Most of the co-living world runs on PadSplit — but Craig and Miller don't operate on it themselves. So they invited a PadSplit insider to explain exactly how it works.

Suzanne Vetillart, a Host Advisor at PadSplit and an 8-year Seattle investor, joins the show to demystify the platform: what it is, who it's for, what it costs, and why the affordable housing opportunity is only getting bigger. From the membership agreement and fee structure to the early-adopter advantage in markets like Seattle, this episode is a clear, honest look at PadSplit from someone on the inside — useful whether you're a host on the platform or operating right alongside it.

A standout takeaway: stop thinking of PadSplit as a vendor and start thinking of it as a partner. They bring the platform and the marketing muscle; you bring the operations — and together you solve the affordability crisis while building a real business.

Follow along:

Craig Curelop → instagram.com/craigcurelop

Miller McSwain → instagram.com/millermcswain

Suzanne Vetillart → instagram.com/suzannevetillart

In this episode of The Co-Living Show, Craig Curelop and Miller McSwain sit down with twins Hem and Harsh, the operators behind CH Room Rentals, to unpack how they scaled from their first house hack to 7 co-living homes and 35 rooms in just a couple of years.

Hem and Harsh share their story of immigrating to the U.S. from India, working full-time through college, saving aggressively, and using house hacking as their entry point into real estate. What started as one 5-bedroom home in Charlotte quickly turned into a repeatable co-living model built around furnished rooms, strong tenant retention, self-management, and family partnership.

This conversation is especially valuable for newer co-living investors who are trying to figure out what the next few steps look like after buying their first property.

In this episode, we cover:

- How Hem and Harsh scaled to 7 homes and 35 rooms
- Why 5 bed / 3 bath homes are working in their market
- How they use house hacking to keep acquisition costs low
- The benefits and challenges of running a family-owned co-living business
- Why they chose to self-manage instead of using PadSplit
- How furnished rooms help them command higher rents and improve retention
- Their favorite platforms for finding tenants, including Facebook Marketplace and Furnished Finder
- How they keep vacancy low without overcomplicating operations
- What they learned from their first eviction
- Why local REI groups and co-living communities helped accelerate their growth
- Their next phase: new construction co-living homes

The episode also includes a community Q&A about rising utility costs and how co-living operators can respond when expenses increase faster than rents.

Join The Co-Living Community on Facebook to connect with other operators, ask questions, and learn from people actively building co-living portfolios.

Follow Miller: @millermcswain
Follow Craig: @thecraigcurelop
Learn more about CoLivingPro: colivingpro.io

In this episode, Craig Curelop and Miller McSwain sit down with co-living investor Travis Schwartz to talk about one of the biggest debates in the co-living space: Should you self-manage your rooms, or use a platform like PadSplit?

Travis brings a unique perspective. After starting out by building his own systems, managing leads, and filling rooms himself, he eventually moved his portfolio onto PadSplit. That decision helped him simplify operations, cut down on manual lead management, and shift his focus back to acquisitions.

And the results were significant.

Travis bought 12 co-living houses in one year, mostly in the Dallas-Fort Worth market, using a strategy built around high cash flow, aggressive renovations, and long-term holds.

Craig and Miller challenge Travis on the tradeoffs of PadSplit, including fees, platform risk, saturation, and whether it still makes sense at scale. Travis also shares what he has learned from renovations, appraisals, permits, tenant retention, and building software for PadSplit hosts through PadPulse.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How Travis got into co-living after years as an entrepreneur
• Why he bought three houses at once when he started
• His target of under $40,000 per finished room
• Why he focuses on cash flow more than short-term equity
• The hidden risk of negative equity in co-living renovations
• How PadSplit changed his operations
• The pros and cons of relying on a third-party platform
• Why some markets become saturated faster than others
• How to think about amenities, pricing, and tenant retention
• Why offering a discount to a good resident can be cheaper than turnover
• What Travis is building with PadPulse
• His long-term vision for co-living and private equity

Connect with Travis:
PadPulse: padpulse.io
Email: travis@padpulse.io
LinkedIn: Travis Schwartz

Follow the hosts:
Miller McSwain: www.instagram.com/millermcswain
Craig Curelop: www.instagram.com/craigcurelop

Join the free Co-Living Community:
www.millermcswain.com/community

If you enjoyed this episode, leave a rating and review, and share it with another investor who is trying to scale their co-living portfolio.

Matt Osman is back... and this time we're going deep on one tool that can dramatically reduce the cash you bring to a co-living acquisition: the invoice authorization.

In simple terms, it's an addendum where the seller agrees to pay your contractor directly at closing. Done right, it lets you fold renovation costs into your loan, keep the seller whole, satisfy the lender, and walk into a co-living-ready property with a fraction of the out-of-pocket spend.

Matt shares real examples (including a $100K invoice authorization on one deal), the front-end vs. back-end negotiation playbook, how to position it with listing agents, and why the appraisal is the linchpin of the whole strategy.

Connect with Matt: Email: matt@investslb.com
Ask about the Co-Living Agent Accelerator

Follow Us:
Miller - www.instagram.com/millermcswain
Craig - www.instagram.com/craigcurelop

If you got value from this one, share it with an investor who's about to close on a co-living property, it might save them five figures.

The Co-Living Insurance Gap (and How to Fix It) | ft. Matthew Osman

Co-living is growing fast—but insurance hasn’t caught up.

In this episode, we sit down with Matthew Osman, a co-living realtor and operator who’s been working on one of the most overlooked risks in the space: improper insurance coverage.

Most operators assume they’re covered under standard landlord policies.
But once you go beyond 4 unrelated tenants, you may be operating in a gray area, or worse, completely exposed.

We break down what’s really happening behind the scenes and what you should be doing instead.

What We Cover:

• Why co-living doesn’t fit traditional insurance models
• The risk of having 5+ unrelated tenants under one policy
• Common scenarios where claims get delayed or denied
• How commercial-style co-living insurance works
• When to switch from landlord policy to co-living coverage
• How to think about insurance as you scale your portfolio

Why This Matters:

If you’re making co-living-level income, you need co-living-level protection.
This episode gives you a clearer path to protecting both your property and your business.

🔗 Resources & Links

• Join the Co-Living Community: https://millermcswain.com/community
• Co-Living Pro: https://colivingpro.io
  
  

📲 Connect with Us

• Miller McSwain: https://www.instagram.com/millermcswain
• Craig Curelop: https://www.instagram.com/craigcurelop
  
  

If you found this helpful, share it with another operator.
This is one of those topics most people don’t think about, until it’s too late.

In this episode of The Co-Living Show, we sit down with Franco Montano, a seasoned operator managing 600+ co-living rooms (and owning 150+ himself), to break down what it actually takes to scale a co-living portfolio.

Franco shares how he transitioned from running a 42-location T-Mobile business with 750 employees into real estate—and why co-living became his highest ROI strategy.

If you’re serious about building a cash-flowing co-living portfolio, this episode is packed with real-world insights you won’t hear anywhere else.

🔑 What You’ll Learn:

• How Franco scaled to 600+ rooms under management
• Why co-living works even in expensive markets (remote investing strategy)
• The truth about tenant demand, pricing, and vacancy cycles
• How to structure leases to avoid winter vacancies
• Why most operators fail due to poor underwriting (not operations)
• Franco’s remodel strategy (including converting homes for under $10K)
• The biggest mistakes new co-living investors make
• How to build systems and teams to scale beyond 20+ rooms
• Why affordable, safe, and clean housing beats fancy amenities
• Real talk on tenant screening, evictions, and long-term retention

🧠 Key Takeaway:

Co-living isn’t complicated because of tenants,
It’s complicated because of systems, operations, and scaling.

Master those, and the upside is massive.

🔗 Connect with Franco:

📧 Email: Franco@highestmanagement.com
🌐 Website: highestmanagement.com

🔗 Connect with Us:

📸 Miller McSwain: https://www.instagram.com/millermcswain
📸 Craig Curelop: https://www.instagram.com/craigcurelop

💬 Join The Co-Living Community:
https://millermcswain.com/community

🚀 Resources Mentioned:

👉 CoLiving Pro (Marketing + Pricing Tool):
https://www.colivingpro.io

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to follow the show, leave a review, and share it with another investor looking to scale in co-living.

The Co-Living Lending Playbook: How Smart Investors Structure Deals

Financing is the part of co-living that most investors underestimate… until a deal almost falls apart.

In this episode of The Co-Living Show, Miller McSwain and Craig Curelop sit down with Jessica Khani, a top 1% loan originator and real estate investor who has helped structure and close a large portion of their portfolio.

They break down what actually happens behind the scenes of getting deals funded—and why the right lender is often the difference between scaling and getting stuck.

This is not theory. These are real stories, real deals, and real mistakes.

🔑 What You’ll Learn:

• Why co-living financing is different from traditional real estate
• How to choose the right lender (and what questions to ask)
• Conventional vs FHA vs DSCR loans explained simply
• Why “shopping for the lowest rate” can cost you deals
• Creative financing strategies (interest-only, seller concessions, etc.)
• Real stories of deals nearly falling apart—and how they were saved

🔗 Connect with Us

• Miller McSwain → https://www.instagram.com/millermcswain
• Craig Curelop → https://www.instagram.com/craigcurelop
• Jessica Khani → https://www.instagram.com/homeswithjessicakhani/
  
  

💬 Join the Community

Want help with your next deal or financing strategy?

Join The Co-Living Community to connect with other operators and get real feedback.

⭐ If You Found This Valuable

Share this episode with another investor and leave a review, it helps us reach more operators.

In this episode of The Co-Living Show, Miller McSwain and Craig Curelop sit down with Alfredo Goytia, a co-living operator who scaled from 0 to 800 doors in just 12 months.

This is not theory—this is real-world execution.

Alfredo breaks down exactly how he built a high-performance co-living operation, including:

• The systems required to scale from small portfolios to hundreds of doors
• Why co-living operations are more about processes than properties
• How automation and tech replace traditional property management models
• The biggest mistakes operators make when trying to scale
• Why managing 8 tenants vs 800 tenants comes down to systems—not complexity

We also dive into:

• Transitioning from traditional rentals to co-living
• Property management software and tools for scaling
• Lead flow, tenant communication, and operational bottlenecks
• The mindset shift required to operate at scale

If you're serious about co-living investing, scaling rental portfolios, or building systems-driven real estate businesses, this is one of the most tactical episodes we’ve ever recorded.

As Alfredo shares, scaling isn’t about doing more work, it’s about building better systems.

📲 Connect with the hosts & guest:

• Miller McSwain: https://www.instagram.com/millermcswain
  
  
• Craig Curelop: https://www.instagram.com/craigcurelop
  
  
• Alfredo Goytia: https://www.instagram.com/fredofyre