Ryan Pineda thinks so. About a year ago he met this dude, Dave, who had started his own Turo business. At that time, Dave only had a few cars, but he was hustling, doing all right for himself. Ryan wanted to help him take it to the next level, so he offered Dave some advice. One of the first tips he told him was, you should get an office space close to the airport, since that’s where customers’ll be picking up the cars from once they rent ’em. So that’s exactly what Dave did.
Dave found a cowork space that’s like a mile from the airport. Not only is it convenient, it only costs him about $550 a month. Has his own work space, obviously, a boardroom, there’s a studio (like for podcasts and interviews and it’s got great lighting for professional photos and videos), and plenty of parking spaces for his Turo fleet. Oh, and he can use it as a business address, send and receive mail there, the whole deal. Definitely something to consider if you want such amenities without breaking the bank.
At the time Ryan filmed this update with Dave, he had 15 cars listed on Turo, two personal cars, and three more on the way. Let’s just call it 20 (by the time you read this). The turning point for Dave was when he quit his job, leaving himself no choice but to go all in on Turo. What he did was, he got licensed with the county as a car rental agency, thus allowing himself to build business credit and get approved for $150 Gs if and when he needs it. He also started getting down with OPC: other people’s cars.
People buy real estate with other people’s money; they list someone else’s property on Airbnb and do rental arbitrage; why not do the same thing with cars, right? Manage the whole thing for ’em, chop the profits. Right now, Dave’s offering a 60/40 split in their (the car owner’s) favor. So say their Chevy Malibu, which was just sitting in their garage as a second car, brings in $1k per month on Turo—the owner would pocket $600 and Dave would take $400. Pretty cool, huh? Sounds like a win-win to me.
Even cooler? Dave was able to pay for his dream car (that sweet piece of automotive eye candy you see above, in the new mid-engine Chevy C8 Corvette) with the revenue from his Turo biz. If he did rent that out, he’d probably get $300 a day for it, but that’s his baby, so yeah, uh-uh, not happenin’. For the cars Dave has financed for his fleet, he expects ’em to be paid off (thanks to Turo income) in about two years. Now. See that little Audi (Q5, I believe it is) next to the C8? That’ll rent for about $70 a day. Not a ton, but it’s also 10 years old.
Anyways, when it’s all said and done, Dave’s bringing in about $22k a month currently. That’s at about a 40% profit margin, so call it $9 grand a month, take-home, for Dave. In addition to adding more and more whips, the goal is to streamline and automate as much as possible. So setting it up to where you don’t have to be there for someone to rent or return the car; automating customer service; and so on and so forth. On a typical day, Dave says, he’ll work on the business for maybe 3–4 hours total. Not bad.
As far as misconceptions, a lot of people think Turo won’t pay you if you have a damage claim on your car. Not the case. Dave’s had a Dodge Challenger get totaled; still got paid. As long as you’re following Turo’s terms of service, you’re straight. And yeah, Turo takes a lot off the top, but it’s more than fair, Dave would argue. After all, they’re providing insurance, support, built-in customers, roadside assistance, all the tech and team and infrastructure and payroll and a million other things you probably wouldn’t wanna deal with, right?
