qualify for a mortgage, since she didn't have a traditional job: "Back then, Airbnb income wasn't seen as income. It was still too early and people didn't know what to make of it."

zeona McIntyre
McIntyre used Airbnb to get her foot in the door, but now focuses on mid-term rentals.
Courtesy of Zeona McIntyre

She reached out to one of her former landlords, who was also an investor and had operated as a private money lender, and asked for a loan.

"I practiced my speech in the shower, got my courage up, and went and talked to him," she said. "It was surprisingly easy. I must have caught him on a good day with enough money in his bank, but he was very much open and excited to help me out. We worked out a private loan and he didn't need to verify my income or anything."

She wouldn't have had the confidence to buy an investment property had she not started with Airbnb, she noted. She knew exactly what prices she could command in the area and how often she could expect the space to be filled. All she had to do was work backwards and make sure her mortgage payment and other housing-related expenses were less than the amount she could make by listing the property on Airbnb.

For the apartment she was already renting, "I was paying around $1,100 a month between my rent and my utilities and making between $1,700 and $4,000 a month depending on the season," she explained. When she ran the numbers on the investment property (which was of comparable size and in the same area), "it was going to cost around $950 with my mortgage and HOA. So I felt really confident and that gave me the ability to go out and actually do it." 

Ultimately, that purchase in 2014 is what catapulted her to financial independence.

Between Airbnb income from the home she owned and the apartment she was still renting at the time, "I was making $2,500 or so a month in profit," she said. "I considered myself financially independent at that point because that was more than I was spending. Nowadays, it sounds pretty low, but back then it was enough."

How anyone can use Airbnb as 'training wheels' to get started in real estate investing 

McIntyre, who has since published a book on her latest real estate strategy that involves mid-term rentals, advises rookie real-estate investors, even those who have the funds to buy an investment property, to start with short-term rentals using space they already have. Besides being a much smaller upfront investment, experimenting with Airbnb allows you to figure out if you even like the process of renting a home or apartment enough to pursue it on a broader scale.

"Just try it for one weekend," she said. "You don't have to feel like you're committing to it and are going to have your spare room up on Airbnb forever and always have a roommate. See if you like it. If not, you can always turn it off."

Start by evaluating your current living situation, she said: "There are a lot of parts of homes that people don't utilize. They may have a basement or a guest room that they weren't using that often." If you don't have a spare room, "there's also the ability to co-host," she added. "Maybe you have a family member that has a lake house and you can ask, 'Hey, what's that house doing sitting around? Would you like to make a little extra money on it?'"

Once you establish a space to list, try renting it on a holiday weekend or when your town or city is hosting a major event. See if you can make some extra income. Then, evaluate whether or not you enjoyed the process.

"Airbnb is like training wheels," said McIntyre. "You get to try it before you buy it. And then you'll understand the seasonality and you'll know what you can make."

Using Airbnb today looks a lot different than it did in 2012, when McIntyre started and there was less regulation, she noted. 

Airbnb is like training wheels. You get to try it before you buy it. Zeona McIntyre

A handful of local governments have started to crack down on short-term vacation rentals. Honolulu, for example, has passed regulations like banning rental stays under 90 days, while Aspen, Colorado has proposed new taxes on short-term and vacation rental properties. And the local rules and regulations are constantly changing.

That said, "a lot of states are still allowing people to do short-term rentals," she explained. "Just know the laws first so that you know your guidelines of how you can operate."

Axel Springer, Insider Inc.'s parent company, is an investor in Airbnb.