Ohio Treehouse Resort Business for Sale – Full Breakdown

0:00Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Acquisitions Anonymous. This is the internet's number one podcast on buying, selling, and operating small businesses. I am Bill D 'Alessandro. I am one of your hosts, and I'm here today with Mills Snell. We have a cool deal in Ohio. It is 130 plus acres with a dozen or so treehouse Airbnbs on it. So we talk a little bit about the economics of owning a group of Airbnbs on their own dedicated land, how you might finance this deal. If you're interested in short-term rentals, you will probably like this one. So without further ado, I will get you right into this episode of Acquisitions Anonymous.

1:00me night for small businesses and you can try it for free for 30 days at gohighlevel.com slash michael girdley it's new year's acquisitions anonymous and it's just yeah it's almost time it's almost that time yeah i always feel weird because i never know when this will air but it's being people are going to hear this in february and be like those guys are so lame it's december 30th today uh so this is my favorite week of the year mills because you can take vacation in june but the world does not stop this week the magic week between christmas and new years nobody is doing anything yeah i've got like two emails all week it's amazing they're shocked if you're not on vacation more like why why the heck are you on vacation right now it's the best i just love how the whole world agrees that we're gonna chill for a whole week i love well construction doesn't always work that way but i'm envious of you uh well i guess heather's not here to say that she's trying to close seven deals in the next 24 hours.

1:58And the mortgage and loan folks are like, get me out of this hell. Well, I think that's why they're especially bitter because it's like, this is supposed to be the week off and everybody else is chilling and my hair is on fire. Yeah. They're redlining asset purchase agreements at the Christmas dinner table. I once closed a business I bought with an SBA loan on the 31st and I was up at my in-laws in Pennsylvania. This is where we had the notary show up, right? Yes. The notary had to come to my in-law's house. Like it's like snow, it's like driving snow, rural Pennsylvania. And like this lady in a Toyota Camry like shows up and she's like, hi, I'm the notary.

2:38And she's printed out. She's got like, you know, a book worth of paper. You know, I need like 27 notarized signatures or something. And just add, you know, at my in-law's kitchen table with like the kids all around and my in-laws at the time now they're probably used to it. But at the time And they were looking at me like I had four heads, like what are you doing? Who is this lady? Why should I get your table? And why are you signing all these things? And her fee was not near enough what it should have been. Not near enough. And that's when I figured out there is, there are these businesses. I think we might've even done one of them.

3:06Yeah. We did one on the pod where if you need a notary, they will like, you know, Uber for notaries and they will just come out and they'll be there in three hours. It was amazing. Yeah. So this is, I hope I never do that again. I have a moratorium against closing deals on 1231 for the rest of the life. I have a friend who doesn't submit offers. Like if he's buying a piece of real estate, he won't submit an offer on a Friday because he has this thing where like one deal went bad where like he submitted an offer. They thought about it over the weekend and they were like, heck no, we're not doing it.

3:39So he doesn't submit any. He'll wait till Monday instead of Friday. Because he wants people to like see the offer and commit and sign it. Yeah, instead of like, oh, let me take the weekend to think about it and then talking themselves out of it. I can see that actually. I can see that. I don't have any segue into this, but what did you bring? This caught my eye. So this is from Biz by Self. It's based in Ohio. It's a unique multi-cabin resort slash destination retreat and private estate. and it has a picture that I don't know if this is real or not, but if it is, this is worth every bit of the$10.5 million asking price.

4:20They don't, on Biz Buy Sell right here, disclose their revenue, net operating income, how many square feet the building is or anything, but they say it was built in 2019. And this says it's a multi-cabin resort and private estate Ohio destination location. This offering presents a rare opportunity to acquire a luxury, nature-immersed lodging destination in one of Ohio's most popular outdoor recreation region. The resort consists of multiple architecturally distinctive cabin accommodations elevated above the forest canopy, each offering premium amenities and a secluded field that appeals to both leisure travelers and retreat groups.

5:02Located on sprawling acreage with private hiking trails, river frontage, and ample room for expansion, the property combines vacation rental cash flow with real estate value in a scenic in-demand location. They say that the FF &E is$3 ,850 ,000 and it's included in the asking price. it's 135 acres of forested terrain with river frontage along the border multiple number of exclusive cabin units they don't tell us how many because i don't think they want us to google and find this place is why they're being very veiled yeah it's fully furnished and equipped interiors gourmet kitchens spa style bathrooms high-end finishes large event space common gathering deck private hiking trails, picnic, bonfire area, nature viewpoints, on-site parking, utilities, security lighting, landscaping, strong online booking system, web platform, listing distribution and guest management tools, tons of room for growth and additional cabin development, qualified buyers only on the financing.

6:08They say qualified buyers only with submitted personal financial statement or financial institute letter, which would be like a bank pre-qualification letter, I think. They say that it's in, this is all kind of repetitive, but a very scenic area in Ohio. It's an hour or two away from some of Ohio's primary metropolises. And they offer tranquil forest privacy yet remain within easy driving distance to all parts of Ohio. They say they do lodging and short-term stays. So we don't have any information about cashflow. So Brett, I'm going to navigate away from this for a minute and see if on Brett's website, if there's any more.

6:50Brett is the broker here. Yes. Three CRE advisors. So I assume that's three commercial real estate. Yep. So their website says full service commercial real estate brokerage. But they also on their website, Bill, I'm going to switch. I'm going to share this tab instead. So they have property listings and business listings. So the classic, you can sell a warehouse, you can sell a business. Yes, exactly. So I usually, these usually really bother me when it's a commercial real estate broker that's like, oh yeah, I'll just sell a business too. At the same time, I bought one of my brands from a commercial real estate broker and got a great price because he didn't know what he had.

7:31Which is like a white whale. I mean, that's really hard to do. Yes. So it's annoying because selling a business and selling a piece of commercial property are very different propositions. so oftentimes the seller is not getting great advice but also it's very possible the broker does not know what they have if they have a very special business. So it's a double edged sword. So this business what basically happened here is someone bought a huge piece of property, built cabins on it and I'm guessing they spent about$3.8 million on the cabins because it has$3.8 million of FF &E. cabins and hiking trails and whatnot.

8:13And basically has it listed on Airbnb. That's where it's a good listing distribution. So they're listing, they're distributed across platforms like that. And this is basically an occupancy and yield play. I'm very curious as to why they are selling it. A ton of these things are underwater. During COVID, there was this massive boom in people building Airbnbs. Now, this is a little bit more than one Airbnb. This is like an experience. But this is 130 acres with a bunch of Airbnbs on it, basically, is what this is. And a ton of them got not 30-year fixed loans. And then COVID stopped, and the demand for Airbnbs went down because people had to go back to their real jobs and real houses.

9:03So demand kind of fell off a cliff, and then interest rates went up, and people's mortgages have started to reset. So there is a lot of distress in what I'll call the hobbyist Airbnb ownership market right now. It's interesting. Their website basically, like they show listings on their website, but when you click on it, it just takes you back to BizBuySell. So there's no, like a lot of times, they'll put a dumbed down version on BizBuySell. And then when you actually go to the website, maybe you can download a teaser or something like that. But in this case, it's just a loop. Just a loop. Yeah.

9:38So I would be willing to bet there are$3.8 million of cabins on this site. I'd be willing to bet they paid about$7 million for the property and thus the asking price is$10.5 million. I think this is very classic. This business needs to be worth my mortgage balance and what I put into it type situation. So let's just reverse engineer that. If that is the case and that's what it actually takes for them to sell, how much net operating income do you think? Because these are so tricky because do you value it like it's just a passive real estate investment and you value it based off of a cap rate and net operating income?

10:18no because it's an operating business and you're doing short-term rentals that are very hands-on and you probably have staff like that have to maintain these and at least with an airbnb you can just have a cleaner and a manager right who right could be a third party and they handle all of it for a fee with this being like like a little mini resort uh or retreat center i think you probably have to have an on-premise person or maybe somebody who lives nearby who's on call Well, it depends. You'd have to see it. It depends basically on the level of shared services. If there is a centralized lodge and pond and bridges and stuff, yeah, this is not just a couple disconnected Airbnbs.

11:01But if this is just a really gorgeous plot with a bunch of tree houses, it says these are all elevated above the tree canopy. So I think they're basically built like tree houses. because your liability insurance is giving me hives. But if these are just 10 tree houses on acreage, it could be valued more like a passive real estate investment. Now, I don't think this is a five cap, right? But if they want 10 million bucks for this, I mean, I think it's gotta be cash flowing a million bucks. I think it's a 10 cap, maybe less. But I mean, so, I mean, cash flowing a million bucks, how many cabins, they don't tell us on purpose.

11:39but it let's just say they have 3.3 or 3.8, whatever it was million dollars in cabin costs. I mean, there's not 50 cabins on there. There's 10, I would think. Yeah. Yeah. So that means each of your cabins has got to yield, you know, a hundred K of net. Yeah. Which year, I think, I think from what I know of people who really crushed it in this, in the heyday, that was very possible for short term luxury stays, like when everybody was like, well, I mean, we're working from home. We might as well go work from, you know, this amazing outdoor setting in Ohio. I think it's tough though. Cause like, all right, so you want to, you want to clear a hundred grand, right?

12:23Like what can these rent for per week? Like five grand a week, right? You need 20 weeks. Yeah. And this is Ohio. Let's not forget it's freaking cold for a good half the year. So you need darn close to 80 % plus occupancy during your good season, right? During your pretty tree house season. Which is kind of what beach rentals do, right? Like the best week of the summer might be$20 ,000 for that multimillion dollar house. But if you want to go in November, you know, it's like 2 ,500 bucks. Right. Right. They're just glad to have you there. Yeah. So, I mean, what I'm looking at is historical occupancy.

13:01I mean, I assume they've had it for a little bit of time. I'd be really curious to see just what the capital stack is on it right now, what their debt is, how underwater they are, et cetera. It's been around since 2019 though. So I have a comp for this actually, Mills. There was one profiled, there's one called Tuxedo Falls here in Hendersonville, North Carolina. And it was just profiled in this newsletter I subscribe to called Tiny Money, which is about small businesses. It's my friend, Ted Williams. Shout out to Ted. I know he listens sometimes. But this is all public, so I'm not messing with anybody's confidence here.

13:35But there was a couple former bankers in their early 60s. They bought this place, Tuxedo Falls, in Hendersonville, which is like in North Carolina mountains. $650K for the property, over a million bucks more to build access, infrastructure, tree houses, safari tents, and an event lodge. There are waterfalls, trout streams hiking trails and a ridge top lodge with 360 degree views on the property they have two custom-built tree houses and four luxury tree tents and they rent for 315 a night and it's and the guy that owns this says they've been cash flow positive on operating expenses since opening which feels pretty easy because what operating expenses do you have like it's pretty much like you look at the pnl for this thing financing expense is all of it.

14:25Your mortgage payment is all of it. Property taxes, insurance. Yeah. Yeah. Hi, Heather here. When I'm not breaking down deals with these guys, I'm helping people get the right SBA loans for their business acquisitions. Because when you're buying a business, the best financing isn't one size fits all. There's the best rate, fastest to close, the specific loan structure that you need, or a little of all of those things. That's why my company, Viso Business Capital, works with over 30 different lenders to find you the best funding in less time and with less friction so you can focus on the deal. Sign up for a free live Q &A session on SBA loans at visocap.net, then click Zoom Sign Up in the top right corner.

15:06That's visocap.net and click Zoom Sign Up. This place says they're moving to a two-night minimum and expanding group offerings and offering wedding retreat packages. And his advice is by the location first. There's no substitute for a one of a kind features like our waterfalls, which create pricing power. So yeah, if I'm diligent in this thing, I got to understand, are we doing events? What's our occupancy? Can we do corporate retreats? Can we do weddings? Can we also sell catering? You know, I, for me to like this, it's got to look more like a business and less like 10 Airbnbs in the Ohio woods.

15:45And all those lucrative revenue streams that like you're talking about, if they're not doing them and you want to start doing them, they're also hands-on, you know? Yeah. They're, they're less and less passive. And they didn't mention anything in this listing about having a staff or any of that, right? No, no. So this is, if I had to bet, this is basically run like 10 airbnbs tree houses in the woods um so it's also i wonder if you could buy only two of them like i wonder if you got to buy all these subdivide i bet i bet they want it all i mean 135 acres i don't think they want to start parsing out that's fair yeah so this is a big piece of property yeah but i mean if you if you have like this picture for those of you on YouTube, if you have this like stone bridge over a waterfall and like an epic swimming hole, I mean, okay, that is, that's pretty in demand, but there are plenty of like, you know, you said Hendersonville, there's plenty of mountain Airbnbs that like are on an amazing stream and have a little swimming hole, you know?

16:50So I don't know. I think there has been a lot of like boom and bust, like you said, with these short-term rentals, and there's a lot of people who are underwater on them. Demand fell off. Regulation has gone up. I doubt that there's heavy regulation here, but the city of Columbia, every six months to a year, considers increased regulation for short-term rentals. And you have some places like Asheville that I think they completely banned them at one point, and there were no short-term rentals less than 30 days, unless it was a commercially zoned property. Asheville is a communist republic, But yes, there are not many cities like Asheville.

17:31Yeah. But, you know, so you have like regulatory risk, which is probably not as much the case in this. Like it would be if it was just an Airbnb portfolio, like in, you know, Roanoke or something. But I do think that you're, it's a destination. You're relying on people coming there. They're saying it's in close proximity. Seasonality is a factor. Weather is a factor. There's a lot of different things that are outside of your control. and I think what we're circling around is the fact that this probably is trying to trade like a piece of real estate that has way too many variables to price it that way yeah I mean if it is a gorgeously unique property I got a question like is this highest and best use you know like is a resort better like a real resort you know hotel and and operating and retreat and like a real business on it.

18:25Um, so I think to, to buy this, you have to have a vision for what it can become. Like, I think based on the fact that they're selling it kind of tells me it's not crushing it as 10 tree houses on Airbnb. Right. So to me, this is, and it probably sucks if you own this, but like, I bet it's worth the land, you know, and what you can do with the land. And I mean, they've already handled the most expensive capital intensive part six years ago, and they built all these things out. Yes. And so like you want more revenue? Congratulations, you just signed up to build, you know,$150 ,000 cabins at a bare minimum.

19:05And like I stayed at a really, really nice Airbnb treehouse years ago, and it was like, it's like the most popular Airbnb in South Carolina. And one of the band members from Need to Breathe owns it. but like the place rents for$450 a night and they open up like they open up one night or two nights. I think there is a one or two night minimum, something crazy, but they open up a night like six months in advance. And there's so much demand that like, they're just constantly booked even on weekdays. I don't think that that's the dynamic here, but that was like a famous tree house, one tree house on a piece of property.

19:41This is a different dynamic. or maybe maybe we're wrong maybe it's so iconic that's why they've had to obfuscate it here yeah and there is a lot i mean this is you just got to sign the ndnc i mean if there is a line out the door and it's booked up for a year this could be amazing yeah i my sense is i mean the fact that they're not disclosing revenue they're not disclosing kind of the finances i'm betting this is underwater the whole like booking from your own with i think i've seen discovery happen for for some of these with these like amazing instagram profiles epic videos showing like the outdoor shower and hot tub and all that kind of stuff but the reality is the majority of this discovery happens from airbnb and vrbo and so then if if that's if they're beholden to that And they don't say those names.

20:38They do say something like, let's see, they say something about a strong online booking system, web platform, listing distribution and guest management. I think they don't say Airbnb, but I think if they weren't using Airbnb, they would make it very known that their own dot com carries the weight on this. And so then you're you're at the mercy of those platforms and their pricing structure and whatever changes they want to pass down to. yeah that's true and those those rakes are only going one way yeah also so and that and that's why like all of these if you own an airbnb you're desperate to try to get direct bookings because you don't have to pay the airbnb vig and like the so i have friends that own a mountain house and they it's great for them because they have like two families that come back for a month each every year and so they're just booking them direct there it's repeat revenue and it's like their two big months of their high season are booked out and they don't have to worry about it.

21:40And that is a, that was a great arrangement for them because then they can go out with their family, kind of not in the high season and kind of these two customers cashflow the whole thing. Wow. Um, but if you, so you can get that, that's a great business. Yeah. But if you've got to sell it, you know, on Airbnb three days at a time, turn it every time. And by the way, even if you don't have to turn it. That's not passive. The cleaner doesn't show up. You know, it just, I don't know, man. I there's for me, short-term rentals, like there's not enough margin in it for the hassle factor. Yeah. Yeah.

22:14And I think the pricing on short-term rentals has started to get to a point where people are like, think of just going to stay in a hotel. Like it's just, dude, I feel that way. It's so close now. And hotels are awesome. They're so nice. my sister just came in town for the holidays and stayed at an Airbnb that one of my friends owns that he's a multi-asset owner and she checked into the first room towels piled up on the floor like sheets and linens are piled up it's not ready they're like oh my gosh so sorry go to the second room don't worry it's the same way they finally get into the third room and they're like geez what the heck and these are people who do it at scale in a town that they live in not remotely like it it's a very hard business.

22:54I had an Airbnb for a while and the yield was great, but the amount of work was just, I just ended up reverting to long-term rentals of, um, contract nurses and they signed 13 week gigs and they get a, they get a stipend, they get paid for the housing. And they don't want to stay in a hotel cause they want to cook, you know, they don't want to just live, you know, with the kitchenette in the, in the hotel. Right. And you have, you know, know less cleaning fees less turns but i was making like 450 bucks a week uh you know in on those instead of like what would be a probably 800 a month 12 month lease and that's the thing too is like you said the yield is great on short term in percentage but in dollars like it's just not a lot of dollars because you can't deploy big dollars in these short terms so like oh great i'm making a 25 % IRR, but I've, I've got 50 grand in it.

23:50Exactly. I love the thing for$53 ,000. Okay. Yeah. And so like you make 10 grand a year and it's like, how many hours did I spend? You know, and, and the risk, because there's risk too, that you got a price, you know, people mess up your asset or it, it unexpectedly ruins your weekend. And you know, it just doesn't make sense to me. Yeah. Which I think is why people have gravitated towards like multi in this case, right? You get a ton of density and it's not even that much density for 135 acres. It's picturesque. I think the approach on this one is maybe somebody who's in the area already or somebody who is already managing, you know, these types of portfolios and knows what's going on in the industry because it is very volatile and things are changing all the time.

24:33But if it were me, I would be calling Brett and having him before I sign the NDA, before I go waste a bunch of time, I'd be calling Brett and saying, Brett, give me the skinny on this and what is actually going on? And he's probably like, the client is a long-term friend of mine and you get the whole scoop about how they spent all this money building it out. Things haven't gone according to plan. Like you could get a lot of info with one phone call to this guy and suss out whether or not it's even worth any more time. Yes. Yes. I'm, I'm intrigued by it, but this is too hard pile for me. I would move forward with it just to see like, what's the, what's the ratio of like hype versus real with this?

25:15Cause it sounds like it's amazing. It sounds like it's a little slice of heaven. Is it actually that way? Once you sign the NDA and how the financials I think are either incredible or abysmal and there's no in between. I agree completely. I agree completely. They're either sucking wind and try just trying to get their mortgage. It's like distressed or it's an incredible business. And I think both of those would be very entertaining and worth the time. Yes. Yes. All right. That was a good one, Mills. Thanks for bringing it. I wish it had a little bit more financial info, but I feel like, again, it's just a tell.

25:50So yeah, if you're in the Ohio area or if you're in this space, we're dying to know more about this one. We are. I love it. All right. Well, I'm sure everybody will be listening to this in 2026. So happy new year to everybody. And if you like this episode, there are a ton more, as we mentioned, we have done all kinds of esoteric businesses, even a mobile notary service. If you want to find that episode and 400 more like it, go to acquanon.com. Make 2026 the year that you resolve to listen to all 400 plus episodes of Acquisitions Anonymous, which means you need to do more than one per day. If you ever want to go through the whole catalog.

26:26We have almost everything. So go on there, hop on our email list. We'll email you when new episodes come out. Happy New Year to everybody. Have a great year in 2026.