How Kamaria's DEN STR Went Cashflow Positive in Month 1

Kamaria's side-hustle

 

Meet Kamaria, an engineer from Austin, Texas, who turned a side hustle into reality with a stunning A-frame cabin just outside San Antonio. In this interview, Kamaria shares the journey of building a unique getaway in Bandera, Texas.

The interview covers:

• Introduction to the Weekender Project
• The Side Hustle Dream
• Choosing the A-Frame Design
• Building vs. Buying: The Creative Journey
• Discovering Den: A Perfect Match
• The Cost-Effective Design Solution
• The Joy of Seeing Plans Come to Life
• Navigating Construction Challenges
• The Creative Process: Personal Touches
• Tweaks and Customizations
• Airbnb Launch and Early Success
• Advice for Future Builders
• Reflecting on the Building Process
• Understanding Costs and Scaling
• Personal Growth and Resilience

Watch the full interview

Whether you're looking to build a short term rental side hustle or a dream getaway for yourself, Kamaria's story is filled with inspiration and practical advice for future builders.

Watch the full interview here

Full transcript below:

• 00:00 Introduction to the Weekender Project
• 00:25 The Side Hustle Dream
• 00:50 Choosing the A-Frame Design
• 01:50 Building vs. Buying: The Creative Journey
• 02:56 Discovering Den: A Perfect Match
• 03:26 The Cost-Effective Design Solution
• 04:47 The Joy of Seeing Plans Come to Life
• 06:34 Navigating Construction Challenges
• 07:16 The Creative Process: Personal Touches
• 09:57 Tweaks and Customizations
• 11:04 Airbnb Launch and Early Success
• 13:21 Advice for Future Builders
• 14:15 Reflecting on the Building Process
• 14:52 Understanding Costs and Scaling
• 16:05 Personal Growth and Resilience

Introduction to the Weekender Project

My name's Kamaria, I'm from Austin, Texas, and I decided to build the Weekender for a two to four person getaway just outside San Antonio in Bandera, Texas. Day to day I work as an engineer, but this is like my side hustle. Awesome. You would say. It's every millennial needs a side hustle. Hell yeah. Of course. Of course.

The Side Hustle Dream

I need to figure out what my new side hustle is because Den got a side hustle while I was at Newark and it then became my full time gig. That's the dream. That's the dream. True. True. You're living it. But yeah so for everyone watching also, Kamaria and I have already met. We had a DEN meetup in Austin about a year ago. We're reunited at last to check in on the project. So cool.

Choosing the A-Frame Design

So the Weekender is an A frame.  What made you choose an A frame over some of our other designs? I wanted something that was unique, not saying that the other ones don't stand out, but I feel like A Frame is a really nice, unique, but also classic design because it's been around for a while. It's not like it's brand new, but it's like making its full circle moment right now. And I like that it's small, it's compact, it gets to the point and it's perfect for a couple. I eventually would like to Use the cabin for my personal gain as well, to be able to just get away. And I felt like that was a good size. Wasn't too big. It wasn't too small. Nice. Nice. So like the design spoke to you, the sizing spoke to you here. I can rent this, I can use it. Yeah, checked all the boxes. Yeah, I checked all the boxes, and I like the kind of Scandinavian look of it all. It's really nice. It's very clean cut looking. I like that. So let's just jump into this, right?  

Building vs. Buying: The Creative Journey

So you built a place instead of buying a place. Why? Because I wanted to be able to make money. My own decisions with it. I didn't want to just I wanted to be creative about it. I didn't just want to buy a place, stick some furniture in there and then. Hoorah. I wanted to have the creative freedom that I think that's one of the funnest parts about building from scratch is like you get to choose all the finishes. I didn't have an interior designer, so I designed everything on my own, the furniture, the finishes, everything. So it gave me a lot of flexibility and creative freedom to bring something to life. I've never done that before. So it was really exciting and fulfilling. It was very fulfilling. That's awesome. That's awesome to hear. And yeah, imagine there's not too many, a frames of that size up for sale also in, in Texas. No. So you've got yeah, some a unique asset to say the least at this point. But that's, So let's see.

Discovering Den: A Perfect Match

So yeah, so we met a year ago presumably you've known about the company for a little bit longer than that. Your project was already underway when we first met. And yeah.  And curious, like just to hear how you found den initially, right? What was it about den that that really attracted you to what we were doing? And yeah, like what you mentioned like some aspects of the designs, like being clean and compact. But  what about our company? And our designs really caught your eye and maybe you decide to move forward.

The Cost-Effective Design Process

This isn't my first go round in, in real estate. So I'd previously worked with an architect before. So looking online and not having to go through that process of working one on one with the design, like there's already set plans, that I could follow. That, that was a really big win for me. And also like the cost effectiveness of it all versus going to an architect and then they have to build it from design it from scratch. And it's obviously a lot more and you guys have multiple plans. So that, I think that was really nice too, because I found myself looking through and I already know what to look for in terms of If building wise it's going to work or not, so sometimes I know you can look online and see a lot of different floor plans and sometimes you just look at it and you're like that doesn't make any sense, like the way they design it type of thing. So it was nice to see that it was well thought out and like well designed without having to go to an architect. Awesome.

The Joy of Seeing Plans Come to Life

You get to relive this all the time. When people like me build it, it's oh, we get that one hit of fulfillment of seeing it come to life. But you get to see your plans come to life multiple times in different ways. So that's really cool. It's super cool, honestly. And and, it is not easy to run a business. But I would say that My favorite moments are these, just getting piggybacking off of your enthusiasm and like the fulfillment that you've had, in doing this project, it's it's truly an honor. Um, and it's so funny too. Cause like I was on a, I didn't do like a customer interview earlier today, but I was like, just on the phone with another customer. And he told me that his architect. Wanted to charge him 22, 000 to recreate one of our A frame designs. And he was just like, wow, that is like at way higher price than I could have even imagined. And and I think a lot of our customers encounter that in the market today, right? If you go to traditional design firm, it's really expensive. And you also have to like, go through the process of meeting them. Making sure that there's fit. And then your idea. Um, and yeah I think one of the, one of the really great benefits of Dan is you don't have to take a meeting unless you want to, and you can just browse a catalog and like really aligned to a design that speaks to you, that's the right size, that's the right level of investment for the project. And then just buy it and be off to the races. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I like that over time you guys added that little estimator at the bottom. I don't know if it's still at the bottom anymore of the page, but it like you said you can look at a plan that speaks to me and be like, okay, can I realistically build this in my budget type of thing? And you have that pre estimator or whatever. That's really nice. So it's very helpful. Nice. Yeah.  

Navigating Construction Challenges

So you more or less like self built this or GC to yourself. Is that right? Yeah. No. So I ended up having two different contractors. One of them fell through like midway through the project, but yeah, I ended up just getting a general contractor to, to go, to, to finish everything out. I'm not very good at building homes physically. Me. Maybe the next one we'll build ourselves. But I don't think I have any muscle for that. Okay. So you were, you worked with general contractors on this project, right? Yeah. And, so having bought the plans, like aligned to, the partners that, that you used to execute the project.  

The Creative Building Experience

And now like you're operating this Airbnb, that's now about a month old, like what's been the best part of the whole building adventure for you? I think, like I said, the best part of the building adventure for me is just being able to be creative about it. Like I, I think that was like one of the, one of the funnest things for me is picking out the color of the roof or what color tile I'm going to use, what backsplash, those types of things. I think those really over time started to pull it all together because you have this idea of what you think it's going to look like or what you want it to look like. But it's so spread out in different little pieces. But over time, they slowly come together to become one piece of art. And I really like that. That was really, that was the best part for me. Nice. Yeah. And then, so like the, our team spends a lot of time detailing the plans, I've used the plans to help to inform and execute on the project.  What, what about like our plan packages made certain things easier or potentially harder for you? Easier wise, I would say that telling a contractor that you want to swap things out let's say instead of metal siding, I want to do board and batten or something like that. It's not, your plans are easy enough for them to figure it out and be like, okay, like it's an easy swap type of thing. It's not I don't understand how I'm going to get it over here and do that. Like one of the things that we ended up doing to the place was adding the loft addition, which I didn't even Think about in the beginning, but the contractor was Oh yeah, you'd get more square footage and you'd have enough height. And these are really tall ceilings, things like that. I think the plans made it pretty easy for them to just be able to pivot. When needed so that was pretty good. I don't think we really ran into a lot of issues the only issue that we ran into was I think it's because of something that I added though. I want to say this is going to be an airbnb I wanted to add laundry in there and because of the pitch of the roof. It's Where we were going to put it? It wasn't enough height for a double stack or anything like that. So we had to Creatively find a way to use like a small two in one and try to fit it in like a small area. So those types of things, but that has nothing to do with the plans. That was just an addition that I did. I see a little fall in terms of onsite laundry. Yeah, that's cool. And then which brings me actually to my next question, right?  

Customizing the Den Design

So did you. Did you stick to the original den plan or did you throw in some of your ideas, some of your own ideas? And if so you just mentioned this like laundry area that you included  what other tweaks did you make to the design? Let's see. So tweaks to the design, we did the, In unit laundry, we changed the the pocket door and we did barn sliding doors instead. So that was a pretty interesting and cool switch. We did that and we did the loft addition. And since we did the loft edition, we had to add a ladder to access it. And then since we added the loft edition, we were able to add like a scuttle for like water heater where we could put water heater, put the router and all that stuff for the Internet. I think I added, eV charger. So we added that as well. Huh? Yeah. I wanted to eventually switch over to electric vehicle. So that was for me. So that way, since it's so far away, when I finally do get my electric vehicle, I'll have a place to charge. So that was selfish on my part, I did, I have had people come that have had Teslas, so they've been able to charge too. So they enjoy that amenity. Yeah. That's cool.

Launching on Airbnb: Early Success

The project has been live on Airbnb for about like a month now, right? Yeah, a full month. Nice. And how's that going in terms of rentals and occupancy?   Occupancy, I'd say it's about Quarter of the time I only get occupied basically on the weekends. Sometimes it bleeds into beginning of the week. Like some people may book a four night stay or something like that and do Thursday to Monday or something like that. But it's typically around only the weekends, but everybody has. Everybody has said like it's a beautiful place and it's very peaceful. So yeah, all of my reviews or I just had a guest check out today and she told me how peaceful and beautiful it was and her and her husband really enjoyed it. They were there for four nights. Amazing. Just a month into it. Like that's pretty high praise. Yeah, I was like, wow, for my first time, it's like it's really nice to hear. Like all that hard work. I've been doing it for two years now. I'm trying to get it built and get it up and running and stuff like that. And for the first month of people that stay like everybody like ransomware is about the same thing. So it's pretty good. Amazing. Amazing. Yeah,  I've got the I've got the million dollar question for you in month one where you cash flow positive? Yes. Oh, amazing. That's so cool. And yeah, as of today, we've added you to the to our national network of customer built showrooms. So hopefully Being on that list also we'll throw some more bookings in your direction. Yeah, that'll be great. We're already. I counted as being booked out because even though it's not a hundred percent every day, it's every weekend and that's what I would imagine, but pretty much booked out for October now. So now the bookings are starting to roll out for November, so we're pretty much done. Yeah. For this month. That's amazing to just be like, to have an entire month's runway, like already figured out. Yeah. Sick. Yeah, it's pretty nice. It took off a lot faster than I thought it would. I'm not gonna lie. That is amazing.  

Advice for Future Builders

So if a friend of yours was thinking about building their own den, what would you tell them? Any words of wisdom? Any words of wisdom? I'd definitely tell them, I'd tell them, what is it that they're looking for? type of thing because you know if it's I guess if it was my friend let's say that they had a kid or something like that I would definitely say do a a two bedroom type of thing or if it's just they don't have a kid then do a one bedroom but for sure I would say do a den because it's very easy to follow. Some of my friends are handy, so they would be able to, like my best friend, he would be able to build one from scratch if he really wanted to, type of thing. He would be able to figure it out. And I would definitely tell him to do that, to save a little bit of cash if he could. But yeah. Awesome. Awesome.   Reflecting on the Building Process And then if you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about the whole process of building something, what would it be? the process of building something? It's a good question. The cost. No, I'm just kidding. That's a great answer. Is that a legitimate answer? Definitely. Definitely.

Understanding Costs and Scaling

And the follow up question to that is like how did the den plans help you control cost? And help you choose materials? It helped me in And a the size Cause one thing that I did figure out the hard way is no matter how tiny the home, there is a base cost built in it. If you will, like every house needs electrical, every house needs my septic or sewer or water or, aC. And no matter the size of the house, you still have to, it doesn't scale accordingly, the price. That's one thing that I would definitely say to keep in mind, even if the home is tiny, that doesn't mean tiny costs. It still needs a foundation, all the things that would go. Whereas if you went bigger, it spread out the cost over the price per square foot. But you're still going to have to end up paying. A lot of people are paying for those things. Yeah, that's one thing I would say to keep in mind. Yeah, that's a good point. I think on that, a lot of smaller builds actually have a higher price per square foot because yeah. Like a 200 amp panel is a 200 amp panel, whether you put it in like a tiny house, or you put it in a larger home right so Okay, last question. We've got about a minute left.  

Personal Growth and Resilience

So what's something cool or unexpected you've discovered about yourself or your new place since you finished building it? Something cool or unexpected that I've noticed about myself is proving to myself that I can adapt to change more than I thought I would be able to because it's a stressful ride. But I was able to pivot and problem solve and figure out more than I thought I'd be able to I thought I was just gonna have a mental meltdown, but I didn't. Yeah, that's one thing I would say, yeah, you get to see how resilient you truly are because Building something from scratch, we'll test you. Dealing with builders and things, we'll test you. Like someone, when I was building my first cabin, someone gave me the best advice, which was that the cabin would be done for a lot longer than it took to build and to have patience. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Kamaria, listen this call is about to end. I'm going to say thank you again from me and the entire team at Den really great job on the build.