Steve Barsh can call himself a millionaire. However, this is just his side job, which he spends 1 hour a day on. He never intended to become a property manager. But he was so frustrated with his landlord that he took on the job himself. He says the secret is to take guests’ feedback seriously.
Steve Barsh was actually an IT engineer of his own software company. However, in 1999, he sold the company and, together with his wife, bought a condominium.
Subsequently, the couple rented out the apartment because they only wanted to vacation there. After two years, Barsh began managing short-term rentals out of frustration about having to send 40% of the rental income to a local property management company. This led to the creation of the company “Parker Chase Properties.”
How much does Steve Barsh earn today? In 2024, his company generated $1.4 million in revenue from bookings via VRBO, Airbnb, and the travel software platform Hospitable. Converted, that’s about €1.27 million. Barsh himself estimates that he earns 40 to 50% of his side business’s revenue as profit. These figures were disclosed to the English-language magazine CNBC.com.
High investments to start: $1.4 million sounds like a lot, but it also involves significant investment: Barsh and his wife now own four apartments and spent about $6 million to buy three of them in 2019, each with a $100,000 down payment. The money mostly came from the sale of a business belonging to his wife.
Currently, the average rental price for Parker Chase in 2025 is $3,390 per night.
Barsh manages the properties together with a housekeeper and a backup manager who steps in when he is out of the country, he says.
How much work time does he need to dedicate to his job? He uses artificial intelligence tools to draft and schedule messages to guests, and programs lock codes to adjust automatically to the guests’ phone numbers. This allows him to work only one or two hours a day on Parker Chase. During the day, he is a startup investor for venture businesses; that is his actual job.
A “mathematical formula” and visitor feedback
A formula for success: Steve Barsh explained that behind the success lies a formula with which one can calculate success and profits. He explains this in an interview with CNBC.com:
We have learned that it is like a mathematical formula. The rule of thumb, based on the mortgage rates [in 2019], is: We want to achieve 10% of the property’s value in rental income in a year. If we buy a property worth $1 million, we must convince ourselves that we can achieve $100,000 in rental income. This results in a positive cash flow.
What else plays a big role in his success? The answer may be surprising, but Barsh explained that one must take the needs of customers seriously since there is a lot of competition out there:
More than half of startups fail because they do not solve a significant and urgent problem that matters to people. In both jobs, I ask exactly the same questions. First, people who want to offer short-term rentals must understand: Who is their customer? Is your target guest staying in a Hilton? Are they staying in a Motel 6? Are they staying in a Ritz-Carlton?
Then you need to develop your central differentiating feature – what makes you unique when you have a lot of competition. I recognized this early on: Our guests really like nice things. We have Cuisinart products, incredibly comfortable leather armchairs, and 85-inch flat-screen TVs.
For this reason, one would take the time to furnish the apartments nicely so that guests feel comfortable:
People look at what we do and ask:
Why did you do that? They are tenants.I say:Because they are not tenants. They are guests, and they should be treated like guests.
A couple bought a large, stylish house in a wealthy neighborhood of Los Angeles. And to cope with the high selling price, they sought the support of the controversial tech billionaire Elon Musk: Elon Musk loaned a couple $6.7 million to buy one of his houses – Now they are broke, but Musk reacts surprisingly
