I suppose if you own a motel and live there, this IS about a ”work at home” business.
Whether or not you consider that to be the case, this story IS about spotting opportunities and hard work. Â
From Daily Wealth
Patels are simply people with the last name Patel. They’re from India, originally from the state of Gujarat. Under India’s old caste system, the Patels were of the Vaishya, or merchant caste. As merchant caste members, they were literally born to sell.
A typical Patel family came to the U.S. with little or nothing. They needed to make a living. They wouldn’t work for somebody else, given their long history of servitude. When most of them came here, the motel business was quite depressed. They saw an opportunity to get control of a piece of U.S. real estate cheaply and took it.
The Patels invested with very little of their own capital. A small down payment, a loan for the rest, and they were in business. Behold the true essence of an entrepreneur: risk averse, but comfortable with uncertainty. Investing in real estate satisfied the risk aversion. Doing so mostly with other people’s money allowed the Patels to be comfortable with the uncertain outcome.
The Patels created a low-cost provider economic moat by doing simple things. They’re value-minded and started with little or nothing, so they bought the cheapest properties. Then they moved in and lived on the property to lower living expenses. Then they fired all the employees and ran the motels as family-owned and operated businesses. That cut operating costs to the bone. It’s nearly impossible for a non-Patel to compete head-to-head with a Patel.
Today, the Patels own 40%-50% of all the lowest price motels.Somebody named Patel owns one out of every five U.S. motels.
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