Darrel and Patrice Maxam started renting out bedrooms in their Atlanta home on Airbnb in 2015.
They ended up building additional units — tiny homes and treehouses — on the property to rent out.
Their latest project: a group of wooden cabins in upstate New York that make over $30,000 a month.
When Darrel and Patrice Maxam moved from Connecticut to Georgia, they bought a 1956 bungalow for $249,400. Because they’d used most of their money to buy the home, they struggled to afford the $1,400 monthly mortgage payments.
“When we moved to Atlanta, we were really broke,” Darrel Maxam told Business Insider. “We literally spent all of our money on a down payment — we had $1,000 in our bank accounts.”
They decided to list a bedroom in the three-bedroom bungalow on Airbnb. Then they rented the entire house. Later, they began renting out a tiny house on the property. Eventually, the Maxams filled their 2 ½ acres with nine different short-term-rental units: the main house, a tiny home, a converted barn, a triplex, and three “treehouses.”
The Maxams built “treehouses” on the land of their Atlanta property to rent out on Airbnb.Darrel Maxam.
Now, the Maxams build and operate short-term rentals full time. They sold the Atlanta property in September; Fulton County property records show it sold for $655,000. Their focus is a village of 13 custom-built cabins and properties in upstate New York that brings in between $30,000 and $60,000 a month.
Read on to see how the Maxams built their Airbnb empire.
Renting out rooms brought in about $1,000 a month in profit, Maxam said, and renting out the entire home doubled that amount.
Maxam recalled packing up every weekend during the summer and vacating the premises while Airbnb guests were staying in their Atlanta home.
He said the couple would take 10% of his weekly paycheck, 10% of his wife’s weekly paycheck, and 10% of the amount they were making from Airbnb and use it to find a hotel within 300 miles that worked within that budget.
“If we only had $400, we were going to plan a trip for $400,” he said. “We would go as far south as Destin, Florida, as far east as Mississippi, and as far north as the Carolinas and Tennessee area.”
Maxam figured the more units they put on the Atlanta property, the more money they would make.
First, the Maxams partnered with the HGTV show “Tiny House, Big Living” to build a tiny home on their property, which Maxam said earned them an extra $2,500 a month in profit.
“I was hooked at that point,” Maxam said. “We had a barn in the backyard. I converted that barn to another livable space. Then, another year after that, I ended up building three more units. After the fifth unit on the property, we were generating roughly $15,000 a month.”
At one point, the Maxams had their main house, a tiny home, a barn, a triplex with three rentable units, and three treehouses on the property. They took the tiny home with them when they left.
The interior of one of the treehouses in Atlanta.Patrice Maxam and Darrel Maxam
Maxam resigned from his full-time job working for the Department of Aviation and made hospitality his career.
In 2022, the Maxams’ main project became Finger Lakes Treehouses in Sodus, New York, a small town 33 miles east of Rochester.
The cabin development in Sodus, New York.Courtesy of Darrel Maxam.
They partnered with Red Falls Timber, a New York-based firm that sources its wood from Finland, to build five A-frame cabins.
Each one has a kitchenette, a bathroom, air conditioning, and a private wood-fired hot tub. Nightly rates are about $250, according to the Maxam Hotels website.
Each A-frame structure cost Maxam about $65,000, he said. Since launching in 2023, the five cabins have brought in anywhere from $30,000 to $60,000 a month, he added.
The interior of one of the A-frame cabins in Sodus, New York.Courtesy of Darrel Maxam.
“We don’t touch a project unless we can be cash-flow positive within 18 months,” he said.
The Maxams are planning to build five non-A-frame cabins with Red Falls Timber on the Sodus land this year.
Both cabin styles are prefabricated, which means they can be put together quickly, cutting down on both time and cost per unit.
“It’ll take about three days to get them erected,” Maxam said.
“You, right now, can come on-site, look at my plans, and be able to put my building together,” he added. “That’s how easy they are — they’re like Lego.”
The Maxams have other dreams for the Sodus development.
“We have three Airstreams on the property right now, so by the start of the season, we’ll have 13 units total,” Maxam said. “Next year, we’re going to go into phase three. We have these really luxury-style safari tents, and we’ll build a bathhouse for them, also.”
The plan is to have 19 total units in Sodus by next year, he added.
Another view of the five A-frame cabins in Sodus, New York.Courtesy of Darrel Maxam.
The couple has also purchased land in Belize with plans for a beach-centered venture in 2026 or 2027.
The Maxams entered the short-term-rental world humbly, but they now feel like they’re thriving.
Maxam said that to get there, they took their time, using proceeds from one unit to build the next one.
“Everyone wants to rush and rush and race to do the largest project — and they don’t know what they’re getting themselves into,” Maxam said.
“The only advice I have to someone starting out like me is to stay small enough, long enough, because soon enough you’ll be big enough,” he added.
