From a $3,500 Ambulance to a $7M Floating Village: How Joe Lisa Turned a Dead Marina into a $1M/Year STR Empire

How a 29-Year-Old Turned a Dead Marina into a $7M Cash Machine

This story's going to read like an elaborate April Fool's joke, but we swear it's real.

Three years ago, Joe Lisa was living in a decommissioned ambulance he bought for $3,500, surviving on tuna packets and energy drinks to save every dollar. Today at 29, he owns SōLSTAY, a floating tiny home village on Lake Erie that's on track to hit $1 million in annual revenue and could be worth $7.25 million.

Here's how he pulled it off, and what you can steal for your own hosting journey.

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How to Turn $10K Into a $7M Floating Tiny Home Village

Joe's first real taste of STR success came from a glampsite he built outside the Grand Canyon. He bought an acre of land for $5,000, added two Home Depot sheds and a few deck tent sites, and built the whole thing for under $10,000. A small test to see if this Airbnb thing could even work.

The first year's revenue hit $98,000.

Impressive, but that was just the warm-up. He was about to put that revenue to work.

The "Terrible" Investment That Changed Everything

With that proof in his pocket, he went looking for something bigger. A realtor tipped him off about a marina that wasn't even on the market yet. It was dilapidated and falling apart, an eyesore disrupting the beautiful lake views.

The seller's price: $1 million. With only $20,000 a year in revenue. On paper it looked like an awful investment. But Joe believed in it.

No bank would touch it, but he found a lender that would step in. Once he was ready to start, he built the cheapest version of the idea that would still prove it worked.

His crew bought old pontoon boats off Facebook Marketplace for $500 to $1,000 a piece, stripped them down, and built 110-square-foot cottages right on top. No bathrooms, a modular restroom trailer outside.

SōLSTAY opened its first season with 13 units.

Cost per unit: $10,000.
Year one revenue: $370,000.

Joe had his answer: People wanted to sleep on the water. Now he was ready to go all the way—adding full bathrooms, kitchenettes, AC, and that signature picture window at the head of the bed.

STR Results & Performance

SōLSTAY now has about 30 units, a rooftop hot tub, an 80-foot boardwalk, and a waitlist of guests who come back every year.

•  Purchase price (Nov 2022): $1,000,000

•  Year 1 revenue (13 units): $370,000

•  Year 2 revenue: $565,000

•  2026 projection (30 units): Just over $1,000,000

•  Net Operating Income (NOI): ~$460,000

•  Annual cash flow: ~$340,000

•  Property valuation (8% cap rate): $5.75M on low end

•  With additional revenue streams: ~$7.25M

And he's just getting started. He recently bought the bar next door with 27 dock slips included.

The Playbook: What Joe Did Differently

1. He found what was missing and built it.

Sandusky has many solid hotels, but it has nothing unique. Nothing floating on the water. Joe didn't try to compete with hotels, he sort of made them irrelevant. No fears about oversaturation, he built what guests wanted but couldn't find anywhere else.

2. He looked for proven demand before building.

13 million people a year told him the market existed. The marina was dead, but the demand was right there across the water. He didn't guess, he followed the data.

3. He started small and tested fast.

The $10,000 pontoon boats weren't a flashy start, but they were proof. If guests loved those bare-bones units, he could scale with confidence. If they didn't, he'd lose $10k a unit instead of $55k per unit. He de-risked the entire project before committing serious money.

4. He got creative with financing.

Banks said no. So Joe found an unconventional lender and brought in investors. He pieced together a solution instead of accepting defeat. Unique builds are hard to finance, but if you can prove your concept, there's always a way.

Steal More Strategies from Joe's Story in Our Full Playbook

We're not done. We just published Joe's complete story on our website. Read it to learn:

•  The wild story of how a $10K glampsite made $98K in year one
•  The rapid prototyping mindset that made it all possible
•  How he actually financed $1 million when banks said no
•  More strategies and insights you can steal for your own portfolio

GET THE FULL PLAYBOOK

You don't need to be an expert to build something extraordinary. You just need to start as small as you can, and then use the lessons to keep growing.

"You could stay in the position that you're in, or you could be in a better position.

Usually, you're not going to go into a worse position from trying something. And most often, you're going to end up feeling like you learned something and you grew." — Joe.

Cheers,

The Host Camp Team

P.S. Check out SōLSTAY Lodging here, it's one of the coolest stays we've seen.

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