Building It: The Playbook for Buying Your First Property Management Business
episode
The Accommodation Show - Hospitality Success Series!
42 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 28 days ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
How did Dennis decide to buy a vacation‑rental business instead of starting from scratch?
Well, hello everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the accommodation show. We are back here today with one of my friends, one of my friends from the other side of the world, Dennis Goathide from Cassiola. Welcome back to the accommodation show.
Such an honor to be here, Bart, uh again for
For the third time now, I think, right? Yeah, that's right. Did you know that we haven't had many guests on three times? So you're a gem, a gem in uh in in rough sand that we're pulling out and getting back on the show. Because I think there's a few things about why I want to talk to you again. One is that you've got huge amounts of information and doing a catch-up with you once a year would be a minimum. And then two, you're so willing to share and to help other people. And I think that's a real uh testament to Cassiola and what you guys do. So for those that are listening, All I'd recommend is pick up your ears because you're gonna learn an awful lot from the journey. How have you been, Dennis? How are things?
Good, good,
can't complain. I I just got back from a month and a half trip to Europe, so was amazing. Never been away from home and from the business uh for so long. We we opened up Casiola in Spain, so we're now also in uh um Europe, um visited some families, so had an amazing time. Yeah, amazing. And uh so whereabouts in Spain? So we opened up in the Costa del Sol um around Marbella, so a little bit north and a little bit south uh of uh Marbella.
Yeah, amazing. And uh that's really interesting, actually. And folks, uh we'll come back to this later on. But uh folks, what are we doing today? We're doing the Building It series where we're gonna talk to Dennis about how he built Cassiola from that first brick to get to where he is today. They're at five hundred and fifty properties across the world and always growing, always expanding, doing things a bit different. And now they've actually gone and grown the business into Spain. And what's interesting, I was gonna The kind of profile of properties that you guys will be working with in Casa do Sol will be very, very similar to what you guys are looking at in Florida, right?
Yeah, absolutely. So we have a a certain baseline uh that we're looking for, and uh that's also probably one of of the big lessons that I learned along the way in the beginning when we were small, when we were just starting out. We were just accepting anything. Anyone that wanted to join us, uh, we would sign on and and yeah, then after a few months and and weeks everything sort of fall apart, a lot of expenses for the owner, the owner not happy. So we were we we've become very careful in selecting uh the properties that can be part of the Casciola management programs. So we have what we call the Casiola property standards uh guide that we give to all our people and uh they really need to check for each property if if they qualify to be
added to our program. Yeah. It's that's fascinating. So then you would have identified that in Spain, Costa del Sol, you've got you can cost something that you can replicate across uh different continents.
Yeah, absolutely. Every home that we manage is unique. So we're not looking for the exact same type of home. I I think the charm of of vacation rentals is that everything is is different. It's not like a hotel room where you know exactly what you you're gonna get wherever you are in the world. So every home is is like unique, but we're looking for a certain level of of quality, uh and that goes from the way you you access the property To the amenities that are present, um, having like TVs and internet and and and a fully equipped kitchen and enough bathrooms and that kind of stuff. And then yeah, we provide our standard like Casiola, triple sheet bedding, uh all white uh sheets, the the towels, all the amenities uh that the guests can use during their stay.
So we try to build some kind of a standard. You know exactly what you're gonna get wherever you stay in a Casiola vacation home in the world. Every home is gonna be different, but you know exactly what you're gonna get on on a quality and and service level.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How did Dennis decide to buy a vacation‑rental business instead of starting from scratch?
0:12–4:55
2
What were the first steps and due‑diligence tips Dennis used to acquire the 20‑property company?
4:55–10:22
3
Why did the first year after the acquisition result in negative growth?
10:22–15:42
4
How did Dennis turn the early setbacks into a scalable growth strategy?
15:42–21:37
5
What role does property‑standardization play in scaling a short‑term‑rental brand?
21:37–26:48
6
How did a simple colour become a powerful brand identity for Casiola?
26:48–32:10
7
What creative financing and partnership structures did Dennis use to close the deal?
32:10–36:11
8
What key advice does Dennis give to aspiring property‑management entrepreneurs?
36:11–41:38
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from The Accommodation Show - Hospitality Success Series!
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