Editor’s Update 2023: Logan is now also the founder and president of Arkansas Short-Term Rental Alliance. Learn more about the organization here, or browse our complete alliance directory and resource center here.
What is the purpose of life?
It’s a heavy question, but one that Logan Humphrey felt compelled to answer. So, in 2016, he decided to pursue a Master’s degree in Philosophy at the University of Arkansas, where he could learn from history’s best thinkers.
In the months leading up to the start of classes, he began renting out his tiny 400-square-foot apartment on Airbnb to supplement his income from a job at a cafe, staying with friends while guests visited. He vividly remembers his very first booking.
“The first booking I had was for $35 net. I had no clue what a cleaning fee was or even if it would book. I’m pretty sure I didn’t even have the listing set up correctly,” Logan said. “They booked at 10 p.m., and I was lying in bed reading. I had to frantically get the place ready for them to stay at to check in at 11 p.m. that same day.”
The chance booking and frantic preparations paid off. Logan met the guests at the door, and they shared how much they appreciated that he was able to accommodate them.
That warm experience became routine. “What I started to see very quickly in that first three months was that it was a lot of fun to share the town that I love with people, and I came to love the hospitality nature of it,” Logan said.
The income wasn’t bad either. He soon began earning a healthy side income to his cafe job that covered the expenses of the apartment, so he used his profits to purchase a shuttle bus and convert it into an RV he could live in, parking it on a friend’s land. (He later began renting it out, too.)
As he spent the next two years in his Master’s coursework exploring life’s greatest question, he also felt a second calling to learn from the world’s nontraditional business thinkers – as if his gut already knew the answer. He kept a daily journal of business ideas. One idea: a coffee delivery company for university students and staff. Another: flipping bicycles, which he actually did one summer during school.
Out of the classroom and into co-hosting vacation rentals
Ultimately, he found part of his answer not so much in thinking as he did in doing. Friends began to take note of Logan’s hospitality and asked him to be their short-term rentals’ co-host, Airbhb’s term for someone who helps take care of the property and guests. By the time his classes were wrapping up in 2018, cohosting had become more captivating and meaningful than writing his thesis.
So, on August 1, 2018, Logan formally launched Cohobnb Properties, a co-hosting business with unique and luxury short-term rentals around Fayetteville and Northwest AR.
Over the course of 2019, Cohobnb grew to 40 properties ranging from his original apartment on Town Square to a chic studio overlooking downtown Fayetteville to The Hobbit House, a six-bedroom, self-sustaining Earthship®-like home in Rogers.
To service all of the properties, Logan also launched Beyond Cleaners, a sister company that allowed him to bring cleaning staff in-house and provide more jobs, in the spring of 2019. They currently have five full-time housekeepers and are actively hiring more.
Cohobnb: Traveling well in Northwest Arkansas
In January of this year, Cohobnb became a full-service property management company with an in-house principal real estate broker. Most of their property management clients are homeowners who moved out of a home but didn’t want to sell it, or who wanted a secondary home in the area to vacation in or live in part-time, often local business owners or those tied to the University of Arkansas Fayetteville campus.
Like many college towns, a large segment Cohobnb’s guests come for the university as well, visiting students, attending football games and other events, or tending to other university business.
But outside of campus, an assortment of tourism magnets has blossomed, too. Walmart is headquartered in Bentonville about 25 miles away. The Walton family has donated millions of dollars to the Northwest Arkansas community as a part of the Walton Family Foundation’s top three priorities for giving. “In Northwest Arkansas, we’ve discovered that by creating a great place for locals, we’ve made a destination for visitors,” the website states. The foundation has supported projects that are turning the region into a hub for the arts and outdoor activities.
Attractions like these are drawing new residents to the area, too. According to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, as many as 32 people move to the region every day. Many of them first come to “test drive” its communities, often choosing to stay in short-term rentals to get the full experience. Cohobnb hosts several of these future residents who often stay for weeks at a time as they search for homes, Logan said.
He estimated Cohobnb welcomed close to 1,500 check-ins last year, each one served by the company’s growing team. Reservations took a dip this spring amidst a wave of Covid-related cancellations, forcing Logan to lay off most of his small team. Thankfully, they’re now back to every property being booked up every weekend, so he’s adding jobs back to his roster. He recently hired two full-time managers and a part-time customer service agent.
A next-generation family vacation rental business
But Cohobnb is also a family business for Logan. His fiancée, Ashleigh Price, has supported the business in various roles since before it was formally founded. Logan mentioned the idea for Cohobnb on their first date (this – and their engagement this past June – serendipitously took place at The Hobbit House.) When he quit his cafe job in 2018, Ashleigh helped him flip furniture and appliances to pay the bills.
That particular skill has come in handy as the business has grown. With her background in marketing and creative fields, Ashleigh has an eye for design and details that has allowed Cohobnb to furnish properties with special and upcycled finds at area markets and antique shops, creating a uniquely local and sustainable experience for their guests.
Ashleigh now runs an interior design company, a + a interiors, with her mom, Angela. The duo provides interior design services to Cohobnb’s clients. Ashleigh also handles all of the web and marketing as the team’s creative director. “When you’re a part of a start-up, everyone seems to do a little bit of everything,” she said. “Given all of that, I love the spirit of the business – that every day is different, that people are excited to stay in our homes, and that we get to showcase our town that we know and love!”
The future Mr. and Mrs. ultimately want to grow Cohobnb to other places they care for. “I absolutely love traveling. A huge goal of both mine and Logan’s is to have a home in both Northwest Arkansas and Colorado, a place that is very very near and dear to us and a place that we travel to at least once a year,” Ashleigh said. “So, I hope Cohobnb continues to soar and that we can expand to areas of the country that we adore while supporting our adventurous lifestyles.”
A master’s degree in life
In the end, Logan never wrote his thesis. He lived it. And along the way, he discovered his own definition of the meaning of life: to have all of your basic needs met and then project yourself into something you care for. That could be friends, family, a job, or something else.
“I wanted to learn how to create something for myself and for my family, and really do something that I love and not be stuck behind a desk doing something that I hate,” he said.
Cohobnb accomplishes all of the above, and not necessarily through the reservations or property count. What matters most to Logan is the ability to provide jobs to others, to help homeowners develop their financial planning and security, to have guests enjoy visiting the towns he loves and leave knowing a little bit more about them.
“I don’t think it needs to be overly complicated,” Logan said. “If you’re striving for something that you love, and it gives you true happiness, and you have a purpose, then you’re having a very meaningful life.”
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